I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good morning. I think we must have devised some liquid that you paint on cars to make them disappear because there still seem to be a few people here but not nearly so many cars or we're hiding them in an underground car park. I hope not. I have been thinking a lot in the recent weeks about Thanksgiving and gratitude.

[01:05]

I think that the Thanksgiving holiday is perhaps my favorite, certainly one of my most favorite all-American holidays. It's so easy to celebrate the occasion for giving thanks even if we do eat too much. But somehow it makes a kind of sense which I'm afraid some of our other holidays don't always make for me. But even before I was so particularly aware of Thanksgiving I have been appreciating and noticing and working with the cultivation of generosity which of course depends upon the arising of some sense of gratitude. And in seeking to cultivate kindness noticing quite explicitly and widely how much my life

[02:09]

depends upon the kindness of others. And as so many of you know and are devoting a life practice to considering the central teaching in the Buddhist tradition is that teaching about the nature of reality which stipulates that wisdom, understanding the emptiness of self, independent self-existence simultaneously with the teaching about dependent arising. That recognition of how much, how intimately, how specifically, how constantly our lives are interconnected with each other, with all beings and things. I notice at this time of year because there's more of the night somehow I notice the night sky a little differently than I do at other times of the year.

[03:12]

And particularly these days we've had such, these nights, we've had such beautiful starry nights. And I look up into the night sky and see the stars and almost always think of Indra's net, that image of this great vast cosmic net. And I've been thinking the last few days about each of us as one of those intersection points, one of those jeweled knots in the net, all connected up close or far but connected. And of course in paying attention to the kindness of others and our connection, our interdependence with each other, what inevitably comes up has to do with what is an obstacle, what are the obstacles. In my being aware of this deep connectedness, good old self-clinging shows up more often

[04:20]

than I care to admit. And arising from that then all the other stuff, what we sometimes call almost by code as greed, hate and delusion. I want to this morning talk about this matter of thanksgiving, of gratitude, as it arises out of our meditation on interconnectedness, with particular regard to the holiday season because I know that this is a difficult time for many of us in spite of the commercials, maybe to some degree because of the commercials. We have so many expectations about what the holidays are supposed to be like.

[05:21]

On Friday morning at our Friday morning meditation group, what I heard were stories that people were telling about all of the sadness and grief that comes up in spending the Thanksgiving holiday with one's family when one's family isn't quite as one would wish one's family to be. They're just still the same old family that we've had for so long, continuing to disappoint me in my vast and splendid expectations of them, providing me the great opportunity to be upset and grieved and angry because they're not behaving, distracting myself from the one being that I could do something about. So I think a lot about the holidays. I think a lot about this period of time between now

[06:24]

and the winter solstice, which for some of us yawns like a big black hole. The nights get longer and the days get shorter and we sink. I don't, blessedly so far, have this experience myself. I think perhaps it's because I've fallen in love too much with the night sky. But I know from those that I love and care about that it is indeed a difficult time. And to the degree that I keep paying attention to what my expectations are, then I can keep asking myself, well, is this expectation realistic? Is it a little more realistic if I let somebody know that I have it? I've discovered that it's far more likely that my husband will say, let's go to the movies Saturday night if I let him know I have a slight inclination to go to the movies with him one of these nights

[07:27]

than if I keep it a secret and hope that he'll read my mind and ask me. And I think that Christmas and Hanukkah and New Year's and all of it is fraught with those expectations where we hope someone will read our mind. Expectations that someone will behave differently than they have every year up until now. Expectations that someone will behave differently than they have every year. Expectations are a big piece of our suffering in any time of the year, but I think in a particular and poignant way these days that we are in the midst of. For those of us who live on this side of the ridge and for those of us who hang out in a garden, this time of year is a great reminder about how we humans might behave. The world of plants

[08:31]

and animals, I don't know about the fish, but I know about plants and animals and birds, they all change their behavior at this time of year. They rest. They hibernate. They drop their leaves and pull their energy in and go deep in a way that you can't see. But for any of us who love the garden in the spring, we know now is the time when the real work is going on, that deep renewing. But how many of us take this time of year as an occasion for our own renewing? We have electric lights. We can pretend it's daylight any time of the day or night. We're very busy people, we Americans. We become addicted to our busyness and we forget about how to slow down. And this time of year is certainly about simplifying

[09:36]

and slowing down. For those of us who are a little more deciduous than others, we might even lose our leaves. I favor the deciduous mode because it's a chance to see the bones, the structure of the tree or the bush or ourselves. I wonder though, there's that thing about gaining weight in the winter, a little fat to keep you warm, that's not quite deciduous, is it? Well, you get my point anyway. So Friday morning, as I drove over the hill to go to the church in Tiburon where a group of us practice meditation practices and consider various practices having to do with the precepts, as I was driving on the road going up the north side of this valley, I nearly drove off the road with ecstasy because of the beauty

[10:43]

of that time of day or night or not really either, just between. Enough light so that I could see the lines on the palm of my hand, barely. And as I drove up the road Friday morning, a beautiful young, I imagine young because his coat was so fluffy and beautiful, a gray fox skittered across the road and jumped in between the railings of the guardrail, letting me have a fine glimpse of his tail. There were, as is almost always true, especially in the early morning and in the evening, the required number of deer of all sizes and shapes looking around calmly saying, oh, one of you here in our place, wagging their tails. Later

[11:52]

in the morning, when we went for a long walk up on the ridge, we saw a splendid deer leap, an unbelievable leap, almost frozen in space as he went off higher up out of the way of the dog. But Friday morning in that wonderful time before dawn, when you could just begin to see the line of the ridge, the silhouette of the trees up at the upper end of the valley or the gulch, as we call it, I had a kind of palpable sense of all the critters, all the beings who live in this region, skunk and possum, bobcat, every once in a while some sign of mountain lion, although not for a while, great horned owls and hawks, the

[12:56]

all kinds of birds that come and go and some that stay all year round, wonderful trees and bushes and flowers. And what came up for me that morning and has lingered quite persistently is some deep gratitude for this valley, that we all have this place. We are, of course, part of the great watershed which is marked and most known by Redwood Creek, which begins in the ridge line, the mountain above Muir Woods and which Green Gulch Creek meets just at the end of this valley. We are part of that watershed. We are part of this western facing slope of Mount Amalpais, surrounded by this great big huge park. Early this morning

[13:58]

I sat down and I wrote a list of all the people that I know about for whom I can express my thanks that we are here in this valley, sitting in this old barn. How lovely that our great benefactor George Wheelwright is with us and that we can repeatedly thank him. There are lots of people who whispered in his ear and in his lawyer's ear about maybe you should think of letting Zen Center take care of this place. And it was interesting when I started making the list of all their names, how many names I could remember, how many names came up right away. And at the end of the list were the names of the people who somehow almost came to have Green Gulch, if one can have a place like this, and who by one reason or another made mistakes or whatever, didn't work out. Lucky for us.

[15:03]

So, Friday morning I was very aware of this place as Green Dragon Zen Temple. I'd like to use that name more often, actually. And where are you going today? I'm going to the Green Dragon place. The dragon often represents the Dharma, the truth. The Dharma is the with its head in the sky and its tail in the ocean. So it's a good name for this place. Because the piece of it that we are particularly concerned with taking care of indeed has its head in the sky, up there in the region of Hope Cottage, going up towards the ridge. And its tail is literally down there at the beach going into the ocean. So, I had this very long meditation Friday morning as I drove up the road going very slowly.

[16:15]

Meditation on everything about this place for which I feel gratitude. If you need a little inspiration, go into the meditation hall and look at the altar. A huge potato and some sampling of the harvest of what has been growing here. The great figures that help us remember our capacity for wisdom and for compassion. And that wonderful room where people have been practicing for a long time. This spring we will have been here for twenty years. It's gone by like a flash. It startles me to think of twenty years, how can that be? In my considering joy and gratitude for this place, starting Friday morning but quite continuous

[17:32]

since then, what has come up as a part and parcel of that consideration is how much it is an instance of our interconnectedness. How much this is a place which cannot be taken care of, cannot be enjoyed, cannot be developed with what our dear friend and teacher Harry Roberts called the five hundred year plan. He admonished us to be here and make decisions here with an eye to five hundred years. He said it will help you be more patient. You'll do things differently if you're doing them for five hundred years than if you're doing them for this year or five years. But to do that will take the energy and attention and intelligence and creativity of all of us. This is a varied and complicated piece of property, place. It lives in our imaginations

[18:41]

and our hearts in very complicated ways. It is a place which has come to be important to many, many people, some people who have never even been here. Years ago when Zen Center was just in the process of buying Tassajara, the hot springs where Zen Shinji, where Zen Mountain Center is located, we made a big brochure, I suppose you would call it, a big poster with wonderful photographs and quotes, poetry, little bits of teaching about what Zen is, what Buddhism is, what a place like that would be about. And we sent it to more people than most of us could imagine. This was in the late 60s.

[19:41]

Zen Center bought Tassajara in 1966. And the purchase price for Tassajara, half of it came from people who made donations of $25 or less, who sent some donation, which they would send often with some, I wish it was more, but this is what I can send you. I want a place like you describe to be in the world. Even if I never come there, it will help me to know that such a place exists. I was secretary of Zen Center at the time, and I remember how moved and encouraged I was, all of us were, at the response of many, [...] many people, who each gave some small gift to help Tassajara come into being, and how a kind of life, a kind of existence arose out of that relationship,

[20:43]

that sense of connectedness about a vision, a possibility that we were somehow able to articulate and explore and bring into being. And I know, because I've experienced it when I've been halfway around the world, that Green Gulch has become such a place, particularly in the Buddhist world. I was struck to go to Japan or to India on pilgrimage, and to meet many pilgrims going on traditional pilgrimages in Asia, who knew about us, knew about this place, knew a little bit about what was going on, in some cases knew a lot more than I wished they knew. And of course, unlike Tassajara, this is a place which is beautiful, which is a zone of calmness and quiet, or at least I think that's our intention, so close to a big urban city. If we stand up on the ridge, we can

[21:49]

see the buildings in San Francisco. We can hear the foghorns at the mouth of the Golden Gate. We're not very far away from the busyness of our lives. And I think to make a place, a place that's dedicated to awakening, a place where we can come and renew ourselves, so close to the city, is very complicated, and it will take is taking all of us to do it together. So, as I was cruising along slowly at a snail space, as it were, up the road Friday morning, and in the time since then, out of the car, walking in the ridge, thinking about how much we are all connected together in this place being a kind of home for all of us, a home place, for that place that can exist in each

[22:59]

of us for quiet and calmness and renewal, that will help us remember the various practices that we learn and cultivate for centering and groundedness, that will hopefully help us be awake in the lives that we lead and the world we live in. And my sense, not only of this place, but of all of you, of all of us, here today and not here, out of that arises for me a deep gratitude and thanksgiving. Early this morning I wrote it all down because I thought, oh, surely I'll forget something, and of course I will, because the list of gratitudes is so long. I've lived out here, either at Green Gulch or, as I sometimes say, over the fence, since

[24:04]

1973. And as I either walk or drive up the valley, I've been watching the trees growing. And there are a lot more trees in this gulch than there were in 1972 and 1973. And of course the trees that were here are a lot bigger. And so slowly the valley is beginning to change a little bit. We've of course planted some of those trees, but some of them have planted themselves growing from seeds that were dropped by the trees already here. This is a very small valley compared to some, and we have to figure out how to be here, how to have enough of us to take care of it but not too many, how to be open but not so open that we destroy the very qualities that we all came here to enjoy, how to get here

[25:10]

without bringing quite so many cars. Very practical consequences of this question, how do we take care of this place? How do we develop and tend, steward Green Gulch, the green dragon? How do we let the green dragon steward us? I do a practice that involves meditating on a Buddha field, a field of Buddhas, a field of awakened ones. And whenever I do that meditation, I visualize this valley because it's what comes up most immediately. And it's specific enough in my mind's eye for me to be able to see this valley with every spot, every atom in the valley filled with an awakened

[26:12]

one. And in fact, the way I can do that is by seeing the valley filled with all of us who are actually here, those who live here, those who come as regular practitioners, those who come as visitors, those who walk through, those who ride through, those who drive by in tour buses on the road who don't think of themselves as visitors to Green Gulch but who knows what they think of when they look down in this valley. And of course now the tour bus guides are telling them all about Zen Center and Green Gulch. Who knows what they're saying? Some years ago I actually rode one of the tour buses to find out. It was great. Not true but great. So when I go away for a while and I continue to do this

[27:17]

meditation on the Buddha field, Green Gulch is right there filled with Buddhas. And I don't think it's just in my imagination. I actually think it's true. It's a true picture of this lovely valley. And my expression of thanksgiving and of gratitude today is also one of invitation to all of us to hold and cherish this place in such a way that it will be here in some blooming condition five hundred years from now. That we work together to discover how to be stewards of this piece of the watershed. And most of all that we not imagine that any

[28:18]

gift we have to give of time, of energy, of attention, not just of money but of our whole selves, that whatever we are able to do is a treasure and that there is no such thing as, oh, what I have to offer is too small, too unimportant, it won't count. It's not good enough. I know from actual experience that what arises from many, many, many, many people is what builds stability and diversity and depth. Sometimes we think, oh, we wish we had a sugar daddy. I don't know if we still talk about sugar daddies, but when I was a child my mother certainly talked about sugar daddies. And I imagine we still talk about sugar daddies, we just may call them by a different name. One or two great benefactors

[29:21]

who will solve all our problems. I actually wish that what we have for the Green Dragon is thousands of benefactors. I think that's what will make this place truly bloom and develop. And it's not you giving us something, it's all of us together allowing something to arise out of the connection that we have. I've been listening to a tape of a talk that Oliver Sacks gave. I don't know if you know his work, but if you don't, I recommend his writing to you. It was clear from listening to this tape of his talk that the audience had fallen madly in love with him. And I, of course, fell madly in love with him listening to the tape, but I was already in love with him from reading some of his books. He wrote

[30:25]

a book recently about the deaf called Seeing Voices. And in this talk that I was listening to the last few days, he was talking about what happens when language occurs and what happens when it doesn't, and how important it is to a human's development to have language develop widely and deeply in the first five years of life. And he talked about language as arising out of the relationship the child has with the parents or whoever is taking care of that child. What a lovely way to think of language, as arising out of relationship. Listening to that description brought me back again to this interconnected field. And I think that's the beauty of which we are all a part. At some point, somebody was asking

[31:33]

Oliver Sacks about some question about politics, political action, about what's good or not good for deaf folk in schools, et cetera. And he got quite aroused and he said, I am not a politician. I'm a neurologist. My work is to describe, not proscribe. And he described his participation when the students at Gallaudet, the college for deaf people, where they had a big kind of revolution against having a president of the school who was not himself or herself deaf. And as they were out protesting, the students were out protesting, one of them came up to him and said to him, what are you doing here? And he said, I'm an observer. And they took him by the arm and they said, no, you're not. You're a participant.

[32:36]

He said, it was the first political act in my entire life. And he talked about how he talked about their revolution as being a peaceful and harmonious revolution, in which although they were vehemently opposed to what was happening at the school, the entire process was done in a very kindly and friendly way. An active engagement in which people had many different opinions about things, but they were out there talking about them, talking about them in this wonderful language he was describing, which is visual, spatial. I think that's the kind of dialogue and encounter with each other that I would hope the green dragon will bring forth. The more varied we are, the more points of view we bring forth, the more lively and rich our relationship and our association and our attending of the

[33:43]

great green dragon. Here is our opportunity to know directly, experientially, how deeply connected we are. How much what we do affects how we affect each other. How much what we don't do affects the other one. How much we help each other in our presence in each other's lives. It's complicated to take care of a place like this, so close to the big city, to let this be the place that we need and want it to be. And there are of course many wants and needs. How will we ever sort out which ones we will go for and which ones we will not go for? We will need to listen and attend and be present with each other to do all that, listening, sometimes arguing, hopefully in a kindly way, that helps me

[34:54]

remember that I am not other than you and you are not other than me. So on this lovely winter day, I guess it's close to winter, fall, in between, transition, clear day, maybe cold tonight, when we can see the slanting light glinting off of the leaves of the trees, a day when we can enjoy the clarity of the air here on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, on the western facing flanks of our lovely Mount Tamalpais. Please join me in your own particular meditation on all that you have to be thankful for, all of the kindness that comes to contribute to your life, your actual existence, my actual

[36:00]

existence. Gratitude and thanksgiving are good for our hearts and souls, our minds. Very hard to be cranky and contemplating, allowing thanksgiving. And I for one feel better when my heart is full of thanks. Thank you very much. Shamsi Kali.

[36:36]

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