During her Dharma talk to Floating Zendo Sangha Pamela Chōbun Nenzen Brown shared the exercise from a "Women Liberating Buddhism" seminar. This teaching was offered by Paula Arai, Ph.D., the Eshinni & Kakushinni Professor of Women and Buddhist Studies at the Institute of Buddhist Studies.

Dr. Arai spoke extensively and eloquently about wielding liberating power. In her words:

"You wield liberating power when you:

1. breathe space for not knowing.

2. look through expansive and contextualized lenses.

3. experience interrelatedness, instead of separateness.

4. assume all beings want to stop suffering.

5. move through an embodied perspective.

6. seek compassionate interpretations of events.

7. consider how to wield liberating power in response to negative treatment, structures, or environments. "

Dr. Arai's exercise was as follows:

"Quietly reflect on the ways in which you wield (or strive to wield) liberating power in your life. Think about a situation you find stressful, unfair, and/or frustrating.

Apply the principles above to imagine responding in a way that is liberating."

Full Transcript

You know, I was going to ask you about recording this. It's fine with me, but I want to make sure that people feel free to share whatever they want to share tonight without too much concern about that. So if it's your practice to record things, I have no problem. I just want to give everyone the option to think about that a little bit.

Hi, dear Sangha. It's really lovely to be with you. I'm kind of the pitch hitter tonight, but fortunately for you, I went through a really high dude. I just see you now. I went through a class with Paula Rye, the Buddhist scholar on Saturday called Women Liberating Buddhism, and I hope you got a chance to see the information that Kathy sent out.

I want to start by just telling you that when we go to any teaching or get up in the morning and face the day or as Don was talking about, face the world, you know, we're doing it in these bodies and with our conditioning that is unique to us and as unique it is, it's actually not that special. Everybody has their staff.

And so I attended this thing on Saturday, Women Liberating Buddhism, this seminar, and I realized that I was coming in not with an agenda so much, but with an awareness about one thing that I want to share with you, partly to embarrass myself in public so you will be more inclined and comfortable to embarrass yourselves and admit how life really is for you. And partly because it's the truth, which is that for the last month or so, I've been paying very close attention, not actually writing it down, but very, very, very close attention to how many times a day I want candy.

Like some people drink, some people smoke cigarettes, some people, you know, distract themselves. I don't have any candy in the house, but I'm acutely aware of how many times a day I want a piece of candy. And I'm astonished. And so what I've been doing with this information is every time that arises, I look and see, well, what is really going on? What is it I don't want to look at that I want to medicate with candy? Right. And so I turn this kind of endless desire into an embodied practice.

So I'm looking at this. I did buy one bag of licorice, I'm confessing, but only one in a month. And I don't actually have an issue about this. It's just that I'm aware that I go there, other people go other places. We're all going someplace with our bodies and minds. And so I've been paying close attention to this.

And I'm telling you this because I went into Paula's seminar being very kind of tuned in to the embodiment piece of this. She didn't spend a lot of time on the embodiment piece. So the next thing I want to talk to you about before we go into her actual teaching is that because of my kind of relentless desire for candy, I've been thinking about the four truths, the four ennobling truths in terms of the body.

So when I have this experience, I want candy. When I have this, like I want something to be different than the way it is. That is a cue to me to go into my body and look at the first noble truth, which is something's dissatisfying about this moment that I want to distract it with that. It's in the body. And I try to find it in the body. And it goes on like this, the second noble truth is, well, you know, I know where this arises from because I want things to be different than the way they are. Right. That's why I want candy.

And you can see I'm holding it lightly, but in the moment, I'm actually exercising, exercising. So I want things to be different. And I know that I'm either grabbing onto something or more commonly, in my case, wanting not to look at something, rejecting it. That's the second noble truth. And there is, of course, freedom. And the freedom, I think, is can be argued is this what we're going to talk about now, which is what Paula was teaching, wielding, liberating power.

Now, I'm not going to go through the eightfold path, but you could actually kind of think of these as not separate from that path. So her talk was how do we wield power in the world? How do we ourselves wield power? And this is not the power that dominates somebody else. This is not the power that puffs ourselves up. This is not the power that does any of this stuff or pushes anybody out of the way. This is the power that is just kind of wholehearted acceptance, but kind of radically acceptance of what's happening here.

One in candy, for example, that's the easy one. But, you know, there are multitudes of opportunities for this in every single moment of our lives. So her expression is one wheels power when we breathe space for not knowing. So using my again, very rudimentary example, I stop when I feel a desire for things to be different than the way they are. And I wonder, what is this? Not assessing, not judging. Just what is this really? Because I don't need candy. It's not a basic human need. Except maybe it is not.

So there is the first one. Breathing space for not knowing. The second one is looking through for and through expansive and contextualized lenses. And this is why I brought up the candy example. So the context of my winning candy is not about candy, of course. Right. It's a conditioned response to I want to fix this. And so what is it? What is a bigger view of the situation? What is it? It's beyond the desire for candy because it's not about candy. Nothing's ever about what it appears to be in my humble experience.

So we wield power through breathing space for not knowing, through looking for an expansive, contextualized lens. And in my case, what's going on that I want candy? What's bothering me? It could be anything. It doesn't have to be anything noxious. But what is it?

The third thing is experiencing interrelatedness instead of separateness. So, you know, we can look at the way we go through the world and separate other people from our own experience, even though there is not a single experience under the sun that I haven't tasted some of that someone else's. And Wendy, we were talking a little bit earlier about the guy. He mentioned you saw him. The person stealing the bike is greedy. And I do, too. But I've been greedy. I am greedy sometimes. How could it be different? I'm not going to take that choice. But I've experienced greed. So there is this opportunity for interrelatedness. And I've been greedy about licorice, by the way. I buy a box of licorice and I don't share it. I mean, if someone was here, I would gradually give them some. But, you know, it's not my instinct.

The fourth way that we wield power is to assume all beings want not to be suffering and they want to stop suffering not just for themselves, but for everybody. So it's hard to be in this space where we can be that open so that when someone is perhaps pointing in us and blaming us, they are expressing a desire to stop suffering. Inside and towards us as well. They are actually asking for help. So there's a fourth way, assuming all beings want to stop suffering.

A fifth way is to moving through an embodied perspective. So this is where Paula did speak about the body is to try to identify it in your physical experience. What does this feel like exploring that inner terrain? Seeing what arrives, you know, not so much labeling it. And I point to my head because that's where my words are, but not so much labeling it and separating it out. But what is it? And I'm not dissing words, I'm just saying, where is it in your body? What does it feel like? And then noticing what happens to that bodily sensation when you come closer instead of feeding it with candy or something else.

The next is to seek compassionate interpretation of the events, which we were exercising before the session started. We were talking about how we could have the dawn in his work has this relative and absolute experience all day long. And so do all of us of feeling compassion for the human struggle and also realizing that's not that's not right. That choice is not right. It's not it's not wholesome. It's not beneficial action. So looking at other compassionate interpretations all the time, which also dovetails back into really not knowing what other people are experiencing.

So I think it's really important. And one exercise I've done in my own practice is when something arises for me that feels a little like a sharpness, a stone rubbing against this sharp stone. I try to tell the story of what's happening from the other person's perspective. I just put mine away and I tell the story of what's happening right now from that person's point of view to myself. So there's an example of seeking a compassionate interpretation of events.

And the last one is to consider how to wield liberating power in response to unjustness, negative treatment, structures, environments. And we're in those environments all the time. If you just keep your eyes open, you'll see things, beauty and unjustness all the time.

So I kind of think of these questions as contemplations on how willing am I to get myself unstuck? Because when I want licorice, I'm stuck. Or when I feel judgy about myself or about someone else, I'm stuck. I don't like feeling stuck. I know it doesn't feel good to be assessing and judging other people. It never makes me feel what I know is true, which is that they're me. So when I'm judging them, I'm really hurting myself. And so how much do I want to get myself unstuck?

And for me, that practice involves identifying the stories that I keep repeating to myself when things seem unjust or I want licorice. What is this really about? What is this really about? What is this story here? And I say that in a way as not to discourage you from looking at your conditioning, but to look at your conditioning with a kind heart, really kind heart, as if that young child who learned those lessons was right here, right in your lap and needs to be taken care of. So not judging, but loving, loving attention to your own conditioning.

And the last thing that Paula said before we talk about the actual exercise that I want to share with you, she didn't really make it a big part of her talk, but it really was very effective for me. She talked about how she was able to make it a big part of her life. She talked about being in a car and following the GPS in her car and how she really, she'll do it, but it's not comfortable for her. She wants a paper map because she wants to see the big picture. She wants to see the context. I know a lot of people like this. I'm willing to be dumb and just listen to what the GPS says most of the time. Sometimes I zoom out, like my car has a map and I look at the map, but I'm willing to abandon my agency a good deal all the time. It's interesting that I'm willing to do that.

So that's the question. How narrow is my view? Am I doing the GPS view right now? Or am I doing the map view? And by that way, that map, even though it's a map, it's a map of the whole thing. So I'm willing to be dumb and just listen to what the GPS says most of the time. So that's the map view. And by that way, that map, even though it's often on a piece of paper, you know it goes on forever. The map goes on forever. So you can just keep going wider and wider in your view. And that's liberative. You're not stuck following the directions. Those directions are coming from here, obviously. They're not coming from outside. They're coming from your conditioning.

So that's all kind of a background and contextual for how I entered that room. It was really wonderful. And then so that's kind of the morning. And then many people left. But in the afternoon, those of us who stayed went to this exercise that I hope maybe you had a little bit of time to reflect upon. The exercise was to quietly reflect on the ways in which you wield your powers, liberty, and power. And then trying to find one of these principles that you could use to kind of reframe or to adjust your one degree of view. Maybe just one more degree or maybe 10 more degrees or maybe 360 degrees to just kind of reflect on that.

And so I think the first question is reflecting on the ways in which you wield or you strive to wield liberating power. And please don't get hung up on the word power. OK, I know all of us are like, no, I don't want power. But we're talking about you manifesting you in the world. And it's a good enough word. Let's not get too upset about that. And I'll go first with this first question so that nobody feels put on the spot, but I really want to hear from you because I've been talking a long time.

How I wield power or how I strive to wield power. And the first is to stop because patience is one of my big challenges. I need to stop. And I mean, full stop. Often, if I stop and just keep myself stopping from responding or reacting or even really doing much about the situation, if I just stop, something arises inside that kind of softens it. I sometimes will just sit. That's part of my stopping. I'll just sit down and take care of what's arising for me. Stop. So for me, that's it has to be the top of the list because it's the hardest thing for me.

The second thing is to listen. This is sometimes listening to another person. But most of the time, it's listening to me. To listen to my own impulses without an agenda, without a judgment and without an assessment. If I'm engaged with someone else, it's listening very carefully to what they're saying. And this is one of those times when I would try to listen to their stories if I'm not even there. You know, like without without me, without my stuff, really listening to how it must feel to them. What's going on? So listening.

The third for me is asking for mirroring. So in my family, as I was raising my kids, we had this practice where if they wanted to say something or we needed to talk something out, I would say, I need to say this or they would speak if it was they needed to be heard. And then if they wanted to, they'd say, I want you to mirror me. And I would say, OK, and I would say it in my own words. I had to say it in my own words. It couldn't just be a parrot. I would mirror what they said. And then I'd say, do I did I get it right? And they would often say, no, you left out this and this and this. This is just active listening skills. It's nothing. I certainly didn't make it up, but it's very effective. So that's my third approach to mirror what other people are trying to express to me to make sure I actually did hear them. Because, you know, I'm coming out of this body and mind. I might not be able to hear them at the first pass and I want to hear them.

So that's patience, listening both to myself, what's coming up and to other people. And then the last, not quite the last, is identifying compassionately. Paying attention compassionately to my own well-practiced, conditioned responses. So, you know, I know that if certain things happen, I will respond this way. It's like you have, you know, a jukebox on your chest and people push that and they get a very reliable album called Clump and it starts playing. So if you can stop and pay attention to your record, it's just plopped down to the turntable. Are we all old enough to know records? Yeah, we are. Thank goodness. So that's paying very close attention to my conditioned responses and with some humility about those conditioned responses, being aware that they're not just mine. Here's the lightly edited version of the transcript, preserving all original content:

You know, my suffering is nothing special. It's not even mine. Not just mine. Everybody, there's no suffering that we haven't all experienced. And if not yet, it's coming to a theater near you.

The last thing I want to say about my own experience practicing with how to get unstuck, how I try to wield power, strive to or actually accomplish occasionally is best told by a dream I had a couple of nights ago. I was making a T-shirt in a T-shirt store. I don't make T-shirts. I don't know where this came from, but the T-shirt was going to read, "follow your hunches." And so that is the last way in which I think I try and strive to wield power, to follow my hunches, to not deny that kind of wordless knowing, you know, that knowing that you know, you don't know how you know, but you know. To not diminish that and not kick it to the curb, but be with it and let it be your teacher and not diminish it.

So those are the ways that I have examined myself trying to strive to wield power compassionately. So your turn. Please someone tell me anything you're willing to share about this exercise or just how you wield power.

Kathy: I don't think of it as wielding power. I think of it as being aware of all these impulses. And every once in a while I can resist the impulse. Most of the time the impulse is to be a slug. And sometimes I can be compassionate to myself about it. But I actually went out the door and did one of the things that I didn't want to do. But I don't know that that's wielding power. I think the power of it is just recognizing the impulse.

Pamela: Can I ask you a question? You made a choice. Is that not action? Is that not compassionate action? That's wielding power. We don't have to use those words. I told you we don't have to. But action, acting is wielding power.

Kathy: So I was acting differently.

Pamela: Right. You made a choice. I personally can't assess whether or not you didn't want to do it. Obviously you did it. So somebody wanted to do it. Somebody knew you wanted to do it. But that's compassionate. That's the compassionate wielding of action. How did it go when you actually did the thing you didn't want to do?

Kathy: It went okay. I dragged myself to the gym. Unfortunately, I didn't get around to it. So everybody else was at the gym because it was after work hours. And so I just went and did a few things and then left. But it did maybe energize me a little to move my body. And it made me not feel so dispassionate, so unaccepting of myself.

Pamela: So you appreciate yourself.

Kathy: Yeah. So I could at least do that. And I watered my plants outside. They needed it.

Pamela: You watered your plants and you watered yourself. Thank you, Kathy.

Serena: Do you find that when you ever ask yourself why you want candy that you can't tell? And is it the asking that's more important or the answer? Like, what do you do if you don't get an answer? Because I have, I mean, there are times with food, not licorice, but chocolate, the food that will come up and I'll realize, oh, well, I feel like stuffing my face because something went wrong or whatever. But sometimes I can't tell. Sometimes it's like, is it the interchange I just had 30 minutes ago or is it problems with my mom that are more global? And like, so what do you do with that if you don't get a clear answer or you're not sure?

Pamela: That's really my experience as well. Sometimes I know exactly what's going on, Serena. And I'm like, sometimes it's like I'm a little girl and I'm tired. And I feel like, well, what's wrong? I'm really tired. It's simple. Sometimes something's bothering. Like, I actually think what's going on? And I think is anything on the horizon? Has anything happened? Is something left over like an artifact? Is that something? I'm tired. And sometimes I do not know. I want to tell you that that not knowing is not a bad answer. It just means that my suffering doesn't belong to me alone, that it's not mine. So that means that the fabric of our interrelatedness is vast enough that I'm not always going to go bingo. That's it. And that's OK.

What's important is that I compassionately respond to the inquiry, right? Because what you're talking about is the hard part, which is even Kathy mentioned it too, noticing. And that's the beginning of wisdom. Just pay attention. So, OK, I just noticed that. What is it? Is there something I can help me with? Is there something I'd help you with that would not be licorice? And if I can't figure out what it is, do you need a nap? Are you thirsty? It's just taking good care. Or is there something that I got to look at? You know, that is something really there. Or is it unidentifiable that it is no longer fixated on licorice?

It's just like a thought when you're sitting zazen, if you understand that your brain makes thoughts like your stomach makes acid to break down food, your brain makes thoughts. You can think about your thoughts as bodily sensations as opposed to big, meaningful experiences that you have to rehash. You can think about this thought or memory or I should have done that. What about this list? Or what am I doing? That could just be a bodily secretion like, oh, that's just like my stomach. And then it does not have the value, the weight, the meaning. It just is another thing arising, letting go.

So that's what I do when I don't know. I see it as it's a bodily secretion of my mind that I want this and I don't have to choose it. I can choose it. But that's the agency piece that Kathy was just referring to. That's the thing. What in this moment will give you agency? And with your agency, hopefully compassionate action towards yourself and all beings.

Kathy: I was just going to say that is a better word for me than power. Agency.

Pamela: Okay. Does that answer your question, Serena?

Serena: Yes. It sounds like it's a process. And I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Pamela: Oh gosh, no one has all the answers. If you meet someone with all the answers, walk away. It is fascinating. You also discussed this. We're all unique, so it's sort of not unique, right? It's almost like a uniform of everybody. Yeah, I've been thinking about everybody here knows about 31 flavors. The ice cream. I've been thinking about we're all ice cream, fat, sugar, cream, and milk. Every single person on the planet is ice cream with just little bits of different conditioning, but it's all the same material. So we're not special. I mean, we don't we are extraordinarily special, but we're not so special. To be feeling burdened.

Serena: Yes. Specialness. We're all equally screwed. Or not. Depending on how you look at it.

Pamela: Yeah, this is why you shouldn't be quoting me.

Mindy: I'm glad you said that. Thank you, Serena. Thank you for sharing what you heard from Paula this weekend. I have listened to her. She's got a lot of wisdom about the role of women in Buddhism and how we can contribute. And I don't know. I've been becoming more aware of how privileged I am, especially living in the Bay Area, coast of California, you know, in this challenging era. It's going through all these changes climate-wise, and it's just starting and there's going to be a lot more human suffering related to those changes. More migration. More food insecurity.

And so I think of myself, I don't feel that I'm on an equal play with the rest of the world. I feel very privileged and, you know, I have an apartment that's on my own. I don't have four people living in this one bedroom apartment or some people have four people in one room. You know, I can drive to various markets. I don't have to take the bus or steal an electric bike. I've got it good. But I still think that there are rules in order for us to function together as a society for fairness. And that's where I get upset about shoplifters. And I feel mostly compassionate to people that have to lay down the rule like Don or Manny in Willow Glen. You got shot when you tried to intervene with some shoplifters at the Safeway supermarket. Just down the street from Angie. Yeah. So that's why I reacted so strongly when you said, you know, have compassion for the shoplifters. I will. So the city was helpful. And I did find a little compassion there in my heart. And I think that's also a need for rules for all of us even at the very top.

Pamela: Thank you, Paul. Nobody could be in your presence for 30 seconds and not feel your compassion. That's really true. So I didn't think for a minute you didn't have compassion. And I also agree with you that, you know, everyone agrees with you. We have to follow the rules. That's the societal contract. It's both and all the time, right? We have to hold these two views together. It's not fair that someone might have to do something. Think he or she or they have to do something criminal because they don't have the conditioning that we've had to know that there's always an alternative, maybe. It's not fair. It's not fair. And they shouldn't do it. And there are consequences for doing it. And I think that's the challenge of being a human being. Both and. Both sides together. And that's the challenge of being a human being. To always be able to, you know, look from this point of view and then look from this point of view. And it's not easy to see people suffer. It's not easy.

I was thinking when you were talking about your privilege, I've been really aware of it myself. I've been really so fortunate. And when I feel a little guilty about it, I think, well, it's kind of not my fault that I'm so privileged. It doesn't have anything to do with me. I just got lucky. And that's life. You know, I did not choose my parents. Well, the Buddhists might say I did, but I don't know that I did. And none of us did. And none of us, you know, are in that much control. But what we can do is compassionately try to level the playing field to the best of our ability. And that sometimes is just with how we go out into the world.

I can totally picture Don at Costco doing this both and. And so he's doing that. He's I'm not going to embarrass you, Don, but I can picture him because I go to Costco and I can see Don standing in the doorway and saying no. And also being loving to the babies and the people who are engaging with them. That's what we're here to do is to be with everything that arises and as beneficial as possible.

Don: Thank you very much for bringing all of these wonderful aspects of our world and ourselves or non-self to the front tonight. It's very helpful. And as you were speaking, I could zero in the chocolate. I put it as once I had to quit drinking alcohol several times. But finally, you know, what I find myself is at night after dinner, I have to have sweets. Doesn't matter if it's cookies, ice cream, banana bread. And I make that stuff on my days off all the time. It's not always for me, but it's just I have something about sweets. But it is in a way it's an addiction. You know, there's something that's driving my physical and mental health. I need that sugar. And sometimes I'm really surprised when I don't do it. I go, oh, that wasn't really that difficult. But some things are some, you know, quitting drugs or drinking or smoking or a lot of stuff. And I have as much baggage as anybody else about things that I still do that I wish I didn't. And sometimes I can find ways to see it and sort of see it. And I think that's the way I do it.

One of the things that I think is very helpful is realizing it or seeing when you start. For me, I just, you know, at a snap, I can get really mad about something. And it's usually about somebody not acting the way I think they should or being respectful to others. You know, people that steal aren't being respectful of other people. But myself is if I can see that I'm beginning to go down a rabbit hole with it to back off a little bit. So, OK, it may not change, but at least I see it momentarily. And like the other day when that happened with that guy trying to take that bike. I mean, I thought he was going to go for me for a minute because he was going to be like, oh, I'm going to go for a little bit of a ride. I mean, I thought he was going to go for me for a minute because he really wanted to have it. He wanted to get out. But I was almost shaking. I was really pissed and had to get the managers to know this guy. And I walked away. I said, I got to take a break. And I went and had some water and came back. And eventually a few minutes later, half hour or so, I was back to my loving babies and seeing Buddhist monks and saying Amitabha and smiling and having a good time. But it doesn't take much to snap that just to win. And that's sort of looking at ourselves.

And like you said, there's always the side of someone else that's suffering. And even I've thought of it more lately with either politicians that I'm very unhappy about or serial killers or people that murder and shoot people all the time. And it's awful. And I don't think it should be that way. And they shouldn't act that way. But a lot of it goes back to causes and conditions and upbringing and what they were told and what their surroundings were. And it even gets into, I think, where we are, as you said, Wendy. I feel the same way. I'm in this place where I'm sort of protected in a way. But that could change in an instant. So it's always nice to be able to look at people and have empathy and compassion for those that don't have those things. And whenever we can to try and help them. So all of the introspection, but outwardly having compassion and love for other beings is easier for me than having love for myself. I've got to tell you. But I really am thankful for you bringing all of this forward. And it's great to bring it in and let it sit a little bit.

For me, a lot of it, I just saw it this morning on a Facebook page about Buddhism and something else. And somebody quoted that story of the two monks walking across the river and the guy let the woman ride on him. And it's the let go, let go. You know, I'm mad about that guy taking that bike yesterday. And it's like, that was 24 hours ago. Just think about your breath, you know, or look at the bird over there. It's great when we can do it. But sometimes if it's a, you know, as sad as someone dying or being terminally ill or someone really suffering, and sometimes you just can't let that go. And it's really hard. But that's what life is. We just have to breathe and know that it's all impermanent. Anyway, I've said enough. Thank you so much. It was wonderful.

Pamela: Thank you. And Don, I just want to scratch a little bit below the surface because you said something that I found really powerful. You said a lot of things that were powerful.

But one thing that really hit me personally is you said, it doesn't take much and you can go and kind of flare. You didn't use that word, but you know, you can just feel it like a fire. And I thought, first of all, good for you for stopping and taking care of yourself. That's compassion. So you did take care of yourself. So thank you for taking care of yourself.

But there's this other piece that makes you want to say, can you turn the light around? Definitely was doing something wrong. Definitely that person out there, that other person is definitely doing something wrong. But can you turn the light around and say, no, you said respect. So that's one of your buttons. Is that one of your buttons? You don't have to answer. You don't have to tell us. But for me, that's where the rubber meets the road.

Like, OK, and I had this experience today. Something happened and I felt so wounded and I exited the conversation so I wouldn't say or do anything that I would have to regret later. And I said, I just need to, you know, be with these feelings for a little bit. And it took me a couple of hours of just letting it kind of rumble as I went around and did what I had to do. And I eventually I did sit in there. So it calmed me down a little bit. But I went right to it being an 11 year old child and what it was. And then I found the other places with this sort of vision, like a weed in my life. And then it lost its juice. Just by being seen and brought to light, which is what Dogen is talking about. Look into your shadow. Look into the shadow.

Now, you know, I'm not recommending that for everybody all the time, but sometimes it's really. You can still have the righteous, just conduct, but you don't have to suffer. You with me? You don't have to. Very good point. Yes. Thank you so much. That's all part of the struggle and stopping and letting go and looking at it and having compassion for ourselves. Yeah, this is making care. Do I do the dudes have anything? Do you squared? You have to. I feel pretty square. Thanks. No, thank you for sharing so much of your life and your interests and your wonderful experiences. It's been very enlightening and helpful. I can't really think of anything just right off the top of my head. It's not that I don't have issues. It's just that I could spend another hour talking about some of them and we just don't have that kind of time right now. But thank you. Thank you so much for talking about this. Thank you, Judy, for being here. Yes, Judy. Yes, Judy.

So many topics have come to my mind about how I. Like, do I really have power? But I think about my work. Running two care homes and, you know, supervising. No, a total of about 25 people taking care of eight residents and their families and. And so the topic of. Vacations have. You know, come up recently since COVID. COVID is still here, but because we're not so sequestered, you know, and we can be more amongst each other. And it's easier to travel now. A lot of my staff, you know, because what for three years we haven't really been able to travel. And so, you know, my staff have been asking for time off and a lot of my staff are Filipino. And so they want to go to the Philippines for, you know, a month.

And I'm of the mind that if they have the time, they should go. Because it's about family. We all have families. We all have loved ones, loved ones. And these folks don't happen to have people who, you know, their loved ones live somewhere else. On the other side of the world. And so I do have the power to say no. And I do have the power to say yes. And sometimes, you know, I could get in trouble.

So I had a finance meeting a couple of weeks ago. Where, well, let me back up. So the week before this finance meeting, which was three weeks ago, I got an email from our director of finance for California. And he said, Yeah, well, your one home had more than $6,000 in overtime in May. And, and I thought about it for a while. And, and I, and I realized, I looked back and I thought, yeah, had, you know, at least two full time and one part time person was gone on vacation, and we had to, you know, cover the shifts. And so people had to work overtime. And so that's what I wrote down. I just said, you know, we had some people on vacation and, you know, since I don't have any PRN staff or, you know, on call staff. And so people were willing to work overtime and did to cover the shifts.

So all this to say that when anything comes up as an administrator. When things come up that I usually see things, and I actually all the time see things from a compassionate lens, because I know we all have families, you know, if somebody calls, like just last week, one of my full time staff long time staff called me or texted me and said, you know, I have to call out sick tomorrow because my dad is having trouble breathing. And I, and I need to stay with him and, and, you know, be with him for a while. And I said, Oh, okay. And he was actually off for like three days. Monitoring his dad, and I'm perfectly happy to give sick time for that. And, you know, I have a dad and a mom too. But if I had to take care of them. I would need to take time off so I always have that compassionate lens.

You know, but then, on the other hand, there was theft that was happening in the house. And so for that end I had to have a meeting and say look, this is, this is the, these are the rules. This is this is this is the policy we have to follow and stealing is can can lead to you being fired. So, if we catch you, or if we know it's you, you could be fired so luckily, we didn't really find the person, we haven't found the person, and I think the theft is not happening right now because of that little memo that I put out in the meeting that I had.

So, you know, in a way, it's like, it's all, all of all of this is like my practice leads and it goes. It informs me in my work. And it informs me in the rest of my life. So, I'm just, I'm grateful that you brought this topic up about being compassionate and wielding power. Because, you know, at first I thought well I don't have that much power, and I thought, well, I really do. I mean, just really do as supervisor of, you know, 25 people. Yeah, it's. I could be a horrible manager but I'm not my staff really like me, enjoy me, they want to work for me. If I call them and I asked them to work, most of the times they say yes if they don't have a second job that they're going to.

So yeah, I just, I feel very fortunate to be in the position that I am to be able to be the kind of manager that I would want. And I think that's really important to me. You know, I do listen to staff and I do have compassion. It's just I just, I feel like, you know, I use the eight fold path all the time for myself. And I always have to work on the right speech part, but always have to think about that and be aware. So, thanks.

Thank you, Jude for wielding your powers compassionately. And I guess I'm now moving towards Kathy's feeling about the word power even though I try not to be reactive to these words especially for women women have a hard time talking about having power, just saying, ladies, that it's hard for us to do that but it is your birthright to your here. So you have an opportunity to do you here in complete respect and recognition of you is everybody.

So I just want to say though that it, if it's easier for you to swallow it. Use agency, because, you know, your insight, whatever your insight is whether it's from your hunches or you're sitting or you're listening or you're paying attention to this and that, whatever that So whatever that insight is your, your agency is what allows you to do something compassionate with your insight. So that's your power. We can call it agency. I like agency a lot too but I'm trying not to be reactive to power. Thank you so much for your engagement with this and for listening so attentively and partaking it to heart, and I really respect and thank you for your practice.