Good morning. Today is Sunday, April 16 2023. My name is Rebecca Gilbert. And this is my coming to path talk. When Trueman asked me not that long ago, like a couple of weeks ago, if I'd be willing to give this talk, I froze. It's been a long journey of recovery. And I felt worried about what it would be like to go back and my thoughts and revisit all the suffering that led me to the Dharma. 24 years have passed since I found my way to the Zen Center here. And yeah, I was, I said, Yes, because I was, I thought it might be helpful for people to hear and understand, you know, a little bit like, you're not the only one who's gone through some things that I've gone through, and I thought it would be also I was curious to see what wisdom I would understand better now, looking back. It's been a long time since I thought about these events. And so, so here I am. And I hope it's helpful. So I entitled this talk. The layering of suffering. First Noble Truth is all life of suffering. And I'm going to just try and describe some of the layers from my life that I thought drew me here. Starting with my early family life, and college, grad school, and then finally what it was like when I finally came to the Zen Center. I was born in 1966, two teenage parents at an army base in surely Massachusetts. My dad joined the Army as a college dropout when the news of my mother's unexpected pregnancy changed both of their courses. My mother dropped out of college at the same time, and they quickly got married, thinking that the military would be the fastest way for my father, to secure an income to support his wife and child. dropping out of college was not a big sacrifice to either one of them. Because my parents families are rooted in rural Wisconsin farming communities, farming communities, and there was little expectation for anybody to go to college. Most people just, you know, continue the family business farming or worked in factories. I'm the only person on either side of my family who went to college was my maternal grandfather, who became a high school biology, biology teacher and athletics coach. My dad on my dad's side of the family, my his father, worked as a laborer in a playground equipment factory, Harley Davidson. He worked for Harley Davidson and then he also worked for his dad's painting business. He has dad had a painting business. My grandmother, on my dad's side was a sales lady at Sears and Roebuck. My grandfather died at the age of 54 of colon cancer and left my grandmother a widowed mom of three my dad was the youngest. And so I never knew him but or my never knew my grandfather, but my loved my grandmother, she was so joyful. I don't know. She just we loved being with her. She was just she loved us. It was so free, the joy she had she she had wisdom from all of that, raising those kids, by yourself. And my dad and his siblings grew to adulthood and had married and had children right in the same small community and in Wisconsin, so we all gather together. You know, for birthdays, anniversaries, all the holidays, we were together a lot. When I was young, on my mom's side my mom lived her life as an only child in the shadow of her older brother's death. Her brother was disabled with cerebral palsy possibly caused by oxygen deprivation during a long and arduous labor and delivery. I spoke to her about this just a couple of days ago. She said she thinks the doctor could have intervened with a C section. His name was David her brother's name was Dave and he lived in a nursing home and my grandparents visited on holidays just very rarely. And my mother was never allowed to meet them or see them. She says she really remembers the I said, did your did your parents ever talk to you about it? No, they never talked to talk to her about it. But she was very aware of the pain that they suffered. And he died at the age of eight of 16. He was 16 years old when he died. And she said he choked to death on his tongue during an unattended seizure. And she says she never they never spoke to her about her brother, or or their pain. But she remembers learning of his death because she answered the door when the police officer came to the house to tell us tell them they were staying at a cottage that didn't have a telephone. So the police officer had to come to the door. And tell tell them the news. And my mother answered the door. So she really remembers this. I think we absorb a lot of our parents suffering without knowing it at the beginning in our early lives, and I know I did. My parents are alcoholics. We lived in Wisconsin, Milwaukee, this beer capital of the world. When I was in elementary school, a big school trip was to the paps brewery, and we couldn't wait to taste the beer at the end, although it was root beer. But you know, this is German. I mean, I don't have to tell many of you. I know many of you are from Wisconsin. So ironic. Sidebar. I've never been to Madison. Weirdly enough. But it's you know, it's a German my family are German heritage. German immigrants from long long we checked on at Ellison island, but they didn't come through they came through before Ellison Island.
My best friend owned one of the three taverns in the small town that we lived in and heavy drinking it, every family gathering was just the norm It was mostly out of celebration, you know, but also, it was a way to escape the the suffering the pain and suffering. And to take the edge off, I remember, you know, weddings people would have shot before taking their vows or especially at funerals, you know, there was a lot of drinking to try and numb the pain. To say my parents marriage was strained would be an understatement. They fought a lot, and sometimes viciously. Neither had healthy communication skills. And the drinking made things often much worse. I remember my mom strike or my dad striking my mother once and he would often leave the house in anger and most times he would go to a bar to a local tavern to the local tavern to cool off. My mother once pleaded with me to call the tavern to ask him to come home and say I was conflicted about that that would be an understatement to but I you know I didn't know what to do i i wanted to help her. I wanted some kind of resolution and I didn't want him to abandon us
the tension between them vacillated between lashing anger and just simmering frustration all the time. Even in their they're even today they're still like for me, the five o'clock cocktail was a moment to look forward to because the texture of their interactions would smooth out a bit at least for a while. But by the end of the night, now arguing could escalate and I would remember going to bed with the sounds of their violent words and, and just fearful of my dreams that would echo with my fears and the confusion that I felt. And I to self soothe. I had this mantra I would repeat the words not they're not they're not they're not there. And this would help me ease into sleep. More my mother was raised Lutheran and my father was raised in a Methodist tradition. And they chose to give us our early religious education in the metta That is tradition. We didn't go to church until it was time for us to be confirmed. My sisters, I have a younger sister who is two years younger than me. And at that point, we started going to church so that we could so that I said, so we could be enrolled in these catechism classes. And while we went to catechism, my parents would go to the tavern where the local farmers brought their eggs to sell so we would have eggs for breakfast that day and they would often hang out there, you know, till the catechism was over and sometimes with the local Catholic priest who was also there coming in for eggs after giving his math and at this time, I started singing in the church choir. singing in the church choir was my first deeply spiritual experience. I wrote about it in a Zen bow article years ago. I still feel a deep spiritual affinity for the sound resonance and vibration, breath, our bodies, we chant together here. I cry almost every time. So powerful heart opening for me.
I began playing the flute I'm a flutist and I plan began playing the flute about the same time and, and I eventually found music to be your refuge. In the emotionally chaotic world of my family. We moved from that small town in rural Wisconsin, to a large metropolitan suburban community outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I almost quit music playing the flute at this at this moment, it was the band program at the New School was not very good. And my mother in her wisdom, she recognized that this might be helpful for me to keep going with the music. And she found me a private teacher, which was great. This woman was amazing. She taught at Oral Roberts University. All Roberts University is a you know, Christian, Pentecostal, probably I don't even know if it's still there. But boy, this was an amazing campus. It was gilded in gold, literally gold, everything was painted in gold. But I think this relationship with this woman who I'm still in touch with, she's an artist. She doesn't play the flute anymore. She's a painter, an artist. He was a real
just a real mentor in a I don't even know how to put it into words. I don't know how to say it. But she was very, very patient and encouraging. Yeah, I think that was the thing very positive. And I think I loved that feeling of, you know, I could go there and I know that I would feel good. You know, she was a person who made me feel really like myself.
By this point, I'm a hice. I'm moving into high school. I was a good student. I liked school again, and I liked going to school because it was outside of my house and in the stress of being in my family. I loved the simple affirmation of getting the answers right on an exam. I was valedictorian. My favorite classes were English and writing, humanities and religion. I had a great religion teacher. I was fascinated by all the different ways you could engage with this. Mysteries of like, well, what are we doing here? What's the meaning of our lives and death? And what does it all mean? Most of my friends in high school, went to a Southern Baptist Pentecostal church. It was a big church, almost, you know, like, it seemed like a whole my whole school was there. There was lots of music, lots of production. I felt drawn to the community that I felt when I went to the church with all my friends. And then during my senior year of high school, one of my classmates died of leukemia. I wasn't close to her. But at her memorial service, I just was so I just couldn't I could not understand, like, I like the questioning of why did she die? What was the meaning of her life? She was so young, you know, what was the meaning of all of us? Who remained? I mean, like, it seems I had this sense of like, what am I? Why do I get to stay?
This deep question kind of got buried, you know, and over the years, I took, I went to college, I studied music at Oklahoma State University.
And again, I just loved the way I felt connected and felt like myself, and I was playing music. And so, my flute professor, she was a wonderful role model, I loved everything that she showed me about, oh, you could live your life this way. You could go and play music and teach. And again, I just, I, I saw something way outside of my family experience and even my life experience and I was drawn to it. And I just kept following it that, that those instincts following my gut, and so I, I threw myself into it. I went with winter masterclasses with teachers all over the country and in Europe, and I got to see more of the world than anybody my family ever did. But the stress is still there. And by college, I started using alcohol in a way that you know, I was just using it, I didn't drink a lot in high school. It wasn't that in high school, but in college, I started using it as a way to sort of help me, you know, get over some of the anxiety that I was having. And then I had friends who were using other recreational drugs and you know, we can be ways to really connect with your, you know, higher power and so tried cocaine and ecstasy and mushrooms and LSD. But all of it just made me feel very muddled and certainly not closer to you know, resolving any of these questions. And then my grandfather died. I remember walking into the room and just he wasn't he was hours away from death. And it was the first time I'd been this close to it. And I I was so paralyzed by the the finality of it. I could see was about to die, I could see it. I just I looked at him. I could see he's just about to die. And I I was I was quite paralyzed by that. And then something happened that scared me more than anything else that had happened in my life so far. I was I was sexually assaulted, I was raped. It happened at a party following a college football game. And after that, the feelings of shame and rage and humiliation, it was so overwhelming
the next day, I remember speaking to my friend about it, and she said, I wanted to kill him. I was so angry. I wanted to confront him I wanted and she encouraged me to say nothing and just try to forget about it. There's nothing you can do. You know, we didn't even talk through the legal you know, process of if I wanted to prosecute or anything like that. None of it. It's just let it go. Forget it. And I I took her advice I tried to now all these other drugs didn't make a difference. They didn't really help me at all. But But I did start smoking a lot of marijuana. There was a coping mechanism. That was better, it seemed less. I had less of a hangover if I was smoking marijuana and drinking. And I went to grad school. I kept working on my music career. And I, my teacher at that time was an orchestra player and I I just fell in love with the orchestra. I played in youth orchestra in high school. I fell in love with the sound of the string sound just enveloping you just it's like a huge blanket of comfort. And my teacher was an orchestra player. So I I began. I attached myself to that idea I want to play in an orchestra and it was it was it's a hard process winning an orchestra. I took dozens of auditions But I didn't give up. It requires so much discipline, physical discipline with just playing the instrument, but also just mental conditioning that I worked on with my physical training, you know, trying to work on releasing tension, which was not just about the music, it was about my life, right? Working on my diet, massage and, you know, the stronger I gotten my body, the more confidence I got. And I was a thought that you know, I thought I was moving past this I have these traumas that were laying latent in my unconscious. I thought that's what was happening, but it just kept piling on right. My grandmother died. It was a peaceful death. She was in her sleep. But then a very close friend of mine, a classmate of mine. In graduate school, he he died completely unexpectedly, he had a peanut allergy. He was traveling with the school orchestra in Europe, playing concerts with a group of friends went out to eat at a Chinese restaurant and the food was prepared with peanut oil. He went into epileptics, they went into seizure and he died on the tube. He wasn't wearing a dog tag. He didn't have an EpiPen. Nobody knew what was happening. They didn't nobody knew what was going on. And this I again, I just thrown into this state of what is happening. Why is this happening? Why ham he had just been married. He asked me before he left to check in on his wife, because they were just brand new, and they had just moved to the town that they were living in. We were all living in this point there was a I began to attach a lot of these feelings to specific pieces of music. And
I remember listening to the adagietto from one of the Mahler symphonies, I can't remember which one it was over and over and over again, trying to find the answer in the music. Like what is going on? Why did he have to die that way? At that point in his life, why? So I finally reached a point where I couldn't carry anymore. And I reached out to a friend who was studying psychiatry, and I got advice on how to find a therapist. She recommended I find a behavioral therapist. And so I did. And she said I should interview people. I did not I was too desperate, I just took person who answered my call first.
She helped me quite a bit, I was able to confront the rapist. I worked on expressing the suffering of my early childhood in a few sessions with my parents. It was it was really it was profoundly helpful. And then I want a job in an orchestra and had to move out of town. And I will never forget this therapists words to me at our last session she said Now you've done some good work. Now you're going to have to figure out your spiritual life I remember it so well because it touched a nerve that I had been avoiding. That made the nerve of how very lost I felt how I I didn't know where I didn't know where to look for that. I couldn't stomach what my experience of Christianity was it was like it was it was not it didn't look good to me. I didn't feel any resonance with it.
So the question remained at that point. I moved to Charleston, South Carolina. I was playing principal flute and the Charleston Symphony there
I was still using alcohol and marijuana. Not as much, but I was still using it
and I started having terrifying nightmares that I couldn't awaken from I would
it would it was about somebody coming into my house, I could see the house, I was in this house and the upstairs bedroom, way away from the street, this person would come in the house and, and suffocate me. And then I would try to wake up and I couldn't wake up. I would be paralyzed in bed, I couldn't breathe. And I don't know how long it lasted. Eventually, I took a breath somehow. But this is where it was a recurrent nightmare. I told a friend about this and she said, Oh, I have a wonderful young young therapist, you can maybe you'd like to see her and I did. This was another very wise woman. And she we worked on my dreams. And you know, I became less afraid of interacting with these. This energy that was in my unconscious, and I started to develop a relationship with it. And it was a beginning. Same friend invited me to meditate with her. She had a meditation practice where she spoke to her guardian angels. And she used to have a pendulum and she would use her pendulum to speak to your chip, some of the pendulum was supposed to measure and respond to magnetic or electromagnetic magnetic energy. And so she had this pendulum and she used it to decide what she would eat sometimes some and she'd use it to communicate with this guardian angel. Well, I, you know, I thought okay, well, I'll just, I didn't have a guardian angel. I didn't have a pendulum but I liked meditating. We we were good friends and we exercise together and she was a massage therapist was my one of my massage therapists. So anyway, I felt close to her and I trusted her. So we I would meditate with her it was like once a week or something like that.
And then, not that long after that, I want another job. And that was with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. So I came to Rochester. And as I was preparing to come here, I spoke to my I was I was invited to play as a substitute acting principal flute with the Boston Symphony I was going to play there for the summer between when I left Charleston and came here and my friend said, Oh, we there's a wonderful yoga center near Tanglewood you should go to Kripalu go to Apollo, get a massage, maybe take a yoga class, you know, just go see what it's like. So I did. And
the yoga class I have done some yoga but not a lot. My yoga practice is much more developed now. But after the yoga class, there was a meditation, they led a 15 minute meditation. And this was, again one of these Touchstone experiences where I was like, oh my god, this is amazing to sit here in this energy with people like minded people who was so like, oh, this, this might be it. I mean, I couldn't do it there. I didn't live there. But I thought okay, that's what I'll do. I'll go to Rochester and I'll see if I can find a sitting meditation group. That's what I'll do.
So that was in 1996. It took two more years for me to find my way to the Rochester Zen Center. I only lived on Vic Park be just two blocks away. But in those first few years, my focus was on the orchestra and the music. I wanted to get tenure, I still felt very vulnerable and emotionally fragile. I had done enough work on myself to know that there was a lot more to do. But I felt I couldn't risk distracting myself from from getting the job. I I didn't feel safe. I continued the body work, you know swimming, I started dancing, I had massage therapy. And I still was using, you know marijuana and alcohol to cope with the rest of the anxiety. When I finally came to my first workshop the first person I met was Keith. Oh god, I so terrified and he just sat there in the link with me talking my way he talked and we still talks. It's very cool. Um And from that first workshop I remember so many things that seem to I don't know if they're really from the workshop or if they've just been echoed so many times by Roshi, Bowden Roshi
he
talked about monkey mind I have this idea of monkey mind. I feel like at the time I was like really what's a monkey mind? What is happening actually and now I'm like oh my god I just like like the monkey mind that's all it is like let's time the monkey mind. I'm married now and I have two beautiful sons and I think Oh God that's monkey mind right there those kids their mind is just like wow all over the place. So but that came from the workshop
he asked me after I became a student, a formal student, which is pretty quickly after I don't remember how long actually but it seemed quick because I guess because as soon as I got here, I just felt like oh my gosh, I love these people. I love the feeling of this building. I I didn't feel like I struggled with sitting because I had worked on so much different kinds of mental work to try and improve my concentration to be able to play in the orchestra. I didn't feel that but but I was terrified all the time. I couldn't have the stick I remember my first sushi and I said no I can't Please don't hit me. Just don't I can't take it. So that eventually went away
Hello, come back there
Oh, yeah, I have to talk about this I forgot more therapy. So Roshi my, you know, I he I talked to him about enough about my story that he and I think I asked him I said, I don't know I think I might need more therapy and he he said okay, well it can be very helpful and he recommended a therapist in town who I'm so grateful to have found his staff and Mu therapy definitely therapy is very it's meant to be short term very
I'm not gonna say confrontational but I just did so confrontational man you know so like I went through this process where I we started with my parents it was really mostly my parents and like How deep are those feelings how really digging into it and a little bit of kind of role playing and to the point on sack Yeah, I know there's something going on with the phone it's it's I don't understand my device
Siri things
like you know my email just sidebar My email address is Rebecca low tech, because I'm very like I don't understand me so I've got my iPad here for people who are online and don't know what's going on. And okay, I think this microphone thing is turned off now. Okay. All right. So definitely therapy Yeah, I I did more therapy and daven Mu i It was a very powerful so I mean, I have my sort of backup plan if music wasn't going to work out was always psychology so I loved you know, like looking back and like Wow, I did all this therapy is so good. There's so many different ways people can find help
So okay
where I am now I'm still in love Mu. Remember my first Shane was with Sonya Sensei Bowden's sister. And she described the the approach of the sort of minds to her mind states the wrong word. But the way to come to practice it was she will use these words she said first of all your Buddha nature is perfect and whole. And you can come to be in relationship with your, with your Buddha nature could go to your practice, like it's your lover. And I was so relieved to find so much love here and perfect and a whole love
so that's what drew me, I'm where I am now I'm still questioning. Every day is a gift. No guarantees about anything. I've had more near death. intimate personal experiences. My husband has almost died twice since we've been married and three years or three years, 13 years we've been married 13 years.
It took a solid 10 years of Zen practice many machines for me to uproot enough of the obstacles I had around intimacy and relationship before I could commit to a relationship and marriage.
My fertility story is a long one for another talk. But I wanted to say here that if there's anybody struggling with fertility challenges, please know I'm available to you as a resource. I'd be happy to listen, empathize, share help in any way that would be meaningful. I am so so grateful to the countless beings here at the Rochester Zen Center and all the people that were on my path before finding my life here in Rochester and at the Zen Center, including those that have been the source of much pain and suffering, including my parents. I do love them dearly. My mom is they're both still alive. They were so young when they had me, but their health is failing and she worries very much about me, because she as I got further into my Zen practice, she in her aging and her failing health really clung to her Christian faith and she just texted me yesterday. How worried she is about me and I just wrote her I said you don't have to grieve it's I am strong. My heart is strong and it's horrible
so I just will close with Rumi. Love Rumi.
Love is the water of life jump into the water
so if there's anybody who has any questions I'd be happy to
Okay, Brenda, you're supposed to say your name Thank you
for doing so for a long time. I'm glad we're both still here.
And yeah, we'll just keep going. Yeah, we will. Yeah. I heard some new things. Some things I didn't know some of the details on.
Sangha. So just stick around. Stick around cigarettes is good here
I have two questions. First, thank you for sharing with us.
That's really powerful.
My first question is, Is your mom worried about you because you're not close to your Christian faith. And
my second question is, Are you close to your sister at all?
My mom is worried that yeah, she she says it that way that I have. Not. Yeah. Whatever you said that was it? Yeah. But she's also worried that she won't see me in heaven. Because she really feels that if you don't have Jesus Christ as your Savior, you're not going to happen. So she's worried she's not gonna see me again. When she dies. Yeah. My Yeah, my sister and I are close. She doesn't live here. But yeah, we're pretty close. Thanks for the question. Yeah. So performance in Nazareth
a week ago. Did you not? I did. You were. You're stupendous. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. So let's see if any of the Zoomers have questions. GSA should be on online there.
On online, so Ron Mitchell, go ahead and unmute yourself, and then mute yourself when you're done. And then for the folks that are in the Zendo, if you can speak up a bit so that we can hear your question we can hear Rebecca okay. But it's the questions from the Zen data we can hear. So go ahead round.
So So I'm guessing that the Zen helped the, with your therapy and music work? Can you share in ways that it it helped go along with your therapy and music work?
Yeah.
Well, I guess I will start with, when I first started practicing, I thought, well, this will really help me my performances will really help, like, help my concentration because I was having, you know, like, I had, you know, concentration breaks, I didn't like it. Like when I would perform, I would I didn't like playing from memory because I was afraid of making a mistake. And I saw I was I was like trying to I thought this outside would help me make less mistakes. And when I played when I played music that's how it started. But then it became so much more. And I guess rather than going through all of the steps in between, I'll say that just last night, I gave performance with the orchestra and I in preparation for this talk, Roshi. His advice was make sure you sit a lot. So I did I satellite yesterday, including, you know, right before the performance and it was powerful it was, you know, it's there's something about being so presence, so they're, like being available for everything that's happening right then it was very powerful. I mean, I, I still, you know, I don't often sit right before performance, but if it's a big one, I do. And, you know, the more I do, the deeper it is, and the more fantastic it is. So I guess that's what I would say about that. Ron, thanks for your question. Oh, therapy. Yeah, it's good for therapy to really good. Anyone else online?
Had a question or comment for Rebecca. Okay, I see no one else yet. So back to the Zendo.
Jared here, really appreciate your story. It's very similar alcoholic
the thing I really appreciate is that you recognize the help you had along the way, even to here, then, you know even just to work, work your way through the suffering. And to me, this is one of the two places I go to, I feel is my needs and also here because here the suffering is it's more clear it's not for me suppressed as I have the tendency to do. So I really appreciate what you said
looks like we have a question from Wayman. Women go ahead and unmute yourself unmute you're unmuted now got it.
Okay. Yeah. But it's to me one credibly with your complete wholehearted sharing of of
Do you that are done
Yes, we heard that thank you very much.
Any more questions there?
I mean, just in appreciation of my parents struggled as a Southern Baptist with my going for Buddhism to and I suffered with those. I think we all suffer
with that
with our parents some of the silver from them.
Yeah, hi, this is Luca, Rebecca, I just want to thank you so much for sharing so openly about your upbringing and your assault, and your escape mechanisms, and just everything. And I really appreciate hearing not only the, you know, the courageous vulnerability that you brought, but also how you found support through therapy, and bodywork and art. You know, supplementing your Zen practice, I think my impression at least is that there can be a tendency to spiritually bypass a lot of a lot of the stuff, the suffering and the traumas that we experience in our lives and to just sort of bliss out Zen practice in some way or to just numb out using it. And I have the strong impression that you did not do that and you engage with it in a lot of different ways over the years and yeah, I just really admire that. So thank you for sharing
okay, there's nothing more.
Yeah. Rebecca, you this is Michel, by the way. And you mentioned at the beginning that you wanted this talk to be called the layering of suffering. Can you speak a little bit about kind of what it means to to, like, peel back those layers or especially like in the light of having children of your own trying to maybe protect them from your own trauma, or I don't know. I don't know what my just jet Yeah, just what does that mean for you?
Well, I guess I chose the words layering, because, you know, Roshi often would talk about the seven practices like peeling back the layers of an onion, right. And so I chose that, because that, so with my kids, I mean, they, they, they do Zen with me. I mean, it's, you know, they, my oldest was almost virtually conceived here. We were doing IVF.
So they, they're, they've grown up here. Do I want to protect them? I don't, of course, I want to protect them. But I think I
with with the Zen practice i in the zozen that they do. I mean, I think of it is a life skill for them. That it's not, it's not a religion, really. for them. It's not they, you know, they don't they're very gooey. They help them before I came, I said, I'm doing something hard today. So I need your support. So great. They both gave me these big hugs. You're gonna be great mommy.
Julian said, You'll be better. I was like better, like he said, better than you think you're gonna be. I think of it as a life skill for them right now. You know, and and
as far as protecting them God, yeah, I'd love to protect them. But they, you know, it's not possible. Really. I mean, I think the best we can do, or I feel like the best I can do for them is that we give them the grace to just be present for them through all the things that they are going through. And then again, the life skill of being able to be in their lives as presently as possible. So and then the rest of it kind of just takes care of itself. I mean, not everything, but you know, I'll be the guide as much as I can. And I trust them. I think. And I trust the, you know, I trust what I found here is the sort of container for it. I don't know if they'll continue to practice, but I don't know, it doesn't really matter right now. It's just they have access to it. And I don't think they'll forget it. It's part of their lives now. Right. So I didn't have that. Did I did I want to try to give them a different life than I did? Yes, I did. But not in every way. Was it possible? I mean, I'm not going to. I mean, I still have a temper. You know, it's, I remember, I can't believe I, I remember when Julie and my oldest was not that old and I got so angry. I hit him. I mean, I hit him out of anger. And I, I mean, it was a shock to me like, oh my god, I mean, my parents did hit me. I thought oh my god, I'm doing what they did. And anyway, it drove me back to the mat. I did more Zen and it my temper is much better. I asked them I said Yes, ma'am. You're getting better.
You have such courage.
Okay, so we'll end with the
first I just want to say thank you for sharing today and for all you do. You contribute to our Sangha.
