I'll say again, good morning, it's great to be here. Probably the sound system didn't work because I've had the blessing and treasure of being able to practice in Tassajara, living off the grid for the last month, so I'm sure some of that kind of devil-may-care to the electrical world must have carried here to Green Gulch, hopefully. It is always an honor and a privilege to be with you on the celebration of Arbor Day, which is today, one day a year when we set aside a good block of time to celebrate our connection with the natural world, which we're celebrating every day anyway, but just spending some time together in a wonderful afternoon, and today it's sunny, a wonderful afternoon of planting and rejoicing, and we're going to begin this afternoon by dedicating one

[01:11]

of the oldest plants in the world, the magnolia. Outside of the Tea House Garden, we'll be planting a beautiful Sulangiana magnolia tree and opening our day of planting and working with this five million year old plant. In prehistoric records, did you know there are clear relics of magnolias from as far back as five million years, so it seems really proper and deep to be dedicating a magnolia today, remembering the events that we've all lived through since early September, and deepened, the events that have deepened our lives and given us great cause to want to be together this afternoon, planting and dedicating. So Arbor Day, we began this day more than 25 years ago with Dr. Schumacher came here and said, you know, it's a wonderful activity and definitely Buddha's activity to be planting

[02:17]

shrubs, bushes, grasses, and dedicating them to the well-being of the world. He reminded us that during the Buddha's lifetime, many monks took up the practice of planting and seeing to the prosperous of ten trees within their lifetime. In northwestern India, many tracts of rough land were reforested by that effort. Simple effort, key to do the planting and then to see to the benefit, to see to the maintenance and care. And we've learned here at Green Gulch, we've learned beginning with planting more than a thousand redwood trees in a season, we've learned to just dedicate a few plants and take care of them well. And today in particular, we'll be planting the magnolia, but also many grasses and simple shrubs and dedicating them to this watershed and to the well-being of all beings.

[03:19]

So please join us this afternoon at two. I hope you will. Green Gulch has done a lot to prepare and get ready for this day. When you find your place where you are, said Zen Master A.H. Dogen more than 800 years ago, when you find your place where you are, practice occurs. Wonderful line from the Genjo Koan. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs. Now, I think that perhaps in these times it may be difficult to always find and settle ourselves on our place. And even more importantly, once we think we've found that place, how do we settle and become solid without becoming too solid and too settled and too familiar? How do we settle ourselves and also keep the door open so that surprise can come in?

[04:26]

This is the art and joy of meditation practice and the commitment that every meditator in all traditions throughout time and space takes up. So please remember to find your place where you are so that practice can occur. Yesterday we spent a full day walking in meditation and mindfulness and celebration, the rim and perimeter of this watershed where we are lucky enough to practice and find ourselves, beginning in the heart of the redwood forest at Muir Woods, that organism that is between twelve and eighteen million years old, we're not sure, of continuous life, the ancient redwood forest, that forest that has run an expanse of close to two million continuous acres stretching

[05:27]

along the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington, and is now, we find, whittled down or slashed down, a little more accurate, to close to three percent of its original stature. To sit, to find our place where we are, we have to include that truth and the truth that close to, I want to get this right, hmm, yeah, hard facts, one hundred square miles of forest, particularly rain forest, are cut and taken down every day. So as we sit and practice, as we work this afternoon, that truth animates our work. So yesterday we began in the heart of the forest, that forest which has, along with great age and stature and truth, probably the greatest biomass, biological mass of

[06:33]

any organism on earth. It's wonderful to take your place within the Cathedral of Redwoods. I could look back and see my friend Mia Monroe, who's been a ranger and servant of the woods for the last twenty years, I could see her as a tiny little being against the ancient ones. And, you know, on those old trees, a living tree has close to seventeen hundred distinct species of organisms prospering from its growth, but, you know, the dead ones, the dead ones have four thousand organisms living on them. These, these times, said Charles Dickens, these times are the best and worst of all times, the times we're living in. I'd like to read a poem by Adrienne Rich called The Dark Fields of the Republic.

[07:40]

What kind of times are these? There's a place between two strands of trees where the grass grows uphill and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadow, near a meeting house abandoned by the persecuted who disappeared into these shadows. I've walked there, picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, I've walked there, picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled. This is not somewhere else, but here, our country turning closer toward its own truth and dread, its own ways of making people disappear. I won't tell you where this place is, the dark mesh of woods meeting the unmarked strips of light, ghost-ridden crossroads, leaf-mold paradise, and I won't tell you what this place

[08:46]

is. So why do we tell each other anything? Because we can still listen, because in times like these listening at all is necessary, and to do so we talk about trees. I have a friend who every Friday afternoon calls our house and leaves a poem on the answering machine. It's horrible if I ever pick up the telephone, because then I have to encounter him, and you know, it's better to have that disembodied voice speaking truth into your ear, talking about the dark fields of the republic. So he left me this poem in late September, and it's been in my heart and mind ever since. And yesterday when we walked the margins of this land that we call home and our place of practice, it was a wonderful thing to remember this poem and to speak in the tongues of

[09:52]

trees, to take that ancient language and make it ours. And they're fierce tongues because they include a deep and abiding commitment to protect, preserve, and speak in defense of the ancient ones. That came up really strongly. And it seems that in that vow, in that practice vow, all beings are a help and a reminder. Now, we walked right along, at the very beginning of the walk, a flush of butterflies came out of a thicket. And there was the really rare, let me get her name right, tortoiseshell butterfly, beautiful creature flickering around, and one of the practitioners, she settled right on his shoulder. And I remembered a friend of mine who had that experience walking with another butterfly, settling right on the corner of his mouth, and he stood in the sun as the creature drank

[10:57]

from the little beads of sweat above his lip, because they love salt. "'Worth your weight in salt,' she said, sipping him up. And we saw that same butterfly yesterday, not so tattered, but newly eclosed. The morning cloak, morning as the Kaddish morning, wearing the cloak of morning, M-O-U-R, and beautiful dark brown butterfly with a cream perimeter around the edge, leading us into the forest and into the tangle. And we noticed that the natural world is supremely disordered. It's tangled, it's messy, it's a thicket of broken promises and unexpressed dreams and fear. Here we learned, going deeply into that thicket, how much life exists within that world. And while we were walking, a tiny red vole, you know, tiny little, it's like a little

[12:03]

mouse, went darting across the floor of the forest, and I have to read you this tribute to the vole. A single California red-backed vole, weighing about an ounce. Her guts, stuffed with mycorrhizal spores and nitrogen-producing bacteria, ventures out of cover to put these commodities precisely where they are needed. It is her nature, programmed into her DNA over the millennia of her evolution, to be a true forest manager. We can never substitute ourselves for her. We can only watch her and learn." I think that was probably the most wonderful experience of yesterday's walk, was watching and learning and not turning away from the tangle, and not following our inclination to want to make order out of disorder. In the 4th century treatise on the Visuddhimagga, Diva asks the Buddha, and notices, that there

[13:10]

is an inner tangle and outer tangle, that our generation is entangled in a tangle. So I ask you, who untangles the tangle? And the Buddha sits and finally responds, saying, you know, the one who is sagacious and settled, calm and open, untangles the tangle, something like that. But dear friends, after walking in the forest yesterday, I have to say, ain't nobody going to ever untangle the tangle. The tangle, going into the tangle, is our work. It's our meditation, it's our joy, and it is our commitment, not to try to straighten out what can't be straightened, not to enlighten the dark fields of the republic, but to walk through them, and to recognize that this is not somewhere else, this is exactly the time we live in, and it includes tangled, twisted dreams and lives.

[14:14]

And seeing that is a solace, a stabilization, an anchorage, and a reminder. So when I was practicing at Tassajara, and I had the real honor of being able to go down and into the mountains for one month, I've been working for more than seven years on a manuscript about gardening and Zen practice, and the second draft of that manuscript is now in the capable hands of my editor, and I worked hard to get that there so that I could practice at Tassajara for a month. It was necessary for me to pull away from my busy, full life, and even from the familiarity of this home temple, where it would have been much easier and very satisfying to practice, and go down to Tassajara, or up to Tassajara, depending on how you think of it, to go into

[15:20]

that tangle and refresh my commitment. So it was a wonderful experience to be there, to remember that place where I practiced in 1973, actually began sitting two years before, but went into Tassajara in 1973, and practiced there with Linda Ruth. We were both students on the meditation floor, and it was her first practice period as abbess at Tassajara. So it was wonderful to go back and forward in time, and to sit together. And I thought, while we were there, on the 30th of January, I remembered that this period of time from the 30th of January until the 4th of April, the time we're in right now, has been called by many friends in the activist community a season of nonviolence. January 30th marking the assassination of Gandhi, April 4th marking the assassination

[16:25]

of Dr. King. Could we take this time, we asked ourselves, to fully focus and dedicate our practice to nonviolent awareness and commitment to our world? And it's so interesting, it spans the season of practice at Tassajara, and certainly here at Green Gulch, with a new practice period beginning on Wednesday, going until April, a true season of nonviolence. And you know, there's a pledge of nonviolence that many students here have taken during these times. We're reminded, sitting in a wooden hall made of the trees that we walked among yesterday, we're reminded of the necessity of taking up this work, the grave necessity of finding our place within this season of nonviolence. So I offer to you this morning something to consider in your own life.

[17:26]

Thinking of Gandhi, I believe he was asked, what do you think of Western civilization? And he said, I think it's a good idea, please begin. My paraphrase may not be accurate. And then thinking of Dr. King, how we're caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. Because of this, dedicating our activity and practice to this season of nonviolence seems incredibly important. One of the greatest delights of practicing at Tassajara, I feel called to report this to the Green Gulch residents, is that the babies who've grown up, were born and raised, and lived in this briar patch, find themselves right now at Tassajara missing Green Gulch terribly. Me no like this place, says Olivia in her grave little two-year-old voice.

[18:34]

Her brow is slightly furrowed. She's become a little more friendly now because she's trapped. That's the truth of it. So when trapped, endure. She seems much happier, and Lucas too, who has been running around these hills. They're both down there now and deepening everyone's practice. Olivia shuffling into the middle of work meeting circle, wearing her father's shoes and standing there looking gravely at the whole assembly. It's quite sobering. It makes you think, I got to deepen my practice. Anyway, one of the most magnificent features of Tassajara is the night sky. It's one of the darkest places in this country, and there are observatories for studying the stars in those mountains because there's no ambient light from the cities.

[19:37]

It's far enough away. Lucas asked his dad, Papa, and his mother Leslie, where do the stars go in the day? Beautiful question. And they became quite comfortable in the night. It was interesting watching them negotiate the night because it gets very dark at Tassajara because we're in a narrow canyon there. Very dark, very soon. And watching the babies take that on was quite moving. One night, when going home to Olivia's cabin, we were startled to find, because I lived, I had the pleasure of living next door to them in what we called Pine Gulch and Stone Row. Those of you who know Tassajara will know why we called it that. Anyway, we went home to our cabin, and on the open screen door of Olivia's room was a small northern pygmy owl just sitting on the edge of the door.

[20:41]

And it was freezing cold, freezing cold, in the low teens, I think. And Olivia climbed up in her father's arms and kind of put herself into the coat and was just pointing at the owl, and it was looking right at her. And she was looking at it, and Lucas also right behind. And we stood there long enough so that I could demurely, because you're not allowed to run at Tassajara, but I did run to Linda Ruth's cabin and hook her back. And we stood there until Zazen started looking at the owl. Sat there on the screen door, and I thought, how close we actually are to the natural world, to the real world, except that we forget. And you don't need to be in a wild place like Tassajara to encounter that, but it does help. So I feel that was a great gift to us and a reminder of our shared work and commitment.

[21:47]

In a few days here at Green Gulch, on actually next Friday, we will have an annual commemoration of the passing of the Buddha into final nirvana, Buddha's death, or parinirvana ceremony. On the altar will be decorated with branches of white flowers, flowers that recognize death and passing and change. And we will enact on that evening a play, a pageant, celebrating the life and crossing over of the Buddha. For some reason, yesterday, walking on the edge of the mountains, the sunny mountains, I thought about those last days of the Buddha.

[22:51]

And they came very vividly into my heart and mind, walking. So I went to what has always been one of my favorite of the Buddha Sutras, the Parinirvana Sutra, which tells about these last days. And I thought, not out of interest in grimness or any such waste of time, I'd like to share with you some of my impressions of this Sutra and hopefully their relevance to our life and times we're living in right now. So, the Buddha was sitting on Vulture Peak, Rajagaha, Rajagraha Peak. And King Ajatsathu, who was a local king, sent one of his ambassadors to the Buddha, basically to check on the Buddha's health and to ask him for permission

[23:57]

to destroy his enemy, the Vajrayanas. Kind of remarkable, I thought. This is incredibly modern somehow in its application. So the ambassador climbed up to the top of the peak and asked the Buddha what he thought of that. And the Buddha basically said, he didn't actually speak to the ambassador, he asked his disciple Ananda, haven't these guys been doing their best to live peacefully and in alert awareness? And checked out all these different aspects. It was very wonderful to read this, and was assured that, yes, they did. And at the end, he said, so I think probably they should be able to prosper just like you want to prosper. And then he began a long walking pilgrimage throughout the countryside of India. And I think he must have known that his time of passing was close. He was close to eighty years old. But he came down from that mountain and began a long walkabout through the countryside,

[25:05]

stopping to... the first stopping place after the mountain was in a small village where one of his primary disciples proceeded to praise him and tell him he was the best of all possible beings. And the Buddha said, do you know all beings, the mind of all beings, those who were born and unborn, those who are yet to come, those who've been here? If not, please don't praise me at their expense. I'm a normal human being following the way. Beautiful reminder. Then speaking to a huge gathering of lay people, encouraging at every stop, encouraging people to investigate the Dharma, take up the practice, find your place where you are, so the practice can live, essentially. And moving slowly and irrevocably across the countryside. And eventually, after many other stops

[26:07]

and lots of wonderful teaching that you can read if you're interested, he visited the town of Vaisali where the mango princess, the courtesan Amba Pali, a woman considered the most beautiful woman of her times, the courtesan or consort of King Bimbisara and the mother of an illegitimate prince, the woman who was both scorned and worshipped, invited the Buddha to have a meal with her in her house, the Buddha and all of his followers. And he did so, and afterwards went off to a small village, collected alms in that village and began to feel ill and said, I can't cross over yet, because I still have work to do with my community. Therefore, let me strengthen myself so I can keep going just a little longer.

[27:07]

But he was quite ill, and his primary disciple Ananda came to him and said, You know, when you were sick, I couldn't live. I was completely in your spell and completely ill myself. And famous, wonderful words of the Buddha came out of that discourse, and I want just to have us consider these. The Buddha, Ananda says, The only thing that was some comfort to me was the thought the Lord will not attain final nirvana until he's made some statement about the order of monks, about the continuity of the teaching. And I love this part of the Buddhist canon so much, where the Buddha says, But Ananda, what does the order of monks expect of me? I've taught the Dharma forever, making no inner or outer distinction, no teacher's fist, no closed fist, in respect to the teachings.

[28:10]

If there is anyone who thinks I shall take charge of the order or the order should refer to me, let them make some statements, but this is not what I teach. He says, Ananda, I'm now old, worn out, venerable, one who has traversed life's path. Therefore, Ananda, I remind you, live as an island. Sometimes that word island is translated as lamp. Be a lamp unto yourself. Lamp and island are very close in the language that the Buddha spoke. So be an island unto yourself, or be a lamp unto yourself. Be your own refuge, with no one else as your refuge, with the Dharma as an island, with the Dharma as your refuge, and with no other refuge. Good reminder. I think, given the fact that he was walking all over the countryside,

[29:14]

he was including in that island and lamp all the beings, because he made a huge effort in the end of his life to reach out and connect with the community that supported him. And during that time, of course, Mara, the evil one, visited the Buddha, came to him in the night, in a dream, and said, Oh, great world-honored one, now is the time to enter final nirvana. Go ahead, you've worked hard. Take a rest. Let go. Hurry on. I think the Buddha must have opened one eye and said, Evil one, don't worry. I'm going to do it, but not right yet. Don't push me. Don't tell me until the teaching is clear, until we can remember to be islands unto ourselves, to take refuge, no other refuge, except in the depth of the teachings, to remember that all life is conditioned

[30:15]

and of a nature to decay and come apart. I'm not going. And then this wonderful progression, until he comes to the tiny little town of Kusinagara, and says, This is the place where I'm going to release. And he's helped by Kunda the smith, who serves him a simple meal that includes pig's delight. Now, whether or not that's actually pork or truffles, people who don't want to acknowledge that Buddha might have eaten some meat, say, Well, the pig's delight is a truffle, so it must be they ate bad truffles. But whatever reason the Buddha took food that made him quite ill, and he knew it was time to enter final nirvana, and said, This is the place I want to be. Take me out to the forest. And he lay down between two simple salt trees,

[31:16]

and it was winter, but miraculously these trees burst into bloom and showered the assembly with coral flowers. Please, said Ananda, don't die in this simple, this insignificant little daub and wattle town. I think it just means, you know, hole in the wall. Don't die in this little hole in the wall. This is a good place, said the Buddha, under these trees, exactly where I want to be. And stretched out and crossed over. Well, there's a lot more to the story, but simply it's that. And we look at a teacher and sage, practitioner, a human being who was born under a tree, taught under the trees, and died between two trees, crossing over and reminding us to take up the teachings, be islands, refuge, lamps unto ourselves, and walk the path. So, I hope that some of you can come on Friday night.

[32:25]

There'll be a beautiful enactment here in the Zen Do, and the story will be told. There'll also be music from the heart of the forest. So, I was thinking about that yesterday, walking, thinking about the Buddha lying down, remembering the thread that connects us to those times and helps strengthen us in these times. And, you know, four very clear qualities came up. When I was at Tassajara, we have, every day, an absolutely incredible gift, which is time to study. And I studied Pema Chodron's book,

[33:26]

Places That Frighten You, Places That Scare You. Is that the name of it? I think so. Something like that. And she included a section in that book of four qualities that can help us when we're frightened. And I was also, yesterday, I remembered that. I think when you have the opportunity to deeply study without distraction and without much light either, I want to mention at Tassajara, so you have to really concentrate on the words, it's a great gift. And those qualities came up in thinking about Buddha's parinirvana day and where we find ourselves in these times. She says, you know, in order to develop loving-kindness, a compassionate and kind heart, we need four qualities. First of all, steadfastness.

[34:27]

Second of all, clear seeing. Third of all, a willingness to enter into emotional distress. And fourth of all, a commitment to live in the present moment. These are not Pema's teachings. They're drawn from the ancient teachings of this tradition and of many traditions. And I think that they're incredibly relevant. Steadfastness, from that wonderful word stead, comes from standing. Being upright, says the dictionary, being upright in the middle of your life. Stead, as in homestead, also means farm. A stead is a farm, a stand. Steadiness, even in a flickering time. Find your steady place and be steady within it. And as I mentioned in the very beginning of this address,

[35:30]

when you get good and steady, open up the window a bit and remember the tangle. It's knocking on the door from all the corners. Remember that wild world and realign yourself with that. Find a steadiness that is willing to go out of balance. Not a rigid steadiness, but a steadiness that is able to look at the tangle and include the tangle. And Katyagiri Roshi loved to say, just continue under all circumstances. Settle yourself on yourself. Let the flower of your life force bloom and just continue under all circumstances. That's a kind of steadfastness that I think is needed very much in our times. And that solid, solid meditation practice offers us,

[36:35]

in whatever form you can do, making a commitment to yourself to find your place where you are so the practice can occur. Take even five minutes a day to sit completely still, to settle yourself on yourself, to be steadfast and dedicated. Settle yourself and just continue under all circumstances. And when you get up from your sitting, remember as you go forward, remember what gives you strength and steadiness. And walk into your commitment to take care of that, to culture it, like you would a homestead, a farmstead. And clear seeing, clear seeing is so,

[37:43]

I mean, they're all so connected, aren't they? Steadfastness, clear seeing. Looking at the tangle, living in the present moment. Clear seeing means a willingness to look at what's right ahead of you. Like the Buddha looked at the courtesan Amba Pali. She said, usually people looked away from her in embarrassment or with a measure of desire, but the Buddha looked at her, that's a wonderful comment, as you would look at flowers. Clear seeing without picking and choosing, just a moment of that helps to cultivate loving-kindness and commitment. So let your steadiness have clear seeing. When I was at Tassajara,

[38:44]

a song that one of my old friends taught me came up a lot in sitting, and actually another friend there remembered this song. It's only three lines. It goes, Same old, same old, same old slippers. Same old, same old, same old rice. Same old, same old, same old paradise. Whoa. It came up a lot. And I thought, clear seeing doesn't really distinguish between the slippers, the rice, and paradise. They are somehow connected. Somehow connected. And that connection is revealed in sitting and walking, paying attention. Experiencing emotional distress is a little harder.

[39:45]

When you're settled, when you're steadfast in your settledness, when your eyes are open, then you're ready for a little emotional distress. Of course, they all come up together, like the mushrooms on the floor of the old-growth forest, poisonous and beneficial, or beneficent, coming up together. And emotions, self-existing energy mixed with thoughts, describes one teacher. Self-existing energy mixed with thought. Study them to stay with emotion and not be afraid to feel what comes up is essential in finding your place where you are. I think we can talk more about this in question and answer. I know you know what I'm talking about. It means letting the tangle in, not trying to straighten out the tangle,

[40:48]

but also not getting caught by it. Hey, no problem, right? It takes a lifetime. But to be willing to experience emotional distress and to see it change and take its place is essential in the culture of meditation and mindfulness. Last of all, living in the present moment. It's touch and go. Touch the present moment and go forward. But it's also touch and go, can we actually do it? Can we actually live in the present moment? We give a lot of lip service to it. Present moment, wonderful moment, but not always. Sometimes the present moment is full of the dark fields of the republic. So again, living in the present moment means

[41:52]

giving yourself the opportunity to really notice what's going on. Thinking again of the Buddha, living in the present moment, reminding his community, you know, all conditioned existence is of a nature to decay. Strive on, endlessly. Be a refuge and a lamp. Be an island unto yourself and just continue under all circumstances. It comes up in the present moment. So think of these qualities, if you will. Let them be part of your investigation of your path. For those of you who are drawn to serve and work in the world, remember what it really means to be steadfast

[42:53]

and clear in your seeing. Remember what it means to experience emotional distress and to live in the present moment. And then find a way to deepen those qualities through practice. You already know this quite well, or you wouldn't be here today on this beautiful day. Heaven's alive, you'd be doing something else, but you're trapped, caught in that inescapable network of neutrality, out of which Western civilization might arise in a season of nonviolence. Let's find some way to be steadfast, to determine that we will see clearly, to experience emotional distress and success, and to live in the present moment. And let's be sure to find some time

[43:55]

to plant even a single blade of grass from which the sanctuary of the world is established. I'm going to close with this wonderful reminder from His Holiness the Dalai Lama. I'm sure you've heard it, but it's awfully good. Never give up. No matter what is going on, never give up. Develop the heart. Too much energy in your country is spent developing the mind instead of the heart. Be compassionate, not just to your friends, but to every being. Be compassionate. Work for peace. In your heart and in the world, work for peace. And I say again, never give up. No matter what is happening, no matter what is going on around you, never give up.

[44:56]

Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. And I look forward to continuing this conversation later in the morning.

[45:08]

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