The Measure of Our Humanity: Transformation

0:00Thank you for listening to UPAI's Dharma 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 2596. It was recorded on March 29th, 2026. And it is titled The Measure of Our Humanity Transformation. The speaker for this episode is Valerie Brown.

1:05When we started this in 2020, what precipitated it, in part was the pandemic, but also the feeling that we were heading into turbulent times. Not just in relation to the pandemic, but in relation to the experience of dehumanization and not only dehumanization, but also the objectification of our environment. And it just seemed important to explore what it means to rehumanize. To be in solidarity, just looking at all those hands, you know, that's a perfect example. And also what it means to speak truth to power. And I just, you know, yesterday, no Kings day, it was a really amazing experience as you know, we were out there in our Santa Fe world and by the roundhouse with so many people.

2:18It's probably the largest protest that I've ever experienced here in our city. And then looking at the photographs of people in, you know, DC and in London and in Philadelphia and Boston and Idaho and all over. So I just feel a lot of gratitude for our solidarity. And you know, through this six years of this series, we've really tried to deepen our investigation of socially and environmentally engaged Buddhism. I know this kind of Buddhism is not everybody's cup of tea, but it's what actually it's the meal that we make every day here at Upaya. And also we've had such extraordinary teachers and artists and activists who've been a part of it.

3:20So when I was thinking about the series this year, partly in relation to what I could anticipate this administration would bring to us, so to speak. The question that I ask myself is, you know, truly, what is the measure of our humanity? And at the heart of this question, is this question, how do we lay down a sane and compassionate path as we move toward a sane and compassionate future? And so what we've been exploring is, you know, what defines our moral worth, what we stand for, and how do we move forward together in our very tangled world?

4:26One of the things that I work on every day is really looking at the values that inform our motivation, like the value of inclusion, the value of belonging, of compassion, of respect, of dignity, and also courage. And these aren't abstract ideals, but they're in our lived experience, in our lived practice, in these very complicated times. So I feel very grateful that we gather once a month. It's wonderful that Valerie is giving us some of the extraordinary wisdom that she carries. And I feel also so joyful that we can be together again, all of us.

5:27And hopefully, what we can do together in listening to Valerie, and then, you know, coming into dialogue with each other, is to see, you know, what is really going to serve at this time. So, Dynan, I'd love for you to invite the Sangha. Wonderful. So good to see all of you. Let me turn myself into Galler V. V. V. also. I wanted to see all of you. So please write into the chat. We want to hear from you where you're tuning in from, and also just one or two words of what's alive for you right now. Maybe from what we did yesterday, many of us were out on the streets. What's the feeling for you today? So please write into the chat, and I'll read a few of these out. Let's see. And Anna in Brazil, hope. Two people in Toronto, anticipation.

6:29In Austin, Carol says hope and connection. Karen Baltimore feeling much joy from yesterday. And then we have Amelia feeling gratitude in Tacoma, Washington. Mickey feeling activated. Wonderful. That Ceconia tuning in from New York City, love and connection. Debbie, hope is more alive from yesterday, huh? It's wonderful to feel that solidarity of being together. And that's what Mary Ann says. She's in Queens, New York, and she says solidarity. See Claire in Lake Tahoe says connection. Many's feeling connection and solidarity resolve. Valerie says grounded. Let's see.

7:30Dorio says encouraged in Oakland. So happy to hear all of these feelings of encouragement and hope. Wendy says tentative hope. Also, it's a little tentative. Susan says in the UK tired. That too is true. Jan and Nevada says hope and solidarity. Lisa in California says savoring the good. Let's see what else. A few more. Let's see Connie in Arizona border bordering Mexico. She says she's feeling hopeful. Lisa says healing and community. Kelly says interbeing. Meg says a bit of relief. Wonderful. Thank you so much, everyone.

8:31And it's just so wonderful to be together. These regular meetings with our wonderful teachers really feel like a community after doing this for a few years, six years we've been doing this. And every time we come together, it just gives me this feeling of togetherness of resolve. So today we have our good friend Valerie Brown. So wonderful to have you. Good friend. She is you probably already know if you've been tuning into you. But Valerie Brown is an author, Buddhist Quaker, Dharma teacher, facilitator and executive coach, specializing in leadership development and mindfulness practices with the focus on diversity, social equity and inclusion. She's a former lawyer and lobbyist and Valerie transformed her high pressure 20 year career into serving leaders and nonprofits to create trustworthy, authentic, compassionate and connected workspaces.

9:34She's the author of many award-winning books, including her latest book with her two friends and co author in the plum village lineage, beautiful book right here, healing our way home. Black Buddhist teachings on ancestors joy and liberation. So please check that out and it's just so wonderful to have you here Valerie. Valerie will start with a grounding practice or meditation practice and then she will go on to her talk. Well, dear Ty, dear sister, 10 Kong, dear Roshi and Dinan, Kodo, beloved, Upaya community and to those gathered here. Wow, thank you so much. Thank you for those beautiful expressions of emotions.

10:38So shall we gather up all of these expressions of emotions that we're feeling at this moment and settle in to just a few minutes of grounding and centering ourselves as a community and individually. So the invitation is to begin by taking a few deep breaths, breathing in and breathing out and this may be the first time today that you've actually taken a few deep breaths. And it may take a few breaths to come into and actually feel the sweetness of your own in breath and your own out breath. So beginning with a moment to feel your feet on the floor, on the ground and connecting with that sense of stability, the ground beneath you holding you up.

11:59There's never been a time in your life. There's never been a time in your ancestors' life when the ground has not been there to support you. So feeling the stability and the solidity of the ground underneath your feet. And then turning to the breath in the body. Perhaps feeling the breath at the tip of the nose or perhaps you're feeling the rise and the fall of the abdomen as you breathe in and you breathe out.

13:03Or maybe you're feeling the breath as it moves throughout the whole body, feeling the breath at the back of the body, at the side of the body, in the front of the body. So locating the breath, bringing your awareness to this in breath and the fullness of the out breath. And bringing your awareness from the breath to these emotions, whether they are pleasant, unpleasant or neither pleasant or unpleasant.

14:20And noticing the coming and going of these emotional states of mind, these feeling tone. And as with the breath, allowing a quality of softening, opening, a kind of harmony with whatever the feeling tone of the mind state might be at this moment. And knowing that you are not alone, that we are here as a community supported.

15:38Breathing together in this moment of life, this is a happy moment, a moment of togetherness. So again, returning to this sense of your own breath in the body, feeling the breath at the tip of the nose, maybe the rise and the fall of the abdomen or the whole body breathing. Allowing for whatever passing mind state, maybe at this moment, making space for all of it.

16:54Connecting with your own center point of stillness, openness and receptivity. And extending a quality of good will and kindness from your heart to all of those who are here on this call. And beyond this call, so generating a mind and a heart of openness and good will in this moment, breathing in.

17:56And slowly releasing the out breath. And again, maybe another deep breath in, it may take a few breaths to again reach and feel the sweetness of your own in breath and your own out breath. Yes, this is a happy moment. So with that, I'm transitioning and maybe stretching just a little bit, maybe inhaling the arms up and looking up and loading the arms down. And taking any movement that feels comfortable for you, maybe twisting to the left or to the right, whatever would support you.

19:13So again, a very deep bow to you all and welcome. Again, I want to express my deep gratitude for being here and acknowledge the entire plum village community of socially engaged Buddhism. Really the Mahasanga worldwide, the monastic and the lay community. And when I'm talking about gratitude, of course, I want to lift up the all of the cultural and the ancestral and spiritual influences that really have shaped me. And to say that my feet are touching the ground in New Hope, Pennsylvania, this is the traditional lens of the Lenape people. And specifically an area called Aquaton, which in the language of the Lenape people means the spring in the pine trees.

20:24So this is a place of many rivers and streams and and watersheds. I want to acknowledge the Asian roots of Buddhism, something that can sometimes get lost in our very American context. And since I'm on acknowledgements, I want to acknowledge and pay homage to the Vietnamese people that have produced a Tiktok Hanh. And so I have a lot of cultural humility. There's a lot I don't know. And since I'm speaking about culture, I want to also acknowledge my own African American ancestry. I come to the Dharma from the lens of a Cuban and a Jamaican perspective from my cultural heritage.

21:28So this year would have been Tiktok Hanh's 100th birthday. Yes, 100th birthday. And surely these times that we are in were made for the teachings of Tiktok Hanh. So as many of the speakers who have been on the series have said, yes, we are living in this poly crisis intersecting crisis that's really at scale. So these, these, this crisis is both is escalating. It's intertwining. It's intersecting. And the feminist scholar, Bell Hooks, described this as interlocking systems of domination that really define our reality.

22:33And of course, this has given rise to a global mental health crisis that many of you have alluded to in the chat with the stress and anxiety on a kind of epidemic of loneliness that spaces like this are really designed to address. And the so-called tech boom that we're in the midst of has manipulated our attention span leading to moral and ethical implications. You know, the rise of polarization, many people call this a kind of disagreement epidemic that we are in with an increase in short term thinking and really the loss of meaning.

23:37So I'm thinking here again from this cultural lens of the words of the great reggae star, Bob Marley, who said he who feels it knows it more. He who feels knows more a kind of antidote feeling as an antidote to the kind of anesthetization, the domination, the polarization that's driving this disconnect. And of course, the pervasive busyness and a kind of incentive based motivation that we see everywhere, rather than, you know, the what Roshi has talked about that our actions coming from a place of the social order, the social good.

24:38So I want to begin up front by just saying yes, of course we're anxious. It's actually a reasonable response to the overwhelm. Yes, this makes sense. And increasingly, people are asking questions and attending these kinds of gatherings. So some of the questions and Roshi alluded to this earlier that people are asking is how can I be grounded enough and here the operative word is enough in the face of all of what I've described. How can I be hopeful enough to in the face of what I've described and take action.

25:39So again, we're seeking community, we're seeking support and spaces like this are really essential. So this is a talk largely about transformation and I'll be sharing. Ties or Tick-Not-Hon's teachings on how we actually transform a suffering within us and around us into a piece and compassionate action. So Roshi has invited me to speak from the heart and so you were invited to listen from the heart. So I want to begin by speaking a little bit about how it is that in January of 2021, I found myself at the doorstep of Opaia Zen Center.

26:52And I have just enormous, enormous gratitude to Roshi and the entire community for their love and their care. So I didn't go to law school to be a Buddhist Dharma teacher. You know, right there is a kind of transformation. Like many people, you know, I went to law school to make money and I don't feel proud about that. You know, it was kind of crass. And like many people, I grew up with a lot of poverty, a lot of violence. I grew up in the people's Republic of Brooklyn and so you could blame some of it on that.

27:55I grew up with a mom who was a maid. She worked at the hotel Manhattan and she was a single parent and every penny went to send us to Catholic school. So I never spent one day in a private school, in a public school. And in my household, my mother was Catholic, my grandmother was Catholic. And my mother and grandmother both practiced Catholicism and Santaria, the religion of the Afro-Cuban people. So I grew up with the kind of open mystery about life. I saw a lot of paradox and kind of the bigness and the complexity of life at a very early age.

28:59But fast forward, you know, after my mother passed when I was a teenager, I packed my bags at the age of 19. Trying to escape the violence and with little more than the clothes on my back got a job at Burger King and went to school at night because it was free to college. So I did a lot of running from undergraduate school to graduate school to law school to the big and important job as a lawyer. And a lobbyist, there was just one problem with the job. It was killing me. It was like killing my soul. And so fast forward again, I'm in my brother's apartment in the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the years 1994.

30:03And he's flipping through the New York Times and there in the paper is a photo of Tick-Not-Hon. And Tick-Not-Hon is giving a top just down the street from where we are. And my brother knew absolutely nothing about Tick-Not-Hon. He knew nothing about Buddhism, but he knew a lot about me. I was very much the type A aggressive quick to temper, you know, lawyer, the result of so many things. But Trevor was always right. So I went down. I listened to the talk. And four or five hours later, I emerged from the talk and I thought, no way. Now, this is not for me. Peace and love and compassion. Now, I can't do that.

31:07That's going to cost me way too much. I've spent all this time trying to become a lawyer, trying to be somebody. Now, I'm going to do peace and love. I don't think so. But something was touched in that moment. So I just, you know, started practicing. I was kind of a closet meditator because at that time it certainly wasn't acceptable to be a lawyer lobbyist practicing meditation. At least so I thought. But, you know, crisis after crisis and stress after stress happened. And one day in a really stressful time, I decided to take myself on a vacation. I went to one of my favorite places, which is not far from Upaya in the village of Abacue in New Mexico.

32:07Some of you may know this place. And so I climbed to the top of very big hill and I took off my backpack and I was just kind of sitting around and looking up at the sky. And I had this jaw dropping moment. Like, they're clouds up there. And they move slowly. It's like, wow, where have I been? You know, oh, man, that was a radical moment for me. I realized I was not only alienated for myself. I was alienated from the natural world. And so I started practicing yet again in earnest. And I thought, I'm a working person. I don't have time to like sit in meditation.

33:07And so I started practicing mindfulness as a lobbyist in the halls of Congress. And what did I do? Like, as I was talking to people, I would do just like what we did in the meditation to start. I would feel my feet on the floor. I would feel my breath in my body. I would generate within myself a sense of ease and calm. I wouldn't open my mouth to speak until I could feel ease and calm in my body. And then what I said, whatever came out was had a sense of ease and calm. And it kind of changed the space of the advocacy. It changed the relationship.

34:08It changed the energy. It was a trend. That was a transformation. And over time people began to say, you know, you don't seem like a lawyer. And they were right. That kind of led to the look to the, you know, I don't know, second or third midlife crisis that then led me eventually to the doorsteps of opaya. What did I learn from all of those years with, with Tikknot Han, with the Zen master? Yes, he's spoken many languages, a scholar of poly, a scholar of skin, Sanskrit. Yes, all of that. He'd go from French to Spanish to English to poly to Sanskrit in one Dharma talk.

35:09But that's not so much what I remember. What I remember, of course, is the peace that he emanated, the joy. The way he opened a door, the way he walked into the Dharma hall. That was the transmission of the Dharma that he gave to me and to so many people. So Ty has written more than a hundred books. And if you read the first book or you read the hundred book, it's all the same thing. No, just kidding. I mean, there is a model in the plum village community of healing and transformation. And it's the same model. If you read the first book or the hundred book, it is the same model. If you go to a practice center in Malaysia, or you go to a practice center in Memphis,

36:15and so I'd like to share with you that model. So what Ty has taught is that the energy and the practice of mindfulness, concentration, and insight helps us to embrace our own suffering, the suffering within us and the suffering that is around us, to calm our body and to calm our mind. And that as we change, transform within, we necessarily transform the social order, our society. And that begins with the first practice, which is the practice of stopping, Shimata. And you could say in a way that we're practicing stopping now.

37:16So stopping is not just about stopping moving fast, like busyness, pervasive busyness that I described. Sure, we can physically stop, but it's stopping the ruminating thoughts of the mind. And this is a practice of healing, and it's a practice of resilience. So with Shimata or stopping, we practice Vapasana, which is looking deeply. So the stopping and the looking deeply are like the wings of the bird. So when we look deeply, we ask, we're engaged in mindful inquiry, and asking, how do I feel? What action is skillful now? So this is a process of inquiry, of curiosity, not about black and white thinking.

38:22This is about complexity and the capacity to hold nuance, a kind of open mystery that I described with my mother, you know, being able to practice Catholicism and Santaria. So this isn't the same as paralyzing doubt. This is really about cultivating a radical mindset of lifelong learning, which is why, in part, Tiktokhan has said, the next Buddha is the Sangha. So when we are able to stop and to look deeply to investigate, we move from these conditioned patterns, this autopilot into a space of choice, which supports understanding and insight. And of course, what I'm sharing is mirrored by the seven factors of awakening, or the parameters, or the eight realizations of great being.

39:30You can hear the echoes of this in those teachings. So this calming and this, this resting is an integral part of the stopping and the looking deeply. So Tai has said, the calming of the body is actually a prerequisite to our healing. The Buddha's last admonition, he said, be an island unto yourself, take refuge in yourself. So in 2014, Tai gave his last global tour, and it was entitled The Art of Suffering, The Art of Suffering. And you think with a name like that, you'd have like ten people who would sign up, but there were like thousands and thousands and thousands of people.

40:33So I was on tour with Tai and with the community, and what I am sharing about this model is what Tai taught all these people. And again, the first step Tai taught was to transform suffering, we stop. We come back to our body, we come back to our breathing. We take good care of the hurt, the disappointment, all of the suffering. We embrace that with the quality of tenderness. Now that may seem counterintuitive. And we have suffering, it's like you want to get away from that. The last thing you might want to do is actually to embrace something that does not feel good. So you can hear that the kind of counterintuitive nature of this.

41:40But this is what we do. We actually take a vow to work with our suffering. We don't deny it, we don't avoid it, we don't get rid of it, we don't look the other way. We recognize, we embrace, we accept, and we look deeply. And this is the model. So I want to share a little bit about other living examples of this stopping, being deeply transforming that exists today. So I want to begin with Minneapolis. In 2025, the smitten kitten, a transcended sex toy shop and community hub for the trans community was on the verge of going out of business.

42:47They had reached the end of their rope, you know, competing with these big box stores and such. So the owner of the shop sent out an email. And the very next day, the community rallied. And they all came in and the sales went up. And then this year, in January, when ice came to town, the smitten kitten was ready. They were very well positioned. The smitten kitten was close to where Alex Prety and Renee Good were murdered. The smitten kitten transformed from a sex toy shop to a hub for mutual aid for the entire community, distributing diapers. And baby formula and food and offering rent assistance to people.

43:59Avalokit Tesfarra, the bodhisattva of great compassion, is said to have a thousand arms and a thousand hands. And the hands represent the infinite capacity to respond to the cries of the world. And in each hand, in the palm of the hand, is an eye. And that eye represents the union of seeing and then taking action, seeing and then taking action. So that compassion and action go together. The eye perceives the suffering in the world and the hand takes action.

45:04And the bodhisattva is seated on a lotus, which is a symbol of the purity of intention. So this representation really feels instructive to me. So how do we engage in a social witness today? And here I want to lift up the words of venerable panavati, a Christian pastor and teravada Bikuni, a lineage holder in the Zen peacemaker order, who recently passed away. She said, quote, it is not enough to sit on our azafu's. These times call for compassionate action to be an integral part of our practice. In 1977, Tai wrote a poem to sister Chang Kong, his lifelong spiritual colleague. The name of the poem is always the same, always the same.

46:07So I'd like to read a few lines. Love tries hard to express itself. What can we do? We know that our hands are available. We know that our hands are available. We are ready. We are ready. What can we do? The answer will certainly come if we know how to remain faithful and keep calm in the midst of turbulence. So I want to invite you to a practice, right here, right now, just as you are, to take a look at your hands. Can you see the hand of avalokiteshvara? Can you see the compassion that is there in your own hands, in the palm of your hands?

47:13Your own tenderness, your own strength, your own courage, your own resilience? You know, when I invited this question to a group of activists in Washington, D.C., I asked them to recall, you know, your own strength, your own compassion, what is it that you can offer to the world? One person raised their hand to say, I'm a decent driver. Well, the world needs decent drivers. So we're all bodhisattvas in the making, and we're asked to engage not alone, but to engage in loving confrontation as a community, recognizing injustice, to name injustice, and to generate peace within ourselves. And to take action from a place of non-violence.

48:18So this action is obviously not just for us, but it is for the protesters or some, let's say, the defenders of democracy for all of us in this beloved community. And remembering going back to the civil rights era that the folks fighting for civil rights did not just seek victory. They didn't seek victory. They sought justice and reconciliation, a justice that uplifts all. So should you need more inspiration for action? Okay, here you go. I'm thinking of five-year-old Liam Kaniho Ramos. Remember Liam, five-year-old Liam, in his plaid winter coat and his blue bunny hat carrying a spider-man backpack surrounded by ice agents.

49:30Remember that? You know, as a lawyer, I get excited by judicial opinions that speak not just about a lawsuit, but about the conditions of our time. So I want to share a couple of quotes. First is from Judge Fred Beary, a Clinton appointee who issued the order for the release of little Liam and his dad who were illegally seized by ice and detained. The lust for unbridled power and the imposition of cruelty in its quest knows no bounds and are bereft of human decency. So an update.

50:32There appeal for asylum from their home country of Ecuador has been denied and continues to be appealed. Maybe you're looking for more inspiration and here I want to lift up Ty's book, Global Citizen. In the book, Ty was interviewed by a Christian theologian who asked him, how do we bring about a global spirituality? Ty didn't go strategic. He didn't say, do this, do that. He said, there's always a relationship between the spiritual and the ethical.

51:33There is a relationship. Anything can be spiritual. If we bring that quality of mindfulness, if we take the virtuous path, the path of understanding that seeks to alleviate suffering. So I'm thinking, you know, we just finished black history month in February here in the United States. And it felt different to me somehow, like something's going on here. Yes, it was the hundredth anniversary of black history month in the United States, but something was different. So I live outside of Philadelphia and we're getting ready for the big celebration of the 250th anniversary of the United States. But in Philadelphia, we're in a fight because as we're celebrating black history month,

52:37the National Park Service was busy removing exhibits that memorialized the enslaved people that our first president, George Washington, kept. And the National Park Service was removing these monuments from the Independence National Historic Park. And so without the consent of the city of Philadelphia, so the city sued. And so in federal court, the U.S. District Judge Cynthia Roof, who is a Bush appointee, issued a 40-page ruling. And I'm just kind of geeked out on this ruling. It was like, wow. I want to share how Judge Roof began this opinion. And both opinions are on the resource page, so you could read the 40-page ruling for yourself and geek out.

53:43But Judge Roof began with George Orwell's 1984, and she began with this quote that I want to share with you. And then a little bit of Judge Roof's ruling, so quote from Orwell. All history was scraped clean and re-inscribed exactly as often as was necessary. In no case would have been possible once the deed was done to prove any falsification had taken place. End quote from Orwell. And now from the Judge's ruling. Quote, as if the ministry of truth and George Orwell's 1984 now existed with its motto, ignorance is strength.

54:43This country, this, sorry, this court is now asked to determine whether the federal government has the power it claims to disassemble and disassemble historical truths. When it has some domain over historical facts, it does not end quote. So we all need inspiration for these times. And I want to lift up this being Women's History Month. Again, the words of Sister Chen Kong from her book True Love. She said quote, when you want something ordinary, you can go to the store and buy it. But when you want something extraordinary like love, understanding, and peace for a whole nation, you have to pay for that with something much more precious than money.

55:58End quote, this is bottom up transformation. This is transformation at the base. This is what Takenot Han is devoted his life to, meeting violence with peace, forgiving those we think are the cause of our suffering. Meeting hate with the power of unconditional love, generating peace within ourselves, calming ourselves. Of course, I'm thinking about the Buddhist monks who took the 15 week walk for peace. 2300 mile walk from Fort Worth, Texas to Washington DC that ended just last month. They began each day with a beautiful, a beautiful prayer.

57:02Remember, today is going to be my peaceful day. That's how they began every day. Today is going to be my peaceful day. So, this calls for the engagement of the compassion of Abhulokiteshvara. You know, this end the fierce determination of Manjushri. And as we face all of what I've described, this kind of great unraveling, make no mistake, the peace, the capacity to generate peace within ourselves is not just about calming our nervous system. And yes, to calm our nervous system is an indispensable skill.

58:05But this is not about being calm when things fall apart around us. But to become and peaceful, to be grounded and solid, and to take compassionate action. These are the teachings in the factors of awakening in the paramedics and the realizations of great beings. To understand that this is not about victory, about I win you lose, but about justice that uplifts all. We're asked to hold an open mystery just like I did when I was a young child. So, I want to offer a poem that was shared to me from my friend Alexa.

59:15The poem is from Karen Salmelson and it's entitled The World is Both Burning and Blooming. You get the bad news and the sunrise the same day. You get the bad news and the sunrise the same day. You cry over the headlines and then you laugh at a baby wearing a hat in the shape of a bear. This is the dual citizenship of being alive. Rage and reverence, grief and grace, you are allowed to feel both, you are allowed to scream and still notice how good the soup is.

1:00:32You don't have to choose, let it all in. We're tasked with creating the country we deserve, we're tasked with creating the democracy we deserve, we're tasked with creating the planet we deserve. So, I'd like to close out with the words of Angela Davis, Angela White Davis, the great civil rights leader. We need to pre-figure the world we want to create and to do so with art making, with joy and with song. To create the world we want to create the world we deserve.

1:01:35So, thank you everyone for your listening and thank you for placing that poem in the chat. A deep bow. Thank you so much Valerie, what a beautiful, grounded and hopeful talk and that poem really describes that feeling of living in paradox and in this world right now. Being able to see the joy, feel the joy but also holding all the suffering. So, thank you so much. And we would love to hear from you, if you have any comments or questions for Valerie, please raise your hand and we would love to hear from as many of you as possible. It's always so wonderful to just hear your experience and what's going on for you right now. So, please raise your hand and if there are people who would like to speak in Portuguese, I think our Portuguese interpreters will be able to do that as well.

1:02:41So, please raise your hand and also you can write in the chat as well. Don't be shy. Please, we would love to hear from you. Who let's see Debbie? I've unmuted you. So, oh, we're controlling. You can unmute yourself. We're competing in the unmute button, I think. Okay, there you are. My hands are off the keyboard. Just so much gratitude. So much of what you shared Valerie just touched me in so many ways. Both tears of joy and remembrance. And, and way things unfolded in my life, as well as the continuing tears of concern and frustration.

1:03:48And I find myself maybe it's part of getting older that I don't, I don't like to bother with screening all of my emotions for is this okay for prime time. I just kind of let them out. But it also it touched me in a way that I want to say out loud scared me because that helps me to not run away. But there has been a sense of, is it time to start another chapter. And that is scary. And I appreciate the way things unfolded and certainly the. I don't know, I'm starting to babble, I don't want to do that. A lot of gratitude and recognizing as much as I often considered myself a change junkie that I'm still afraid of change when it feels big.

1:05:04And, and want to be thoughtful about that, this gives me a lot of hope. And I'm looking forward to my own art projects of yes, I will be doing some hands with eyes in them. I think that would be very therapeutic to me at this point and gratitude. Thank you all so much for being here and thank you so much, Valerie, for sharing with us. And, you know, may we all find our sense of truth and our direction. Thank you. Thank you so much, Debbie. Thank you for your raw emotions and your tender heart. Thank you. Mary Ann. Thank you. Thank you so much. Valerie, your voice is so steady, so strong, so deep.

1:06:07And also holds the vulnerability and the grief, all of it. And it speaks to me personally and I know to everyone that we are capable of holding it all we are in our own way, perhaps. So I also have felt the tears and my hand, my hand right now has been baking bread. I took it to the, I take it to the park where I'm a teacher in, in a park nearby. I've been taking bread for the last year, but now I'm really doing it in earnest and took it yesterday into the city into Manhattan. I live in Queens and took it into the city for the march. We had actually a march out here in Bayside, this small little town, which I think is, it's very diverse, but there's, there's a tendency to be a little conservative red necky almost.

1:07:19And yet it's such a diverse community. We have one of the largest Nepalese part of it, which I'm very connected to. And anyway, I'm feeling strong and fierce and I also feel the tears and the sadness and the vulnerability. But I told this to dine in, in a session that we had about anger that I feel a fierceness, I feel a fierceness. And, and I feel action, seeing things as they are, and I feel the call to action. So thank you, thank you so much. You're so welcome, and Marianne, thank you for your bed, bread baking. We need good bread. Good bread, I'm doing seeded sourdough bread. So, when can we come over?

1:08:21I'm going to bring some to your pie when I come. Oh please, yes. Yes, I'm coming finally in the spring. I hope to be there for several, several things. And, and I have finally gotten my application and for chaplaincy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. That is a bodhisattva training for sure. So ready, so ready. Yeah. There's something about doing something with your hands, like baking bread is so tactile. And, and that kind of restorative restoration that comes from doing something with your hands is, is wonderful in these times. It really is. I mean, it, it includes everything. It's, it's like the elements, you know, I come from Chinese medicine background and it's the elements, fire, water, air. It's so deep and, and you write the tactile.

1:09:24And, who doesn't love good bread? Definitely. Even the people who say they can't have gluten, there is a really good starter that I have. And, it's healthy. That's the other thing, the ancestors, it calls the ancestors, you have a starter. You carry that starter on. You do so much. And Valerie, I think you just did some things with your hands as well. I'm just wondering if you could reflect and encourage other people to, to find restoration in that way. Yeah. So really, I'm, this is just so resonating. It's like you were just in our conversation, Marianne. And just the, you know, the importance of that kind of desensitization that Rosci described, that I had described earlier. And, you know, going back to the words of Bob Marley, and many other people who've talked about this, about really feeling it.

1:10:30And, to me, this capacity to feel again through our hands, through our eyes to connect with our bodily senses is a transmission. And so whether one is baking bread or one's a good driver or, you know, one is making a painting or planting a garden. And this is really so important. It's really the practice. It's a practice of, of meditation. And I'm thinking here about a story that Ty said many, many times. You know, as I said, he's written more than 100 books. And at one point, someone said to him, oh, Ty, why are you writing, why are you, why are you gardening? Oh, because Ty was a big gardener, love to be in the garden with his hands. And you should be writing yet another book.

1:11:33And Ty's reply was, the way I plant lettuce is the way I write poetry, which is the way I write a book. So this is all interconnected. This is the wisdom of interbeing. So the way you create the way you bake bread is connected to the way you speak, the way you listen to your activism, to your work in the world. So it's all interconnected. So a deep bow to this practice of mindful bread making. Thank you. Thank you so much. Let's hear from some more of you, Jerome. Well, I'm not you. You're on mute. Thank you. Thank you, Valerie. This, this was a wonderful talk for me. I really appreciate it. You're bringing to mind the teachings of Ty.

1:12:37And I've been practicing in the poem Village Tradition since I walked into a small church in Berkeley in 1984 to see a Dharma talk. And I had no idea who was talking and it turned out I sat next to Ty and then he got up and gave the Dharma talk. And he said in that talk, if the West stops drinking alcohol by 50%, we could feed the world. And I said, this is the guy I've got to follow. He has wisdom. He has compassion. He knows what truth is. So I'm curious about how you went from being a lawyer to being a Dharma teacher. That path of yours. I've been on this path now for 40 some years.

1:13:44And it's been a wonderful journey. I'd love to hear your story. Thank you. Jerome, behind me. Thank you, Jerome. This is such a beautiful question. And I am so grateful. And what a wonderful opportunity to have that warm hand to warm hand. This is a transmission with with Tech Not Han those many years ago. So I began the this talk sharing a little bit about how I made the the journey from being a type a pretty much type a lawyer to I Buddhist the Dharma teacher and the journey continues. I am still a lawyer. I am no longer lobbying.

1:14:48But the kind of the short end of the long story and maybe weren't here for that portion of the talk. It was really a series of awakenings, you know, waking up. And the you know, the the first was one of the first was that day back in 1994 when I went to a talk that I gave that was a transmission for me. Something was touched in me. I certainly resisted it because I had built a whole life and a career on making money getting ahead. And so I in some ways was being asked to rethink that and dismantle that.

1:15:49So this was really about an inner transformation transformation of my mindset, my values and and direction and the the manifestation of that followed. And then, you know, the epiphany moment I had in abacue looking up at the clouds when I realized that the lifestyle that I had cultivated for all those years of pervasive busyness of get ahead at all costs had done extreme violence to me. My mindset was violence and it was not just a mindset of violence, but of alienation from myself, other people and the natural world.

1:16:50So all of that led to a kind of stopping like what's really happening here? And looking deeply of a passana like, is this why I was born to make money to be a lawyer to get ahead? Is there something more in my life? And asking these questions, which I continue to ask every day of my life. So that's the short end of the long story and I'm still in the process of transformation. Now I know that there has been a question in the chat that's come up twice about what is the connection between quakerism, being a quaker and being a Buddhist. So, you know, as I, as I said in the talk, I began as a Catholic.

1:17:54My mother is Catholic, my grandmother is Catholic. And then, you know, becoming a student of Thai and becoming a member of the religious society of friends. I happen to live in the epicenter of quakerism in the United States. Someone once said to me, you throw a stone and you're going to hit a quaker meeting and that's kind of true. But there is a wonderful synergy between a quaker faith and practice and the Buddhist faith and practice. You know, if we look at the quaker testimonies of simplicity and the peace testimony, of course, equality or equity. These are all grounded testimonies within quaker faith and practice.

1:18:54And of course, the fundamental principle in quakerism, which is that there is that of God in every person, no matter their condition. I know there were a lot of raised hands, so I will pause there and thank you for the question. Thank you so much. Kelly, I unmuted you. Dear Sangha, dear Valerie, I want to thank you Valerie. You've given me an epiphany today. I'm here in Central Minnesota. I've been trying desperately to figure out how to explain to the rest of the world what I have an up-close seat to watching. When you brought up Bell Hooks and the interlocking systems of mutuality, I thought immediately we're seeing the interlocking system of domination.

1:19:58We're seeing the interlocking systems of mutuality emerge visibly here in a way that fits with the old quote from Dr. King. We're caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality. Seeing resistance where they stand outside the hotels where ice people are staying and seeing it's okay to change your mind. The Haven Watch, where a woman took her sons to the Whipple Federal Building where immigrants are being held and saw that people were being let go with no coat, no phone, no food, no ID. And started organizing 24-7 for people to be there to greet them with a coat and the phone and connection and bring them back into society. And we're seeing this all over the country. The response to Dolores Cuerta and the women, the terrible revelations about Cesar Chavez and the response that has been dominated by belief and willingness to wrestle with what she was saying.

1:21:04We're saying Valerie to accept complexity, complexity and nuance. I've seen this in a way that that became most concrete for me yesterday when I had to decide, do I go to the Twin Cities and hear Bruce Springsteen and Maggie Brown and Bernie Sanders? Do I go to the demonstration in St. Claude where they really just need bodies to show up? And I went to St. Claude and I'm so happy I did because I was just interacting with all these people. You know, this is my first demonstration. I've been hearing that for a year and a half now. It had been going on too long, but comparing that to folks who went, yes, if you went and saw Bruce, even in a cloud of 200,000, it was marvelous. But it was also the kinds of typical non-violent action in our country that people have responded to over and over again with, we need to do more, we need to take action. And I think what we're seeing here in Minnesota now, to me, resonates with the 1,000 arms and hands and eyes of Avalokiteshvara, these networks, the middle-class white parents in Minneapolis, with many vans who are carpooling immigrant children to schools.

1:22:17And there's no leader at the head of this telling us all what to do. I found, even here in Central Minnesota, we have ice here too. What needs to be done is emerging and the resources you need are there because the infrastructure has been built over time. So the native dancers are showing up at some of the protests. And the Black Lives Matter folks are the first ones to stand up and support Alex Prety and his family and Renee Good and her family. I'm sorry, I've gone on too long. But like I said, you've given me an epiphany and we really see these, if you're worried that you're not seeing these things happening yet in your neighborhood, I promise you it's coming your way in the same way that ice. And those networks of domination are spreading around our country. So thank you very much, Valerie Vashichon, Dine and Kodo. Deep Bows to all.

1:23:20Thank you so much, Kelly. Just thank you for walking alongside and being there in Minnesota. And I love that story that Valerie brought up with the smitten kitten. What a beautiful example of the many hands and eyes and, you know, sometimes it's unexpected and it's just even more wonderful. So thank you. Let's hear from Barbara. But you were you're going to say something, but you have to unmute first. I can't hear you for some reason. You are not on me. Let me find you. There you go. I was going to add one of the protests in Minneapolis and involve people throwing, forgive me, throwing dildos at ice members and Bureau of Border Patrol and all these people. And it's a ridiculous thing to do. Some people were seeing it as hostile, but the people they were throwing the dildos at were laughing back and, you know, sticking the dildos onto cars.

1:24:25And it was tied to the source of some of the mutual aid being at the smitten kitten and just this energy of, you know, we're going to be here and we're going to break the tension somehow. Sorry. I'll stop now. I could go on. Thank you. Barbara, that's, you're unmuted. Thank you very much. Well, I'm very glad that I've participated in this today and I'm feeling grateful to Valerie, of course, and Taro Shidone and all of those at Upaya who always support these wonderful programs. But I wanted to share with you two things in particular. One is that I recently have moved to a retirement community with my husband and I started a mindfulness meditation group here. This is a mostly Catholic Protestant and Jewish people. There was only one Buddhist person that I've discovered in this course of working here now for a year and a half or being here.

1:25:26But I decided to just take the plunge and so we were talking about mindfulness meditation from a number of perspectives and I decided to go into life and death and Valerie, I came across your wonderful article. I think it was either in was lions or I think, but it might have been intracical. Life, death and transformation or something of that title. And I want to tell you how many of these people who, you know, again, they're a wide, a wide array of people. They, I have people 94 years old in this group and they absolutely felt so comforted by that article. And so when I saw that you were presenting, I wanted to come and thank you personally. The other thing I wanted to share with this discussion is that I just returned from Amsterdam yesterday after spending three days with green piece and I've worked with green piece for old since 2008 and teaching them a course on how to engage in multi party collaboration.

1:26:31Because most of you who know green piece, they were not collaborators. They're great at putting issues out for the rest of us to pay it. And I just thought I'd share very quickly and exercise on power that I give them on the third day. I create a three tiered society and then they have to figure out how what they want to do with it and what they did with it, which I think speaks to the values that green piece advocates now. But instead of just having a revolution, which usually happens in this, the bottom group comes in sort of overtakes the top group. They had in the bottom a huge discussion about how can we have one vote, one person, one person, one vote. And they decided to take that issue to the tops. Just a game, but it wasn't just a game because it was such a. A demonstration of the deep values that this organization had and how they played them out in just a game.

1:27:32And so I was encouraged by that and now I come to this today and I'm extremely encouraged. And I just want to thank everyone, including the idea that you can contribute by making bread. So thank you so much. Thank you so much Barbara. It's a great time and it's just wonderful to hear from all of you. And thank you so much, Valerie. And if you want to come to Yuppaya and join us, Valerie will be here for a wake in action with Roshi, Kristiana Figueres, Terry Tempest Williams, Rebecca Solnett and Molly Crockett in November. And also Valerie is so graciously, is co leading the BIPOC retreat with me and Rowe Grace in August. Yay. So please come join us and let your BIPOC friends know. And I'm, you know, really looking forward to learning from Valerie. So thank you so much. I think Kodo, would you like to end? Thank you, Diane. And I just put the link for Valerie's bio, which also has all the talks she's given at Yuppaya as well as the upcoming program.

1:28:36So you can go there to check out what's coming up and just see the wealth of what she's offered here. Such an amazing teacher, both in person and online. She's given herself so generously. Thank you, Valerie. And so please help us support her and to support Yuppaya by giving generously Donna for this program. And the link will be put in the chat and receive an email with this recording so you can review it. And just thank you for your presence, for your questions, your insights. Thanks to Genie for interpreting and to Portuguese. And thank you to our dear members all. We'll see you again on the 12th, if not before. See you next time. Thank you. Thank you, Valerie.