And trading and perfect dharma is rarely met with even a hundred thousand million kalpas, having it to see and to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tadakatha's words. Good morning, BGC Sangha. Especially a good morning to Mary Duryea, our speaker today. Mary is a mediator and currently practicing meditator and psychologist. She grew up in the Northwest and came to the Bay Area to attend school in 1967, and has been here ever since. She first walked through the gate of BCC in 1993, received from Sergeant Mel Weissman in 2004, and was head student, or SHUSO, in 2017, and received lay addressment in 2023 from Hoson Allen Sinalki, our abbot.

[01:09]

She is married to Libby and lives in Oakland. Give all your attention to Mary Duryea. Thank you. Thank you, Ross. Good morning. Good morning. There's a lot of people here. Thank you for being here on this holiday, three-day weekend. I have a return to winter or May Day. And welcome to anyone who is new, especially. I looked up Memorial Day and found, to my surprise, I didn't know that it was begun after the Civil War. The Civil War ended April of 1865, and the next year around May, in this late spring, the town sort of independently began to gather for something called Decorators, or Decoration Day.

[02:24]

in which they decorated the headstones of the fallen in the Civil War. And the same thing happened in the South. And eventually, I think, but not until the next century, celebrations were combined into Memorial Day. And that was the history as we knew it until around 2002, when a historian at Harvard was going through a cardboard box of documents and newspaper reports and clippings and pictures and other letters and documents and testimonials about an event that happened in Charleston, South Carolina in May or so, April or May 1965, a full year earlier. And it was around the end of the Civil War when the newly freed slaves gave proper burial to the fallen Union soldiers who had been in a prisoner of war camp there.

[03:34]

A house of Charlottesville racetrack had been converted to a prisoner of war camp. And many of the men died there, the freed slaves. buried them, and then subsequently had a celebration and day of honoring in which it was reported there was a parade of 10,000 people of freed slaves with a small smattering of white missionaries. And that was actually the first Memorial Day. So we have a piece of our history recently. The person who did that is a man named David Blight, who wrote a rewriting of the history of the Civil War called Race and Reunion, which I'm beginning to get into.

[04:35]

So that's what I, part of the research for this talk, that's what Kate gave to me. Mary, can you move the mic closer to your mouth? Yes. Thank you. Before it was because I was breathing too loud. Now I'm not talking loud enough. Is that all right? Okay, let me know. So we are saying Sojun's words in this collected book of his words of seeing one thing to throw. And my assigned section is page 119 to 125. Enlightenment. We run that together like it's one thing. Practice stash. Enlightenment. And the companion section to that is 287 to 288, which is appropriately the problem of self-improvement. And I confess that

[05:44]

If it had been up to me to pick a section, this would not have been it. Not because it's not wonderful. It's actually been wonderful to study, but because it's so hard. We have a really wonderful resource online. I mentioned this on the Thursday class called the Audio Archive. It's a new addition to our website. So you go to Dharma and look up, and it's a subcategory of Dharma, a value archive. And it's a collection back to the early 1980s through, I think now it's through 2022, if I'm not mistaken, of all the Dharma talks given here. So there's a couple of thousand, 175 of which are surgeons. And you can search it, by subject matter and person and keyword and so forth, so it is fabulous.

[06:49]

And then what comes up is a recording that you can listen to and a transcription, that it's an AI. It's not perfect, but it's close enough that you can read along and hear the words. The particular talk that this section is based on is one that Soji gave in 2005 and what he's doing, I think it's called, the title of it is called Not Always So, because he's reading a chapter from Not Always So, which is from our other ancestors, Roshi, and the chapter is wherever you are, and this was the most wonderful moment of, preparing for this talk, which is reading Sojun's words and listening to him say them while he's reading Suzuki Roshi.

[07:52]

And I picked up this and read along while he... And then, and Suzuki's talking about Dōgen. So there's this sense of mere standing on our ancestors in this very layered and literal way. I'm hoping to do justice to them. One of my favorite sentences from Suzuki, I mean, Sojin's talks, there are other talks that he deals with enlightenment, although he doesn't talk about enlightenment a great deal, but out of 1275, there are at least five of them. He said, light brings us to practice. Light brings us to practice. and practice reveals the light. Light, enlightenment, brings us to practice.

[08:54]

And practice, enlightenment. So, he's saying right up front, enlightenment is already there. Wherever you are, enlightenment is there. of course, said it's unheard of, experiences enlightenment without practice. So there's the practice enlightenment. In fact, these two sections that were selected kind of together are perfect references, I would say. Gakudo Yoshinju, no, Yojinshu, which is Dogen's Guidelines for Practicing the Way. Sections three is, in the Buddha way, you should always enter enlightenment through practice. And four is just Buddhist teaching with the idea of gain.

[09:59]

So here's how these sections come together. We talk some about Sudden enlightenment, when we talk in Soda Zen about gradual enlightenment. So here's Soda. In our practice, we don't try to seek a sudden experience, and experience always has to be followed by practice. We do not try to emphasize sudden enlightenment experience, because then people will think, well, what I'm doing is not enlightenment. Enlightenment is when you have the big experience. And then you tend to minimize what's happening right now because the real thing is . Our emphasis is the real thing is right here, right now.

[11:03]

So the more you emphasize that sudden enlightenment thing, the further it takes you away from where you are now. So we followed Dobin's approach and Suzuki's approach. I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, well, most of your enlightenment experiences are not what they're cracked up to be, which is talking about sudden enlightenment. So, I think I'll question, what is enlightenment? And I ask that question at some risk because we are cautioned by Sojin and others about not getting into a thing or into an idea. And yet we are also told by many, including the version of that, the only way to enter

[12:11]

practice or enter the absolute is through the conventional words, through concepts. So there's our mind, and this is our fair warning about what I'm about to say, that we're entering risky territory of not, of mistaking a painting of a rice cake for the rice cake, you know, that Zen idea, you can't eat a painting of rice cake. Here's some pointers. I did a little bit of a poll, the people, about what they thought enlightenment was. Always says, there is not enlightenment, but there is enlightened activity. I thought about that. I thought, well, that really introduces the question appropriately, I think, of

[13:13]

How can I be enlightened if I am I? If there is no self, who is the one? What is the one enlightened? See, Guantraub does not resonate with the idea of enlightenment, per se, but responds to your effort. And I'm thinking that's intimate and connected with enlightened activity. And it's also connected to practice, since your effort is a pointer toward practice, I think. It's not some big shiny object which will cure us of ever being ashamed or making a mistake. But remember that even those ancestors who never made a big splash or rode brilliant fascicle as we're passing on the light.

[14:18]

Think of all the people in between Dogen and Danchan and Hakun and Suzuki and so forth. So now I'm going to be pulling out the pointer to enlightenment. He says, faith itself is enlightenment. If you have true faith in practice, that enlightenment is there because faith is a product of enlightenment. So faith in our nature, faith in Buddha nature, and faith in the nature of practice. Confidence is an aspect of faith. One kind of blind faith is someone tells you something and you're supposed to believe it. That's blind. But true blind faith is faith with your eyes wide open.

[15:20]

It means really seeing completely. It means your confidence and your understanding are good enough so that you don't need to keep reasoning with yourself. You don't need to keep creating mental reasonings for what you were doing. That's faith and practice. Just keep doing the practice, right? Not second guessing. I think confidence also comes from, as one practices, one in ways that can't be predicted and aren't expected necessarily, has experiences of small and big transformations, of things being different than they were, of this being easier, a relationship resolving in a different way, or a habit falling away, or any one of a number of ways in which one can accumulate confidence in practice.

[16:35]

to watching a tree grow. You actually can't see it grow. But if you compare the tree this year with how it was five years ago, you go, oh, there's really something happening here. It's subtle, and it's not always obvious. Your sojourn again, another pointer. Have faith in our Buddha nature, Zazen is simply total faith because you are letting go of everything and putting yourself in the hands of whatever it is. There's no fear. There's nothing but resting comfortably in your true nature, in Buddha nature. I mean, this is an important and maybe revelatory and a pointer for how Zazen can be, that you could rest comfortably. always comfortable resting.

[17:38]

Whether there is a comfortable resting in letting go of the seeking. That's where the comfort comes from. Not doing something. And that was a revelation. When I sat down to do zazen, I wasn't doing something. I wasn't trying for something. But just being, resting, relying, actually, on Buddha nature to carry one forward. Another pointer from Soju. I always felt that I have some kind of faith. There are faith types and doubt types. Suzuki Roshi was a faith type. Dogen was a faith type. People who are just naturally manifest optimism. And Rinzai was a doubt type.

[18:41]

Dantran was a doubt type. Hakuen, I think, was a doubt type. These are people who are in some need of strong experience in order to dispel their doubts. So we have these two different types, and Suzuki Roshi is speaking from this position, I think, of being a faith type person. And I think Zen is pretty much based on faith-like principles because of Dover. So I've never heard him say this, actually. It was new information for me. I was thinking about these people in this way, and it made a lot of sense. And I also felt like faith does go with optimism, and who knows which is first. Maybe optimism actually helps nurture faith. And that for those of us who include myself in this. We have that question. Is there anything happening? When is happening?

[19:42]

Why am I doing this? Why am I spending all my time in this way? And is it making a difference? And these kind of, and how do I know? How does one know anything? Another way of coming at this, and it's true that having a strong Experience does reassure the Tao type. I mean, I remember the first time in a sashim, it was on day three, fighting the schedule. And I just relaxed into it. And I was so much happier, more comfortable, and it was so dramatic. And that was reassuring to me as a Tao type. So there is a place for those moments, you know. Oh, that's what this is about, kind of feeling. And Sojin is also pointing out something different.

[20:46]

I'm actually of the opinion that sudden and gradual are really not different, because I think what's happening with the sudden is that it's been going on, and then suddenly there's realization. and the realization feels sudden, but that's not because there hasn't been practice that's led up to that. That makes it a step. This is a session again about being a faith type. So I was very gullible and I swallowed Suzuki Roshi's words, and that was my food for a long time. But I never worried about enlightenment, so I guess that's why I'm not enlightened. There's also a story about Suzuki that somebody may know the details better than I, but my understanding was somebody asked him why he didn't ever talk about enlightenment. And he was sitting next to his wife and she laughed and she said, that's because he's never been enlightened.

[21:52]

And he laughed. He was searching again. But we should always go beyond enlightenment. In other words, not get stuck on some enlightenment idea. This is one of the biggest himitsas for many people. So having taken that warning, I'm going to go on with the other pointers that he has. My pointer is just being, Shikintaza. Being with whatever is, is another way of thinking about it or looking at it. This is Buddha's practice. So who is Buddha? Don't think about that. Simply let breathing breathe and see. Let hearing hear. Let thinking think about a self in the center. And then miraculously everything gets done. So shikantaza is just do thoroughly and completely.

[22:55]

So I think this is what Hannah was talking about in the class on Thursday night when she was talking about leading a group of young girls into the wilderness at night to do some stargazing, and feeling like her feeling the way without knowing how she was doing that. The feeling of relying on something bigger than oneself and having the activity be the whole experience rather than I'm doing this. The activity is being done. I think that makes sense. Maybe there are times when one has this in some ways when one loses oneself in a creative project or when one loses oneself is sort of the operative phrase. So it's basically living our life one moment at a time, as my old teacher said thoroughly.

[24:05]

And it doesn't matter whether you like it. It doesn't matter whether it's what you don't like. It's not a matter of feeling good or feeling bad, like having or not having. It's just being present with whatever it is. That's why Zazen itself is enlightenment, because what does and is, is just moment after moment of this is it. This is of this moment and whatever it is, it's radical acceptance. And somewhere along in this part of the talk, he talked about, if I want to remember it accurately, everyone's So, and Suzuki Roshi walking through, we'll be sitting here, and then, and they all hoped that the answer will be enlightened or would something, that the phrase would be promising.

[25:22]

And he said, we'll continue to do that forever. So I didn't hear it again. ...enlightenment, he's really talking about the quality of our activity, merging with activity, being one with activity, being fully oneself. Suzuki Roshi once said, of course we should have an enlightened experience of each moment. This is how you... Enlightenment experience, moment to moment. Not something special, but something that is your normal life. So as long as we're not expecting something, nothing will happen. So as long as we are expecting something, nothing will happen. You just simply do the practice for the sake of the practice. So he's introducing here the problem of expectation.

[26:33]

Somebody at one of the practice period teas talked about chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, which is kind of a good metaphor for this thing that we think of. I mean, it's very hard to let go of the idea that there is some thing out there looking for something wonderful, wanting something that's going to change ourselves, make us be the people we want to be. Maybe it could be even a desire for achievement. And how do you work with those desires? And when that runs up against this idea of no gaining idea, not having a goal, not having an idea. So I hear sojourn.

[27:45]

There is a goal, but it's not a self-centered goal. It is the goal of letting go of the self at the center. Letting go of attachment and clinging to self is the goal. Letting go of attachment to clinging and discrimination and attachment to self and other. So simply sitting in complete harmony with things. Buddha is the center. You take the self out and put Buddha in the center. We go chasing after our definition of enlightenment. But whatever idea you have is not it. So that's the problem. You can't take that environment. So it does raise, for me it raises, how do you put Buddha in the center?

[28:47]

What is that like in terms of an experience or an environment, if you will? And I think about things like this, we reach for metaphor. Because we are just pointing, it is just the painting of the rice cake. So the metaphor that Suzuki offers about this in the section that Sojun is reading from, he begins his talk by talking about how Japanese cooks cook everything separately. The rice is separate from the dashi, it's separate from the pickles, it's separate from the tofu. Separate, everything's separate. When we eat it, on this morning we had this wonderful, was that blood orange juice? It was a bright orange-red and the grain and

[29:52]

The tempeh was... And we all put... And they're all mixed together. And Suzuki points out that that's the only way we get nourishment, by mixing it all together. And that actually is a pointer to emptiness. No separation. Everything mixed together all the time. So that helps me get closer... to what he might be meaning about putting Buddha in the center. About putting that sense of no separation in the center. That's my take, but maybe you've got another idea we can talk about. We have time. So, not peeking at enlightenment. This is... Here we are trying to peek at it and try to point at it, but we're not supposed to peek.

[30:53]

Dogen, turn the eye of enlightenment and reflect back on the realm of practice. Nothing in particular hits your eye. And so Sojin answers this by saying, this is just everyday practice, right? It's just in practice, it's just everyday practice, activity. Nothing special. And enlightenment is also nothing special. It is simply your everyday activity. What can you point out as enlightenment? We want to point out something, though. We want to be... That's enlightenment. But if you really pay attention to your everyday practice, you're really paying attention to your everyday practice. That's enlightenment. Suzuki Roshi used to say, you should be very careful about it because when you finally have it, you may not like it.

[31:59]

And it's true, actually, very true. So enlightenment is not something that we find at the end of our practice rainbow. Enlightenment is what brings us to practice. So we start out with enlightenment, and that's the big disappointment. Is this enlightenment? This is enlightenment? Yes, enlightenment brings us to practice, and practice supports enlightenment. So, one, right now, is the question, is a study, it has to do with the steadiness of the flame of practice and how we stay in touch when all hell is breaking loose.

[33:12]

So I was sitting, I was in not too long ago, in a location where, an urban location. And I was feeling very steady in this azena, in this particular day. And suddenly, not metaphorically speaking, but sort of literally all hell started breaking news. There was something happening in the block down the street, and there were sirens, and not just the usual sirens, but the wah, [...] that kind of siren. That sounded like big equipment, like, I don't know, fire trucks and ambulances or something, maybe, these cars. And I had been given a metapractic

[34:15]

by a teacher sometime years ago, which was initially really hard, but it's actually become something of a staple for me. And so my immediate response was, may all things be well. And it allowed me to not personally attach to what was going on, but to sort of put it from Buddha's altar to put it in bigger hands than mine. And then there were helicopters overhead. I live in East Oakland, and if you live in Oakland or maybe particularly in East Oakland, you know that what that signals is that there's a manhunt going on. Somebody's losing it. And then that quieted it.

[35:23]

And then it happened again. And so there was this feeling of, oh, this is what it's like to have this happening at the same time that all of this is happening. And that was the question that I had been bringing How do I practice? And the feeling that I got is you have to practice with everything all mixed together. The way that in your stomach, it's all part of it. It's all of a piece. So, What are the takeaways? I can say a few things about what the takeaways are from all of this, but I'd be interested also in hearing yours.

[36:28]

That we're not about... This is not about arriving somewhere once and for all. We keep arriving in each moment. It's a moment by moment practice. If you gain it, you probably will not realize it. If you try to check, you lose it. You can't peek at it. Sudden experiences may be reassuring, but they're not the arrival point. It's not the answer technique. It's most likely found in thorough, embodied experience, lived experience.

[37:35]

The richness of just this. The way in which things can be come in a moment and The ordinary things can become luminous. This is a direct quote from Dzogchen. Practice is not something someone else creates. The only practice is the one you create. You create the practice, and then it creates you. So I'm going to give Sojin and Suzuki, the final word. This is Sojin. Practice is like a kind of circle around oneself, like a kind of... Each one of us has a halo, which is the realm of our light, which is a kind of protection in the world.

[38:45]

It includes, it lights up everything around us. And it's our own light which lights up everything around us. Original life light. This is Suzuki. Something you do consciously. Something you do with effort. There, right there, is enlightenment. I think Steve Guantrop has surrendered. Many Zen masters miss this point while they attain perfect Zazen. Things that exist are imperfect. That is how everything actually exists in this world. Nothing we see or hear is perfect.

[39:48]

But right there in the imperfection is perfect reality. It is true intellectually and also in our practice. It is true on paper and true in our body. You think that you can only establish true practice after you attain enlightenment, but it is not so. True practice is established in delusion, in frustration. If you make some mistake, where to establish your practice, there is no other place for you to establish it. So I think I'm gonna stop there. I'd love to hear what you think about... Marley. Hello? Okay. Hi. Thank you so much for your talk about some heavy and profound parts of this practice.

[40:55]

I guess what I think about is practice enlightenment in many ways seems like it was Dogen's answer to why do we practice? And so maybe I'm bringing that question right back to you. Given all that you said, why do we practice? Practice is what reveals enlightenment. enlightenment brings us to practice, practice reveals enlightenment. There's, I mean, that Dogen is making between our inherent way-thinking mind, which is what he said, well, why do we, if we have it, then why do we need to practice? And the answer is that that's different than realizing.

[42:00]

I would say probably the more practical answer for myself is that practice teaches you how to live your life. Thank you. John. Thank you, Mary. It's beautiful. I'm going to bring up an instrument that happened that I wrestled with all the time. I was the person I thought, in fact, was a very great teacher, very compassionate, very

[43:03]

quote-unquote mind. And he had a big problem, which is that he was very abusive to women. And I brought up that issue to a lineage. And I said, when I brought up a particularly horrific example, and at that moment was this teacher in life. And this teacher in the lineage says, yes, he will. I can invent all sorts of things that would explain to me what he might have meant, and none of them really work. And so for me it's a big problem in that way, and I don't have an intellectual or body answer for that. So I figured, It seemed like the nature of enlightenment, so I'd bring it up.

[44:08]

It's a hard case. I think that's where when he said, there's not enlightenment, there's enlightened activity. And that doesn't sound like enlightened activity to me. It's doing harm. And that's not enlightened activity. And further, your question of is your teacher enlightened presupposes the self in the teacher, right? So the answer is this teacher is not enlightened. It's like Mel says. No, the answer is when he is He may have enlightened activity at some times, and not at others.

[45:09]

Definitely. Thank you. Thank you. I think that one thing that we can do for each other is help each other find their light inside. I feel like I've been through periods of my life where I wasn't aware of a light inside.

[46:24]

And those are times when I've fallen out of relationship or slipped out of some kind of belonging. It's hard to, you know, feel like you have an inner horizon at times like that. And for me, like I've find it, again, with people, you know? And it's like, you know, help somebody find something they've always had. And it might happen repeatedly through your life. So, I think we can just aspire. I aspire to help people. I aspire to help people in a way that people have helped me. To be able to find your inner horizon again.

[47:32]

and, you know, can lead into a presence, and you can participate in enlightened activity. Even before you find your inner horizon, I think that's how you find it, with other people showing you the way. Thank you. So, I just, and that's why... Well, I, you know, that... That is a lot about... Can you rephrase what they're saying? We're having difficulty understanding the last two questioners. Thank you for letting me know. I'll do my best. The immediate last one was we help each other see the light in ourselves when when someone else recognizes the light in us, that's helpful, and that that's something that encourages us to do with others.

[48:39]

And that, I was thanking him and saying that's a part of what Sojin and Suzuki talk about, which I didn't talk about in my talks now, which is the value and the importance of this practice of being together with others. and how essential that is for that precise reason is that if we can't peek, we can't see the light in ourselves, it's other people who see it in us and can point out what they perceive as, for lack of a better way of saying it, but in-light activity. The comment immediately before that had to do with the disappointment around a teacher who was abusive to people. And in asking about that behavior with another teacher, like, is this teacher enlightened when they do this particularly egregious behavior?

[49:53]

The other teacher said yes. And I was disagreeing with that and saying, is that person still enlightened? And I guess technically you could say that that person hasn't lost their inherent life. That activity is not enlightened activity. And that, so it's not, what would we say, realized. It's not manifest. Maybe that's the best way for it. Good enough. Yes. Thinking about the part of your talk when you're discussing

[50:56]

and doubt type. I don't know that you said this, but you talked about this, but there's not just the two, right? You know, probably not. When I think about myself, I don't think of either in this context. They both seem like they have to do with an outcome. You know, like... I don't know if that's helpful, but it's like one says this is going to work and the other one is going to worry about it. Yeah, I think that it is an oversimplification. Not everybody falls into those categories. I think, and I remember, I can hear surgeons saying, we all have faith and doubt of varying kinds and varying times. And doubt is important because one doesn't want to follow blindly.

[52:02]

And in fact, the Buddha said, here's my teaching, but don't take it from me. Prove it to yourself. And that is an encouraging of a mind, like, should I believe this? Is this real? Is this true for me? And that's the value of a... the doubting part of the one's mind, and the faith mind, probably I could speak thus to this part, because I tend to go in a different direction, and then people do find themselves along the continuum, is a person who's, well, Thudjian said, he said, I swallowed my teacher's words like food, trusted them, and his optimism and trust were his leading edge, so to speak.

[53:04]

So I agree, it is an oversimplification, and we all have both. I'm just wondering about the absence of them. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mary, for your talk. So what brings to my mind is the, I guess I would, I don't call it like that, or maybe take this off. Maybe I'd be in the doubt pool because of science background, always investigating. But what gives me a kind of faith is part of a chant, it's not done here, is that

[54:11]

They do it at San Francisco Zen Center, but it's from Binduwa, self-receiving samadhi. And there's a part in it which is about practice, practice enlightenment, practice realization. And for me, what helps me is when it says you practice and the enlightenment is not something that will be in your ability to perceive. So that just is sort of a relief. I don't have to perceive it. However, others will benefit. So I think you said that in your talk too, and that I think connects in with what you were talking about, enlightened activity. But it's the benefit of others, which is part of the vows. And so anyway, that kind of is a thing that just reminding myself, nothing to perceive, just practice. And like you said, slowly, see a benefit to others. But thank you. Just kind of quickly to Helen's point, when I think about faith, and this might not resonate for your question, but faith isn't like a thing that exists, but it's like the absence of worry or the absence of extra.

[55:30]

It's like faith is kind of the ground. There's nothing added to what's happening. I see Mark's hand online. Thank you, Mary. The third noble truth of the Buddha is the cessation of ignorance is the cessation of suffering. And maybe the evidence is that that isn't actually a thing. But I wonder where that is in our tradition and our... teaching, or your understanding? Nicely tied into the class we just had. The third noble truth, of course, is that there's a cause of suffering. And knowing the cause of suffering allows you to make choices to not suffer, how not to suffer.

[56:39]

there is a way in which, for me, Buddhism was relieving in saying that suffering is an inevitable aspect of being alive. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say experiencing pain, old age and disease and death is an inevitable part of being alive. And how we add to that is how we our attitude of not accepting, the lack of radical acceptance, that is what Soju was talking about, and that our ability to understand cause and effect in that everything is conditioned, everything from a cause, And if we know the cause of suffering, then we can actually not experience pain, but not suffer pain.

[57:50]

We had a bit of a debate about this on Thursday. Everybody would agree with exactly that formulation, but that's sort of my understanding. What about you? Well, thank you. It seems to stop short of cessation of suffering, which is a testimony of Buddha. What that has, because if I look around, I can't point to my life or anybody else's life where there's no suffering. And yet I still think that's a dimension of the Dharma, a side of it that isn't brought forth in our way. The way this became a topic of discussion was that it's one of the three marks of existence, suffering, that is the third mark of existence, meaning it is an immutable truth along with impermanence and selflessness and suffering.

[58:53]

And Sojin and Thich Nhat Hanh and others argue with that a little bit and question whether it shouldn't be nirvana instead of suffering. And some of them actually say there are four marks of existence. And so that, this is a debate others have had. Yes. Go ahead. I didn't want to interrupt you, I just, I didn't want to interrupt you. That's right, that's right. I feel like I run, Russ made this comment in the class. The Hinayana version of the three marks includes suffering because in that teaching there is a complete cessation, it goes away, it's not coming back again. But in the Mahayana, I think it points more to the fact that

[59:54]

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