I vow to taste the truth without Tathagata's words. Good morning. I'm going to talk this morning about changing karma. Is it on? Okay, take two. I'm going to talk this morning about changing karma. It's interesting because I, in a way, I talked in my first Way Seeking Mind talks about my own struggles with karma in my life. One of the things about finding myself in this rather unexpected position was was finding that it's kind of like being naked all the time, like one of those dreams that you wake up and you're in the middle of a business situation and suddenly you're naked.

[01:15]

Because all of my actions are public actions here. I can't blend in, I'm just out there. So it means that I have to look at my own actions with a lot more attention and come to understand what that paying attention to action really is about moment to moment. So I'll start with some basics and go back to basics first. that really karma is a Sanskrit word from the root kri that means to do or to make. It's really any action that we take in thought, word or deed. There's no time when karma is not happening wherever we are, whatever our understanding. If we don't pay attention, we may not notice that something's happening or how each action we take is a cause or condition for some effect.

[02:22]

What we eat or drink, what we use to clean with, how we move in our daily life, what machines we use, what we say, the work we do or don't do. As Dogen says in the Jincha Inga, even a small amount of water can create a wave many times its size. Or as Nagarjuna states, action is like an uncanceled promissory note, like a debt of the realms it is fourfold. Moreover, its nature is neutral. This suggests that the consequences of any action, however local or small that action might be, reverberate through all the realms of existence. And the nature of action is neutral, meaning that it can be positive or negative, but something always happens when we act. In the story that Sojin talked about, about the fox, the first Jakaju believed that because he had realized the emptiness of all things and presumably had let go of grasping, he was free from suffering, and thus he was free from cause and effect.

[03:35]

But he was still alive. He still had a body. His bodily functions still happened. If he ate too much, he'd gain weight. If he ate too little, he might become ill. If he didn't pay attention when he went out in the cold, he could freeze. Every breath is an action, every bodily action, everything we say becomes a cause and condition for something else. So we're generating karma and karma consequences minute by minute. If I had found this story earlier, I would have actually talked about this story, but I only found it while I was sitting in the community room waiting for the talk. So I'll just read a few paragraphs from a story from the Book of Serenity that kind of speak to the importance of recognizing action, recognizing cause and effect. Chan Master Jiju Haishui in Shu Province, after he had realized the truth, once went to Longzhao's place.

[04:49]

Zhao asked him, elder, where have you just come from? Jiju said, from Qijiang. Zhao said, did you come by boat or by land? Jiju said, by boat. Zhao said, where is the boat? Jiju said, on the river. Jiao said, without referring to the journey, how can you speak a phrase? Jiju said, incompetent abbots are plentiful, as flax and millet, and immediately left. Another story like this is the first master of Dongxiang asked a monk, where do you come from? The monk said, Ru province. Dongxiang said, how far is it from here? The monk said, 700. Dongshan said, how many pairs of sandals did you wear out? The monk said, three. Dongshan said, where did you get the money to buy them? The monk said, making rain hats.

[05:51]

Dongshan said, go to the hall. The monk said, OK. I missed it again. I say, even hands and eyes without the body can't see through you, but tell me, where are the monk's eyes? Under his eyebrows? So the law of karma could be simply the law of causation. Every action has a reaction without moral implications. But in both Eastern and Western religions throughout the ages and way before Buddhism and Zen Buddhism, karma was often associated with moral retribution. where not only does a cause have an effect, but he who puts the cause in action suffers the effect, and basically it was a negative moralistic view. But that teaching was adapted or changed in Mahayana Buddhism

[06:59]

as expressed by Nagarjuna, because it incorporates the fact that meritorious actions are conducive to liberation and morally wrong actions may increase bondage, but it adds the reality of emptiness, that all actions in emptiness are empty. I came across a note I'd made when I was reading Nagarjuna a year and a half ago, something that Garfield interpreted from Nagarjuna's verse. Dependent origination is the explicability and coherence of the universe. Its emptiness is that there is no more to it than that. So, how does karma work? We do take action and there is an effect. But we know that neither the actor or the action or its effects are permanent and unchangeable. So this really gives us something to work with. It contrasts with the Judeo-Christian traditions of facing eternal damnation for bad action.

[08:06]

Yes, there will be consequences, but if we become aware of the activity of cause and effect in our lives, we can set an intention or make a vow to change our actions or remedy actions in the past. For me, this has been very difficult. It's not so hard to work with habits of the mind that we can study and determine our mental formations or delusions, like how we might respond to certain things that someone might say that trigger a habitual response. For example, quite a few years ago, I began to notice that when I would meet a certain kind of person, usually a woman, I might have critical or judgmental thoughts. I might keep the feelings inside me, but if I wasn't careful, I would gossip to gain support for my negative views. I feel like I had somebody in the mix with me.

[09:12]

Somehow, this didn't end up making me feel happy. In fact, it meant that I felt uncomfortable with many people and somewhat guilty for wrong speech. As I watched my mental action repeat itself, I began to notice a kind of habit energy that made me very uncomfortable. the people I was having trouble with had a suspicious resemblance to me. I found that I was projecting my own stuff onto other people, thereby separating myself from them and my undesirable traits. It didn't work very well because I still suffered. Even though I was separating myself from my traits, I still suffered from them. And I also noticed that it didn't feel like it was working with other people because although I didn't really say anything negative, obviously if you're projecting negative energy, if you have negative feelings or negative responses, those are felt by other people whether you say them or not.

[10:29]

So I did begin a practice. So now, as soon as I feel that critical feeling or that judge, I try to ask myself, what is it about this person that is making me uncomfortable? What is it about myself that I see there that's making me uncomfortable? And it makes it easier for me to let go of It seems harder to me when we're dealing with something tangible, not just a mental response, but a tangible response in our conventional lives. Like food, for example. Food seems very real. And most of us have a lot of strong food habits. or compulsions, for chocoholics, anorectics, strong preferences and aversions. In these type of situations it seems much harder to see that thing as empty, to see that it arises and ceases.

[11:37]

It seems very concrete at the time. And the power of the sensations, the power of the desire, takes much more effort to work with. Suzuki Roshi suggests that to work with our karma our minds should be more careful, more attentive and more reflexive. So notice, he says, whether you are creating problems in your everyday life or creating bad karma for yourself or others, there is a reason why you suffer and it is not possible to escape from suffering unless you change your karma. When you follow karma and drive karma in good direction, you can avoid the destructive nature of karma. You can do that by being attentive to the nature of karma and to the nature of your desire's activity. Shakyamuni Buddha is quoted in the Abhidharma as saying, to know the cause of suffering is to know how to avoid suffering. If you study why you suffer,

[12:39]

you'll understand the cause and effect and how bad actions can result in bad effects. As long as we have an idea of self, karma has an object to work with. For me, this means that as long as there is a self-seeing, other sentient beings and non-sentient beings separate from ourselves, we easily fall into taking selfish or self-centered acts. So how do we pay attention? How do we study the self? One aspect of action discussed in the Abhidharma is the role of cittana, a term in Pali that means a volition. And I looked up the definition of volition in English. An act of willing or choice to exercise determined action. Another word that's used from the Sanskrit is

[13:41]

Chitta pada, or chitta pada, very similar. But it implies intention. So there's something about a conscious action. Volition is kind of an action we take by choice. We make a decision to go from here to there. We made a decision to pick up the fork. and put it in the food and put the food in our mouth. Intention implies something a little bit more. Intention applies something further down the causal chain. We set an intention to be kind to people, and how that intention happens is through volitional acts. The Abhidharma states that before we act we form a mental intent, an idea that becomes the primary mover and gives rise to a series of activities resulting in an action. In order to act there has to be some underlying motivation. The way to avoid negative karma then is to both see it through studying ourselves and our actions and then to meditate on the situation.

[14:50]

when I decide to study my karma, then I don't just look at the action and reaction, but what came before that? What was the stimulus? I better know what time it is. Do you know what time it is? Okay, plenty of time. I'll slow down. I don't just look at the action and reaction, but what came before? What was the stimulus? If I've taken an action, that I look at and see something harmful or even see that I am at this moment doing something unskillful, pause, step away, ask, what is my intention? Why do I choose to behave in this way? Did I intend to do something beneficial and it turned out to be harmful? Or did I purposely intend something harmful? Was I being spiteful? Was I intending to do something negative really down there deep where I know?

[15:58]

So, does it make any difference? Would the consequences be any different if the intention is purposeful to do well or unconscious or Mean. I talked in my first way of seeking mind about doing abortions, and I started to think about that again when I was preparing the talk. When I decided to do abortions, I purposely chose to do them, I did them because of my belief in women's reproductive freedom. I believed that I was helping women who were suffering, and that my role as a healer, or as a doctor, was to help them. So what's wrong with that?

[17:09]

Is there anything wrong with that? For me, internally, I found, as I began to feel more uncomfortable and suffer, was I was not at one with myself. I was going against my own internal compass, my belief in the sanctity of life, and my awareness that a fetus was a living being, perhaps not yet sentient or alive, but would become sentient if left alone. I wasn't a Buddhist at the time, but as a Buddhist, it would have meant breaking a precept. And from what I know of Buddha's teaching, killing is a pretty serious business and always results in negative consequences. So in this case, even though my intention was to benefit suffering beings, I broke a precept. I became separate from myself, and I've suffered as a result.

[18:14]

In Dogen's Sanjigo, he talks of the severity of consequences related to the type of action and intention. The less serious actions result in more rapidly experienced effects. So I guess I should be glad that my suffering came pretty quickly, although I'm not sure. It didn't feel good, but at least it was soon. In this case, if I study my actions further, I can see that beyond my stated intention, there was a lot of separation, even with myself. I separated with the part of me that was my moral compass. I separated from the fetus. This separation caused my suffering. So what if I discover a negative pattern, bad habit energy? How can I work with it? I'm not sure we ever really know our true intentions, but by paying attention and slowing down our actions and reactions, we can get a better glimpse.

[19:15]

For me, it's about catching the habitual thought and waiting to act so that it will be more of a response rather than a reaction. In the case of negative thought or emotional state, one way to study it is to first see the dynamic or the feeling, and then in meditation, go wholeheartedly into the feeling or the thought pattern. Shine a light on it. Watch it. Not holding on, holding it gently without judging. If you're angry, be an angry Buddha. Then, just doing that, we'll notice that something changes. then we can see that change is possible. Once we realize that we can have a chance of changing something, we can catch the habit energy earlier, recognizing it for what it is and not reacting, and thus we're changing karma in real time. What about changing past karma?

[20:20]

In the traditional temporal sense, the past doesn't exist anymore, so it can't be changed. But what if we can change how we see the past, how we hold the past in concrete somewhere? For example, how we hold memories of people or events. We can recognize that we hold a fixed view, And that fixed view makes a person, for example, separate from us, and it allows us to blame someone for what was wrong in a relationship. If we look at that and open to the interdependency, interconnectedness of the relationship, we see that there were causes and conditions that created this situation in the past, and some of the causes and conditions included our part in it. This always comes up in families where members develop habits of reacting to each other and create a story or a fixed picture of how each member is.

[21:29]

Once we see our part or see the causes and conditions that existed for a person, we can open to them in a more compassionate way and forgive and see them in a new way. If we realize the role of our negative action, we can apologize and make amends. We can confess and repent. then the part that we call the past that is still alive in us in a memory is transformed. Or perhaps there's some corrective action that we can take now in the present that can mitigate the harm that we did in the past that has caused suffering in another. We can be kind and compassionate so that their suffering in the present can be relieved. maybe their hurtful memory can also be transformed. For me, this is a practice that has been very powerful. A few years ago, I had an experience where I went to another practice place for a long retreat.

[22:34]

It was during a very stressed period of my own life. I really wanted isolation. I avoided opportunities to socialize with other people. It seemed to me that a lot of the people there were not very friendly. And I didn't like very many of them. Later, when I was studying karma, I realized that my feeling state and behavior was probably a major contributor to how others reacted to me. I was unable to forgive myself and others and have much less suffering because I no longer held on to the delusion that we're permanent separate beings and that hurt my feelings. I wish I could say it's true for all situations, but I have quite a ways to go, perhaps five hundred lifetimes as a fox. So what about changing?

[23:40]

future karma. Another way to work with karma is to create a new intention, to make a deeper vow to cultivate a different approach, to embody the Bodhisattva vow to be compassionate to all beings and to live and be lived for their benefit. Dogen talks about cultivating grandmother mind. He defines this as an awareness that all actions and activities are an expression of the Buddha seal. This requires that we slow things down and try to remember that each sentient and non-sentient being we encounter is Buddha. When we forget and act in a way that is self-centered then we catch ourselves doing that and we can sit with it and reaffirm our commitment and our vow. Getting back to the situation I mentioned with all those unfriendly, mean people I went back to this practice place again, and many of the same people were there.

[24:49]

I knew that would be the case, and I made a conscious vow before I returned to see the people, to meet them for the first time, to practice my Bodhisattva vow. Magically, these people had transformed. It was quite a deeply moving experience for me to truly look at someone open-heartedly for the first time. And it felt transformative, felt like the separation was gone. So it was for me, recognizing, working with karma in a way that recognized the causes and conditions that generated what was a situation that caused me suffering and pain, making a vow, seeing my place in that situation, making a vow about that so that next encountering a similar situation.

[26:14]

I could arise in that situation in a new way, and I could deal with at least my part of the dependent co-arising, not necessarily others, but what my experience was is that by changing my own part in it, of course the situation was a new situation. So it was just experiencing what I know in my head in a different way. So I went into Sojin yesterday afternoon, and I had remembered a story that I thought I wanted to include in this, and he couldn't find it, but he handed me this book with a bookmark in it. And he said, this is a really good story. He didn't really know what I was going to talk about either. He has ESP. So I thought I would read the story that Sojin thought I should talk about. Apparently, but didn't tell me until I asked.

[27:22]

It's called The Tunnel. Zenkei, the son of a samurai, journeyed to Edo. and there became a retainer of a high official. He fell in love with the official's wife and was discovered. In self-defense, he slew the official. Then he ran away with the wife. Both of them later became thieves. But the woman was so greedy that Zenkei grew disgusted. Finally leaving her, he journeyed far away to the province of Buzen, where he became a wandering mendicant. To atone for his past, Zenkei resolved to accomplish some good deed in his lifetime. Knowing of a dangerous road over a cliff that had caused the death and injury of many persons, he resolved to cut a tunnel through the mountain there. Begging food in the daytime, Zenkei worked at night, digging his tunnel. When 30 years had gone by, the tunnel was 2,280 feet long, 20 feet high, and 30 feet wide.

[28:29]

Very important detail, I guess. Remember, you have to remember every part of the causal chain, each foot. Two years after the work was completed, the son of the official he had slain, who has a skillful swordsman, found Zenkai, found him out and came to kill him in revenge. I will give you my life willingly, said Zenkai. Only let me finish this work. On the day it is completed, then you may kill me. So the sun awaited the day. Several months passed and Zenkei kept on digging. That's why it was so long. The sun grew tired of doing nothing and began to help with the digging. Recognizing his karma of sitting around waiting. After he had helped for more than a year, he came to admire Zenkei's strong will and character.

[29:34]

At last the tunnel was completed and the people could see it and travel safely. Now cut off my head, said Zenkei. My work is done. How can I cut off my own teacher's head, asked the younger man with tears in his eyes. So karma was transformed. karma was transformed in Zenkei, karma was transformed in the sun. Is the past the same? Well, yeah, someone was killed, but something changed, something very basic transformed through setting intention, through confessing and repenting and setting intention and carrying through on that intention and that vow. So it seems to me that karma is really the heart of our practice.

[30:36]

It's the core of practice. It's never done. It's every moment. So... Alan. Two weeks ago I went with a friend to visit a senior Burmese monk who is eight years old and we were discussing karma and the question came up. in the sense that you can't go back and change it, but that there are things going forward in life that can't undo this really grievous harm that we've done.

[31:58]

I'm not quite sure how to think about it, but I'm curious. Well, I just started thinking of, you know, stories of the Buddha with the thief and the murderer. and how the Buddha could see something there and he changed himself. He became a condition for transformation. So it seems like our teacher is saying there is a condition for transformation. There are causes and conditions that those generals experienced. Not that you excuse anybody or that evil, I mean, karma has to be repaid in some way, even if you, it doesn't mean that, to me it's not like one or the other, you know, there's a consequence of killing and evil karma, but that doesn't mean there can't also be transformation.

[33:00]

At some point when he is killed, when he is beaten, they attack him and Buddha says, bear it. So there may be the transformation and the flow that karma continues together. You know, I have been very moved by your sharing your experience about having performed abortion, but I also, and I mean, I really honor that you weren't, there was something about that that wasn't right for you. For me. Yeah, but it's, the way you talk about it today, it sounded like it's always breaking of an abortion, and I didn't feel really comfortable with that, so I wanted to give you a chance to either say yes, it's always wrong, or maybe... I don't think it's not a matter of wrong or right, it's a matter of killing has consequences.

[34:28]

It always has consequences. It seems to me taking life results in suffering. So without making a judgment of it happening, it's going to cause suffering. I think it's a really hard one. It was a very hard one for me because I was a rabid feminist. So it was a very hard one for me to deal with that. But it's not that we always follow the precepts. We don't always follow the precepts. But there are certain things that we do that have consequences of one kind or another. For me, it was one kind. For another person, it might be another. I, yeah, I guess I'm not comfortable with how absolute you're being about how just killing must cause, I mean, and if everything can cause suffering.

[35:39]

Well, I don't, I don't know about must. Will cause suffering, I mean, I think, I don't know. I, I guess I would hope there would be some possibility for healing and. Absolutely. I think I would say exactly that. There is a choice. We make choices and act. We break precepts all the time. We make a choice. We make a volitional act to not follow the precepts at certain times. Hopefully it's volitional, not accidental. Sometimes it's accidental. Yes, it's not in concrete. I don't think it's in concrete, no. But the fact is there is suffering that goes on in making that decision. Yeah. I wanted to raise another question about karma, but I can't help getting into this.

[36:46]

I knew it was going to happen. You're talking as if there's only one part of that situation that involves breaking a precept. But are you killing also when you deny the women their need to... I'll just raise the question. That may also be killing. That may also be another form of suffering. It's not just the killing of the fetus. that is killing in that situation. Maybe that's the problem some of us are experiencing. Well, I think we, you know, it's interesting to me that in Buddhism we spend hours talking about snails and whether or not we should kill snails, but somehow people get really uptight about saving the snail or saving the spider, but we get really uncomfortable with this issue because I think it's a really hard issue. It's a political issue, you know, it's a feminist issue, and so it's harder for us to talk about that issue than it is for us to get uptight about whether or not we put snail bait out.

[37:52]

You're still leaving out the women. Well, I'm not really... I mean, I think that we make decisions about precepts all the time, whether to follow it, whether to not, because maybe we think we're benefiting all... I made a decision because I thought I was benefiting women. I made that decision. And women make that decision. But for me, it caused suffering. So I don't know about other people. For me, it caused suffering. For me, it was a decision that caused suffering. I might do it again. If abortions became illegal, I might do it again. Yeah. in 1911 chose to end her sixth pregnancy and she died of septicemia.

[38:55]

And my grandfather kept it a secret until his death day. And he married the babysitter and she abused all of the five children, including my mother. And that had harmonic ramifications. of the abortion, but either way, there's karma. It isn't so simple. Yes, that's what I was trying to say. It's not simple, but for me as an individual, it's my action and that effect of that action on me.

[40:02]

That doesn't mean that you might make the same decision. You might make a different decision and have different response to your action. Right. So? And my question is, have you found atonement for that? Have you found some peace with what affected you so strongly? Such a sense of having done wrong, or just a sense of, you know, consequences.

[41:10]

Are you at peace with with your life, do you let go of maybe guilt or something like that? How do you work with that? I've been working on it today. I work with it all the time. By confessing and repenting, I work with it. By talking about it, I work with it. So it doesn't have the same charge It doesn't have the same charge anymore. I can answer questions about it, you know, without crying. You've been having your head up for a long time out there, Courtney. I'm really fortunate that in my lifetime I never

[42:14]

But this issue of taking life, I think, just to be alive, we're all taking life. So if we can talk about a snail, or we can talk about a fetus, or whatever, there's no way to and deciding what does a precept mean in this situation right now, and Mary's story, what It's a hard choice, you know.

[43:52]

Somebody, I think, asked Baker Roshi, you know, why were we vegetarians? I think that's a story I've heard. And he said, when you eat a carrot, you can't hear it crying. Something like that was the answer. So we make decisions all the time. When we put gasoline in our car or everything, we are having an effect on I mean, you're the parent, but the people that brought it, it had to get to you. What kind of suffering? I mean, we're here, and we're surviving, so something's dying. Yeah. I had an abortion in Japan. And it was like, it was a one-night stand. And I have never felt that that baby is dead. always with me and also I get the feeling that he arrived and sacrificed himself in order for me to learn a lesson that you don't just give yourself away so easily.

[45:02]

I had to really learn so I don't think that like he's still here and I can have a name for him and you know we talk sometimes so I don't think he's dead. I've never done the same dumb mistake again. But you suffered. Yeah, I had the... You suffered. Yeah, I definitely did. And you suffered and you had a reaction to that experience, which then transformed you, in a way, transformed your life. So he, uh, he, you know, who knows who he was, you know, that his life was too fine, short, you know, But I didn't stop loving him, and he didn't stop loving me. So I don't think you should feel bad. I don't feel bad about the women and their experience. I feel happy that I helped them, but that has nothing to do with my thing.

[46:09]

Ellen was raising her hand for a long time. animals that live there and they die. So, I mean, that's just one example. Unfortunately, I have knowledge of other kinds of suffering that, you know, kind of, Al was talking about Burma, and I happen to know about what's happening in the Congo right now. You know, women are being gang raped and mutilated to the point that they're incontinent. And the men that are doing this have no remorse because they don't see that this is just a resource war, and one of the main resources is the substance that's used in cell phones.

[47:12]

And I have a cell phone. So I am not separate. It's not that I can live and feel so guilty about my actions, but I am not completely innocent, right? So I'm part of this chain of events that has created this enormous suffering, not just in the Congo, but many other places. situation and just to know that this is going on and not to know how to hold it, what to do about it. I can't stop it. I can't solve it. I don't know if it can ever be healed. I don't know if those men can ever heal from what they've done. I don't know. So, and then I don't know what my karma is. It's not so much that I'm a bad person, but like I said, I'm not innocent. So I don't know how to, even if I didn't have a My lifetime, for sure.

[48:24]

So really it's all about being, really being aware and then making decisions, is there something I can do here? Katherine? Well, I wanted to go back to something that Tamal brought up, which was the idea that breaking the precepts always causes suffering. My understanding of the difference between the precepts and the Ten Commandments is that the precepts aren't black and white, And that some of our trouble comes from sorting effects into good effects and bad effects. And certainly suffering is something that we experience as bad and negative. But we don't always know, we don't always know the consequences of the consequences, the effects of the effects. And like you, I've struggled with the precept against killing.

[49:33]

In my own case, it had to do with someone who was terminally ill and wanted to take control of the time of the end of her life. And I helped her. And I wondered how that would play out in my own life. She was somebody I loved a lot, and her family supported her decision. And what I can say is that the effects have been huge, but I can't tell, I can't sort them into positive or negative. One of the effects is the life I'm living right now. One of the things that I bring to the life I'm living right now is that I know I can't tell if something is good or bad.

[50:43]

But just to live out of an intention to somehow find the next step in a way that is as non-harming as possible. everything, eating involves killing, talking on a cell phone involves connection with the suffering that Ellen was talking about. I can't move without causing some kind of harm, but I have to move. Yeah, I think for me it's tuning into that intuitive knowing, for me, is how I make a decision. And I think what I was saying when I was talking about this today was, I didn't. There was some separation between me and that intuitive knowing.

[51:45]

I was thinking up here. I made a decision to act based on some political thinking, not on intuitive knowing for me. So I was separate from that. And so at that point, there were consequences. that separation. Denise? I'm sorry, Nancy next. Do we have enough time for Nancy? Sure. What time is it? We'll make enough time for Nancy. I heard that, I should be more knowledgeable about this, but the first time I heard the word GESO was in regard to something that was going on at Greenville. There are movies, maybe all of you are familiar with, where, and I just heard a great one, you can put out Jesus, and address the issue of abortion, and other people do it for their other reasons, but if you've had an abortion, it can be helpful maybe.

[52:57]

You just go through this ceremony and I don't know what it is. Well, Yvonne Rand does these... There are probably other people who do them too, but I think she was the first one that started. And they do... And they are primarily for women. They're for women, the ones that she started. And so anyone who lost a child from either an abortion or a child that died in some other way. And somehow the ritual of bringing that to a ceremony is healing. Denise? If we talk about protecting life and the precepts, one example which I think is important is if we are hiding Jews in our house and Nazis come to our door, So that's the question that I think, it doesn't mean that I don't lean towards the protecting life in the more absolute realm, but there's a bigger picture that we're not taking into account in terms of all the ramifications about.

[54:43]

So when I think about your action, I think the place to, one place to rest is in the intention in which you held it. You were acting from Yeah. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think it's time.

[55:09]

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