Talk by Nagapriya: The Promise of a Sacred World

Welcome to our talk. My name is Satya Robyn, and I met Naga Priya because I was asked if I would read his book, Promise of a Sacred World, as available in all good bookshops. As a pure land Buddhist, because it's about Shinran, and I usually— I'm not— I don't like many books, especially Buddhist books. I'm not keen on Buddhist books at all, much prefer Christian books. Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised to really enjoy it, both because of the kind of the academic rigor, the knowledge that Nagarjuna has on Shinran and Shinran's life, and the experiential rigor, kind of having known that there was a real engagement with Shinran's teachings, other power teachings, and also the, the opportunity to meet Nagarjuna through the book. So the kind of human element I really enjoyed. It's really good. We will be studying it here in the book group. In March next year, so the places will go very quickly. So if you want to sign up and do have 3 copies of the book here, they're £15. If you want to buy one and get it signed, then do. Padver over. And we're very pleased to have now— we're visiting the temple. Feels like the temple's been blessed by your presence, and we've got a lovely mixture of Buddhists from different traditions, which always makes me happy. So without further ado, I will hand over to Priyananda Maharaj ji. Thank you. Namaste.

Namo Amida Butsu. And one of the things that we say quite a lot in our group Tri Ratna particularly to connect with our Indian brothers and sisters is Jai Bhim! Which means victory to Bhim. In this case, Bhim is Dr. Ambedkar who was the leader of the Dalits and a very important figure well, still, but in 20th century Buddhism. Thanks so much for inviting me, Satya and Casper, to the temple. It is lovely to be here. I really like the fact that it's called a temple, by the way. I was gonna mention that. And very, very nice to see you all here as well. Thanks, Parami, as well for accompanying me. And yes, so for, well, for you here and for somebody who might watch this video, I'm a member of a Buddhist order called the Triratna Buddhist Buddhist order. And the Triratna Buddhist order is a syncretic, ecumenical Buddhist order that draws in influences from, from different traditions, but mainly the early Buddhist traditions and Tibetan Buddhism. Very much a kind of Mahayana bodhisattva orientation. I'm saying that because there isn't really a very strong interest in, well, what we might call the Pure Land tradition. Not a very strong interest, although our teacher Sangharakshita in some of his major works did write about Shinran. He certainly offered a summary of the Pure Land orientation in his major work, which is called A Survey of Buddhism. And I think there are tendencies within our approach to practice that can be linked up with the Pure Land Other Power approach, but I think it requires a bit of spelling out. I've done a little bit of that in the book, but actually there's a lot more that could be done in that regard. So I'm gonna talk for a bit and maybe there'll be some questions as well. I always like questions as a way of engaging more deeply. In the topic at hand. And I was thinking of doing a reading as well from the book. I was saying to Satya that often when I do a book launch, I don't feel I've got anything to say because I've already written it. So it's just a matter of repeating it really. But one interesting thing that does happen is that sometimes people read the book and they'll say something like, oh, I was reading it and I thought about this poem, and they'll send me it, and I've had a few of those. And one struck me in particular that I'd like to read to you as a kind of way to begin this, really. And it's also a way of linking up with my own current life, which is in Latin America. So the, the book is called The Promise of a Sacred World, and I can't unpack all of the dimensions of that title right now, but there's, it's a very carefully chosen title which evokes quite a lot of different things. But maybe I could say, maybe I think I will say that the promise relates to Amida's vow, Amida's vow to create a pure land and invite all beings to be reborn in that land so that they can become enlightened. So that's really where the idea of the promise is coming from. And one of my friends in Mexico said, oh, I was thinking about the way you talk about promise, the way I talk about it, and it reminded me of a poem by Borges. So Borges was an Argentine poet, one of the greatest literary figures of Latin America. And he wrote a poem. I was gonna read it to you both in Spanish and English, but I thought that would be trying your patience. So, I don't have the Spanish to hand now, unfortunately. I've just got the English. So it's quite a short poem, and I'd like to read that to you. And it may or may not make any kind of sense. So this poem by Borges is translated into English with the title "The Unending Gift." A painter promised us a picture. Here in New England, having learned of his death, I felt once again the sadness of recognizing that we are but shapes of a dream. I thought about the man and the picture, both lost. Only the gods can make promises, for they are deathless. I thought about the place chosen in advance, where the canvas will not hang. Later I thought, if it were there, wouldn't it in time become one thing more, an object, another, another of the vanities or habit, habits of the house? Now the picture is limitless, unending, capable of taking any form or color and bound to none. In some way it exists, it will live and grow like music. I haven't finished yet, sorry. In some way it exists, it will live and grow like music and will remain with me to the end. Thank you, Jorge Lorca. Men can make promises too, for in a promise there is something that does not die. So I really like that. And there's something about that that to me evokes the Vow of Amida, the openness of it and the unfinishedness of it. It's about that. And you know how when you actually have something fully in your hand, it becomes reduced in some way. But while it remains a promise, it's still open. That's what I was thinking of when I read that. So, yeah, so I'm gonna talk a little bit about the book, about what it's about. I liked your overview introduction, Satya. I think you captured some important things that I was driving at in the book, because I think it's quite easy to describe the book as an introduction to Shinran, which is probably the way that people would describe it.. But I realized that when people described it that way, I, it makes me a bit uncomfortable. Um, because I think there's quite a number of different things going on, uh, at the same time. But certainly on the surface, um, this book that I've written, uh, The Promise of a Sacred World, is an attempt as a non-Jodo Shinshu practitioner, uh, or properly speaking, really, as a Tri Ratna Buddhist order member, uh, to make some sense of, uh, of what Shinran was trying to communicate. And as some of you may know, uh, well, Shinran lived in the 13th century, uh, 1173 till 1263, lived a long life, uh, during the Kamakura period in Japan. Long time ago, very, very different culture, uh, very different. And he actually began his Buddhist life as a Tendai monk. So Tendai was perhaps the main tradition alive at that time, and a very scholarly tradition actually, a lot of study, quite complex and rich tradition. But the point is, so he lived a long time ago, and what's that got to do with us in a way, you know? And that was my starting point for the for writing the book. But, and actually the origins of it go back quite a long way to maybe around about 2000 when I was first introduced to Shinran. I'd heard the name before, but I'd never read anything by him. And a very good friend of mine called Ratnaguna was doing some study around Shinran at that time, and he talked briefly to me about what he was studying, and it caught my attention. We were actually living together at that time. And so we looked together at the Shoshinge, which is quite a short text by Shinran, actually forms part of his main work, which is called Kyogyo Shinsha. And, and it, well, it summarizes, you could say, some of his main teachings and ideas. And there was something about engaging with that text that really turned, well, turned things around and turned things on their head, really, for me, in terms of what, what it means to be a Buddhist, what it means to practice Buddhism or not. And perhaps the way that I would summarize the, the main insight that, that I had, or that Shinran— I felt that I gained through Shinran, I write about it in the book— is that I cannot gain enlightenment. Um, that was really the starting point. And, and the funny thing about that was, you'd think that might seem quite discouraging, uh, to, to, to, to sort of think that way, but actually it was a relief. And that was really the insight. It was a real relief to recognize that it is not about me, or it's not about the I, let's put it that way. Um, uh, and then that started to open up were just a very different way of thinking about what I was doing, or what I do do, that was much more affirming and even relaxed, you could say, rather than really anxious and concerned with trying to get something that I don't have. And that's really a lot of what I see in Shinran, this taking away of this anxiety that we might have that we haven't found what we're looking for. I think that happens to a lot Buddhist people. They're striving for something, but they're never getting there, never getting there. And for some, some people get on well with that, I think, and some people get to a point where that way of working doesn't really— does— just doesn't work for them, and they can't continue to think in that kind of way. Um, yeah, so it's very much a book that is born out of personal experiences, as you pointed out, uh, Satya, and it— there's quite a lot of existential revelation in the book. But also I'd like to see it more as like, um, an example, really. In other words, it's an example— it's my example of how I engage with my own experience, and it's an example of how I relate that, in this case, to Shinran's teachings and the Pure Land myth. And so it's kind of— I would see it as an invitation for everyone to do, to do the same thing in their own way, if you like. It's— that's how I understand Buddhist practice in some ways. So it's not like I've written this book and therefore if you read it, you'll have all the answers, if you like. It's more like I've written this book and it maybe suggests a way that you can inquire into yourself and inquire into Buddhism that will lead to your own unique results, if you like, your own unique reflections and insights.. And that for me is very much integral to, to, to what I've written. Aside from the whole Shinran and Buddhism angle to the book, if you like, another influence in my life has been some of the academic study that I've done, particularly a master's degree that I did in the history of religions, which you know, you might— you could think that maybe wouldn't have been the best thing to do. And certainly the academic study of religion has its limitations, but within that MA, I came across a particular discipline within philosophy and the study of intellectual material, or even anything, which is called hermeneutics. So hermeneutics is concerned with how we come to understand things, really. What, what are the points of reference that we use when we're understanding something? And recognizing that the points of reference that we begin with will inform the outcome. And that also hints at that there are no absolute answers, if you like, because each time we inquire into something we're inquiring into it from a unique starting point. And so that will reveal something, something new. So they talk in terms of, or some people talk in terms of what's called the hermeneutic circle. I prefer to call it a spiral. So you inquire into something, you come to an understanding of it, and then you start all over again, if you like. And so each time you've gone through that, obviously you're in a different position to where you were before, but it's not like you've exhausted all the inquiry that could take place. And actually, it's very, very exciting to think that you can always be discovering, discovering something new. And I find that a very helpful way of thinking about what it means to be a human being, you know, rather than thinking that it's just a matter of getting to the answers and then end of story kind of thing. Instead thinking, well, the inquiry is constant and it's a creative inquiry and we're constantly discovering and rediscovering. What our life, what our lives are about. And even right now, for instance, in trying to speak about this book, I'm sort of renewing what I was writing about, possibly even discovering something new. Certainly in the poem that I read, I discovered something new that I didn't know before I'd written the book. So that's very much the spirit, if you like, in which I have written this book. So it is an invitation to engage with Shinran and to engage with his teachings. But even more than that, I think it's, it's an invitation to engage in, uh, our own existence. Um, there's a, there's a phrase that I use quite a lot in the book which is taken from a theologian called Paul Tillich, which is ultimate concern. Uh, so Tillich defines religion as being ultimately concerned, or as touching our ultimate concern. And what interesting is that he doesn't usually define what he means by ultimate concern. It's quite an open, uh, an open idea. Um, but I very much like that phrase. Um, it really resonates with me, uh, about trying to engage with my ultimate concern. And he, he too wants to make it clear, I think, that that isn't something that you just capture and then that's the end of it. It's a process that you're, you're constantly engaged in trying to, uh, understand or open up to your ultimate concern, or our ultimate concern. Yeah, so I thought I would make a little reading, give a little reading from the book, and then maybe we could see if there's some questions. So I thought about lots of different readings, and it's very, very hard being objective about your own book and, and trying to work out whether actually something's worth reading out or not. But, but I was also trying to think about the people who might listen to this and what, you know, what might appeal to them or what might be interesting. Uh, so I am going to make a little reading. So the reading that I'm going to give is about Shinjin. Um, so I don't know if you've all heard of Shinjin, um, but it's almost like I'm happy to just say that word and allow it to kind of resonate in the air because it's such a— it evokes so, so many things, uh, so many powerful things. But Shinjin is what, in, in very, very popular language, is sometimes translated as faith. I prefer not— I probably shouldn't even have said that, but I prefer not to translate it at all as faith. It seems to be quite a confusing term, but it's a way of talking about, let's call it, the transformative moment, the transformative moment that takes place within Shin Buddhism, within Shinran's vision of practice.. And it is when we come, well, to use my language before, is when we come to really connect with our ultimate concern. We could say that that's the arising of shinjin. But, and it's also when we, in other language, it's when we become connected with Amida, you know, using the language of Amida. But I won't say more about that because the reading the reading describes that. So I'm going to read, and I'm actually— this, this section begins after I've just made a comparison between Shinran and Dogen, which there's quite a lot of in the book. I didn't quite realize this when I was writing it, but when I read it back afterwards, I thought, wow, there's quite a lot in about Dogen in here. And they were actually contemporaries. Which is interesting, although Dōgen was born afterwards and died before, so he lived quite a shorter life. But that isn't— we don't think that they knew each other, and on the surface of it, they were engaged in quite different things. But what I've been discovering the more that I read both of them is seeing a lot of resonances between them, which is interesting. Anyway, here's the reading. While Dōgen asserted that meditation and enlightenment are one, Shinran affirmed that Nembutsu and Shinjin are one. Nembutsu does not give rise to Shinjin, it reveals it. In Shinjin, we realize that we are equal to all the Buddhas. And this is a quote: There is no Shinjin separate from Nembutsu. There can be no Nembutsu separate from Shinjin. Both should be understood as Amida's Vow. Nembutsu and Shinjin on our part are themselves the manifestations of the Vow. End of quote. Shinjin and Nembutsu would seem then to be coterminous. However, Shinran's perspective is still more complex and unsettling. He came to believe that our moral failings are not the impediment to liberation that traditional Buddhism has consistently asserted. He argued that ethically compromised individuals, that is to say, all of us, are precisely the focus of Amida's concern. It is precisely the delusion of our own righteousness that holds us back from fully accepting the scope of the vow. He firmly believed that, quote, "Even the good person is born in the Pure Land, so without question is the person who is evil." Thus, Shinjin consists in a dual realization. On the one hand, we wake up to the fact that our mind is identical to that of Amida Buddha. That is to say, it is inherently connected to the impulses of wisdom and compassion. But on the other hand, we also see that we are foolish beings. This creates a perpetual tension or paradox as we oscillate between one aspect of the insight and the other, at times in despair at times smug. Remembering that our mind is intimately connected to the Buddha mind consoles and reassures us, but may also lead to self-inflation, ego appropriation, and disdain for practice. At the same time, constantly waking up to our incorrigible shortcomings reaffirms our gratitude an indebtedness to Amida and instills within us a deep humility that offsets the danger of complacency. An excessive focus on our human inadequacy may lead us into doubt and despair, which is why Shinran emphasizes that it is precisely for us flawed beings that Amida formulated his vow. And here's a quote: When I consider deeply the vow of Amida, which arose from 5 kalpas of profound thought, I realize that it was entirely for the sake of myself alone. Then how I am filled with gratitude for the primal vow in which Amida resolved to save me, though I'm burdened with heavy karma. Shinjin is not cultivated through individual effort but entrusted to us by Amida Buddha through their compassionate transfer of merits. In other words, Amida grants not only assurance of rebirth in the Pure Land but also the confidence to trust in that fact. Shinjin is not something that the individual nurtures It is a blessing bestowed by Amida.

So there we are.

Um, so I, I wondered if anybody had any, had any reflections or questions or anything, um, anything more you'd like to know, comments.

Take your hand up on Zoom if you have a question.

You look like—

Is that all right? Someone in the room as well. Yeah, do unmute, Matt. Let me just turn it up.

Thanks, Satya. Can you hear me okay?

Yeah, we can hear you.

Thank you for that. I can't wait to read the book, and I really loved what you read. It really sort of reconnected me, having wandered away from Shinran for a while. Through Satya Robyn Casper and friends at Bright Earth, I've been really reconnecting this year. And I thought one of the things I'd love to talk about gender and the kind of maternal ground, as D.T. Suzuki puts it. But the thing that was really on my mind was I noticed that when I come to Amida now, I'm doing some sort of— I'm trying to fudge something in myself between an ecological grounding and this notion of a pure land. And I wonder how much I'm just in, you know, not so much a sort of hermeneutic understanding as a sort of co-option of an old, of a traditional image to make it mean what I want it to mean. But my way of understanding Amida now is probably something like every breath, you know, every movement, 100 million years old, which we temporarily inhabit as these little short lives, and that that continuity of life holds us. And there's nothing we do to earn it. And there's nothing, you know, we, that, that notion of the Vow of Amida. I think one of the things I fled from Pure Land was this idea that somehow it was inherently a movement away from the living world to a sort of embellished, jeweled world, billions of kalpas or whatever, you know.

Yeah.

I just wondered if you had anything to say about that since ecological reality.

And then, yeah, thanks for that. Um, I don't know whether I'll engage so much precisely with the, the ecological theme that you're, uh, you're raising, but what I'm picking out and what you're saying is more like, if you like, where is the Pure Land and when is the Pure Land, um, that kind of idea. Because I think you're right, at least in its many traditional models, there's maybe quite a simple view of the idea that, well, the pure land is after death. You know, it's in another place. It's a better place, if you like. And I'm certainly not wanting to speak against that way of thinking about it. And we were actually looking at some images on the wall yesterday evening where there are depictions of deathbed nembutsu, you know, people reciting the name of the nembutsu. And there's like this tractor beam that comes down, isn't it, from Amida? And then the dying person's name connects with Amida and obviously can then be reborn in the Pure Land. Um, so, so that's certainly one way of thinking about it. Um, but there's quite a lot of reflection, uh, in the book about time, uh, and, uh, yeah, even shinjin itself, uh, when does shinjin happen? Um, and I think that when we think about, uh, Buddhist realization, Buddhist practice, we can very much fall into the idea of getting something, uh, or going somewhere. And I think we could think the same the Pure Land. So it's somewhere we will get to. And so it creates a kind of a duality, a dichotomy between where one is right now and where one wants to be, or one— where one may be. And it very readily can create an idea of a deferred life, if you like, so that the real life will be in the future, the better life will be in the future, and now is not that time. And so it, it can start to readily devalue the present time, because the important time is seen as some later time, such as after death or when I'm enlightened or so on and so forth. So one of the things that I see in Shinran and also in Dogen is a kind of radical attention to right now and seeing that the moment to pay attention to is now. This is the moment. So Shinran uses quite a lot of anticipatory language. So he talks as though as though we're already destined for the Pure Land, although we haven't completed that yet. So rather than all of the attention being placed on what, what you hope to attain in the future, he wants to give confidence that we're already destined for the Pure Land, if you like, so we can relax and not feel anxious. Uh, and I, I would even say that, uh, the, the, that realization is something that where we can awaken to or wake, wake up to right now, uh, and that, well, that's the only moment we can wake up to it. And so what I'm driving at is we should pay a lot of attention to the present moment, is what I'm trying to say, rather than be overly future-focused. And again, in the, in the shrine room this morning, we were talking about the figure of Mahastama Prabha. And I didn't know this, but Jamy, I think, commented that according to the myth, Mahastama Prabha, when he walks, it reveals bits of the Pure Land. Is that right? When he puts his feet down, that becomes the Pure Land where he's put his feet. And I kind of like that sort of the idea that it's just sort of appearing all the time, if you like, the Pure Land. So rather than it being like a a sort of fixed place, if you like. It's something that's constantly revealing itself through spiritual practice, I guess. I really like that image, you know, the feet being placed and then that revealing the pure land. So, well, there's some thoughts anyway in response to your reflection. Thanks for that.

Thank you.

Yeah, there was— I think you wanted to say something.

Yes, please.

At the start, you were talking about Hang on, let me rewind.

So I was introduced to, uh, Sri Ramana Maharshi, and I believe when, um, at that beginning, kind of the idea was painted that, you know, the message is that people can change.

Yeah, enlightenment's possible for everyone.

Yeah.

So perhaps could you just return to what you said at the start about the, um, yeah, I didn't quite absorbed back in me. Okay, um, well, yeah, so I suppose in a way you're touching on the idea that there are different ways of thinking about the Buddhist path, um, there are different models for, for what goes on, um, what even what enlightenment means, um, and perhaps the, the basic model we could say that's found in the early Buddhist tradition is what we could call a developmental model. So at the moment, we're not enlightened, we're ignorant beings. And through meditation, through ethics, through wisdom, we can transform ourselves or change, to use your word, and we can become enlightened. And in many ways, the myth of the Buddha's life kind of reveals that. That's what that shows to us. So he was, you know, a privileged person., but he felt unsatisfied with the life that he was living, so he renounced that life and became a forest renunciant and learned various different spiritual disciplines. He was exposed to various different points of view and meditation practices and so on, and eventually through his efforts reached enlightenment. Well, that's how the, the, the, the Buddhist myth is told, or that the life of the Buddha is told. So that kind of suggests some, yeah, some process of transformation and reaching a goal, if you like. The Buddha arrives at a certain goal. And I think there is value in that approach, and certainly it's the approach that I first learned, and I don't want to dismiss it altogether. I think it— I suppose it's a model that's based on time, on the one hand, and also on conditions or conditionality. So I think there is value in that, but it can also start to become an obstacle. And I've spoken to many, many people who've been practicing the Dharma for 20, 30 years, and what can happen to people is that they become very disheartened, actually, because they thought that they would have broken free of their limiting habit patterns, you know, after 10, 20 years. And not only are they still there, but they seem even more there than before. At least that's the way I experience it sometimes. And that relates to what I call the kind of paradox of awareness, that as you become more aware, you become more aware of how limited you are.. And so, yeah, so that's quite confusing because if you think that what should happen is that you've got less and less unskillful mental states and you're, you know, you're more and more pure or whatever, but actually what's happening is you're just discovering even more stuff than, than you thought there was. You think, well, hang on, it actually seems like I'm going backwards here, you know, rather than going forwards. And so what that suggests is that actually, so we need a slightly more complex model or we, we need to think a bit more broadly. About what we're talking about when we're talking about development. So just have a simple model that you're just going to break free of all your limiting habit patterns and that's going to take you X number of years. I think that has its limits. But I would like to think that even arriving at a position where we're much more conscious of our own unskillful tendencies is success. I mean, that's really good because they're there anyway. They are there. And so they're either impacting on us and others unconsciously, or we are more conscious of them. And obviously when we're more conscious of them, we can then take steps to do something so that they don't cause harm really, and to work on them. So, and I see that process as continuous. So we're seeing more and more deeply into the subtlety of certain egocentric tendencies or certain tendencies to aversion or what have you. And, but when we discover those things, that doesn't mean that we're, you know, that we've completely lost it, if you like. It actually means that we're now ready actually to look more fully and deeply at at who we are and what we are. And one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about is the relationship between— we could call it self-compassion, I would use the word metta— and the capacity to recognize our failings. And actually, if you don't have that much self-compassion, it's actually quite hard to recognize your own failings. The main thing that will happen is either you'll just hate yourself and think you're just a waste of space, or you won't, you just won't want to face up to that. And I certainly in my own experience, I've been finding that the more I can cultivate metta for myself, the more it allows me to sort of admit the complexity, if you like, of my own life. So, and that's the other side of it as well that maybe I should just go on to. So I very much emphasized in my response to you that we see more and more deeply into our own failings and limitations. But that isn't all that we see. We also recognize that we're inspired by something, we're connected to something. And despite all of our limitations and failings, there's something that keeps calling us, you know, it keeps calling to us, and maybe even more and more strongly. And that's that. And we feel, I think, that that's always been there.. So that there's something very affirming about that. So I certainly don't want to emphasize just the part in which we're waking up to our limits. We're also, I think, more and more deeply seeing or recognizing that we're connected to something deeply inspiring. In the language of the Amida, the mind of Amida, the mind of enlightenment, the bodhicitta, whatever you want to call it., but that we are connected to that and we can have some confidence that that's something significant and meaningful.

Thank you. I've got a question. Just, I'm amused to notice how, when you say the word myth, I have a little reaction.

Okay, yeah, I'm using it very, in a very technical way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair enough. It speaks to the— for me, there's something about the reality of my experience, for me, that, that somehow gets glossed. So I'm not criticizing your use of the words, I'm just interested in what happens in me. Um, the question, uh, is really about maybe a kind of a personal question. That you just talked about our capacity to develop meta for ourselves, which I think is— I mean, certainly the mode of therapy that me and Casper use is central to that, that idea that if we can, um, if we can care for the worst in ourselves, and that's, that's where we begin. Um, but I wonder about my experience often is that that compassion for self doesn't actually come from inside me. It comes from outside. And I wondered if you had any of that experience.

Yeah, well, just so, just first of all on the word myth. So I do go into the book in quite a bit of detail about how I'm using the word myth. And I certainly am not using it to mean something that is not true. Actually the opposite of that. I'm using the word myth to talk about a way of talking about the truth that is not philosophical and descriptive. So yeah, and there is quite a bit around that. So that's why I'm using that word. So when I'm talking about the Amida myth, I'm not talking about a story that's false. I'm talking about a way of talking about the nature of reality in terms of a narrative in images that communicates truth, but not in a philosophical way, not using concepts, in other words. I really like what you said about mettā as well. And I think something that happens— so we in our group, we teach a lot of mettā bhavana cultivation of mordhaṁ kṛṣṇaṁ, loving kindness. And some people find it difficult. And they say that they don't have much mettā for themselves, or they struggle with that. And I think the way that you're what you just introduced is really relevant. Sometimes maybe the way I would put it is I would kind of say that there's always a ground of mettā there that you can open up to. It's always there. So you don't need to think that you're cultivating it because it's already there, if you like. And I suppose that would, that links a bit with a, you know, a Pure Land type way of thinking. Because again, I think we can fall into this absence, you know, mentality and striving mentality and thinking, oh no, I don't have any loving kindness. How am I going to get it? Where am I going to get it from? And then we can get quite anxious about that and feel that we're not good enough at it. And then, well, then that just is not a helpful result, is it? So I certainly like that idea of— I mean, depending on how you do the practice, one could actually think of mettā as being a property, if you like, or a quality within the universe that one can open up to rather than something that you you know, you build up by yourself. But I think probably depends a little bit on what your needs are and the kind of person that you are.

Thank you.

Well, so, yes. Yeah, exactly. So I was just going to sum up. Yeah, well, so thanks a lot for coming and listening to me talk and share a bit. And thank you for the comment via Zoom. And also thank you for your question and the other questions here. And I, well, I hope that you do get a chance to read the book. And Satya said that some of you are going to be studying it. So I'd be very interested to learn what other reflections emerged from your readings? And certainly my own reflection and inquiry is continuing. So let's see what comes out of that.

Yeah.

Thank you. Namaste.

Wonderful to hear you speak, and it began our retreats in a very beautiful way. Nobody has got to catch a train in 2½ minutes, he's going to leave the temple. Precise. To buy one of these and have it signed, then do it now, quickly. Otherwise, um, you, you know, they'll, they'll be limited. So do it right now. And yeah, thank you again. Yeah, thank you. Thank you all for your wisdom and compassion.