The Measure of Our Humanity: BELONGING

0:00Thank you for listening to UPAI's Dartmouth podcast, an extraordinary series of talks from some of the finest teachers in the world. I'm Joan Halifax, founder of the UPAI's End Center, and we're happy to make these podcasts available to you. Please consider making a donation so we can offer these recordings freely. You'll find a donation but on our podcast page. And thank you so much. This is Dharma Podcast at thermapodcast.org. This is episode number 2662. It was recorded on September 20th, 2026. And it is titled The Measure of Our Humanity Belonging. The speaker for this episode is Frank Osteswski.

1:03Hello everyone. Welcome back to those of you in the room. For those of you online who are joining for a measure of our humanity program today, you're joining us here in person. We're just finishing the 11-death program with Frank Osteswski and Rochie Joan, which has been beautiful and deep and really moving. And so we're all in an altered space right now. And from that space, we'll get to join you all here on Belonging. And we're so grateful to have our wonderful Portuguese team, who I can see, interpreting. If you want to listen to this in Portuguese online, just click the interpretation button and select Portuguese. Thank you so much for doing that. And thank you all for being alive, for being here, for belonging to this community,

2:10and for everything that happens to make it possible. So your donations help to keep this program and all the programs that we offer freely offered. And so thank you for your generosity and feel free to keep giving. And thank you especially to our teachers who keep showing up and showing us a way of being, and a way of seeing, and a way of belonging that's really inspiring. Thank you, Koto, so much. And many of you know when the pandemic unfolded in our lives, we really, as a world, went into social isolation. And it impacted us profoundly, you know, our capacity to relate to each other.

3:13Our values were challenged, particularly individuals whose lives were in the medical field, and it was so complicated. It was really a frightening, really frightening time. And yet the gift for us was we opened our temple doors virtually, and to hundreds of people around the world who were in isolation, and who also felt this kind of grip of dismay about what was happening globally in terms of climate, also economically in terms of economic injustice, then issues related to race and gender, and also, you know, wars. You would think, and I often say this,

4:16globally we have the resources to live in peace. We have everything we need. It's just so maddening to see what has been happening not just since the pandemic, but really for ages. But now, I mean, we really need the resources to be drawn away from violence and put toward the good. And, you know, I've lived with that sensibility. In my ninth decade, as many of you know, very much involved in the civil rights and the anti-war movement in the 1960s, and stayed, you know, social activists since then, and environmental activists since then, and really with the sense that we can do this, we really can. And in a certain way, it has to do with shifting our view.

5:22Being able to see things not as, you know, down to, you know, the sense of defining and defending the self, and defining and defending borders, nations, genders, and who we really are, is being asked of us. And for me, the question, you know, this year, as we were last year beginning to open up this series for 2026, you know, what is the measure of our humanity? What is it? How do we meet that in ourselves that which is enviable? You know, our essence, so much of what we've been exploring in the past few days, but, you know, for years here,

6:26is how can we engender in our own lives, and in the life of our planet, our Earth, a path forward that is characterized by love, by care, by fundamental compassion? And I really, last year, Father Greg Boyle, the homeboys industry, talk about vibes. He's got the best vibes in the world. I mean, really, he just gets, and I remember last year, I know this is crazy, I was actually at Stanford after my first surgery before my second, sick as a dog. And yet I introduced the series from my bed, and I thought I was probably delirious. I haven't wanted to go back and listen, but I remember Father Greg Boyle said, every individual is unshakably good. And I remember I felt, you know, just like, yes.

7:35Absolutely, every individual is unshakably good. And you know, his homeboy industry is really a manifestation of that. And just as Frank was talking about, you know, working, what's the big hospital you guys worked in? Laguna Honda, what do they call it? Heaven? God's hotel. God's hotel. Anyway, God's hotel. We can make the whole Earth, God's hotel. Or Buddha's, you know, hang out, whatever it is. I'm ready. I'm so ready. You know, and the other thing is there's, I mean, we're in a heck of a mess right now. And it is so easy to actually bring our hearts and mind to the world as it is, and to actually be sunk by it. It's really interesting. And then we call it sinking mind. It's just this like the sense of utility, of deep dismay, of, you know, this is a hopeless project.

8:44We'll never get out of this. And what are we leaving to our children and our grandchildren? So that's one, you know, path that many people are in. And they're also relating it to their own subjectivity. And it is, it is difficult. I have to say as an old person to stand, you know, and in the midst of, you know, interacting with many people. And to feel the futility of others. And not to be hijacked by it. But to actually come into a place internally of what I've called wise hope and JoAnna Macy called active hope. And Rebecca Solniches, she calls it hope. You know, she just lays it out there. And some of us have that sensibility. And I mentioned over this weekend, yes, we live in a world that is characterized by just extraordinary uncertainty.

9:46And at the same time, uncertainty opens the door for possibility. So where I was uncertainty is like, oh no, please not me. I don't want to be uncertain. I want to have everything, you know, exactly lined out and secure. And I feel safe. And everything is a safe place, you know, that I'm going to relate to. But actually, we just, we don't know. And my beloved teacher and a good friend of Frank's, glassman, Rochie, Bernie Glassman. He and his wife, G. Shiong, go home. He articulated these three tenants of what is it to rest in radical openness in not knowing. And it's so hard because those of us who are Western educated types, probably a lot of Eastern people, but our identity is very immeshed in knowing.

10:46And that's where our power rests. The more data we control, the more power we have. And this is what Suzuki Rochie called beginner's mind or the late Bob Thurman in his book on Vimalakerti, a tolerance for the inconceivable. How can we open ourselves to this first tenant of the peacemaker's tenants of this not knowing this kind of radical openness? Because we just don't know. And I remember, Frank, when that Berlin wall came down, I thought it would never come down in my lifetime. And all of a sudden it came down. It was like, whoa, what just happened? Things can shift in a minute, just like they did on 9-11. Things can change in a breath. And the second tenant is of bearing witness. And bearing witness is not being a bystander, friends.

11:49It is actually being one with that is just our capacity to hold things as they are and not separate from them. So this is what Bernie talked about in terms of bearing witness. And out of not knowing and bearing witness compassionate action, but that kind of that openness and then connection and then that alignment aligned with things exactly as they are in a non prescriptive way. So what is the measure of our humanity? You know, when you can ask yourself that question, what is the measure of my humanity? And where there is an absence, then how do I rehumanize not only myself, but how do I rehumanize in my own view, those with whom I have the greatest differences?

13:06That is really a assignment for us. And often in almost every one of these series that we have done for now six years, we have has John Paul Letterac, who has written many extraordinary books, including one that I love called the moral imagination. And it is very much in father Greg Boyle's sense of, do you have the kind of moral imagination to actually see past the sort of ill deeds or unholsiness and hold that as one aspect, but also to see into that unshakable goodness that is at the heart of every human being. And I think some of you know I worked in the prison system for many years on death row and maximum security. And it was there that I really got father Greg's lesson.

14:15What it means to see both the truth of suffering and also this unshakable goodness that we're called to awaken within our own experience, but also to see that see that in others. So we have been on this journey. I'm so grateful to see our hundreds of friends online and also thank you, Jeannie and Fabio in Brazil for translating. Just you all are the best. I love our Portuguese and Brazilian friends knowing that this translation process is happening. And also I just have to acknowledge Cotto, who is here speaking for having moved us online in 24 hours also with Petras help.

15:15So opening as I said our temple doors so wide kind of instantaneously and really making it possible for people all over the world to be part of this Mahasanga, this is great community. It's just such an extraordinary blessing. But I'm going to ask we know that the person who came in this room, the farthest into the in person retreat, came from Hawaii. That is the Lonnie. Wendy, if you would ask our online community and share some of the places where they've come from, but also if you would our online community, if you would put your bio region in, that would be so wonderful. And also the other thing, just if you would put one or two words are kind of what's alive in you right now. And I'm going to open up so I can see as well into just bio region where you're tuning in from and also one or two words of what's alive for you right now.

16:26He's typing to the chat and I'll read some out. So many people. Yeah. Arya Yana Paul is from England and he said hope Tara and Santa Cruz says lost and found. I love that. Barbara says hope grounded in reality. Civil in Germany says curiosity. Robin says gratitude. Let's see Barbara says open heart from Tucson and Paul and Enrique in Germany says joy and relaxation. Jude in Seattle says wise hope. Aaron in New Hampshire says joy and gratitude. And Linda in the UK on the brink of autumn, a sense of anticipation and ripening.

17:36I hear from someone here or maybe I see just online because we've already been, you know, just a few more. Barbara in Atlanta says anticipation and consternation. Marie in Sweden says tired. And Belgium says gratitude. And Karen in Michigan. Oh, she didn't say anything. Maybe after that Pat in California says what's alive and hopefulness and growth. Yeah. Oh, thank you. I'm so grateful for you all joining us. So as is our custom, we spend just a little bit of time dropping in coming into practice. And invite us if we have things in our hands to put them down.

18:44And if comfortable, you can have your feet on the floor. And let's say you're on the next in breath. Let your attention rest lightly on that physical experience of the breath entering your body. And exhale, relax. Soften the shoulders.

19:54Soften your mouth. Your jaw. Even as you're softening the shoulders, the forehead, the tissue around your eyes. Your mouth, your jaw. And at the same time, a kind of uprightness. Just allowing yourself to touch into this kind of natural strength. No matter what losses, what fears are present at the same time.

21:04Find that thread, the cord of strength within your breath, your heart, your character. And remember really why you're here. There's not one person on line or in this room.

22:11Who is here, who does not want to see the world, the lives of those they are connected to, their own life, in a bitter, sainter, kinder situation, or the species on this earth, the great trees, the rivers, the mules and birds, reptiles and insects.

23:21You know, as I said, we have the resources. We can do this with and through each other. Let your awareness include, if you're in the room, those who are in this space or online. The many who are online today. Unshakable goodness.

24:49And not every breath bringing home to this body, but also, to each other.

25:49And breath deep in the body. Keeping it really simple and also in the background of your awareness. And even though we might have this sort of opposite of rise,

26:55we're contrairions or we're in difficulty. Come alongside that. Don't turn away from this gripping. And gently bring your attention back to the breath.

28:02And we'll conclude this just touching in to this feeling of unshakable goodness. Again, that father Greg has brought so often into the Mahasanga, a heritnupaya. And then for these next minutes, resting with Frank's deep wisdom, as he explores this theme of belonging, what is it to belong?

29:11Thank you for your practice. I'm really glad to be with you and all the people joining us for this remarkable series. It's such a collection of wonderful teachers and subjects. And to have this time with you today to explore the subject of belonging.

30:17And to this work is good. And a deep love bow to John Paul, author of belonging without othering. He's the director of the othering in belonging at the University of Berkeley. And I really benefit from reading their books. Oh, I think I just want to give them all the credit for anything of value in this talk.

31:18It seems to me that before we can truly belong anywhere, we first have to return home to this body, to this tender, temporary dwelling that we have. And for many of us, though, this belonging to the body doesn't come so easily. We've carried the echoes of shame and disappointment to our betrayal. And somehow gets stored in our flesh and bones. And some of us, well, we only use this body to perform. Maybe in sports, like swimming or dancing. Maybe we feel we have to perform in our sexual life. But in that, we rarely just sense the body.

32:20Some of us learn to leave our bodies behind, to numb to them, to mistrust them, to treat them as an obstacle. And this one, the spiritual path. But our practice and the practice of belonging invites us to do just the opposite. Not to escape the body, but to inhabit it with awareness, with kindness, curiosity. When we speak about belonging, mostly, most often, we think about community or family or a circle of friends or religious community, perhaps, that we're associated with. But to me, the most immediate and intimate feel of belonging is the body. But we have pretty strong conditions from a very early age to take false refuge in the mind.

33:21And to disconnect from our senses. Our friend, Tara Brock, she tells a wonderful story about a teacher who says to her first grade class, if you need to go to the bathroom, I'll say this to the people here in the room too. If you need to go to the bathroom, hold up your hand with two fingers. The young boy in the back of the room said, how will that help? So to grow your awareness of your bodily experience, it's important because the essential qualities of our true nature, they're not going to appear above your head. They arise within you. Their bodies, the entry, the gate into the mystery of being and belonging.

34:25Now, the wild old Irish poet and ex priest, John Adani, he said, we need to come home to the temple of our senses. Our bodies know that they belong. It's our minds that make us homeless. So right now, here in this room, online, are you in your body? Can you honestly say, I belong to my body? Are you in your body or just aware of parts of it? Are you in your feet? What do you just have feet? Is it within them? Or are there just things you take out when you go for a walk? Are you in your belly? Or do you just vaguely know that you have one and imagine it's only about digestion?

35:32A lot of us, many of us, have been estranged from our own bodies. We treat them like machines that carry us or an object to be controlled or perfected or criticized. Sabine writes that our body is our first home. It's the ground of our belonging, the breath rising and falling, the heart pulsing, the sensations of warmth and coolness, the ache, the ease. What's in between you and being in home in your body right now? The belonging to the body is not an indulgence. When we meditate, when we're reminded that we're never alone,

36:40we're always sitting with and for all beings, never, ever separate from the larger web of life. The air we breathe is shared by the trees, by the oceans, by the animals. Wooded Dharma reminds us that we don't exist in some isolated entities. The belonging is not a place that we arrive at. It's a way of remembering. We come to the body, to ourselves, to one another, to the earth, we remember. We come into this world already connected. The first sound of our lives is the breath.

37:41Drawing from the air that we didn't create. The first sensation is touch, the hands that lift us, the body that holds us. Before we have a name, before we have a history, before we have a story, we belong. Belonging is not something we earn. It's not granted to us because of our accomplishments or identities or our possessions. It's already here. We're woven into the very fabric of existence. And no matter how we try, we can't pull ourselves apart from it. But to forget this truth is to feel a drift, and to be isolated in a sea of separateness. And this is the great wound in our culture, I think, the notion that we're separate.

38:47I was recently with a dear friend who died. And he knew he was coming closer to the end of his life. And he's had some experience with Buddhism and meditation and these things. But it wasn't so much a part of his life now. And he said, Frank, I think I need a mantra or a meditation or something like this if I'm going to get through this with any grace. Could you give me one? And we were buddies for a long time and we kind of shared a dark sense of humor. So I could say now, it's too late. You should have started this stuff a long time ago. So I just asked him, where do you feel most at home? He didn't hesitate. He pointed outside the window there, there in the woods by the creek nature.

39:50This man was a great environmentalist and he protected what he loved. Nature was his choice, his church. Nature was his church. And then I asked him, what he sensed, what he felt, what he observed when he was in the woods, when he was in nature. And he closed his eyes to remember, you know, maybe to almost see him almost smelling the redwoods. You know, trying to smell the redwoods. There, a border, his manicured lawn. And that could see him leaning just a little bit to the side as if he were trying to feel the warm spring air on his cheek. His head lifted a little bit to hear the sound of a raven.

40:51And a little bit later his eyes kind of opened with a sense of discovery. And after some silence, and I don't think it took much reflection on his part, he said, I belong. It wasn't anything else I needed to say. No mantra I had to give. His family, you know, shared it with his family. And they're wonderful, supportive, sensitive family and very creative. And so, in my next visit, I saw that they had delightfully created all of these signs of post-award that said, I belong. And they placed them all around the house, you know. Some of them were very beautiful. Others were kind of humorous. I remember as I went into the bathroom, there was one sitting opposite to toilet. So that he could remember no matter what activity he was involved in, he belonged. I belonged.

41:58To understand belonging, we need to draw a critical distinction between loneliness and aloneness. You know, loneliness, as some of us could test, is a painful feeling, right? A sense of separation from others, maybe from life itself. And the pain of loneliness indicates some underlying desire for a reconnection. Not just to another person or group, but to our most fundamental nature, our basic goodness, our unshakable goodness. Aloneness is different. It's about being whole and complete in oneself, actually. It has a profound fullness about it. It's full of presence. And from this state of solitude, an individual realizes they're inherent connection with everything.

43:04These days I live alone on a houseboat riding the tides of life. And I describe it as the sovereignty of my solitude, because from that place I belonged everything. Our longing to belong, you know, it arises when we've lost contact with our inherent condition. We come to know belonging by examining all the ways we feel we don't belong. By examining the delusion of separation. You know, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, right, he introduced the global north to the concept of Ubuntu, usually translated as I am because you are.

44:14And this is the foundation of generosity, of compassion, of harmony, because it's an understanding that because we're interconnected, everything we do, everything we think, everything we say matters and impacts everything else. You know, there were some indigenous cultures. They say that all things are people. Remember being with an elder in one particular community that said that. He said animals are people. Drees are people. Rocks are people. Mountains are people. Things appear independent, but ultimately there's no separation. I like the few lines from Gary Snyder's little poem. He says, as crickets soft autumn hum is to us.

45:20So are we to the trees. As they are to the rocks and the hills. So of course there's a paradox in belonging. Although we're not one, we're not separate. Although we're not separate, we're not the same. Awareness is key to remembering the truth of belonging. Without it we're just reacting to our thoughts and the secretions that Rochie was talking about. I think when we have some measure of self love, not an egoic self-cherishing, some genuine love of who we actually are, at the heart of our being.

46:23We discover this love to be inclusive, to be the motivation for the fuel. The motivation and the fuel for the journey. When we have this, our sense of separation softens. We don't need to be somebody else or something special. We can include all of it. Our small constructed sense of self. The fact that we're still crazy after all these years. Our sagging skin. Our chubby bellies. Cellulite. In my case a scrambled brain and a faulty heart. And this includes all our mistakes and our depression and our jealousy and our periodic self-loathing.

47:26It's not that we love our self-loathing. It's more that we love our continue to love ourselves even when there is self-loathing. So belonging is learned by contact again with all the ways that we feel separate. So, embodying, embody the awareness is needed to belong. When we forget our belonging, our minds and our bodies react as if we're facing some physical threat. Often it triggers some deep psychological or social or physiological consequences for us. For your arises. We feel we have to protect ourselves, to compete, to hoard, to dominate.

48:28What happens is we start searching externally for belonging. When we feel we don't belong so often we move toward accommodation. We begin to shape ourselves to meet the expectations of others. And in this process often we give up what's most meaningful to us. We abandon ourselves to gain approval or security. And this is a very painful trade. It leaves us feeling more isolated even in the company of others. You know the author, Brunei Brown, she suggests that the opposite of belonging is fitting in. When we try to fit in through some type of accommodation we start to lose ourselves.

49:34A lot of people think of accommodation as a positive quality. Maybe it refers to someone who we think is flexible and willing to go along with things. But that's not the way I think about it. In my experience when we fall into this pattern of accommodation we start to look outside ourselves and we give up a part of our soul to get something we think we need from some other person or some group. I friend Rachel Rennman, she just died recently and we were friends for 40 years. We used to teach together and remember once we were teaching a group of healthcare professionals. She told this story about how she accommodated. She said that she was in this situation working on the team working with children with diabetes.

50:34She described caring for this really sick three-year-old boy. When the treatment was finished she leaned over and she just held the sides of his head and kissed him on the forehead. She reassured him that everything was going to be okay. Her supervisor, a male physician, told her that was completely inappropriate behavior. It's not right for a doctor to do that. By the way, Rachel was the only woman in her Stanford Medical School class, the only woman. But she wanted to be accepted by the team. She wanted to be a member. She felt that she had to let go of her own values to be part of the team. She had to accommodate.

51:35In our day-to-day lives, sometimes our accommodation involves maybe giving up our mindfulness or our contact with presence. And what's the motivation for this giving up? Well, our personalities, all of us have them. They're patterned by our early years. We've been conditioned to comply. But why do we continue this pattern when it doesn't serve us? I think the habit of accommodation is a result of viewing the external as the source of our reality. I need this person. I need this place. I need this situation. I need to believe in this or that.

52:38I can feel a certain way. We might exchange presence for mirroring, for example, or for our need of support from another or for their guidance or their nurturing. If we're not really careful, though, we can see that we'll just continue this pattern. This young pattern, childhood pattern. We don't need as adults. You watch a toddler walk around, I think of my grandchildren. They walk around the world. They're really young. They just walk around the floor when they first get into walking to like 20 feet tall. It's amazing. Then they get hungry. I got this. Then they get hungry. And they can't feed themselves. So they encounter some limitation.

53:42And they instinctively know that the only way through that limitation is to get help from others. And to do what is needed to get that help. But we're not hungry children anymore. We no longer are dependent on those sorts of things. If we're hungry, we can go to the grocery store. We don't have any accommodation in that action. So when we accommodate, we give up our autonomy to fit in to what's conventional. And if we're really honest, when we're talking about belonging, but I want to talk about also the confusion that happens around this. Watch how fear drives that movement. Fear tells us that if we don't conform, we may lose what's important to us.

54:45Our friends, our family, our work, etc. And so we stretch and we exhaust ourselves to get what we think we need. We long to belong, but often our actions are sometimes very misguided. Breaking as a process where a group turns inward and explicitly pushes other people away and creates a strict bus in them. So one of the ways we misguidly create belonging is by othering everyone else. I watched this interview with John May Powell. He's a wonderful guy. Great activist, remarkable man, a black man, born in 1947. His parents were sharecroppers. Now he's a renowned scholar, an advocate for an area of civil rights and civil liberties and structural racism and constitutional law.

55:55And in the interview, he said, I think John could be so honest. He said belonging is a concept held by most religions and spiritual traditions. Wouldn't we agree? Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, the philosophy of Confucius, the work of a manual, Kant, the formation of nation states, communism, capitalism, belonging is included in all those movements. And more normally these movements create structures and paths to belonging for a particular group. And at the same time they say, if you weren't part of that group, your other. Bad things could happen to you if your other. These are John's words.

56:57And he shared the story of speaking to Pastor Roberts, who's a very important leader in the evangelical movement. And the good pastor said that John, John, more than anyone I've met, you have Christ energy about you. Why did you leave the church? And would you consider coming back to God? And John said that he described it as both a beautiful compliment and also a provocation. And he responded kind of beautifully. He said when he was a very young man, he was very devoted Christian and very, very studious. He studied the Bible each and every day. He said then, I was very affected by this one story in the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah.

58:00John shared his version of the story. He said, you know, God decided that the city and its people were wicked and he was going to destroy them. But then there were a few who were faithful and God told them to leave soon, but not to look back. You know the story. So a small group left the city and a few turned back and God turned them into bags of salt. So John said to the pastor, Robert's, bags of salt, I'm just not down with that. But I would like to continue to work with you. Wherewith there's another, that's where the work is. And I'm just in our personal life, but in a key level of community and state and nation, and certainly beyond the human level.

59:04So there's lots of forms of belonging. One way that it mistakenly occurs is by making villains of others. And of course there are forces of injustice that we need to reckon with. But inseparability, central tenant in our practice, is a radical belonging that doesn't need villains. Doesn't need other. Everyone belongs. Even if you think you don't belong, you belong. You cannot. You cannot pull yourself out of the fabric of inseparability no matter how you try.

1:00:11But we can forget and we become isolated in that forgetting. And maybe in such times we need support. A program is like the one we're in the midst of. I belong. I belong, he said, my friend. I belong. Love is belonging. The accommodation is fitting in. I want to have time to have a bit of a dialogue with you all. And I have a couple of questions for you, maybe, that might form that dialogue. The first is, what's the way that you accommodate? And the second question might be, what's right about accommodating? I don't mean what's morally right about it. I mean, how can we do it?

1:01:15I mean, if we didn't think there was something good and there's some benefit for us in it, we wouldn't do it. So that's what I mean by what's right. What's the benefit for you by accommodating? And the last question is, who would you be if you weren't accommodating? So with that, I just want to start to engage each other and acquire together and explore together. About any part of this, really. You can respond to one or more of those questions if you like, but you don't need to. But I want to invite you into a dialogue about belonging. Anything at all is room for everything here. It's all included. So if you're here in the room, raise your hand please and we'll get you a mic. And if you're online, if you'll raise your digital hand or your golden paw, Wendy will call on you and we'll have a little bit of an exchange perhaps.

1:02:18And there's a lot of us. So if we could please go to Essence as Versailles says and really take time to sense your body first before you raise a question. And see what's really what really wants to be explored briefly. I came here to this workshop. I was accommodating all over the place by buying, buying, buying, trying to fit in to Santa Fe wanting to be okay. That's what I noticed. It's shocking when you said about fitting in. Thank you. Thank you. Someone else here in the room has their hand raised? I find I really struggle with texting and feeling authentic in the community where I live.

1:03:27I think we have various circles of texting and sometimes I feel a fake. I say things because everybody else is saying it. And I feel and then I feel such a fake. And I don't feel true to myself. And I think sometimes, well, shall I just get out of the circle? Shall I just not take any notice of anybody in the circle? I can't answer that question for you. Only you can respond to that. But you can see the predicament that this is common, which is we do things, whether this particular activity or not, to feel as if we belong. But actually, we don't actually feel the belonging. We just feel the attempt at belonging. Miscite attempt at belonging often times, yeah. Yeah, I tend to fit in really. When I don't respond, I feel that I'm just heartless.

1:04:34So one of the things that I like to look at in myself is my critic. And it leads us to accommodation. I've learned to stand up on my own behalf against my critic. It's not enough just to notice it. You have to stop the conversation with the critic. Critics, the internalized standard bearer. That's keeping us not rocked about. Let's keep everything just as it was. And I think when we do that, very little growth happens. So we have to stop the conversation with the critic. We have to understand that it's not the voice of wisdom.

1:05:34If you listen, you know, Rojini, I have been with some extraordinarily wise beings. I haven't met one yet who transmitted their wisdom to me with a mean voice. Not one, with a mean voice. But if you listen to the critic, listen to the tone of voice. And oftentimes you'll hear its meanness. So don't confuse criticism with wisdom. You can turn toward your wise heart now and let it guide you. Thank you. Maybe there's somebody online. I don't know. There's a lot of people online. Maybe they want to raise their hands. I'm using you. Well, to be short, I know that I accommodate.

1:06:35One second. Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead, Ian. I know that I accommodate by not showing who I am. And that's because it's easier. It's easier. It makes it easier. It's easier to get along on a superficial level when you hide who you are. But it's not good for you, of course, to do that or for myself to do that. And if I, if I don't do it, then I can be who I really am. This leads me to be me and to be all that is really. So much. I ask you, how do you feel about the trade?

1:07:36How do I feel about, sorry, about the trade? You know, indeed. Yeah, I feel that it is a, it's a false trade. I'm obtaining something that damages me by doing something that damages me. Yes. And this may sound too strong. I don't know. But for me, when I make that trade, I feel a sense of abandonment. Indeed. Yeah. We're abandoning ourselves. And that is how not to belong to ourselves, of course. Yes. So I'm curious in our conversation now, you're very aware of this. You know this is so. I don't have to persuade you of it. You know, you know the effects of this. And so, where does it leave you now sitting here, recognizing this? Where does it leave you now? Well, it leaves me with a feeling of joy actually.

1:08:37Joy at the possibility of being completely yourself. Yes. Yeah. And more than your personality, I would like to add, when I say completely yourself, I don't mean that it stops at the personality. No, clearly. Yeah. Absolutely. That would be cool. May it be so for you. Thank you. May it be so. Thank you. Okay. In the room. I'm sorry. Who's got the mic? Here. Here. Here. Okay. There we are. I see now. I fell in love with someone who is very much loves to other. I don't know how to use that word correctly, but lots of different groups of people. And for, I don't know how long, maybe a year into that relationship, I would say something to defend the people that were being othered,

1:09:41or however that word works. Right. And it was always uncomfortable. And so I eventually traded my soul and accommodated and, and then ended up joining in on being mean and othering with my partner. And yeah, I completely abandoned myself and I have a lot of pain and emptiness because of it. So. And I'm still in that relationship. Yeah. So right now, sharing this with us, thank you, first of all, for your honesty. I wonder if there's a way that you could turn toward yourself. Now, not to fix anything. We're not trying to do that. But just to turn toward yourself with a kind of, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I did that. When you do, what's the feeling?

1:10:44Maybe liberating, because I know what my values are and that. That I can find courage to. Maybe just even start with being quiet. When quiet, quiet silence is powerful. If my partner wants to be othering people, silence will eventually dissuade it, I think, if I'm silent for enough long enough time. If I don't join in. I don't know. But I'm, I want to be with you right now. And I hear it trembling in your voice. And I'm wondering, is there sadness? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. What's that like? Um, just grieving some loss of my identity, I guess. Yeah, maybe.

1:11:44I mean, remorse is a very healthy feeling. And the way I understand it anyway is that it's often a kind of sadness that I have about my actions that I want to know, because I don't want to repeat those actions. And the remorse helps me to take, to be accountable to myself. And to remember, oh, I don't want to repeat that. And so the sadness, the sadness of remorse, especially, can be really, an aid to me in my wanting to be a full person. Yeah. Is that enough? Thank you. Anything else you want to say? Thank you. Thank you very much.

1:12:45Remorse is a healthy quality. Okay. Do we have someone online? Someone online, Sydney? I'm unmuting you. Go ahead, please. Oh, please. Just one moment. Yeah. One of the things that remorse does is allows you to atone. And I often say our vows are empty until we've really encountered this landscape of atonement. And it is so restorative, not only to who we are in terms of our character, but who we are in community, who we are to each other. And it's not so easy, you know, for, I say this only because this is a Buddhist thing, by the way.

1:13:53Every morning, we chant all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born of body, speech, and mind. I now fully atone. And what it means is we take responsibility for coming off the rails because we're human beings with feet of clay, all of us. I often share, I have seen the Dalai Lama lose his temper. And he'll be the first one to admit publicly in front of thousands that he loses his temper. And I also saw, you know, Tiktok Han loses temper. And, you know, my feeling was how wonderful, because so often we, you know, project that great teachers, and you know this about Ramdas.

1:14:55You know, Aiden knows this well, this he was one of our days care givers, and we know it as his buddies. You know, we project our enlightenment onto others. And a good teacher says, please withdraw your projection on me, and rest within you. And, you know, and part of it is also the teacher understanding that he, she, today are also vulnerable, humans fragile. It's one of the wonderful aspects about Frank, because he's so transparent about his vulnerability and fragility. And you're a big guy. You know, there's a thank you for saying what you just said about projection. I want to add to this, because, you know, we project onto teachers, and we find someone who's just a perfect fit for our projection, right? They're just perfect, you know, look around, you'll find somebody in this room, I'm sure.

1:15:59And then they kick the cat, and the projection falls off, and we have a couple of choices there. One of the choices is we can put the projection back in place. It was just a little error they made. Or we look around for somebody else to project out there. Well, here's the perfect one. So we go through this serial projections, you know, serial monogamy of projections. Or we have another choice, which is to let the projection fall, and realize that we've been giving ourselves away. And to grieve that. To recognize that, and grieve that I've been giving myself away unnecessarily, and to reclaim that which I've been giving to someone else as my own. So it's not just to withdraw your hopes and dreams, or you wish to be like that person. It's really a reclaiming of who we are. And then bringing that into the world.

1:17:04And going into the world with that. Often I speak about in terms of the spiritual path, but it's also the relationship, any relationship you have, where, as Frank says, you give away your enlightenment to the teacher or your potential partner or whom, so ever. And this is called idealization. And, you know, it's exploited often by teachers. And it's, you know, one of the great tragedies, I feel, in, you know, the sort of spiritual world that teachers have exploited that kind of projection. And as Frank says, you've given something away, that is who you really are. But the next is, you know, the negative projection. You put all of your bad stuff on the teacher. I call that demonization. So there's idealization and demonization.

1:18:06And that's generally when you leave a teacher or leave a community. That, you know, you've taken that, which is your shadow, which you have not recognized, and you've just placed it on the community or the teacher. And this is where, a tone that is so powerful, where, you know, understanding, coming into some kind of realization, that this is actually when you retrieve that which has been in your shadow, which you haven't seen. But you realize we have this old sloka. You spot it. You got it. And you bring it back and think, wow, gosh, I take responsibility for demonizing, othering. I, I, a tone now. I don't separate from.

1:19:08And then that's when normalization happens. And when we say normalization, it's when our vows just become our normal life. Not something special or high for loot, so to speak. But it is simply in the very ground of our being. But those vows are empty until we atone. And that's, you know, that taking and responsibility for both our positive and negative projections, the shadow. I mean, our awakening is in our shadow. That's one of the ironies. You know, so we give it away. And now, you know, you have the opportunity to, to actually atone for not seeing who you really, really are. And we don't have to give ourself up to belong. But atonement may be a useful tool, a useful practice. They help us with a true sense of belonging.

1:20:16So I want to see if there are others here who want to speak and called on Sydney and online and. Okay, thank you. Daniel. I'll unmute you. Here you are. Well, thank you. First of all, thank you. This is such a powerful, powerful expression of belonging that we can have this kind of intimacy and also like the teachings that you just gave. I'm kind of stirred from that. So I'll go to my original reason I raised my hand. But thank you, first of all, so much. I have accommodated to fit in and to be heard, to be noticed, you know, and, and I'm an introvert. So it was also a way, it is also a way to take a risk. And to challenge myself to be more or more courageous, you know, like seeing other people's being courageous and then saying, well, if I join them, then I'll become physically more hearty.

1:21:27Anyway, you got the idea. And to change the idea, you know, it was like a positive things to change to grow in a way that I might not be able to do on my own. Right. So that's what you've done in the past to come. Right. And now that I'm aging, it doesn't work. It doesn't work at all because I physically, as a mechanism, it doesn't work. Okay. There's no, the reward is not there. I asked you a question. Yes, please. You know that about yourself, right? Yes, I'm sharing it with us. But this is something you already know about yourself. That's right. I'm glad that you're sharing that with us. But I want to see if you can discover something that you don't know. Okay. Who would you be if you weren't accommodating? Yes, well, that's what I'm finding out now. And you may not know the answer to that right now.

1:22:28I don't have the answer, but that's exactly what's happening now. What's, how does the question land? It's the feeling, don't have it. How does it land in you? Is it? It's actually a very, it makes me feel very peaceful. Like, I don't have to engage in that activity. I don't have to be concerned anymore. It's a very, it's a relief. Right. It's a relief from the past. Yes. Yes. Is there a possibility and disorienting at the same time? Good. I'm glad. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad it's disorienting. That's sometimes we, we have to have that for a while when we're letting go of old habits. Yeah, it makes my stomach, makes my stomach churn. Okay. Yeah. It feels a possibility in it. Oh, yeah. I do. It's like, I don't, I can stand in my own courage. I don't need anybody to see it. I can sit in meditation.

1:23:31I don't necessarily have to show up for meditation if my body's not right. And I, okay. Those are all, those are all things you can do. Yeah. Thank you. Who would you be if you weren't accommodating? Don't, don't answer too quickly. Feel it and you feel in your body. Feel your heart. Feel the longing. Who would you be? The longing to belong. Who would you be if you weren't accommodating? It would be a mystery. I would, I would be a mystery. Okay. I don't want to put words in your mouth. I'm sorry. Yeah. I don't think it would be a mystery. It would be a mystery. It would be a mystery. It's the engaging in that question.

1:24:31It will be is a mystery. Wonderful. Yeah. Thank you so much. Good luck. All right. We've got to have, should we have someone in the room there? Sure. Can. Maybe it's good for you to say your first name if you're willing. Surely. Thank you. My name is Patty. And in terms of accommodations. I wanted to say that as a woman of color. First of all. In many cultures and I'll speak about the Asian culture culture because obviously I'm from that. Accommodating is very much a part of our culture and accommodating sometimes to the extreme. It's part of our culture. So as a woman of color here in this country, I'm Japanese American, it's been a struggle particularly in the workplace

1:25:32because frankly, you know, I've had to accommodate to get to certain places in my career and along the way I really had to struggle with am I going over the line who I am, what my values are. And so I just wanted to say that sometimes it's for people of color or other marginalized groups, it's more difficult or I should say there's another layer to accommodation. It's also survival. It's absolutely survival. It is absolutely survival. Yeah, thank you first of all for bringing that into the room, into the session. Yeah. When I shared the story of Rachel as the only woman in her medical training needing to accommodate,

1:26:40to feel part of the team, to be able to do what she wanted to do in the world, it was a necessary thing for her at that moment. One way that I've found very helpful or the way that I've learned I think over the years to deal with accommodation is to strike a balance between who I really am and what I'm doing. But the accommodation fitting in would look like. What do you do, what do you mean example of how that might look like? Wow. Or even how you go about finding the balance. Well, speaking up in the workplace, for example, again, my conditioning as a woman of color was that you don't speak up in the workplace. And so having to balance or think about what speaking up would not speaking up, how would I feel with myself if I didn't speak up?

1:28:02And if I did speak up with that help my career, and again, it's the balance, which would make me feel better. But it's important it seems to me from what you're describing that you have a good sense of your value. I feel grateful that I think I did for the most part right now, given my family. And I think that that was very important. Also boundaries knowing where those boundaries are has helped. And that of course is a continuing to this day practice. Can I just say I want to thank you because I think that you know, the notion of accommodating is for, you know, from certain perspectives. It's a notion that is highly problematic.

1:29:02But the point that you made when you stand in your values, it might serve deeply to not accommodate, but it might serve deeply to accommodate. And you know, you have to, this is where context sensitivity, you know, you're not betraying yourself in accommodating as long as you're standing in your values. And you know, I mean, I'm not a woman of color, but in Asia, I'm a woman of color. So I know what it is, you know, from a certain point of view to be in Japan as a white woman. My only card there is my age now. Right. So I get the age card. But I understand there are times when it's really important that my values and my word around social transformation and speaking truth to power really important.

1:30:05There are times when it would only cause disarmony and it would get, it would gain nobody anything. And so part of what we learn is, you know, how to be a neoho aligned with the Dharma, which sometimes is to speak truth to power. And sometimes is to keep your damn mouth shut and not feel less for it, but feel compassion for, you know, how I've been treated in Japan but no longer, but probably will be again in a couple of weeks who knows. So to, you know, to understand that I don't feel diminished, I actually feel compassion and concern for a culture where women are diminished. But not I don't feel pity. So belonging can include cooperation, collaboration, mutual support.

1:31:07Without needing to sacrifice, the support for our values actually, belonging can include all of that. So Samantha, who's Chinese? Yeah. Can you hear me? So please, thank you. You kind of triggered me. So, yeah, I can so relate to that. I'm five, one, self-spoken and very, very hard to be incorporated America. But I want to turn this into maybe the other aspect of belonging. That is what kind of action you can take or you can help. So we're talking about compassionate action here. So definitely everyone can get help from inspiration, from another voice recognizing you, someone advocating.

1:32:17This is actually, you know, from feeling the challenge and then I ended up, you know, in my company say, you know, why don't we form by a group employee group, help those who actually want to have a voice. I think that is really powerful. And sometimes it just takes finding one person for you to feel you belong. So find that person. It can be your sibling, can be your parent, can be a stranger, can be your colleague and start from there. And I also feel like once you start, you'll find yourself surrounded by people who are truly into belonging, not just accommodating you.

1:33:20I think that seed of belonging, your own action, inviting, the action from your community, forming that community is very, very powerful. And it's very possible. And being introvert, self-spoken, you know, coming to this country, not knowing how to communicate interacting. So I basically, almost 40 years. So it's not a easy process. And also it's not that, you know, the US culture also, I think I feel changed. So the society changed. So as I was getting a little bit comfortable with American culture, you know, it's like, oh, what is that? It's changing again.

1:34:20So yeah. Thank you for listening. Oh, Samantha, thank you. So we are at the time of, we need to conclude, is that okay? Yeah. It's okay if we take a moment to say thank you to everybody first. Definitely. I just, well, you know, we could have taken this conversation on belonging in a lot of different directions. I wanted to make, show or demonstrate this relationship between belonging and accommodating. But by no means is it the whole conversation of belonging. So thank you for your willingness to engage in this, in this way, and to bring your wisdom and your compassion to the circle.

1:35:28And feel very grateful. And I'm saying that to everybody here in the room, and I'm saying it to everybody online as well, that this is a kind of model about what's possible. If we learn to really listen to one another. And extend a little bit of trust. As I think you all have today, and I'm immensely grateful for your trust. I do not take it for granted. And I'm honored that you are willing to extend it. Thank you. Well, Frank, I want to thank you, my old friend. But also just the intimacy with which, you know, that I've experienced in bearing witness to so many voices over the past few days and also here in our online community.

1:36:31And my request is that we let ourselves simmer in whatever we've learned, whether we agree or disagree. Because it's not important, I feel, to take things too quickly. I think it's important to let things go slowly. And to see, you know, what we're being called to at this time. Going back to the title of this series, the measure of our humanity. You know, what is inviable within our character that we want to actualize to really benefit others in a world that is so tangled at this time. And I also want to thank the residents, Bodhi Satvas and the volunteers who hold so much responsibility, making it possible for us to come together.

1:37:31And the staff, just wonderful people. And also, many of you have donated making it possible for our people all over the world to, you know, come online with us and to be part of this community. Your donations really make a difference. And so thank you so much. And please continue to support UPAI and its teachers and to the field that we've been cultivating now for so many years. And the four Bodhi Satvas, remembering who we really are. Say what? No. The Returns are the rest.

1:38:34I am to free them. The Returns are a obstacle. I bow to your sorrows. Reality is countless. I bow to your seated. The awakened ways are Mr. possible. I bow to your body. Creation is our numberless. I bow to free them. The Dungeons are a great obstacle. I bow to transform them. Reality is countless. I bow to your seated. The awakened ways are Mr. possible. I bow to your body.

1:39:35Creation is our numberless. I bow to free them. The Dungeons are a great obstacle. I bow to transform them. Reality is countless. I bow to your seated. The awakened ways are Mr. possible. I bow to your bodies. Thank you everybody online. Bye bye. And we will see you at lunch for another beautiful meal. Frank, I might sign some books if you know anybody wants to happen. And the other thing is just please take good care of yourself in this upcoming time.

1:40:39this upcoming time. We just need a lot of radical self-stourship at this time to strengthen ourselves to meet a very complicated world. OK. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I think lunch is happening now. Is that right? Right now. All right.