This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Cotto, for the introduction. And I'd like to thank Nancy Petrin, our tanto or head of practice, for inviting me tonight. I'd also like to thank my teacher, Agent Linda Ruth Cutts, and two other teachers who I'll mention tonight in my talk, Chosen Bayes and Joanna Macy, who've both been mentors for me. And I'd like to thank each of you who's here tonight with us to thank you for your presence here. and for your attention.

[01:00]

And I'd like to invite everyone to take a moment to settle in your body, to ground yourself. If you're sitting on a chair, you might want to feel your feet on the floor. Maybe take a deep breath and allow yourself to fully arrive. I have to say it's been wonderful today to have a day with blue sky and air we could breathe. And the light seemed to glisten today after over a week of actually dangerous air quality some days. And last Wednesday, just a week ago, The sky was totally dark for those of you who are not in the Bay Area. It was a very eerie feeling to be indoors needing lights on all day long and to keep the windows closed because of the particulates in the air.

[02:14]

So I think for many of us this has been a very difficult time. I'm not talking just about this past week. but the six months of sheltering in place, the isolation that's caused us, economic hardship for many, a heightened awareness of systemic racism, and the upcoming election. So it has been a very challenging time, and in preparing for this talk, I found it... difficult to know what I could say that might both reflect and face, look at some of the difficult things we're living with now, and also some of the ways in which many of us, including me, are finding nourishment and connection and

[03:22]

you know, not knowing how long we're going to be sheltering in place, not knowing so many things about what's going to happen in our country and the world, still to find life meaningful and that there's work to be done. And it's no different from any other time. And there's also much to appreciate and be grateful for. So this weekend, this was still when the air quality was poor and made it difficult to go outside. I thought about the koan in which a monk asks the teacher, young men, what is the teaching of a lifetime? And young men replies, an appropriate response. An appropriate response.

[04:27]

So what is an appropriate response to the weight of these events? And with this question in mind, I'll share an experience of the Oregon fires that Chosen Bays experienced through visiting her son who lived in one of the towns that was practically destroyed by wildfires last week. And she wrote about her visit and shared that online. I will also talk about how through Chosen Vais, I came to learn about Jizo Bodhisattva. And I'll talk a little bit about Jizo Bodhisattva and an archetype of an awakened being that embodies a great sense of strength in the midst of challenging situations and can inspire compassion. I'll say more about Jesus Bodhisattva.

[05:30]

And I'll also share the work of one of my, I would say, a source of great inspiration in my life, Joanna Macy, whose work, she calls it the work that reconnects, has inspired me since I first met her in 1982. Joanna gave a talk. She was in conversation with Stephanie Casa at Zen Center on Saturday night online. But yeah, a beautiful evening and very well-timed. So I'm going to talk about Chosen Bays and her husband, Hogan Bays. They are both guiding teachers, at Great Bow Monastery in Clatskney, Oregon, some distance from Portland. And I knew they, yeah, so they have a son who lives with his wife and their grandson, Noah, who's 10, in Talent, Oregon.

[06:45]

It's about five hours from Portland. And about a week ago, Chosen and Hogan, who were at Great Bell Monastery, got a call from their son that he and his family were leaving their house because winds of 35 to 45 miles an hour were driving a fire up the I-5 freeway. They'd gone to a gas station on the freeway and saw that Their son, Vajra's best friend's house was on fire. They were the last people to get gas, and the station closed and then was rapidly overcome by fire. They found out that their friends had escaped with a backpack each, and then they saw the fire jump the freeway to the side where they live. They were able to drive home. pack a few things, and spent the night in a friend's driveway in their van with six bunnies, a cat, and a fish in a small tank.

[07:51]

And when they went home the next morning, they discovered a fire raging 200 feet from their house in a trailer park. Their home was saved partly by the straight path of the winds and by an airdrop of retardant on the house between them and the trailer park. So an estimated 500 homes burned in Talent and 1,000 in Phoenix, a small town just to the north. So Chosen got the call from her son, and she and Hogan packed up boxes of clothing and shoes from the monastery, Great Valley Monastery, where they lived. They packed canned food and blankets and drove down to donate to the evacuees and check on their grandson and how he was doing emotionally. And she says, we took him to see his best friend at a motel and he gave her three of his stuffed animals.

[08:54]

One was a small dog she had been partial to. The friend clutched them to her chest and keened close to tears. Her house was burned to the ground as are all the others in the path of the fire. So they helped their son get a generator and masks efficient against smoke. Their water had been out and came back while they were there. Their internet cables were burned, so there was no internet. And there were about 300 electric power poles burnt through and down with burned, frayed electric lines on the ground everywhere. So they were happy that... their son would be able to share the generator with their neighbors who had no electricity. So I'm sharing that description because when I read it, it just brought home to me how so many people are suffering now in these fires, losing their homes, some of them losing their towns and the fires.

[10:06]

are still not fully under control. Chosen ended her, she called it a bulletin, by saying, rejoice that you are still alive, still have shelter, and loved ones are still able to practice and keep a stable heart and mind so you can respond to what comes forward and help others. So... What is an appropriate response? I thought her son, her grandson, actually her 10-year-old grandson, giving three of his toys to his best friend who clearly needed some comfort in that moment. And Hogan and Chosen bringing things from the monastery that they knew people would need facing what was happening and supporting their family.

[11:13]

And this time also brings out great generosity and great kindness and courage. I'm so grateful to all the firefighters. and firefighters coming from other states to California, Oregon, and Washington to help put out these fires. So I had chosen as someone I got to know 15 years ago. She and others from Great Bow Monastery organized a pilgrimage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. for the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima, Nagasaki. Chosen was born on the day that the US bombed Nagasaki. So she was 60 years old and she wanted to do something to atone for or express deep apology for what our country had done.

[12:21]

And so she had the idea of bringing 60 images of Jizo Bodhisattva to Japan. And then someone convinced her to instead bring 230,000 images of Jizo Bodhisattva, one for each person who died in the first year after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So she realized it would take a group to accomplish that. And I heard about this project when I was living at Tassahara. and we were making stamped claws that became prayer flags with stamped images of Jizo Bodhisattva. I want to share with you a statue of Jizo Bodhisattva to give you an idea. Jizo typically looks like a monk, very simple, and in one hand carries this staff,

[13:23]

Usually it has six rings on it, and the rings jingle so that when Jizo's walking, creatures on the path would hear the sound and scatter so as not to be injured. And in Jizo's other hand, there's a jewel. It blends in with the color of the statue, but I think you may be able to see it. It's called a wish-fulfilling jewel or the jewel of our own Buddha nature. Statues of Jizo and little altars are found at many crossroads in Japan, and Jizo is said to be a protector of travelers and also of children. And you see outside cemeteries in Japan, usually six Jizo statues, one for each of the six realms that are said to be, you know, in some Buddhist cosmology where souls may migrate after death.

[14:29]

And because Jizo is said to have the ability to go to some of those realms where people may be still in pain and find ways to heal them. On the Jizos for Peace pilgrimage, we visited temples in Kyoto where the main statue rather than Buddha was Jizo. And some of those were temples where people went when they were ill or emotionally upset to find some solace. So I think, you know, Jizo is one of the... Bodhisattvas are the awakened beings that are kind of archetypes of different energies that we can draw on when we need support, when we might need more compassion to develop our compassion for ourselves and others.

[15:36]

And steadfastness, wisdom. Each bodhisattva archetype has a particular... quality that they embody, and that these qualities can really be helpful in times like this. I could say a lot more about the Jesus for Peace pilgrimage, but I think I will save that story for another time. It was one of those life-changing experiences for me. It was a... Not the first time I'd gone to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but I went with, there were 32 Zen, most of us Zen students and priests, many from Great Bow Monastery. And we brought these jizos and gave them away in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and visited Kyoto as well.

[16:42]

So that has... that really seeing how one of the messages I got from that trip was seeing how people survived. Not many people died, but those who survived. We met many survivors of the atomic bomb called Hibaksha. Many of them were dedicating the remaining years to teaching young people about what had happened and to work towards preventing another nuclear war. So on Saturday night, I felt really, I would say, blessed to have the opportunity to hear Joanna Macy and

[17:46]

Stephanie Caza, in conversation. It was partly in celebration of a book. Joanna Macy turned 90 last year. And this is a book called A Wild Life, A Wild Love for the World. And it was about her many decades of activist and scholarly work. And Joanna, you know, just Joanna was in Washington state. She lives in Berkeley, but she was in Washington. And Stephanie was in Portland, Oregon, where she lives. And both places having very, very dense air on Saturday night. And talking about the climate crisis and how it's... impacting us, how this is such a time of rapid change and also a time, as Joanna sees it, a time of great opportunity.

[18:58]

And the work that Joanna does is usually done in groups and she calls it the work that reconnects because it can help us reconnect with ourselves as well as with others and the wider world. And I first took a workshop with Joanna Macy in 1982 on the East Coast where I was living, and that was another one of those life-changing experiences because it woke me up in a way. I had... done a lot of activist work earlier in my life, and I was a social worker at that time, and had stepped back from direct involvement in the peace movement or other issues. And the workshop really rekindled my activism in some significant ways.

[20:04]

At that time, Joanna's work was called Despair and Empowerment. And she wrote her first book was Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age. That was a time when the U.S. was sending nuclear weapons to England and Germany where they were being stored. And Joanna was very concerned about that and also about nuclear waste. And so the environment has been one of her concerns for decades. And The work that reconnects, which has spread all over the world now, is work that has four parts. And I'm going to say briefly what they are. It starts with getting in touch with what we love about the planet, what we love about our communities. And you might take a moment to think about something in nature that you love

[21:08]

Or if you're in the city, it could be a tree or a garden, just something that you're so grateful for its existence. And starting from that sense of gratitude, which I find really opens my heart, as a group, people would then explore some of the feelings of Grief for what's happening to some of these places and species and mountains and rivers that we love. Grief and other strong emotions, outrage and fear. And we do this in a ritual that she created called the Truth Mandala. And think about things like, if the earth could speak to us now, what would the earth say? What would some of these trees that are burning say to us now?

[22:13]

And then moving from there to a sense of deep time, she calls it, where we're in touch with our ancestors. And those of us who are Zen students frequently recite the names of our ancestors going back to the seven Buddhas before Buddha. So that's way before 2,500 years ago. But we also have ancestors in our families and ancestors in other species that were on Earth before humans were, trees that are very ancient, the oceans, mountains. And to have a sense of continuity in time, past. time present, and then to think about future generations as well, which really expands our, at least for me, my ability to see what's happening now in a different context, a broader context.

[23:19]

And from there to use the imagination to envision the world as we might like it to be. And then the last part of The work is going forth, finding ways to connect with others, to learn about the kind of power that comes from interconnectedness. She calls it power with rather than power over. And then to with every workshop, there's a way in which you narrow down on one small thing you could do in the next week after the workshop. that will make a difference, will be a little step closer to your vision of how the world could be. And so for me, this weekend, thinking about climate change and how I'd like the world to be, there was a strong connection for me with the upcoming election.

[24:24]

And on Sunday, I participated with a number of other San Francisco Zen Center residents and members of the wider community, and also there were about 200 people, some from other what we call branching stream sanghas, as Kodo referred to, the sanghas in the Suzuki Roshi lineage all around the country, in an election retreat. And each person in that retreat wrote 20 letters that will help get out the vote in in various states around the country, our group wrote letters to Pennsylvania. And so with 200 people each writing 20 letters, that was 4,000 letters that we generated that day. These retreats have been taking place all summer and will continue. So that's one small thing I feel I can do to make a difference. And just thinking about

[25:30]

Some of the other tools that we have that are so close, that are really part of our practice, Zazen meditation, for one. I feel that's one of the things that's helped me stay steady through these months of so little contact. There are ways that certainly we're able to see each other tonight on these screens, but it's... I miss sitting in the zendo with the sangha and I miss having talks in the Buddha hall, open to people in the community and sharing that space together. I miss being able to be with friends. But anyway, back to Zazen, we do have the practice and we can all do it and we can do it with others through the online zendos all around the country now. We also have ceremonies.

[26:32]

We do a weekly well-being ceremony where we can think about loved ones who are ill and send them our energy. Chanting, sharing our voices in that way. We don't do a lot of that right now together, but we actually can do it in our rooms. And we have each other, the community. I have such great appreciation for both the residential community and the wider community, the community that now extends so far away through these meetings by Zoom. I want to get back to the sharing of voices. One wonderful thing that happened for me on Saturday during Joanna Macy and Stephanie's talk was, I saw the face of a dear friend who lives in Albany, New York, who I hadn't seen since the 1980s.

[27:40]

And we've managed to connect with each other by sending, please, this is probably not a good thing to encourage people to do, but we connected over chat. It was not a, couldn't be a private chat. So She just recognized me and was happy to see me. And then she said, how can I get in touch? And so her name is Ruth Pelham, and she's a singer-songwriter who's been writing songs that bring people together. That's been her to create inclusive community through songs. She's done a lot of work with children. And I'd like to end my talk tonight, before we have a little time for Q&A, by sharing one of her songs and inviting you to sing the chorus, which the words are, love is all around. And I'm doing this partly because I miss singing with people.

[28:42]

And in the past, I've sometimes ended Dharma talks with songs, as have other people. Dharma teacher Steve Stuckey had a beautiful singing voice and would often sing at the end of one of his talks, and attention Reb Anderson also. I still remember him singing When the Red, Red Robin Comes Blah, Blah, Robin along. So if you'll bear with me, and I hope this will be an enjoyable experience for you. Kodo is going to make it possible for us to hear the song and you'll know when it's time to sing love is all around there'll be in a few verses so it comes love is all around love is all around love

[29:49]

is all around love is all around the earth is our treasure how lucky are we love is all around home to billions of people just like you and me love is all around love is all around Love is all around. Love is all around. Love is all around. We're living here together as we spin through space. Love is all around. Sisters and brothers of the human race. Love is all around. Love is all around.

[30:53]

Love is all around. Love is all around. Love is all around. When you look up at night and see the stars in the sky, love is all around. Do you wonder who we are? How did we get here and why? Love is all around. [...] road we all travel be paved with peace. Love is all around. Step by step love will grow and hatred will cease.

[31:54]

Love is all around. [...] Come on people, let's build a world that's caring and kind. Love is all around. We need each and every one. Yes, now is the time. Love is all around. Love is all around. Love is all Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center.

[33:14]

Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[33:33]

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