Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: For more information on Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, please visit our website at www.ancientdragon.org. our teachings are offered to the community through the generosity of our supporters. To make a donation online, please visit our website Cloudlings.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: I heard a new term for CloudSongA members called Cloud Head that was used by Joe, who's got a good sense of humor. But I thought of these cloud heads, you know, ready to rain dharma in this world.
So here we are, one practice body here on the ground and in the clouds.
And this morning everyone was on time for Sachin, seated in the Zendo even before orientation started.
So some of us here have been sitting since this morning for a day long immersion in meditation, sometimes called Sachin, gathering together during this precious time in autumn where there's like this slow roll, I saw a little bit of snow, but there's a lot of golden leaves outside here, which is a really wonderful time to spend time as an urban monk, which some of us are doing, even if you didn't know it. At Sacheen, you're like, was I monk at Sacheen? Yeah, you're monk. You renounce, right? You renounce mostly your cell phones and technology.
My notifications are turned off on my laptop, which I only open to connect with the cloud.
So in this monkdom, we have this opportunity to stay present with whatever comes internally and externally.
No doom scrolling except what we present for ourselves.
In case you ever notice, you get bored and you turn on your own doom scroll mechanism inside, whether it's self criticism or whatever.
But I'm here today also because I feel buoyant and grateful and alive with our practice together.
And I'll say a little bit more about that.
But you know, in Zazen enchanting, you know, we have the simplified environment for Sashin or just even for a period of Zazen.
But in all these activities and cleaning the temple, there's just this precious opportunity to just give in to the present moment, to open to the present moment and just follow along.
And even if people are not formally sitting Sachin, I feel that this Sachin is supported by everyone in our Sangha, especially in our sangha.
And this week we just wrapped up our precepts, our annual autumn precept seminar.
The seminar met online for six weeks and focused on living, living in this, this life, this life grounded in the 16 bodhisattva precepts that guide us to kind of live life as best we can as a life that keeps others in mind, actually, and to show up and try to meet others on equal Ground. That was one of the phrasings of the precepts that I found very moving by a teacher named Diane Rossetto, who is a student of Jacob's.
So this is this movement from selfishness to kindness, you might say, which is our basic program, at least the first 20 or 30 years.
It's basic training in Buddhism.
Like, aren't I done with that yet? Aren't I done with my selfishness, my self absorption, where everything is about me?
I don't know, just when I think it was over, it comes right back, you know, but we keep going.
So the six weeks of focus on the Precepts has felt like a mini practice period, like a mini ongo, you know, every day the precepts are inviting me to be accountable, to practice with them and welcome them.
And truthfully, for me, it felt relieving.
If I'm feeling a little confused or tired, Precepts are there going, check this out, Hougetsu.
And people in the seminar brought experiences often where they wish they'd done a little better.
You know, it's easy when you're working with the precepts to sometimes feel like you're really a shabby practitioner. Like they're sort of designed. When you say don't harm, don't kill, you know, probably just breathing. Some beings are suffering, you know, so we can't get out of it.
But exploring our limitations and acknowledging our habit patterns is this gateway to transformation.
And people brought in things like lashing out in anger when they felt diminished or devalued.
So what does this tell us?
Self arising, attachment to self arising.
But okay, good that you know it. And you know, nobody was saying, hey, I feel really good about doing things that, that go against what I. How I really want to show up in this world.
So it was great that people could just name it.
And another one I think I heard was something like being resentful or harboring some ill will.
Like in the shopping, you know, while shopping in the grocery store, somebody's cart is in the way. You know how people like leave their carts in the middle of the aisle and you can't get through, you know, you're blocked.
Another person noted a tendency to like lie to themselves, like tell little lies, you know, about themselves to make themselves feel like they're better.
Another great topic was gossip.
How it's easy to engage in gossip that disparages other people and there's like a little thrill of intoxication that, you know, we're sharing a secret about somebody else to inflate Ego.
And then there was someone who might even be here with us today who talked about being, being in a group of people who were like gossiping about other people and not wanting to do that and being like, how do I deal with this?
You know, and they tried different things. Their friends actually did not seem to abandon them yet, but maybe there'll be another report on that. But they were like, I'm not gonna participate.
It doesn't feel right to me.
And what I, I kept being in touch with every meeting was how the people in the seminar were so courageous.
You know, honest, kind, and deeply self reflective and also non defensive.
Like they were just like, yeah, I wanted to bash this person's shopping cart. You know, maybe they didn't say that, but that was sort of the feeling I got. They might have said I, I was frustrated with that cart, but you know what that means.
Do you ever. Like, I remember like there was a time when I noticed myself. I grew up in a family that raced cars. Vehicles, right? So I drove fast vehicles before one was legally allowed to do that. You know, even sitting on my dad's lap behind a Jaguar, you know, I couldn't touch the pedals.
And so driving has been some thing for me.
And I remember like, well, early in practice I was noticing like I wanted people to go faster in front of me, so I kind of ride their bumper, you know.
And I was like, one day I'm like, I don't really want to do that anymore.
Like, what is that about?
You know, like, what is that about?
And I was like, oh, that's just some kind of habit, you know, with you're racing.
So the precepts work on us in ways that are kind of mysterious. But these qualities that I've been reflecting on thanks to this seminar of dragons was this, you know, how courage, honesty, self reflection and non defensiveness are like mature bodhisattva qualities.
I was like, we're adulting in this seminar, like kind of being like, oh, I don't have to hide this thing. I can talk about it and go like, I think I can do this a little differently. So this is, this was like, wow, you know, trying out new ways to grow up in as a bodhisattva, you know, we're kind of toddlers and then we kind of learn like, oh, maybe I shouldn't, you know, knock over that candle and light the house on fire.
But also to show up as an adult.
And in some ways the practice trajectory is about being an adult, being accountable for your actions and Also learning and learning how to harmonize and be.
So, you know, this seminar takes place on Thursday, took place on Thursday evenings, which made a kind of a long day for me and for many of us in there.
Oddly enough, you know, a lot of people come to Thursday morning. So, you know, we're early Thursday morning, we're like talking about the Dharma, and then Thursday evening we're still at it, you know, sharing our experience.
And I was surprised that I left. And I'm not saying anyone else needs to feel this way, but I left with like a joyful energy. The seminar ended.
You know, it's getting darker out all this stuff. But like, I would find myself feeling so happy and joyful and grateful. Like sometimes I'd have to cry a little after the seminar. It was so moving, people's sharing and engagement with this practice.
And, you know, meanwhile, the world is the world in this neighborhood. Ice raids going on all over the place.
And even though there was like this huge assault that's continuing on human rights and dignity of people whose skin is brown, trans and queer folk, women, people economically marginalized, I mean, you know, pretty much everyone else, except maybe one category, there was still this small herd of dragons coming together, supporting each other on Thursday evenings, you know, when they could have been doing something else, practicing honesty, courage, caring, non defensiveness and self reflection.
So it was also clear to me that everyone in the seminar was like, I really do want to live this Bodhisattva life of caring for others before myself.
And it's really hard.
You know, I want to benefit the world.
I want to be aligned with my deepest truth.
And you know, you can call that Buddhism or the Dharma, but I don't think Buddhism has like a copyright on how to live well, how to care about the world.
It works for some people. And if it doesn't work, there are plenty of other wisdom traditions here.
So this, this common truth of how do I live and show up in the world that's aligned and integrated and available and present is clearly what I felt this group was about. But it's not like they were so special compared to other people. I was just hanging out with them on Thursday nights.
But there was this alignment in, in coming together of, you know, a shared alignment that we vowed to awaken completely to promote peace and goodness.
And you could see it was activated, you know, and growing even over these six weeks, despite missteps and regrets.
You know, some people are like, I have no regrets. It's like regrets I've had more than a few and how we relate to regret is different than I should never have any regrets, or I have to get rid of those regrets and sweep them under the carpet and pretend they don't exist.
You know, honor that.
You know, in Zen, there can be a lot of emphasis on non duality, emptiness. Zen philosophy, don't be attached to anything. There can be kind of a fear of goodness, a fear of owning one's capacity for kindness and actually one's skill with being a full adult human.
There's often this, like, fear, like, oh, my God, if I say anything, even use the word I, I'm attached.
You know, I'm gonna fall into the hell of duality or I'm stuck. Oh, my God. I have a gaining idea. I want to help the Sangha. Oh, you know, gaining idea. Is there selfishness there? You know, there. There can be this kind of spinning, you know, that duality and any idea of self are like a sin in Buddhism.
And somehow I don't know what happens. Like, would we get ejected out of our bodies and turn into some cosmic unity and that means we've practiced? Well, I don't think so. So I just want to emphasize that today, to consider the qualities that you already have, like courage to come here in the morning, honesty with your own being and how you are being in relationship to everything.
You know, with how your capacity to self reflect and go like, oh, that didn't quite work.
Can I do it a little differently? And can I get support from others around that?
So, you know, we live in duality and we live in an embodied kind of unit that its job is to kind of create a self, this human physiology, so we can use that, you know, our own sort of baked in delusion to wake up. This is sort of the wonder of our practice.
And, you know, our practice is simply kind of to try our best and trust that the world and zazen will give us feedback if we're veering off path, if we're falling into some hypnotic state or what hallucinatory state. Isn't that what AI does? It hallucinates. And so, you know, of course, everyone has limitations.
Like, it's okay to have limitations.
Just know what they are and explore them deeply.
You know, everybody has a limitation due to the personality that somehow got emitted from our genetic and cultural and family situations. You know, everyone has personal histories, family histories, experiences of wounds that limit.
Limit us. You know, it limits our ability to show up all the time with perfect composure.
So don't think you're not Buddha if you're not always Showing up with perfect composure, yet acknowledging shortcomings and continuing, continuing to return to home base, you know, to your. To your cushion, you could say to your internal cushion.
And study that self. Reflect, acknowledge, return to your vow. Now this is how we are liberated.
And also, it just so happens that when you sit still in zazen for a second, a minute, a day, and you're present, even if it feels so fleeting, you know, if everybody's had this experience, but like, you're sitting in zazen, you're sitting in zazen, your mind is, you know, filled with nonsense and proliferating thoughts and concepts.
And all of a sudden, after 39.5 seconds, you just drop and are present.
Then the bell rings and you're like, oh, wait a minute, I want more of that. You know, but. But there's. What's happening is we're learning to be adults.
We're learning in zazen. There's an interruption of. And a transformation, I would say, in chains of reactivity.
So there might be reactivity to a vile shopping cart walking my way or spirals into self criticism, which is none other than clinging to a negative self, right?
But they're interrupted when we remember the precepts, when we remember who we really are and how we want to live, and we go, oh, yeah, wait a minute. I vowed not to be evil.
You know, I vowed to cultivate good. Oh, I can do that, actually, because I stopped for a second and saw it and then was stabilized at the beginning of practice, at least the first 20 years or 30 years, maybe 40.
I can stop a little bit and then inhabit that choice point that's always available. But there's a choice in, like, oh, I can wake up.
And like, the less you engage in a habit, the weaker it becomes.
But also the more you do it, the stronger it is.
So, and you can see that some things, some things are very dangerous and destroy people. Like little habits that are like nuclear bombs.
Relationally, however, I want to emphasize today that it's great to also wish for, vow to and engage in cultivating wholesome habits like, you know, supporting each other, like self reflection, like courage, honesty, non defensiveness, that these habits, like generosity, patience, the traditional ones, precepts, kind of an energy that helps us live by our vows.
And then of course, there's this basic wholesome habit that we're all kind of addicted to here. You Zen fanatics, you know, so many of you have been practicing for so long, the habit of zazen, actually to go and sit on your cushion every day or at Least when you come to the Zen do.
That's why we're here, to support that. And even if your zazen seems very shabby and not giving you what you want, still people are showing up. It's great.
And that's how we learn. Slowly, slowly learning presence.
So we can actually plant these seeds of goodness and wholeness and learn them in our zazen. So in this precept seminar, I've been studying a lot, and one of the things I came across was this quotation on goodness.
And I was just want to share it with you.
This is from an old book by John CH.
Wu called the Golden Age of Zen.
Anybody seen this?
It's like an ancient. You know, it was one of the first things available that kind of talked about the kind of Tang dynasties and lineage. And it's probably, you know, outdated, and scholars could argue with it, but I don't know. It's just. It was available. And I remember being really excited, like, whoa. I'm reading about this great history of Chinese Zen, which, by the way, is largely made up, but. But nonetheless, I like the way this person seemed to love the Dharma, this Wu person. So when I came across this quote, I was like, oh, now I better go look at that. I mean, it's probably been several decades since I've looked at this book, but Wu says not only the sudden perception of truth, or you could say awakening or the Dharma, but also an unexpected experience of spontaneous goodness can liberate you from the shell of your little ego and transport you from the stuffy realm of concepts and categories. So this is like duality and stuck in conceptual thinking to the beyond.
Whenever goodness flows uncontaminated by the ideas of duty and sanction, I think this kind of means, like, dualistic thinking. But there is Zen, but whenever goodness flows uncontaminated, there is Zen.
So this is what's meant by purifying the mind in the three pure precepts. Right.
First is don't be evil or don't do evil.
Basic, I think what didn't Google or some company like, yeah, was that it? Who took that one? You know, because they probably live near a bunch of Zen monks, but.
Or other monks. This is an old Theravadan practice too. Cultivate all good.
And then the third is like, you know, it can be purify your own mind.
It's also sometimes later on was free all beings.
But this purification or liberation of your mind is the uncontaminated mind that Wu talks about.
So, like, when. When the blockage is removed the sludge is removed when, you know, remember, like the Great Lakes were super polluted. I mean, there's still like stuff going on, but I mean, you know, the Cuyahoga river was like burning on fire, spontaneously combusting due to chemicals. I remember when Lake Erie was impossible to swim in. You know, even the Chicago river, somebody was swimming in it recently.
So there is this possibility to take like the most contaminated place, which is generally my own mind, and clean it up, liberate it, allow the goodness to flow.
And one way goodness flows today is during sashin.
And how the precepts get manifested is when we eat lunch.
So we'll eat lunch. And in doing that, we do some chanting.
And just in case you haven't noticed, we chant the pure Precepts. Anybody remember it?
The first portion is to end all evil.
The first bowl, I guess the second is to cultivate all good.
The third is to free all beings. You know, I don't know how many thousands of times I've chanted that. Many of you have, but every time I'm like, wow, you know, receiving and giving the precepts again.
And then we end with, may we all realize the Buddha way.
So we end with this offering of our practice of appreciation, of awakening. We wish everyone some liberation.
And this is, this is a good illustration of how goodness flows, how we learn it, this simple act of having a meal, you know, it arises from unlimited kindness and generosity and destruction. By the way, just to be clear, the taking of life.
Yesterday, Mike and Wade prepared our eating bowls.
Somebody could demonstrate the eating bowls. You might have some at your seat, some folks. Yeah, so these are eating bowls. You know, Ashen and Paula have their own, but we have sets for people who don't have their own. And so they were carefully prepared. The claws were washed and ironed, the carefully put together, the bulls nesting in each other, the claws arranged.
And it just was like an everyday occurrence here. But this was so that we all could eat together in harmony and be able to have this opportunity to recite these precepts together and then dedicate our practice to the well being of this world.
As these bowls are being prepared, Jake and Nino were cleaning the temple. We even had a miracle occur in the kitchen.
Some light bulbs were installed above the kitchen sink. So we had a functional lighting situation above the kitchen sink for the first time in probably a decade. You know, and at lunch, you know, we also reflect on our limitations that we can never, our thinking can never reach or fully appreciate. All the beings and their efforts that sponsor this nourishing meal that sponsored this life. This life.
And we still have the courage to receive this food with some humility and to receive the complexity of this life. And then we have the courage and honesty to just feel gratitude. Too possible.
And I just think we're really fortunate to have this opportunity to practice together.
And I was thinking about this especially because this past week, two major dragon events, dragonversaries occurred. Aishin, you nodded a little. Do you know what they are?
Okay, I was just being attention. Oh, good. Thank you.
Remember those social psychology experiments where like, if you nod at the speaker, they look at you and like feel good?
It's real. Yeah, but usually they don't ask you questions. So I'm sorry, but.
So yesterday was November 8th, and I believe in 2026 we incorporate it. So we became a corporation.
Ancient Dragon Zengate nfp. Not for profit corporation.
So we joined the ranks of corporate life then.
And then on November 5th, earlier this week, we moved into this space after some years of being only in the cloud and itinerant, you could say.
And this was a temporary zendo, so it's still a temporary zendo.
And this had me reflecting a little on our history. You know that in 2003 is when this little germ of a sitting group started in Lincoln park in somebody's living room. And look how far we've gotten. We're now in another living room, but in Lincoln Square.
And actually this living room is like, not quite as nice as the one we started in. We were in kind of a fancy home in Lincoln park with a wonderful dog.
But I really appreciate how our commitment to practice has matured and strengthened over these years.
You know, I looked back on emails.
You know, I don't do this often, but I was like looking at old emails. And even I, you know, searched on my computer to find my own notes to myself about us coming together as a group and early meetings about the decision to incorporate, you know, the struggles, because, you know, we were the small, cozy sitting group. Asha remembers this.
I don't know if anyone else here was sitting. Nathan? Yeah. Were you sitting at Roger's too? Nathan? Yeah, at the home of Roger and Mary Thompson in Lincoln Park.
So there's still people here. Amazing after all these years.
And there was something so sweet about that time.
So we were like, can we do this? Should we be this group?
Can we, can we take on supporting a teacher? Teigen was living in California, I think, finishing his dissertation and teaching and, you know, lots of other groups actually wanted him to come there.
So we were like, can we afford this? You know, what will it be like?
We. Then we were. Then we. We moved from Roger's place, before Tigan came here to this place called the Senecal, which is now demolished, but it was this, like, kind of nunnery, cloistered nunnery in Lincoln Park.
Fantastic place.
And, you know, we sat there once or twice a week, and it seemed to work out.
And so then we're like, but Tigan's coming. Should we find a place? How is this going to work? Should we get a rental space? We can be in full time. You know, there was a lot of.
I. You know, in retrospect, you know, you can look at it and go, oh, this is an easy history. But it was messy. You know, people had different opinions. People didn't know what they wanted. People were excited, so excited about the Dharma.
And. And then, you know, there was this great, like, move to the Lincoln or to the Irving park space that we had for, like, 10 years. And then we had to let that go. And that was really sad. Think Aisha and I were there to perform the closing ceremony for that closing, the Eye of Buddha, which we haven't opened up the eye yet here, so we'll do that sometime.
It's traditional to open an eye, but I think we're at Irving Park a couple years before we open the Eye there.
And there were plenty of times when people, including myself, we weren't at our best selves.
We were bumbling around, but we just kept coming back to practicing together and trusting our practice and also knowing that we were all on the same program, as imperfect as we were.
We were all trying to work out the kinks in our karma. We're still doing that. I'm still doing it. Maybe Aisha's done with that, but, you know, Nathan might be.
And we're doing our best to put aside, you know, selfish concerns, self absorption, and we continue to make mistakes, and then we try again to come back on the train of this mission of awakening for the benefit of all beings and of learning how to live wholeheartedly and vowing to help this goodness flow for ourselves and others.
And, you know, I had some. Some notes that I noticed, and this was a discussion from one of the conversations from May of 2006.
I said, I feel.
I feel a sense of loss.
What's going to happen to the sweetness of our practice together, this little group?
What's going to happen? We're going to move towards engaging with the dust of the world.
And then I was like, I Feel uneasy. What happens as hierarchy moves itself in?
And I was not yet ordained a priest. I was ordained a priest the next month. Like, I have this ordination coming up.
How will it be to be a priest?
What does it even mean to commit in this way?
What's going to happen?
I was surprised I didn't remember writing that. You know, I think I'm still asking all those same questions and surprised that that sweetness is still in our sangha, that there's a closeness even though we've grown and changed and gone through so much, and that we're learning more and more how to be adults and not get caught in our own stuff. And when we are to unhook or ask for help in doing that, one thing that has also stayed the same is we almost have the same sachine schedule that we've had for 20 some years. We show up here at 7:30, Zazen starts. We do the same thing pretty much and sit. And so this schedules like a through line, you know, we have Monday nights, which we've had, I think, and Sundays. And Sazen anchors us.
And the kitchen is going to leave. It's 11, so I'll wrap up in a minute.
Did you kitchen folk, before you leave? Do you have anything to leave us with?
And I think our tanto is going to leave too. Okay.
It's about 1102. Yep. So we're all. You'll leave together.
And Nicholas is leaving too. But, you know, before you go, you can just stand. Do you have anything you want to say about this?
You do?
Can you get a microphone and say it?
[00:35:50] Speaker A: I really appreciate this talk very much.
And I wanted to add something, which is that as an example, I used to say things and do things that were not very nice or they were just, you know, kind of out of whack.
And I would continue to, like, find a way to justify them or continue down that road or. Even though I kind of, you know, felt uneasy about it or I felt, you know, maybe some shame, but I just continued to have to, you know, justify these things, whether it's, you know, gossiping or selfishness or the things that you're talking about. And one day I just kind of realized, like, oh, that was a mistake. Like I did something and I was like, oh, what a mistake. That was really a mistake. And that was a big, big moment in my practice because I didn't realize exactly what I was doing until I suddenly had this realization that I didn't have to do it.
And so I still make mistakes just to make this a Shorter story. I still make mistakes. I still do things out of selfishness, but I'm much quicker to realize that I'm doing them because I don't have the need to continue to justify them to myself and continue to perpetuate them or suffer from crippling shame as a result.
And I really think that this is one of the fruits of our practice, that our practice is operating at a level that is outside of our conscious awareness that it wasn't, you know, I. I was not conscious of what I was doing until I became conscious, you know, suddenly that that's what I was doing. So, yeah, I woke up. So I wasn't. I wasn't trying to stop doing this. It just. It just happened. And that, I think, is really the gift of our practice is that we come and we pay attention to the things that we're paying attention to, but other things are working themselves out in ways that we won't know, maybe until later.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: So thank you for.
[00:38:00] Speaker A: Thank you for the reminder.
[00:38:02] Speaker B: Any of this other crew before we go.
Well, thank you all very much for going upstairs to get our meals prepared.
And next week will have a sangha meeting after Zazen. Is that right, Paula?
Yes.
So our board president, Paula, will lead kind of us off in a review of the state of Dragon affairs and see what happens then after this 20 years, as we enter this 28th year.
And I just really want to express deep appreciation to everyone for doing this together. Cloud and ground. Thank you all very much. And if anyone else would like to add anything, please do so. And I think Matthew will help us with cloudfolk, any room folk we have. Dennis in the cloud.
[00:39:02] Speaker C: Thank you for your comments.
The word vowel.
Like to have you, if you comment on a little bit further in terms. We use it so much in our practice.
And I was raised in a tradition that vow was a very, very, very, very, very serious thing. It was absolute in some sense. But I get a sense in our practice that it's.
It has a different definition, a different quality to it.
You know, the previous comments about mistakes, I think you already touched me. It was the.
That it allowed for in. In. In this practice. Vow allows for mistakes in a sense. It. It has a more human quality to it.
So it's that difference in our culture, how we view Val versus how this practice views vow. Could you comment on that?
[00:40:01] Speaker B: So, I mean, like, I grew up Catholic, so, you know, like in Catholicism, you take these kind of vows and, you know, if you break them, you're in giant trouble.
Early Buddhism, you could say precepts might have had that quality, like you could get kicked out of the Sangha if you did something.
But in our practice, we.
Our movement towards awakening comes from this little vow I want to awaken.
I vow to awaken for the benefit of all beings. This bodhicitta.
And with bodhichitta, you know, it starts. But our vows are strengthened by us making mistakes.
Our vows help us have the courage to look at our mistakes, and then the vow deepens. So they're very sacred in Buddhism and we should guard and protect our vow as much as we can.
The precepts do that, the parmitas do that. All Buddha's teachings do that, you could say. But they're.
They can grow and mature and expand until they vow almost becomes not even necessary. It's just the way we live and think. Suzuki Roshi would say, like, these are just the way we live, you know. But they. But vows are about making mistakes. In some ways in our practice, they are strengthened by the very making of the mistake and of the commitment.
So there's a commitment quality and an accountability. But it's like, you know, I don't have to wait for some hell after I die. It's hell when we're engaging in things that don't work for us in the world. We feel it, but knowing that and paying attention, like Aisha said, we can do things that we aren't even aware of and obsessed about and that are totally wrongheaded and not helpful.
And then we don't even realize it till we finally do.
And our vows guide us to that mistake. And it shows us the path forward, the commitment to going beyond it and not getting stuck there. So I don't know if that helps you, Dennis, but that's how I see it. And, you know, I'm just another schmo on the path.
So I'll be curious to hear how vow unfolds for you and your exploration. So you have a long practice.
[00:42:36] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: Thank you.
Someone there?
It's Yana.
Shall speak in the corner.
[00:42:43] Speaker D: I just wanted to share. Yesterday had a really full packed day and I volunteered at some organization where I'd never volunteered at before.
And I remember showing up and a few of us showed up and we're supposed to be there at 2:30.
We're all sitting around and nobody's there to let us in.
And I just. I found myself observing myself getting so angry. Like, does this person know?
I volunteered my time here and I have nothing to do and I only have an hour and a half and this person is not here.
And the angriness was received by laughter because I was observing myself do that.
And eventually this person showed up and we all got in there and it was.
And about five minutes later, a refugee family came in looking for like sheets and blankets. And it was a family of like eight, I guess, and six children are sleeping on a floor.
And immediately like this team of volunteers we found like the blow up mattresses and stuff, started packing up together and just like all like came together so well, like, like observing the angriness and observing it, the fact that it was coming all from within me and like, why am I so important? And stuff. And then seeing what was really important, just.
Anyway, I mentioned I'm. I'm sharing this because it's because of this practice that I'm able to observe these things. And so I'm very, very grateful.
[00:44:23] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. I'm sure the immigrant family was pretty grateful too, that you hung around to help out.
You know, this is going to happen. I'm going to be frustrated. I'm wa. Don't waste my time, but be happy you have nothing to do.
You know, this is Zen practice. I mean, how many hours I've spent just waiting around for like the work leader to show up or something, you know, and it's a great, you know, to learn to, to wait. And then all of a sudden, you know, if you're lucky, you see a leaf or a family who needs help and you actually are there to offer it. So thank you, Yana.
Maybe we should get the show on the road. Bodhisattvas.
No, I'd love to chat, but we all have some more sitting to do. You're welcome to sit with us. It's good to see you, Sandra. I know you were a bit under the weather, so I think our plan is I will move my computer in a minute and go up and do my final vows while we are doing our vows.
So thank you all very much for practicing endlessly together.
May our intention equally extend to every being and place.
With the true merit of Buddha's way.
Beings are numberless.
We vow to free them.
[00:46:02] Speaker C: Free them.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: Delusions are inexhaustible.
We vow to cut through them.
Dharma gates are boundless.
We vow to enter them.
Buddha's way surpassable.
We bow to realize it.
These are numberless.
We vow to free them.
[00:46:38] Speaker C: We vow to cut through them.
Our bargains.
We vow to enter them.
