left, I had to come home from Zen Center and just feel some frustration while I digested what was happening. A little more detail there. I am able to not hang on to anything. That's my secret. I believed my teacher when he said don't get caught by anything. I really believed it. Not only did I believe it, I started acting it out. So that's where I'm at. Don't get caught by anything. I'm able to not dwell on something. The news is what the news is. My anger is what my anger is. That's all. I try to do what I can to assuage everybody's anxieties.

[01:06]

I don't have much anxiety. I'm going to die. I'm on my way. What should I do? Worry about it? Everybody does this. Nobody escapes. This happens to every single person that's ever lived. What should I worry about? What's there to worry about? Just follow the news. I'm just not that kind of person. This is what I have decided when I was young. I said, I'm just going to live my life all the way up to the end. When it's time to go, I go. That's life. Life is death. So we experience it every moment. Here we are.

[02:08]

Next moment, here we're not. This happens every moment. When I go to a meeting, I hear people so attached to their ideas and their preferences and what they think things should be. There's no reason to argue about that. We should present everything that we think, but not be attached to other people's thinking or my thinking. I hear people say, when I go to a meeting, I'm so upset when I leave. I'm not upset when I leave. It's just people communicating with each other. And I'm just as willing to change my mind as to attach to it. We should all be like that. We should be willing to change our attitude, our mind according to what's right, not according to what I want.

[03:13]

As long as you're too attached to what you want, you suffer like crazy. Thank you. Thanks a lot. Okay. We have Chris Evans. Thank you. Sojourn. One of our dokusans, we talked about a footnote within Zen teachings of Bodhidharma, where Red Pine translates something about ecchantika. And hence, at that moment, you've given me my koan, which is, when are we blameless to kill? When are we blameless to kill? Now, we're not talking about vegetables or food. What you implied is, when are we blameless to kill? To cho? When are we blameless to kill? K-I-L-L.

[04:18]

Okay. Right, on ecchantika. It's a kind of a Buddhist Sanskrit word. And I won't get into a definition. Well, let me define it. Sure, go ahead. Ecchantika originally means someone who has no buddha nature. No buddha nature. So, all Buddhists believe that everyone has buddha nature, except the Yogacara school. They think there are people who actually don't have buddha nature. And if you look around, you may think that's so. But anyway, so, when Dogen calls someone a Bodhisattva, a great ecchantika, he doesn't need to mean the opposite. Now, that you may have given us, shared with us, the denotation of ecchantika. But it also connotes those humans who are so selfish and psychotic that they would harm or violate or kill anything

[05:29]

without any rhyme or reason. You just, you don't know, you know, sort of demonic in their soul or personality and their selfishness and wanting to thieve and murder. So that's, so we're talking about the connotation of the limited definition ecchantika you shared with us, which is, of course, an excellent starting point. So then that is a koan that I've been meditating on as sort of a wadu. And I think we've had a few follow-up, perhaps we had one more follow-up discussions about that. And I wanted to share with you my progress or more like lack of progress in this koan. And so, like all koans or sutras, really, it's the individual who is wrestling with this concept that has to define it for herself or himself. Yet, at the same time, there is a range of understanding that is sympathetic or a shared understanding within

[06:36]

the Mahayana Zen Buddhist heritage. Matter of fact, it comes from the Nirvana Sutra. And when I first read it, and before you pointed it out, and then I went back to Zen teachings of bodhidharma, and sure enough, there was an end note. And the end note, at the end of the note, Brad Porter shares with us, back in the day when the Nirvana Sutra was being written, there were multiple translations of the Nirvana Sutra. But at that time, it was understood that if we, meaning the collective humans that decide, decide to kill an ecchantika, who is a psychotic, unrepairable, unfixable person, then we are to be held blameless. However, since then, though, the Mahayana understanding has gone away from that, and that there's at no point where

[07:36]

that it is acceptable. Now, how I come to term is that we, I as an individual, and every one of us, we have never a right to kill any person. We have responsibility and duty for self-defense and protection, but not kill, right? However, as I understand it, as a part of a community, I can see how that when we have representatives that are duly chosen, when they carry out sort of medicine for society, then I see how those people who are involved, where it involved somebody other than us, where there was discussion, weighing of evidence, whether it's in war or after a trial, I see how in that regard would be the only way that a Bodhisattva would be blameless. How am I doing in my understanding?

[08:40]

You know, in the history of Tibetan Buddhism, there was a monk, there was an emperor, or I think it was, who was likened to Jataka, and he was ruining the country and killing everybody. And this monk said, I'm going to kill that person, but I will go down in hell forever. So he had to make that decision. Is it worth killing that person and for me to go to hell forever? And he killed him, but you have to pay the price. Is that because that person acted alone and not with an open, trusted dialogue among representatives? But he had the dialogue.

[09:46]

Right. Yes, he had the dialogue. Did he have a dialogue with himself or with representatives? I wasn't there. In the community? We're just telling you the story. And does that distinction matter? It does matter. You're not innocent. You can kill somebody. If you see somebody chasing a little child with a knife, you're going to kill them? Right. You can make that decision. But it doesn't leave you blameless. Sure. According to your... Sure. So it's all about circumstances. It's not all about circumstances, but circumstances plays a big difference in what you're doing. You can't just kill a protester because you don't like him. Well, obviously not. Not obviously not. Some people think it's okay. Yeah. Well, perhaps that's an example of a Chandigarh thought.

[10:48]

Yes, it's an example. But it's deeper than that. It's about karma. But then you also have not only the right but duty of self-defense and to protect innocents and loved ones, right? Well, that's why people go to war. But there are also violence that happens outside of war. I mean, unfortunately, our uniformed service people keep that kind of mayhem far away. But we have criminals. So we have psychotic and crazy people and just extremely selfish people right around our community. Well, I'm not sure that crazy people are necessarily... They're more innocent than purposeful people who are not crazy. Of course, they have to be crazy to kill somebody anyway. And you touched upon a good point. How do you deal with somebody like, for instance, Shonyu Suzuki, Genji's wife's killer, right? Now, I am not saying do one thing or another, but I'm saying doesn't a society

[11:55]

with its elected representative, shouldn't they retain a full range of medicine? Let me say something. Let me say something. I'm almost there. Shouldn't there be a choice in the community to make sure that that person isn't forced to live with somebody else later when they're out of prison? Okay, please continue. Who's forced to live with who? Oh, people who are sent out of prison early after they've done mayhem and murder and heinous enchantika-like acts, right? And then you have governors or presidents or parole boards that may release somebody and then they're now, they can live with next door to a family with children. That's a whole other argument, which I don't want to get into because it takes too much time. But back to enchantika and this concept, is the bodhisattva blameless?

[12:59]

So your answer is, even if it's the right thing, like Hitler or the leader of Daesh or some psychotic criminal, no matter what good you did for the community, you're still held responsible and you have blame, right? I'm mixed up in what you're saying. I'm not sure exactly what you're saying. Sure. So the question is, when is a bodhisattva blameless to kill and then nobody is blameless to kill. But then if somebody kills somebody like Hitler or the leader of Daesh or ISO or whoever else, that is an easy example for many of us to agree that somebody like that needs to be stopped, right? Killing is the last resort. But it's the last resort. Yes, that's true. But that doesn't help if there are other choices that one is

[14:07]

considering, right? Yeah. My answer is, don't do it. I wouldn't. And I don't recommend you don't either. However, one needs a plan. What was that, Gary? I said, let's wrap it up. I don't need a plan. I just won't do it. Okay. That's an easy answer. Yes. The answer is not so hard. Don't do it. But how about the state? You know, I see there's a leaf in front of you from your plant. It looks just like a heart. Okay, Ryushin, you're on. Thank you, Chris.

[15:10]

Good evening, Sojin. Where are you? I'm there somewhere. Wave your hand. Hi. Oh, yeah. Hi. Okay. I thought you'd be interested to know, I just got back from talking with Christine Moss and Kota. Uh-huh. She's the animal communicator. Uh-huh. You're breaking up. Kota had this insight that instead of leading with her ideas and her snout, she needed to, when she had difficulties, she needed to lead with her heart. I thought that... I thought she led with her teeth. That's what I mean. She realized that there was a better choice. I thought you would like that. And it relates to the question that I was going to ask you.

[16:15]

You have an unusual way of seeing what's really inside us. When we are asking you our questions, you seem to see beyond where we're able to see, and I really want to understand how you're able to do that. I don't know. Has it always been that way? Yeah. I remember when I was driving a taxi cab back in the 50s and 60s, and I would get people in the cab and they would start talking to me. Everybody had a story. I heard a million stories. And sometimes I didn't want to cut people off, and we came to the end and we talked for an hour.

[17:26]

And I didn't make as much money, but I felt that I had to do that. I felt that it was my obligation to listen to people's stories and let them unburden themselves. And so I don't say that I have any special insight, but I do listen to what people say, and I try to understand what people say. And if they need some advice, I don't know. I don't really give people advice. I just kind of listen to their stories and nod my head. My experience of you in Doga-san, but especially we get to see it in Shosan and sometimes in lecture, that you know what's underneath the story. You know the essence. You know how to touch the essence

[18:38]

of people. And you have the great privilege of working with many of us over many years, so you've heard all the stories. You know us in some way pretty well, but you can see the essence. For me, that's your great gift as a teacher. And maybe that's just the gift you were given, but I'm really interested in how that was cultivated, how that was polished, how that was brought forth, how that matters, as you know, to me more than anything, is to touch the essence. That's my work as a palliative care person, but it's the joy in life to be there in that place with people. Well, I have a certain amount of freedom, and so I like to bring people up to my level of freedom. But you know,

[19:49]

I also have very hard times. I don't always show my hard times. I just help people to reflect on where they are. Would you tell us about one of them now? No, because it's all private. I never talk to some, and I don't say I never do this, but I rarely talk to people about other people or about my experiences or things. And I forget. I just do something and then I forget. You know, I never listen to somebody else's conversation. If people are near me and they're talking to each other, I just tune out. I don't want to hear what they're saying because it's their business. It's not my business. So I just pay attention to my own business and allow people to enter my space when it's appropriate.

[20:57]

But I have sympathy for people. I really have a lot of sympathy for people, and as soon as I'm addressed for anything, I turn to them. Yeah, I think we all love you for those qualities. Yeah. Thank you. Well, thank you. Sue Osher? Yeah. Thank you. Sergeant Roshi. Hi. I'm here. I'm here. Um, today, today Gordon has been gone I'm getting feedback Gordon's been gone

[22:00]

since October 10th What was that? Gary, did you say something? Yeah, I'm asking Sojan to unmute. I hit unmute. I muted him by mistake. Sorry. Okay. He'll be right there. Somebody had their mic on, and it was Andrea's still, okay. Sojan, you're muted still. Can you unmute? Can you hear me? How's that? Good. And I finally unmuted, but by a different channel. Yeah. Yeah. I realized after I woke up this morning,

[23:01]

today is September 10th, and Gordon died 11 months ago. Oh. And um and um it colors my day and also there's great joy in having been with him for so long and I wanted to talk to you about joy. Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I find that some of the mindfulness about breath instructs me to call forth joy and happiness, just simply saying

[24:02]

while I breathe in, I experience my whole body and I find joy and or happiness and it doesn't it's just simply recalling that, it doesn't mean I feel it, but something comes from that, Sojan, something comes from that. And that's, I thought I'd just let you know and see what you have to say about it. What I have to say about it is that there are different levels of joy but the deepest level of joy is nirvana which means it doesn't depend on anything doesn't depend on how you're feeling it doesn't depend on circumstances, it's just your basic nature is joy and we draw on it for various

[25:04]

occasions but it's something that is always there and even in the deepest problems that we have joy is always there and when it's not that's despair the fact that we can have our ups and downs and our desperate moments and our most wonderful moments joy is always there regardless of it's like an underground stream it's always there, well actually it's called the ocean and you're a little wavelet on the ocean and when you rise you feel that joy it's the activity of the ocean joy is

[26:05]

the little waves that are the activity of the ocean and when it's calm that's the best I don't say it's the best I said it's the best but it's wonderful yeah so I think that's where we can go it's called breathing deep breathing yes like you said so there's joy and pain and there's joy and disappointment don't lose that it's what carries you through yes there's

[27:05]

joy in a fountain too, I always think of fountains with joy yes well the fountain goes up and then it falls down yeah that's the cycle of our lives moment by moment yes our breath is a fountain thank you very much you're welcome Kika, Susan Hi Sojan Roshi I just had a unique experience, you know I practice in my body for the most part I really practice in my body and before, I want to say what happened

[28:08]

but is there a hazard of practicing really deeply with your body first I don't know about first or second we're always practicing with our body yeah that's just a body practice no problem if you're not practicing with the body, that's a kind of problem can be a kind of problem I mean I struggle with I don't struggle with, but I think about articulating our practice and that doesn't really come so easily for anybody or me so I worry about that a little bit but the experience I just had is that I practice a lot with patience and just during this this public dokusan, I had some

[29:08]

impatience, real deep impatience and you know, I just I turned it right around and it just seemed like such a gift and I just did it by feeling that in my body and then recognizing it oh, the body said there's something going on what is it so I saw it and then I just and focused and listened and it was just lovely and that I can do that is just such a gift I want to thank you for that you're welcome well your body feels everything that you think your body feels everything that you think also I sometimes used to say to people who didn't know how to go you know, when I go home when they go home to their parents

[30:10]

you know, they're kind of shaking in their boots telling them what they've been doing so I used to say if you want a good koan go home and explain Zen to your mother oh, that's a good one for me thank you some mothers are sympathetic actually, my mother was sympathetic to me I couldn't believe it but my father, you know I would go home this is back in the 50's no, back in the 60's when I first started practicing and she would say send me $5 once in a while about twice a year don't tell your father I gave you this that's how I used to live when I was a kid I never thought about

[31:14]

you going home to your parents after practicing a little bit and getting their feedback getting their whatever few times a few times I have another question about you know how can the okesa be heavy how can it be? heavy heavy? oh just like the practice how can my practice be heavy because your true robe is your skin thank you so much Sojourn Roshi Kabir you're on thank you Gary hi Sojourn Roshi

[32:16]

oh yeah, hi hi when you talk about on Saturday and all the pieces I sort of see that all the pieces scattered and each piece for me it sort of represents sort of a feeling you know, fear, regret shame, anger and all that and nowadays there are quite a few triggers surrounding all of us of fear, anxiety and all that it's a buffet of all kinds of stuff that we're constantly being served from all types all the different sources and one of my favorite quotes from you is you know, don't get caught by anything, right? how? I mean

[33:24]

okay I remember something that the Korean master, Sun Tzu Ni used to say he said, go straight don't look back go straight that was his theme go straight, don't turn around what's gone is gone even though it affects you it affects all of us the past is the present, the future there's no such thing as the future even though we think about the future yes in a certain way in a mundane way there's a past and a future but in an absolute way everything is just now what it is you know, one of the things that has been

[34:32]

helping me, I try to remember that is, I had this sort of feeling that you know, that our our child side that the past is still sort of it's going on, you know so what I've what I've been doing and it's been very helpful is that I'm sending comfort and joy and like somewhat healing but just reassurance to the younger self of me and I even said you know, it's the present moment now and we made it through and whatever you're going through is passing and you know, to make it a little cheesy, it's like I'm here for you, right that's not cheesy that's great and I even had

[35:34]

this weird feeling that when I was a kid or when we're a kid and we've experienced some sort of a trauma or some kind of a hardship and when we're laying in bed or we're hiding in a corner and we get this sense of reassurance or we get a sense of love and like an internal hug and I think maybe it's because our present self is sending that to us in that moment I don't know and what Sue was saying was joy so these things are all wonderful going straight is difficult because the other thing too is that difficulty and trauma they sort of taste good sometimes because we sort of want to I don't know

[36:36]

we kind of hold on to them sort of like feeling miserable is also habit forming yes of course, anger is habit forming miserable is habit forming if we can't be happy then we can be miserable right so we trade in being happy for being miserable yes, that's true that's duality, right? yes, this is like there's one thing I mean Master Banke used to say you're given this wonderful thing called buddha nature and you trade it in for anger and killing and all kinds of detrimental things and you make yourself miserable and you bring up all these

[37:36]

terrible stupid questions why? yes, that's a good question we have our human nature and we have our buddha nature and the buddha nature is our innocent being it's our gift but because of our human nature which is always ambivalent suffering suffering that's just the way it is, that's life what we call life is suffering suffering and happiness I don't want to condemn it, it's our nature because of the way the world is built but our true nature is free from that so

[38:38]

I happen to be an optimistic kind of person and I'm always trying to make people feel good or feel happy or feel that they can do something release them from their anger or release them from their misery that's just my nature and so when Rory asked me that question and I try to think about it I don't want to say that I'm a nice guy or something like that but I feel that I can influence people or help them in some way encourage them maybe to find a way to be happier and the way to do that is to lose yourself when you lose yourself, you gain yourself you know, there's nothing wrong being a cheerleader sometimes, you know there's nothing wrong being a cheerleader sometimes, you know, it's okay there's nothing wrong with that

[39:39]

and I do have a story something in common you said you were driving a taxi before so for a while when this whole Uber thing was happening I was driving Uber for a while and I tell you, one of the best conversations I ever had was with the riders you know, we pull over and stop the meter you know, I would feel like John drives with like Dharma in him and talking about all this but yeah, I mean that's life, you know you meet everybody when you're driving yes, yes, yes I did it for six years wow, wow well, thank you so much thank you, thank you soldier thank you Hi Joe, you're on Hi Sergeant can you see me? I can if I can find you Oh, here I am Hi Mel great to see you

[40:41]

this has been wonderful what I wanted to ask you about is I was having a conversation with Alan recently and I was talking about being feeling attacked and Alan said no, they're attacked like attacked by well, various people like yeah and he said no, you how you feel about an event is up to you so it might seem you're being attacked but that's your decision to feel like you're being attacked and I said you know, you're right and in thinking about it I was kind of a little shocked that I said that but I think it's true

[41:43]

but really hard and so it seems like a gift of tremendous freedom to be able to do that and it's really hard and it seems and so I guess basically I guess the question is how to suggest I work on that and develop my capacity to to yeah You should go back to Hozon and ask him that question Okay, I will that's the plan but yeah, okay so you said so many things tonight that were like so

[42:44]

beautiful and seemed to come to all these questions I have and now I forget all of them it's like I forgot everything we said at our first jigsaw Just forget all of it It's so great to see you man Thank you Thank you Thank you Hey Sojin Hi So my question is something that's been bothering me for a while since I read Brian Victoria's book Zen at War

[43:44]

which you are probably familiar with but maybe not and so the question yeah so my question is you know I've been taught that the practice of Zazen gives rise to a feeling of compassion for the suffering of all beings compassion will arise with the practice of Zazen yet at the same time we have examples of very accomplished Zen practitioners and teachers and Roshi who were who have been intimately involved in the creation of a lot of suffering and I'm thinking specifically here of the historical example of the Japanese Zen masters who actively taught troops Zazen techniques that they then practiced when they went to engage in imperial actions against China or Korea or other type of things and you know there's a long history in Zen of this interaction

[44:46]

with Bushido with warrior ethics you know which seems counterintuitive to the notion of compassion arising so I'm trying to figure out how to practice with this historical fact Yes well well you know it's a very complex and not complicated but complex story so there's not enough time to really talk about it but I will say this about it that my experience with Japanese Zen community is that has to do with Japanese society and at that time before the

[45:46]

second world war the emperor was the emperor and everybody paid obeisance to the emperor it's a national thing and the Zen community Zen priests also were nationalists it's just part of society so we don't have that feeling we're a democracy so the contrast to us in our democracy and the Japanese imperial loyalties are opposites so the way it works out is that my understanding is that the country and the emperor come first for us Buddhism comes first

[46:50]

right? who cares about his president we don't operate in that way although we want to that's coming if we don't be careful we will have a dictatorship right around the corner so but I think not all of the I think a lot of Zen priests had mixed feelings but they could not express the mixed feelings if you express anything against the emperor or the society you'd be eliminated right away so there are various reasons why those Japanese priests supported the emperor

[47:52]

because there was no other way out but when the priests came to when Suzuki Roshi came to America and other Zen priests as well they tried to give us something. Suzuki Roshi came to America and he said I came because I wanted to give you the best of you've received the worst you've received the worst of Japan I want to introduce you to the best of Japan and that's why he brought his practice over at least that's what he did when he observed who he was so yes it's true but you have to understand the circumstances and so that in all of the time that I worked with the Japanese Shumacho maybe

[48:53]

25 or 30 years something like that we tried to to find a way where we could meet but they were always the leader you know we were the kids and as soon as we made some progress on the edge of progress in actually finding some way to integrate they changed the subject they sent up their representatives back to their temples you know and we were left with nothing and it just kept going on and on every time we made some progress they'd throw a roadblock in front of us because they realized oh they're not Japanese oh yeah you guys aren't Japanese are you and so we could never make any progress it was always you know a lot of frustration because they're Japanese we can't be Japanese no matter how much

[49:54]

how hard we try so this is the difference between democracy and nationalism but what we did receive was the good part of it the good part of the Japanese what we felt was real and so our Japanese teachers you know gave us all their love and of course they realized that wasn't their culture anymore but it's still there the culture is still there the nationalism is still there so but little by little it breaks down so my relationship with them was I just want to practice with them to see how we can actually meet each other and integrate with each other in some way that's always been my goal in practicing with them so

[50:59]

little by little you know we integrate the world if we can at least we do what we can to integrate the world and although there's blame Japan changed a lot after the war but it's like turning this ship around so really hard thing to put it mildly really difficult thing so as much as there's wonderful goodness in people the other side is also true as a matter of fact the more good people are the more bad they are because everything invites its opposite everything invites its opposite so you have to be very careful what you wish for we wish for peace but that's been happening

[52:04]

since the beginning of time peace and war just exchange places people get as soon as something gets up a little too high it comes back the other way I call it the pendulum pendulum swings up here and then it swings this way and oh boy everything's going to be great and then it goes back the other way oh my god it's awful and it goes back the other way that's the law of circularity so you fight it's hard for peace you know everyone has their personal drama and their personal drama is how we face our life sometimes we're good and sometimes we're bad and sometimes good and bad exchange each other as well what was good 50-60 years ago

[53:06]

is bad today what was bad then is good today anyway there we are thank you we have Ben hi Sojin Roshi can you see me I will try to be brief I recently was away on the east coast helping my aging parents move and going through a lot of old things both my own and theirs and I was just struck by how much of it there was and two things sort of stay with me one is that there's so many things that we we give each other we save they're these objects that have so much meaning we save them we put them in a box and it seems like

[54:06]

they just sit in the box until they are open to be thrown away which feels very strange and then I could also feel going through these so in a sense they all felt discardable although it was hard to discard them but I also felt a real power in going through these old things and the memories that came back and I felt a real pull from them which was sometimes felt beneficial and sometimes felt not so beneficial so my question is how should a Zen student approach things and the saving of things and mementos and old letters and old childhood things that's a good question I mean it's an interesting question because we all have that what should I hang on to and who's going to be disappointed if I throw something away so

[55:07]

you're binding yourself to something if you just keep everything old people who find themselves alone the house is disintegrating and they're not moving around the place just gets full of junk and then it catches on fire sometimes but there are places where you walk through houses where you walk through the houses and it's just like stuff stuff that nobody so it's hard to free yourself but when you do free yourself you breathe again so all that stuff kind of holds down your breathing it's like a weight and when you do throw something away stuff away that you've been accumulating for years you walk past

[56:08]

it and it's just like a tree that's growing there and you don't even know it's there so it's great to throw stuff away I would say you free yourself from a certain kind of bondage as long as it makes you feel free and get rid of it but I'm not telling you what to do I'm just saying how I feel when I get rid of stuff then I say oh where's that thing you have to be careful yeah I definitely experience that that freeing that feeling of freedom and freer breath it's but just the moment of discarding can sometimes feel feel difficult I don't know it's a weird pull or responsibility to an object which part of me realizes

[57:10]

that it's not reasonable but I want to have treated something with care and honored in some way yes so you get rid of certain things by honoring them and getting rid of them in ways that honor them rather than just discarding some things you just discard and some things I remember Master Hua they used to print what was the name of their publication but anyway he used to say when you do get rid of a photograph of the Buddha or a statue or you find all these Dharma publications with all these Dharma stories

[58:10]

you can burn it if you want to but you should be careful that you have a purpose and that you're honoring and so you if you want if you can't do anything with it don't just throw it in the trash but do something that honors the publication that's why we have so many Dharma publications I don't know what to do with them it was called the Dharma Bodhisattva and it was really great it was Chinese Buddhism thank you I gave all of mine we had a whole bunch of them but I didn't know what to do with them so I gave them to the Chinese temple so find somebody that you can help that these things will help also if you make a vow that anything that comes to you as a gift you are okay giving it to somebody else

[59:16]

that will help a lot you know people used to call American Indians Indian are people who gave stuff away that they were given Indian givers that's because Indians they weren't attached to things somebody gave it to somebody else what's wrong with that okay Lynn you're on where who hello oh hi I really wasn't prepared to ask a question but then you were saying so many things and I had questions and my deepest things pressing me but here they go some of them are related

[60:18]

so you were talking about well this this concept that there might be people with no Buddha nature and one you mentioned the school and I'm wondering what school is that yoga chair school that's a school of yogis because how big have had the experience and been struggling with you know someone I think perhaps really so sympathetic and others damage where you really feel you know some truth of who they are the Buddha nature and yet this is not what is expressed in this human nature's incarnate well you know we say in the Mahayana we say as was somebody

[61:18]

said the nirvana sutra said all beings has a Buddha nature reinterpreted that to mean all beings are Buddha nature so it's not somebody can't be left out yeah yeah in one sense nobody can be left out because everything is Buddha nature but in a different sense not everybody acts like they have Buddha nature some people don't act like they have any Buddha nature they're just totally ruthless so in that sense there are people who are chantikas because they don't act like they have Buddha nature even though they do have it so everyone is salvageable means everybody can be salvageable and

[62:19]

then what I know it's very that everyone can potentially everyone is salvageable but it doesn't mean they can be and how would you respond with love as I know you would do and would want to do when you encounter that well first of all when you do feel you are under threat yeah well we're always under threat of one kind or another right so we're always under threat of one kind or another even though we don't realize it you have to find out how to do that in other words you have to believe it you can't do it if you don't believe it I do believe it

[63:20]

and yet so that will help it's like Linda was asking you you know when you come up against and you know it maybe it was Linda but there you are you're stuck you don't know what to do the thing is you have to be willing to die yes for what you believe there was in Rome Christians were thrown into the lions in the arena and everybody happily saw them being eaten and there was this one woman who she went out there and she tamed the lions and she was given this big ovation and then she went out to the emperor

[64:21]

and she said you have to kill me you can't release me because I'm not under your rule you can't release me so kill me and she made him do that she won the hard way so you have to be willing to stand by what you say and then you go to the bottom of your life the bedrock of your life and act from that place that's how you know where everybody is where everybody is or where you are

[65:22]

well if you know where you are then you know where everybody is this is different but then you said something back about this when he was asking about his colon and killing and you said well yes you may choose to in need and then you pay for it like everything and then you said something and go to hell or something and you killed him that made me think I was so shocked and I thought do you believe in hell I believe in hell yes this is hell and hell is where we dwell right this is heaven and hell I believe that on earth but I'm asking about this notion of the hell after death oh I don't know anything about after death so now I can tell you one thing

[66:24]

but because you were talking about that I thought oh he believes in so this is different but I want to share with the group and it's not the whole of it but I have had the experience my mother died in 2016 there have been a couple experiences actually mind blowing to me of you know her in a way her presence her return one was actually a manifestation which I sent photos I completely torched the pot completely blackened I spent a half an hour cleaning out the inside with bone and metal and this was the night of my departure from the home after she died although it was the next year and when I turned it over I was really upset it was two in the morning I had a flight I wasn't ready I couldn't leave this for my 91 year old step dad and I turned it over and the water hit it and all of the black came

[67:25]

off outside you know it's an old revere ware pot with the stainless and the copper it all flushed off with not a touch and what remained was a pattern of five very distinct black hearts on the bottom of the pan on the copper I could kind of feel and hear my mom it's okay or you know I could just feel that love that it was her but it was you know all mothers of the earth it was so that was very mind blowing in terms of a metaphysics because I always believe that love continues who knows how but I believe that there's endurance and something continues and I also believe as you said well birth and death this is life this is endless this goes on I believe just ecologically things aren't lost but I didn't really have any concept or belief necessarily I know a sickness day is there a

[68:27]

soul how would I know what happens after death but now I have had this really direct experience that some kind of personality I mean a heart was her look this is her jacket hearts was everywhere hearts is her thing this is her local and so there was like no question about this communion this communication and then very mind blowing that well not only does love survive there's some kind of identity there's some kind of so that really surprised me and and then of course it informs how you look at things maybe it already is in your mind but well this is longer than I can you know all I want is question then could you could you sum

[69:28]

up with a question no I don't have a question I just want to share to let me respond to you okay love doesn't come or go it just is yes that's all I have to say okay yes that's true so did you want to take more people or is this a good stopping place people want to stick around there's only one electronic hand okay we could do one more we got to Ross and Christian Ross you go for basic succinct yes oh somehow you're

[70:32]

you're muted good evening I'm thinking back to Laurie's question that you seem so happy and you spoke about being joyful and there's joy and then a little later you mentioned that you keep your personal koans or dilemmas private and you've mentioned that to me as well that we keep our our koans private to ourselves we don't necessarily share them and I think perhaps that that's because it's our own work that we have to do so my question is I believe you think you're you're saying that joy doesn't mean being happy and that's that we think that there's joy and sadness and sorrow there's joy and despair and what is

[71:33]

that what's the quality of that joy that transcends happiness and sadness is it just that being alive is enough as Suzuki Roshi told you well if you're truly alive and that and that's enough for you then that's true yes if you when you totally appreciate your life regardless of whether it's happy or unhappy happiness is is an expression of joy but we you know you true joy is found in unhappiness and it's found in happiness it's not dependent on the circumstances what I emphasize was that it was not dependent on how you're feeling on the circumstances that

[72:34]

create how you're feeling when we depend too much on that but we can't just give ourselves to whatever is present that's true joy so joy means being completely present with what is yes yes but it's beyond what we would like to experience okay thank you very much

[73:25]

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