Good morning. I would like to introduce our speaker today, with great pleasure, Leslie Bartolek. I gave her a name a long time ago, but I don't remember what it was. Shinko Seiwa. Shinko Seiwa. What does that mean? Deep Lake, Clear Peaceful. Yes. That exemplifies Leslie to a T. Clear Lake. You look into a And this is the pool, you can look all the way down to the bottom and it's endless. And with great kindness of mind, she supports all of us. Leslie has been practicing for a long, long time. I don't remember how long, but it seems like an awful long time. She is married to Jake. and Jake's the president. And I don't want to say a lot about Leslie's activities.

[01:05]

She was a teacher, and she reached them for a long time, special education teacher. And she has retired just recently. But Leslie and Jake, but I won't talk about Leslie. I feel is the backbone of our practice. I would consider Leslie. Can you speak up a little bit? Yeah, Leslie is the backbone of our practice. She doesn't ask for anything. She never complains much. She just does everything willingly and is present, always present, even when she's not here, she's present, but she's here a lot. and such a regular, devoted practice, and takes on so much responsibility. At the moment, she's what we call the coordinator, which is the director.

[02:06]

And it's a big job, big position. And I don't know what I would do without her. Or we would do without her. She adds so much to our practice. So please. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Nice to be here. Up a little bit. Keep talking, I know, so you can tell. So last June, during the practice period, we have a ceremony called Shoson. And for those of you that don't know what that is, it's a time when we come into the Zen Do and Sojin sits in a chair right about here, And people come up one by one and ask him a question. It's kind of like a public dokasan.

[03:08]

So you can ask him anything and hear what he has to say. So in June, I asked Sojin, what's the best way to support harmony in our sangha? And his reply was, unconditional love. So I've been thinking about that since then. And I thought I'd talk about that today. A few or several weeks ago, I'm not really sure when this was, but Sojin gave a talk about love and the four Brahmaviharas. And after his lecture, I told him, I've been thinking about talking about love too. And he said, well, that would be fine. And then he gently reminded me that my talk would not be the same as his. So unconditional. Webster says unlimited or absolute. So those words sound very familiar to us as Zen students.

[04:09]

So unlimited, no beginning or ending. Absolute includes everything. It goes beyond our relative world. And the Greeks had a word agape that they used for unconditional love. And they had terms, they kind of divided up and had different kinds of love they talked about. But unconditional love was agape, and then they also talked about eros, which was more romantic or sexual love. So this agape became used in Christian theology a lot, and it often meant God's love for humankind and then the reciprocal people's love for God. And for me, unconditional love means a complete openness to another person's experience. It's kind of like a feeling of goodwill you have. And it arises spontaneously. And any thoughts or perceptions or feelings just seem to drop away in that moment.

[05:15]

And just really being there with that person. And there's no feeling of separation or attachment. And I think it's not a love where you cling to a person or thing or expect anything in return. In Buddhism, unconditional love is referred to as loving kindness. And in Sojin's talk, which was some time ago, we learned, and you probably already know, it's one of the four Brahma-viharas. And in Pali, it's metta. So how do we experience unconditional love. I think often when we hear that term, we think of parental love, the love that a mother or father has for their children. And we have a passage or part of the Metta Sutta that states, even as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind, may I cherish all living things, suffusing love over the entire world,

[06:24]

above the low and all around without limit. So there's no limit to this. We're not limiting our love or not picking and choosing for whom we'll have this kind of feeling. Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, has a thousand hands and eyes. There's a koan where Ungon asks Dogo, What use does the bodhisattva of mercy make of all those hands and eyes? And Dogo says, it's like a person straightening her pillow with her outstretched hand in the middle of the night. So it's a spontaneous response with whole body and mind. In our practice, in our Zen practice, we learned how to cultivate this unconditional love through Zazen. In Zazen, we sit, we establish our posture, we follow our breath, and in doing this, thoughts and feelings come up, and we notice them.

[07:38]

We have the intention of unclenching our grasp on them and letting them settle, letting them be, and trying not to get caught by them. And then we return to posture and breath and do that over and over again. Things arising, letting go throughout the period of Zazen. So we're not shutting out thoughts and feelings, negative, aversive thoughts and feelings, nor positive, peaceful ones either. We just let them arise, let them go, and let them settle. In sitting zazen, I think we cultivate an openness to things as it is, as Suzuki Roshi would say. And in this, we may get a glimpse of understanding our interconnectedness with everything, with all beings. And I think this helps cultivate this unconditional love and openness to really seeing another person.

[08:43]

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