Kaizan Doug Jacobson began practicing Zen in Minneapolis in 1974 with Dainin Katagiri Roshi, and had Jukai in 1977. A householder, father, contractor, and civil engineer, Doug received priest ordination in 2010, and transmission in 2015, from Shoho Michael Newhall at Jikoji Zen Center. He currently serves Jikoji as one of its Guiding Teachers, and also assists prisoners with Buddhist practice. Doug also helps maintain and develop infrastructure at Jikoji, where he enjoys getting his hands dirty as a mode of Zen practice.

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Good morning, Joel. Thank you for the call. It helped me immensely. Yo, sweet, good to see you. I really appreciate our walk around the reservoir. Elisa, good to see you. Thanks for your hospitality. Ty Sheen and Wilbur. Yay. Good to see you again. In Pennsylvania, I assume. And Bill, good to have visited with you and Yoko. Susan Gwyn, I still have a book of yours. Good to see you and your cat. Mariko, good to see you and all the help you give. Nenzen, good to see you and good to see you last weekend for the end of Tanjo-e Sesshin.

During Sesshin, one of the things we did was go to the ridge for sunset. Usually the sunsets at Jikoji are just very, very colorful. But the two nights we went up on the ridge, they were very like the color of weak tea. And though it's always amazing to be on the ridge to see the valley below and the ocean and the clouds over the ocean in the distance, it felt a bit ominous to me. And we're in day 51 of a war in Europe. And the color of the sunset reminded me of not just this war, but of other wars and the atrocities that have happened and what gets into the atmosphere and what becomes part of us. We breathe the war. We breathe in the atmosphere the remnants of this war. And there's no way to get around it. So it's just a reminder of some of the kinds of impermanence that exist.

Shariputra once gave a talk about how he is like the earth and that the earth receives whatever is given, whether it is the garbage of our existence or whether it is sunlight and the seeds and the rain, it receives it all. Water in the ocean is that way too. It receives the filthy and the pure. The air does the same and fire burns both the good and the bad. The rich and the poor, the ugly and the beautiful, the fire burns it all. And that we can be like the earth, like the water, like the air and fire.

I want to remind us of some of the realizations that great beings have come to know. And I think many, or all of us already know these, but it's just a reminder that:

First, all dharmas are impermanent and without self.

Second, more desire brings more suffering.

Third, living simply with few desires leads to peace, joy and serenity.

Fourth, diligent effort leads to enlightenment and that laziness and indulgence in desires are obstacles to our practice.

Fifth, ignorance causes endless rounds of birth and death. So we listen and we learn to develop understanding and eloquence in what we can share.

Sixth, poverty causes hatred and anger. So it is important to consider everyone as equal, not hating those that engage in wrongdoing or finding fault in those who have caused harm in the past.

Seventh, not to be caught up in worldly matters. Not that we don't take care of the world, but not to be caught up by them generating anger or desires.

Last, that we devote our whole being to everyone's enlightenment, not just to our own alone.

And I feel like I'm in the midst of many great beings who understand these things. With each breath that we inhale, we bring in sustenance, the oxygen we need to sustain our being, as well as inhaling remnants of existence from long ago, from recent times, from positive qualities of generation of new oxygen, to also the remnants of other beings. They enter our body, this body, they enter us in our feelings, they enter us in our mind.

It's important to remember that within this, we meditate on this body, the body within the body, we consider our feelings and see the feelings within the feelings. We see the mind and the mind within the mind, and we see the objects of mind and the non-separation between the subject and object of mind, and the co-rising of the objects of mind, the subject of mind and consciousness itself, that we are whole. We are completely whole right now. There's nothing but this. And yet there's things to take care of.

And that's where the joy of life comes for me, is in taking care of what's next, in anticipation of what's next, in the interconnectedness of what's next, and finding help in taking care of what's next from all the different sources that we get to experience when we're open to them.

So I'd like to hear from you about new ways of being interconnected that you've seen or experienced that has brought a sense of peace and serenity, maybe, to your life and understanding to what this existence is about. So I'll end there for now.