surpass penetrating and perfect dharma is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kaphas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept i vow to taste the truth of the satagata's words Good morning. I am so happy to introduce our speaker for today, Dana Takagi. Dana is a retired professor of sociology at UC Santa Cruz, where she taught for over 30 years. And one of her areas of focus was on cross-cultural studies and diversity, equity and inclusion, racial things over many years. She also worked for the National Institute of Health, doing studies in those areas also.

[01:10]

And we know, oh, she's Dharma transmitted by Eugene Bush at Santa Cruz, and her root teacher from whom she received priest ordination is Catherine Thanis, also at Santa Cruz. And we're so happy to have you here today, Dana. So welcome. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good morning. I tell you, you get old, you get the hearing aids, you got to put the mask on, the glasses on, and then the microphone. This could totally disassemble, so just bear with me. First, thank you to Greg Roshi and Linda Roshi for inviting me to be with all of you in this way. I think when Greg first asked me if I might be willing to come and give a talk at Berkeley Zen Center, I think he expected me to say no.

[02:15]

Because, you know, there's that very almost infamous exchange between Suzuki Roshi and my root teacher, Catherine Thanis, in which she says, you know, I have a yes and a no in me. What should I do? And in her case, it was about should I stay in Zen or should I become an artist? And Suzuki Roshi said, always follow the yes. And me being one of her students, I'm like, no, no, follow the no. Just say no. But it really is my pleasure. And of course, you know, I have to acknowledge Catherine as my root teacher. She passed away in 2012, but... She was very figurative for me. In Zen practice, I learned a tremendous amount from her. Of course, Jean, who was my co-work leader, but also was my teacher who gave me transmission.

[03:19]

And then there's so many other people kind of in the circle of San Francisco Zen Center who would not consider me their student. But I would consider them a teacher because I learned so much by sitting with them, watching them. And, you know, so much of Zen practice, in my view, is very nonverbal if you're paying attention, you know. And I learned a lot from other teachers, like Blanche, for example, but lots of others. I certainly would not be as well-dressed were it not from my other teachers and friends. So, homage to all of them. You know, one time, a very long time ago, I came and sat in this zendo. And I was really wanting to meet Mel. But of course, he was the avid and I was just a little person that walked in off the street.

[04:22]

But I think I sat over in that corner over there. And at that time, the zendo seemed so much bigger to me than it does now. So my plan for this morning is I'm going to talk a little bit about just the sacredness of ordinary life and the good, the bad, and the ugly of it. I'll speak until someone either gives me the sign or I am tired of myself. And then maybe if you're up for it, we can have some conversation. I've really been yearning to have different kinds of conversations about inequality, about inclusivity. And so some of what I'm going to talk about today will be that. But before I start, I really need to say I have a very long past in the East Bay. I grew up in Berkeley and Oakland. In fact, I went to elementary school on Russell and Ellsworth.

[05:28]

At that time, that school was called LeConte. I think maybe some of you know, I don't think it's called that anymore. It's named after a black writer, Sylvia Winter, maybe. Anyway, you know, LeConte was one of those robber barons during kind of the late 19th century. But that was my elementary school. And there were not very many Japanese Americans in Berkeley who lived... at that time, above Sacramento Street, in part because of restrictive covenants that were in force or in play in the East Bay. You know what those are, right? Those are agreements between realtors and sellers, sometimes bankers, to not sell, particularly to black people, but also to Japanese Americans. But there were a few of us that kind of slipped through the cracks, including my family. And so I grew up in Berkeley.

[06:31]

It's such a familiar place to me. I was remembering as I was driving in that when I was eight, John F. Kennedy came via motorcade down what was then Shattuck Avenue. And my parents were thrilled. And so they took me and my sister to go watch this 10-second drive by. I didn't see a thing because I was eight and short. And I just saw people's backs. But I was there. And I mean, those were such different times, right? My family moved to Oakland in part because of the restrictive covenants. They were not able to buy property kind of like above the campus. And so I grew up, went to junior high school and high school in Oakland. While I was in Berkeley at Le Conte, me and my Japanese-American friends, there were six of us in maybe two classes of 60 people.

[07:40]

So we were sort of the people who slipped through the cracks and lived above Sacramento. We were called all kinds of just terrible names, you know. People buzzed around us on December 7th. I'm laughing, but, you know, it wasn't funny, of course, at the time. You know, that was just my really simple, ordinary life as a kid here. I don't necessarily for myself call it trauma or anything like that. It was just part of my life in Berkeley. But what stands out for me mostly is that when I come into the East Bay, I feel like I'm home. So even though I've lived in Santa Cruz for almost 40 years, And Berkeley and Oakland have changed so radically in the last 35, 40 years. I still, you know, the East Bay to me is very much home. So thank you, Linda Roshi and Greg Roshi, for giving me the opportunity to come home.

[08:50]

Oh, I also wanted to say congratulations to Linda Roshi because I understand that you are the, will be the new abbot of Berkeley Zen Center. And to the rest of you, you are just so freakin' lucky. Happy for you too. You know, the last couple years I have not been very active in a temple life, but I have been doing this podcast with Reverend Lian Shutt called Opening Dharma Access. And I know Lian from practice down at Tassahara. That's back when we were both just barely lay ordained, I think. And one of the things that we've been doing this last couple years is paying attention to Asian American and Asian diasporic teachers and practitioners. And we've wanted to do that in particular because we believe that

[09:54]

there's not enough voice there. I mean, there's not really very many Asian-American teachers, period, in Soto Zen. And one of the things that has been influential for me about collaborating with Reverend Leanne is that, you know, she insists that the Dharma is perfect. It is already and always perfect as it is. So it's not like we study Dharma, and then we go do this inclusivity work. Her project in life is to really think about how, for example, the Four Noble Truths already encompass a kind of equality and anti-racist agenda. And I've been very much influenced by her, and so part of my talk this morning is based on the work that I've done with her. You know, I think what I want to talk about this morning, just briefly, actually, I really kind of feel like telling stories about Berkeley, but let me try to really be a Dharma teacher here.

[11:13]

I mean, as you know, what we're doing when we're sitting on the taan, doing meditation practice or oryoki. I understand you do oryoki every Saturday morning. I wish my schedule were more accommodating, that I could come do that, because that is one of the things that I first hated and then loved about Zen practice. And again, it's such a teacher, all of the moves, the nonverbal communication that takes place. You know, I was recently on a plane from New York to California, and the flight attendant was taking away this dish, and I didn't really eat what they put in front of me. He goes, are you finished with that? Do you want me to take that away? And I said, yes. And he goes, yes, you're finished, or yes, you want to eat some more? I go, I'm really sorry. Yes, I'm finished. So as you know, this body practice, this awareness, this consciousness that we cultivate in our meditation is really kind of our bread and butter activity.

[12:27]

And if you're lucky enough, and I don't myself think I'm lucky enough, but if you're lucky enough, then you develop and cultivate an awareness that allows you some equanimity and grace, uprightness, and ability to practice the precepts even under conditions not of our own making or choosing. And if you do formal study, you know there's a whole line in Mahayana Buddhism that really looks closely at levels of consciousness. It's not necessarily standard study, in this tradition, but I think many Soto Zen temples now pay attention to the teachings of the Yogacara philosophy and sutras. In fact, I was having a conversation with Reverend Leanne about this the other day, and I said, yeah, I don't know, level eight.

[13:33]

She goes, no, no, you don't have that right, so I'm not even going to try to be precise about it, so forgive me. But at least for the purposes of this morning, I just want to say we're aware that there are these different jhana states in meditation and that there is a certain kind of hierarchy to the awareness that we have. And one of the things that I've been thinking about lately is how to mend or meld these consciousness states with race consciousness. So I'm just going to say a little bit about that. I'll give a couple of examples. And then we can have cookies. You know, one of the things about when you study the Yogacara teachings is I interpret the teachings as mostly applying to my own individual state of consciousness.

[14:39]

And we foreground the individual experience in meditation and awareness of body and mind and the way the mind perceives objects and perceives emptiness and we kind of put in the background what we would call at least in academia kind of the collective conscious or the social context and I think these things are not so much at odds with one another and I've been on a very small and kind of episodic mission to talk about the ways in which the context that we live in really matters and I don't know saying that and kind of appreciating it in the heart and in the body I think are often two different things but nonetheless you know I wanted to tell you a little bit about my Berkeley experience because

[15:41]

my love for the East Bay and my comfort and feeling of home here is really a testament to that often, you know, we live and thrive and grow in conditions not of our own choosing. I mean, you know, of course, I don't like being called racist names as a kid, but that's not, that's just part of my experience and it's part of the context in which I grew up. but it's not something that I foreground at this point in my life. So the literature on race and politics and culture, in academia at least, tends to emphasize the context and kind of the larger, broader structures through which we are taught to think, to be aware of inequality, politics, constitutions, everything. I'm sure you're following the news these days, so, you know, there's a lot about kind of the structures of thought that we encounter, I think, every day.

[16:49]

So I just want to mention, first of all, the work of W.E.B. Du Bois. Does that mean anything to people? Yeah. W.E.B. Du Bois was a sociologist, black sociologist, who has written a number of books, but maybe one of the I mean, I don't know. One of the more famous ones is a collection of 14 essays called The Souls of Black Folk. And that book was published, I think, or that set of essays was published by The Atlantic in 1903. And in one of those essays, he talks about this thing called double consciousness. And when he says double consciousness, he's referring specifically to the condition of being black in the United States at the turn and start of the century. And what he says is that, you know, there is this awareness of self, of the individual self, and then there is this awareness of how you are seen by others.

[18:04]

And he says this is often a kind of source of conflict and crisis for individuals. And this is where, you know, kind of the individual, of course, is impacted by the broader social norms and ideas. And I mention that because I think... Let me just say one other thing about W.E.B. Du Bois. You know, you might know him for some of his books. But he also happens to be the first black person to get a PhD in the United States. He's a sociologist. He was completely ignored by the discipline of sociology until about 1980. And the reason he became, we, or my discipline, became more interested in him in the mid-1980s to the late 1980s had to do with kind of broader social concerns about race and inequality. So he's largely ignored, you know, but this guy just kept writing anyway.

[19:07]

Anyway. This Duboisian notion of double consciousness I think could in some ways be important for a kind of rendering or rethinking, not maybe, I don't want to say rethinking, a deeper, going deeper into kind of Yogacara states of consciousness. because we all come into the Zendo with different historical, contextual kinds of issues, politics in our lives. And I don't know exactly how to mend this. I mean, there's a lot of Roshi in here who would know this better than I. So really it's just a kind of suggestion and exploratory comment at this moment. You know, one of the things about Du Bois is because, you know, my discipline, sociology, and then the humanities as well, began to appreciate him in the 1980s, so a good solid 80 years after he's writing, there are now lots of books about double consciousness.

[20:20]

Lots of books. And some of them are good, and some of them aren't so great, but interestingly enough, there's people that are writing what in academia we would call an intellectual history. So it turns out that Du Bois formulated many of the essays that were published in the Atlantic while he was spending time in Germany. And this one writer suggests that his articulation of double consciousness is in part due to seeing the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany. And It's interesting, because you think, well, this is just about black people, right? And we could apply this to other groups. But he was as much influenced by thinking about Jewish identity as he was about thinking about black identity. And some of the more recent works, I mean, I don't know all of these works, but I know some of the writers, and I scanned some of the works.

[21:24]

There's a lot now about white double consciousness, which is a really interesting... kind of source of thinking or kind of project, which is to think about in this multicultural world, like since the 2000s, when there's a lot more awareness about inclusivity, diversity, about black politics, it puts progressive whites in an interesting kind of position vis-a-vis people of color movements, culture, history, and so on. So I'll just mention that. What do I want to say here? I want to say that sometimes concepts like double consciousness, which have taken really well over a hundred years to be studied,

[22:24]

to be better understood, to be applied to the current or contemporary politics. These things take a lot of time to germinate, and it's good for us, I think, well, I'll just say, I won't say for you, I'll just say for me, it's good as a Buddhist practitioner to take the time to slow down and to think about how this might work, or how it might be interesting for us as sanghas when we're interested in being more inclusive. So I'll just mention one other concept that I think is sort of cool. And I know you might not think this is cool, just humor me, okay? I got the Dharma seat today, just humor me. This other concept that I just want to mention, because I think it also kind of connects to states of consciousness in meditation has to do with this it's kind of like a dyad which is a psychoanalytic dyad called melancholy and mourning some of you maybe are therapists or Freudians or psychoanalysts maybe, okay, maybe not there's a lot of work about race

[23:48]

consciousness in academia that circulates around what happens inside the body and what is the interiority of being non-white. And one of the ones that I happen to think is really interesting is something that's called racial melancholy. And the term racial melancholy actually starts or it comes out of Sigmund Freud's original formulation. Yeah, I know, Sigmund Freud. Which comes out of this formulation, which is his distinction between melancholy on the one hand and mourning on the other. And what Freud says, and there's lots of psychoanalytic work that then follows that sort of de-Freuds this work. What Freud says is that when you lose someone, whether it be a partner, a pet, some other kind of loss.

[24:55]

It's natural for us to have this mourning period in which you have this conscious loss of the object and that it's a really important grieving period that eventually gets resolved. Maybe over time. Well, resolved is not quite right. Maybe you adjust to that grief and you reenter the world. And what Freud contrasts it with, or what the psychoanalyst contrasts it with, is something that they call melancholy, which is really, I mean, you know, I think in layperson's term, we would call it unresolved grief. And it's largely, in the psychoanalytic framework, it's considered to be an unconscious process. And so there's a lot of work about racial trauma and racial oppression as being this kind of melancholic kind of state that people, and we're not conscious of it, right?

[26:02]

And I would imagine that for, you know, like my parents were interned during the Second World War, I'm the generation following, but maybe there is this kind of unresolved melancholic state. Maybe for African-Americans or for other minority groups, there's a different kind of melancholic state that is unconscious and unresolved and kind of manifests in different ways. You know, I used to, as an academic, because most of us academics, are there any academics in here? I'm sorry. You know, we're incredibly self-centered about our ideas, and I just fly around the country and give talks, and, you know, I can remember this one talk I gave at Columbia, and then they take you to lunch.

[27:07]

It's like, I'm an introvert. This is like my least favorite thing to meet 12 people I've never met, and then, anyway. I would always get set up with deans and presidents, you know, they would be invited to the lunch. I can remember this one lunch, I think it was Columbia, I don't know, might have been Cornell. They all kind of blur together. And this dean said to me, you know, I was hoping, yeah, yeah, yeah, your book, I was hoping you could advise us about Asian American students. And I said, what about them? And he said, you know, we have really a depression and suicide issue here on campus. And it is true particularly at the more elite colleges, but not restricted to just the elite colleges. The rate of depression among young Asian Americans is shocking. And often there are suicides. And, you know, I think college administrators

[28:14]

they don't understand why this is happening. And, you know, I'm kind of like, this is not my area. I don't really know. And I don't mean to make light of it, but I'm just, I mean, relaying this kind of lunch conversation to you, you can see that they expected me to know about this aspect of Asian American depression that I'm aware of, but I'm not, you know, a clinician. I see it. I've seen it in my students. I've seen it in my friends and their kids. But this is something that's very specific. It's not restricted to, but it's very specific to particularly young Asian Americans. And in the racial politics, in academia, we would call it a form of melancholia. We don't think it's just genetic thing that, you know, Chinese-Americans are depressed and so on.

[29:18]

But it's an interesting kind of thing to think about. Like in the states of awareness and consciousness that we have in meditation, how do we think about these particular issues that are sort of group-specific in a way? But that's who we're sitting next to, you know? Not always, but That's something to take note of, you know? Let's see if I have anything else to say. You know, I feel, of course, I want to apologize for issuing suggestions and bringing some big, heavy topics in. But I also think that to the extent that we are able to think about who walks in the door and sits next to us, the better we are able to make the Dharma or to see the perfection of Dharma.

[30:28]

I, like Leanne, I'm all in on the Dharma is perfect already. And not that it needs to be changed, but that maybe we need to be conscious about the context in which we practice, because that affects who comes and sits next to us. You know, I think what I want to do is move toward a close, and we can have some conversation. But first I wanted to say that, yeah, I want to say I miss Mel. I have this whole thing about Middle East politics. I'm not going to do that. We're on a one-off, you know? I'm not here to do a series. I'm just here to kind of talk and think about these things out loud with you.

[31:33]

You know, my root teacher, Katherine Thanis, was extremely important to me. He's a very imperfect person, as we all are. But it is through Catherine that I met Mel. And I think maybe Mel came to Santa Cruz because his son was thinking about going to Santa Cruz. And then there are a couple of other interactions that I've had with Mel. mainly due to Lyndon Gray, Roshi, down at Tassahara. And, you know, Catherine was one of these teachers who really resisted the kind of high church aspect of Zen. And I remember one time we were sitting in Sashin up at Jikoji and she

[32:41]

Very rarely carried a kotsu, but she had the kotsu in her hand. Somebody said, you know, what is that? And she paused. I mean, she could have said something about the shape of the kotsu, or the history and use of the kotsu in Soto Zen, or why teachers carry it. And she said instead, I might hit you with it. You know, that's kind of rude. Sounds rude now, but that was her way of saying, let's not get too into the forms here. Let's not, you know, fetishize what priests carry. And, you know, I think Catherine and Mal, I was telling Greg and Linda Roshi this the other, last night, that I think they share in the lineage of teachers at San Francisco Zen, a certain kind of embrace of working with lay sanghas.

[33:46]

It is because of them that, you know, they were so devoted to us, those of us that are out in the world who go to work, raise kids, and so on. And one of my last conversations, well, I've had a couple conversations with Mel, I think Hannah knows this, but maybe other people don't. I was studying one-on-one with Catherine in 2012, and I went to her house, and she had died in the night, or she had had a stroke in the night. And that started kind of, you know, her week of hospice and passing away. And maybe about a month later, Mel calls me. I'm like, ooh, Mel Weitzman is on the phone. And it was interesting, he really just wanted to know kind of details about, like he wanted the blow-by-blow of how I found Catherine, what happened, and so on.

[34:49]

And he was very, he wasn't like, oh, tell me, it wasn't like a prurient kind of interest. He just wanted to know because I think this was his contemporary and this was his fellow teacher of a lay center, and it was a really sweet conversation, and he didn't say, like, oh, that's terrible, or oh, wow, what happened next? He just was kind of hum, and I trusted that he would not be talking about it. He just wanted to know in his heart and his body. So my last conversation with Mel was at Tassajara. for the Suzuki Roshi teachings. And I think I was just there for a couple days in the summer and I said, hey Mel, can I come watch you up at the shop? And he was making kotsus for the last two people to get transmission. And I just watched him work.

[35:54]

He was making manzanita kotsus at the time. And you know, he wasn't the kind of guy where you could say, how do you know that's done, or why are you doing that? I mean, that would be so annoying to him. So I just watched him work, and I could hear him say things like, well, I think that's about that right there. And I would just watch him. This is part of the kind of unintentionally teaching about form, about beauty, and working with wood. And he said to me, as we walked away from the shop, Well, first he made a joke. He said, you owe me a dime for me letting you watch me work. And I said, okay, I'll pay. And then he said to me, where is Catherine's kotsu? And I go, you know, she didn't really like to carry it. She threatened to hit people with it. And he said, I made that kotsu. So, and this is that kotsu.

[36:57]

I'm also imperfect, so... When I got back to Santa Cruz, I wrote Gene, who was doing kind of the executor business of Catherine, and I said, you know, if nobody else says so, I want that kotsu. So this is that kotsu homage to Mel Weitzman and to Alan. Thank you. Do you want to talk or do you want to just go to tea? And hello to people on Zoom. I usually go to about 11.15 with Q&A. Okay. Hi. Hi. Thank you for your talk. you said something about yoga chara and states of consciousness and people who we might be sitting next to who might be different from us from one in one way or another perhaps yeah and i thought you were going to say more about that i i didn't i i didn't understand exactly what you were saying about that could you just say could you unpack that a little bit more yes of course thank you for the question you know i think um

[38:23]

So I don't want to make too blanket a statement, but I do think that particularly for certain people that come and sit with us, whether they be Jewish or black or Asian or Latino, sometimes there is a history in their body that that they're working with as they're working through these states of consciousness. And we're not all the same on that. I mean, I think it's sort of tricky balance to pay attention to ethnicity and race or class, but I think it's important as we think about being kind of more broadly inclusive that, so for example, when a working class person comes in who's not familiar, with certain forms or, you know, kind of the bowing thing is ridiculous.

[39:27]

There's all this kind of consciousness that they're carrying that's somewhat different than many of us carry. And I don't want to say all Asian Americans, because that's not true. I don't want to say all black people, but I think our own homogeneousness means that maybe we're not quite as aware about what's going on with other people. Does that make sense? Yeah. But I mean, so it seems like there's a layering of what you might call intergenerational trauma or something like that, and individual. And so we're all, it seems like what I'm hearing you say is we're all dealing with some individual stuff that's coming up. But then some people are dealing with something that, some kind of commonality of trauma or of pain or of just being called names on the playground or something.

[40:37]

And then that's an additional layer that for those of us who maybe don't feel that, we want to be aware of and tuned into somehow. Well, you know, it's not our job to know all history at all time, and to be able to characterize another person's experience. One of the things Catherine has always said to us was, you can't really fully know another person's experience. But I do think that, I'll just give you a couple examples. I think after one of the synagogue attacks. I remember someone came into the Zendo. We were just having a small kind of group sit. And she said this thing that has always stuck with me over the years. She goes, you know, my grandma was in a concentration camp in Germany.

[41:39]

And, you know, she's got the ink marks for numbers on the inside of her arm. And what she said was, that means I was in a camp. So I feel this in a way, in part because of her familial home practices, because of her family. And so I think, I don't know, I mean that's about a kind of intergenerational carried traumatic experiences. I think I'm speaking more generally than that. As I say, you know, I mentioned this Asian-American depression thing because, I mean, I hope you don't, the next time you see an Asian-American person say, are you depressed? But to know that these things are carried by many particularly young Asian-American students, does it make a difference in how we teach?

[42:43]

Maybe not, right? Because the Dharma is perfect already, as it is. But does our awareness of that person and the diversity or kind of range of experiences, is that helpful? I don't know, in my heart somewhere I think that that is helpful. That is helpful. I know at my home, Zendo, Santa Cruz, they're having this discussion about forms. And, you know, it's sort of at this level of, do we have to bow? Like, I don't want to bow to anybody. And that's an interesting question because, you know, there's a lot of Japanese culture that is, when you bow, you're honoring the Buddha, yourself, the Sangha, the Dharma, and it's not about a kind of over-under kind of power position. But that's a cultural difference that is, you know, is useful to explain.

[43:49]

So I just think that, you know, the more broadly we read and understand these differences, the better we are to sit alongside someone in maybe kind of non-verbal, imperceptible ways. In the same way that when you sit oreoche, if that person is dumping the whole gamasio bowl in their oatmeal, and you're thinking, that's rude. But I'll take those last three grains. You know these are kind of like nonverbal cultural kinds of signs that we how we communicate I'm sorry. I'm not being very articulate about this, but I do understand the broader question Thank you for the question Good morning So I'm just going to ask this a little bit selfishly, just because this is the first time I'm hearing about it.

[44:55]

You talked about high rates of depression in Asian-American kids in elite colleges, or maybe not just elite colleges, but you said you're not a clinician. You're not an expert on it. But just curious, why is that? coming up, and is there some general trend to that? Yeah, just was interested in that. Are you asking, is there a general trend or contour to the Asian American? The reasoning behind? You know, I think some of the theories and kind of speculations that one would read in clinical papers has to do with Asian American families and how we express emotions. So there's that. Which is, we don't, you know, well, what do I want to say?

[45:57]

I didn't grow up saying I love you to my parents. I don't think I said I love you to my dad until my mom died, which was, she died at age 63. It just, it wasn't part of the family dinner table lexicon, bye, love you. No. It's more like, bye. What time are you going to pick me up? So there's that, which I think a lot of people feel that that is a racial stereotype that's not so accurate, particularly now, because I think, I know when I see my niece and nephew and their families, they're much more expressive. So there's that conjecture about it. The other conjecture goes to the kind of Asian tiger mom is pressuring the kid And certainly I saw plenty of that in my office at Santa Cruz where somebody comes in and says, you know, my parents want me to have a gainful occupations and they think sociology is a waste of time.

[47:00]

And honestly, toward the end of my career, because the political economy changed, I was thinking, yeah, it might be a waste of time. You know, you're not going to get a good job doing this. But there is that pressure around money and achievement and so on. So that's another conjecture. I don't know. Do you know of others? No, the second one I can definitely relate to. I was just thinking, like, is there, like, related to the second one, like, the higher pressure that they maybe take on for themselves to exceed expectations maybe from a familial construct. Maybe if that's adding to that, but thank you. Thank you for the question. My fellow academic.

[48:10]

Oh, God. Busted. I was wondering about your saying, with reference to Lianshut, but you also embraced it, that Dharma is perfect. Is Dharma a thing to which you could ascribe perfection, or what? That's a good question. You know, I understand Dharma to be, on the one hand, the body of teachings that have been handed down to us over centuries and centuries. And of course, they vary by translation. But I also understand Dharma to be the everyday lived experience of our lives. So, I think when Reverend Leanne says the Dharma is perfect as it is, she's talking specifically about the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path. And I, you know, my own experience is that

[49:14]

I mean, the teachings have been so figurative and really the central most important thing I've done as an adult. And they have worked with me. Have I sometimes been dissatisfied with what I'm seeing in the Zen world? Yes. But has the Dharma worked its way on me? Yes. Absolutely. I mean, I think with the right teacher and sustained practice, you know, it just gets in there. So you're going like this on the airplane. Did I answer your question? So there's something that doesn't change, something you feel is at the center? I do. Like there was an epigraph to a book that somebody wrote, quoting... blues singer or something, he said, God don't never change. Is it that kind of idea? I don't know about God myself.

[50:18]

No, no, no, don't get into God. But is there something that you feel like is present, unchanging, and that's what's perfect? I do. I do. Uh-oh, that brought up a lot of hands. I'm going to be selfish and ask a question real quick myself. You said at one point during your talk, we don't know who might be coming through the door or who might be sitting next to us. Yes. I think I know. Buddha, is that enough? Is that enough? Yeah. Yes. And? that Buddha may have walked this path or this path or this path through Oakland, through New Haven, Connecticut, through New York City.

[51:20]

Sometimes that brings kind of different qualities of preparedness and all of that. Yeah. Yeah, that's very good. And a very quick follow up. I remember Sojin Roshi talking about Mel Weitzman, Sojin Roshi, talking about how a teacher, or maybe even in the context of Dokusan formal practice discussion, that the teacher should have no idea about the student, just to be blank. So how do we, and maybe a Zen student should approach other Zen students that way in some similar fashion, how do we balance that no assumptions, blank slate, this person is arising just now, with no past and no future, the other side which you're talking about you know I am a general advocate that's a great question thank you I'm a general advocate that the more we know about the world we live in and how it came to be the better able we are to deeply listen to whoever comes into the Zendo I mean obviously you can't fix the person next to you unless you say can you just leave some gomasio in that ball please

[52:40]

You can't fix that person, but we can listen. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. Can we go to the online question, please? You'll work it out. Hello, can you hear me? Yes. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you for your talk. You started off talking about your memories of Berkeley. Oh, you can't hear. You'll translate this for me? Here, can you? Hang on just a sec. Go ahead. Is this better? That's better, thank you. Okay, great. You started off talking about your experience in Berkeley. And I wanted to give you a little update because my son went to Le Conte, which became Sylvia Mendez when he was in elementary.

[53:48]

And my husband was deeply involved in that renaming. Sylvia Mendez was an eight-year-old girl who was involved in the case to desegregate schools in California, which was the precursor to Brown versus the Board of Education. And to tie it in, the kids would every morning chant a Mayan greeting called Inlakesh, which has always felt very Buddhist to me. And it's very short. It goes, you are my other me. If I do harm to you, I do harm to myself. If I love and respect you, I love and respect myself. So that's what's happening in Berkeley these days. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. I had a question, which I typed up in the chat also.

[54:54]

My question is, you talked about inclusion in relation to the practice. How would you extend that to make someone who you didn't agree with, in my example, a white conservative Republican who voted for the current president, how would you make them feel welcome in the Zendo? Is it how would I or would I? No, how would you? How would I? I would treat them the same as anybody else. What does that mean? You know, I would show them the forms and show them how to sit and all of that. I mean, it would be as, you know... Yeah. Are you suggesting, like, I could kick them out or something? No, I wouldn't do that myself. No, I'm honestly asking how you would make someone who, like that, who walks into the Zendo and they're out of place there, how you would make them feel welcome.

[56:01]

I hope lots of people who are magas will walk into zendos, because I think just walking into a zendo, seeking meditation, means that you're working on something interior. And that could be, you know, loss, sickness, old age, a recent death. And on that, I feel like this is, you know, the equality of sameness and difference. These are the things that we share as human beings. And I would always want to emphasize that shared humanity. Now, you know, if they had to bring out the red hat and stuff, I would just say no hats in the Zendo. I don't know. Have I answered your question? Yes. Thank you. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Are we now? Okay. Thank you for your talk this morning.

[57:02]

My question, short first and second question. I consider myself someone who escaped and survived academia, but not unscathed. Listening to your description of melancholia and mourning, I thought of the story of the woman whose child died and she can't let go of the dead baby until she sees Buddha and he gives her the quest to find the mustard seed. She realizes mourning, you know, death is that story. And I thought, oh, okay, she is in melancholia and then was able to sort of move into mourning and then process the loss. I'm curious what you would, if that seems fair to say. And then my second question is, Do we get in trouble applying, academia is so concepts, ideas focused. I get stuck in my mind, I can't, I get cut off.

[58:02]

Do we get in trouble mixing those things with Dharma, with the teachings and the stories? Let me do the last part first. Absolutely, do we get in trouble? I mean, I say academia brought me to the cushion. It's such a self, for my experience, it was self-centered, talky kind of stuff. And I just, I was like, oh, you said that. You've been to a meeting where someone says, yeah, I agree with so-and-so. And then, you know, you do that 15 times, and then I'm like trying to run out of the room. So I do, but I also think that there's a lot in academia that understands the world in a way that is different. than the teachings of the Buddha. And I think they're helpful because, for example, just for me, I see myself in some of the concepts in academia. About the mourning and melancholia, I think a psychoanalyst, I don't know, I mean, this is conjecture, I'm not a clinician, but I think a psychoanalyst would say that woman was in mourning with the dead child.

[59:11]

And whether it's mustard seed or new baby or new love, That's what transforms the mourning. Melancholia is a much more difficult state. It's like being in the paper bag and you can't get out of it. What kind of academia did you escape from? UC Berkeley's rhetoric department. Oh yeah, I know that department. I'm sorry, we're out of time. Is this about the last time? That was the last question. Yeah, I'm sorry, we're out of time, but we'll have tea and cookies outside, and maybe you'll be available for more conversation. Absolutely. First, I want to say thank you very much. Thank you for giving me a chance to be with you.

[60:15]

And yeah, what a beautiful thing. Thank you.

[60:23]

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