Good morning. Welcome to Green Gulch. I hope you can hear me. Sorry for all the fussing, getting everything ready, but, you know, the most important Dharma staff to cut through confusion and get to the point. Keep it sharp and shining. That's our work. And today we're celebrating. Once a year, wonderful celebration of Arbor Day on this Sunday. A dedication to, I like to say, war and trees. Instead of war and peace, war and trees today. And they are so deeply linked. So deeply linked. So thank you for coming. You may not have known, but you've come into the... harbor of this water spread we're calling it not just watershed but water spread today to celebrate the life and growth and teaching of the great trees of the world so we'll draw our zafus and chairs close to the precipice and hear some stories about trees and peace making peace waging peace

[01:21]

it's my great honor to be here and especially on this day sitting in this hall which is very much like being in the inner mind of the great trees of this hall held together by ancient old-growth redwood harvested holding up the ceiling mixed with old-growth Douglas fir providing a sanctuary of practice, a refugia, if you will, a refuge, a place of refuge, not from the world, but into the heart of the world, very much as every true place of refuge is. And so today, this morning, we take refuge in the presence of one another, in the life and the truth and the teaching of the great trees. And in our commitment to be peaceful beings on the height of the earth.

[02:27]

On this beautiful rainy Sunday morning. Rain down the Dharma rain. Fill the whole world. A call from the Lotus Sutra from the third century. Rain down the Dharma rain. The rain of truth and teaching. Fill the whole world. and be hydrated and softened and awakened by that watery mind. We celebrate during this season, here we are in the very beginning of February, we celebrate a season, traditionally every year, a season of nonviolence, which begins on the 30th of January. as we mark the assassination of Gandhi, and continues until April 4th, when Dr. Martin Luther King was killed.

[03:31]

In this season, a special deep effort and dedication to practice that does not turn away from the life of the world. Every excellent endeavor, said Goethe many years ago, every excellent endeavor from within toward the world. I remember a dialogue years ago with Reb about that comment. He said, yes, and every excellent action also turns from within toward the world. So from the world to within, from within to the world. This is very much our work. And in this season... this short period from the 30th of January until the 4th of April, a deep and abiding effort to be peaceful beings in this world and to do the work of peace.

[04:35]

I so appreciated hearing Abbas Linda Ruth's closing talk last week about being in Washington, D.C. with peacemakers from all over the world gathering together to raise up the call for peace, and particularly to hear the story of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship meeting a young woman whose parents practiced here in this temple, meeting Chia, who's come to every single Arbor Day and planted trees beautifully for years. She's in the posters in the dining room. So when I heard of... Friends from Green Gulch meeting this young woman who's a freshman at Brown University. And she made a journey remembering her lineage of growing up in this place and planting trees and going to Washington, D.C. to speak peacefully and powerfully to the importance of standing up for what we know needs to be represented.

[05:46]

So it's a wonderful day to be... celebrating together and to be working together in this watershed. There's an old Chinese proverb that says, the state is destroyed, yet the mountains and rivers survive. And a modern poet activist and meditator Nanao from Japan gives this fresh interpretation saying the mountains and rivers in the great earth are being harmed and yet the state survives. Now without setting up nasty dichotomies without for one moment forgetting the unity of nobility and commoner of awakening and forgetfulness, without for one minute distinguishing between them, what is our work as citizens of this world in working nonviolently in this season of peace for deeper understanding and connectedness?

[07:05]

I suggest that we have great and abiding lessons to learn from the forest that surround and sustain us. So I did a little research. I wanted to honor, I want to honor the beautiful altar that's here in this hall. So I talked to the carpenters and the trees and the woods and forests. and created this tribute to the altar that reminds us to center our lives. Evolving more than 18 million years ago, the forests of the Maritime Pacific Northwest are the last remaining worlds of any size left in the temperate zone. Among the dominant conifers in this forest are the great Douglas fir, western red cedar,

[08:14]

the coastal redwood, and Port Orford Cedar, which had been harvested to renew this old barn, Zendo, where we sit this morning. And the altar where we offer incense every day, the altar of rededication and renewal, is built from the wood of Port Orford Cedar. Found only in southern Oregon and in the Siskiyou Mountains of northern California, this wood is prized for centuries in crafting of arrow shafts. Today, we honor Port Orford Cedar and invoke its genetic relative, fragrant Hinoki Cedar of Asia, essential in the creation of all ancient shrines and temple buildings of the Orient. Red oak, white oak, fortify this altar. White oak harvested, milled, by the Zen Center carpentry crew in 1978, harvested deep in the Tassajara Mountains, where great oaks, and especially in the central part of Tassajara itself, great oaks, were downed by winter storms.

[09:29]

And this oak in particular that is in the altar grew in the center of Tassajara. Recycled old-growth redwood, strips of hemlock fir, Enforce the inner cabinets of the altar. May the life of these trees continue intermingling with our life. And may we protect and renew their beauty and their strength every day. Surrounded by them, supported by them, we offer the incense of gratitude and commitment in a nonviolent world. Let's just sit together for a moment, remembering that in many ways, the trees are the lungs of the world, purifying and creating fresh air.

[10:37]

So let's breathe together in this breathing room, in the presence of the ancient ones, enjoying our breathing. Yesterday morning, about 30 of us gathered in Muir Woods National Monument for our annual watershed walk.

[11:44]

Prior to Arbor Day, we spend a full day walking and receiving the good tidings of this land where we're privileged to practice. And it was pouring down Dharma rain. Thunder and lightning forecast. Still... These noble ones showed up, and it was wonderful to spend the day together. We had planned to walk the crest of the ridge, which we've done on other Arbor Day weekends. One year, I remember hydroplaning down the flanks of the mountain, and an older citizen who was walking with us had her knee go out. So we did slow walking meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh would have been impatient. It was so slow. through the driving rain coming down at dark to Green Gulch, just pushing aside the cookies that were saved for us and warming up any soup we could find. We were so frozen.

[12:46]

So it was wonderful to walk yesterday with ranger and activist and beautiful teacher Mia Monroe from your woods. The forest and the field, that's what we jokingly say together. She the forest and us the field coming together in a lively interaction and walking in the monument that has been protected for almost 100 years. Walking into the heart of the old growth forest and receiving the teachings of the old growth forest. No umbrella. I'm getting soaked. I'll use the rain as my raincoat. It's from Daito, a 13th century. Zen person. No umbrella. I'm getting soaked. I'll use the rain as my raincoat. And we did use the rain and the trees and the shelter of one another's awareness, walking for four miles, slowly walking and really looking at the trees, the great river surging through the canyon, turbulent with the

[14:00]

Earth that had been dislodged from old trees moving in a solid wall of water out to the Pacific and along the banks of that stream, imagining the ancient silver salmon, one of the last wild run streams for the silver salmon in the continental North America. This means one of the last streams that isn't stocked or adjusted or protected. the great carcasses of the salmon rotting in the creek, adding 52 marine ingredients to the complexity of the world and the trees. Nourishing, nourishing. And I thought in so many ways meditation practice gets its strength from our old growth nature and that we sit in a hall and offer incense in a hall that's grounded by old growth and and sheltered by old growth is extremely significant because it means we are willing to sit in a hall that's as much made of death as it is of life.

[15:10]

Hallelujah for not differentiating between them and for having a day when we remember how life into death into life, that cycle is very much the cycle of our life as meditators. and citizens of the world living in nonviolent times, committed to nonviolence in violent times, I should say. So the old growth forest is a magnificent teacher. It's characterized by the mixture of generations, by the presence of death and decay rubbing right up against new life. One week ago, Suki and I and about 210 other citizens worked in Muir Woods National Monument on their annual Earth Day, planting trees, taking care of, removing exotics, doing the wonderful work in the shelter of the old growth forest.

[16:12]

And in my small group, we, of course, veered off the path as Zen students traditionally like to do, especially when we get in Old growth, I find, tremendous old growth naughtiness comes up in us too. And one day a year we get to go off the beaten path. And homage to those of you who will not be named who are in this hall who have gone off the path many times and done wonderful things in the woods, been refreshed by the woods. And going off the path, we see again renewal and decay in one lively conversation. We were on a spit, a gravel spit. jutting into the river, which was then very quiet, and yesterday almost submerged under the water. And on that beautiful spit, gravelly bar, reaching into the old river, brand new redwood trees coming up. The redwood tree is the only tree that's not started by the restoration team, and they're a wonderful team, at Muir Woods.

[17:16]

They completely rely on the forest to renew itself. And so when you find redwood seedlings, it's quite exciting. And on that bar, seven young seedlings jutting up out of the mineral-rich, unprotected, wild soil that we would never see, except when you break the rules and step over the fence. And standing in that forest, fully aware of life and death, a palace of organisms, poet Gary Snyder says, the Old Grove Forest is a palace of organisms and a great reminder of our work each tree taking up 500 gallons picking up and holding 500 gallons of water a day absolutely reliant on the rain and the wind and renewing it and giving back a healthy redwood tree hosts some 1700 organisms extraordinary however

[18:21]

dead snag four thousand organisms which is a wonderful reminder to let ourselves be invaded by death and decay not turn away from the mess of the world and we spent the day in them as we call it the mess hall of the watershed walking and looking and in particular I was aware of the courage that it took to protect that old-growth forest, looking now at what was once 3 million acres of contiguous forest, whittled down, literally whittled down now to less than 3% of its original size. 75 billion tons of topsoil eroded away. And every day, 100 square miles of rainforests taken down in these times.

[19:22]

I was deeply aware of that yesterday. 100 square miles of forest taken down every day. We say a football field every second. Old-growth forest gives us the courage to really be present for that truth. And this forest, protected for 100 years, by a human being, a citizen, William Kent of Kentfield. William and Elizabeth Kent, who in the early 1900s walked through the woods and realized that this forest was in danger. And with his wife, Elizabeth, they adjusted their finances. It took them two years to save $45,000 to purchase Muir Woods, and to give it as a gift to the United States government. This is the kind of world that we come from.

[20:25]

And in the presence of old growth, could we not remember what we're really made of? Could we not remember that hearing of the glory of the ancient redwoods, the president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, in those years, came and slept in the old growth forest, walked with John Muir, not in Muir Woods, but... probably in the southern old growth, and spent the night under the trees. He said it was like sleeping in a cathedral grove. This is the President of the United States spending the night with a radical guy who not only went over the fences, but took them down. So William and Elizabeth Kent, buying the woods in 1907, right after the earthquake, that made it almost impossible for them to purchase and protect the woods because the call for rebuilding San Francisco and Sausalito was so strong that Muir Woods was designated as a loggable area.

[21:28]

Unless we speak out, take our place against the war against the trees, said John Muir in 1896, there'll be a logger and a lawyer under every tree. 1896. Speaking of the Sierra Club. And William and Elizabeth Kent must have heard that call. They raised the money, protected the forest. And in the year 1945, with the founding of the United Nations, there was a gathering in Muir Woods National Monument of world leaders to think together and plan together since the United Nations was planned in San Francisco. In May of 1945, a gathering in the woods, in the heart of a grove now called Cathedral Grove, in Muir Woods National Monument. World leaders coming together to dream of the United Nations.

[22:33]

In fact, that gathering in May changed its nature to be a time of commemoration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had just died. But how appropriate. to gather in the woods in old growth to celebrate death and life together. I bring this up because we live three miles from this national monument, which is really at its core dedicated to making peace and to being peaceful and to taking action for the benefit of the world. I speak for the trees, says the Lorax. I have the Lorax in here. I won't bring him out until later, but the Lorax will come out later in question and answer. Speaking for the trees. I speak for the trees and for all of our common connectedness. Meditation practice and...

[23:45]

the Buddha's way, is rooted in the willingness to look at the marks of conditioned existence and to celebrate them, to know what it means to be alive in a conditioned world, to take our place. And the Buddha's teaching, as Abbas Linda Ruth mentioned last week, the Buddha's teaching rose up from the roots of a tree. He was born as his mother held on to the branches of a tree, born out of a left side, standing up and speaking. His teaching, his actually awakening, occurred at the roots of a rose apple tree as a very young child, teaching for 80 years close by to trees and in the presence of trees. his awakening at the roots of the great Bodhi tree, which we have a leaf of, an ancestor of that tree, is suffering as we speak in the Green Gulch greenhouse, wishing it could please return to India.

[24:59]

And yet, this beautiful leaf from the ficus religiosa, the tree of the Buddha, took his place underneath. And he died at the base of solitaries, resting in the forest. So a teaching that comes up and looks at conditional life, the life, our human life, is extremely important. And that teaching, the Buddha taught, is marked or, yes, marked by three clear understandings. First of all, the understanding that there is tremendous suffering in the life of the world, a willingness to stay put, to sustain the gaze, to, as one of the people walking, one of the young women walking with us yesterday, coming all the way from Arizona and walking in mindfulness in the forest, to be willing to sustain the gaze, and as she said, to come up,

[26:09]

against the wall of grief which was very much what she felt yesterday walking through this undisturbed forest the wall of grief and suffering that does mark our life so willingness to sustain the gaze at suffering to see our place within that continuum to as and a wonderful teacher Martha Graham loved to say take your place in blessed unease because it is a blessing to recognize and to be absorbed by suffering in the life of the world and secondly to recognize that everything we love and know comes apart and changes is not permanent All conditioned existence taught the Buddha is of a nature to come apart.

[27:13]

And again, drawing on the natural world to express that teaching. And last of all, to recognize that nowhere, anywhere you look, is there a separate, sovereign self that can be divided from everything that is. These three great teachings. So I'd like to... Back those teachings up, or root them, if you will, in the stories of trees. So again, draw your zafus and chairs close to the precipice, as F. Scott Fitzgerald said, and I'll tell you some stories. Katagiri Roshi's favorite story of the Buddha is a wonderful story that connects with suffering. And that is when the Buddha was a young man, he lived in northwestern India where there was a lot of strife and fighting, very much like in these times.

[28:20]

And the kingdom of Kapilivastu and Magadha, where the Buddha lived, of these two kingdoms, kingdoms I like to say, but they were actually kingdoms because kings were fighting. There was a great war planned between these two kingdoms. And the Buddha went out hearing of this war, the Buddha went out and took his place on the road in the sweltering hot sun underneath a dead tree. And the two armies of the region where he lived, as they came together, they stopped encountering this quiet, upright, not leaning too far back or too far forward human being sitting under the roots of a dead tree. And the generals of the army said, what are you doing sitting in this sweltering sun underneath a dead tree? And he said, even though this tree may look dead, I feel the cool breeze of my home country.

[29:34]

And that expression... was so powerful, that willingness to sit still in the midst of suffering and not move was so powerful, the armies turned around. Now, lest we think suffering always has a good ending, we know better, especially in these times, the most bellicose times, because not a few months later, the armies were whipped up again into a state of aggression. And although the Buddha was called upon, he didn't repeat the strategy and the two armies fought to the end. In battle, the winners and losers both lose, the Buddha taught. In every battle, winners and losers both lose. He observed that

[30:39]

and didn't turn away from it. And Kategori Roshi's teaching about this was simple. He said, when we really look at suffering, when we're willing to stay put right up against the wall of grief, we can see that real peace is not a matter of discussion. It's deeper than that. A real peace has to come up out of suffering and not turning away. And he also, I'm grateful to say, taught from this story that even though you may be a peaceful person, your strategy and presence may not turn the tide of war. It may not work. We're not talking about symbolic

[31:42]

metaphorical presence we're talking about real peace not a ghost the real peace made of suffering and willingness to stay put and the recognition that it may not work and yet you still take your place and I love this story because of the image which is so vivid for me of Buddha sitting under a dead tree and not turning away. It makes me think very much of modern Buddhas like Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mwangari Matai, who in 2004 received the Nobel Peace Prize, first woman activist, environmentalist, a woman of Africa, founder of the Green Belt Movement in Africa, where with thousands of local women who noticed suffering and loss of life in their region of Kenya,

[33:12]

have been planting 40 million trees. She was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize three years ago. And this year has called in a loud, clear voice for the planting worldwide of one billion trees. Hey, she's only planted 40 million to date, but let's see if we can plant one billion trees. Recognizing suffering, not turning away, still, interacting and planting trees. And when I think of the teaching of impermanence and change and everything we love, passing, changing, growing, right away I think of William Kent's favorite tree in Muir Woods. The inconvenient truth of that tree was that it was not a redwood.

[34:15]

It was a gorgeous, is a gorgeous Douglas fir. Giant, magnificent tree. I remember going with my daughter's third grade class in the rain to the woods and working in the woods. And then at the end of the day, sitting with all these little naughty third graders, all together, the full class of 28 of us, just barely making a circle around this giant tree, the Kent tree. And close to the spring equinox in the year 2003, exactly when the current aggression in Iraq began, to the amazement of many of us, that tree fell down in the forest. on the very day that the fighting started, or was initiated in Iraq, of this giant tree surged down through the forest, caught by a couple of redwoods, supported by them, until they crashed to the floor of the forest and exploded with fragrance.

[35:34]

And I went the next morning at 5 o'clock in the morning, and still my eyes were watering from the... mist, kind of the blood mist of this great being, wonderful teacher of impermanence and change, still menacingly alive in death. And the exploded three parts everywhere. I remember gathering a handful of the fur tips and coming back to Green Gulch where teachers from the Brooklyn Unified School District were meeting to talk about how to best work with young people. And we made tea out of the tips of the fur and drank it, promising not to turn away from suffering and impermanence and the possibility of growing up and learning together. When I think of impermanence, I really think of that tree, and it was wonderful to visit it yesterday.

[36:39]

You know, this lean against its huge bark. It I suggest that that tree may be as good, if not better, a teacher in its current prone state, especially because you can go around and look into the cavern of roots and see how it is that all conditioned existence is of a nature to come apart and change and not turn away from that. And last of all, the teaching of non-self or non-separated self that marks conditioned existence is beautifully taught by a young tree we have planted right out here, the Aogiri tree from Japan.

[37:55]

of my friends, beautiful practitioner of meditation who grew up in Brooklyn to a wild family and is married to a Japanese man and lives in Japan. Whenever I see her, she always, I say, say the line, which means tell and listen to the story of the world with great care. So when I look at that beautiful little algeary tree that's planted outside of the house where Jeremy and Meg and Elizabeth live now, by the pond, I think of the story of the world that it tells, the great story of the world, and the great story of non-self or no separate self. Because the seeds of this tree were given to activist and artist Mayumi Oda, who as a young child survived the atomic bombing of... her country, hiding in a bunker.

[39:02]

And she made her way a few years ago, actually a number of years ago, she made her way to Hiroshima where an old woman was sitting under a beautiful tree, a beautiful Aogiri tree in Hiroshima. And she gave Mayumi a handful of seeds from that tree. This woman, Suzuka Numata, was a young woman when her city of Hiroshima was bombed. She was a librarian. She lost her left leg in the bombing and continued to work until it was time for her to be able to retire, at which point she took her place as a storyteller under this tree, this Aogiri tree, to tell the story of a tree that survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. In the epicenter of the bomb, a beautiful algiri tree, or the princess tree, it's called, was growing. And, of course, with the bombing of Hiroshima, that tree was obliterated.

[40:10]

And yet, a decade, maybe two decades after the atomic bomb, the tree came back from its roots. It's called the phoenix tree. Incredible tree. Came back up from its roots, and half of the tree... was deformed with, you know, radiation and half was clean and a surgeon came in, a tree surgeon came in and carefully ministered to the tree over a couple of years and then it came back to life. Damaged, altered, bombed, it came back to life and began to produce seeds. So in 1995, 50 years after the dropping of the atomic bomb, Susuku Numata gave Mayumi a handful of these seeds and said, take them back to North America and plant them.

[41:14]

These are seeds of peace. And she brought them back in on New Year's Day with crashing rain hitting the roof of the greenhouse. She and I and a good friend, three of us, sowed the seeds in good soil in the greenhouse and waited and waited. And it's a big thing to wait for a tree to germinate, especially for impatient bipeds like us. Heavens, this is the phoenix tree. So when the seeds, you know, and I was careful, really careful in the greenhouse to minister to the tree and to the seeds to make sure that it would have the best of conditions. And I remember around the Ides of March in 1995, forgetting to open the greenhouse, And it was blisteringly hot. And I thought, oh my God, I didn't open the greenhouse. And I ran down to the greenhouse and opened the door and the entire flat of Algiri trees had germinated. Of course, because they love fire. And the flat was alive with these tree seedlings.

[42:16]

And I stood there and wept with delight and sadness. to see these phoenix trees. And Mayumi was at the United Nations with a delegation of women from all over the world speaking for peace. And I tracked her like a bloodhound and finally got her on the telephone and just kept screaming, the algari trees terminated, they terminated. And she said, I'll see you soon. And, you know, there's a beautiful picture on the walls in the dining room of of us planting trees over the years, but I will never forget planting that tree with visitors and friends who came from Japan. When the tree was ready, and it took a few years, we planted it right in the center of Green Gulch so that we wouldn't forget that there cannot be a separate self from the life of everything that is.

[43:23]

So this tree with its roots down in the bottom of time, representing the ancient teachings of the tree and fire. You know, in Buddhism, those images of tree and fire are the most ancient images. And in fact, in the raised teaching panels in India, you can see in, I think it's, I'm just trying to remember the name of the town. I'll think of it in a moment. in those raised panels that decorate this town, you see trees and the Buddha sitting under the trees and the tips of the trees are burning. Sanchi is the name of the place. The trees of Sanchi fire at the tips, reminding us that everything we love and know is burning and cannot be separated from all that is. So to plant that tree in the middle of Green Gulch and to take care of it and to hang every year around August 6th, to hang peace cranes from its branches to celebrate, to have a ceremony, to remember that osewa ni narimashika includes us, the story of the world includes us.

[44:37]

And it is a story of being willing to stay close to suffering, not turn away from impermanence, and to recognize the interconnectedness of all that is, the great teachings. from the green world, from the world of trees, reaching out into our hearts, opening the door. Things, says the Lankavatara Sutra, things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise. Things are not what they seem, nor are they otherwise. We can add up the parts, as poet Leonard Cohen says. You can add up the parts.

[45:37]

You won't have the sum. You can strike up the march. There's no drum. Every heart to love Will come, but like a refugee. Ring the bells that still can ring. And forget your perfect offering. There's a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. So this is a talk dedicated to the song of the world. the season of nonviolence, to Jenny and Tim and all the other apprentices here who have worked on the front lines for peace and justice in the forest. To peacemakers and warmongers together, to our unity, to staying close to each other.

[46:49]

finding joy even though we know the facts, and remembering that there is a crack in everything. That's how the light and the work and the truth gets in. So thank you so much for coming today, and I hope you'll join us this afternoon planting and tending trees. It's just as important to tend as it is to plant, and to actually receive the good tidings from this forest. And I'd like to close with one wish goes out in this season of nonviolence in the Ten Directions, a wish for blessed unease and the commitment to continue our work together. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful day.

[47:47]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.54