Good morning, everyone. Today, we are delighted to welcome Mushim Patricia Ikeda, a founding and core East Bay Meditation Center. Ikeda began practice at Zen Buddhist Temple in Ann Arbor, Michigan, followed by a journey of several years through the US and South Korea visiting and practicing in monasteries. After settling in Oakland, she contributed a major column on Buddhist family practice for Turning Wheel, the publication of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. She has taught meditation retreats for people of color, social justice activists, and women nationally. Based in the values of cultural humility, and co-creative self-determination in marginalized communities.

[01:04]

She continues to teach at EBMC. So welcome, Mushu. Thank you so much. Good morning. For people on the Zoom, I don't know what time zone you're in. Good day to you. And I think I'm supposed to do a sound check. Zoom, world people, I'm seeing thumbs up. Good. All right. I forget you. I was at some kind of Buddhist hybrid event recently, and I was on the Zoom, and the people in the room just forgot all about us. And finally, the event manager had to say, there are 30 people on the Zoom waiting patiently for Q&A. I'm like, wow. We're just not in the room. Okay, yeah, so thank you very much.

[02:05]

I am honored to be here in the Berkeley Zen Center. It's near the end of January in the year 24 in the United States. This is an election year as we know and it is expected that the political climate will probably grow ever more heated, possibly more polarized. and there may be unexpected things that happen, along with other things. So, let's get ready. The title of my talk, developed as I like to do in conversation, in collaboration, in co-creation with the Zen Center, is this. in quotes, I am your friend, colon, prefigurative activism, collective leadership, and sangha in 2024.

[03:13]

Many of you may know this famous story from the Upada Sutta, available on access to insight.org. So many of you may know this famous story of the Buddha Shakyamuni and his cousin Ananda, who was his best friend and his favorite attendant. The guys were really, really close. And so it is said, thus we have heard, that the venerable Ananda approached the Buddha and sat respectfully to the side. And as he was sitting there, Venerable Ananda said to the Blessed One, this is half 50% of the holy life, Lord, admirable friendship, admirable camaraderie.

[04:19]

And this is the translation of the sutta. by my friend, Tanisaru Bhikkhu, Jeff de Graaf, down at the Meta Forest Monastery between Los Angeles and San Diego. As his students call him, is a wonderful translator, I think, from the Pali text into English. And so he translates the word Kalyanamika or Kalyanamitra the great spiritual friend as admirable friendship. Friendship with someone we admire, very important. So Venerable Ananda, and in my imagination, he's all excited. He says, I just had this realization, Lord Buddha, that spiritual friendship, admirable friendship, on behalf of the holy life. It is written.

[05:21]

that the Buddha replied, oh, don't say that, Ananda. Don't say that. Admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life. 100%. Admirable friendship is actually the whole of the holy life. When a monk has admirable people as friends and colleagues, he can be expected to develop and pursue the Noble Eightfold Path. Again, Upada, U-P-A-D-D-H-A Sutta. That's where you can find that story. So, If it's okay enough with you, I'm going to request very loosely, you don't have to do anything, to follow one of our communication agreements from East Bay Meditation Center, which comes from on the East Coast, a consulting company founded and continued to be led by women of color, and that is Try It On.

[06:49]

So I'm going to suggest and ask that you try something on, meaning trying on clothes at a store that you might not even want to buy. You're out there and you think, hey, I usually don't wear these kind of clothes, but I don't have to buy them. I'm just going to see what they look like. So it's an invitation to try on someone else's worldview or to do something you normally do. And so... I'm going to suggest that you turn to the person next to you or near to you if you like, even if you don't know them, or look at the Zoom at someone else's face or tile and say, I am your friend. Four words, that is all. This is a thought experiment of what if. And so a mindfulness question, which you don't need to answer out there, is when you do that, and thank you for participating, how do you feel?

[08:02]

And what might come up for you? People are diverse. We're going to have a diversity of experiences. And the value... The meaning of the Kalyanamita, the admirable friend relationship in Sangha, was greatly enriched for me in 2015 when I was one of 23 socially engaged Buddhist leaders from areas in the United States who joined with five socially engaged Catholic leaders. So this group was lay and monastic. socially engaged Catholic leaders from the same five urban areas in the United States, and we were invited by the Catholic bishops of the United States to go to Rome for a five-day interfaith dialogue, socially engaged dialogue retreat at a wonderful retreat center, about 45 minutes outside of Rome.

[09:14]

We, I don't know, someone pulled some strings or something. About a week before we were going to fly, we learned that our group would have a personal audience with His Holiness Pope Francis. It's very unexpected. It's on YouTube. And I learned a great deal from my Catholic counterparts. about how they engaged in respectful dialogue and discourse across differences, as well as findings and similarities. Specifically, a term that I was introduced to, this is how I learned it, maybe some Catholics would say not so, I think probably though it's true, is the Italian word, accompagnare, and to, in English, The path of spiritual accompaniment, accompaniment.

[10:20]

And when we talk about accompaniment in Buddhist terms, I believe it would be the path of spiritual friendship. And within Sangha, I have to say this, with people we like and sometimes people we don't like, that's community life. And we vow to accompany one another, to accompany, to be fellow travelers through all of the things that life brings us. And I'm looking around and I know that all of you have had many experiences of what in Zen coming from Taoism is called the 10,000 things. Lots of things. So we vow to accompany one another, to be good friends to one another.

[11:29]

We can't live each other's lives. We're not here to necessarily try to fix anyone unless they ask for advice, and that's fair. However, we can be that steady presence. that friend who says, I will be with you. If you have surgery, I will accompany you to the hospital and give you a ride if you need it. If you're going into a really tough meeting, hey, you can text me afterwards and check in with me. Maybe we'll go out for a cup of coffee. It's these thousands and thousands of very seemingly small actions steady presence, which all of you know from your meditation practice, that steady presence through thick and thin, pleasure and pain, that over time, over time can bring so much happiness, so much strength to a community.

[12:37]

Now, maybe staying on the safer side, And I won't ask you to say this aloud. I'll ask you to imagine, if you like, saying to someone in your community whom you do know. And if you're a newcomer, just imagine. It might be, it doesn't need to be the Berkeley Zen Center Sangha or spiritual community. We are all part of various communities. Think of someone in your community whom you do know. saying, I am your friend and I will accompany you. So, actually I didn't have this in my notes, but since you're also wonderful and receptive, why don't you just try it on, say after me, I am your friend. I am your friend. And I will accompany you. And I will accompany you.

[13:38]

Let's just take a moment, how does that feel? I'm not fishing for results. You might feel no way. And that's fine. I am your friend and I will accompany you. So vulnerable and beautiful in simplicity. In simplicity. I am your friend. We were just talking in... Hosan's office, where I was waiting for this to begin, is Rakasu. This comes from Korea, so it's called a kasa. Same word, kasa. There's small kasas and big kasas. And it was given to me by my Kalyana Nita, who accompanied me until he died several years ago in December of 2019. the most venerable Bhante Sukhita Dharma, who lived here for a while.

[14:40]

He worked for Buddhist Peace Fellowship and he lived in the basement apartment under the Sanakis and worked for Buddhist Peace Fellowship. And he used to say to me, one of my five spiritual friends, which was great. I didn't have to audition for that position. I was very honored. At the time of his death, he was possibly the most senior monk, a Buddhist monk in North America in terms of monk years, and he was a very American to be ordained as a Buddhist monk in all of the three major lineages of Buddhism, the Mahayana, the Theravada, and the Vajrayana, as well as having been a Trappist monk. And yet, whenever I spoke to him, he would simply I would get a little bit nervous and sometimes think, he's so senior, I'm just a lay person.

[15:42]

Does he expect that he's my teacher? Like, what is this relationship? And he would just say, I am your friend. And he accompanied me and a kind of a godfather to my son and just, we were very, very good friends. for as long as we knew each other, which was many years. So there's something, again, so vulnerable and beautiful in that statement, I am, I am. And this isn't necessarily a Zen or a Buddhist thing. The importance of companionable relationship within communities is signed even more boldly by the late Los Angeles rapper and activist Nipsey Hussle, who is quoted as saying, I saw this on Facebook, when you look at the people in your circle and you don't get inspired, if you look at the people in your circle and you don't get inspired, then you don't have a circle.

[17:01]

you have a cage. When you look at the people in your circle and you don't get inspired, then you don't have a circle, you have a cage. This brings in another vital element in my point of view about Sangha, spiritual community. And as many of us know, if the original meaning of the word Sangha were applied to this situation, maybe most of us here would not be included in the Saga because it was defined as the monastic community, the monks and the nuns. That having been the case in the old days, times have changed. And wonderful lay practitioners as well as ordained and practitioners who are not required to be celibate, and then monks and nuns, monastics who do take a vow of celibacy.

[18:12]

There's a lot of, again, diversity in the Sangha worldwide among Buddhists, practitioners, followers of the Buddha Dharma, and therefore the most vulnerable Thich Nhat Hanh, whom I often quote, We used to call it the fourfold sangha. Monks, nuns, lay women, lay women. And we can, in light of our current understanding of gender identification, the expansive nature of the gender spectrum, I call it the manyfold sangha. Manyfold. It's not just four. We'll call it the manyfold sangha. And so this brings in another vital element about the Manyfold Saga, spiritual community, which, as we know, is the third jewel in the Triple Gem, what's called the Triple Gem of Buddha.

[19:18]

And we just did this really strenuous and wonderful full moon bodhisattva ceremony, lots of prostrations and and reminders in the chanting of some of the basic, basic teachings and practices that Berkeley Zen Center is aligned around and many other centers as well. So the three jewels, Buddha, enlightened awakened beings, Dharma, teachings of wisdom and compassion, and Sangha. The Three Jewels. My cousin, Reverend Jiko Nakade of Daifukuji Soto Zen Mission Center on the Big Island of Hawaii, always says, NAMU KI E HO, NAMU KI E SO.

[20:19]

So that's L2, Three Jewels. NAMU KI E PUTSU, NAMU KI E HO. Dharma. Namukyeso. Sangha. Again, going back to our teacher, Nipsey Hussle. He doesn't say, when you look at people in your circle and you don't feel trust and friendship, then you have a cage. What evidently he said is, when you look at the people, you don't get inspired. then you don't have a circle, you have a cage. This is something to reflect on. You can take it or leave it. And my own background is in the fine arts, training specifically in contemporary poetry and literature, as well as the other arts.

[21:21]

Thus, it's very meaningful to me that I believe another vital element of Sangha, a spiritual community, maybe of any communities this year, is inspire one another. We inspire one another. As I said, my original training was in poetry. I did Google it before I would have looked it up in my dictionary. So the word is inspiration within that there's a word spiration inspirations spiration which merriam-webster defines as an obsolete word meaning the action of breathing as a creative or function of the deity the action of breathing as a creative or life-giving function

[22:25]

of the deity, of the divine. Once again Thich Nhat Hanh said one of his many meditation verses or Gathas, G-A-T-H-A-S, breathing in, I calm body and mind. So we're mindfully aware what a privilege is if we can even breathe in easily. Maybe some of us can. However, if we're alive, we are breathing in. Breathing in, I'm aware. I can calm body and mind. Breathing out, I smile. I smile. Just give it a try. Even if you're wearing a mask, we can feel it. I think this is what Aitken Roshi used to call the bad old days of Zen in the United States. You know, there were a lot of Zen centers in the United States where they were just known to be really unfriendly places.

[23:31]

And people had this idea that in your practice you don't smile and you're just really cold and unfriendly. What can I say? Those times have passed. So in Sangha, in community, It's really necessary that we signify, we signal this friendly attitude to one another. Breathing out, I smile. Dwelling in the present moment. I know this is a wonderful moment. Of this famous meditation verse or gatha and said to myself, Okay then, so dwelling in the present moment, I know this is a wonderful moment, but what if this present moment totally sucks? How can it possibly be a wonderful moment?

[24:37]

Again, I don't know all of you. I'm pretty darn sure if I did spend time with each of you that you've been through a lot of hard times. And now we've all been through a global pandemic. Our experience of this present moment may not be particularly smiley. And how can it be a wonderful moment? One possible question is, because this present moment, so this fortunate karmic convergence of our lives in being together in this space, in being together in a virtual space where we're all connecting to one another. Thank you, those of you who are on camera.

[25:41]

I like looking at your faces. And one of my practices is that even if I can't see your face, if I see your tile, If I see your name, oh, someone just came on camera. Hi. If I see your title and your name, then for each of you, I'm just offering some loving kindness meditation. May you be well and happy. May you be free from suffering. May you enjoy being on Zoom and not be burned out on Zoom. And I'm not that far away. Actually, there are so many of us. How wonderful is that? that there's overflow into the community room and you're just a few feet, a few feet away. We can do this all the time in everyday life. It's a very simple practice. We're doing the whole nine yards Zen practice and we've got the mudra and the gear and all this kind of stuff.

[26:43]

That the practice can just be, we're driving along, we're in Trader Joe's, you know, our child is driving us nuts, whatever. And we can just, may you be happy. May you be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. May you know peace and the causes of peace. May you be happy. That's a very beautiful practice. It's really simple too. So what if this present moment of your experience is really horrible? It can be a wonderful moment, I would submit to you, because this present moment can be the ground of creativity, of generativity, of inspiration. You can, Scott, inspire me, inspire you. And right now, that can happen. Anytime. some new insight, a new project, a shift in perspective that allows us to see something in a different way can happen because our paths have converged.

[28:00]

As many have said, if it's you and me, I am thou. It's not one plus one equals two. It's one plus one equals three. something new from our connection our gestalt what dh lawrence i think called the third side in in a love relationship that there's one person there's another person and then something wonderful occurs when our paths cross and we make that vital connection How can we not be inspired? This moment, this talk, isn't taking place in a vacuum. Only a few miles nearer to where I live in Oakland, our beloved Berkeley Zen Center Abbott, my old friend, Hozan Alan Sinaki, has been in the Oakland Kaiser Hospital on Broadway for several weeks, as we know.

[29:11]

And many, perhaps most included, have visited Alan due to the generosity and kindness of his family in opening to this circle, this Sangha, this community of love and understanding. I was thinking about my relationship to him for many years, probably first through the Buddhist Peace Fellowship around 25 years ago. And I did serve on the board of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and wrote for the journal Turning Wheel and have remained connected to them through many cycles of their development and growth. So how can we not be inspired by this, the possible creativity present that's in this present moment.

[30:13]

And we speak of what's called in English the great matter of life and death. And as we reflect on ourselves, these temporary bodies, reflect on those we love, more poignant and more powerful words. the great matter, the mysterious and very expected and normal and kind of weird matter of life and death. Always with us, in our face, if we but turn and look. If we but daylight, that is, dig up, expose the hidden streams which connect us from the karmic watersheds of our lives. Our spiritual community, we have many kinds of relationships, ones that are more horizontal, peer to peer, and those that have a vertical quality to them, perhaps those between teacher and student, as well as, I hope,

[31:39]

and my hope I see has been fulfilled, and I hear at Berkeley Zen Center, as well as intergenerational relationships. So important for the health and wellbeing of our Sangha, our spiritual communities, our relationships, to form Sangha relationships, I am your friend, across Gen Z, the millennials, Gen X, bloomers, however we may characterize or conceptualize what we call generations. Basically people of different ages who may have some things in common simply because of the age that they're in. I am a boomer and for me it's going to be things like the assassination of me, the first person on the moon, And then, of course, there were a lot of other assassinations as well.

[32:45]

That period was, it just, there was a lot of assassination. Malcolm Axe. And I share that in common with others of my generation, no matter how different we are. Differences and similarities. My late colleague in diversity, equity, inclusion, Roosevelt Thomas, defined diversity as a mixture of similarities and differences. I am a writer, and 24 years ago, I published a chapter titled Daylighting, again that term, The Feminine in American Buddhism, in the book titled Innovative Buddhist Women. The stream. edited by Karma Lakshay Somo and published by Curzon Press in the United Kingdom. And daylighting was a term that I don't know, I heard somewhere in Oakland about where there are streams covered up because they're in a city or something like that.

[33:59]

And then you can actually, but they're still running underground. You can dig them up. and expose the stream and see that it comes out of the earth and it flows along and then it goes back underground. I live in from Tomascal Creek, which has been daylighted right in going through the back of the Department of Motor Vehicles, the DMV. I live right around the corner from there. So it just kind of pops up and you see it, the creek bed, and then it goes, disappears. However, it goes all. the bay. So I call it Daylighting the Feminine in American Buddhism. And in this essay I quoted teacher Aijin Benjiko, Linda Ruth Cutts, who some of you know. She lives at Green Gulch Zen Center over in Marin County, the abbots of San Francisco Zen Center. And she talks about how we inspire one another.

[35:01]

We accompany one another creatively. so that something new is born, is communicated, is transmitted. And wrote this, I don't know, maybe in one of San Francisco Zen Center's journals, I found this quote, and referring to Dogen. So in Menju, M-E-N-J-U, face-to-face transmission, she wrote, emphasizes the point that this transmission is face to face, eye to eye. She says, Mahakashapa, one of the early disciples said of Shakyamuni, Mahakashapa and Shakyamuni Buddha practiced for a long time. The teacher cannot be a teacher unless there is a disciple or student.

[36:05]

And a student cannot be a student unless there is a teacher. It is really one word, not two. Teacher, disciple. They come up together, each creates and conditions the other. You need each other to complete the practice. End of quote. As some of you know, a major part of my path, and we are still accompanying one another and living together, Having become a mother, I have a middle-aged child who lives with me. And I wrote a long time ago, when my son was born, that's when I was born, in the identity of mother. So in such a way, mother-child, I cannot be a mother without my child. Certainly my child cannot be a child without a mother. And some people have more than one mothers or foster mothers and so forth.

[37:09]

And you get the basic idea. It's co-arising. In ending, I'd like to say we need each other, I believe, to complete the practice. The practice of what? The great practice of living and dying together. Of going together. However 2024 may bring us wars and climate crisis, the U.S. presidential election, I hate to say it, but who knows what unknown viruses and wild curveballs there may be in this period of time that we call the coming year. How do we get through what is present? what's coming down the road. How? In justice activism work, we talk about prefigurative activism.

[38:16]

Prefigurative, prefiguring activism. In my understanding, this means giving up the delusion that we can magically fix all of the grievous injustices and forms of oppression. racism, misogyny, homophobia, ableism. We can't magically eliminate, heal all of these previous wounds that we see and feel and breathe in at every moment. according to how we self-identify and how we are identified by society. However, pre-figurative activism says that we can pre-figure, we can create the world in which we want to live.

[39:19]

If only for a few hours, a few days, a few months, perhaps the span of the Berkeley Zen Center's life thus far that we can prefigure and create the world in which we want to live. And that's a practice that goes way beyond formal meditation, which of course is very wonderful for those who are so inclined. Most Buddhists in the world probably do not meditate. There are many other wonderful things. And I would say In my point of view, the greatest practice of all is spiritual friendship and spiritual accompaniment. This is something we can do. Sangha life, teacher-student relationships, as many of us know, is imperfect, is impermanent, and sometimes incredibly aggravating.

[40:25]

I know that. And can we pause? Can we turn toward one another? And can we say, I am your friend. I am your friend and I will accompany you. Let us commit to inspire one another in the coming year. Thank you so much for deep listening. And I think there are a few moments now. There's a few minutes for Q&A. And we can alternate, as I understand it, in the room and on the Zoom. We have a microphone. You're invited to state your name if you like, if you feel comfortable doing so. When you start, share or ask your question. And we can alternate between the room and the Zoom.

[41:27]

Good morning. Thank you so much for your wonderful talk. My name's Reid. Reid? Reid, yeah. You started off your talk talking about the coming year and the election upon us. And I had me thinking or wondering, how do we accompany and friends those on us who we not only disagree with we don't understand or we may even be afraid of deep down these are good people who love love too and I'm just wondering what comes to mind for you given your experience and I'm just curious, how do we approach people?

[42:39]

Read, right? Yes. Like R-E-E-D? Yes. Okay. That's a really good question. It's a basic question. And in my understanding, commitment is a choice. We might, we can't accompany everybody. And we might not want to. The statement that... I want to. Oh, you want to. Okay. So I'm hearing you want to. Wow. That's pretty fabulous. Okay. So you want to accompany everyone. And so to me, that means that we're very clear about our own values. We're very clear about our own boundaries. And we will do everything possible to prevent harm. from being done including harm to ourselves. That first. I think you've posited that your belief is that people basically do have love in them and they do want to connect.

[43:50]

Not everyone believes that. That's not everyone's experience. I am hearing and therefore really the first precept is try to prevent prevent harm. Yeah, don't get hurt in this process. And then my own practice is one of loving kindness or metta practice and to try to extend to every living being as much as I have capacity for the understanding that I think it says in the Buddhist scriptures, All beings tremble before you. All beings love life. All living beings fear death. So we have that in common despite or along with the many differences between us. We can go back to that common ground and also say not only I am your friend,

[44:59]

And I will accompany you. I will try to understand you. That's that try it on I mentioned. Trying on someone else's worldview. And that's, as human beings, we do that all the time. Through watching, through reading books, through listening to other people's stories. It doesn't mean those are our values. It doesn't mean those are our experiences. If someone has committed a murder, certainly we're... We're not going to want to do that, most likely. And can we learn from their story? You bet. Of course, that's so basic to our human nature is we want to hear those stories. We want to understand. We want that abundance of experience. And through it, we grow wiser and we develop more compassion. Well, thank you.

[46:03]

That's a big vow. Yeah. On the Zoom. Hi, folks. What's happening? I guess we have a Zoom moderator. You can raise a virtual hand. You can probably chat the Zoom event manager. I do see a hand up. Oh, there we go. Okay. I see you. Unmute and would love to hear you. I guess that's me. I'm just thinking at this time for us in our sangha with Hozan in the hospital and not here with us that being good spiritual friends with each other, taking the time to stop and be together is really helping us and really

[47:05]

It feels important to just really pay attention to that. Thank you. Can you share your name with us? Oh, sorry. I know you, Hannah. I know. Oh, good to see you. Glad that you had safe travels. Thank you. Yes. Yes. So spiritual friendship, I would say, always important. And Hannah is uplifting and amplifying that in this period of time for the Sangha, super important. And you may have heard, even though I didn't go back to it, that the title of this talk is Prefigurative Activism, Collective Leadership. Collective Leadership and Sangha in 2024. So exploring a more horizontal, perhaps distribution of tasks, of power, of responsibilities and roles, though there need to be defined roles. throughout the Sangha strengthens communities, strengthens the community.

[48:12]

Why? Because all of us are a matter of life, death, and impermanence. And we could be here today and not so here tomorrow. And in the strong community, people are ready. They are ready to fill in as best they can for the good of the community. Thank you, Hannah. I think there's time, right? Hello. Thank you for this beautiful talk on time together. My name is Mary Remington, and I just came from sitting at bedside this morning. and was living yesterday as well. And I live in New York, so I flew in to see him.

[49:14]

I'm from the Upaya community Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I was thinking about all the support and all the friendship that's being expressed for Hozon around the world. The various forms in which Love can be expressed from the physical to the intentional, to the non-physical. And seeing this chair and dedicated space for him, I assume that's for Hosan. And so I've just been really feeling the bridges of love and how they come through. and spending time with him and relaying many messages from many people. So the medicine is the love, and I do believe he is receiving it.

[50:22]

That was my experience with him. And it's all made deepened and opened my own heart, too. So thank you. Thank you, Mary. Thank you for flying. Give our Menta and love to the Sangha at Upaya, please. Oh, thank you. Oh, yeah. The CaringBridge website where we can read all. I don't know, someone said there were like 39,000 people on Hosan's website. Blake, could you raise a hand? Sure. Hello? Good morning. Could you speak, welcome to Berkha Zen Center, Mushim. Could you speak a little bit more about pre-figurative activism? I've been thinking a lot about, of course these days, I want things to be different.

[51:26]

How do we move forward with our activism? And on the large scale and on the Thank you very much, Blake. And I realized I did say we would alternate between in the room and on the Zoom, so sorry about that, people on the Zoom. You can contact me if you like through my website. There's a contact and I will usually get back to you within 48 hours if I can. So the question is once again about pre-figurative activism. And here's my understanding of this, is that it, and it's my experience too, that it can be so, to use Nipsey Hussle's words, inspiring, giving us the breath of life, to be part of something

[52:34]

is, for instance, I read about some years ago in Oakland, there was a group of acupuncturists, and they got a permit, I think, from the city, and they went out on the street, on the sidewalk, and they set up reclining chairs, and then for maybe three hours on a Saturday afternoon, they offered free acupuncture, first come, first serve, to whoever rolled along on the street. They were able to do it. It didn't really cost them any money. They offered it as just, again, a free service to the community. And maybe people who never had acupuncture or couldn't afford it were able to stop and have a little treatment and have a different kind of experience. So it can be as simple as that to projects that go on much longer. And I myself would say that Any Sangha is an act of prefigurative activism in that within the Sangha we have practices, we have precepts, and so we are in effect imperfectly trying to actualize a different way of being in the world, right?

[53:57]

Yeah, a good way of being, an inspiring way of being. I know, I've been around the block. Many things happen that are bad in the sanghas. And overall, the intention for it to be a spiritual community is that we enter into an uplifted and an elevated kind of atmosphere when we come into the zendo. If our practice is strong, everywhere we go is the zendo. I mean, you know, we are hopefully trying not to be like good here, and then we go outside and all kinds of careless things. However, a designated place of practice is a place of prefigurative activism, I would say. It's a place where we might get a little inspiration or a lot or the taste of, oh, this is what it could be like. This is what it could be like. There's another famous quote from the classical Buddhist text, which says, as we know, just as all of the oceans

[55:04]

have but one taste, the taste of salt. So these teachings, these practices of the Dharma have one taste, and that is the taste of liberation. I believe we're at time. And so let's round this to a close with deep appreciation for all of you. in the room, and maybe think about everyone you meet today, and that includes non-human beings, trees and animal companions and, I don't know, insects and birds and many forms of life. You might think as a little exercise to send some energy to that living being and inside your heart say, I am your friend. Okay.

[56:05]

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