Abbot Hosan's Rohatsu Sesshin topic was Dogen's Gyoji. Touched me deeply. Gyoji is translated as pure conduct or pure conduct and enactment of the Buddhist precepts. I think it's important to step back and say that Ehei Dogen, a Japanese teacher and writer, is the founder of our branch of Buddhism, Soto Zen Buddhism. He was born in the year 1200 in Kyoto and died in 1253 at Eheji, the Soto Zen monastery he founded in the mountains northeast of Kyoto. A painting of Dogen hangs in our zendo on the front wall. We study his writings, find them deep, complex, Difficult, beautiful. Some of his poetic words reside in our hearts.

[01:07]

In Sashin, Hozan asked us, what are stories that manifest pure conduct? I understood him to say that manifest pure contact. He said, this word works too. Pure conduct is just this, just now, completely present in our focus. seeing and behaving with understanding and respect for the interdependent web of all existence. Gyoji is also translated as continuous practice, living with an awareness of total interconnection with all being in all time. Our practice is, to quote Dogen, neither one's own effort nor someone else's effort. It is pure continuous practice. which transcends the opposition of self and others. For Dogen, because of this continuous practice, and I'm quoting him again, there are sun, moon and stars. Because of this continuous practice, there are earth, sky and heart within and body without.

[02:16]

Seeing the incense smoke at his mother's funeral, Leaving that unique moment and place and merging with all everywhere, Dogen aspired to become a Buddhist monk. At the age of seven, he lost his mother. At the age of seven, he deeply saw incense smoke rising and without separation from all. As a young man, much later, moored on a ship on the coast of China, he met a Tenzo. a head cook in a monastery who had walked the better part of a day to purchase from the ship mushrooms to make soup for his monastery. Years later, Dogen wrote the story of this Tenzo's dedication to his practice of providing meals. The Tenzo's practice of focusing his mind and body on all the parts of his position was connected with his responsibility.

[03:20]

Nothing too small or unimportant. No one but he should walk to buy the mushrooms, which turns my mind to those fortunate moments in my practice that brought me to Buddhist practice. In a way, this is a way seeking mind talk, but one that rather than lightly touching on the turning moments of my life that led to Buddhist practice, this talk sees them as examples of Gyoji. It was Gyoji that brought me to practice. My experience of Gyoji was an experience of, oh, this, this is true. This is deep into the life or living that is. I have said in Wayseeking Mind Talks that the annual Buddhist sermon of one of our Chicago Unitarian ministers helped me understand that at heart I yearned to practice Buddhism. What in that sermon drew me to practice? Duke Gray's Buddhist sermon was the same each year.

[04:21]

He told the story of Thich Nhat Hanh and cleaning up after tea. So we can say, actually, it was Thich Nhat Hanh who brought me to practice. In short, Thich Nhat Hanh refused his tea guests offer to wash up after tea because he was devoted to the practice of pure conduct, which included washing up after tea. Thich Nhat Hanh wanted to live his life as he lived it, with complete presence, with Gyoji, rather than to witness his guest washing up in order to finish the washing up. Here is what he was up to. And this is how Sister True Dedication, a teacher at Plum Village, described it. Thich Nhat Hanh said, there's only one way to wash the dishes, to enjoy washing dishes, release the tension, Holding your breath, tension in the jaw, shoulders uptight, hands squeezing the sponge like your life depends on it.

[05:24]

Which muscles would need to reconfigure to allow you to smile? Connect your mind to the present moment and the feel of water on your skin. Dish in your hands. Release any resentment. Smile to any lingering regrets or anxiety. It's a lesson for me right now. And gently bring the mind 100% to what's going on right now. Check in with your body. Can you feel the soles of your feet on the floor? How's your back? Allow 100% of your body to participate in the act of dishwashing or giving a talk. Connect with your ancestors. Are these your father's hands you're scrubbing with? Or your grandmothers? Who taught you to do the dishes? Did your great-great-grandmothers have the joy of warm water, sponges, and soap? See the galaxy in your spoon. Where has this metal come from?

[06:27]

Or the glass? Or the clay in the plate? What were its previous lifetimes? Where will it be in 10,000 years? No mud, no lotus, as you scrape out the grimy leftovers. or throw away the peelings in the compost. Visualize the flowers they may nourish next year. Nourish compassion. Be gentle with yourself and the dishes. Transform it into an act of love freely given. Touch gratitude for having food to eat, soap to wash, and loved ones still alive to make dishes dirty. Forget all these points so you can scrub in peace and freedom. This, this is the practice that once I heard it, I longed for. Dogen would remind us that all this is true, regardless of whether we are thinking of it. Part of our practice is to see life as it really is.

[07:27]

Hiking in Marin with new friends from a Sierra Club trip, we happened to go down the road to Green Gulch. Beautiful, of course, and very quiet. The young man in the office was quiet, accepting of the inquiries that came to him, simple in his answers. The tone, the sense of safety in the place, arose in me the wish to be there. The ground, the trees, the sound of the ocean, the stillness, hints of awareness of Gyoji. Green Gulch. Fortune would have it that a very close friend had a lifelong friend who was a devout Buddhist practitioner, Charles Carpenter. Charles, interested in learning about Buddhism, had spent a year in Japan as an Antioch student. By fortune, the family he was staying with took him to visit the temple of Soen Nakagawa, an esteemed Zen teacher who spoke English. Charles became Soen Roshi's student and was later part of the Sangha that developed Daivosatsu in New York.

[08:37]

Unable to accept the sexually exploitative behavior of the American leader of that practice organization, Charles left, returned to his family's farm in the rural Midwest, and began methodically, carefully, slowly, rock by rock, to build a temple and for income to make beeswax candles. My friend was close to Charles Carpenter as he came into Chicago when cold winter overtook his home, worked for her husband, and stayed in their home. Because I was interested in learning about Buddhism, she brought him to my apartment for Thanksgiving dinner. Charles arrived, a humble monk, carrying a bowl of his offering for dinner. He was unlike anyone I'd ever met, no reaching out with words or actions. all quiet blending and accepting. What was I to do with such a person? Invite him in and notice that he accepted everything, including the meat-based dish my housemates had prepared, accepting all the words exchanged at a table full of talkers.

[09:47]

It felt like all good came from Charles. I wanted to be Charles. In my mind's eye, I still see Charles sitting at our table, feeling how, in his presence, my jibber-jabber stopped. He was completely present and accepting. This was Gyoji. I wanted to be Charles, to live Gyoji, remembering, of course, that Gyoji is always how life is. Charles, in my view, lived in awareness of and acknowledgement of that. My job and home were in Chicago and I searched for Buddhist practice there. Ed Brown came to lead a session and we continued afterwards to have practice discussion by phone. One day I was downtown when it was time to talk with Ed and so I found a pay phone in the quiet corner of the large rug department of Marshall Fields department store. That day Ed read me a poem and I'll read it to you.

[10:51]

Ed had heard that the poem was written by Dogen's teacher, Ru Jing, although we find no trace of its origin. The great road has no gate. It begins in your own mind. The sky does not follow a marked trail, yet it finds its way to your nostrils and becomes your breath. Sometimes we meet like tricksters. or bandits of Dharma. Ah, the great house tumbles down, the autumn wind swirls, astonished, maple leaves fly and scatter. Tears, of course, busy life stopped. That poem called me into a clear sense of how life is, Buddhist understanding of our life, our world. It was a blessing to be in a soft, quiet place, empty of others to absorb it.

[11:56]

Gyoji. Here, everywhere, when we're open and receptive as Buddha, as Thich Nhat Hanh, as Charles Carpenter, as people you hear are, it comes. One summer before I moved from Chicago to California, I came and stayed two weeks at Tassajara. I was briefly placed on cabin crew and to work with Sonia Garden Schwartz, now a priest at Green Gulch. Some of you know Sonia, I'm sure. Like Thich Nhat Hanh, Sonia showed me how to clean a room with the same presence, attention, devotion that I later learned to practice in the Zendo. Having me on her crew was not an incidental job-related matter of here we go. Let's get these rooms ready for the guests. She conveyed that we were going to engage in Buddhist practice and that she would show me. She was devoted to entering each room, to caring for each aspect of the cleaning, the arranging, the readying, over and over, room after room, with presence and care, moving as one would in a zendo, respecting, touching as one would a bell.

[13:17]

This was Sonia's practice of cabin crew. When I moved to Berkeley, I came to Berkeley Zen Center, for I had been told of a teacher here, Alan Sanaki, and what a special opportunity it was to have Dokusan with him. Dokusan is a special kind of personal discussion of Buddhist practice that we have the opportunity to have with a Zen teacher. It has its forms. The teacher is in place in his office or in the Dokusan hut. He is waiting. The student arrives and bows. The teacher returns the bows. There is silence. The student speaks first. The teacher responds. Before COVID, Dokusan was in Hozan's office in the attic of his home. I climbed the steep stairs anticipating that in the moment we would meet and talk. Likely out of consideration for the fact that I use a chair.

[14:20]

He was sitting in a chair across from the empty one where I would sit. He was still watching, waiting for me to arrive. We bowed together three times. This is how it is, time after time. On Zoom, two people face to face, beginning with bows. He is focused, ready to receive my inquiry. I speak. He receives my words, deeply listening. He speaks. This is not a regular conversation. I listen deeply. I am quiet. I respond. There is, for those moments, no other place but this. And this place reaches everywhere. Such moments even on Zoom, Gyoji. And in Dokusan, we are still enough to know this. More of Dogen's words. Because of this continuous practice, there are sun, moon, and stars.

[15:25]

Because of this continuous practice, there are earth, sky, and heart within, and body without. The four elements and the five skandhas. Continuous practice is not something ordinary people are fond of, but nevertheless, it is the true refuge for everyone. Because of this continuous practice of the Buddhas of past, present and future, the Buddhas of past, present and future are manifested. The merits of this continuous practice are sometimes not hidden. And so beings arouse the thought of enlightenment and begin to practice. Sometimes these merits of continuous practice are not evident. And so beings do not see and hear them and do not come to understand them. But you should understand that even though these merits are not revealed, they are not concealed. I found Francis Cook's commentary on Gyoji to be helpful.

[16:32]

He wrote, how ordinary, plain and simple Zen is. It is the life with one's feet on the ground of one's native home, toes buried in the fragment dirt. It is a life of appreciation for the wonderful taste of plain boiled rice and green tea. It is a life of constantly bowing to the Buddha whose face is seen shining from every entity, every event. Of course, this life is not enough for everyone. And so the world is a noisy arena of struggle and competition, envy, frustration, and insatiable desire for more and better. Plain rice and tea are not enough for us. Someplace else, in a future time, we expect to find thorough satisfaction in comfort, security, power, and pleasure.

[17:35]

Will we ever find it? Is it worth the price? Is there really anything better than plain rice and tea? And so I wonder, does this make sense to you? What is your experience of Gyoji? I'm looking forward to hearing. Gutsanga, please raise your hand, digital hand, and I'll call on you. Could we ask Hozan if he wants to say something first? Hozan, we invite you first to make a comment. Thank you. Thank you, Adam. Can't hear me? Your microphone's low, according to me.

[18:37]

Your microphone is barely audible. How about now? Perfect. Okay. So thank you very much. This Gyoji, this interesting conflation of pure conduct and continuous practice is a wonderful conundrum for us. we can think about them perhaps individually. So how do you see, I would ask you, how do you see continuous practice and pure conduct as being one? We're not always aware of the oneness. When we're aware, when we're really settled and aware with our feet on the ground and all that Thich Nhat Hanh describes.

[19:46]

And we're really aware of our, of the all, the unimaginable, but somehow sensed all interconnected everything, which is, of course, the benefit of sitting quietly, regularly, and of stopping to breathe and sense everything we can sense and stop and know. That's what I think. So one further question. What is pure conduct or what is conduct modified by the adjective pure? Well, the classical Dogen wrote was also about the Buddhist precepts. And we study them at Berkeley Zen Center and take them very seriously. When people sew a rakasu and go through a jukai ceremony, they commit themselves to a life with those precepts.

[20:59]

And I think we use them to guide us. And that's approaching pure. What do you think? I think that it's. Pure conduct is like. Automatic pilot. That it's we. Our conduct. may veer in one direction or the other. And if we use the pure as a guidepost or a mark, hopefully we average out to be coming down the middle, perhaps. Thank you. Good luck with our averages. I like that.

[22:02]

Before I call on... Hozan, do you have an additional statement or comment? Yes. Before I call on Heiko, I want to encourage people who haven't spoken in ever or in a while to step forward. Please be comfortable to do that. Heiko, please unmute yourself and ask a question. Thank you, Blake. Thank you, Hannah, for your presentation and for opening this question. My experience of Gyoji, there's some noise there. My experience of Gyoji is when, is a good example of that is when I'm in my garden, I'm watching the bees Can everyone hear me or is that noise? Yes, we can hear you. Okay. Watching the bees on the blackberries, and they're just near my face, and I'm just relaxed watching them, and I'm watching the bees kissing.

[23:12]

Who knew, right? They touch their little proboscis and continue their work. And when I was done with that experience, I recognized non-separation from the bees. non-separation from the blackberries, and that my conduct, which was very low action, was pure in the sense that what was present in the moment was bees, flowers, sunshine, air, water, and a bit of me and a bit of them watching me and the purity is in the absence of separation the purity in mike in this case was in the absence of definition and i was blessed by experiencing the bees kissing completely that was my quintessential experience of gog a lot a lot more examples but that's mine

[24:25]

Thank you. Thank you. Beautiful. Should I go? Yes, please. Bob Kaufman, if that was Bob. Hi. Yeah, I pop in here from time to time. I don't speak that much, but what what. What I've been thinking about as far as conduct goes, can you hear me? Yes. Yeah. And Thich Nhat Hanh, you know, what came to mind as you were speaking was, you know, I'm thinking about all the division in the country and around the world and his response to the Vietnam War. was to encourage our country to quit bombing Vietnam and to take no sides, to be neutral, not to take sides and create this peace movement, which reminds me of what

[25:50]

Somebody else said it would I would. Anyway, I would rather have a peace movement than a protest. But in that spirit of him just not taking sides. I mean, if we're to take on that, that energy. Is that part of what. Part of what goes on in Buddhist practice in the United States, do we try to not take a side and just create peace? Or do we take a side? And how do we practice that? If that is the case, how can we practice considering the division in the country now? How can we practice not taking a side and creating a peace movement in this environment that we're in?

[27:02]

How do we practice in this environment? Just a question that I asked myself, and I'm not sure what the answer is. Wonderful. Thank you, Hannah Mira. I muted you just because I think that everybody unmuted was creating the feedback loop, and that was indeed the case. Thank you. So you're muted currently, Hannah Mira? Thank you, Blake. Bob, your question is so important. I think we're going to all hold it and... think about it, it's not something I can easily answer. But how important if we can be connected with people who think differently from how we think, if we can be friends, be friendly anyway, let's be friendly, let's be kind.

[28:14]

It's a very hurtful thing how divided we are. Thank you so much for bringing it up. Thank you. Tenacity. Ten, I invite you to unmute yourself. Hi, Hannah. Thank you for your talk. It was a rich tapestry of quite a period of your life, which I thought was beautiful. I wanted to go back a little bit to the idea the phrase pure conduct and kind of say what some of my thoughts are and kind of, I don't know, just hear what that brings up for you or other folks. I've been thinking a lot about perfection during my meditations lately and like kind of just gestating on that. And I think that like pure and perfection in our texts are used similarly.

[29:17]

What I've come to understand them as is not necessarily no mistakes, but rather a feeling of wholeness. And so to me, pure conduct would inherently be a practice that must include mistakes and repentance in order to be whole. And I was just wondering if you feel like that's on the right track or if that's, I don't know, if that should be steered in a different direction. You know, when you were speaking, I was thinking of Thich Nhat Hanh's teaching. everything is included. And seeing everything in a kind way, including what's happening with your body at that moment.

[30:32]

I think you can be with all that is. And it's real, right? It's how we are. It's how life is. Thank you. Good to practice with you. I invite Luminous Heart to raise their hand. Unmute and speak. Thank you, dear Hannah. Good morning. So I'm very... Your talk and Thay's passing are very interpenetrated for me as I'm here this morning. When you speak of pure conduct and continuous practice, it brought up this memory of being in Plum Village with Thay. One summer, he was doing a teaching. There were about 400 students every day in the room, and he was being videoed and audio taped.

[31:42]

So he was this teeny little man who was wired up and down with microphones and so on. He had a very soft voice. But he also wanted to tape himself. He had a little self-tape recorder that he kept in his monk's jacket. And every once in a while during the talk, you would hear a click. because the tape had come to the end, and then there would be a stop, and then he would reach in his pocket, and then he would bring out the tape recorder, and he would look and be satisfied that it had come to the end. Then he would push the button and open and turn the tape over and close the door of the tape recorder, press the button, hear the whirring and see that it was going, be satisfied, and put it back in his pocket. And that took, I don't know how long, let's say, a minute.

[32:43]

And there were 400 people, mas o menos, in the room like this. Because it was like this teaching, an absolute teaching of pure conduct, and awareness and being in the present moment. And I don't know that he had any intentionality of that being a teaching. It surely was a teaching. It was, I can say, almost breathtaking, even as I think of it now. Just essential presence, pure presence. So that's what rose up when you asked about what's pure conduct for us, that's a moment that lives for me, especially now. Yeah. Thank you. Judy Fleischman, please unmute yourself and speak.

[33:47]

Thank you, Hannah. Can you hear me okay? Great. Okay. As I was listening to you, Hannah, I also was remembering Thay's teaching on Maitreya Buddha, which will be the Sangha, and how he talked about his continuation body as the Sangha body. So I was just with that as continuous practice. So as you reminded us also of pure conduct, I'm wondering how you see that as the Sangha, whether it's this Sangha or world is Sangha, climate change, you know, the great earth, in terms of what is the pure conduct and continuous practice of the whole

[34:58]

expressed in the individuality of the particular? What's our collective practice, collective pure conduct? You know, for right now, not a thousand years ago, but right now, what do you think is really important about that? You know, I treasure this Berkeley Zen Center Sangha. Treasure it. on Zoom and when we used to be in person and will be in person again. This is a very kind and sweet and accepting sangha in this practice together, I feel so much support in sitting zazen, in being quiet, in coming to understand the teachings.

[36:12]

In the every moment kindness that there is, you know, I looked at as many of you as I could easily see in these little rectangles in the screen. And I see you. I see you. And how good to see you and know you. And I know that people are doing beneficial work for the world and that people are studying and sharing what they understand. That this is a place A place, not just a physical place, but a community place where people support pure conduct. And Judy, that's a very difficult question.

[37:16]

And that's my best for the moment. Do you have anything to add? Because. I really. I'm very encouraged by, as I heard you, naming the transformative feeling of seeing and being seen and how we, that's a key practice here and I think what we bring out into the world. And I appreciate you highlighting that right now. Thank you. Sandeep, I invite you to unmute yourself. And as you guys go back and forth, could we continue to mute and unmute just to avoid any problems? Thank you so much. Hi, Hannah.

[38:19]

Can you hear me? I'm outside on my balcony. It's so beautiful out. Judy, your question stirred something that I feel like I only was able to kind of realize in relationship with Hannah. And it's basically for me embodying the peacemaker precepts in every moment after I check in with myself. And I kind of, my ask is for the sangha to do the same, to come from a place of unknowing, having a curious mind, asking questions instead of letting that resistance flow through you. Maybe breathing and responding instead of reacting has really helped me. And then the next step is bearing witness.

[39:22]

And then the next step is acting from a place of loving kindness with stillful means. And I think I can only actualize that in relationship with the Sangha. And we can be kind of hold, we can hold one another accountable because we're all kind of coming from a common ground of purity or wanting to be beneficial beings to society or wanting to be embody our bodhisattva selves. And so how do we encourage one another to do that? And I love Hannah, that you're getting to speak. Oh, I don't know if I love it, but it's an interesting synchronicity that you're speaking the day after Thich Nhat Hanh has transitioned and become an ancestor. You kind of embody that loving energy for me, and I thank you for that. Sandeep, you call it forth.

[40:31]

Thank you. Jim Erb, please unmute yourself and speak. First of all, thank you for your beautiful talk. It touched me. Plain rice and tea. have been sitting with me since you evoke them in your talk and i'm not sure if i have a statement or a question i'm just kind of playing with that imagery um there's such simplicity that is so full if you can let go and find it and we live in a very very complex troubled um swiftly moving time and Like many people here, I've been very deeply touched by Thay's teachings and his ability to bring us back in a simple gata or just a just a moment of silence to that that simplicity of rice and tea, that there is everything that we need to be nourished in the simplest of things.

[41:47]

And if I have a question for you, I think it's. How do we how do we maintain that simplicity? in a world that needs so much engagement, right? It's one thing to have those moments where we're simple and engaged alone, and we know that has benefit, but when so much needs to be done, how do we bring that simplicity back to the world? Alas, that's my question for myself too. I get very busy, very occupied with all kinds of things. And it is so evocative to me, that example of the plain rice and tea, because that's where it is. And to forget that, to live without that, would be missing that.

[42:57]

essence, the practice that Dogen was writing about. So I'm bowing to myself working on this topic to pay more attention, to stop more, to be like Sonia was entering the guest rooms at Tassajara. Stop. Breathe in, breathe out. This is my zendo. These objects are the zendo bell. Please may I pay attention and practice like that. Thank you. Me too. Sue Oh, please unmute yourself.

[44:07]

Thank you, Hannah. I'm very moved by the talk and conversation. I have been very anxious today. I have a phone call with a scheduler for a member of Congress, and I would like to bring a I would like to bring your support and goodwill for that call. And I realize from what you've said and what other people have said, in supporting life and beneficial action, I will put my attention on my feet and my breath and hear what she has to say. And the requests will have to be made in the air of spaciousness, expanding vaccination access around the world, asking that her boss show up at an event that we're putting on, virtually anyway, and to let go of an outcome.

[45:31]

That's the best I got. I would appreciate your input. Thank you. What you're doing, as you know, is so important on behalf of the whole deal. The interdependent web of all existence is what I mean by the whole deal. So your feet on the ground, your seat on the chair, your breath moving freely, know that all of us are with you and so grateful to you for doing this work. And I imagine the scheduler, you're talking to someone, I think, who would support.

[46:34]

what you're doing. So that person too must be grateful to hear what you as a representative of others are asking. And I imagine would want to do whatever they could do. So all of us were with you. And thank you. Feel free to type a question, if you'd like, in the chat.

[47:54]

And Laurie Sanaki, please unmute yourself. Hi, Hannah. Someone asked this in the chat, and I wondered if there's any way for us to access that poem. And I was thinking, could you just read it again, the supposedly Rue Jing poem, so that we can more completely digest it. Thank you. And unmute before you start. I thought about putting it in the chat and that didn't seem good.

[48:56]

So I can I've loved this poem for years and lived with it and I can send it out to the community listserv. I think that's the easiest way to do it, but I can also read it again. The great road has no gate. It begins in your own mind. The sky does not follow a marked trail. Yet it finds its way to your nostrils and becomes your breath. Sometimes we meet like tricksters or bandits of Dharma. Ah, the great house tumbles down. The autumn wind swirls. Astonished, maple leaves fly and scatter. Joan or Jeff, please unmute yourself and ask a question.

[50:04]

Hi, I'm Barbara Joan, double name. Nice to meet you. Thank you so much for your beautiful talk. I really appreciated how it was laid out. I felt like I could follow you through both the teaching that you were sharing and the life that you lived in coming to the teaching. Thank you. It raised for me, when you spoke of your seven-year-old self, it made me wonder what brought me here and how do I connect my child self to the practice and what I want from it. And what came to mind was going to the World's Fair when I was four and which... tells you my age if you want to calculate.

[51:11]

I'm 60 and I was four years old. And many people in my life were there, people I didn't know. But I remember going on the boat in It's a Small World. And because I still believed that my dolls were truly alive, all of the dolls singing made me feel like I was finally like the world was agreeing with me from the outside. And I think that I carried that with me. I know that I have carried that with me. And that sense of being seen and of seeing and of this being actually being a small world really Somehow I was able to maintain that thread through my life, partly by continuing to believe that my dolls are alive, which I just do.

[52:18]

And then the looking at the spoon, when Thich Nhat Hanh looks at the spoon and sees the universe, and sees his grandfather's hands. I feel like I don't, somewhere in what I'm saying, there are many questions. I haven't been able to raise the questions to the top, but I feel like the idea of purity of practice is to continue those threads of before we knew what we were studying. and our grandparents' hands and then forward to the universe and the future Buddhas. And that thread of continuity and of child recognition and of being seen and feeling seen and sharing that seeing with the

[53:30]

With the Sangha, I hope, and with the children that we meet and the children inside of each other that we meet, that feels to me like the purity. And then the questions that are superimposed by the busy life are the weeds that we get to travel through in order to find the thread. I guess I don't have there's not a good question specific question in there, but I would appreciate your thoughts on that. Thank you. Well, it was Dogen who was seven when his mother died. And imagine that how hard

[54:31]

that he was in a family of people deeply involved with Buddhist monasteries. And so he knew incense and he knew Buddhist monasteries as a place of refuge, just as our zendo and our Sangha on Zoom are places of refuge. Barbara Jones, I'm so tickled that you brought up dolls. I loved my dolls. They were very real to me. And two of my dolls that I somehow loved till now have stayed with me and... If I wasn't so awkward about getting up and moving around, I'd go get them off that altar and show you.

[55:33]

They're on my altar. Dolls. They're our dear friends also. Thank you.

[55:45]

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