Thank you for everyone else. our speaker today, my very dear friend, Yakusō Ryushin Andrea Thatch, healing source, dragon heart.

[01:11]

She came to BCC in the late 90s and was a daily fixture here for many years and received Dharma transmission from Sojin Mal Weitzman in 2015. After several years at Red Cedars Zen community in Bellingham, Washington, she joyfully returned to BCC, her home temple, in 2019. Having held most of the practice positions here, she currently serves as the class coordinator. Ryushin continues to practice her profession as a medical doctor, and in her free time, you may find her roaming the Berkeley Hills with her beloved dog, Koda. Let's give a warm welcome to Ryushin. Thank you very much, Carol. So first, good morning to everyone. It's really wonderful to see old friends. It feels like a very intimate gathering and to welcome newer friends and especially anyone who's here for the first time.

[02:23]

Last week we finished a wonderful talk by Hondo Dave Rushman, ending with a couple of questions about faith. And although it's serendipity, that's the theme of today's talk. I actually didn't know that that's what's going to happen when I embarked on an exploration of an experience that I had recently down at Tassajara. And so there's not a straight line in this talk. You have to sit and feel it. The title of this talk is something like, In Faith We Are Bunda. So there are a group of us who were down at Tassajara earlier this year. Tassajara is the Zen monastery that not all of you may know. That's down in the central coast, California wilderness. And every day in the afternoon, we would gather together and sit and talk.

[03:31]

And some of us would routinely look out the window, the dining room where we were. We were right on the intersection of Tassajara Creek and another little feeder creek that comes in. We would look out across the way to the steep embankment. Maybe it was, I don't know, 12 or 15 or so feet tall. look at the stone wall that had been built there and fairly routinely we would find ourselves mesmerized and comment on it there was something about it that really got my attention and somehow was uplifting and seemed to speak to the place that we were in so i thought what is that you know what's that about and the The line, just asking that question, the line that came was, in faith that we are Buddha. That was interesting. So I wanted to set the scene a little bit for those of you who haven't been to Tassajara.

[04:38]

And a reminder for those of you who have. The San Lucia Mountains are Glacier-formed mountains made of limestone, and they have deep, deep valleys and kind of steep hills that aren't tall but somehow seem formidable because of their pitch. The land is so well-worn that there's a kind of intimacy to the shape of it. It's been, as I say, glacier-formed and very, very old. Those hills were shaped over four million years ago. The people who were on the land. Let me come back and just say, at one point in time, that creek had dried up with the drought.

[05:41]

The trees were brittle and dying and the deer were coming down in the broad daylight. The creek bed was completely exposed uncharacteristically. The rocks of the creek were also quite striking. Layers of fine limestone and all kinds of little creatures that had been compressed into the most beautiful formations that captured that window four million years ago. The people who originally were on that land came 6,000 years ago, the Esalen peoples. They and two or three other tribes would come routinely to the Tassajara Valley because there's a hot springs that was a sacred place. In the evening time, when you walk the path that goes through the center of town past where the residential cabins and kitchens and zendo are out towards the baths,

[06:42]

There's a place where the hot springs are. And at the nighttime, where the moon is rising, but the light really doesn't penetrate that well because of the pitch of the hills, there's a kind of mysterious feeling. There's a feeling of presence there. And sometimes it's the animals coming down, but sometimes it seems like it's something else besides that. Some old Zen students will tell stories about ghosts that have come through the Zen-do at night when they're sleeping there as cheeky-do getting ready to get off and like the lanterns. Other people have lived in that valley, the silver miners and the first people retreated away and about a hundred years of resort owners until almost 65, almost 70 years ago, Zen students came seeking their own fortune and it became a practice place that many of us here have had the opportunity to train in and hopefully many of you will have an opportunity to go if you haven't.

[07:51]

Fires have burned, landscapes have shaped that land. Why am I talking about this? Place is a container for time. Time that moves on a scale of millions and thousands of years to create that sense of place. We miss that oftentimes in an urban environment that changes more rapidly. But there's something that gives a perspective or places, at least for me, places a human life in a context that's accessible in a place like where the geology is so evident. So what about that stone wall? It seems like Tassajara is made of rock and stone. There are many stone walls that were laid there. The stones, as I've said, are quite beautiful. Each of them has its own pitch, its own heft.

[08:58]

its own sense of weight, its angles, its contours. And in that wall, somehow they were all placed in a way that they worked together to create something that was quite beautiful in and of itself. There are early pictures of Tassajara as a Zen place of many young, vital people in their 20s and 30s so turned on by the idea of finding something truthful and meaningful to them. And it's kind of astounding to see what our walkways now just loaded like a dump truck came and dumped all of these stones and somehow they've turned into these walls. There's a story about Suzuki Roshi, working on a part of the wall that's just upstream from where we could easily see.

[10:04]

And he's moving with a few young, vibrant people, these really heavy several-ton rocks into place, shaping them, placing them so this eternal wall will be built. And the story of them working all day in the hot. 90-plus degree temperatures to get this one big stone into place. And Suzuki Roshi waking up the next morning and looking at him saying, it's got to move. It doesn't work. And so the guys went at it again, moved the rock, and then he spent what seemed to be a long time studying it, studying the shape. studying the balance, studying where it was going, and then said this way, and almost magically, and as it's described or recorded, almost by himself, move the rock into place by finding just that right relationship with it, just that right balance with it.

[11:20]

He was listening to the rock. He was speaking the language of the rock, listening for it and working with it. And by his teaching, transmitting, you know, in that effort, transmitting or translating what the rock was saying to the students who were working with them. They're not two separate Buddhas lifting the rocks, but the rock and the person speaking with each other, making the wall. The rocks sang in harmony. The rocks of that wall that we saw every afternoon out the window were singing in harmony, and we could hear their call. We paid attention to them, I think. It's all around us like that. The world is speaking to us. You look at the zendo and the planks that are here on the floor, and the boards that make up our ceiling.

[12:23]

We're all chosen from, if I have the story correctly, we're chosen from a recycle refuge place down the peninsula. And our founding teacher went there with a few other people, picked them out, finished them off, and chose exactly where they would go in relationship to each other here. When you walk on this floor, maybe you'll notice that when you look at the ceiling. Maybe you'll notice that. The patina and the effort of that time are still here. If you were fortunate, you may have been one of the people who joined in in making the gate that goes to our next door neighbor's yard now, where some of us are gardening. That gate was built on the top of two other in a way that harmonized them. Welcome, please be at home.

[13:23]

In a way that harmonized them to the master attention of our old friend Paul Disco. You can feel it when you take the calligraphy brush, grind the ink, make it just the right thickness, dip the brush and form its point, and touch it to the paper that absorbs in a different way, or to the silk that absorbs in a very different way, you can feel that same kind of communication or relationship. So our founding teacher of our lineage, Master Dogen had something to say about this. Actually, he has a lot to say about this, and that's all throughout his writings. But in his masterwork, the Shogo Genso, there's one fascicle in particular that speaks to this, and that's the Kesei San Shoku, The Sound of Valley Streams and the Colors or Contours of Mountains.

[14:41]

That fascicle was written relatively early in his career, in 1940, I'm sorry, in 1240. Some of us feel that way. In 2040, after he came back from China, 15 years earlier than that, it took a while to settle in a little temple outside of Kyoto, Kanan-dori-ko-shu-shu-shu-shu. That temple originally was, the doors were open to anyone. Late people came, monks and sincere students followed him from the temple he had been at. It was an open door. Men and women sat together in these early years. This is just before he was getting ready to take off and move to a Heiji and practice a deep monastic practice. So his early fascicles are about the basic philosophy of Zazen and Zen, and also the groundwork of practice.

[15:53]

This one in particular is a pointer for faith and practitioners and what it's built on. Recognizing it in the 10,000 things that come forward to preach the Dharma, as he says over and over again, and the effort of vow and practice that actually takes to do that. In this classical he starts with examples of what the experience that kind of opens one to practice might be like. And the first few examples are actually ones like The Wall Taught Us. The very first one includes a poem by probably the greatest or one of the greatest poets of Song China who expressed his understanding of enlightenment, his wake-up experience, to his Chan teacher in this way. The sound of the valley stream is the universal broad tongue of the Buddha.

[17:02]

The shape of the mountains is no other than the unconditioned body. Realizing this, that 84,000 verses come forth throughout the night. And sometime later, how can I say anything about this? Isn't that beautiful? So line by line, the sound of the valley stream is the universal broad tongue of the Buddha. Buddha speaks in many different languages, rock and stream, dog. Hear with your eyes, see with your breath. Take in the world through all of your pores. The whole world is speaking, he says. It's all available. We're a part of it. Pay attention and the rocks will say how to place them to make an enduring wall and take so much less effort. Take a teacup up in both hands, made by a potter.

[18:08]

You'll feel the weight of the cup, the balance of it, and it will invite you to use it as it is intended to. The doshi may rearrange things into balance on the altar. It's not a correction. It's a way of creating a ceremonial space and feeling some kind of balance there. The doshi's coming into balance with the altar and the offering. Everything's always sharing their voice and speaking to us. My dog does it in a million different ways. If only I could speak her language. People are like this too. The shape of the mountains is no other than the unconditioned body. Removed from our usual ways of hearing and seeing, the whole world is free from that point of view. point of view of this person there is no me mine or i in that receiving no opinion no evaluating none of the particular wants or needs or expected outcomes we yet we i this person becomes unconditioned in that moment too unconditioned being a term for

[19:34]

not having any preconception not having not being dictated to by prior ideas or experiences but able to receive in a complete direct way we become the mountain in that moment unbounded even by eyes by ideas like of who we are Realizing the 84,000 verses comes through, realizing this, the 84,000 verses comes forth throughout the night, alludes to the innumerable Dharma gates that we enter. When we go through one of them, when we go through one possibility, one opening, the whole world opens. All the doors open. Miraculously, the whole world is right there.

[20:35]

Everything speaks the Dharma. And at some time later, how can I say anything about this? Well, as Sawaki Kodo said, you can't share as much of a part with anyone. So this kind of experience is waiting for each of us to have. Each of us. I can use words and try to convey something. So she did a beautiful job in trying to convey something. But we don't know it until we experience it. And that's what he's saying in this line here. So what does this have to do with faith? What does seeing things as they are have to do with faith? What does it... What does not standing outside but taking one's place within the sounds of valley streams and colors of mountains have to do with faith, freedom from our usual ways of thinking?

[21:49]

It would be a mistake to try and tell you what I think about that, I think. But it's a feeling. It's just a feeling, an intuitive experience. And I invite you to open your sense towards your ears to receive with a question about what this faith is. Perhaps that is the koan. What is the I, the self, what is the I, the self really, when we aren't standing outside of the moment but fully immersed? Dave pointed this out in his talk about the wind and the flag and mind and the interpenetration of them all. Dogen is pointing it out in a different way in the Kaisei San Shoku. And he gave us encouragement, if not a clue. He ends that fascicle of Shogo Genzo by

[22:57]

kind of summarizing in an encouraging statement. The middle part after these stories, a lot of them of nature and different kinds of insights related to this one. He goes on to talk about the ancestors and their effort and the kind of state of mind or attitude that it takes in order to practice and to practice along the way. That's what we're all looking for here. How do I do this practice? How do I keep going in this practice when it's difficult? What am I doing here anyway when I don't seem to be getting anything? What keeps me showing up? So he ends this fascicle with a really beautiful piece of writing that's been excerpted and used in liturgy. We don't chant it here, but it is chanted in in many places, and it's a particular favorite during a practice period where we need a little encouragement to keep going for all 90 days of getting up at 3.30 in the morning.

[24:09]

And I want to share just the first paragraph now. It might be worthwhile for us to chant it here sometime or study it in a way, because it's very, very rich. But we'll think we just have time. Once I won't take our whole time talking, but maybe we'll have a chance to have a conversation by talking about the first paragraph. We vow with all beings, from this life on throughout countless lives, to hear the true Dharma, that upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith. upon meeting it we shall renounce worldly affairs and maintain the buddha dharma and that in doing so the great earth and all living beings will attain the buddha way maybe i'll do that again we vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true dharma

[25:21]

that upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith, that upon meeting it, we shall renounce worldly affairs and maintain the Buddha Dharma, and that in doing so, the great earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha way. There's a lot to unpack there. There are many pointers to investigate about practice, many ways in to examining practice and finding your inspiration for it at any point in time. Each of them is worth considering. For example, what is vow? What are the many lives? What is the true Dharma? And what are these worldly affairs? And what about renunciation? What is no doubt?

[26:22]

Lack, all living beings, and faith. So to talk about some of those a little bit. What is Val? It's the starting point. It's the refueling point. It's the ballast or the anchor to our lives and to our practice. What keeps you? A practitioner going when there's no spark, when practice feels dry and nothing seems to be happening. It's what matters most and it raises the question of how do I move towards that. Sometimes it's called the inmost request. That's what Suzuki Roshi called it. That which is calling us to bring forth our life. It's like the seed. It's like the seed of the warm spring of soil. being called forth to blossom. It's that within each of us.

[27:26]

It's that which you are seeking. Vows are an affirmation. It's the intention that makes us a practitioner and what matters most to them. And I found it so helpful. I encourage everyone to consider trying to ask yourself, what is my vow? And plant that. Plant that in your life. Plant it in a daily way. Allow it to rise up and speak to you. With all beings, we each make our own individual bow, and we each need to make our own individual effort. Nothing happens without that. But we aren't alone. The walls of the rocks provide instructions to the makers of the wall. We do nothing by ourselves. We think about our ancestors and we call them forth. Our ancestors are a source of great inspiration.

[28:30]

Those ancestors include our parents, our grandparents, our people who came to this country, some on slave ships, committed to enduring, despite horrific circumstances, the Native people who lost their lands, had their language stripped from them and their children, still standing, maintaining a sense of dignity, hope, and culture. And to everyone else whose people came here on ships, through deserts, a great difficulty, many, many, many of them, to make a life in a way we call them forth for our inspiration in our life because of their sacrifice. They were thinking about our great-grandchildren when they did that. The same is true of all the Buddhas and ancestors.

[29:33]

We chant many of their names, or some of their names, I should say not many, on Tuesdays and Thursday mornings. but there are so many more that we don't know. They are also the inspiration. They maintain this practice. That's why we're here. Somewhere further into the A.E.K.O.S.O.H.A.S.O.G.A.M., this piece that we're talking about, he talks about Buddhas and ancestors of old, whereas we we in the future will be buddhas and ancestors so those are ancestors all of those people all all all those beings were like us and we will become buddhas and ancestors what do we want to do with it with this life countless lives going back to the this piece countless lives

[30:39]

I'm not, I don't think necessarily, or even intended by Dovin to mean past lives and future lives. He means moment after moment. This life has had many lives. You've had many lives during this time we've been sitting here together. We'll have many, many, many, many lives throughout the rest of the day. Each moment after moment, he's encouraging us to pay attention to show up fully, to be in touch with what matters to us in our life. Hearing. Hearing a true Dharma that upon hearing it, no doubt will arise in us. Even the idea of hearing. How do you hear? Well, maybe part of it is listening to people talk about the Dharma, but I don't think that's really what he's talking about here.

[31:41]

I think he's talking about receiving it, listening to the 84,000 voices like a screen going by, opening up and recognizing, recognizing the functioning of things, the life, the sentience, the interrelatedness of things. no doubt will arise in us. No doubt will arise in us, nor will we lack in faith. Doubt, you know, I think throughout our lives we have personal doubts, personal questions that can be difficult. Should I stay in this marriage? Is it time to retire? Should I bring children into this world? All of those kinds of doubts. But the kind of doubt he's talking about here is the question about the working of things as they are. There's no doubt you have a visceral sense when you hear the Dharma being spoken by the 10,000 things.

[32:47]

I also want to just say he talks about renouncing worldly affairs and that sounds like something that should be directed just towards monks, people who live in a monastery. I don't also think that that's what he's talking about here. I think he's talking about making a priority to live a life aligned with the Dharma. So the usual choices that people make being pulled around by ideas of what they want or don't want, or who they like or don't like, or what job they want. Those kinds of choices drive a lot of the decisions that we make and a lot of the thinking in our minds. And he's saying, set that all aside and come back to the core of what matters to you. Make your decisions from that place. Continue to make your decisions from that place. That doesn't mean you won't have a life in the world and have a career and have difficult choices to make.

[33:50]

But the core is to touch back in to what what your foundation is. So what is faith in the last five minutes? Faith is something that arises not from outside of us. It's not up here on the altar in this Buddha statue. And it's not in some teacher someplace. That faith arises from a deep knowing and understanding of the truth of our own life. the truth of our own life that in some ways we're whole and complete the way we are no matter what our challenges are, no matter what we came into this world with, or the past that's shaped the conditions of our current life, that in that wholeness there's acceptance of

[34:56]

life as it is i don't mean an acquiescence to things that need to be addressed changed responded to but an acceptance that right here the way it is there are conditions that brought that forward my life is what it is and where do i move from here there's deep faith in the your ability to take your life energy as it was given to you and manifest in some way that aligns with vow and move forward. In the ordination ceremony, now for the ordination ceremony, whether it's for marriage or a baby birthday, a christening or a funeral or a lay ordination, priest ordination, we always start the ceremony with the lines, in faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way.

[36:01]

I find that so encouraging, in faith that we are Buddha. We are, all of us in here, Buddha. But we're not Buddha separate from anyone else. Everyone's Buddha. No one's special. We're not special because we're here in the Zendo. Everyone is Buddha in some way. We're not a better, more accomplished person. That's by our faith and the effort of our dedicated, wholehearted practice that we are Buddha. Well, sometimes we're deluded Buddha, and sometimes we're free Buddha. That's okay. That's human and normal. We don't become one thing and stay there. But it's this intention and the effort alone that is how we join the family of Buddha. That's Dogen's teaching. I think that's the heart of Dogen's teaching. That's the teaching of the spasical.

[37:04]

That is to say, we know that we're in our right place. So in faith that we are Buddha, we do the next thing. We respond to the next circumstances with our best effort that we can make. In this case, the physician of old way of being was great at making diagnoses and fixing things, but now sees the wholeness of each person and meets the other person in that place. That's a place of real healing. It's a new way of being. It doesn't mean that things are good or bad, right or wrong. It just is. And so we accept and we respond and we fall open to this way. So thank you very much for listening to me and for your attention.

[38:11]

I hope we can have a conversation about how this journey is for you in practice. Your questions, your observations, how you found your way on the path together. So to share or to be in conversation and exchange, either way. I have this microphone. Thank you very much for your heartfelt and deeply encouraging talk. I wondered if you could, and I don't know if this is a fair question, I wondered if you could comment on faith and vow in the light of another concept which we hear a lot about in this room, which is beginner's mind.

[39:20]

I think that's a wonderful, that's a really, really wonderful connection to make. I'm sure you can say something yourself, Peter, about, but I'd say I think what Sushi is talking about is beginner's mind. It's hearing, touching, experiencing as if for the very first time, completely open, completely unknowing, without preconception. Yeah. Would you add anything, Peter, to that? My dear darling or brother? Just that being aware of what I'm about to do. I'm on the edge and the cusp of it with no idea. It strikes me as a group of bad. Does that include when you get up to walk? Having faith that somehow you'll figure out a way to place your foot.

[40:25]

There's no other way. Is there anyone online? There's no one in here. Jeff? Thank you, Ryushin, for a very rich talk. You spoke to so many things that I value in practice, and a couple of other things that you said that I found so compelling was this idea of just seeing and having my own experience of what's in front of me. The notion of fear as divorced from the universe. Sojin used to say something about hearing with your eyes and seeing with your ears. in a way of kind of turning sense perception on its head. I like, too, the way that you describe the mountain as being a place of, if I say it correctly, correct me if I don't, of being a place of no preconception, of not knowing, of direct experiencing, of the student disappearing into the mountain, the student disappearing in the mountain waking up.

[41:47]

Would you say a little bit more, if you could, please, about this idea of not being able to speak an experience, of having an experience of what's in front of me that is only harmed by words and can only be sensed and inhaled? Because in this place of not knowing is where I become more free to be called forth. To actually have the experience, to actually be able to sing with your ears, to receive through your horns, is something that you have to do. And we're talking about it, we're using words to describe it. But that's not the experience. This practice, our practice is a very physical practice. Practice is a very embodied kind of practice. We do it by sitting zazen in our practice.

[42:50]

No one can sit zazen for us. No one can open our sense doors for us. But here we are talking about it, and maybe it helps a little bit, but to say too much and try and describe it is really, unless you're sushi and you're taking a risk, you're totally missing the phone. Thank you, Jeff. Karen. Thank you so much, Pryushin. When you talked about hearing all beings and rocks expressing the Dharma, I started to think about Avalokiteshvara and her 10,000 eyes and hands and hearing the cries of the world.

[43:51]

Is there a connection there? Yeah, I very much think there's a connection. We're not rocks. We're not going to manifest in the world to help people build a wall. We manifest in the world by being good bodhisattvas, by responding to circumstances. And Avalokiteshvara is our archetype for that compassionate response. Yeah, totally. Thank you very much for making that connection. Thank you very much. I was just pondering on it just before your talk, you know, during outdoor canyons, and I noticed this before at this time of year in outdoor canyons, is that sometimes when we have a very long experience as a normal space for a snake of people to be moving

[45:10]

by plants and rocks that are here on the grounds that sometimes there'll be a plant quote in the way of that snakely motion and also there's a rhythm and a pace of everyone so there's this sense of um how to harmonize with that and what i notice that sometimes especially with these long sleeves that you know i have the sense that i just trammeled or rocked and you know that sense of feeling how that might be for this growing plant or the pebbles or something like that and so i i wonder if you might say a word about how value and faith connect to that sort of thing which is kind of everyday dealing with people places and things Yeah, there's no way to be a perfect bodhisattva in this world.

[46:16]

So we have to trust our own intention and our own aspiration to do the best job that we can. And how does that connect to sangha practice? Because I know it's like, if I slow down slightly to turn my body so I don't, so to speak, knock into that plant, it does slow down the line just for a moment, so it can be like that domino effect. Any suggestions on that for all of us? Tune in. You're tuning into the plant, and so the rest of us can tune in to the cadence of the line. Be aware and just as you can. Hi, Craig.

[47:20]

Faith is such a rich concept for me. It feels like embodying faith and the intention to embody it really helps me live in my body and in my heart and not try to overthink or over control. And I wonder if you could say something about what we're having faith in or what it means to have faith. Sometimes, for example, I play with the idea that having faith that everything that happens is sort of as it's meant to happen. That would be one version of it. But I think what feels more fundamental is a kind of faith that everything that happens is deeply okay and that in some fundamental way there's a kind of safety and goodness and that something along those lines feels like it connects to the feeling of faith. And I wonder if you... feel about what we're having faith in. Yeah, thank you very much for that question.

[48:23]

I have some resonance with how you frame it. I think of faith as having an understanding and acceptance of things unfolding as they are in response to circumstances over time as being Okay. It's truly okay. I know that's kind of shocking. It was shocking for me the first time I had that insight and went, Whoa, what's that? Um, but over time accepting that things are the way they are in their circumstances that sometimes horrific, terrible circumstances that made this moment helps me feel grounded. not caught up in my ideas about what i want or don't want or how i see it but i'm grounded in the reality my best understanding of reality and it's filtered through my mind and from that ground i can act put in really simple words hopefully not too zeny words i've come to have confidence in my life just in in this person's life

[49:43]

and in each of your lives. That's part of what I was saying about what's so different in my mind about how I practice as a physician now. And I have confidence in life. That's my definition, my personal definition of faith. I really encourage you to make this an active exploration for yourself. I see one person here and Do we have time for one? Well, we have five minutes. So we have three minutes. I can't tell. I think that's Ross. I can't. Yeah. Hi, Ross. From Los Angeles. Good morning, Ryushin. We're encouraged not to objectify things. And in telling your story about Suzuki Roshi and moving the rocks, could you speak a little bit to how he did that? looking at the rock and not objectifying it i think you have i think you have something in your mind i would love to hear your expression on it well there's a saying uh becoming the rock and there's you know a sense of uh or an expression uh non-dual activity so how do you balance you shouldn't you're the on the feet there how do you balance

[51:12]

the separation or the so-called duality and the non-duality in positioning yourself in front of the lectern as Suzuki Roshi positioned the rock in relation to the other rocks. With humility in taking on the task I've been asked to do. Thank you kindly. Your question also brings to mind, you know, I may have said this here in the Zen Do before, many people, for many people Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was an entranceway to practice. And I love that book very much now. When I first read it, I didn't get it at all and I wasn't so drawn to it until I saw the Sandokai lecture excerpts of Suzuki Roshi teaching the Sandokai at Tassajara. And he was talking about the bluebird coming into your heart, being the bluebird, or being in complete, total experience with the bluebird as the bluebird.

[52:28]

And I swear on that screen, that old black and white film, he became the bluebird. And I started crying because I finally felt like I understood what he was talking about. Yeah. Susan, you have the last word. Thank you. I don't really have much faith that things are okay the way they are because I don't really think that's true in the world around us, but I have faith that conditions are coming together to produce this moment. And that gives me faith because I feel like I have agency in that. There's something that I might respond to. So I just wonder what you think about that. I may have misunderstood how you were talking about it.

[53:30]

Yeah, thank you very much for your question and thank you for articulating what I was trying to say so well. I actually think we're You're saying what I was trying to say, so thank you. Well, Susan still has the microphone. I wasn't sure if she was gonna say anything else. I kind of wanted you to have the last one. I see other hands going up, Gary. Gary's shaking it. Gary's going to hit me with a stick. I'm sorry, maybe we can talk outside. Amen. those online with us and welcome in particular to anyone who may be new here my name is pauline and i am one of the uh co-saturday directors here tomorrow we'll have a half day sitting in the zendo beginning at 8 a.m if you'd like to participate please contact mark kappathorn this coming monday morning darian rezzazak will deliver a way sick in my talk next saturday hozan will deliver the lecture bcc students and members are strongly encouraged to meet and develop a relationship with a teacher or practice leader

[58:11]

Abbott Hoson, other teachers and senior students are available for formal Dokusan or practice discussion. Please visit the BCC website's Teachers tab for contacts and for information about practice interviews. For more information about any of our programs or membership, please check the bulletin board out in the courtyard, see the Zoom chat, or visit our website at berkeleyzencenter.org. To make a donation to support BCC, please use the donations box out in the courtyard or visit our website and go to the generosity tab. Those here 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. If a couple of people are able to stay behind and help set the Zendo in order, that is always appreciated. And those online may now unmute and share greetings. Elaine, I'm sorry, ad hoc announcement. On the Listsurf, we've been doing sort of raising some money for Buddhist temple in Maui, I think.

[59:13]

I'm not sure of all the details. Anyway, we have a card for people to sign. You can sign it even if you didn't donate. And if you want to donate, we'll find somebody to tell you how to do that. And thank you. I'll put the card on the table. Do those online get that? There is a physical card here, but there is also, you can contact Lori, I guess, for more information about donation to the temple in Maui. And now please unmute and share. It's good to see you all. Good morning. Good to see you. Have a good week. Hello, everyone. Have a good week. Bye-bye. Bye, everyone. Have a good week.

[60:16]

Take care. Well, that's true. Let's leave the windows open, because there can be a meeting in here. So you need to divide it down.

[60:47]

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