you
as in july and canada the services
believe mean
rotherham steep stickied with their near neighbours in central tower he has the dharma and senator
he was the transformer agreed time seeking
different stories
is
what was it
thank you through

either any questions
yes but he remembered most about being on the wrong

i don't know about most
i just had ten and fifteen images despise through my head
one of them actually was said
my knees hitting the up
floor bowing in agenda
see the the floorboards and agenda
i used to be uneven but
some of more an inch higher than the next board
so particularly on cold mornings
bowing him he was always said tuesday
you know it's hard to avoid a moment of hesitation or and anticipation because he didn't know if your knee was gonna hit right on the edge
but
a wonderful

but fun
i did can of spam
set myself up and since then required to green garden in the spring of and nineteen seventy two and
i was living at tab page street actually
now was living a pastry and i was living at one ninety one haight street
and ten
well we would come out on weekends and start working on the place before or even before it people from sense and i'm actually moved here
and then i remembered talking to dan welsh
and he said that's how do you like the farm i said well it isn't a farm
so what do you mean he said why i said other no farmers
then that a few months later they asked me to be a farmer
answer
i am
and actually asked me to start in an organic vegetable farm which i knew nothing about
i didn't know something about to agriculture i need something about growing wheat
i grew up in kansas and to my family historically had been farmers very many generations bed tent
and it had a little vegetable garden of it
but ten knew nothing about
growing vegetables and under these conditions this said
where's the fun kind of climate
so i remember experimentation
and with the first year we just planted to all kinds of seeds
first we had to tear up some grass
who was a big decision actually it was a bit painful recognizing that we were destroying the the homes of many mice and birds and insects and ten and then we had defense out the dear
he began to deal with gophers
and so is actually ah
a recognition of for of our interconnection
where's the financial world for us to support ourselves
and for us to have you know have lunch
so
and we actually worked through a lot of those decisions i'm i'm sure you're still working through those decisions again and again and ah
at there
minimal impact and at the same time
yeah we wanted to be somewhat successful
and i'm not make a total mess of things and
clearly we we even had ideas that we would produce enough
there will be economically viable
enterprise
and son
as we've learned
that's a lot of work
and there are the vicissitudes of the of the weather
whence one that has been there the latest free is lately when the spring
no
because we are free is one year in the middle of may which froze the potatoes are gonna be around
ah
i really i read anything
the gardener novels
or the farmer knows your the called the farmer how can one of the farmers how many farmers are there here are there any farmers here
look look and a half a dozen at least an
so i guess is legitimately a farm
but there's also the the tension over the years between we monastic schedule
a monastic style practice and the
the demands of the kind of irregular schedule and the always changing schedule from the seasons
and turn
and so they be the question know there certain times of the earlier it's okay if you miss a few days i'm going down fields and other times of the year if you miss a few days
you've lost the whole season so
but doesn't always translate so smoothly into
following the schedule that set up so i remember some
i'm going to beat you know how to work get out

so anything else
yes but rather the retirement process
when when we tried that yeah yeah and i thought actually i was an advocate of doing farming with horses as a way of minimizing our fossil fuel demand and having a more integrated kind of agriculture
and
but bedtime
and we do get a few a great photographs

as one of those draft horses so my wrapping her
oh that is i right i don't know
for years ago
behaviors
snip and jerry and mod or mean
the main team in oh yeah but you know a horse horse a culture
it's difficult to learn
it's good if you if you start learning at when you're young when you're a child
and then
he had that kind of like learning a language
and tom
was difficult for people who are
thirty twenty five years old or sound come down and start trying to deal with this animal and so we have very few is and students who had the background with horses
ah and i'd had little bit at ten and i have never done fieldwork with horses
and ten
i remembered working with them with the team with my grandfather when i was a little tiny kid but i didn't then didn't help a whole lot so he had that kind of learn everything and then and you know how we rotate positions so somebody would just beginning
just going to begin to learn how to handle the horses and then they'd go out the tassajara and and somebody else would come in so and the other thing is said
lab
working with a live animal it the the live animal as always sir
that its own program going home
the horse actually thinks you know
it's got its life to lead and what are you doing there
so
a totally different you know when yet
you have to take that into account
ned down
so there's an unpredictability but you don't have with a with a tractor i know people may feel that the tractor is kind of like a beast in it
now
it'll do everything wrong
but the wrong time the most inconvenient time something will break came but
the horse is smoking more of a continuous issue
team
sometimes it's just getting the horses from the pasture and to you know groomed and fed and for the harness on getting the harness on and horses would rather not have the harness on yes
you need to handle handle the big animation and as a bad time you do that have the days
when it's time for break or two years

but there are other issues with we also trade chickens ducks and a dairy cow for a while
and now you have no livestock here and no animals
the wild and
what cats you don't even try to control
that turn
but it said it was this desperate to be too difficult
for people to learn how to take care of the at the animal and we made mistakes that were actually detrimental to the animals i think
we could never get the chicken coop closed consistently at dusk
before the raccoons
i mean sometimes we did but then there was the raccoons checked every night
and if the person who was supposed to you as we elaborate schedules
the based on i'm i'm closing the chickens tonight and
you go down there and it's too late the raccoons are already and pulling off the rooster
it's a bloody scene so
well as way we did learn from those things and and way it it said
a sobering
to know that you know what your limitations are
and what's good to know your limitations are and also it's good to experiment from time to time and see
fan now the maybe something new that
can can reasonably be attempted

yeah
tree this festival for a railway
craziest packaged
what what wackiest wacky ah am rakhi version
no vegetables are all just very ordinary
the yeah
ah and i always like kohlrabi myself
twenty one grown in colorado recently
but they look kind of like some alien plant
people know it kohlrabi look like now
anthea people now have an irregular had said
i kind of like a up above ground
it's a brassica a zipper and said
but the forms a kind of a knob that's almost like an apple you can eat needed above ground the slicer they need a real crunchy
i know the kitchen got very sick of rutabagas
how are you doing was going to big as these days grow a lot of a feather the there are a great success i grew lots or rutabaga
you can be successful with of
there's enormous cabbages years it's yeah how about a
oh yeah
when this way a big cabbages yeah and then but then people get tired of on cleaning and cabbages peeling off all those lives and and wrote a bag as you know that really kinda gnarly root and so
the the gardeners the farmers with holly and i pick pickup truck load and rutabagas to behind the kitchen
the flu or so proud of our zones
were you know we need more help because every crack and crevice in the rutabaga has to be brushed and the cleaning and the first notice yeah so anyway
not those were wacky or not and other yet and you got rid of things are going on petrified wood take as the cat her delicious
the lot of things you can do it
huh
rutabaga pie
okay
now
so actually i thought i would target with the composting among other things but damn
no actually i also thought it might just talk about what i'm doing these days
yeah
going can mingle compose to in there i think
what
so i'm going to do that is too
well there's basically say what what's my current connection with zen center
yes sir
ah i lived here as i mentioned and seventy two we started coming down and moved here actually in the fall of seventy two and know we started the farm park and seventy three
had a big flood or not right off the bat actually head
here's a another and no memory going in the middle of the night opening the doors and seeing we had we had over this irregular floor we had logos of maths we didn't have to tommy's within that time when descending little best match right
i like in the zendo couldn't quite see i get a flashlight and shine in their logos of mats are kind of floating
he goes offers bobby
the
as water that had come down this this at the the creep back up here again blocked water came over the bank streamed down and there's a big door on the side of the zendo is came running right down at of hidden agenda and had actually flooded maybe in a six eight inches deep and then it was dripping down to the floorboards below
well
that says when or seventy three that are not the a great start and
and then i was here for most of the seventies the are a little bit mostly in charge of the farm better standards director
which was kind of doubly difficult because we didn't really have anyone to have quite could take over the farm parts of
got married here had a daughter hannah here and damn
adopted a son james here
and
so another another theme that was difficult was the way we had the idea that we could have families
ah practicing year but it is very difficult to support families that time so of the reasons i moved was side was financial reasons but really after being being here most the seventies i thought i'd i had pretty much share then
the zen practice
the structured setting that i needed to do
pitcher baker russia didn't think that he thought i could do more
so he had our arguments about that the bed then i thought was good to actually to move out after a while and see see what happened and
now i think it was a good thing to do so
ah then i just moved over the hill and the mill valley and i lived in mill valley for some years
worked as a carpenter
fill out a house broke my back recuperated from that
and
when i got this idea that i could do kind of combine horticulture in construction that i knew how to do
rather going back to school i'd go back to school actually burnt down
the ended up starting a landscape business and so for the past since eighty three about my own business i went to another people for a few years and learned a lot from them and then
so now i
i design and create gardens
some people think i do japanese gardens but i don't think it's possible that the japanese gardens and america bread town but i do think it's possible to do zen gardens
yeah
i don't think that ten he the word zen is japanese that's essential meaning is not
no bounded by any particular culture
so
ha
when i do gardens according to the situation the client the land
in the budget
and then most of it most of it and marine some i did out with their michael stats are doing a good number as most as somebody who may have seen that in sonoma county to seven san francisco and some of the east bay but muslim moran
and ten
what else happened i divorced remarried lane else in is my spouse
and somebody you know lane she
ah advises i could academic advising at dominican college now called dominican university in san rocco and she also teaches courses jiggly having to do with the divine feminine
images of by
goddesses historically in the other meaning and so forth and so that's kind of her her track
and then now
ah
i have another daughter adopted and daughter robin climber something you know robin and her mother was a student here at zen center and she died of cancer and robin went through rather difficult time and
i ended up moving in our house and and then
so she's doing
hi well i think she just actually went down at tassajara last week and last two weeks she became a cosmetologist into
so yesterday as
robin called up and said
you think it's okay for me to color part of my hair pink
and because we were planning this trip back to see my parents my father
to the old to the old mennonite enclave vision and kansas friend named and on my father's had some hype trouble
honey
so i said sure
she says if you think we will have a problem with and i said that they do that's their problem
and she talked a lane
the going said no way
it's completely inappropriate
during the chances with paycheck
so do i know

i do know that hair is very important

and now we do make a big deal out of
but term
it's my air it's amazing isn't it the impact on here
it's been going on for a long time long time
even before the musical
the where in kansas
newton kansas you know kansas from the independence missouri ah
st brendan's about twenty miles north of wichita most people kind of an idea or which die for
okay picture
ah
and still have an idea where ohio
typical in ohio state gets the midwest people in kansas think it's the midwest
well i went to to ohio people said here from out west kansas
so it is still have these regional
how can a victim
i think affinities some ideas which may or may not be relevant
how are we live in a world in which everything we do impacts everything in the hope the whole planet now it's pretty clear theater
has a species we have it
a huge impact which is impossible for us to understand i think because the more away even though we are monitoring more and more nor the impact we have by the time we collect that read data and to organize it in some way and and feed it back to ourselves
things have changed
and town
it said
what's really not possible to see how it's going to turn out now
so i'm mad
i make an effort to be conscious of that antenna
i think that that
the small things that we do do obviously add up
i haven't accumulated impact whether they are positive or negative
and job
so
i've been teaching people composting
for
i say from one on one ninety one haight street
you may remain at we have i was teaching people to sort out the difference between organic and inorganic stuff now it was amazing to me that people didn't it was an obvious
but if you don't grow up with some real connection with the land it's not obvious here what's the difference between onion skins and styrofoam now

i should emphasize the
man
and we were having the
the best things i think we used to do here with their with the farm was having groups of the habits of school kids come out
assume that still happens from time to time and
and then
it was amazing to me to say the reactions of kids who had their their only experience of a potato had been french fries right
yeah maybe had some vague idea what the shape of a potato was before it became french fries but to see digging in the dirt
and some kids were have put off by that ah digging in the dirt right and then these potatoes emerge
and some kids still recoil they didn't even want to touch the potatoes and other kids were just marveling at these treasures that were popping up out of the ground you know i had never never occurred to them before it there's some potatoes come out the ground
that's that's essential education
and i think
taking care of
the planet and our practice
it said we needed we needed you know every day
continued to teach that to children and to ourselves into it too
adults who miss that part
ah
and people come up to me and they asked me about composting and available composed of always had compost i feel that at least i can do
where's the the least i can do
and the least i can do and turns of compost wherever i've been i've always been able to at least sort out the organic and inorganic and and put the organic someplace where it will do
i will actually turn into soil and
and even with an apple core were you when you need an app or you do at the apple car
the or throw it in with the plastic bags in there
it really isn't styrofoam hannah
and it's really easy i mean you can you can toss it up here and the hillside and it will become
soil or possibly even a an apple tree that
ah fall little bit of consciousness you know multiplied by six billion people on the planet i said huge difference so if you're aware that we're losing top style
i'm with you can make a teaspoonful of top soil in the course of a month through year or a day
your
at least countering a little bit of the massive fan my tendency we have to
thoughtlessly as drew up the soil that a wash into the mississippi river
how are down to
muir beach
one thing i think it's great about green gulch is that it is a contain watershed
this you can really see the the potential and the limits
of this one valley
and down
and you know when the water supply short
i'm in the spring starts to dry up
our the reservoir get low
and ah
so much more conscious of it here the most people are side i think that's very healthy roster
lot of people that you've read the cadillac desert people are red cadillac desert
now as if you have a chance read cadillac desert it's really have a great tag
are very powerfully written his history of water in the west and the united states and how
we've used and misused and how much has become a political issue and it will continue to be a political issue so i actually what you can observe right here in gringotts valley
when you go out into the rest of the world
we begin new you can you really can have a very clear understanding of the importance of water and the limits and what we may call carrying capacity that land can carry so much
so composting in a literal sense i think it is really important
there it is an expression of our
i'm taking care of
the earth itself
no one day i was there
ragging right over there down from around the shop
and harry roberts was sitting here and his yellow ford pickup truck
and ten
people know about harry some people in hurry up
i called to me and motion for me to come over i came over
and then he said
why why are you walking around like that
i said like what
he said like you're angry at your mother
but when he mean and said that the were just kind of you can't stomping on the ground you're not really
walking within a care you know
an aunt
it can't took me aback you know and i started paying more attention just to how i walk harry was one of my teachers
he was trained in the euro cash and tradition and down
had that time a notion of what what he called walking and beauty
rocking the beauty there's actually
paying close attention as you
move down the path whatever the path is
taking care of the path actually as you walk it
and dan
if you're in
my natural environment
it's quite tangible
i'm feeling of just how you place your foot in your where you know what's underfoot and you know that each step has a little impact and ten
so you're actually participating
with the path as you walk it
when you're up
driving down a highway
it's not not as easy to have the actual experience but still i think gum
it can be translated driving in beauty i saw i used to teach a workshop called just driving
can and down
the one of the practices as to say i take good care
of myself it's actually based on coyote indian prayer i take good care of myself
ah
and down and that may mean you just stay up a little bit how are you sitting
and the in the driver's seat
and i take good care of the car
which is sir
now this vehicle
sometimes it's a car sometimes it's the dharma i take good character
for that
driving experience ah i take good care of the road so that's like though
paying attention to how you put your feet on the path is that paying attention to how that the rubber meets the road and actually
having awareness of your place on the road is
what's a big help actually in driving safely
you may be more sensitive to the changing conditions it's not always a freeway
it's not always dry pavement
and then i take care of all drivers
if you say to yourself i take care of all drivers as as you're driving you may actually feel some connection with with other people that before were in your way
and
now the people that
cut in front of you
i don't let you in
well you can take care of them to
and you actually realize that this is a community was a lot of trust involved in know
and that we share the path
and then i also say i take care of all beings along the way
which is of course our bodhisattva practice
so an area hundred out to me how i was walking there he was actually also noticing that i was angry
which i wasn't noticing i wasn't noticing that i was angry
ah
and it is partly that i was raised in a family in which the only person who got to be angry with my little brother
he got to be angry cause a little jealous in ultimate i was the elder brother and i couldn't be angry and for my little brother
he could blow his stack and throw a brick at you
which of course we incited him to do
but but it took me awhile to realize that to know how we have basic greed hate and delusion took me awhile to realize that i was basically a hate type know an anger
a person who carried anger and down
it actually
was like can
actually using the practice then
as in you know the pardons and mind beginner's mind or it says and suzuki roshi says we were saying where we pull up the weeds
a nurse the plant
so i pull up the weird scenario the plan but it but then he says something like
we play we bury the weeds in the soil close to the plan
ah
try about that and i'll do this i like leaning on this this is actually a quote zoo
which my teacher so general lighter made
that's an african wood palace andrea
when he said there
take it and get some dime attacks
that's that's my talking stick
anyway
mind we'd sir
i like that but they may be bodyweight mind and body weeds
now he said pull them out and you when you feel like you you've identified something that's a weed
pritzker care it's important not to i think i'm trying not to think that you have to throw it away
don't throw your anger away
on or your bad habits your laziness your confusion if you throw it away it's really your then engaged in a kind of just a battle with yourself
and it's really no use to you
but if you keep it close and study it
compost it actually let the heat
build up
ah
then
you get to know now pure anger gets another
read the intense feeling
ah yes the it can be scary and it can be here sometimes overwhelming it can they can feel like gathers know you're suffocating
you may tend to than want to get some distance from it but our practice of sitting with something is has it has a great power you actually cultivate the capacity to be present with whatever it is
so for me to take harry suggestion about paying attention to how i walk and then begin to see how there's something going on that i wasn't aware of and then begin to see there's all this anger
let's
it's actually preventing me from even breathing completely
so for me this was a kind of an internal a composting process and
just as the compost heats up
on turns into something that's really usable
anger heats up
and
and then when it when you actually are
ah experiencing a lot of anger and you realize that your tendency to want to blame discretion or bad person or for me a lot of it was my father
have a lot of anger towards my father
when you
ah are actually willing to be present with that you realize that
that person doesn't exist know
my person isn't over there
the heart sutra is really true
there is nobody there it's just something that you're carrying around
there is somebody there but the person who's there is not who you're carrying around who you think that person is
just as you are not do you think you are
but that energy then can nap
just naturally
it's like gown
maybe to magical the says like alchemy and
what it is like that that the the feeling of rage
but eventually changes it changes into something you know what you don't keep feeding it if you actually just let it
go through the process of internal purification
you begin to see that the person that you're angry where there's just an
somebody else doing their best
and
and then you realize that they don't they're not somebody else actually they are you
there really isn't any difference there really isn't any separation
and then you realize sam
ah
feeling of gratitude

and
and then you can know and then you can forgive the person who wounded you
or whatever the situation is that there was behind all that anger
we've all been wounded right
and said it's very human condition as the buddha pointed out we've all suffered
and continue to do so
so i just wanted to recommend the the practice of composting
the literal practice
a fan
you know working with organic material in the planet
and the the dharma work of composting which is actually it
seeing the weird
realizing that the weediness of it is
a division within yourself and it's a decision that you're making
and that the way then is not something to throw away with a weed is something to appreciate as a weed
till the right place for a weed is in the soil or in the compost
and allow that allow that we to
nourish you
have a friendly attitude towards it was much as you can
so
ah
i came home yesterday
after many wonderful things it happen
and the land came home and we're sitting there is both and me about eight o'clock we both i just finished doing dog sound with somebody into man had a meeting with their new supervisor had dominican college she said i had this meeting
and then anxious he said this morning
i sat meditation
and it became clear to me that i needed to say something to my new boss
so i went in that has meaning today and i said
i wanna tell you something
i want to tell you is this i am not a trustworthy person
you're a good guy and you know what you're doing have a vision and and you should you should have somebody working for you or you can trust
who will do the things that you want them to do i on the other hand will do it i think needs to be done
you can't trust me to do what you think i should do you know
i've been here ten years she'd been in the dominican the tenure of ten years and i see it way certain things are going and i just have to speak up now
during something that was bigger than that
but she was being trustworthy and on and a larger sense
and
so i salute her
congratulations on being untrustworthy
so it's up
well it's an ongoing process sometimes
i need to
will it be conventionally trustworthy
and sometimes
that is actually a weed
the convention is a weed
let's actually
a limitation and needs to be pulled out
and to
and then
you go through the heat of that
ah
so i think something some flowers bloom
when people are willing to do that takes it takes a lot of courage
well
was a bedtime
is a time for the bedtime story
one more star story in which is sad
it just comes to me from men
i haven't even opened my notes
but that's good action victim was just in case
am i i completely
blank out here and burnt down
i was planning beans
i was so
a very dedicated
august being planter and i was down in the second will we call it the second year i had this row
at that time we were planning we tried planting beans in a row
and then
as down on my news
spacing is bean seeds correctly working my way down the row and that how of the corner my i saw couple of people coming down the road in the field
and
it annoyed me
huh

i knew their visitors in our i knew they were going to come up and ask some stupid question
huh
so as plants are trying to and sandwich i'm i am practicing focusing on planning beans
and
the closer they got them are annoyed i began as an from trying to do and i'm supposed to do in these criminals and
fortunately by the time they arrived
i've kinda gotten through that nice surprise an arc
ah right
curse they came up and they said which way to the beach
hello
the
but what i realized that at that time was that
they actually had already been there
they've been there since time immemorial
it was just my idea that had excluded them
i was just my idea that all i was doing is planning means you know and it was just being planning beans and i could have they said planning means is kind of like gov
that's it being in a david around right
it's just beautiful all you're doing is playing these beautiful ch re
ah everything is perfect
read what i realized actually at that time is that there are no interruptions
it's great to have something to focus on you know
so that you can realize no interruptions every interruption
as a reminder is a teaching but there are no interruptions
everything in the universe is already here

so don't be so surprised
and
not only is everything here it's actually
no not not at any distance from you
as soon as i saw them in the car of my eye are right here it's just that i was i didn't want to accept their presence
when i was just there was as my my problem
ah so i just mentioned that too
because i think that's one of the greatest things i've ever learned in zen practice and i would continue to work with it
sometimes fact yesterday and on the drawing board
and our can just into solving a problem
and lane comes in says it's time to feed the dog and
i got her

the term but when you realize there are no interruptions and you can we can play with that
well
it doesn't mean that it gives you the right to
and rob somebody
it doesn't mean it gives you the right to be rude
but it does mean that town
this a practice that we do
already includes everything
and tab
so when something comes up
do your best to simply acknowledge it
and take care of it now part of this is a part of you
if you don't do that you get smaller
did you do that
we call that open-hearted open hearted way
okay

anything else we need to deal with right now our brooklyn
yeah
damn i is there so
what do you call the thing
we're at some point decided to organize their reality go back to few steps
after i was
a certain point i went back to do issue so training it down with rab in
i shouldn't have driving practice driving into the city centre and john
and then after that actually you
couple of people asked me to started sitting group
ah on people asked me was a category he he visited from
from many minneapolis in one time we are going down at tassajara for someone else's so she so ceremony known ins are going down for known she said he said why don't you start a sitting room
and then asked some surname a korean zen teacher from ann arbor also came through only talked for awhile he said you should start sitting room
ah mom
so i decided again the least i could do was blue one night a week so i so we did didn't for that continue years ago i started on monday night in my living room in group
and it was sir with great actually i cleaned the living room
every monday night for years
the ah finally had opportunity to move to a place in center of our we're there is an old there
collapsing a carport which we turned into the grise then though as an old fig tree their so called old fig xander
aunt donna
and so we still have the monday night sitting group and i sit in the morning at five fifteen ah
monday through friday and and we do was
every once in a lot once a month with your longer setting
usually one day or two or three day
a session and then once a year with your six seven day first week of january we do or we could sitting start off the year with
for the although retarded you know so we don't get it together for rojas recession in december but where the time new year's rolls around
well organized enough to
to sit and so i shall like it the works in month with my schedule my work schedule to do it that way sir
ah so it's a small group of
people with quite a range there's some new people and are some very old and students are people who started sitting with suzuki roshi
i'm wrong with writing
on
sunday something you know carolina rick martin i think
carolyn's now sewing rock sir
and then
ah my digs and can sometimes it isn't a violin
some of you know my texan you know who he is is using an is a painter and to
a wonderful shakuhachi player action
ah
and he was he did the fly and the books and mind beginner's mind
so small a temp for forward has been sitting around time
and then there's a new people so i do as as an instruction by appointment people call up and
and down
this man
nice little walk out the door and
get a little fresh air and i'm going to the zendo in the morning
what's not always so easy to get up
better
at tam
a good way to maintain practice in the midst of that
life in which you're working and take her family things
sir
we can come and visit sometime
well it's in san rafael and part a town called crystal park
and ten
there must be some information around here are some could the back of the wind bell and i usually there some phone number that you can call
want more information
and we're going to work on the garden outside the zendo just a few weeks
basically been a construction zone for five years so
kind of like green got used to be and i still is
thanks for you
i actually feel very grateful to all of you for take care of his place which is so dear to my heart
so i want of salute you all and thank you for
taking good care of green gulch
and then
of course the it
the point here is for you to
cultivate the way and yourself some
thank you can take good care of the dharma

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