I wonder, just as someone who doesn't know a ton about Chinese history, I would love to get, and feel free to make this as dumbed down as possible because we don't need a huge history lesson, but I wonder what was going on with Chinese Buddhism in the Sui and Tang dynasties that drew you to this? And I wonder, is that informing your practice of Buddhism in a way that might look different than the way others practice Buddhism because of your depth of knowledge about what was happening then?

Yeah.

um you know now i'm hesitant to speak because of good logical colleagues that might listen into this at some point i would describe it as that they um during this way in tongue dynasties we have um buddhism in china being taken really seriously by the chinese intellectual elite So there's a lot of funding from the Imperial Court even for Buddhist monastic centers, especially with a lot of Buddhist higher learning going on.

It's very easy for monks.

The court itself is often interested in Buddhist practice and Buddhist scriptures.

Funding translation projects.

But also beyond the court, just a lot of intellectuals and literati.

Is there a danger in moving straight to meditation without starting with those other things? How do you feel about people kind of taking pieces of Buddhism without the whole thing?