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. Hello. Good morning. Welcome to Green Gulch, and for those of you who don't know, welcome to Arbor Day at Green Gulch. Is there anyone who came this morning and didn't realize it was Arbor Day? That's great, because it means the rest of you realized it was Arbor Day. Well, welcome. Arbor Day is an annual tradition where we spend the afternoon doing some work on the land with each other.

[01:02]

And today, Arbor Day will be at 1.30. After lunch, everyone is invited, tools are provided, and we will meet right outside the Zendo at 1.30. I'm always happy to speak on Arbor Day, which I get to do when Wendy Johnson is unavailable, which she was this week due to a death in the family. And she does send her regards. I know her heart is very much in this valley with us. And one of the days One of the reasons that I enjoy speaking on Arbor Day is because it's always really touched me how our kind of warm-hearted, careful practice, our Zen practice, and our practice of careful attention to detail has been taken up in relationship to the land and the watershed here at Green Gulch.

[02:27]

Over the decades, many people have embodied and enacted this warm-hearted practice. Some of the ways I think of are that they have collected and tended to so-called waste. In the early days, it included human waste. Now mostly we just care for horse manure and vegetable trimmings. husbanding the process of soil creation and planting trees and other plants to support and nourish the human and more than human world. So Arbor Day is kind of an annual tradition, kind of celebrating and really holding up this practice and inviting others in And it's changed over the years. If you go in our dining room, you'll see all these posters from all the many decades of Arbor Day.

[03:36]

They're up now. And in the early days, they planted a lot of pines. Originally, many of them planted for lumber, these very thick stands of pines that were going to be thinned and then the lumber used to either replace lumber we had bought and also to build things with here. I think that vision kind of fizzled away and now we have these really dense stands of pines that are fire dangers and are non-native and spreading throughout the watershed. So Arbor Day has changed over the years as we've continued to stay in close relationship to the land. and our understanding of the land and responded to what is being seen and learned. So now we plant native plants and shrubs and grasses and spend a lot of time removing non-natives from the watershed we've

[04:51]

partnered with the Park Service actually to start cutting down those pines. You might see some felled on the hillsides so they don't continue to spread. So in honor of Arbor Day and this, you know, practice, connecting practice to the watershed, I wanted to talk about kind of a recent and timeless teaching that Tension Reb Anderson gave during the January intensive about compassionate inquiry and to talk about this teaching in the context of my work with the creek and the creek restoration here at Green Vulch. As many of you know, Over the past 12 years, the community at Green Gulch and many individuals in it more so, including Suki, our stalwart land steward, and others have done extensive planning and construction work to care for the creek that runs the length of this valley and the length of the Green Gulch property.

[06:15]

You can hear it now emptying out into the pond. It's been surveyed by engineers and landscape architects and wildlife biologists and hydrologists. And we have plans to restore it. Written plans have been drawn up to restore it all the way from where the horses are up to this pond, the Zendo Pond. But that includes removing fish passage barriers, expanding and enhancing riparian habitat, creating fish spawning and rearing habitat for the coho salmon that are endemic to this watershed. And we've actually, as many of you I'm sure know from visiting Green Gulch and being here over the years, we've undertaken implementation of the first couple of phases of this creek restoration. notably the meander, the big meander down past the compost yard, and also the portion in the upper corner of the garden.

[07:27]

If you haven't visited either of these places, please take a walk after the talk and enjoy the land. Yeah, so the place up in the upper corner of the garden kind of daylighted a portion of the waterway that was culverted and underground, created above-ground riparian habitat, so habitat near a creek. And the main reason for doing that was to transport gravel and sediment to the lower portion of the creek, gravel being... vital for salmon spawning and also for the aliveness of a creek. Someone once said a creek's job is to move gravel to the ocean, to make sand. So as some of you may know, and as I certainly learned very intimately, this kind of construction work in a wetland and riparian

[08:36]

area and the lower portion of Green Gulch happens to be in the coastal zone involves a lot of government agencies, a lot of permitting, a lot of bureaucratic work. Although I hope you will all be pleased to know there is a law in California that streamlines the permitting process for restoration work and the lower The meander actually was one of the first projects done after that law took effect. We were very grateful. So the lead agency, permitting agency for the Spring Valley Project, that's this portion in the upper corner of the garden, was the State Water Resources Control Board, the California State Water Resource Control Board. And As part of the permit, they required us to do five years of monitoring after the completion of the construction.

[09:42]

So to kind of be accountable for what we said this restoration project was going to do. So they're monitoring or we're monitoring plant density and species diversity and the sediment and gravel transport function. Is it doing what we said it was going to do? I looked up the mission statement of the State Water Resources Control Board, and what it said was that their mission is to preserve, enhance, and restore. I just want to give you an idea of who we're dealing with here. To preserve, enhance, and restore the quality of California's water resources and drinking water for the protection of the environment, public health, and all beneficial uses and to ensure proper water resource allocation and efficient use for the benefit of present and future generations.

[10:45]

So there's a lot in there to unpack, which I'm not going to do, but it's helpful for me And I think it is my practice to be in relationship with all of the concepts and ideas that are in that statement. And know that operating under the surface here are all of my assumptions and ideas about what those words mean. And there's somebody on the other end working in that State Water Resources Control Board office that also has ideas about what those words mean. And in some way, I feel as citizens, we are all invited, and in fact, it is vital that we all consider what those words mean and engage with them.

[11:57]

Preserve, enhance, and restore the quality of water, and then they put in resources. A little commodification there. Quality of water for the protection of the environment, public health, and all beneficial uses. Now, do we agree about what beneficial uses are for water? That's an interesting question. For the benefit of present and future generations. So I've done these reports for the past few years and submitted them to the state. And in the past, I've kind of done it in the usual way. My usual way is to be swimming in the sea of all of these concepts and ideas without really noticing or examining them.

[13:02]

And to think that there's a right answer to submit to the state, there's a right answer to the report, and I basically need to gather evidence to support that right answer. And then send it off. And like in the back of my mind is to, you know, show how great we are to protect and enhance the reputation of Green Gulch Farm by being right. You know, so a few weeks ago, now is the time of year when the report is submitted. And so a few weeks ago, I found myself in my rain gear and my muck boots down in the creek bed, like pulling out, you know, trying to find some gravel. and figure out where it's gone, and scrambling around with these concepts of good and bad, and right and wrong, and good reputation and bad reputation, and realizing that this monitoring report is a Dharma gate, is a Dharma door.

[14:17]

You know, an opportunity to study the self. And the teaching that was foremost on my mind, it being January and in the midst of the January intensive, was the one that Reb had offered to the intensive participants. And I think on Sundays, too, he was giving talks, which is a practice he was describing as compassionate inquiry, which is what I wanted to talk to you a little bit about today. This teaching, as I understand it, is a way of being with things as they are in an upright and dynamic and liberating way. So as Reb was giving this teaching, I noted that the inquiry part seemed pretty straightforward.

[15:24]

No one asked, like, what do you mean by inquiry? It's like, oh yeah, you're looking into something. You're seeking information about something. There was, however, a lot of discussion about the compassion part. Like, what is it? How do you do it? Am I doing it right? There were a lot of questions like that. And some of the instructions that were given were, you know, that a compassionate inquiry is, a compassion is to welcome what's arising. So the inquiry is like to notice that something's arising, to look around for something. And the compassion part is to welcome what's arising, to let it come in to being, to let it be.

[16:30]

To be careful with what is arising. So to... to show it care, to treat it with respect, you know, to not get carried away with it and to not ignore it, to be careful with it, to be patient with what is arising. You know, and if we notice, as often we do, when patience is not present, impatience, to welcome impatience, to practice compassionate inquiry with impatience, to practice the precepts with what is arising, to not kill what is arising, to not try and get rid of, annihilate what is arising, to practice...

[17:40]

To not misuse sexuality in relationship to what is arising. To, you know, to not lie about what is arising. All of these, all of our precepts, to practice them. You know, an instruction I found particularly helpful in this practice of compassionate inquiry was to inquire into, to remember, to inquire into whether there is a sense of self present. This is always a good practice. Do I think I'm over here? Do I think there's somebody here? Do I think there's a continuous, separate being over here? My experience is Yes, whenever I look for it, it's there.

[18:43]

Sometimes it's quieter, sometimes it's louder. It is there. And I, you know, bringing this sense of self, of a me, into consciousness to carefully attend to and to see it for what it is, which is a conditioned mental formation. which can be practiced with just as everything else can be practiced with. In the ways, you know, welcoming it, being careful with it, being fearless with the self, the sense of self, practicing the precepts with it. You know, and in particular, which I found very helpful, Reb mentioned these four afflictions, one being these four afflictions that are associated with the self and confusion around the self, one being self-view.

[19:54]

So the sense of self is right near the sense of seeing and hearing and tasting and touching and thinking. They're so close in the consciousness, sometimes we can confuse, we think that the self is doing all of those things. So this is something to compassionately inquire into. Do I think I'm over here? And do I think I'm seeing all of you? Or is seeing seeing all of you? Is hearing hearing the sounds? Or do I think it's really me and I'm doing all those things? It's a subtle point and a point worth investigating. He mentioned self-confusion, the way that we think the self can, we think we can own phenomena, we can get things, or that things, we possess them, or that we can get rid of them.

[21:01]

It's me or mine. So this is a very good thing to compassionately inquire about. Do I think it's me or mine? The others were self-pride or the appearance that the self controls things. And self-love, which is being so concerned with the self, that we try and protect it and become rigid and stressed. All of these things are stressful. And they're all ways to study the self and study which is arising in our consciousness. So they're all things to practice compassionate inquiry with. And as I began to gather this data for the Creek Report,

[22:08]

I understood this instruction, this practice, as to start with welcoming this idea that there was a right answer. So letting that be here. And being careful with it, not thinking that it's true, that there's a right answer to what's happening in the creek. But also knowing... There is a right answer. You know, not turning away from the fact that, you know, something is happening and we are trying to do something. That's also happening. You know, and to practice fearlessness with the answer. And this is where it got really interesting because what I realized is that there was fear present. And the fear was really close to the idea that there was a right answer.

[23:15]

And in fact, it was right next to the idea that there was a wrong answer. And that wrong answer, those were all nice and cozied up next to myself. My sense of self. So, you know, it seems natural to be afraid. It's kind of an overwhelming situation. To think, I am responsible. There's danger here. You might be wrong. The stakes are high. So what was interesting in doing this inquiry and noticing all of these things in my consciousness, right answer, wrong answer, fear, self, I started noticing all sorts of things about the creek that I had not had space for when I was moving around looking for it, just thinking there was a right answer.

[24:19]

You know? I started noticing, I mean, all sorts of things. It's super dynamic. Have you guys ever crawled around in a creek? It's like, yeah, little eddies and pockets and the way that the... The gravel lands or doesn't land in shallow or deep parts. And then I noticed all things that Suki's been saying for years, but I really saw them. Like, it's undercutting the road down on the farm in certain places. You can't tell from the farm road because it's underneath you. But the creek's there, hollowing it out because of the hydrology, the speed of the water, and the shape of the channel. It was totally fascinating. It was like, yeah, whole worlds are here. And amazingly, the space to see these things, to have this wider view of what was happening, you know, and of course, all of those things I just mentioned are also things to study compassionately in my own consciousness, you know, not to take them as out there and true, but also...

[25:30]

you know, to study and welcome and be careful with, like undercutting the road, you know, or dynamic system. You know, these are concepts. These are not the actual creek. But by, and by really taking the time and energy to compassionately inquire into my mind, into all of these views and concepts, all of the self-confusion and limited view. You know, paradoxically, I was freed. My vision was freed from what I was trying to find. by giving careful attention to what I was trying to find.

[26:35]

Right there, by compassionately inquiring into my limited view, my right answer, being in real relationship, upright relationship, dynamic relationship with right answer, endless self, all of the other objects and all of the other objects of my mind, there was space for dynamic, ungraspable reality. There was space for everything else. Dogen Zenji says, when dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.

[27:35]

So when we're swimming in the water of our limited views, you know, of right and wrong and good and bad, which is kind of our usual way, you know, not practicing compassionate inquiry, but, you know, flowing along in the world created by these views. You know, you can throw in a few more. Maybe these are familiar to you. There's the view of self and other. It's a good one. Or like humans in here, over here, in the natural world over there. Or delusion and enlightenment. These are some more limited views you might have noticed. We don't even notice that they're limited or limiting. We think that our understanding is sufficient or complete.

[28:38]

We think it's true. That's what's happening. And when we practice with our limited views, when we hear the Dharma and it fills our body and mind, when we notice our limited views and welcome our limited views, and are careful with our limited views and practice the precepts with our limited views, then we see that they are just themselves. They're just limited views. And they don't include, but more importantly, do not obstruct the unlimited quality of reality. The point is not to get rid of anything. The point of practice is not to get rid of anything, including our limited view.

[29:40]

That's delusion. That's more delusion. The point is to see clearly, to see our delusion clearly, to see our limited view clearly for what it is. And in so noticing, you know, which we can do, with compassionate inquiry, there is space in and around and with the limitation. You know, space for our actual relationship with unlimited reality. You know, by being clear about my limited view about the creek, somehow the unlimited creek was with me. I was in relationship with the unlimited, really kind of amazing event that's happening.

[30:43]

So I have found this realization incredibly liberating, you know, by being in relationship with both limited and unlimited reality. my concepts of the creek and somehow the creek itself, beyond my concepts, I realized my ability to respond to what's happening, to respond to the actual creek, was unlocked, was freed. And then what followed from that is the clarity of my responsibility to the creek. Suzuki Roshi says, as you know, we live in a world which is mostly perceptions.

[31:48]

It is difficult for us to be satisfied with everything. when our understanding accords with what we see or think. But we have to know that everything we see or think is under some limitation. You are not seeing or thinking about the thing itself. This point should be remembered. What you see, what you understand in terms of concepts is not always true. This is the secret of Buddhism. This point should be remembered completely. So remembering this point, what we see or think is under some limitation, and relating to that, caring for that, welcoming that, So this recent experience, which was kind of new in a way, it was exciting, reminded me of when we first started the creek work.

[33:04]

And I was at a, this was years and years ago, I was a farm manager, and I was at a presentation done by the firm that did the restoration design. And they were... I don't know who they were presenting to, people of the county maybe or other agency representatives. And they were, one of the landscape architects, Mike, was saying, yeah, and in one of these fields, the present condition is that the riparian area is a tree width wide. And it's kind of, it's a berm. There's a berm between the creek. and the farm road. And so when there's high water, this berm is basically damming the creek from spilling out into the farm fields and flooding everything. And what I remember was so immediate and distinct, my thought was that's not true.

[34:08]

You know, which is funny because I'm pretty sure it was true. And I kind of knew it was true. And yet, my thought was, that's not true. Well, that's an interesting question. And, you know, in thinking back, There's a lot that I see that was true. You know, what's clear then, what was clear then and now, I want to say before sharing with you all the other things I found, it was not possible to respond to the situation, to a situation I was unwilling to engage with. You know, there was no compassionate inquiry into the creek is burned or it's not true. You know, I kind of cut off part of... And the cutting off or the separation was totally limiting.

[35:29]

And I felt it in my body. You know, the stress of that. So I think back now and... what I can recall, you know, thinking about it, I see a lot of ideas. I saw a lot of, I see, uh, what was true is that there was an idea of what a good organic farmer is, you know, and then kind of how much I wanted that good organic farmer to be right cozied up to the self. Um, what, uh, and by, you know, by a good organic farmer, I mean one that is responsible for a functioning ecosystem. So then there was the creek being channelized and burned. That was present. There was fear associated with that idea, fear of being a, you know, the concept of a bad person, of a bad organic farmer.

[36:38]

And the self was in there kind of getting stuck to or confused with all of those ideas. It was so confusing. It was so overwhelming at the time. I didn't have the tools to compassionately inquire that it kind of just, it was like denial. That's self-love, self-protection. Like, I need to protect this thing over here. So Dogen says, also in Genjo Koan, when you sail out in a boat to the midst of an ocean where no land is in sight and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular and does not look any other way. So there I was, viewing the ocean, and it looked circular. And I thought, yep, this is it. My view was totally limited, and I was totally limited by the limited view.

[37:41]

Dogen goes on to say, so this is the medicine of the Dharma washing over my ears, you know. The ocean is neither round nor square. Its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only looks circular as far as you can see at that time. Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. So I think about this time and I think, oh, my eye of practice wasn't even present. There was no somehow... in that moment anyway, you know, of no, that's not true. I was unable to inquire about the circle of water.

[38:43]

You know, and Dogen says, in order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round and square, and I would add, practice is to care for the way things appear round or square, to compassionately inquire into the view you have, the views you have, the circle of water. So in order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety. Whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet or in a drop of water or in a creek. So another thing that I realized was there was shame. You know, there was the bermed creek.

[39:52]

There was the good farmer, the bad farmer. There was the self, and there was shame. And the shame... got stuck to the self, which is, I think, why I needed to, which is where the denial came in. And in compassionately inquiring about the actual relationship, what I see now is that the shame, you know, I can see the shame and it's not stuck to the self, but it is present, it is a condition in that situation. And I appreciate the truth of it, the shame of living in a world where creeks are not cared for, where they're burned, you know, creeks and all living beings. And when the shame is not stuck to the self,

[40:59]

I realize there's energy to respond. There's the ability to respond to those conditions. The self doesn't have to collapse into shame, but rather to meet it in an upright, careful way. Suzuki Roshi says, so don't be disturbed by the ideas you have in your mind. This does not mean that you can ignore your thinking. Thinking should be systematic and it should be right. But even though it is right, that is not complete. And what you think is right is not always actually right. Most people attach to the truth which they understand. The confusion arises from this hasty understanding.

[42:04]

This is a very, very important point. So do not ignore your thinking. Compassionately inquire about your thinking. It should be systematic and it should be right. Look for the self. Be careful with the self. Notice the relationship of the self to other mental phenomena. And even though you're doing that, understand that is not complete either. And in fact, doing that will allow you to understand that it's not complete and will allow you to open to completeness, to reality. You know, actually I'm coming to understand more and more that a good organic farmer as well as a good Zen student really practices compassionate inquiry and that their activity of farming or any other activity really is the practice and realization of intimacy.

[43:25]

It's not about knowing correctly or having a complete or right grasp on reality, but about intimacy with inside and outside, intimacy with our views, intimacy with our limitations. And I've come to understand through my own experience own experience of doing this intimate practice, that an appropriate response, a fully alive, dynamic human response is always rooted in inquiry, in relationship. It's rooted in intimacy. And in fact... Maybe I would go so far as to say an appropriate response is the practice and realization of intimacy.

[44:34]

And nothing more than that. So the five years of monitoring for the State Water Resources Control Board, the writing of bureaucratic reports, is just an approximation of intimacy. You know, the report is a circle of water. It's a limited representation. It's in the realm of good and bad and right and wrong. You know, I did turn in a map, and it was a nice map of the property. It had a little red X at the farthest point that I found sediment in the creek after our last set of big storms, the farthest point that the gravel had been transported. And I compiled a spreadsheet with all the species of the native plants and how many of each there are and what percentage cover they're providing in the project area. Wow.

[45:37]

But it was not it. That's okay. Yeah, so the report is just a finger pointing at the moon. It's a graspable version of our ungraspable, infinite relationship with reality. Our unending relationship with and responsibility for the creek. Suzuki Roshi said in this commentary I've been reading to you, it's a commentary he gave on the Genjo Koan. He said, when you're busy working on something, it's not possible to see what you have done. If you want to see, you have to stop doing it. Then you will know what you have done. Even though it is not possible to see what you have done when you have done something, there is attainment.

[46:47]

There is no doubt in it. But usually we are very curious about what we have done. That is all right. But when you see it, you have already put your practice in a limitation. And you are comparing it to some attainment. When your attainment is better than what you did before or better than what someone else did, you will be pleased with it. If it is not, you will be discouraged. But that is not because your attainment is not good enough or is not perfect. So Suzuki Roshi is talking to us. When we're asked, what have you done? Or what are you doing? Or we get a letter in the mail from the State Water Resources Control Board asking us to tell them what we've accomplished with the creek restoration. We stop what we're doing. And we look. And we write the report. But he tells us, do not be confused.

[47:52]

The stopping and the looking and the seeing are not the same as the thing itself. The thing itself is the intimacy. The intimacy is the attainment. And once you try and grasp it, once you try and write it down in a report, it's already limited. The creak is limited and the intimacy is limited. You might think the report, your intellectual understanding, is your true relationship, your true life. But the ocean is neither round nor square. The features of the ocean are infinite in variety. So I say best to just send in the report and then get back in the creek and continue the pure and intimate practice of compassionate inquiry moment after moment for the rest of our lives.

[48:56]

Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[49:28]

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