So good morning, everybody. Is the microphone on? I don't know. Is there a little something to click on? Yeah, it's on now. I did. Is that better? Yeah. It doesn't sound so shocking to me. to start I know that there's been some discussion on the Lister and that Ross recently talked about sitting in a chair so I want to add my two cents because unfortunately I'm an expert I I sprained my ankle at Tassajara a couple of times and then when I was just so running the wake-up bell I fell and I actually fractured it so I've done a a lot of chair sitting, and then now I'm old and arthritic, and I have chronic trochanteral bursitis.

[01:11]

So, and you know, I don't have much padding in my knees anymore, so I can't sit in a SESA for more than a few minutes, and I can't sit cross-legged at all. So I'm back to chair sitting, though I have a bench in Vallejo, which is wonderful for sitting because it sets your hips correctly. And the first time I sat in it, it felt really like, almost like sitting cross-legged. So I just thought I would add my two cents, and that's why I'm not wearing full robes and I'm not wearing an Oquesa, so you could actually see me. And for you folks online, let's see. Because I want you to be able to see me in the chair. Because maybe we could just sort of switch these two.

[02:12]

Hold on a second. I'll get it. OK, cool. How wonderful. We're at Vallejo. We use a TV tray table. Some of them are, it's dangerous to try to move them. Can you put it on that? So this is really useful. Can you see? It's a wedge-shaped cushion. And I think I'm going to take this up for now. So that's one thing, so that you can make sure... little problemo. We'll see if we can sort of wedge it. So you can make sure that your... Dina, I can just hold it. There you go.

[03:20]

Yeah. So you can make sure that your butt is higher than your knees. Even if you're not sitting on a wedge, just do it with... support cushions or something, depending. And if, as you noticed when I first sat down, if your feet don't hit the floor, then support cushions. And if you're lucky, you have a wonderful Tisha that takes care of you. Okay, the next thing I want to say, and this is sciatica avoiding technique, and it's also, if you do have it, it's helpful, which is that you sit a support cushion down in a diamond shape. So you're kind of sitting on the point of it, and that means that it misses your sciatic notch. Do you understand what I'm saying? It supports your back, but your sciatic notch is like right at the middle of your, the top of your thigh, close enough. I don't know what happened with the words you do. You have a nurse in the room, but that will do.

[04:22]

Anyway, if you have it, you know where it is. So that's always a good thing to do when you sit. And even on a zafu, it doesn't matter. But like that. And then the other thing is to have something to support the absolute base of your spine, your coccyx, your tailbone. So that when you sit down, you use that to support you. And then you sit up straight from there. So you're not leaning back against the back of the chair. But having that something at the base really makes a difference. And then when you sit down, I'm going to show you because you won't be able to see it so well, you really, really arch your back. And it's like you take as if you had a string right at the base of your spine. And it seeks the bottom of the base of the chair.

[05:25]

And it's not lovely, but nobody's supposed to be looking at you. I've also gotten shorter. Can you hold that for one second? There. And when I sit back, because I have something at the base of my spine, It feels supportive. It feels easy to sit like this, except my feet don't reach the floor. I'm not going to bother with it, but right now, they're a little too high. One support cushion, don't bother. One support cushion would be about right, probably, because it feels like my hips and my knees are just about on a plane. And it makes a big difference if they're not.

[06:27]

Actually, I can do this. This is probably not a respectful way to treat a support cushion. I'm told that Suzuki Roshi years ago, somebody used their foot to move a Zabaton. Does everybody know what the Zabaton is? The big, big flat cushion that you're sitting on? Anyway, somebody moved one with their foot. And he turned to the person next to him and said, don't you ever move it with your foot. That's disrespectful, which it is. So I don't do that, but support cushions are only sort of. Anyway, it is hard to sit in a chair. I used to think, oh, those people sitting in a chair, they're doing it the easy way. And then I sat on a chair and I found out how difficult it is to really sit up straight. It's hard.

[07:32]

And if you don't sit up straight, your back gets sore very quickly. You find out. So one thing that I learned was to really push up with the top of my head, you know, to honor the curve in my lower back, not to straighten my back like a board, not to straighten my neck, not to straighten my neck like a board, but to sit up really straight, pushing, as Mel said years and years ago, this is the first time I'd heard this. I've probably heard it 10 times, but he said, push up with your breastbone, not out, you know, not like he didn't say this. I say this, not like the Marines, not like that, but up. And it really makes a tremendous difference. Your shoulders naturally fall back and down when you're pushing up with your breastbone. And my experience is that that's really, really key when I'm sitting in a chair. And sometimes my back starts hurting,

[08:37]

And I realize I'm not slumping, slumping, but not really pushing up. And I do, and I hold it, and it feels artificial for the first few minutes. It feels like I'm not relaxed, I'm trying too hard or something. But if I just maintain that for a little while, my body settles into it, and my back stops hurting, or hurts less at any rate. This is Sushin evening kind of hurting. The hand position is the same, of course, but when you're sitting cross-legged, often your hands don't touch your thighs. When you're sitting in a chair, They often do. Your wrists tend to rest on your thighs.

[09:40]

And another thing to really pay attention to, and this also applies sometimes to SESA, I don't know, but at any rate, whenever, if your wrists, your hands are touching your thighs, to pay attention to not leaning on them, to not putting weight on them. Because, again, that hurts your back. It just changes the relationship, and it pulls your back out. And so that's another thing, you know, when you sit sasa and you scan your body every so often and check if your head falls forward or did your mudra collapse, that kind of thing. But just include, am I leaning on my legs? Because it's hard not to, let me put it that way. So that's something that I try to really pay attention to. And, of course, And of course, where's my head? Is it balanced on my spine?

[10:44]

Is it leaning forward? I know I have a tendency to just not falling forward like you're going to sleep, but just forward a little bit. And after 40 minutes, that's hard on your back. So again, noticing, noticing. A yoga teacher once said, you know, at the base of your neck, there's a vertebrae, I guess, that kind of sticks out, almost like a button. He said, you know, think of push it in. And that's another thing that just lifts you and lowers your shoulders. I'm sure you heard Mel say many times. He said, you know, I should be able to come by and move your elbow when you're sitting zazen, and it should be just your arm moving. Because if your whole body moves, it means that you're rigid and really holding yourself too tight.

[11:47]

I think those are the things that I wanted to say. I'm sure that a lot of this has been said, and the whole discussion online was interesting with people. I like to think of it as we have this ball, and they're not two sides. They're facets. And we turned those facets. Well, look at this piece. Now look at this piece. And I just decided that this, what I'm telling you, is hard-earned. Hard-earned. And it is... It is not the same sitting in a chair. The most comfortable position, I think, is cross-legged. Probably full lotus, but... I mean, I never could sit full lotus. And I can't sit cross-legged now, and so on. And so, one must find a way to do zazen in a chair. And I told, does everybody know who Darlene Cohen was? Or is there anybody who does not know who Darlene Cohen was.

[13:00]

She was a wonderful Zen teacher who had severe rheumatoid arthritis. And she practiced with it. She was also a body worker. And she practiced at City Center, and I knew her. And she sat in a chair, and one time I said to her something. I said something very similar. This is my radical politics coming up. I said to her something kind of liberal, you know, like, oh, well, it's all Zaza and it's the same. And she looked at me and she said, it's not the same. And it isn't. It's harder. And it's not impossible at all. It's entirely possible to settle and to experience that samadhi of sushim, that kind of thing. It's entirely possible. And it's hard, so pat yourself on the back if you're sitting in a chair.

[14:05]

And for those of you who would look at the folks in chairs sometimes think, wow, that must be so nice. No. Anyway, so do people have any questions or comments about that, any of what I've just said? And if you're online, if you want to ask a question or say something, wave sort of, do a big wave, because you're very small pictures. And I also can't see, yeah, give me a little closer. But there's also some other people that aren't on the screen. So, do people know how to raise their hands? Do you do that? Do you? Yeah. Mary, also, if there are questions in here, you can repeat them for the people on the screen. Okay. Hmm. okay i don't see i don't see anybody on my first oh rodney that's great the yellow hand is very helpful it's charlie hi charlie oh good morning mary uh 35 years ago we used to sit together in the back of the zendo but

[15:27]

I'm glad you mentioned Darlene Cohen. I have an echo here. Can you hear me? Yes. Can you guys hear me? We can hear you. In the matter of bodily pain, Darlene suggested you find a place on your body that doesn't hurt, like your earlobe or your chin, or someplace where you don't feel pain, you just put your attention there. Yeah. She did. I put my attention there and I send it blood. I had this fantasy of all these little white blood cells going along and going into my back and doing their job cleaning things up. It's encouraging. Charlie, you gave me a pin many, many, many, many years ago, and I did a workshop with some lawyers recently, and it seemed appropriate, so I put it on, and it says, stop thinking and let things happen.

[16:48]

I asked Mel at the time if it was all right if I wore it, Tassajara, if I wore it like on the inside of my robe. And he said, yeah, please. Well, I'm glad you like it. It reminds me of the bumper sticker saying, it's not what you think. Yes. Yes, Ross? Thank you, Mary, for letting you out. A pretty detailed instruction for sitting in a chair and also dispelling the illusion that it's easy. It's easy and plainly, but it's hard as another way. Do you think about sitting in a chair during not Zazen time, but just at work or casually, and when it's appropriate, maybe just to kind of sit upright versus slouching, waiting for a BART train or an office and all that? Do you talk to your students or your lawyers about Zazen? Is it kind of somewhat understated?

[17:49]

No, but I will. I will. I think that's good. I do talk to people about just daily sitting in a chair at work or eating or something when you have sciatica, which is that you take a, this is something I learned from Darlene. Is there one back here? Please, you don't have to get. Oh, that's a better one, yeah. But this is too big and too thick. But like to take a hand towel, this size kind of thing, and roll it up. This is not going to work. I can't do this. It's too hard, thank you. Roll it up and then sit on it lengthwise so that it's this way on the chair. And again, it takes the pressure off your sciatic notch. That's my only... But it's a good idea just to... It's all Sazen. Yes. Yes, I'm a visitor, and I was wondering, how about standing?

[18:52]

Because now in offices they are providing standing rather than sitting. People who work long hours or... Right. Well, I think it's probably good to alternate or to move any way you can. I can't, my knees, they don't do standing for long periods of time. They don't like going downhill either. Uphill's fine. But again, anytime we do anything, it's useful to pay attention to our posture. Or when you're doing kinyin, when you're doing walking meditation, you don't have to be looking down right in front of you. You can be standing up straight, and whether you're looking your gaze down a little bit, you can look ten feet in front of yourself, and you'll notice if there's a big rock there, or the pavement's all cracked or something. It's just useful to keep your back engaged, no matter what you're doing.

[19:55]

Yes. I don't see any hands. I know, there are two people over here. I'm just wanting to sort of alternate, and the trouble is there's another screen, so I can't see those people, and I was looking to see. I don't think that the little... Mary? Yes? Or if someone raised their hand, they'll move to the front of the line. Oh, good. OK. So does everybody know how to raise their hand through the yellow glove thing? OK. Thank you, Ron. Yes. So apropos what you were just saying in the question about standing, an instruction I find myself giving people frequently is also something that Sojin Sojin Roshi often said to me and to us, which is, you should always know where your feet are. And so I, when I'm sitting in a chair, along with my back and the alignment, I also pay attention to the contact that my feet have with the ground.

[21:05]

And when I'm standing or walking, looking at the way my weight is balanced, and just, you know, it's, It's literal, and it's also metaphoric, because you should know where you're standing. Right. Well, and you should be grounded. Right, be grounded, right. Yeah. So, let's see. I'm sorry, I don't know your name. You have a green shirt on, and the names don't show up unless they're blanked out, so... Yeah, the name's Bob. Can you hear me? Yeah. Yeah. I injured my back about 12 years ago, and I used to sit at the Berkman Zen Center, but I do a lot of rotating between sitting on a chair, and then when it gets too much, I lay down.

[22:10]

Uh-huh. I find sometimes when I lay down, it has a different quality to it. And sometimes I get sleepy. But it's the best I can do. Well, that's the posture then. That's Sazen. You know who Judy Smith is? She's a quadriplegic. She's in a mechanized wheelchair. I think she comes sometimes. Anyway. Judy, Mel was lecturing about posture and about assuming the posture. And Judy raised her hand and said, well, what about me? Because she was, you know, she sort of tied into the wheelchair and there was a certain amount of kind of slumping and so on. And Mel looked her right in the eye and he said, I see you in the posture. And I hope that you feel that you can lie down here if you need to.

[23:16]

There are ways that are... Vicki Austin developed with somebody else, and I can't remember who the other person was, but about when you lie down on your back, that you have some intentionality to it. In other words, for example, that you keep your feet flat and your knees up if you can. and that you hold a zaafu on your belly, just to have some intentionality and it helps with staying awake. Because it is, it's hard to sit, to lie down and actually do zazen and not just nod off. So, it's great that you do it. That's great. This right here, I have suggestions that I'm going to try. They, at one time, I thought they had a where they worked with all of them who had physical problems and issues.

[24:30]

Do you know what it is? Is there still a group? I'm sorry, what? He's saying that he heard about a group of people that worked with folks with limitations. Isn't there one here? There was. There's a new one, but I don't know if it's exactly open. I think you'd have to request. Who would one ask? There's more chronic health issues than physical, postural, and Zoom. You know what you might do is, Alan, a lot of people here can put you in touch with Vicki Austin. Sure. Right. So she could help you with postures. Right. Okay. I can't resist telling you an anecdote that a woman, a teacher named Yvonne Rand told. She had hurt her back and she was having to lie down in the Zendo.

[25:34]

And she was in her usual lying down posture, and she heard Dick Baker suddenly raise his voice and say, please stop snoring. And she thought, you tell him, Dick. And it turned out she realized she was snoring. There was somebody else over here that I thought had their hand up. Before Alan, or about the same time as Alan, no? I caught it out of the corner of my eye. Thank you. Okay. Uh-huh. Okay. So, I've got about 10 minutes, I think. Is that what you think? We're going until 11.15, so... Oh, okay. ...maybe stopping. Okay, well I have five of eleven on my watch.

[26:43]

I always say I'm gonna get by you guys a a second clock that you could put right there facing the speaker. Yeah, it's a great idea. Well, I mean the thing is that it's nice when you're talking to be able to kind of gauge where you are, but without being obvious about it. So if there's a clock that I could glance at without your realizing that I'm glancing at it, because that can be distracting. Anyway, so that's enough of that, I think. But I think I'll just stay here, because I'm comfortable. And I really am, and I'm not leaning against the back of the chair. I do have two technical questions. First of all, where do you get the wedge? This one I got online. You can get them at medical supply places.

[27:46]

I don't know if that one up on Shattuck is still there. And you can get them at foam shops, because a lot of people This lives in my car, and I have a different one in the Zendo. Anyway, those are the places that I know of. The other question I had is, how tall is your bench? It's about sitting height. You don't know what it is? No, but I have the plans that I got great vows in there somewhere. The guy that made it, it was a gift. He's a great, great, really great woodworker. There are no nails in it or anything, but he said he can't keep making them. Is he the guy that made our stand? No, he made our stand. I don't think so. I think so. Did he?

[28:46]

Somebody in your sangha. Oh, well then it would be. And look it. Anyway, he's not going to keep doing it. Because he said he'd have to charge like $500 or something, which is just, so yes. Mary, could you say a little bit about your work with the attorneys? Oh. About adversarial relationships between the different prosecutors, the defense lawyers, who are not attorneys. find ourselves in relationships that sometimes can arise into maybe adversarial or contentious. So how do you work with your students as well as your attorneys in these workshops to kind of express their point of view and also how to merge and blend and just kind of keep it grounded? Did you guys online hear that question? If you need me to repeat it, do the other.

[29:48]

I think our general practice is to have the questions repeated regardless. Okay. Ross asked about my work with lawyers and working with, I don't know, I'll say remaining grounded in an adversarial situation and then, of course, that can apply to all of us in our daily lives. So there's One of the lawyers is online here. Correct me, Jeff, or you can add. That's a lot of what we work with. And one of the lawyers group is really about, I don't know, eight people, something like that, maybe a couple more. And I have a distribution list of about 50, and every single one asked. to be on it, you know, after a workshop at Tassajar or whatever. But I guess they wake up on Sunday morning and think, oh, it's so beautiful out.

[30:53]

Or it's so rainy, I'm going back to sleep. I don't know. But it's very, well, I have to say, it's intimate and people have been coming for quite a while and varying amounts of practice. Some, I think, sit with that group once a week and that may be it and most of them sit every day and some of them are more actively involved with Zen. And it is an occupational hazard to get tangled up and attached to a view and or your client and or disliking opposing counsel. Sometimes for good reason. I mean, the hardest thing that we talk about sometimes, the hardest thing is when the opposing counsel or your co-counsel is incompetent. And then it's very, very difficult.

[31:57]

It's easier with somebody who's just saying, look, what do you got? And you can work out something collaboratively. And when I talk to the bar about it, I call it anger management. But one of the things that I had to come to understand is that for some people, their response to that kind of a challenge is to withdraw. And that's true for lawyers, too. We don't think about it. We think more about ones that tend to respond to aggression with aggression. tempting, it's very easy. And it's something I know extremely well. So I had to learn that there are, because we think of lawyers as more aggressive, but not necessarily, not everybody is a trial lawyer. And some people abdicate.

[32:58]

And we're all of us, you know, and we all probably, sometimes we abdicate and sometimes we do, sometimes we respond with aggression when we feel thwarted or threatened. And it's, pay attention to your body. I think that's what I teach more than anything. Pay attention to your body. So, Mel once told me years ago, he said, a good Zen student always knows where her breath is. And I thought, oh my God. And it has been my practice ever since, and I don't always know, but I have much more of an awareness than I used to. And if any moment, I mean, now I'm talking about it, so I'm aware of it, but at any time you could ask me, where's your breath? And it wouldn't take me, I wouldn't have to really stop and think about it.

[34:01]

I would know pretty quickly. And so that's one of the things we work with, checking in with your body and knowing your signals. You know, when I am angry, I get tight, like right in my gut. And I also, I talk faster. I talk louder. I start swearing. And I know when I kind of, you know, these little red flags go up, then I try to stop and give it some breath. And you can... You can do that. You can take a breath and exhale completely in the middle of a conversation without it looking obvious. Maybe practice a little bit so you're not going . Though that feels pretty good. But you don't have to do that. You can just take a breath and just kind of let it out.

[35:06]

Gather in and let it out. settle down a little bit and remember what kind of person you want to be. Just remember what kind of person you want to be and you don't want to be, presumably, you don't want to be hateful. You don't want to be hurtful. If you're being hurt, part of us wants to hurt back, but that's not really who you are. That's not how we really want to be. But paying attention to the body and knowing where you carry your tension and emphasizing listening, deeply listening. Because when people are being aggressive and hurtful, they're probably hurting also. And I'm reminded of when

[36:07]

I used to go out to the women's prison in Dublin with Alan, following after May Lee. Anyway, we used to go out and lead a meditation group, and what we would often do, we'd sit and then we'd check in, and this one woman said, you know, I find this practice has really helped me. I was in the chow line today, this morning, and a woman came up to me and started screaming and yelling at me and swearing at me in the line and before I would have yelled back at her. But I didn't. I stopped and I really looked at her and I looked in her eyes and I saw how much pain there was in her eyes. So I said I responded to that instead of the words that were coming at me and it completely changed. Now, she is a great teacher, that prisoner. But she noticed, yeah.

[37:09]

I often find myself feeling disapproval or disappointment, confusion, occasionally compassion for people who are criminal prosecutors. who I see as kind of more directly participating in a system that's sending humans into an extremely inhumane situation. And so I'm curious if you have any thoughts about that or conversations you've had with... I do, I do. I mean, it's ironic these days to find myself cheering on the FBI. and the Department of Justice and the prosecutors in New York, Manhattan. But yes, I have similar feelings. I think the biggest wake-up call for me, this was a long time ago, I was involved.

[38:18]

I used to practice. I had a firm in Oakland. We represented unions. And I was involved with Oakland politics. And I knew, oh, Lord. Who was it? John George. He was a supervisor. Is that right? I don't think he was on the city council. Okay. And he was a liberal, progressive black politician. And I was helping a friend of mine, a woman named Jenny Ryan, who was, she was a judge here for many years, actually. But this was her first campaign. She was running to be I guess a superior court judge. And she was a very progressive lawyer, and I knew her for a long time. And I knew John from political stuff, and I knew his good friend. I helped with his failed, Wilson Riles Jr., with his failed election for mayor of Oakland.

[39:23]

Anyway, so I arranged a lunch with Jenny and Wilson and John. and me, for Jenny to seek his endorsement. And Jenny was running against an Asian man who was a district attorney. And she was talking. Jenny Rine is a white woman, cisgender white woman. And I don't remember what she said, but she said something about her opponent. And she was sneering at him. for being a district attorney. Sort of the assumption that the person couldn't possibly be a fair-minded judge or whatever. I don't remember what she said. This was 35 years ago, something like that. And John just lit into her. He really lit into her.

[40:24]

And he said, look, you don't know this man. And for all you know, he is the first person in his family to go to law school, maybe even the first one to go to college. And he has debts and he probably has to help with some of his family members. And this is a job he could get that paid decently and had benefits and so on, because it would have been hard for him to get a job in a big firm because of racism. I don't know if he said that, but it was clear that's what he meant. He said, So you don't know him and don't disparage him. He doesn't have your privileges. He may very well not have had. I mean, I don't know if he knew the guy, but it's very possible he didn't have your privileges. And that just knocked me back. I had not thought of it that way. They're prosecutors. They put people in jail. And not that there are probably people that should be in jail or should be.

[41:27]

you know, I don't know, we should be protected from sociopaths, like in New York. But you don't know. You don't know. So that's helpful to me, to remember that I don't know all of them, and there are district attorneys that are fair-minded, and it's not they, it's the system that we have set up. implicit bias. It's our inherent bias. It's, what is it? Oh, yeah. Well, it's a systemic racism. I was trying to see if I could work in critical race theory. But at any rate, it is that, what that's pointing at. It is not critical race theory. It's implicit bias and systemic bias. So that helps me to think I don't know that person, and so I want to try to kind of give them a chance.

[42:35]

And from my position, you know, I grew up in a... My dad taught community college, so we were like middle class, I guess. Towards the end of the summer, when he was off for the summer, the last couple of months before his next paycheck, I guess the paycheck would come maybe in October, we were eating beans a lot. But that was not suffering, not like a lot of people suffer. So I come from, I think, a relatively privileged background. Anyway, that's what comes to me. And there was something I wanted to say. Was there somebody? Oh, I see. Your hand is perfectly behind this post. Yes?

[43:36]

This is kind of going in another direction, but I think both with what goes on to that about knowing where your feet are. Implicit in Ross's question was like, how do people stay grounded amidst conflict? And then you just kind of brought up this idea of not knowing. And so my question is, like, what does it mean to be grounded? I think in practice, I often find groundlessness, or that I'm actually not standing on stable ground. And so, yeah, I'm just curious, what does it mean to be grounded? Well, I think it means to find your stability on no stability. At Vallejo, we've been talking about precepts and about taking refuge. You think of refuge as a safe sanctuary with walls around you to protect you and so on.

[44:38]

But for us, what is our refuge? Our refuge is in accepting that things change, accepting that things are not solid, accepting that we grasp after solidity and safety and make things worse for ourselves. The safety is in groundlessness, ultimately, yes. And we need to be grounded in it. I once said to somebody, and I was congratulating a chuseau, and this just came out, and I thought, well, that's a weird thing to say. What I said was, you're rooted in emptiness. Well, that's like a contradiction in terms. But it was close enough to what I meant. And so that's what I say to you, that you're rooted in emptiness. And it's finding your home in nothing but change and nothing but connection. It's the accepting of it, of your true self.

[45:43]

And it comes and goes, comes and goes. So welcome to the club. We have a couple more minutes. Are there any other? I don't see any more online. Yes, Mary. The other Mary. Yeah. I mainly wanted to say thank you for the spectrum that you've offered us this month, all the way from the So, I forgot to repeat the question before and then I'll repeat what Mary said. What is your name? Margo. Margo asked about, you know, that we were talking about being grounded and that sometimes she

[46:48]

she sits in and she feels that there's no ground, there's groundlessness. We say there's not even an inch of grass on the ground, something like that. And I responded that you need to be grounded in that and find your true home in emptiness and that we fail. And I said, welcome to the club. You heard what I said, anyway. And then Mary said, thank you. It's embarrassing. Thank you. You started out with this really nitty gritty stuff and then we got all the way into emptiness. And she appreciated it. Is that good enough? Are you pointing at him because he's got the... I don't know if he has his knee up or the striker up. I didn't think he had the striker. Now he has the striker up.

[47:48]

Okay, I think we're done, folks. These are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. possible. Zen Center.

[51:22]

Welcome to everyone online and a special welcome to anyone visiting for the first time. My name is Joe. Here's some announcements. This coming Monday morning, we'll have an open discussion at 8 a.m. on Zoom. BZC is offering a free seminar on wills and trusts this Thursday, April 6th from 7 p.m. to 8.30 p.m. in the online Zendo. Email Hannah Mira with questions or to let us know you're coming, but reservations are not needed. And Hannah's here today, but her email is hmira at gmail.com. This Friday at 5.45, Dan Hardin will deliver Away Seeking Mind Talk, again online on Zoom only. Our annual Buddha's Birthday celebration will be this coming Saturday. All are welcome, including children and parents. It begins at 10.15 in the Zendo with a short talk by Abbot Hozon and continues with each person taking a turn bathing the baby Buddha.

[52:29]

Afterwards, all can enjoy birthday cake. BCC students and members are strongly encouraged to meet and develop a relationship with a teacher or practice leader. Abbot Hozon, other teachers and senior students are available for formal dokusan or practice discussion. please visit the website's Teachers tab for contacts and for information about practice interviews. For more information about our programs or membership, please check the bulletin board outside in the courtyard or see the Zoom chat or visit our website. To make a donation to support BZC, please use the Donations box in the courtyard or visit our website and go to the Generosity tab. Those in the Zendo, please maintain silence until you're off the porch. Then feel free to socialize in the courtyard. If you picked up one of our folded chant cards from the alcove on the Zendo porch, please return it on your way out. And those online may now share, unmute and share greetings.

[53:35]

Oh, one second. We have another announcement. I have a request. Yeah. Related to birthday cake. If anyone has knows a source for edible flowers, I would very much appreciate it. Mary Durrier asked if anyone knows or has a source for edible flowers for the birthday cake next week, let her know. And one more person, Nancy. Yeah, I just want to invite everybody, if you'd like to participate in Buddha's Birthday, upcoming Buddha's Birthday, which, as you know, is next Saturday, and you'd like to donate flowers, we're going to have some buckets on the community room porch for you to donate flowers to help create the bower. And then on Friday, starting around 4 p.m., if you'd like to be a flower snipper, a very important position, you actually get to snip all the flowers, get them ready for the bower. And then finally, on Saturday morning, starting at 7.30 a.m. until about 9. We're looking for people to participate in actually decorating the bower with flowers, which is a wonderful activity.

[54:41]

So I invite you all to come. If you have more questions, you can contact myself or Sue Osher. Thank you. So Nancy was just relating if you'd like to participate with preparing the flowers and the bower for Buddha's birthday next week. Starting on Thursday, we'll have water buckets open if you want to bring by your own flowers from your garden. And then on Friday, starting at what time did you say? 4 o'clock. At 4 o'clock you can help come here and help snip the flowers. And then on Saturday at 7.35 a.m. we will start putting it all together. And you can contact Nancy or Susan Marvin if you'd like to help out. Sue Osha. Sue O. Sue O. All right. I think that takes care of it. Have a good day. And everyone online, feel free to unmute and greet each other.

[55:59]

Good to see you, Jake. Thank you. Enjoy the beautiful weekend. Same to you, Judy.

[56:09]

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