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. Welcome to Green Gulch on this beautiful winter day. For those of you who don't know me, I am Sarah Tashker, and I'm currently the director here at Green Gulch. And for many years, I worked on the farm. I had the privilege to cultivate these fields in this beautiful valley.

[01:07]

I have been struck. recently by the season, by the quality of darkness that has come with the winter turning. And in fact, this coming Thursday is the winter solstice, will be the shortest day of the year. And I read online that the sun will set at 10 to 5 on Thursday here in the Bay Area. I've been thinking a lot about the darkness because I've been feeling the darkness. I've been noticing the quality of my experience when I walk outside at 5 or 5.30 and I

[02:14]

can hardly see anything. Here at Green Gulch, it's quite dark. We don't have street lights, and there's not a lot of car traffic. But even in town, when I'm there, and there are all those lights, somehow my attention has included the dark. Even when I see the lights, I notice the dark. And I've been kind of turning in my mind the connection between the dark of winter and the holiday season that you may have noticed is upon us. And what comes to mind for me when I think about the holidays is I think about candles, candlelight in the winter, and I think about celebration and

[03:17]

special music and how we humans prepare special foods. And I've been wondering if somehow this has come about to balance the dark, to create these occasions where we affirm the light and our connection with what we can see. because of the quality, the perhaps daunting nature of the dark. I realize there's all sorts of historical and, you know, economic reasons for the holiday season being in the winter, so I don't think that's the only reason, but somehow this has resonated with me, the contrast. and made me wonder about my own efforts to include light and dark.

[04:27]

Today is a celebration. I don't know how many of you know that today at Green Gulch we're celebrating Arbor Day. This is an annual celebration of the land and our efforts to care for it. So for those of you who are able to stay after the lecture and after lunch at 1.30, we'll be gathering at the farm altar, which if you just follow the road through the garden, you will find. And we will be planting and sheep mulching and getting our hands dirty and appreciating one another in this beautiful day, hopefully. If you can't stay, you can still enjoy the beautiful Arbor Day photos from years past that are up in the dining room. For decades, this celebration took place in the spring, in February.

[05:31]

And the last few years, we've moved it to the fall and winter. November or December. And there are a couple of reasons for this. One of the main reasons, as you may know if you're a gardener or a horticulturalist, is that the best time to plant perennial plants, shrubs and trees and native grasses, is when the light is waning, when it's dark. So to allow the plant to find its place and do the work that roots do in the dark soil so that there is a foundation for growth when the conditions are right.

[06:43]

So this is what I hope to talk to you a little bit about this morning, tending the dark, the tending of the dark that farmers do and the tending of the dark that Zen students do. And hopefully this will encourage our hearts of practice. So I learned organic farming here at Green Gulch. I have many mentors both here and in the wider California community of organic farmers, or as they call themselves, ecological farmers. And the main thing that I learned is that a good farmer isn't farming plants, they're farming the soil.

[07:53]

tending to the soil, tending to the dark, rich, organic matter called humus, which is the foundation of a healthy soil ecosystem and plant community. So I was taught that if there is disease or pest infestation, that I can observe with my eyes, with my senses, that there's an underlying cause that I can't see that needs tending to. So over time, I came to understand myself as not cultivating plants, but rather cultivating the

[08:57]

conditions for plants. Not understanding that I do not create health, but that I can make an effort to cultivate the conditions for health to arise. I don't know if this happens to all farmers. I imagine it happens to most farmers who are paying attention. the realization that you're not in control, the realization that what you're meeting is vastly more complex and mysterious than you can perceive. And hopefully you've cultivated the conditions of support, you know, good friends, somebody whose shoulder you can cry on, good mentors, to keep going in the face of this realization that what is happening is beyond you, and yet you make your best effort.

[10:13]

There's a lot of wonderful science about the soil coming out now, I think particularly because of DNA testing. We've learned all sorts of things about the biological community in the soil, all the different bacteria, all of the different fungi that actually are functioning down there in the dark where we humans cannot see or perceive what's happening. But we're getting these little clues, these little Suzuki Roshi wrote a piece, little postcards from emptiness, you know, little DNA tests that tell us something's happening in there, in the soil, supporting what we can see. And it's kind of fascinating. And yet, what we are finding out still isn't it.

[11:21]

So this foundational element of a healthy soil, this humus, is the living portion of the soil. It's the organic matter, stable organic matter, that feeds that soil ecosystem, the bacteria and fungi that make the nutrients available to the plants. This humus. Again, we can create the conditions for humus, but we as humans can't make it. So what we do is we compost. Humus is formed on its own in a forest or anywhere where there's organic matter that breaks down. But organic farmers are known for making compost, and we do this. You all may have noticed the compost yard if you've ever walked down to the beach from up here.

[12:32]

It's right outside the gate and there's a bunch of piles and some of them look like horse manure and some of them look like food scraps and some of them look like soil. And sometimes if a farmer has turned them recently, you can smell them. It's kind of a I just find it kind of sweet and mysterious. It's not complete. It's a good smell, but it's not all sweet because it's the smell of decay. You know, composting is this kind of magical time when death when the dead plant material, animal waste, even we don't put meat in our compost, but you can, so animal flesh, this death, I was going to say turns into birth, but no.

[13:53]

And yet humus is created through this process of death and decay, and humus is the stable organic matter that gives rise to life. It's a condition for new life. So one thing I learned as a farmer, I did... I did take care of the composting, although I have to admit I did delegate that quite a bit. I never quite completely got it. If you want to talk about composting, talk to Sarah Davis. But I never quite mastered the art of creating the conditions for compost. know, the right carbon to nitrogen ratio, the right ingredients to give the pile the structure it needs to have air inside and yet let water percolate, you know, the right moisture.

[15:03]

These are all things that we can make an effort to control the conditions for but we don't control the compost. This is what I learned. We make an effort to create the conditions where the right bacteria, the right fungi, the right heat-loving bacteria that act like a fungi show up and do all of this work in the middle of this dark, stinky pile. Needless to say, the conditions for farming that I have seen created for every good farmer I have seen produce humility.

[16:14]

Because what you're tending to is beyond your perception. I was taught that once you're having to respond to disease, you've already missed the mark. You missed tending to whatever that mysterious system needed to stay in balance, in dynamic balance. The other thing that you add to a compost pile is inoculant. So one of the conditions for a good compost pile is something that has already composted successfully. So you add some compost from a cured compost pile, or you add some good soil.

[17:23]

You add something that has some life in it that, if the conditions are right in your pile, will take hold. So You know, Zen students also tend to the roots and tend to the dark and tend to what can't be perceived. You know, practice is often described as transforming the root of suffering. The root of suffering are greed, hate and delusion. transforming them into the roots of freedom, generosity, love, and wisdom.

[18:28]

And the main way we do this is to tend to the dark, you know, to balance our mind's habit of wanting to understand and grasp reality. We tend to the dark. We tend to what we can't see. We tend to zazen. And the way we tend to zazen, because we can't directly perceive it, is we tend to conditions. We make an effort to create the conditions for zazen. Perhaps you've heard this story of Blanche Hartman at one point talking to Suzuki Roshi about how great her zazen practice was going.

[19:32]

She felt like it was really going well. And I didn't hear this story directly from Blanche, but what I heard is he was kind of upset. And he said, you don't sit zazen. Zazen sit zazen. So we, as Zen practitioners, don't create zazen, but we can care for the conditions for zazen. And some of that inoculant is listening, hearing the Dharma, and having good Dharma friends and Dharma teachers But the main practice, you know, is detailed in the Fukanzazengi by Dogen Zenji. We chant here in the temple and is in many, many Zen books, instructions for the ceremony of seated meditation, for the ceremony of Zazen.

[20:43]

And he describes how you get thick matting and you place a cushion on it and you put your legs in the right position and you put your hands in the right mudra and you put your tongue against the roof of your mouth by your front teeth. So these are all the conditions for zazen that we can care for. You know, perhaps you have a place in your house where you sit. Perhaps you light a candle. or make offerings. This is what we can see. Fundamentally, zazen is something we can't directly perceive. It is imperceptible. mutual assistance.

[21:45]

It's also been called unconstructedness in stillness. It has been called immediate realization. It has been called non-thinking. So what we're talking about is the dark, is what is happening beyond our perceptions. beyond our conscious ability to perceive of what's happening. Dogen says, any such mingling with perceptions is not the mark of realization. It cannot be conceived of by the conscious mind. The mark of true realization is altogether beyond such illusions. So cultivating this understanding, remembering the dark, that there's something happening that's beyond our perception, cultivating the conditions to not obstruct this, to not obstruct the activity, the imperceptible mutual assistance,

[23:19]

that is happening all the time and that is imperceptible to us. Dogen talks about this in the Genjo Koan. He says, when Dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When Dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing. You understand there is something happening that you cannot perceive. It is missing from your perception. For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle 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. This is the light. This is what we can see. This is looking at the plant and seeing the flea beetles on it or seeing the shine of the leaf, the health of the

[24:21]

of the charred plant. We can see this. Dogen goes on to say, but 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. All things are like this. 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. You must know, in order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they look round or square, the 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.

[25:23]

So he's calling forward, calling forward the understanding that there are things we cannot see. that our consciousness cannot reach. And these things are supporting, completely supporting what our consciousness can reach. In a talk by Uchiyama Roshi, the word samadhi is translated as right awareness. So what we're doing in zazen is right awareness. having right awareness, awareness of the world of infinite variety that is dark to us, is inconceivable and imperceptible, but holding that wholeness of awareness in our conscious mind.

[26:35]

I heard a wonderful talk years back by Dan Welch, who was ordained by Suzuki Roshi and one of the original Zen students at Tassahara. He also studied in Japan before he came to Zen Center. And he was talking about Zazen, and he talked about how our spine is supporting us to sit upright. in Zazen. And he wondered what this was, because he kept going like this, because of course we can't see this support. We can't see our spine. And he went on to say that this that in the dark, in this dark place we can't see or grasp, the spine that's supporting us is the same as Suzuki Roshi's spine.

[28:01]

In the dark, when we sit zazen, We are supported by Suzuki Roshi and all the Buddhas and ancestors. And we can cultivate the conditions so that this imperceptible mutual assistance is unobstructed. A few weeks ago, maybe it was longer than that, we dedicated a part of the garden as a Jizo garden. If you walk down through the garden, the hedged-in part of the garden called the herb circle is on your left, and then on the right there's grass and bamboo, and back in there is now the Jizo garden, and there's an altar and many stone figures of Jizo.

[29:15]

And a woman named Yvonne Rand, who was also one of Suzuki Roshi's early disciples and early, you know, Zen student at San Francisco Zen Center. She, the garden was, the jizos were donated in her name. She brought the jizo ceremony to Zen Center and has passed it on and continues to offer it. And many old-time students came for this dedication ceremony, and many of them spoke about how important Yvonne was to them and their life and practice, you know, whenever that was, you know, in the 70s and early 80s. So quite a while ago, how present her example and her practice and teaching was to them. And what I appreciated was that after the comments, you know, I don't know if she responded to each comment, but she responded to a number of them.

[30:24]

It seemed like she heard what they said. She heard and took in the expression of appreciation for her and her particular and actions and the impact that was being described. And then very clearly and in a very grounded way added this piece about how Everything, including the other person, was supporting her to be how she was. That there was the way that it was her, in particular, her karmic being, was able to offer what was offered.

[31:37]

This is, in Buddhism, called the vertical, or the light. you know, the way that there's right and wrong and good and bad and there's beneficial action and there's not beneficial action and skillfulness and unskillfulness. So acknowledging that, not denying that, but bringing in the horizontal, the way that in the dark we are all imperceptibly mutually assisting and being assisted So what I saw was this deep, kind of honest humility. You know, I think the usual way we talk about humility is kind of like the opposite of arrogance. You know, there's one up, and then there's one down. And a humble person is always putting themselves one down. But actually, in Buddhism, we understand that humility is being completely who you are. And understand right at the intersection

[32:40]

of what can be seen, the light, and what is happening in the dark. You know, the word humility comes from the word humus. It means the ground. So it is this vital, the vital foundation for balance and health and light right at the intersection, you know. But in the dark, in the soil, where our consciousness can't reach it, this imperceptible mutual assistance being grounded in that while living our full human, discriminating life. I was talking to my good Dharma friend, Kristen, about this talk.

[33:52]

We were talking last week and talking about the light and dark, and she said, oh, it reminds me, this image is coming to mind. And she drew it out on a piece of paper, and it was a circle. She said, right, so here's the dark, this big circle. And then she drew another circle inside the circle, a smaller circle. And this is the light. You know, the light completely held by the dark, completely supported. Here's the light. And then she drew a dark circle inside that. She said, And then here's remembering the dark. Here's the dark inside of our consciousness. Bullseye. So Janelle Weitzman told this wonderful story years ago when I was at Tassajara, when a number of people were at Tassajara.

[35:02]

He told this story that at this point may be apocryphal, but I've seen other versions of it. So there is some truth here. And the way I remember it, he described there was a gathering of kind of masters of different disciplines at Esalen down in Big Sur. I don't know how many of you have been there. It's an amazing, it's beautiful. It's right on the coast and it's on this plateau, this kind of wide plateau that butts right up to the cliffs that fall off into the Pacific Ocean. So when you're walking around, one whole side of the property is just ocean and sky. There's nothing else. And we have this bathhouse that's right on the right on this cliff, so you're sitting in the hot springs and looking down at otters and whales in the ocean below you.

[36:03]

It's quite amazing. So for a number of days, there were all of these karate masters and taekwondo masters and people showing, demonstrating their skill and mastery of their discipline, chopping, through 10 boards, you know, or whatever. And Kobanchino, who was at Zen Center with Suzuki Roshi and became, was a teacher in his own right, was there to demonstrate Zen archery. So a couple of days into this event, he... has his archer's bow and his arrow and he marches everybody else, everybody out to this great grassy lawn area that goes right up to the edge of the ocean. You know, there's a hundred foot drop off, but so you're looking out at the ocean and he faces the ocean and he pulls the bow, you know, and it is released and the arrow sails out towards the horizon.

[37:20]

And I remember at Tassajara, Mel telling the story, and somebody in the zendo said, what does it mean? And he waited a beat and said, you can't miss. So there's an old Chinese Mahayana text called The Awakening of Faith that says, On the basis of original enlightenment, there is non-enlightenment. On the basis of non-enlightenment, there is actualizing enlightenment. So we think about this, the circle of dark, holding the circle of light, holding the circle of dark. And how we cultivate the conditions in the light for that center of dark.

[38:31]

And I think, well, you can't miss if you know what you're aiming for. So these grasses and shrubs that we will so carefully and lovingly plant this afternoon They will sit quietly for some time. We will dig wide and deep holes for them so that their roots have an easy time finding their way in the dark. We'll perhaps throw in a handful of rich, dark compost to nourish them and hopefully The winter rains will come and they will be watered in. And I have faith that this offering we are making and the care we are taking with what remains underground in the dark will appear in our consciousness as bright, green, fresh shoots as the air warms and the earth tilts back towards the sun.

[39:56]

May it be so. May all of our practice be just like this. 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 sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:38]

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