Someone might come in late. Yeah. So good evening. We're here to explore one of my favorite poems. And I think what I am going to do is just read the poem. Then we can decide whether or not we want to talk further. Please call me by my true names.

[01:02]

Do not say I'll depart tomorrow, because even today I still arrive. Look deeply. I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive in order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive. I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river, and I am the bird which, when spring comes, arrives in time to eat the mayfly. And I am the frog, swimming happily in the clear pond.

[02:11]

And I am also the grass snake, who approaching in silence feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. and I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee in a small boat, that throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea-pilot. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving. I am a member of the Politburo, with plenty of power in my hands, and I am the man who has to pay his debt of blood to my people dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

[03:18]

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life. My pain is like a river of tears. so full it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. I've got the wrong piece of paper now. My joy is like a spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the earth.

[04:33]

My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans. Please call me by my true names so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one. Please call me by my true names so I can wake up and so the door to my heart can be left open, the door of compassion. So, I think I have a story about this poem and myself. I first heard this poem when I was at Tassajara. You may have been there at the same time.

[05:37]

And Thich Nhat Hanh came to visit. And I don't remember much about it, except there were certain things that he asked us to do. like rewrite some of the poem ourselves. It was pretty good at getting people to leap in and just try something out. read this in preparation for this meeting. The first time I read this in this room a few years back, I just burst into tears.

[06:44]

And as I think about it, I think we could spend the entire morning, the entire evening, talking about the first two lines. The accomplished teachers often I think of Dogen and they say something very clear and succinct and write on the button. And then they go on when they could have stopped right there. Do not say that I'll depart tomorrow, because even today I still arrive. Wow, what does that mean? And you need to think the title of the poem, which from my eye lands on first.

[07:52]

Please call me by my true names. raises lots of questions. For the first time when I started writing these notes, I said to myself, he's provoking us. Are any names false? Are there any false names? What are names? And how are they used to meet someone? To meet yourself? What do you do What do you connect with when you hear your name called? So, I remember going to this workshop once. It was a communication workshop. It was four or five days. And there were 35, 40 people there. And the teacher...

[08:58]

at their initial meeting, sitting around in a circle, she said, she said, now I know that you don't probably know very many of these folks, and each of you are in that same boat in that regard, but you've probably figured out what your story is about each one of them in the one minute we've been sitting here together. So it's not as though names are something which is really critical to who we think we are. So the poem goes on.

[10:10]

It uses one of Thich Nhat Hanh's favorite words. It says, look deeply. I arrive in every second. Thich Nhat Hanh says that again and again and again, and I keep asking myself, what is this? Normally when we say deeply, we're thinking down, thinking deeply, but maybe it's up. Inside, Broadly? Does it include far away? Does it include the stars? Look deeply. So, look deeply.

[11:20]

I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch. To be a tiny bird with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest. To sit in the zendo. So, what are your true names? Is there something about it being plural? Is that interesting? And why do we have multiple names?

[12:20]

We go through life, we receive one name after another. So is there anyone here or here who has not heard this poem before or is not familiar with it? Thich Nhat Hanh first wrote it in the late 1970s in the aftermath of of what is known in Vietnam as the American War. And what I've presented here for you is somewhat different from other translations you'll see online or in other books.

[13:31]

It's mostly wording. It's mostly English usage where things differ. But he talked about it as, and I think it's even written about, it's posted on the Flump Village website. His impetus for writing this is, you know, I think in that period of his life, he was receiving huge amounts of mail. people talking about their situation as they were trying to leave Vietnam or establish themselves elsewhere or come and join him in France. I remember him talking about this. He would read

[14:40]

He would read one or maybe two days a week and then he couldn't read anything anymore after that because the news was really horrifying. But he kept his vows and sort of received this mail and continued to read it. And in one case, there was such a case as a young girl, probably many cases, who was raped by a pirate. And so I feel like this is a story about an internal process for how to meet these events, how to

[15:43]

take them in and live with them. So what is he requesting in his title line? Please call me by my true names. Would anybody like to offer Some words about that? Yes. Well, earlier when you were saying what are not true names, I was starting to think that, you know, bullies and insecure people give other people nicknames in order to other them and diminish them. Those don't sound like true names to me.

[16:44]

So that's the first thing I thought of. And then there's whole classes of people that, of course, many different groups of people receive horrible names by other groups of people in order to other them and diminish them. And it's powerful, this name calling. It's effective. actually it hurts. It hurts people. So that's, that's a one side, you know, uh, like I can think of four different slurs for Vietnamese people right off the top of my head, you know, cause, cause I'm old enough. Um, and, uh, it's lousy actually. So, uh, that's it. That was my entry point, you know. Well, what is true names?

[17:45]

Because there definitely are names that are not true names. For me, that's a starting point. Yes, Ken? Because some of the verses are so shocking Yes, yes. in their uprightness and unflinching truth-telling, it made me think of the ways that we use language to hide what is really happening. To say, for instance, we don't call it American War. We say, people patriotically defending their country. We don't say people shooting and killing other soldiers on the battlefield.

[18:48]

We can use words to protect ourselves from what we are actually doing in the world. To hide it? To hide it from ourselves. Yes, Laurie? I've always heard it as him practicing with the two sides. Him practicing with both sides. He sets up these pairs. I'm the mayfly, but I'm the bird that eats the mayfly. I'm the frog, but I'm the snake. I always heard it as him trying to coach himself to to own that he's both things. And somehow, going around my life, this thing about the pirate, that has always been a bridge too far from being like, I cannot, I cannot face that.

[19:52]

I cannot face that I'm that. When I think about what I can't face, this poem is one of those things. I'm not saying that's not what it is, but somehow this time when I was reading it, I almost felt like it's not Thich Nhat Hanh. He's speaking for God or something. I mean, you know, he's saying, call God by my true, or call emptiness, or call something big by my true names. Because, you know, It's just what he says, the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. Anyway, there's no conclusion there, but those are my thoughts. The title to me speaks to like, I feel like my name doesn't matter to me until someone gets it wrong.

[21:03]

And then it's not a name, maybe, but it's that they have no idea who I am. So I guess to me that kind of evokes maybe he's trying to say that if we see ourselves and everything, and we call it by our true names, there's a deeper settledness, a deeper peace than in denying. On one side. Yeah. I just wanted to follow up with, I really appreciate what Ken said about how language can be used to shop or cover or hide.

[22:06]

It made me think of the mass media, the so-called news, the way things get, the way stories get told, such as an African-American man received a fatal wound in a police incident, using the passive tense to just diminish and and say, you know, there's nothing really to look at here, where Thich Nhat Hanh is just like ripping the mask off and saying, look, look deeply. And that's, yeah, the power of that is really something. For some reason I thought of Thomas Hobbes, who I read in college, who spoke about The absolute ruler is the one who gets to name things. That's right. There's a certain violence to that.

[23:07]

But it's giving a name to things. And I think this plurality of names somehow opens things up. Like, call me by all of my names. I'm not just what you might think I am. I'm not just one thing. So I think there's an opening for freedom in that plurality that you hinted towards at the beginning when you started talking. Yeah. Yeah, it's really hard to get your mind to take it all in and to settle it because you think it's really important to to make peace or there's some thing that we have to do when we hear about these really differing circumstances that bring people together in not necessarily good ways.

[24:13]

But I think several people had their hands up at this point. I was going to say something. related to what was just being said about when I hear that word, I think, well, a name is a noun. A noun makes something into something. It becomes a specific kind of object, and that is inherently limiting. And to say that we are multitudes within this, we are still arriving. Don't say I'm leaving, it's still arriving. It allows the possibility of what is my name? There are infinite numbers of names to this person and not any particular one. How do you even call me? Yes. I was also thinking in Judaism the true name of God cannot be spoken.

[25:21]

And in the Tao Te Ching, it's the true Tao cannot be spoken or the true Tao cannot be named. And yeah, what you're saying, like to even be able to name something isn't what it is because the words will never reach it. It's a risky business because you have then drunk the poison of perhaps misinterpretation or something like that. So, since you used that word, I'm going to ask, how do you use language to embrace widely? Peter, what was the question again, please?

[26:26]

Oh, how do you use language to embrace widely? Thank you. Can I say something? Absolutely. If anybody online wants to say something, if you can raise your hand, I'll Yeah, I'll let Peter know. Thank you. Yeah. So, naming, I hadn't thought of this until I had this conversation tonight, so I appreciate this. Embracing widely. Naming, I hadn't realized how it limits people. and how much in the poem I can relate to the grass snake or the mayfly. But when it comes to a little girl being raped by a sea pirate, this is the first time I could hold that with some degree of connecting to that, to both sides, to all of that.

[27:42]

I never could hear that poem before. So I think this was a good opportunity to, I don't know, settle something about naming. And if you've ever been called a name, it hurts, you know, it hurts. Or even any label. How do we deal with labeling? Do we object to being in that little cubbyhole? So I don't know what to do with this. but it's causing me to think widely, or more widely anyway. I've been thinking of the other side of meaning, when helping someone name something that they may not see themselves, or to say something like,

[28:45]

Oh, you seem frightened. That's okay. Naming it somehow brings it into the world or recognizes it. Maybe it's in the world but it recognizes it. So you hear some reference to yourself and then you resonate with that as though this person actually sees you Maybe he hears you or something like that. And I sometimes do that with myself. Like, I am wondering what a feeling means for me. And I try to put it into words. It's like, no, that's not quite right. I try again, and then my heart leaps up. Like, yes, that's what's going on with me. Yes, okay, Katie. To me, what Ken's saying, and also the title is, it's about relationship.

[29:49]

It's not just, these are my true names. Please call me by my true names. And I will know when I hear them. Yeah, that's important. Go ahead. Yeah, coming back, just kind of rolling around your original question that you put out through this session about how to communicate in a way that is connecting and not minding and objectifying, is that the question? Yeah, it's something that, yeah, we often can contrast those two, but just to serve for this moment, be able to talk about something that I think is related to the question of why does it hurt when somebody speaks to you in a way that hurts.

[31:04]

It's just so simple. It's probably just so superficial. But what came to my mind as you said that was it just flashed on Harvey Milk standing in the curtain. Then why would these hands open? Oh, wow. Friend. Yeah. Friend. Wow. Peter, can you repeat that? Can you say that again? Or you should? Yeah, when Peter asked the question originally, it just popped into my mind. Can you hear me? What popped into my mind was the image I had of Harvey Milk standing as Dan White walked in to confront him, standing up with his hands open towards him saying, friend. Does everybody here know who Harvey Milk is dead in my heart? Does everyone know the story here?

[32:05]

I had not heard that story. I'm sorry. This is Dan White's name. So, Harvey Milk was a supervisor, and Dan White was also a supervisor, right? It's a city. It's a city of San Francisco. In 1979, and I'm not remembering the circumstances where there was a conflict between them. But there was a major conflict that got Dan White in trouble. And the blind party milked for that. So he walked into the supervisor's office. And he used that gun. But the meeting between the two of them in that moment, I didn't know how to connect. Wow. This is totally true. Can you speak up a little bit?

[33:16]

He was a troubled person. Yeah, a man, his heart is not open to loving or as it's referred to in poems. Linda? What's been coming up for me is a couple things. One is Kategori Roshi's first two books. The first one was called Returning to Silence. And the second one was You Have to Say Something. So it's this, Dogen talks about that a lot in Kato and Twining Vines. It's like how you use words to point beyond words. And Ken, you were talking about that recognition. I know that very well, and then the next thing I do is .

[34:18]

But if somebody else does this, then I'm like, no. I can grab on for safety, but if you're grabbing on for safety, that's my thing you're grabbing onto, and I'm not that, actually. And the form of this poem It feels just right. It's like this and this. Or like this and this. Or this and this. And it's, we can't exhaust it, actually. It's just that dance. Dave? I am really appreciating the other side of when a name is liberating, or when a name is You know, you feel like a stranger in some group and somebody remembers your name and you actually feel invited in or you feel seen in some way. And the most miraculous parenting trick I ever learned when my kids were toddlers was that when they fell down and hurt themselves, and this was magic.

[35:29]

I'd do this with other people's kids and they'd think I was amazing and I was like, here's the trick. You tell them the story of what just happened. You say, oh, I saw you. You were running and you tripped right here. And you count the thing. And I'm giving this away because someone told this to me. I will bet you a quarter because it worked every time. And you take the story all the way to the end. You say, and then your mom came and then she scooped you up. And now you're here. So you tell the whole story. And it's miraculous. But I guarantee you they stopped crying. Because the story got told right. And there is something about naming. Maybe it distances, but it also then makes clear or precise. It can make a bridge. Yeah, yeah. So I had this image of the kids with very little, and it was to name their experience when they were overwhelmed by it.

[36:32]

was such a gift, and you could watch it transform what was happening. Peter? Oh, sorry. Peter, sorry. This has brought up a bunch of stuff about naming. I love the idea of parenting and names. Kids call parents names, and... You don't react, right? It's like, oh, great, I've been called that. It's no big deal. You're not taking on some offense because you've been called a name. You're a poophead is what you get to hear as a parent or sometimes as a teacher, and it's not something you react to. I mean, it just isn't anything you react to. And it's so freeing not to be... offended by what people say, and I think that's sort of a really, certainly an idea that I'm reminded of in this poem.

[37:38]

And I also have a Gordon story. I was really mad at my husband, and we had learned some techniques for communicating, and I was just communicating some dissatisfactions with him. And he said, so I'm a jerk, you know? And I said, yeah. And he said, OK. And it was like the whole thing, it's like that kid, you know? It just goes away. The charge is out of it. It was really neat. And I loved him. So having him hear his true name. It was liberating. There are enough people here who know Gordon that would have agreed with that. But it wasn't... You know, I learned something from that, not to take offense.

[38:41]

There's somebody over here that hasn't spoken. Go ahead. I also thought about those of us who... asked to receive the precepts, then we get a new name, right? And it can be anxiety provoking. Like, I hope I like my name. You know, I hope I don't get a dumb name. I hope my teacher sees me or the, where is, you know, the officiant sees me well enough to give me a name that, you know, I'm going to like or I can relate to, and also for the teacher, it also can be anxiety provoking, you know, too. Are they all like this name? Does it really reflect them? And then you do that, and then you hear stuff back like, oh, I was thinking about this.

[39:46]

That never occurred to me, you know, but it's alive. It's alive. In general, people like their names. Because it's, you know, it's a new life and you're still arriving, like Thich Nhat says, you know, you're still arriving with this new name. And you're arriving into the lineage of Buddhist ancestors. And that's endless. Yes. So, um, can you kind of capture some of my thoughts, but what I'm thinking about with names and with this and with the way Thich Nhat Hanh has been mentioned, like the broad and the grass snake, really all of our being is interactions, is relations with other

[40:52]

we use words a lot when you know talking with other people but we have these relations and interactions with everything and they're sort of what you know it's that is the life and I think even even if we're totally alone you know um there's these interactions with our thoughts and when we said zazen it's sort of like not getting you know not getting pulled around by those, but there's still a kind of interaction happening. So, you know, I have a pet, you know, it doesn't, it has the name I give it, but when we communicate, we use, you know, a contact call. So it's in everything I, anyway, so I think that the names is sort of, you know, if we were going to put words on it, it's the word that we'd use for that relation, that So it's sort of like life is a kind of torrent of stimulus and response.

[42:02]

Yeah, various things. And so words are in some way a way to navigate that. Yeah, or to be able to communicate about it. You know, I don't know. I mean, some people maybe use words to organize how they're encountering the reality that other people don't. They definitely use words for communicating with one another. So I think it's that. It's the thing that you can put on a thing or instance of relation so that you can talk about it. And then talking about it, when you ask, how can we be more open and inclusive, that's when we talk about that particular word and that relation. in a kind of a joyful way, you know, when it brings, when it's beneficial, it brings us happiness, then that's sort of inclusive. Yeah.

[43:05]

Yeah. I want to talk a little bit about some other thing that became apparent to me. Oh, you're... Do you want to take a break? This is... Shall we take five? Sure. Okay. Great. Thank you. I think I have some tea here, actually. Very clear instructions.

[45:19]

Didn't work out. Didn't work out. Or maybe just the second page of it. Well, I could certainly get it online and I could copy it. Yeah. You're not saying. Nope. There you go. There were just a couple. There were just a couple. Yeah. Maybe they weren't even meant to be. I mean, maybe they just picked up a couple pieces correctly. Anyway, thank you so much. I enjoyed your class. Thank you. It's funny how the conversation goes in this sort of direction. In a way, it's about, right? Yeah. How we named what we were doing or something. Each person naming where they went. Yeah, yeah. Good point.

[46:48]

Maybe an hour and a half. The class is an hour and a half. Right, so maybe at the beginning, if you've been a Berman in a schedule that a chief doesn't know about, maybe somebody could check the avoided stuff. I know, I was chief today, so I know there's plenty of room. And I'm just checking if there's enough room for tomorrow morning. Yeah, I was surprised that it actually hurt the metal. Huh? I had been surprised that it actually hurt the metal. I didn't know. I didn't know, but I've seen them completely. like I put the new candle on. Why is this old wick still there? It was actually so flat to push it up. So anyway, yeah. I think that we put them on at night. So yeah, it would be any time there's a class. We'll just check them before they go on. I mean, I know they're right today. So whoever lights them. Yeah, if they're on it, whoever, maybe they can check. How do we transmit that?

[47:53]

I was just curious if it's a normal thing. I'm not 100% sure that we do need to put the total cabinet on for class. But it feels like we always put them on at night. That's a subtle point. I don't think any of us chiefs knew how long the searching memorial was there. Nobody knew. Nobody knew it wasn't checked. Yeah. We don't want to waste them so we don't have to. Not so much the waste is burning. But I mean, you know, we can just say, well, less than six inches changes, right? Well, that's a huge waste. Exactly. I mean, I suggest in Nancy, like, this is just Friday, so we're going to do one in, you know, our group, and then the Monday person will take it, and we have to take it out.

[49:05]

They put that, you know. It's supposed to be chillier tomorrow. I think it's supposed to be chillier tomorrow. I think we're ready today. You know when I first read this poem, I had just listened Can you speak up a little?

[50:06]

Sure. When I first read this poem, I had just listened to an audio tape of emptiness. And I read this poem when I wanted to hear it. Yeah. You know? I mean, he's explaining it all, you know, and it's just like, yeah, emptiness. I'm all of these things and all of these people and all of these names and all of these circumstances. But it's just the totality. The totality of everything is here. And he's looking at the aspects, both from the caterpillar inside the flower, the heart of the flower, the jewel hiding from the palm, or the bud on a spring branch. the tiny bird with still fragile wings, things that really, you know, I mean, to me, it just really comes very close to my heart, you know, it warms my heart.

[51:11]

This is happening. And then he says, I still arrive in order to laugh and cry and fear and hope. And that is, to me, human qualities, you know, what we do. Although I do understand that there are animals that laugh and stuff like that. This is more the whole thing about fear and perhaps this is the case towards the whole of the systems, I don't know. But I identify that more with humanity, you know, with human beings, with qualities of humans. And then the rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive. So it's like, and then he brings it to me personally, here in my heart, vibrating with all of this. And after that, he goes on to show, to talk about, you know, the frog and the snake, which you go like, oh, the frog, but then the snake, you can see the snake coming and eating it, and then you realize, but that's life, this is what it's eating, and we eat.

[52:31]

You know, we eat the plow, we eat the lettuce and follow God. And it is a sacrifice. What is it that the helpers read? We venerate the three treasures, and we're grateful for this food, the work of many people, and the offering of many life forms. And I go, yes! The recognition that it is an offering. You know, we used to say, and the suffering of... And the suffering of many forms. Yeah. You were touching on something that I was just about to launch into, which is this apparent progression throughout the poem of... ...spot on the spring branch. the bee, the flower, the jewel, the stone, things that you... I think what I'm trying to point out here is that there's this parallel between the types of examples he's showing and the practice of loving kindness.

[53:56]

When you first practice loving kindness, you do so with I never thought of doing it with a stone, but that might be good. But eventually you progress to these more difficult, more challenging situations. You just can't, you can't even help but go there because that's sort of what life is like. After some years, you know, You're doing this and you're doing that. I think I really want to do this. Why did I choose to do that? There is something you can empathize with at every stage of life, regardless of who's involved.

[54:58]

Stop. These stories about, you know, this name and so forth, it reminded me of, well, it's not exactly a koan, but a story from the record of Dongshan, where Dongshan is with a young monk, the young monk, I think, sees a bird eating a frog, just like, you know. And he's like, ew! And he says to Domschan, why does it have to be this way, teacher? And Domschan says, it's just for you. It's just for your benefit. Why? Because he's having the reaction. If he hadn't said anything, Domschan wouldn't have said anything. But because he's having this reaction, ah, I don't like it. This is scary and gross. Why must it be this way?

[56:01]

Dojo says, oh, it's just for you. Did you have something, Ken? Yeah, I keep coming back to what Laurie said earlier about the pirate. Like, I can't go there. Like, I can't accept that. And yet, I can imagine that the pirate, he did. what he did you know he was somehow like that's what was okay for him in his own mind to be doing and I think to myself like I look with regret at some things that I've done some ways that I've thought in my life that at the time I was very deeply attached to and I thought I was upholding something really important to me.

[57:03]

And only much later did I realize I was actually closing myself off. And trying to protect myself was actually not open. And so I'm that person. I mean, not this. But I am It's like saying the delusions of this world are also my true name. Like, the delusions are here. They exist. They are humanity too. And calling me by my true name in all of my delusions allows me to open my heart to the door of Kandasha. Another framework for talking about the pirate and all of that is there's something really important to the pirate.

[58:11]

It's really life-giving as that person sees it. And doing what pirates do is necessary for them to thrive. They choose ways of behaving which don't really meet those needs that they feel are so important. But they can't think of any other way to approach the problem. Yes, Katie. As we've been talking about this, I've kind of been thinking about Okay, what are examples in my own life and in this moment? I thought of Nancy McClellan and the young man who killed her outside our gate.

[59:21]

And I know you and others, it was too much for me, so I was not involved, you and others had sort of a restorative justice frame. Yeah, we tried to act on that. With his family. And I just, I don't know, I just, you don't have to at all, but I just wondered if you had any, how that might relate. Well, it does relate because it's sort of, I felt as though we were responding. those of us who were spending more time meeting with family. We never did really create any kind of relationship that wasn't open to us. But we did create a relationship with the mother, the young man's mother.

[60:27]

it seemed like just the right thing to do is to say, you know, we're not closing the door here, we're staying open to any kind of relationship which might occur. And I'm glad we had that opportunity when mom and came over here. They, I don't remember who was there, but it was very, I remember she had these flowers she wanted to put on Nancy's headstone or something like that. And it was sort of like, she just sort of fell down and brought these flowers to the space.

[61:36]

And then we came in here, in this space. And she went right away and curled up on Sojin's seat. Wow. I can't remember enough detail, I feel like. I wish I could remember in more detail, but it occurred that there was a very strong sense of, okay, this is the place where we're meeting, regardless of anything about how we've used it in the past, or this is it at this moment. Anyway, so thank you for bringing that up. I was thinking of the Mylon Massacre in Vietnam.

[62:37]

People know what the Mylon Massacre is. Anybody who hasn't spoken that would like to speak, just want to name that opportunity.

[63:47]

Just to follow up on your comment. I think it can be really hard to see all sides. But when I think of the Maile Massacre, I also think about what we did to our own people. And just what state of mind and terror and fear and anger we injected into these young men and women that we sent abroad in our name. And when we talk about the pirate in this poem, I think if I were close to the young woman, I would have a very difficult time having compassion for the pirate. But from a distance, I can have compassion for both. And I think As you were speaking, I was thinking about the situation we find ourselves in our country right now, where we have such strong names right now for the two sides of the aisle, so to speak, in our country.

[64:52]

This morning I was in the airport in Cleveland coming home from visiting my family, and I heard two gentlemen having cocktails at 6 a.m. in the United Lounge there. And they were talking about people in Los Angeles, said, well, you know, the celebrities, you know, they deserve it anyways, or something to that effect, speaking about the fires in Pacific Palisades. And it was shocking to hear that, you know, that we are limited by the names that we start to apply to one another. And it's very disturbing. And I think until we can really start to unbuild those names and find all the other names that we can use for one another, then we're not gonna, you know, I don't know, I don't have anything profound to say, just that we need to unpack the names more, I think. Yes? I think it would be a little catch phrase, hurt people hurt people.

[66:00]

Oh, yes. I just keep thinking, what happened to the sea pirate? What was his life like? As a little boy, as an adult, what options were open to him? What violence do you have to do to yourself, first of all, to be able to do that to another human being? I mean, that's what basic training in the army is about, right? It's not seeing other human beings as human beings so that you can Peter, we have Luminous Heart. Luminous Heart has something she would like to say. Please speak. Hi. Oh, my. What a discussion this is. Wonderful. So two things are especially up for me right now. One is... When people are speaking of the difficulty of taking on the pirate, my sense of what the poem is actually inviting us to is entering into where is the pirate in me?

[67:14]

Where do I pirate if I don't go around raping people literally? But where have I... where do I rape or where have I raped or where do I have an impulse to rape even if I don't, metaphorically speaking at least. So that's very helpful for me. And if I look at the behavior of the pirate just as what he's doing, it's horrific and I wanna back away. But if I take it in and on myself at some level, or is this in me, then it has more meaning. I am all these things. I am the pirate and I'm the little girl and I'm the mayfly and the whole enchilada. That's one thing that came up that's been up for me. And the other is somebody earlier on in the discussion spoke about Chukai and names and so on.

[68:19]

And in the tradition that I originally came from, uh in the sangha every once someone had taken jukai or been given jukai or both um we addressed them on campus so to speak by their dharma name and the rationale for that was that we were reflecting back to each other our vow the vow of our name and that we were gifting, in effect, gifting the person by calling them by their true name. And I so wish we did that more at this center because it's a very great gift and an empowering. So those are the two things that came up. Many things have come up, but those are two. Thank you. Yes. Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up the, again, pointed us in the direction of our

[69:44]

One of the things I was going to do tonight was give you some homework. Yeah, I get to do this. I know it's not easy because I tried to compose some of these little couplets in a way that reflects your process of engaging with these Rather, you know, even if you just have to stay with stones and flies. They're self-explanatory. Yes? There's one other of these. couplets that really jumped out and said something different than anything you talked about.

[71:14]

It was the man who has to pay his dead blood. Yeah, it's kind of the reason why he's the last one. Because I can relate to imagining Thich Nhat Hanh as finding that very difficult, close to home. I'm not sure, I don't know if I'm reading this correctly, but what it brings up for me is somebody who has to pay with his life for someone else's, like I was reading this as a lot of somebody, you know, of this I'll tell you, maybe I'm just reading it, but the way I was hearing it is somebody who is suffering systemic oppression, who is unjustly placed in a forced labor camp.

[72:21]

That also exists in this world. That exists, but also what further exists is suffering systemic oppression and having oppressed others. Which is the reason why, you know, the approximate reason why he's suffering or something like that. I mean, our tax dollars are paying for the bombs that are falling in Gaza. That's right. We're supporting that. We're doing that. It's almost like every other one of these, it's very close to the person, it's very close to the frog, to the snake, to the pirate, to the girl.

[73:31]

And in this case, it's the world acting on people in this very hard to name way. And yet, that still exists. And no matter how much we dwell on that side of things, we also laugh, cry. How does this happen? Yes, Katie? I read that series a little differently. I read it as the person in a forced labor camp is being oppressed by the Politbrook Bureau.

[74:38]

That's what I read. It's been deemed an enemy of the people in some way. So it is... is separate, it is not as intimate perhaps as the other couplets, but there's still the relationship. There's a sort of, there's a power to it, which is not necessarily, even the girl who jumps off the boat, she's suffering from a, she's subject to a power imbalance. But it's not as extreme or huge as this later example. I mean, that's the way I read it. And yet, as I think about it, in that forced labor camp, there is still always someone who is closing the door to his cell.

[75:42]

Someone who is not feeding him enough food in his bowl. There were very specific things happening. Yeah. And so you're that person, too. Yeah. Oh, yes. You're enacting the oppressive regime. Right. As are we. We are paying our taxes for a thousand. It is going to be the person closing the door like the person whose life has been forced to be a pirate. I mean it's not just seat pirates. It's many people forced into military situations, et cetera, or around.

[76:47]

perpetrators and their victims as well. It's kind of a relational thing, I think. So, these are, these are all like, this one particularly is, I'm having a I mean, I appreciate it at all, but it's hitting quite close to home, so it's a little difficult moment. Okay, sure. That's a personal issue. We all have places like that. So, I wrote something here a couple years back. response to, I think it was the 12-year-old girl reading that part, and I wrote, here he, that is Thich Nhat Hanh, is being very strict.

[77:54]

This is the radical position. There is no room for being on the right side of the argument. If you try, you fall into confusion and doubt. If you blame one side, you surrender your power to transform consciousness and the world. I don't know if that resonates with anybody. Would you mind reading that again? Sure. Responding to Thich Nhat Hanh, I'm saying, here he is very strict. This is the radical position. There is no room for being on the right side of the argument. If you try, you fall into confusion and doubt. If you blame one side, you surrender your power to transform consciousness and the world.

[78:58]

The images of Vietnam with orange, that was, you know, long on people, and seeing people, you know, in the world, had an opportunity to listen to the testimony of this woman who had Agent Orange all over her body. she had I don't know how many surgeries. I was still suffering from this. I mean, the part about surrender your power to transform, that's how I feel when I can't go there. I feel like, okay, I have a block that's keeping me from transformation here. And I know myself, like I'll tell myself, everybody's doing the exact same thing, which is the thing that makes the most sense at that moment.

[80:21]

So in that sense, the girl, they're all doing the same thing, the thing that makes the most, but like, I still, it's hard to go there. It's just hard to accept that that is a thing that could make sense. Yeah. Right. Natra said, if you can say something, I won't cut the cat in two. Right. Nobody can say anything. Katie? I'm thinking about something that Jim said a while ago of, you know, if you're close to the girl, it just may not be possible. And also, I remember I was struggling with something with relationship and a therapist said, he's doing the best he can. Everybody's doing the best they can. And I was like, That is not helpful. I actually need to set some boundaries here, you know, and respond appropriately.

[81:22]

So I think, yeah, I think... Well, even if you're lucky enough that appropriate responses or boundaries or whatever are that you're capable of that, And yes, you know, that makes sense. It won't cover all of your life. Let's not get depressed. I'm glad I'm not there. And, you know, when I say this, on the first dance before the end, my joy is like spring, so warm.

[82:28]

It makes flowers bloom all over the earth. Doesn't it? You know, so he's acknowledging also this other part. He's not just coming. Yeah. Yeah. I never interacted personally with Thich Nhat Hanh, but I went to a couple retreats that he led, and seeing him across the room, across the prong of people or whatever, I just had this sense of ruthlessness, which I can't think of a better word, but it's like that kind of strictness or uncompromising. I don't know the right word for it. We'll take it. We'll take it, yeah. You know, it reminds me of another story about Chikna Han, but Peter Roshi told us they were at the same peace march in New York.

[83:41]

It was a really big peace march. I can't remember what the context was. It's really beautiful. It was really beautiful. Anyway, so the street was packed with people who were walking, you know, at a measuring pace. And Thich Nhat Hanh was among them. And he started walking at his preferred mindful pace, which Not quite Kenyan, but slow, right? Real slow. And people did not go ahead of anything. So, several people said at Saturday lecture that they were reading, including myself, Thich Nhat Hanh's translation of Nagarjuna.

[84:51]

It's a very strongly worded, I mean, compared to other Buddhist texts you're reading, it is kind of strong advice. And he doesn't give up on the non-dual side of morality, so to speak. How are we doing? It's time. Oh my goodness. Don't forget your homework. What is it exactly? Your homework is to compose and write down one or more of these couplets that expresses something for yourself. I won't say more, but I could. Thank you.

[85:54]

Thank you, Peter. Thank you all for being so accepting and good humor about this. Thank you.

[86:01]

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