---
ai_generation_date: '2026-05-03'
ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview
audiodharma:
  talks:
  - date: '2026-04-25'
    mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/25361/20260425-lien_shutt-sati-coming_together_for_connecting_speech.mp3
    speakers:
    - speaker_name: "Li\xEAn Shutt"
      speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/449
    talk_start_time_seconds: 0
    title: Coming Together for Connecting Speech
    url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/25361
    video_unavailable: false
location_city: Redwood City, CA
video_unavailable: false
youtube:
  id: q9qJOkMEWyY
  imprecise_upload_date: null
  title: "Coming Together for Connecting Speech with Li\xEAn Shutt"
  upload_date: '2026-04-27'
  uploader_str: The Sati Center
  uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSatiCenter
youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9qJOkMEWyY
---

# Coming Together for Connecting Speech - [Liên Shutt](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/449)

*This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.*

## [Coming Together for Connecting Speech](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/25361)

## Introduction

Thank you for the invitation to offer this with the Sati Center. I want to thank my teachers, Victoria Austin[^1] from the San Francisco Zen Center, and Gil Fronsdal[^2] from the Insight Meditation Center. 

Thank you to all of you for being here. My pronouns are she and they. I am a reverend, so you can call me Reverend Liên, or, now that Gil is at IMC and we don't use our ordained titles, you can just call me Liên. I am zooming in from Huchiun territory in West Oakland.

Today, we're here for about three hours. In the first part, we will do what I consider acknowledging what is, or being with the quivering heart in the conditions of our time. In the second half, we will tend to the quivering heart with some restorative practices. Please take good care of yourselves; this is an interactive workshop.

## Participant Check-ins

**Liên:** I'd love to hear from you. Please tell us your name, your pronouns, and the speech challenge or issue that brought you here today.

**Yvonne:** Mindful speaking is challenging. I'd like to get better at it. I've practiced a lot with mindful listening, and I think I have that down. So that's part of why I'm here today.

**Kim:** I support people with their relationships, like parents, children, and couples. I realized recently that I could use some more understanding around skills to share. I also learn through my own experience, so I'm looking forward to learning all kinds of good things today.

**Bernadette:** I am here to continue to hear teachings on right speech. I will be listening to these teachings until the day I die, and I am still learning.

**Rebecca:** I am here to work on the right speech piece, which I find really difficult in the moment—to be really mindful of what I'm saying as I'm saying it.

**Ann Marie:** I am here partly because I perceive myself as not being articulate, or not always being able to express my feelings and thoughts clearly. As an outdoor teacher for children and families, I want to be present to help them navigate their differences and conflicts.

**Emma:** I resonate with what Ann Marie just said about not feeling able to articulate my thoughts very well. I also feel that talking to people with very differing values than myself is really challenging. I've learned a lot from practice, but I still have a lot to learn.

**Ines:** I decided to take this talk because I need to learn more about how to deal with my speech.

**Shinsen:** I also have trouble articulating sometimes, but in addition to practicing right speech, I'd like to practice right listening, because that's a good part of it.

**Han:** I've been participating in NVC (Nonviolent Communication) courses lately, and when I saw this invitation, I felt it was right on time.

**Paranas:** English is my second language, and it's fun to practice with. I am happy to be here.

## The Craft of Skillful Speech

**Liên:** I am glad to hear that you're all here to practice. There are many ways to come into this course. I was trying to figure out a way to present it. Most days I go down the street—and for those who know West Oakland, I walk down Mandela Parkway. It's a city park with a wide paved area for walking that meanders through grass and flowering bushes. It's probably a two or three-mile track. 

When I go walking, I think about how skillful speech is like sitting: we all know how to sit, but there is a craft to sitting with a purpose. In this case, it's speaking with the purpose of being skillful. In a certain section of the grass area, there is a six-inch ribbon that goes around. I don't know why they have it, but when I go walking, I often walk on it to practice my balance. Even though it's just six inches wide and the drop-off is tiny, across a twenty-foot length I inevitably have to find my balance—sometimes because a weed has grown over it, or I have to step over a stick. 

We all know the value of skillful speech. Right now, at least as I see it in the United States and much of the world, there is a lot of divisive, harmful speech happening. We communicate all the time, and yet at times we need to concentrate and focus our practice. Deciding to walk along that six-inch ribbon allows us to experience where and how we get thrown off, so to speak—not in a bad way, just learning how to find our balance again. That is the intention of today.

We are framing this within the Eightfold Path[^3]. In the Eightfold Path, *Sammā*[^4] is the word that precedes all the path factors, and in the past, it has been translated as "right." I once heard Thanissaro Bhikkhu[^5] say that in the suttas[^6], "right" is used in the sense that if you go to milk a cow, you wouldn't pull on the horn or the tail; the right place to pull is the udder if you want to get milk. So "right" here is more like "appropriate." To step away from the right-and-wrong dichotomy, I like to use the word "skillful." The teaching gives us skillful means and parameters on how to communicate. "Skillful" also implies that one has to practice it to become *more* skillful.

## Guided Meditation: Upekkhā (Equanimity)

*Please note: The following is a lightly edited transcript of the guided meditation.*

As you are all practitioners, I'm going to be quiet for a few minutes before I guide you in an Upekkhā[^7] (equanimity) meditation.

Note that the body is always present. In the first foundation of mindfulness, it is awareness of the body in the body. We often start by focusing on either the posture or the breath. Just notice the body as it sits or stands. Where do you feel supported? Where do you feel the wind of the inhale or the exhale? Rest on what is easy to know, both as an anchor for the mind and as a sensation. Sense the weight of the body on your sitting bones or your feet, or the wind at the back of your nostril as you inhale.

[Silence]

Upekkhā meditation in the Brahma Viharas[^8] is often translated as equanimity. Classically, equanimity here is the understanding of karma[^9], or a broader sense of accountability. It means remembering the bigger picture in the midst of how we view things. The word *Upekkhā* is often literally translated as "in the midst of." So, where do we find balance or harmony in the midst of difficulties? I like to try it on as "resilience." 

This meditation is for oneself and for all. We'll start out with yourself. Visualize yourself in any way that can receive these phrases. You can repeat them silently to yourself, or you can say them quietly out loud in your own space. What is important here is the ability to let it absorb. Strengthen your confidence in these qualities. Focus on whatever aspect resonates for you and let it in as true and possible, if only for a moment.

Visualize yourself as you are now, old or young. I like to think of myself perhaps as an ocean that's vast and wide, or a gentle breeze that's everywhere.

*I am the nature of flexibility as I meet the comings and goings of my life.*
*I am the nature of flexibility as I meet the comings and goings of my life.*

Feel free at any time during this meditation to move if you need to. This is not about pushing through; it is about absorption. Allow it to be easy, to be known fully in body, heart, and mind.

*Joys and sorrows are a natural part of my life, and I am open and able to receive.*
*Joys and sorrows are a natural part of my life, and I am open and able to receive.*

*Let me access clarity of heart and mind to meet the conditions of my life as it is.*
*Let me access clarity of heart and mind to meet the conditions of my life as it is.*

*May I know that resilience is of my nature all the days of my life.*
*May I know that resilience is of my nature all the days of my life.*

On the next inhale, connect with how you know the qualities in these phrases: resilience, clarity of heart and mind, flexibility, being open and able to receive. It doesn't have to be the concepts or the ideas; just feel how they are true and possible. Let the phrases in. Let the qualities permeate. Rest in knowing the full body of heart and mind.

Now visualize all beings, none left out. For many, this is a time in which a sense of radiating out—like a breeze or a light rain—is helpful. For some, touching your heart space as you do this is useful.

*May all beings access flexibility within the comings and goings of their lives.*
*May all beings access flexibility within the comings and goings of their lives.*

*May every one of us be able to harmonize our joys and sorrows as they come and go.*
*May every one of us be able to harmonize our joys and sorrows as they come and go.*

*Let clarity of heart and mind be our guide in every situation, in service of non-harming.*
*Let clarity of heart and mind be our guide in every situation, in service of non-harming.*

*May the realization that our strength rests in resilience be possible for every one of us all the days of our lives.*
*May the realization that our strength rests in resilience be possible for every one of us all the days of our lives.*

On the next inhale, connect to how you know these qualities as true and possible. On the exhale, feel these truths inside. Then extend them outwardly. As everyone here is doing this meditation, sending it out to all beings, feel it coming back to you like a resonance. Send it out again as a back-and-forth, supporting us all. 

[Silence]

Feel the result of your practice in body, heart, and mind. If there is one place where you really feel the truth—where you can easily access the settledness that comes from resilience and flexibility—focus on that. Know that it is a place in your body that you can return to at any point, a place that can give you a sense of groundedness in the midst of internal or external events.

## Reflections on the Meditation

**Bernadette:** The wording is beautiful. Did you write the words? 

**Liên:** Thank you. Yes, I worked with Gil Fronsdal on some of this for my book back in 2021. 

**Yvonne:** That was wonderful. At the end, I found that the concepts—resilience, flexibility, clarity, wisdom—were very prevalent. I was able to access the feeling in the heart at the end. The words dominated at first, but then I felt that warmth.

**Liên:** Yes, certainly. We live in concepts; there's not a problem with that. Meditation helps us to feel it and know it.

**Han:** I would like to say thank you very much. Even though I am used to being led in meditation in Hebrew, your words really penetrated my heart, and I feel overwhelmed.

**Liên:** Thank you very much. Sometimes these qualities are very hard to access. The Buddha taught the Brahma Viharas as easeful practices, and sometimes we take ease for granted. Part of what we're doing today, especially later in the skillful speech part, is learning to really feel them more.

## The Engaged Four Noble Truths

I want to give a brief overview of the Eightfold Path and then skillful speech. I'm teaching this from my book, *Home is Here: Practicing Anti-Racism with the Engaged Eightfold Path*. 

In 2017, I was at a Generation X Buddhist teachers' conference. Following another round of sexual misconduct in some Buddhist communities, the organizers brought in Cedar Barstow's[^10] "Right Use of Power" model. In every situation, there is a power differential, so there is a skillful (wholesome) and an unskillful (unwholesome) use of it. Being aware of power and context is critical. In terms of intersectionality, power can shift in a moment. Within the system of racism, as an Asian-American, I hold less power. Within sexism, I also hold less power. However, right now, as the teacher leading this workshop, I am in a position of power—I have the microphone and the authority that comes with the role. 

I left that conference thinking about how, when there are issues in Buddhist communities, we often bring in outside models like Nonviolent Communication. While those modalities are wonderful, I kept wondering: *What about Buddhism?* That is where I go when I am looking for support. So, I dared to frame the Four Noble Truths as a restorative model. 

There are three aspects to restorative healing. Right now, there are many traumatic events happening that shake our sense of the world and cause our social agreements to be questioned. To address challenges and heal, three things are needed:

1. **Acknowledge what is.** This aligns with the First Noble Truth ("In life there is Dukkha[^11]"). In the engaged version, it is: *Harm and harming are present.* To have restoration, we must agree on what the problem is. In mediation, so much of the work is helping parties agree on what the cause of harm is. 
2. **Understand the causes and conditions.** This aligns with the Second Noble Truth. In the engaged version: *Understanding fully the causes and conditions for harm and harming.* 
3. **Put shifts into practice.** This aligns with the Third and Fourth Noble Truths. It is not enough to acknowledge the problem; we must learn to act. In the engaged version, the Third Noble Truth is: *Individual and collective agency for ending harm is possible.* Hopelessness is very difficult to hold right now. Connecting with our agency is the good news of Buddhism. The Fourth Noble Truth is the path itself. In the engaged version: *The Eightfold Path empowers wholeness.*

Naming Dukkha is a positive thing. As an activist, people often think of us as the problem. But when you voice issues, you are saying, "We have agreements that everyone should have happiness, shelter, and a living wage. If these are our values, why isn't this happening?" Voicing this gives us a sense of wholeness when oppression threatens to fragment and divide us. It is how we stay unified.

## The Eightfold Path and Karma

The Eightfold Path is broken into three sections: Wisdom, Ethical Conduct, and Meditative factors. 

The Wisdom section contains Skillful Understanding (View) and Skillful Intention (Motivation). In the Buddhist framing, our understanding of the world involves applying the Four Noble Truths and karma. Karma is the context: *Because of this, that happens.* I call it the accountability section. To explain karma, think of gardening. When you start a garden, you have a vision of what it will be. But when you get to the dirt, you realize that no dirt is pure; it comes with all the things that happened in the soil before. When I was the head gardener at Tassajara[^12] (a Soto Zen monastery deep in the Ventana Wilderness), we built elaborate structures to protect our seeds from bugs, birds, and animals, but conditions always impact the result. Karma is what comes from the past, how surrounding conditions determine the present result, and how what you plant now conditions the future. 

Skillful Intention (or Motivation) is the second Wisdom factor. Our thoughts are never passive; they are very purposeful. Your thinking becomes your beliefs, and your beliefs drive your actions. 

This brings us to the Ethical Conduct section (which I like to call Compassionate Connection): Skillful Speech, Skillful Action, and Skillful Livelihood. Notice that speech has its own category because it is so powerful. Our internal thoughts are like internal speech, which easily drives our external speech. 

Finally, there is the Meditative section: Skillful Effort, Skillful Mindfulness, and Skillful Concentration. Gil Fronsdal likes to say that the meditative factors are the bridge. When we are meditating, we are asking ourselves: *Am I living in accordance with my values? Is my motivation acting out into compassionate conduct?* We are practicing to access and balance a wholesome body, heart, and mind. Our biggest delusion is not understanding what is wholesome versus what is unwholesome.

## Skillful Speech: TUGS

I'd like to share a story from my book to illustrate skillful speech. 

> "I am in a practice period, a 90-day meditation retreat at the convert Soto Zen monastery where I've been living for three years. I'm part of the Doan-ryo[^13], a selected group of senior practitioners who are in charge of organizing all the activities in the Zendo[^14]. This position involves tasks such as letting people know when to come to meditate, participating in ceremonies, leading chants, and leading the serving team during Oryoki[^15] (formal eating). 
> 
> A white male teacher is leading this practice period. As is part of the format of any Soto Zen intensive session, each practitioner goes to see the leader of the intensive for a formal Dokusan[^16], a one-on-one interview about your practice with the abbot of a temple. Meeting with the leader one time is mandatory. The format I had been trained in was to bring a question to the teacher about a teaching point, one's practice, or how practice can support a life difficulty. 
> 
> On this occasion, being the first meeting with this person, I didn't have a question for him. So, I asked him if he had one for me. He did.
> 
> 'I've been watching you. You go around looking glum a lot. What's going on?'
> 
> I answered, 'I am having a lot of body issues. Some of it is overwork as head gardener the past two and a half years, but most of it is that I'm having a hard time with the racism that's happening here at the monastery.'
> 
> He answered, 'You need to not think about yourself so much. You should focus on taking care of others.'
> 
> I looked at him, baffled. I had just started to share a pain that was the result of the impact of systemic oppression. Without having had any discussion with me, this was his advice. 
> 
> I paused, then said, 'You don't even know me. How can you say that? As an Asian-American woman, my whole life is thinking about other people. I've been taught to always put other people's needs first. And what does that have to do with my experiences of racism here anyway?'
> 
> 'Your practice as a Doan is to take care of the Sangha. You should be putting the Sangha's needs first,' he asserted. 
> 
> As he had completely ignored my point twice now—the subject of racism and its impact on me and my practice—I realized this was going to go nowhere. So I politely bowed out of the room."

Yes, this story focuses on racism, but it's also about what happens when speech doesn't connect. The abbot had his own frame of what was important. Having the "up" power—being the abbot, being white, being male—he got to assert what was significant. 

When we engage in speech, we have to examine the ways we've been taught to communicate. Who has the authority? How do we use our authority? When we focus on skillful speech, we must ask two things: Is it relational (connecting), and is it contextual? We cannot understand relational speech without understanding context, such as power differentials and roles.

I summarize the four factors of Skillful Speech with the acronym **TUGS**:
* **Truthful:** Truth is often thought of as mere facts and information, but it is deeply contextual. It depends on what is happening, the roles involved, and the purpose of the communication.
* **Uplifting:** Instead of speech that divides, is the motivation to bring forth something positive and uplifting?
* **Gentle:** The suttas advise us to refrain from harsh and abusive speech. In a positive context: is the speech gentle?
* **Significant:** Classically, the teaching asks us to refrain from idle chatter or gossip. I reframe this positively as ensuring our speech is significant.

## Deep Listening Exercise

We are going into dyads to practice deep listening, a concept originally taught by Thich Nhat Hanh[^17]. Often, when we listen, we aren't truly listening. We're taking in information and reacting: *I like it, I don't like it, I agree, I disagree. Oh, when they stop talking, I have some advice or a story to share.* 

In this exercise, one person will remain completely silent and give the gift of fully listening. You don't have to reflect back or remember what they are saying. Listening is hard for most of us because we are constantly processing and making things up. 

I also call this "speaking deeply." Many of us are conditioned to speak for the other person to make them feel comfortable. If someone looks confused, we explain more. If they look bored or angry, we throw in a joke. We end up talking for them, not from our truth. We also tend to loop our own stories like a soap opera. This is a space to speak freely without trying to please anyone.

**The Prompt:** What is a speech issue you are having difficulty with, and what is its impact on you right now? 

Briefly state the issue in one or two lines, and spend the rest of the time talking about its visceral impact on you. Check in with how your body feels. You might say, "My sister and I just had a fight about her car. As I'm saying that, my chest feels heavy and I feel sad. I'm just going to stay with the heaviness." Try to speak in a way that is about the present impact.

## Reflections on the Deep Listening Dyads

**Maryanne:** It felt good to get this minor incident off my chest—a moment where I did not use right speech. It relieved me of the burden a little bit. When remembering it, I felt a bit of queasiness and self-disgust, like I should know better than to get on that train.

**Yvonne:** When I was talking about the incident, I started to feel ill will and full-body agitation. It was an old story I've shared with friends, and I found myself wondering, *How can I talk about this freshly without relying on rigidified content?* But later, when I talked about the growth I've experienced with relational mindfulness, my body felt happy and light, and I found myself smiling. 

**Liên:** Yes, we feel these things in our bodies. In Buddhism, we have six sense doors: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. We often prioritize the mind, but as organisms, we are primarily sensing beings. Ease of body brings mindfulness more easily.

**Emma:** It was very freeing to talk without trying to be understood. It's a theme in my life—the internal battle of sharing how I feel, but feeling unseen when I'm not understood. I caught myself trying to articulate better, and then just deciding, "Whatever, moving on." When I feel I must make someone understand, I notice a feeling of exhaustion and frustration. 

**Liên:** That is so true. When an issue is chronic, we often get stuck trying to convince each other of our point of view. Not being seen or heard is a big thing. Often, when we want to connect, we think we must make people agree with us. But what we truly crave is a visceral, emotional connection. When you have a heartfelt, friendly connection, it becomes easier to hold differences. 

## Guided Meditation: Mettā and Karuṇā

*Please note: The following is a lightly edited transcript of the guided meditation.*

We are going to do Mettā[^18] and Karuṇā[^19] (loving-kindness and compassion) meditation. We're just going to do it for ourselves. Visualize yourself in any way that can receive this. Easefulness and compassion might be hard to let in. Any part of you that can feel this is perfectly fine.

*May I be filled with kindness.*
*Let me connect with a sense of wellness whenever I need it.*
*May peace and ease be accessible to me here and now.*
*Let me be happy.*
*May I connect to safety and strength whenever it's needed.*
*Let me be able to bring mercy and tenderness to my pains and sorrows.*
*May I be able to forgive myself for past mistakes.*
*Let me be able to connect to patience with myself and with others.*
*May I be free from suffering and the causes of suffering all the days of my life.*

On your next inhale, connect with how you know these qualities: kindness, well-being, peace, ease, happiness, safety, strength, mercy, tenderness, forgiveness, patience, and freedom from suffering. Let it in. On the exhale, feel the absorption. It is not so much a "doing" as simply receiving. Let it be sensed and known in a visceral way throughout the whole body and mind. 

[Silence]

Rest in the results of your practice. Let these qualities uplift you and provide a sense of gentleness. See if you can hold the visceral feel of these qualities deep in your bones, so you can access them at any time.

## Finding Our Resonant Qualities

**Liên:** Please write down for yourself which one of those qualities resonated with you the most. Was it kindness? Peace and ease? Mercy and tenderness? Trust what comes up. Notice if a certain phrasing helped—for me, shifting from "May I be..." to "Let me connect with..." allowed me to receive it more easily. 

Truthful and Significant are the *what* of skillful speech, but Uplifting and Gentle are the *how*. Mettā and Karuṇā are practices that soften us. We practice them to cultivate a core strength, so that when the path narrows to six inches, we don't lose our balance. 

Compassion can be a harder practice because it is inherently relational. It is the active wish and commitment to alleviate suffering. Here is a helpful distinction from Gil Fronsdal: 

> "Because people sometimes confuse compassion with feelings of distress, it is helpful to clearly distinguish these two. Compassion doesn't make us victims of suffering, whereas feeling distress on another's behalf often does. Learning how to see the suffering of the world without taking it on personally is very important. When we take it personally, it is easy to become depressed or burdened. We can avoid taking it as a personal burden or obligation if we learn to feel empathy without it touching our own fears, attachments, and perhaps unresolved grief."

This is why we first acknowledge what is here inside of us. If we recognize our own grief or agenda, we can set it aside to truly see what is needed. Wisdom and compassion are the two wings of Buddhism. If you just use wisdom, you fly in circles; if you just use compassion, you fly in circles the other way. We need the discernment to know where we're going, and the compassion to adjust our course.

Dogen[^20] once wrote: *"To think that you go forth and experience the myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things come forth and reveal themselves is awakening."* 

We often think we need to aggressively seek out insights. But the true juiciness of practice happens when we settle enough to let the myriad things—our pain, our joy, our anger—reveal themselves. We learn to value what is being revealed rather than rushing to fix or annihilate it. 

### Mad Liberation Exercise
To finish, we did an exercise I call "Mad Liberation," inspired by the game Mad Libs. Partners took turns offering a sentence stem based on the qualities of Mettā and Karuṇā, and the other person filled in the blank. For example: 

* "You know wellness by..." *(a feeling of ease).*
* "You are aware of patience when..."
* "You can access forgiveness for yourself when..."

This exercise helps us identify how we uniquely experience and recognize these qualities in our daily lives, allowing us to rest in them more easily.

## Final Reflections

**Bernadette:** My experience in the exercise was a sense of floating and movement—a natural, relaxed back-and-forth in the speaking and listening. It felt very nutritive, nourishing, and loving.

**Ann Marie:** It felt like a precious connection. It was very rhythmic, peaceful, and generative. I felt a beautiful sense of receiving when sharing and listening.

**Shinsen:** It was like table tennis with a coach. They gently send the ball back to you, challenging you slightly more each time, until you are playing equally.

**Maryanne:** I didn't completely understand the instructions, so I was winging it. I worried I wasn't doing it right or finding the right word. It was helpful when I just relaxed and stopped worrying about filling in the blank perfectly.

**Liên:** That is so much of practice. We often think wisdom is something we have to aggressively go out and get. But practice is actually about receiving. It's about letting go of our agendas and allowing the world to reveal itself.

Thank you very much for your participation and your practice. It is always a pleasure to engage in the Dharma together. I hope that whatever benefited you today, you will carry with you, and whatever didn't land well, you can let go. May you feel connection today, and may it enrich your life and the lives of many others.

---

[^1]: **Victoria Austin:** A senior Dharma teacher and Zen priest at the San Francisco Zen Center.
[^2]: **Gil Fronsdal:** An influential Buddhist teacher, author, and co-teacher at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California.
[^3]: **Eightfold Path:** The Buddha's foundational guide to ethical conduct, mental discipline, and wisdom, leading to the end of suffering.
[^4]: **Sammā:** A Pali word meaning "right," "perfect," or "skillful," used as a prefix for the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path.
[^5]: **Thanissaro Bhikkhu:** An American Buddhist monk of the Thai Forest Tradition, known for his translations of Pali suttas and extensive teachings.
[^6]: **Suttas:** The discourses of the Buddha as preserved in the Pali Canon.
[^7]: **Upekkhā:** A Pali word meaning "equanimity," one of the four Brahma Viharas.
[^8]: **Brahma Viharas:** The four "divine abodes" or sublime states in Buddhism: loving-kindness (Mettā), compassion (Karuṇā), sympathetic joy (Muditā), and equanimity (Upekkhā).
[^9]: **Karma:** The principle of cause and effect, where a person's intentional actions influence their future.
[^10]: **Cedar Barstow:** An author, teacher, and creator of the "Right Use of Power" approach to ethics.
[^11]: **Dukkha:** A Pali word often translated as "suffering," "stress," or "unsatisfactoriness."
[^12]: **Tassajara:** Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, a Soto Zen monastery deep in California's Ventana Wilderness.
[^13]: **Doan-ryo:** In Zen Buddhism, the group of practitioners responsible for playing the bells, instruments, and leading chants during services.
[^14]: **Zendo:** A Zen meditation hall.
[^15]: **Oryoki:** A meditative and formal practice of eating that evolved in Buddhist monasteries in China and Japan.
[^16]: **Dokusan:** A formal, private interview between a Zen student and a teacher.
[^17]: **Thich Nhat Hanh:** A globally recognized Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist, and founder of the Plum Village Tradition.
[^18]: **Mettā:** A Pali word meaning "loving-kindness," one of the four Brahma Viharas.
[^19]: **Karuṇā:** A Pali word meaning "compassion," one of the four Brahma Viharas.
[^20]: **Dogen:** A Japanese Buddhist priest, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan.