Good morning. Oh, it's wonderful to hear all the cheering outside for the Dharma talk. I have some things on my mind that I would like to bring up with you all. This is a time of transitions, big transitions and small transitions.

[01:10]

We have the big transitions of loss of our loved ones, and to seeing John King's name on the altar and his Buddhist name, Generous Heart, Great Peace, not knowing that his name was Generous Heart, Great Peace, I've been... thinking about him as embodying great generosity and great peace. So I am not the one to eulogize John and won't be here for his memorial service, but I just wanted to say when he came to Tassajara during the winter practice period,

[02:15]

making one last pilgrimage to the monastery in which he had been shuso and had practiced very deeply. He gave a Dharma talk in which More than I can remember anyone ever doing, he sat in the Dharma's seat in the midst of impermanence, knowing he would die soon. Just the way all of us know that we will die, but we'd never know when. He didn't know exactly, but pretty close to knowing. And his Speaking with enormous love and no regrets and fearlessness, just fearlessness.

[03:26]

In fact, he said, I'm not afraid to die. It's just that I love people so much and I miss them so much. So sitting in that place where we all sit all the time, of impermanence and love and him, John, being able to manifest fearlessness and this generous heart-giving of fearlessness. So this great teaching is resounding and reverberating whether people knew him or not. He gave this gift. And there are many other transitions as well.

[04:29]

Many people are coming and going, leaving one practice place, going to another practice place, or going to the marketplace. And the seasons are coming and going, even though they say San Francisco Bay Area doesn't have seasons. We know it does. We know it does. The light is beginning to wane. We can feel the fall coming. We can feel it in the air. And as I drove from Gringolch this morning over the bay, over the Golden Gate Bridge, left Green Gulch, it was covered in fog and cool, and then coming into San Francisco, the burn-off had already begun, the sun was . When we love something, we want to take care of it in a very natural way. So I want to talk about some things that have to do with transition and birth and death and loss,

[05:38]

And from the Dharma seat, I want to speak about our world, really our environment, and what's happening. And I gave a talk at Green Gulch, and I gave a talk at Tassajara, and I realized I really want to, from this seat, bring up these issues as practice issues, not as political statements or environmental activism, but from the Dharma seat. because to me it's really, you can't separate them, these concerns and what our practice is when we actually are aware. So I saw the movie An Inconvenient Truth, and I'm wondering how many people have seen the movie. Lots of you have seen it, lots of you haven't seen it yet.

[06:39]

So I want to recommend that you see this movie for practice reasons. What happened for me was that I went into the movie thinking, well, this is just preaching to the choir. I know all this. I've been buying organically grown foods and composting for years and years, recycling. I already know all these things, but I want to see it anyway. And it was recommended. A number of people recommended it. But what happened when I saw the movie is that I was pushed over the top in a new way, kind of yes-scaling, preaching to the choir, but even the choir needs some help in taking up these practices and responding appropriately. So that's what happened for me, and I've mentioned this before that I receive books in the mail.

[07:44]

Publishers send me books regularly, not necessarily to review or to have a blurb on the cover, but they just want me to read them because I'm what is known in the publishing business as a big mouth, which means that you have access to a group, a crowd of people like this. And if you've read something, then maybe you can mention it or bring it up. So they just send me books. So nobody has asked me to bring these things up with you, but on my own, I want to sit in this spot and speak about these things. So San Francisco Zen Center is a member of a group called California Interfaith Power and Light. You maybe don't know this, but we are members. And this is a group of interfaith churches and mosques and synagogues and Buddhist groups that basically are taking up

[08:50]

the issue of global warming from the side of people of faith, I think is what they're called, faith-based. And there's a wonderful woman, Sally Bingham, she's Episcopal minister out of Grace Cathedral, and she has an environmental ministry, and this is her calling, and she sees it as her main spiritual work. And this group, is taking up global warming and talking about it in their congregations and from a practice point of view, although it does have political ramifications. So I'm on the steering committee now of this group and being included in things that are happening. So what is the practice?

[09:53]

What are our practices? And I wanted to read from the Avatama Saka Sutra, which is the Flower Ornament Sutra from about, written down finally in about 200 common era, so very old sutra, and in it, Sudhana, Somehow this angle is not working for all these papers for me. Sudhana goes in the Avatama Sutra and visits all these bodhisattvas and asks them, what is the... Yeah, thank you. How to practice a bodhisattva's way. So... Each time he goes to a bodhisattva, they give him what their practice is and send them on to another bodhisattva.

[10:55]

So this last bodhisattva he visits says, you should go and talk with Avalokiteshvara next. So this teacher sends him off to see Avalokiteshvara, and he finds Avalokiteshvara. And Avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva of infinite compassion. And this Bodhisattva is in all over the world, in different countries with different names, but the name means it has the character for gazing, or observing, or perceiving, and sound, observing of sound, perceiving sound, or the sound seer. This is Kuan Yin, or Kanon, Kwan Um, I think, in Vietnamese, and Chen Rizig in Tibetan. In all these different countries, there's this personification of infinite compassion. Avalokiteshvara, the one who gazes down from on high.

[11:57]

The esvara is the Lord, or the one who looks down. And Kwan Shiyin is the one who hears a regardor of the cries of the world. So this bodhisattva of infinite compassion is listening to sounds, observing and listening, using eyes and ears to hear sounds and to hear the cries of the world. So Sudhana is sent to Avalokiteshvara to ask what Avalokiteshvara practices. And he finds him sitting on this beautiful plateau in the mountains, with ponds and springs and streams and sitting on a diamond boulder in a large woods surrounded by people. And Sudhana asks, noble one, I have set my mind on supreme perfect enlightenment, but I do not do not know how to learn and carry out the practice of enlightening beings. I hear you give enlightening beings instruction, and I ask you to tell me how to learn and carry out the practice of enlightening beings, meaning the practice of a bodhisattva.

[13:07]

So there's Avalokiteshvara. You often see, depicted in paintings and so forth, Avalokiteshvara sitting by water and... So Avalokiteshvara says, it's good that you aspire to supreme, perfect enlightenment. I know a way of enlightening practice called undertaking great compassion without delay. That's the name of Avalokiteshvara's practice, undertaking great compassion without delay. And this practice, undertaking great compassion without delay, which sets out impartially guiding all sentient beings to perfection, dedicated to protecting and guiding sentient beings by communicating knowledge to them through all media. And established in this method of enlightening practice of undertaking great compassion without delay,

[14:14]

I appear in the midst of the activities of all sentient beings without leaving the presence of all Buddhas and take care of them by means of, and these are the four ways that Avalokiteshvara takes care of beings, by means of generosity, kind speech, beneficial action, and... This translation says cooperation. Another translation is identity action. So this is, you know, these four methods of guidance are later on, thousand years later, taken up by Dogen Zenji in his teachings of the four methods of guidance. They first appeared in the Avatamsaka Sutra, spoken by Kuan Yin, spoken by Avalokiteshvara, these four methods of how you undertake compassion without delay.

[15:15]

And Avalokiteshbar goes on how to help beings and he helps them, he gladdens and develops them and takes care of them by speaking to them according to their mentalities, meaning where people are coming from, showing conduct according to their inclinations. This is appropriate action, responding to beings where they are, teaching them doctrines commensurate with their interests, inspiring them to accumulate good qualities, appearing to them as members of their various races and conditions, and by living together with them. So this is Avalokiteshvara's practice, talking to people where they're at, in their own language, going to where they are, so that they can hear, that they can receive the compassion without delay.

[16:34]

And this is Avalokitesh's vow to be a refuge for all sentient beings, to free them from fears of calamity, threat, confusion, attacks on their lives, inability to make a living, ill repute, the perils of death, being forced to live with those who are not congenial. Living with the uncongenial, being separated from loved ones, all these sufferings, all these difficulties, Avalokiteshvara has vowed to help and be with sentient beings to help them with this. I've undertaken a vow to be a refuge for all beings from all their fears and perils. So just reflecting on these vows of Avalokiteshvara and in conjunction with or taking up what is being shown us about the situation that we're in.

[17:44]

Right now, these perils and these threats and these fears that we have are not unfounded. I think when you see the movie, you'll see, and you may have read and know already, and the enormous avoidance that we have and fears to look at these issues and look at these questions. For me, what's happened is I'm now unable to turn away or somehow think that somebody else will be taking care of it. feeling of undertaking compassion without delay or actually taking action without delay. There's in another work, if you want to realize suchness or attain suchness, practice suchness without delay.

[18:51]

Right now, what is suchness? Right now, being aware of what is arising right now. So in the same way, undertaking compassion without delay, we don't have to wait until we're sort of more fully formed or have practiced more deeply or understand this is what I've come to myself, it's now I can undertake practices without delay. And so how does this appear in my everyday life? And I think, for one thing, I've found that I am hesitant and reticent, although it still happens, to hop into my car and hop over the Golden Gate Bridge to do a few errands because I like to shop there or even to exercise or something in a certain place.

[19:53]

I'm feeling this is what happened with me with this movie where even though This might have been in the back of my mind somewhere. Now it feels like I have to really think each time about whether I want to hop, hop-de-doo around in my car here and there. It's not okay anymore for me. I feel the impact of it. And in the same way, The call to cut down on my greenhouse gas emissions, in talking about this at Tassar, someone mentioned that they travel a lot in airplanes, and they heard about something called Green Seat. And you can go online, calculate where you're flying to. They will tell you how many CO2 emissions and how many...

[20:58]

100%, all greenhouse gas emissions, you will be creating by flying to wherever you're flying, and you can donate money to a place that will then plant trees or offset it so that your trip will be zero emissions. I didn't know about this, but I am now, and this person does yoga workshops. It's my yoga teacher all over the world, Edmonton, Scotland, all over, and she asked the group when she goes, and says, my coming to teach yoga here cost this much in terms of emissions, and will you donate to help? So it educates people, and also the money gets sent. So this is a level of practicing suchness, practicing compassion without delay, Avalokiteshvara's practice, that we can take up. In fact, we have to take it up, because... there will be no beautiful Bay Area and all our wonderful plants and animals and people that we love because this is not, we are at a turning point.

[22:11]

We are at a point where there's no, there will be no turning back unless we take up these practices, all of us, and make these changes and transition from our habit mind, you know. And there are real fears, you know. So Dogen Zenji takes up these four practices that Avalokiteshvara began talking about so long ago of kind speech, generosity, kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. So I wanted to moved to Dogen. So this is written in the 1200s rather than, you know, this is a thousand years later. And I read this lecture now for us. This is now a thousand years later that we're taking up Dogen. And I hear it as a talk for us to take up these environmental issues and our world and caring for each other and the world

[23:24]

and the people, animals and plants, mountains and rivers. So the first method of guidance is generosity or giving. And Dogen starts out by saying, giving means non-greed. So the meaning of giving is non-greed. And all summer at Gringolch, we've been taking up the issue, the theme of greed as a theme that all the people giving Wednesday night Dharma talks are taking up. and connecting up our greed and how we get very used to having things and not realizing the effect. And I was thinking about consumerism, and we've been talking about consumerism and how consumerism has taken the place of civic life and leisure time and religious, you know, church life, community congregational life, hobbies, recreation, consumerism in this time of industrial nations has taken over and it's fueled by advertising and commercials and the teaching, you know,

[24:51]

and we're bombarded by this, and our children are bombarded by this. I think when children go to preschool or kindergarten, if they had been watching TV, they'd seen 30,000 advertisements by the time that are created by the brightest, by genius people, in terms of cleverness and wit and artistic abilities. and they're paid very well to create advertisement that really hits home. And we're all subject to this, and our children especially, and the religion of consumerism, if you might call it that, or the teaching of that religion of consumerism is basically, you're not okay, you will not be happy, you will never be happy unless you have You're not okay the way you are. You must have these things to be happy and be free. And this is the teaching, really, that is insidiously being taught, you know, nonstop, wherever we go, wherever we are.

[26:03]

And we succumb to it, you know. And the loneliness and depression and unsatisfactory quality of Western industrial life is... is unprecedented. When the Buddha and Dogen wrote these things, these teachings, it was a different time. They were not sponsored by corporations. This person told me they were reading a science fiction book, and in it, it was the future, and in the book, the moon was being used for advertisement. And when they told me this, it was just, it was a science fiction book, right? But I felt this really like a pain in my heart, the thought, and the full moon, I don't know if you saw it in San Francisco, but at Green Gulch, it was the morning of the full moon ceremony, the moon was setting over the ocean, and it was huge and golden, and...

[27:12]

pretty golden, and as we went to the fields, it was community work. We saw it just hanging there, and, you know, I remember this science fiction book, and imagine, you know, like red neon going across with, by, you know, Edith Joe's or something. Anyway, I was kind of sickened by the thought, but it's actually not, you can imagine somebody getting that contract, you know, to So this teaching of you're not okay, you will never be happy, and then this fuels, and then looking at the earth as pre-manufactured material, the earth and the trees and the resources, going into the pre with no feeling for our land and earth, and we become very separated. And children, oh, this is an interesting thing, children can distinguish logos, you probably know this, of, you know, hundreds of different corporations and brand names and jingles they know, but they don't know the sound of birds.

[28:27]

You know, they can't distinguish a meadowlark from a nightingale, and neither can I probably, right? At Green Gulch, we had a bird watcher come there, standing on the front lawn, people listened at dawn, and there were 17 different bird calls that he could distinguish and different ages of birds. And we're unable to do that, you know, or to just be able to tell plants, one plant from another, or what's growing in our backyard. So this method of guidance is generosity and giving as non-greed and looking at our own, and me looking at my own habits and habits of use of the environment. Is that 11 o'clock already? Another part of giving is three things of giving. Giving of material goods so people can't hear dharma or hear about changing their life if they're hungry and don't have a place to live and so forth.

[29:34]

So giving of material goods. Giving of dharma. and also giving of fearlessness. You know, this mudra is often shown. This is fearlessness, right hand like this, and the left hand down. And they're both giving things and giving fearlessness, the two together, or this as fearlessness. So we have enormous fear when we actually contemplate that our earth as we know it will not, cannot go on this way, and that we have contributed to this, and that we go on and are so fearful that we become paralyzed, actually, and don't want to hear and avoid. And so the giving of fearlessness, that we look at what we need to look at, that we change what can be changed, and that we help each other. And Joanna Macy

[30:38]

in giving a talk to activists, basically said, you know, rather than being paralyzed with fear, can we, in the same way as a sports team does, or when there's a few minutes left to play, which there are a few minutes left to play, can we join together and give it everything we've got? turn this around. There's still time, but we all have to do this together and join hands. So this is this giving of fearlessness as part of Avalokiteshvara. The second is kind speech. And kind speech, he says, this is Dogen now, Kind speech can turn the destiny of a nation. Kind speech is the basis for reconciling rulers and subduing enemies.

[31:44]

Those who hear kind speech have a joyful mind. You should know that kind speech arises from kind mind and kind mind from the seed of compassionate mind. Kind speech is not just praising others, it has the power to turn the destiny of the nations. So using our speech and using it appropriately, kindly, joyfully, but unreservedly to speak to those rulers, this may sound political, but as a practice to write, to speak, to speak out, this can turn the destiny of a nation and the destiny of the earth. The third of these four methods is beneficial action, skillfully to benefit all classes of sentient beings.

[32:49]

That is, this is Dogen, to care about their distant and near future and to help them by using skillful means. This is what I mean by this feels like this environmental talk. He's saying skillfully beneficial action to benefit distant and future, you know, distant and near future, distant near future, distant future. This is like Native American, you know, the seven generations in front of us. This is Dogen speaking. Can we think in that way? This is our beneficial action. What can we do now without delay? And when I say that I was pushed over the top, I finally, this I did at Green Gulch and Tassara, I finally changed my incandescent bulbs to compact fluorescent bulbs, which I've been knowing about and seeing them, but I didn't like them.

[33:54]

I didn't like the... quality of the light in my house. It was too glaring and too garish and I wanted a more orangey color, you know. But basically what, after seeing that movie and all, what I said to myself was, tough. It doesn't matter anymore whether you like, whether, it's not an aesthetic, it's beyond aesthetic decisions anymore to change and drop the power use, you know. So I went around and finally changed them. And you maybe have thought of it too. Well, I'll get around to it someday. And I'm so glad, you know, we have solar panels in this building and we're, I think, totally off the grid. I'm not sure, but where else can we all, this is one of these things from California Interfaith Power and Light that they say, talk to your congregations and sell these, you know, at your diff store or whatever.

[34:55]

So I'm encouraging, and they're very beautiful. You know, I finally really appreciate it. They're like these marvelous sculptures. So I'm encouraging you, just like I'm encouraging myself to do it. You know, and they also, somebody told me, they come in soft, rosy color. You can get them so that aesthetically you'd like them too. So these are beneficial actions. And what else can we do? There's all, you know... I've often thought I can't speak about this because I don't know enough. I don't know all the facts and the figures and I won't be able to persuade anybody because I can't cite how many this and that and tons of it. But I realize it doesn't matter anymore. I can speak from this seat in a way that I'm comfortable with and you can look on the internet and find out everything you need to know to base your decisions on. Beneficial action is action that benefits beings right now and in the distant future, and not only benefits beings, but Dogen says it benefits friend and enemy equally.

[36:12]

This beneficial action is very broad and is to benefit friend and enemy, and you might think, Well, that's really hard to benefit my enemy. I don't even know how to go about it. First, I have to have forgiveness first. But I realize when we do these beneficial actions for the environment and the earth, friend and foe are benefited equally. It's an easy way to do it without a lot of internal psychological work. You could just benefit friend and foe immediately. This is a way to benefit self and other, these compassionate actions without delay, compassion for ourselves and our deep sadness about what's going on, our deep feelings of loss and grief and mourning. These practices, we have to have compassion for ourselves and others benefiting ourselves as well as beneficial action.

[37:19]

It's the same. friend and enemy equally, benefit self and others alike. If you have this mind, even beneficial action for the sake of grasses, trees, wind and water is spontaneous and unremitting. This being so, make a wholehearted effort to help the ignorant. This is Dogen from... you know, the 1200 saying this beneficial action is for the sake of grasses, trees, wind, water, the whole earth. Everything's included. So the next, the fourth one is, so we have giving kind speech, beneficial action, and identity action. And identity action means identity with all beings and oneness with cooperation is this other translation.

[38:29]

And these actions that we take, this is similar to beneficial action, but knowing that My body, others' bodies, not to. This is the bow, the verse, the gatha for bowing. The one who is bowing, the one who is bowed to. My body, other bodies, not nature. No nature. My body, other bodies, not to. Plunging into the inexhaustible vow, living in harmony with all. So from this... This is a wisdom teaching. Avalokiteshvara is wisdom and compassion combined. So this wisdom teaching that self and other are not two, we make an inexhaustible vow, plunge into the inexhaustible vow, living in harmony with all beings.

[39:32]

And this living in harmony includes our daily actions and how they affect all beings. So when we identify with self and other as not to, our actions in harmony with all beings. And this, you know, Dogen takes up performing actions and including rulers, the rulers, that the wise rulers or people who are ruling are supported by all the beings. The beings support them. So if we're supporting the wise rulers, we have to act accordingly.

[40:34]

If people who are in power and in the governmental positions, we can affect them with our own support or non-support. How do we support them with wise action? With action that's in harmony. And, you know, California Interfaith Power and Light, this is one of the things that they're doing, going to Sacramento, talking with people, supporting this bill, AB 32, that lowers greenhouse gas emissions. That's before the assembly right now. You can write. You can take this up as a practice. not as a political, we can't separate, you know, but coming from our practice mind of caring for all beings and identity action, self and other, not two, what can we do? So...

[41:37]

You know, one of the wonderful things about San Francisco are the museums and the art, and there's a show right now at the DeYoung of quilts, and this is called, here's one of them actually here. These are the quilts from Gee's Bend. Gee's Bend is a tiny little town in Alabama, and the quilts that were made from the early 1900s by African-American women in a very unique style, using, and there's a video where they tell about, at that time, we didn't waste anything. We couldn't waste anything. We had to use things until they wore out completely, and then we cut it up, used the good parts, and put it in a quilt. The work pants and dresses, and if you found a rag on the street, you picked it up, you washed it, you put it in a quilt. kept somebody warm. And that feeling of truly using everything completely.

[42:55]

And Buddha's robe, of course, was made by picking up the rags and the scraps, throw away things and washing them and cutting them into shapes and making Buddha's robe. And this same weather from, you know, When necessity and practice are one and the same, there's appropriate action. And there is necessity now. The earth, when we practice Avalokiteshvara's practice of regarding the cries of the world, this is what's happening. There is a cry of the world right now. Shakyamuni Buddha, you know, spent a lot of time out of doors walking and teaching under trees and on mountaintops and by streams, and he died between two solid trees and was enlightened under the ficus religiosa, the Bodhi tree that still exists, the great-great-great-great-granddaughter, great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson is still there.

[44:12]

And when Shakyamuni was sitting under the Bodhi tree, he was assailed by greed, right? Greed and hate and delusion in various personifications came to attack him. And at that time, he touched the earth. He placed his right hand to the earth and he touched the earth and he called the earth to witness and said, I have a right... To be here, do I have a right to be here? Bear witness for me. And the earth responded in eight ways and shook in eight ways and came to Shakyamuni Buddha at that time and said, yes, you have a right to be here. And now things have turned and the earth herself is calling us to witness, is touching us and calling us to witness. and saying, do I have a right to exist? Do I have a right to be here and exist in this way and to live?

[45:21]

And the cry is loud and it's our turn to bear witness and to come forth and say, yes, you have a right and I will do whatever I can. I will turn my life. And we don't have time to think about it. We need to practice compassion without delay and bear witness now. So may we all together take this up, hear the cries of the world, and respond appropriately, inquiry and response coming up together as Avalokiteshvara's practice.

[46:28]

May we all embody it, become it, and not turn away. Thank you very much.

[46:42]

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