This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I would wish everyone the opportunity to come and share the Dharma in a temple where you are not familiar. The power and beauty and deep quiet and complexity of this Dharma refuge place fills my heart this morning with gratitude. To stand in front of this extraordinary figure on the altar and to feel your presence in surrounding is a great gift. I'm immensely grateful to be here. And in particular, I want to begin... this morning's offering by recognizing the Yelamu Coast Miwok people, for whom this is their 10,000-year home, still here, still strong, still dancing at the edge of the world.

[01:14]

Gratitude for the privilege of being on this sacred land this morning at the edge of the bay. 325 ancient shell mounds ringing this second-largest harbor in the world. So it is a great honor to be here with you. The first Earth Day was celebrated in 1970 when a senator from Wisconsin, Gaylord Nelson, realized it could not be tenable to live on this earth and to... experience the suffering that had just been experienced of a huge oil spill off the shores of Santa Barbara without recognizing and stepping into responsibility and presence for and with the living world. So a senator from Wisconsin calling on us to remember who we are, to take our place, and to celebrate the living earth, the living world, now celebrated in 193 years

[02:15]

Countries worldwide coming to the, oh my gosh, 48th year of Earth Day. Celebrations all over the world. Celebrations of remembering. And in particular, this year, a call to all nations and all beings in the world to remember what it is to be alive in these times. To remember the more than human world. mindful of the use of these extraordinary gifts, which are the result of ancient, compressed plant material poured into petroleum and stamped into these extraordinary... I brought a well-used bag this morning as an expression of how important it is to be mindful of where we live and how we live in these times. This plastic PVC, says Gary Snyder, in this hall many, many years ago, PVC, he reminded us, is the garb of the Kali Yuga, the ancient time of coming apart and recomposing.

[03:36]

So each plastic bag is precious and an irreplaceable gift. and especially if they come from Monterey Market, also known as Monterey Mecca, in North Berkeley, where many of us gather to celebrate the beauty of fresh-grown food. So today, more than 1 billion people are participating and celebrating 17,000 distinct partner organizations, 174 countries, recognizing our intimate connectedness to the living earth. I want to, though, return to the call. And there was a strong call to all of us who have the privilege of sitting in the pulpit in the presence of the Buddhas and ancestors and the world, the known and unknown world. We have the deep call to respond to reducing our use of plastic.

[04:40]

So I do want to begin by acknowledging that and showing you this picture. I hope you can see. Can you see? Do you know that one billion plastic bags are created every year? That's, in this country, 1,000 plastic bags a second. Schoolchildren in Faistin, Vermont, were so astonished by this fact that they spent a good part of their school year collecting 1,000 plastic bags like prayer flags on ropes, ascending a mountain peak that begins with a barn and a garden and ends with a remote mountain yurt where people practice meditation. And they love this place so much, so they strung 1,000 prayer flags in the wind so that the wind, the voice of the wind, would pass through the flags.

[05:45]

and remind all of them and everyone who heard the rustle of those bags how important it is to be alive and not to misuse the treasures of this living earth. I love this picture. I find it very powerful. I can feel the presence of marching for our lives, of the children. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, yeah. A thousand... bags a second. A thousand bags a second. Prayer for the earth. The inner inner tangle. The inner tangle and the outer tangle. This generation is entangled in a tangle.

[06:47]

I ask you, Gautama Buddha, who succeeds in disentangling this tangle? So the Path of Purification, 5th century Dharma text from Buddhagosa, Sri Lanka, ancient world, begins with this question and observation. Hold it in your heart. The inner tangle, and the outer tangle. This generation is entangled in a tangle. Who, I ask you, untangles the tangle? Worries, says Mitsuzuki. Worries come untangled. Little spring, great little spring worries become untangled. Little spring, great little spring. So we're caught in the matrix of the tangle, a life between worlds and of this world, our generation entangled in this question.

[07:58]

How did the Buddha answer the question? When a wise one, well-established in virtue, develops consciousness and understanding, then as cloud and water wanderer, wild dragon mind, bhikkhu, then ardent and sagacious. This one succeeds in disentangling the tangle. Oh, pardon me. Pardon me, great world, and Dharma Sangha gathered here this morning, but I disagree. I have to stand... on my experience and say, there is no untangling the tangle we are in. Because it is mind-made, heart-driven, internal and external, created by us and undone by us when we're willing to go into the knot.

[09:05]

Become one with the knot itself until it dissolves away. Again, poet Gary Snyder. Again, in this hall. Become one with the knot itself. Encouragement to the children. Go light. Learn the flowers. Stay put. Become one with the knot itself until it dissolves away. Sweep the garden any size. Go into the tangle, however tight. Don't try to undo it. But what do I know? I'm just a product of this entanglement. And yet I trust my experience as a gardener and a Dharma student and a person fiercely aware of what it means to be alive in these times. And no mud, no lotus, no tangle, no practice. So...

[10:15]

This is an auspicious day, this day. April 22nd is actually the true proclamation of Earth Day, so you can celebrate all weekend, and I hope you will. Celebrate and remember. Oh, oh, oh, oh, said His Holiness many years ago after the... summit in Rio de Janeiro, can't we Buddhists, he said, at least offer one day of mindfulness and awareness of the earth, one day where we walk quietly and remember who we are and what we're made of. So that was a very powerful admonition and encouragement from his holiness. And many of us at San Francisco Zen Center began to observe the peaceful season of nonviolence, an extraordinary time from January 30th, which marks the day of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in his garden, going to prayer, until April 4th, which marks the assassination of Dr. King, coming from prayer, heading to address the assembly shot in Memphis, Tennessee.

[11:30]

60 plus days of awareness, and commitment to nonviolence. We're just coming out of this time in this 50th year since Dr. King's visit to Memphis, Tennessee, and the call to lay down our arms and see how unified Dharma practice and the work of waging peace is. There cannot be an Earth Day without a commitment to being peaceful on this living Earth and letting the voice of the watershed, of the land, fill our hearts and minds, and remind us of who we are. And it's, of course, a tangle and a bit of a conflict to live in violent times as nonviolently as possible, to live with the borders of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination and Dr. King's death, rededicating ourselves every day from the beginning of the day, setting the intention to live

[12:33]

alive and aware and fully present, and then dedicating the merit of that day, every day. What an incredible, but an incredibly simple and challenging time. So I feel very honored to be here in Beginner's Mind Temple at this time. The best and most challenging times to be alive. Be joyful. says poet and farmer Wendell Berry, although you know the facts. I feel, you know, for me, coming to San Francisco Zen Center in 1973 from Jerusalem, Israel, where I practiced... had the deep honor and pleasure of practicing beginning Zen practice with Son Nakagawa Roshi, calligrapher, painter, powerful Zen teacher, practicing on the Mount of Olives.

[13:41]

Oh, said the poet Son Roshi, oh, live your life. Oh, live your life on the mountain. Oh, live your life. Kibutsu, he said, be in land of Israel. Kibutsu. Come honoring Buddha and awakening. So I had an extraordinary beginning and came directly from Jerusalem to one day here at City Center before going directly to Tassajara, where I practiced with my now-husband Peter Rudnick and Abbot Ed and maybe other people, Maya, others who might have been in that practice period in 1973 at Tassajara's N Mountain Center. But for me, my life and practice evolved at Tassahara Zen Mountain Center and also at Green Gulch Farm, 25 years of dedicated practice without ever really practicing in this temple.

[14:42]

So it's all the more powerful for me to be here. And I remember coming and being interviewed by Dan Welch. who was practicing. I think he was one of the leaders at San Francisco Zen Center during those times. And he grilled me about whether I was ready to bypass city center and go directly to Tassajara. And somehow I snuck through, went right through the tangle into the heart of the matter and down into Tassajara. But always coming back and feeling a huge gratitude for this place of practice and recognizing, remembering, I know, I know the story of a 1973 housing development catching on fire from arson and burning right up where Koshlin Park is, burning to the ground, fire starting during Zazen. I think that's true. And the Koshlin family deciding, okay, out of these ruins, let's give this land dedicated to our father on his 80th birthday and establish a garden.

[15:49]

Koshlin Park. Neighborhood Foundation formed to help figure out how to work together. This is the early ethos of this Zen center, this particular place of practice, not to mention the deep and long story of Suzuki Roshi here, living and dying in this building, teaching. So extraordinary, extraordinary gift. And those of us who were here or came into the city, on that horrible November night in 1979 when Chris Persig, a student here at the city center, died on the streets, stabbed to death on the streets of the city. We gathered in this Buddha Hall to be present, not turn away from life and death, from violence and peacefulness in the same breath. So I can't come here without acknowledging that truth.

[16:51]

And that we created a garden on the hill, 54 beds connected to John Muir School with the deep, strong, fierce work of Barbara Wenger and many other friends to create a garden and gardens throughout the city that would be places of refuge and peace, anchored in the generosity and beginner's mind heart of this temple. The Peace Wall, 1997. a clear expression of dedication. We have the power to be creative, to heal ourselves and our community, and we are all artists. May we find inspiration and strength in these messages of love. That's the insignia on the wall of the peace, the peace wall. And we worked on those tiles for years with different groups of children and creating images of peace.

[17:52]

And I remember one of the last experiences right before the wall was put up. We were at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center working with children, finishing up the last firing, and then we drove up the road with all of the tiles in the back of the car and hit a bump on the road, probably driving too fast. The back of the car flew open and the peace tiles clattered down to the hard... dry Tassajara Road, and smashed. And I remember Barbara Wenger saying, good, that's better. One doesn't want a smooth, pure, peace wall. So if you really look closely at some of those tiles, you'll see the fracture that runs through, the wobble, the brokenness, and the commitment again and again to be peaceful in unpeaceful times. I'm holding in my hand a gift from Dharma's sister, Lynn Fine.

[19:00]

This is the mind field of the world. These balls were created around the same time that the peace ball was created as an expression of commitment to eradicate or clean up the mine fields, the mine fields of Southeast Asia following the wars. So this earth ball is Squeezing and holding was a real dedication and a way to raise money to actually do that kind of work. And all of these ideas came out of deep and solid sitting in the heart of the matter. I'm going to pass this around so you can squeeze the world. So I have experienced the deep... pleasure of bringing together our experience, our embodied, grounded experience of meditation practice with the science of ecology, eikosnomia, household economy.

[20:07]

How does spirit life and life of the living world, the ecology of our practice, come together and inform each other? How do they work together? And this has been a quest maybe for the last 10 or 15 years of looking at Buddhism and ecology, how they actually come together. And for the last three years, we've had a summit at CIIS here in the city of really looking at the art of religion and ecology coming together. And four main points have come up in our teaching that I'd like to offer today. to you this morning and hope that they will be relevant points for you as we consider and move into the celebration of Earth Day, Earth Time. First of all, these are four encouragements. First of all, find a way to orient yourself.

[21:14]

to the world, to the place where you practice and live. When you find your place, where you are, practice occurs. Admonition reminder from 13th century Dogenzenji. When you find your place, where you are, wherever you are, practice occurs. And in disorienting times, what helps with orientation? And I love these four practices because they're aligned with the cardinal points. of the world, north, east, west, and south. It's a great acronym, north, east, west, and south. News. The news comes from the four directions, from the ten great directions. North, east, west, south. So to orient is to turn toward the east, toward the orient, and find where you stand in the morning light. of the East, wherever you are.

[22:17]

Take your place and practice occurs. So of course, meditation practices would begin with orientation in disorienting times. So when his holiness encouraged us to walk for the earth, he also encouraged us to begin by finding our place. by taking our place. And that means standing still on the ground, feeling where we are, and turning to face the rising sun in the clear, bright air of bodhicitta, the mind of awakening, taking in all that is. I think you are the lucky ones because you get to face the figures that are here in this Buddha hall to remind us not to be worshipped, to remind us we are not to be worshipped.

[23:26]

Do not worship graven images or anything outside of yourself. Worship the tangle. Worship the confusion. Worship the challenge of our times. And be strengthened by solid, deep sitting. of the Buddha figure behind me. Be encouraged by that suppleness and commitment, that settledness from Gandharan times to this being time now. And by the commitment of Green Tara to get up and serve. I know from reading the literature of Beginner's Mind Temple that you are very alive to this continuum. sitting still and getting up and serving. So begin by orienting. And secondly, ground.

[24:28]

Ground your practice. How can we carry the current currency of these times without some grounding? What will ground you? What gives you your deepest ground? One thing and one thing only do I teach, said the Buddha, suffering and the end of suffering. So that was the Buddha's ground. And when there was doubt and challenge from Mara or from the living world or from his own tangled mind, the gesture of touching the earth, putting the right hand on the earth as a witness. You know, iconographically, there's a diva that comes up from the earth, the earth goddess touching the hand of the Buddha, the Buddha's outstretched hand met by the earth goddess.

[25:32]

For me, in these times, it's far too binary. Instead, when that hand, it binds with the binariness, the goddess of the earth touching the living, you know, the Buddha, the great, But for me, that gesture is a much deeper, older, more dangerous gesture. It's a gesture of calling bodhisattvas to come up from the ground and join us in the work, the best and most challenging times to be alive. So that gesture, that outstretched hand, pulls open the veils of the earth, so that bodhisattvas can come up, as they do in the Lotus Sutra. Hundreds, thousands of bodhisattvas coming up in all gestures and guises. Without groundedness, though, it's very difficult for the earth to crack open, even though we live in San Francisco, California, on the edge of the known world, where the Yelamu people dance.

[26:44]

Extend your hand. ancient gesture, crack open the earth, let there be celebration that doesn't turn away from suffering. And suffering that is not only engaged in suffering and sorrow, but can celebrate gravity and levity, grounded, extended, touch the earth. And of course, that gesture brings up the living earth. in all of its complexity, richness, and creativity. Now, I can think of no better example of touching the earth than of a gesture many years ago from Shumpo Blanche Hartman, who had a little tiny bonsai maple tree that she and Lou were taking care of in their room here at the city center. and the tree was languishing.

[27:47]

It was not manifesting glorious presence. Blanche had the idea that maybe the little maple tree in the tiny container needed to go outside for some light, wind, air, and water. So she brought it, this from Shosan Victoria Austin telling me this story. So she brought it to the courtyard. and put that little bonsai maple tree on the ground, and promptly, as any busy Zen person would do, forgot about it. Forget about it. I forgot about it, but she didn't forget about it. She just knew, oh, that's the right place. And lo and behold, that being itself, a bodhisattva, extended its roots to touch the living earth, cracked open its pot, rooted down, and is now the 13, 14, 15-foot high, beautiful, glorious maple tree, six-trunked, soft-limbed, shimmering maple tree that graces the eastern quadrant of this courtyard.

[29:02]

So don't be held back by any constraints when it comes to groundedness. The call for the earth to rejoin. Remember that we're made of the living earth. A call to root and find groundedness is so strong. Lest you doubt, if you doubt, if the tangle becomes too tight, too enfolded, too oppressive, get ye to the courtyard here at San Francisco Zen Center and remember you're more than you think you are. And that call to come home is very strong. And the third practice is find some way, deep way, to nurture yourself, to feed yourself in the sense that living water, so this is the call of living water, the Western realm, Jizo Bodhisattva, find nurturance. And remember that the gift of water animates our body, mind in every way.

[30:06]

So on this Earth Day weekend, gratitude to the waters. And as we sit, As we sit, let your spine be strong. Strong and straight, whether you're sitting or lying down or standing. Feel the strength of your spine and then the softness of the front of your body. We must be at least in our blood, sweat, tears, all the exudates. From this human body, we are salty and strong. Salty like the waters of the world. 78% of us, at least. Somewhere in the 70s. Salty water. And then a tiny, tiny percentage of the waters of our own bodies is clear water or sweet water.

[31:07]

The same water that runs and fills the column of the spine. And the proportion of salt to sweet water in our bodies is exactly in proportion and ratio to the proportion or to the great golden ratio of salty and fresh water on earth. So when we carry this ratio, how can we not be nourished and protect the waters of the world? Last of all, Fire, fire, fire. Everything obikus is burning. Fire, fire, fire. So fire, the refiner's fire, transformation. So I'm going to close this morning's offering by telling you a story of incredible courage and fiery commitment. Shine by perishing is a call.

[32:15]

Southern ministers of the ilk and training time of Dr. King shine by perishing. So when we think of fire and the transformation of fire, what comes up obviously and strongly for me is the admonition written on the wall of the United Nations from the book of Isaiah, and actually in his last address in Ebenezer Baptist Church on Christmas Eve in 1967, Dr. King calling us, reminding us that this is the time to beat swords into plowshares. And take your spears, beat them into pruning hooks. The actual quote from Isaiah. And they shall beat swords into plowshares. and take spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation.

[33:18]

Neither shall we learn war anymore. Now that beating of the solid, solid sword into a tool for opening the ground takes fire, takes transformation, takes heat, the heat of our intention and the commitment. at the United Nations, there's a statue, which is so meaningful to remember. This statue by Yevgeny Vichotich, a Russian artist, was dedicated on, notice the date, December 4th, December 4th, 1959, when the cold world was warming to the war. presented to the United Nations by the government of the Soviet Union, hammer and sword, heal the world, create a world with no fear, standing in the northern garden of the United Nations.

[34:28]

I can see it now. My sister lived really close to the United Nations, and I would walk there whenever visiting Sally. I can see that statue. It's an extraordinary piece where the sword is being beaten into plowshares. My husband reminds me that in the time of Virgil, in the writing of the Georgics, such was the call for armaments that plowshares were taken and beaten into swords. This is part of the tangle we live in now, the double tangle. But I like to think... And remember Dr. King's words, our goal is to create a beloved community and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives. So I'm going to close with an incredible story of two young people that I know and love and privileged to practice with.

[35:34]

One, Kyle Emley, whom I've known since he was a little boy. Best friend of our daughter, they caused a lot of, excuse me for saying the word in here, hell-raising fun at the Green Gulch Farms End Center when they were little, terrorizing the community. Kyle loved to sing. He would jump up on a table, throw his arms open, and burst into song and tap dance. Extraordinary, lively young man who felt he should temper that and turn toward environmental service, but he never could put out the fire of song. and acting that fills his heart. He's now the director of the Thrive Street Choir in Oakland, where he lives and practices urban forestry. When he met Bonte Velez, who's a daughter of an Atlanta preacher, 24 years old, Kyle is 28, black, Latin American, multimedia artist and designer. She, lifelong learner, she says.

[36:35]

Joy is medicine. decomposition is rebellion, when they met at the inaugural gathering of spirit and ecology training held a few years ago, they immediately came together with their intentionality. And they dreamed a radical dream to take armaments, to take rifles, to take worn out tools of war, melt them down and turn them into shovels and plant peace on the world. And they... were and have been successful. So their inaugural celebration of Lead to Life, I love the title, Lead to Life, People's Alchemy for Regeneration, their inaugural celebration of this, burning or tempering or melting tools of war into shovels to dig and plant. This is not one of them, but this stands as an example. Anyway, it just happened in in Atlanta, Georgia, where they melted down 50 rifles with the help of an artist from Minnesota who drove, following their request for his help, he drove with his foundry dragging behind him, he drove 1,100 miles to Atlanta, Georgia, and outside of the King Center, fired up the forge,

[38:03]

And for the first time in her life, Dr. King's youngest daughter, Bernice King, friend of the family of Bonte Velez, and responding to the call from this daughter of her town, she took and held for the first time in her life a gun, a little white hand pistol, and extended it onto a pole, and that pole carried the gun into the fire, and it melted. molten metal and was poured into a mold and 50 shovels were created. 50 shovels to mark 50 years of life and dedication, to mark 50 weapons, to mark 50 shovels, and to plant 50 trees in the city of Atlanta. In question and answer, you can ask me more and you can believe me that I'll tell you more about this. But the most important thing, I think, is how did that dream lodge in the heart of of this multimedia artist, extraordinary woman of Atlanta, and the young man I love and know, who's practiced with us at Green Gulch, was an apprentice and volunteer in the gardens, just came with the Thrive Choir and rocked the halls of Green Gulch, singing, how did this dream and commitment rise up in their hearts?

[39:23]

Along the path to the kiln, writes Mitsuzuki, along the path... To the fiery kiln, golden ginkgo leaves are soft underfoot. So a love of trees, a love of the earth, and understanding that everything obikus is burning and calling to be transformed. So they had a vision of melting tools of war. And San Francisco Police Department has a no questions asked, buy back your weapons program. So peaceful Bronte had some 50 weapons in her house in Oakland until the artist from Minnesota came and agreed to carry them to be melted in Atlanta. So they carried guns from this community to her hometown where one of her closest friends at the age of 22 on the day after Christmas

[40:29]

was killed by gunfire in the streets of Atlanta by a 14-year-old, an accomplice. A 14-year-old was given three lifetimes in jail. And Javier was dead on the streets of Atlanta. And my grief, said Javier's mother, for the loss of my son and the loss of the 14-year-old cannot be measured. On April 8th, again, the date is important. This is Buddha's Enlightenment Day, or baby Buddha's birth. April 8th, 2018, in Atlanta, Georgia, with the guns melted down in the foundry that was dragged from Minnesota, and 50 shovels were created, Bronte stood on the streets of her hometown with Javier's mother, and they dug a hole and planted a redbud tree on the streets where he had been killed.

[41:34]

And his ashes were interred in the hole, as was soil from lynching sites throughout the South. So this lead to life inauguration is extremely important. It happened at the same time for the March for Our Lives. And this is true Earth Day celebration beyond protecting plastic bags, for God's sake. Beyond that is picking up a shovel that's made from a melted gun and waging peace. There's so much more to tell you. I hope you'll ask me for more stories. Yeah, I hope you'll ask me. I'm so happy that you're here, Meg. It's every time that I'm invited to... offer a Dharma talk, I remember F. Scott Fitzgerald saying, draw your chair close to the precipice and I'll tell you a story.

[42:34]

So that's where we are now, close to the precipice. It's an Earth Day story of tremendous courage and transformation. Young people, irrepressible, alchemy of regeneration, new life from old guns. Do I have to remind you, probably, that 300 million firearms are in the hands of United States citizens. And handguns are responsible for 1.5 million deaths every year. So. I wanted, so wanted, to have a shovel from Atlanta for our ceremony today. And Kyle said, to me, I want to, I will, we will, you'll help us melt down with them again and again, but these 50 shovels stayed in Atlanta. They've gone to three organizations, Grow Where You Farm, I thought that was great, Truly Living Well Center, and Gangsters to Growers.

[43:47]

So they have those shovels in their hands. So let me close with a poem, again from this Buddha Hall, from many years ago, a February night with Robert Bly. We were in the Buddha Hall and also in the dining room. He said to us at some point, after many hours of poetry, shall we take a break? And everyone in the room said, no, no. He said, oh, I like this place. You have a stomach for grief. He said in the ancient world, it was understood that we only can be renewed when we allow ourselves to feel sorrow and joy at the same time, of course. But not sorrow so that you can feel joy, not conditional sorrow, unconditional sorrow and unconditional joy.

[44:49]

And that it was a practice in ancient times to allow yourself the leisure, and the spaciousness to feel the sorrow in the same way that Bronte did planting that tree. It took her seven and a half hours to plant three trees in Atlanta. One for Javier, one for two other families. Seven and a half hours. Slow down and feel that gravity. And In this hall, Robert Bly offered us this romage, asking what is sorrow for? It is a storehouse of wheat, barley, corn, and tears. Step up to the door on a round stone. This storehouse feeds all the birds of sorrow.

[45:52]

And I say to myself, will you have sorrow at last? Go on. Be cheerful in autumn. Be stoic. Yes. Be tranquil, calm, or in the valley of sorrow, spread your wings. The great temple bell rings 108 times. May there be peace. Maybe together we can... This is from Mitsuzuki Sensei. The great temple bell rings 108 times. May there be peace. The great temple bell rings 108 times. Inner tangle and the outer tangle. Not turning away.

[46:56]

May there be peace. And may it begin with us today. Thank you very much for this invitation and honor to be with you this morning with gratitude. Thank you very much for your practice. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[47:38]

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