This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Good morning. Too good a morning. Wood that it were raining and stormy. I think a practitioner of the present moment would be grateful for whatever is, and we are, and yet, and yet, longing for the rain. Well, it's a real pleasure, a real pleasure to be here this morning with you. We're celebrating a day in honor of the trees, our annual Arbor Day. wonderful tradition which we began here at Green Gulch long before we actually arrived here, a celebration of the ancient ones.

[01:11]

This very hall, if you take a moment to look up, feel the ancient old growth forest, the body in which we are living and practicing and breathing this morning. never forgetting where we come from. So we honor one day a year at least, celebrating, remembering our roots and the rootedness of practice in the Saha world, in the living world. What a beautiful opportunity. In 1976, Dr. E.F. Schumacher visited us here at Green Gulch, and wonderful teacher, friend, guide, in the early years coming to the Bay Area with his book, Small is Beautiful, the author of Small is Beautiful, a person who trained with Mahatma Gandhi.

[02:30]

in the practice of nonviolence and applied awakening. So coming here from England, he reminded us that in the Buddha's time, more than 2,500 years ago, monks in northeastern India were practitioners, not only monks, but those who gathered to study the way, to go forth, made the commitment to plant and see to the establishment of five trees in their lifetime. Dr. Schumacher said, this is a truth little known, but if you deeply study original Buddhism and the practice of the Buddha and the practice of the joyful home leavers of his times, then it would make sense that they would protect And see to the maintenance and life force of beings.

[03:36]

Not only the human world, but also the more than human world. That was a wonderful reminder for me as a new practitioner. And Dr. Schumacher went out with us to the borderline between the farm and the inhabited world. And we planted a broadleaf cotton. black cottonwood, the largest North American broadleaf plant from our teacher, Harry Roberts, right at the edge with the encouragement that that tree would protect and preserve and remind us of our rooted life. So it's good to go back and remember The ethos of these days is celebration. You know, and in the early years at Sun Center, practicing with the carpentry crew, I remember Paul Disco saying to us in those years, if we're to build beautiful buildings, it's our responsibility to plant back trees because trees are the source of the buildings.

[04:51]

And so the carpentry crew in those early years took it upon themselves to plant trees I still curse the days that we did this, but 1,000 Monterey pine, which we're still cutting up and bucking up for good firewood to this day, but with an open heart and deep intention, 1,000 Monterey pine, 1,000 Coast Redwood, 1,000 Douglas fir. Now you can imagine that they didn't all make it, but the carpenters learned. They were covered with poison oak every winter season. They were the ones who were itching and scratching while sitting still. But we did make that commitment to if we're to generate buildings made of wood, then we will give back to the living ground. And I think that vow animates our life here and our practice life here. So along with celebrating

[05:54]

The practice of planting trees, by planting together and tending trees, attention to trees, is extremely important. From the French, attend, to stretch toward a life that's bigger than your life. So with attention, attend, we stretch toward a life that supports our life. So in connection, with planting trees, we have a tradition of spending a day, dedicating a day to walking the watershed in which the trees are to be planted or cared for, to listen to the voice of the watershed rather than hurrying and thinking that we know what to plant and where to plant it and who to dedicate it to and how to tend. Listening, a day of listening. So yesterday we met at Muir Woods National Monument, a small group of us, and spent the day listening to the voice of the watershed, walking and listening.

[07:07]

And could we, in our walking and silence, hear what others have proclaimed about this very place where we live in practice, that it is... one of the 25 global diversity hotspots recognized by the Nature Conservancy as key to preserving the world's ecosystems. This very spot, because of the meeting of the minds of the ecological systems that converge at the edge of the ocean from the crest of the coastal headlands, about eight or nine different ecosystems joined here, ready to teach us if we can listen. so proclaimed by the Nature Conservancy and by the United Nations, one of the 411 of the world's major ecological system types that can teach us how to live in these times. And do you take this truth in, takes a quiet mind, being able to walk with a quiet mind,

[08:22]

Not a sleepy, distracted, wander, no, not a sleepy and distracted mind, yes, a wandering mind, a mind that wanders far and wide and can listen to the older voice. So luckily we walked with those who remembered the names of the trails, Ka'ashi, instead of the beach trail, the old trail, the salmon trail leading to the ocean. the names given from the original peoples, letting those names rise up and be remembered. 10,000 years of settled life. When we first plowed up the fields, the lower fields, and we worked with a team of horses, my husband tells the story of an obsidian knife coming to the surface, picking up that knife and feeling that The life story, the story of trading and dancing and listening and living that is told in the landscape, when you slow down enough to pay attention, you can't go deep, says poet Tess Gallagher, until you can go slow.

[09:36]

So to spend a day going slowly, we didn't travel that far, but we walked with a kind of care and an assumption. that was essential and could actually feel the 40 triplets that populated the area from right around the Bay Area down to Monterey. Diverse language groups, many different language groups of people living next door to each other, separated only by a canyon, as close as we are in this valley to the neighboring valley, only six miles to the east. And language in between these two valleys, not particularly here, but within the Ohlone system, language is as different as Mandarin Chinese is to English.

[10:39]

What is signaled by practicing now in a place like this? What can we remember and know? That we are following and living in a landscape that has been populated peacefully for thousands of years. Diverse, isolated, diverse, isolated and peaceful. Continuous inhabitation. Living with the trees and the land. made of the land and the trees. I remember more than a couple, maybe a decade ago, walking behind Native elder and teacher Lani Panola, who is now part of the great majority, gone on to the great majority. Lani was a ranger at Point Reis and raised in the Miwok Pomo tradition. And he led us into the woods for a peaceful gathering to remember

[11:47]

the old ways, with two sticks, two elderberry sticks, to inform the spirits that we were coming into the forest. I'll never forget that. Lanny going in and then turning around to us and saying in a whispered voice to Mia Monroe, our people were never unafraid when going into the forest. So even in modern times, bringing together those sticks. To walk with that kind of mind and listen to what a landscape has to say is a gift of practice. So I very much want to begin with acknowledging that importance. As Fu reminded us last week in her Dharma talk, with this kind of mind, we enter uncultivated, uncharted pathways unseen territory into the woods, into those places that both frighten us and remind us of what it means to be a human being in these times right now.

[12:59]

And whenever there is a gathering as the gathering that's been assembled now here in this place of practice, a gathering, a practice period, in the old language of Japan, that time of practice was called a time of so-rin, from old word meaning forest thicket. And Katagiri Roshi used to remind us that when we gather together to practice in a dedicated time of attention, to have a practice period, we're like a forest thicket. Many different beings inhabiting the same region of with a dedication to peace and awareness and commitment to work for the benefit of the world, as the complex life of the forest does in so many ways. So it is good to remember those old words for coming together in time of practice.

[14:13]

And you know, for me, what is so powerful about this remembering is that by going back, by taking the time to walk carefully, to allow the opportunity to stand in awe as the single morning cloak butterfly that had been sighted a few times in your woods, flittered by us after we stood in quiet and walked to the bridges and watched young salmon filling the creek and then set out on our walk. To our amazement and delight, that single morning cloak butterfly coming through with her tattered wings and the beauty of her coloration, morning cloak from the morning of the dead. M-O-U-R-I-N-G.

[15:15]

M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G. A black overcoat, like the women of the Civil War, the widows of the Civil War war. For the first year of mourning, a black overcoat. And then for the second year of mourning, a dark purple robe with a bright golden hem of silk to represent coming back to life. On the morning cloak, butterfly has a black overlay and her under wings are dark purple with a gold, what we call a buttery crust, what the poets call a buttery crust. So there she or he flew across the landscape. And I think had we not been quiet and settled, we might not have seen her or she might not have seen us. Watching the butterfly, watching that extraordinary insect settle, to drink the water of the forest. She with enzymes on her mouth parts that can dissolve plant material and bring up the waters.

[16:25]

So the morning cloak and you know to inhabit and be fully present in a landscape is not without some degree of mourning or recognition. of what we carry and of what has passed. Not a grim recognition, but a willingness to be present for that. In one ancient language, one of my absolute favorite statements from ecologist and salmon protector Freeman House, in one ancient language, He reminds us the word memory derives from a word meaning mindful. In another, from a word to describe a witness. In yet another, it means at its root to grieve. To witness mindfully in these times is to grieve for what has been lost and to stand in awareness and respond to that, I add.

[17:38]

A beautiful statement. So there is, in witnessing the mourning cloak, both grief, settled grief and rising joy, to be present and alive in these broken and dangerous times. And to spend the day walking and listening to the land. And being lost in that landscape. So, this is the year... A good friend yesterday reminded us not only the year of the dragon, Chinese year of the dragon, but auspiciously the year of the water dragon. The water dragon comes up from the depths, but once every 60 years. And one of the people in our walk yesterday is a son of the water dragon. This is his year. Water dragon year.

[18:40]

Dragon guarding this green dragon zen place. Green dragon zen place with head in the clouds in the sky, tail in the fine mist of the ocean. So the water dragon protects the treasures of water and is unafraid of fire. So fire coming into water, water informing fire this auspicious year. it is an extraordinary time to be alive so recognizing this I'd like to as F. Scott Fitzgerald loves to encourage us draw our chairs close to the precipice and listen to a story so with your indulgence I'd like to drop down into a story that I've been privileged to be part of

[19:43]

for the first month of this dragon year, water dragon year, 2012, the end of a great cycle in the Aztec tradition and the beginning of new world systems at every breath. The beginning of this year, I was privileged to journey to India and to travel on the first day of January at dawn after... all night sitting and ringing of bells and every aspect that happens in this temple, heading out at daybreak to India with my 23-year-old daughter. She has just, she grew up here, lived here for the first 12 years of her life, very strong years, caused a lot of trouble. She is a dragon in every way and full of fire and water and much energy. So this was her home And even though she resisted, she did take in the life of practice here.

[20:49]

I know that. She graduated here from the University of California at Berkeley from the College of Natural Resources. She graduated with a degree in environmental science and policy. Really moved and proud of her for her work. And a few weeks before she graduated, she won an all-expenses trip paid to India. The wonderful restaurant where she works that's been a treasure in the Bay Area, Chez Panisse restaurant, employing Elisa as a lowly busser, traditionally has a raffle in the spring of every year. And because of Verun, who is an Indian man and friend of the restaurant, he said, enough trips to France and Italy. Why not offer a trip to India? So the raffle prize was a trip to India, and my daughter held her ticket as her numbers came up, one after another.

[21:49]

And if there were 10 numbers by the 9th, she was screaming so loudly no one could hear. Yes, indeed, the 10th number came up. She received a bindi on her forehead, a kiss on both cheeks, and a ticket to India. And called me and said, Mom, let's go together and let's make a pilgrimage. So... What an incredible gift. And so I said yes, and we arranged to go to India auspiciously at the new year and to travel with my beloved friend and Dharma brother, Shantam Seth, who is a student in the lineage of Thich Nhat Hanh, a Dharma brother of mine. We practiced together with Thich Nhat Hanh in the early years. As a deep activist and practitioner, Shantam, in 1988 with Thich Nhat Hanh, led his first pilgrimage in his own country.

[22:51]

Thich Nhat Hanh asking him, show me the life of India. And Shantam, beginning to explore India. Thich Nhat Hanh's only request on that pilgrimage was, could you find a young boy and a young girl to whom I might be able to tell the deeper childish story of the life of the Buddha. And Shantam scurried over the landscape and luckily with the advantage of language and forceful presence and the terror of disappointing his teacher, he produced a young man named Rajesh and a young daughter of the area of India right around Bodh Gaya. And those children came and listened as Thich Nhat Hanh told them. the story, the child's story of the life of the Buddha, the daughter Sujata giving a bowl of milk to encourage the Buddha to keep practicing meditation, even though with the strength of good food, and then the boy offering Buddha a pile of grass upon which he could sit.

[23:58]

So these children listened, and that was in 1988. Shantam continued to go back into the footsteps, following the footsteps of the Buddha for every year since then. 1988 was the year Lisa was born, so I know for 23 years he did that. And this year, on the 23rd year, we had the pleasure of sitting on the roof of that young boy who listened to the story 23 years ago, sitting on the roof of his home, eating crackers and warm buffalo milk, and having him tell us the story again. So a great lineage, a great circle of connectedness and huge gratitude to Shantam for keeping the path open and to his wife, Gitu, and their two beautiful daughters who accompanied us and for the first time also sat on the roof and listened to the story of the buffalo boy who brought the grass to the Buddha to support his practice in modern India.

[25:00]

So we traveled with Shantam as our guide, which was amazing. And with Bernie Glassman, who's a Zen teacher of true rank, rankless rank, rankling rank, unrankable rankishness, Mr. Bernie Glassman, friends of Bernie, accompanied Shantam to undo any of the sacred teachings that we might have too much reference toward. So it was an extraordinary pilgrimage for us to go on, to be with the fresh, wild Zen mine of Bernie and the deep-seated, truth-telling, Zen presence of Shantam Seth. So they were our guides. And we plunged into the unknown, 14 days, traveling through northeastern India, listening to the old stories,

[26:03]

but more than anything, trying to discern what is new, what is strong, what is to be harvested from this incredible experience. So we traveled past a landscape that had electricity or running water into some of the oldest part of India, some of the poorest part of the country, both exhilarating and exhausting, extraordinary pollution. unlike anything I've ever seen in my life or experienced. Hardly able to breathe in some cities that are only heated by fire from pressed buffalo manure. I saw more different styles of stacking manure that gave me huge delight and made my hands sweat with desire to join in there and press that shit together. And just wanted to be down in it. But instead of breathing its burning acrid smoke but we traveled well past any settled world into the old place where the Buddha taught and it is it is a gift to be able to make such a pilgrimage but I am not here this morning to have a nostalgic journey with you but instead to consider what does it mean to actually

[27:28]

be a pilgrim, to be a voyager, to be a being who is willing to be lost in the folds of our landscape right now and find fresh meaning and relevance in what we experience. Because otherwise, we are really just longing for the past, dreaming of a time that becomes in our dreamishness, dreamingfulness, dreamfulness. a phantom. I'm looking for the living truth of what it means to make a pilgrimage. So I love the word itself, pilgrimage. It comes from perigene, as in perigene falcon. And so it's so significant because for years it was a rookery or a place of protection for perigene falcons right here at Muir Beach. Perigene, to go out of agriculture of your known place. So a pilgrim goes out away from the known world.

[28:37]

And please, I'm speaking directly to each of us in an encouragement to consider how we are each in our own way through practice or through the application of mindfulness in our daily lives. True pilgrims. When we are willing to be lost, not know the way, and step across the boundary line into the unknown. To do this, you do not need to travel through numerous time zones. 20 hours of flight is not required to arrive in the city of Mumbai or Bombay. To be bombarded by a world so other that you might forget that that possibility is present every time we open the door and step fresh into our lives. So because of the deep gift of being able to be jolted, to plunge into a foreign world for me, I remembered this encouragement because really to study, to walk, to make a pilgrimage in the footsteps of the Buddha means to make, to walk forward and deeply into the present moment.

[29:54]

And so I remembered this passage, one of my very favorite passages, and I thought of it yesterday too. From Thoreau on walking. Have a listen to this. I want to speak a word for nature. For absolute freedom. For wildness. As contrasted was a freedom in culture. Merely civil. To regard human beings. As inhabitants. Or part of nature. Rather than members of society. I wish to make. An extreme statement. I have met but one or two persons in the course of my life who understand the art of walking, that is, of taking walks, who have a genius for sauntering. A word beautifully derived from idle people roving about the country as in the Middle Ages and asked charity under pretense of going à la saunterre.

[30:57]

So the crusaders were called those who were going to the Santerre or to the Holy Land. But Thoreau doesn't let it stop at that. So seeing these going to the Holy Land, children exclaimed, there goes a Santerre, a Santerre, a Holy Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds, but they who go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, derive the word from sans terre, without any solid land. Going forth, sans, S-A-N-S, terre, without a sense of solid earth. Like that. And in a good sense. By this I mean. Willing to have. No particular home.

[31:59]

Equally at home. Everywhere. For this is the secret. Of successful sauntering. Yes. Every walk. He says. Every walk is. A sort of crusade. Preached. by the deep hermit in us to go forth, to reconquer holy land, take it back from those who think they have a place. And he goes on to say, It is true we are but now faint-hearted crusaders. However, if you are ready to leave father, mother, brother, sister, wife, husband, children, friends... and never see them again. If you've paid your debts, made your will, settled all your affairs, and are a free person, then you're ready for a walk.

[33:01]

I love this essay so much on walking. It's a great reminder. And in his lifetime, Thoreau encouraged those who do walk, who go out into the landscape, 20 miles, 20 square miles, can be known in the span of a lifetime. deeply known, and remembered and listened to. And from that, you have a sense of, in the same way that the word was used in the Buddhist time, of going forth. Making the commitment to go forth. So these are times that call for that kind of commitment. And I'm not talking about the gift of three weeks in ancient India, or even a full day in a settled, peaceful, and diverse landscape like this one. But at every moment, finding a way to go forth and to step into your deepest intention, to remember the world around. And in our pilgrimage time, we took the vows of the Peacemaker's Order, which is an order that Bernie Glassman established

[34:14]

in 1996, on his 55th birthday, as a practitioner, a Zen practitioner of many decades, and deep training in the Japanese tradition, in the same family as this temple practices in. In 1996, troubled by going forth into a world full of homelessness, sickness, and confusion, he made the... commitment on January 18th, which is his birthday, to sit on the steps of the United States Capitol and ask himself, what can I do as a practitioner about these issues that are facing my life? It's my 55th birthday, and he invited friends to join him. And people did. It was one of the coldest winters on record in Washington. But they sat in the Capitol, spent the night in... In the Center for Creative Nonviolence, there were so many homeless people in that center that they found a tiny little corner where they could sleep on the floor to get warm and sat for five full days asking.

[35:24]

And out of that came the founding of the Peacemaker Order, or Zen Peacemakers Now. So that founder traveled with us in India and encouraged us to take the bow of plunging in, plunging into not knowing what to do. plunging in to bearing witness in the way that Freeman encourages us to do, to witness mindfully both grieving and celebrating, grieving what has been lost, celebrating the resilience of the human spirit and meeting that. So first of all, plunge into unknowing. Second of all, bear witness to what is happening right in front of us. Third, get up and get to work for the well-being of the world. Heal the world. a grand vow, work for the benefit of all beings. So these vows seem extraordinarily modern and pertinent and prescient to our times, to me.

[36:25]

And they were refreshed by traveling to India with Bernie and Shantam and the 20... some pilgrims who traveled with us, very naughty, wild, rambunctious bunch of us. Gratitude to Marilyn, who was in her early 80s, who had wanted to go to India, left her penthouse apartment on 33rd Street in New York and plunged in. She, in the presence of the temple at Bodh Gaya, was the only pilgrim plucked out of thousands of Tibetan pilgrims to go in and stand near His Holiness the Dalai Lama. When we were there, we thought, what the heck? She has no practice. Tibetan people were saying, why her? But Bernie said the best thing. He said, because Marilyn is a Jedi. She went right through because she doesn't practice and show up in the proper robes. She's plucked in and asked, come into the center.

[37:28]

She said, well, I guess I'll just go with her bright pink handbag and her daisy color, daisy. embossed flip-flops, which she blessedly left at the door before going into the temple. We were closing our eyes and cringing. She did well by us, went in and went right into the heart of the matter. So traveling with pilgrims like this, it's very easy to get lost and to leave your solid land. Lost from the old Norse, meaning to leave the war zone, to abandon war. To disappear. To go AWOL. Loss. Every day, the poet Robert Bly reminded us, in the old world, you come back to life by sinking down into sorrow and loss. Letting it reanimate you.

[38:29]

We've forgotten that art. So to plunge into unknowing, it does help to be in a strange place, to be in a strange land. And to cross the boundaries. And to remember that the Buddha taught the Buddha's teaching in 4th and 5th century before the common era of India. He was a teacher that joined up with the axial teaching of the ancient world. At the time the Buddha taught, four other really strong teaching streams were bubbling up from the landscape. An axial time, says scholar Karen Armstrong. Thank you, Mind, for coming in. Reminding us that the axial age, the age where time and continuity match and meet, an age that is crucial rises up.

[39:34]

is the time when the Buddha was teaching in ancient India, the rising up of Buddhism, the rising up of deep, the deep streams of Hinduism. In China, the rising up of Taoism and Confucianism. In Greece, the teaching of Socrates and Plato and in Israel-Palestine. The wild and unbridled teaching of the Hebrew prophets. in the fifth, sixth, and seventh century. So sixth, seventh, and eighth century, before the beginning of the common era. Together, these teachings, pushing against the known world and asking for a different way of being, for going forth. And in all of these traditions, the courage of home leaving, of leaving a settled life and going forth. So I think it's, it was really, valuable for me to remember that in India and to travel to the places where the Buddha taught.

[40:40]

The Buddha was born in Nepal in an area of India that was so remote that the caste system never arrived there. This is extremely relevant, I think, for our times. The Buddha grew up free of the notions of levels of society and looking for an answer pragmatically, scientifically, as a psychologist and a truth thinker, as a person not willing to turn away from suffering in the life of the world, asking what is going to meet the nature of suffering and help to relieve suffering in the life of the world. And if the teachings and the therapies that he encountered didn't answer that question, he kept going. as a homeless wanderer. So what was most interesting to me as a practitioner of almost 40 years, and as a person that loves and has been trained in the Buddhist tradition, was a willingness to give up any of my notions about what that tradition was and to encounter it fresh.

[41:48]

in the country where it came forth, where the tradition came forth. And that tradition, I thought, had to have come forth from the living landscape, from the human beings. And I won't find it looking at the relics, precious as they were. I wouldn't find it even in the place where the Buddha died, in Kusinagara, leaning against the temple where there's a beautiful... stone figure of the Buddha with gold leaf all over the figure, watching pilgrims from all over the world laying cloths on this figure, weeping, offering incense in prayer. I thought, the teaching that I'm looking for can't be only here in grief and sorrow and yearning for the teacher, but it has to be in a fresh expression. So gratitude for the opportunity to plunge into that fresh expression. So let me tell you two stories that were meaningful, actually three stories that were meaningful. First of all, the opportunity to be in the city of Bodh Gaya during the teaching of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

[42:53]

300,000 pilgrims from all over the world, buses not able to go into Bodh Gaya. We had to walk in, which was great, to have those doors of the bus be thrown open, and we plunged into the smoky havoc of Bodh Gaya. and went to a beautiful Japanese simple guest house where we stayed. And on the doorsteps of that guest house, a gift, because on the doorsteps to that same guest house, we met the present prime minister in exile of Tibet, 43-year-old Dr. Lapsang Sange, who is working with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, newly acclaimed as the prime minister of Tibet, being given by his holiness the civil power of managing and running the state, the Tibetan state in exile. So we met him on the doorstep of the hotel where he was seeking refuge from the throngs and coming back to life a little bit.

[43:56]

And he exclaimed in joy to meet Shantam's wife, with whom he had studied environmental law when they were very young, in Delhi and also in England. So they embraced... And he asked us to have breakfast with him. So we had the opportunity for a deep hour-long conversation with the current Prime Minister of Tibet, who's living and helping His Holiness for the next five years, living in Dharamsalam, $300 a month, applying his Harvard Law degree, thank heavens, to the plight of the Tibetan people. And we plunged into very deep dialogue with him We asked him what the greatest challenge he's facing is right now, and he said it is the immolation of the Tibetan people, seeking freedom. Please, he said, as practitioners, don't turn away from this situation in our world.

[44:58]

So it was a great experience for us to plunge in and meet him, and then later to go into the... center compound at Bodh Gaya where the Buddha taught and woke up to full enlightenment under the Bodhi tree to sit under that revered beautiful tree to have a Bodhi leaf flitter down and unbelievably fell one that fell in my lap And many pilgrims lurched forward to grab it and then saw that I'm venerable and Western and they fell back. That didn't happen with my tattooed friend, David, upon whom they pounced trying to get the leaf, but he threw them off. I offered them the leaves and they fell back. No, no, you're... It's made me feel terribly venerable and frighteningly ancient. And remember the... It also made me remember that this is a leaf of the Bodhi tree right from the plant that we take care of here in the greenhouse. And here's the one from the original tree, not the original tree, but the ancestral tree.

[46:04]

Of course, this is also an ancestor of the tree that had the revered leaf that fell upon my lap. But I thought, well, we pounce on this leaf because it has a kind of sacred meaning since this is the tree that is on the site where the Buddha taught. But all these other Bodhi leaves. are littering the pathways of India. When we first arrived under one of them, my daughter Elisa climbed up like the wild dragon monkey she is into the branches, and I looked up and thought, I'm going up there too. I had just leaned back into the limbs of one of these wonderful trees, but because it is sacred and revered, this little dinky leaf was preferred. So I loved the conflict of that and what it means to... but to sit under the tree where the Buddha woke up and to remember that the life of trees have always figured massively in the teaching. So plunging in. Plunging in. And bearing witness.

[47:08]

The next afternoon, we were... We made a walking pilgrimage and actually by bicycle rickshaw to a Thai temple where we had the privilege of meeting 13 members of the Dalit or crushed, untouchable caste who've converted to Buddhism. And they spent the afternoon serving us chai tea in pink plastic cups and telling us the story of their experience of encountering Buddhism fresh. in that freezing cold temple. It was really cold in India, some of the coldest weather that the country has experienced. So meeting Rajesh Kumar, who converted to Buddhism 10 years ago and offers days of mindfulness every month to members of the Dalit class, offering them the teachings of the Buddha,

[48:15]

And then meeting his wife, who is a PhD. Actually, she's just received a PhD in, I think, psychology. I'm not sure what her field was. But Usha saying to us, and Shantam's wife, the barrister, Usha is also a lawyer. Shantam's wife, Gitu, translating for us. Usha saying, I was born a Hindu. but my development happened as a Buddhist and I will die as a Buddhist. And her husband saying, usually in our traditional faith, the faith in which we were raised, a woman does not surpass her husband in knowledge and information, but she has far surpassed me. He said, and I will do everything to support her teaching. And so it was extraordinary to be face to face with these 13 people, each person standing up, telling their story, translated, taking it in, bearing witness.

[49:19]

And that wouldn't have happened had we not traveled with Bernie, who insisted that we weren't just doing a pilgrimage to the old world. We were going to meet Buddha and we were bear witness to the work that's happening in India now. So a huge gratitude for that and for the opportunity to go on in the next few days and to meet people that are working to clean the Ganges River. Again, extraordinary human beings working for the well-being of all life. Being careful to tread that fine line between pointing out that the Ganges, sacred Ganges, is a polluted river because how could the mother Ganges be polluted? This river is a pure river, the bloodstream of... Ancient India, the place where the Buddha taught, the most sacred city, Varanasi, of the Hindu faith is on the banks of the Ganges River. How could the river be polluted? And yet these people working for the protection and life force of the river, all they do is just take pilgrims to the sites where they see...

[50:23]

raw sewage wrap running into the river, where they see industrial waste going into the river. And slowly, slowly, there's been tremendous work. And they practice with full recognition of the contradiction involved with the purest river of India also being polluted. Every morning, the old leader of the group bathing in the Gandhis. He's too... to infirm now to walk to the river, but river water is brought to him every morning, and he bathes in what would be diagnosed as utterly polluted water, understanding that this gives him the strength to continue teaching. So we bore witness to this kind of contradiction, and it strengthened my life as a practitioner. I thought of this short poem that I love so much from poet laureate of the United States, Kay Ryan, who teaches at the College of Marin, where I'm privileged to teach and learn. You aren't swept up whole into the pure Ganges River.

[51:30]

You aren't swept up whole, she says, however it feels. You're atomized. The wind passes. You recongeal. And it's a surprise. You weren't swept up whole. However it feels, you're atomized. The wind passes, you recongeal. It's a surprise. I thought of that poem. Swept up whole into an unknown world. Come together in a different way. On the last day of our pilgrimage, we... closed our time together in Shravasti, the site of the Jetta Grove where the Buddha taught during the rainy seasons. And Shantam and I, together, I attended and helped him, offered the precepts, the ancient teachings of the Buddha, as they were conveyed to us by Thich Nhat Hanh, to eight practitioners who received them for the first time on that site.

[52:37]

In a Jetta Grove that was purchased by laymen, Anattapindika, For the Buddha, this priceless grove, you can buy the land, they said in ancient India, but not the trees. Isn't that interesting? The land could be purchased, but not the trees. And what will be the cost? Asked the wealthy layman. Cover every inch of the land with gold coins, and it's yours. Sure that he wouldn't. And when he sent for gold from all the reaches of the... kingdom and brought it together and covered every square inch of the land with gold coins, then that land was preserved as a place for teaching. And the Buddha taught there for years. But far more interesting than the covering of the land with gold coins is the Buddha holding out his hands when the land was passed to him, holding out his hands, water poured over his hands and

[53:39]

And the Buddha said, this is Sangha land. In the four great directions, present and future, this land belongs to practitioners. So gold coins on the ground, water over the hands, and a teaching stream that continues. So to gather on our final day there and to renew the commitment to the precepts, to listen afresh, and in the corner, And the edge, as practice always originates at the edge or the corner. Too many Zen centers, Thich Nhat Hanh said years ago, please let's find some Zen corners. Too many centers. Let's go to the corners. Find Zen without Zen and without a center. Same request from Bernie. Let's plunge in to Zen practice without a notion of where we are so at the corner sat a young monk who sat through Shantam's Dharma talk through the precept ceremony and just attended three hours just present with us and at the end of the ceremony jumped up and came over and gestured to Shantam and Shantam listened and agreed and then said this monk has a gift for us and we went to the corner and

[55:07]

of the compound, and he had a young, tiny Bodhi tree, just a tiny little sapling, and asked if we would plant it there in the Jeddah Grove. So I had the privilege of being designated, along with my friend Paco, my new friend Paco, who was a... He's a very strong gardener and practitioner, Zen practitioner, living in the heart of the Bronx. He's been a political leader and is a great farmer. So Paco and I dug the hole with spoons and forks, anything we could find, our hands, clawing open the ground, pressing the tree in. And when the tree was planted, the monk stood up and began to chant. ancient language, and it was a beautiful experience doing that. And he stayed with us all day.

[56:08]

He followed us. There was some connection all day. In the evening when we went to old Shrapasti and it began to rain, he came back with us to the hotel and thanked us for the practice, a full day of practice and surprise. So I do want to break into the sacred... of this moment by saying that while planting the Bodhi tree with Paco from the Bronx, a monkey stole my Zafu. A monkey took my sacred Zafu and made off with it. Luckily, Martin, who had his wits about him, bearing witness with his wits about him, chased the monkey, brandishing his walking cane until the monkey turned around and hissed and threw the Zafu on the ground. So we had... You know, resilience, real resilience, which is what is called up now in us as citizens of this time and place.

[57:13]

Real resilience depends on pushing against the stream, coming back, you know, the ability to repair from suffering, to repair from brokenness, to come back to life is the sign of resilience. But the root of the word comes from salmon, pushing against the stream, but also jumping up and playing. Exalt. Somersault. Play. Play with the tradition. And come back to remembering what our work is. So much having to do with unknowing the world, being willing to be lost, bearing witness to what is, and then settling down and working together for the benefit of all being. in the ten directions born and yet to be born. Working in that way, lifetime after lifetime. Coming home to the unknown and going forth.

[58:17]

Water over the hands, gold coins, becoming sacred trees, becoming monkey business, and refreshing us And we aren't swept up whole, however it feels. We're not swept up whole, not in these broken, shattered times. We are not swept up whole, however it feels. We're atomized. The wind passes. We recongeal. It's a surprise. Thank you very much. Come and let's have a joyful day planting trees together and celebrating. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[59:24]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[59:27]

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