having it to see and listen to to remember and accept i vow to taste the truth of the Thank you so much, Kodo, for that introduction. Thank you, David and Nancy, for inviting me here. Truly beautiful. I remember when I was a Zen kid. I was a PhD student back in 2002, 2004. We used to visit San Francisco for American Geophysical Union.

[01:05]

And between our science sessions, my husband and I would run to the city temple, paid street, to get a glimpse of what was happening there and sometimes sit there. So it's beautiful to connect now. I want to start with... What in Rinzai school, Rinzai Zen school is called a koan. Maybe some of you are familiar with it. Here's how the koan starts. A monk asked, how about the lay disciple, Shishi, who worked the foot pedals, foot pedals, but forgot he was moving his feet? Where has he gotten to? Master Rinzai Linchi said, drowned in a deep spring.

[02:06]

That's the con, drowned in the deep spring. For context, Shishi was a monk. In some translations, they say he was a Zen master. He was forcibly disrobed during a purge of Buddhism when Lin Chi, Master Rinzai, was very young. Shishi was forcefully put in a servant quarters and he made his living, or you should say he was a servant, thrashing and grinding rice by using his two feet. I don't know about you, but if you've been to some of the Asian palaces, they have this. area where servants use their two feet to constantly grind grains and do other menial labor. So that's a con from Rinzai Roku which is one of the fundamental texts that students in Rinzai lineage work on.

[03:24]

Basically there are thousands of cons, and it's one of the fundamental cons that we work with. If you are not used to cons, basically they are paradoxical statements or stories or dialogues between a teacher and a student, which the tradition asks us not to process intellectually. not to process intellectually, but rather to, in some ways, repeat it like a mantra in our heads and find that fundamental paradox that the con or story is pointing to and present an answer in the interview room that shows you have understood the paradox and you have transcended the paradox.

[04:24]

So maybe a few examples will make this clearer. One of the famous koans is, show me the sound of one hand clapping. So let's say one hand, how does one hand clap? There is another koan which says, show me your face before you were born. Do you see? Mother Mary, that's not a Buddhist khan, but that's a khan all of us live with. Mother Mary is a khan. She's virgin and she was pregnant. She gave birth. So the Zen school that I have trained in and worked with, Rinzai school, works with... hundreds if not thousands of koans.

[05:27]

And in this koan, there is a Buddhist practitioner who is going through tremendous difficulty, right? What you loved, what was your life, has been snatched from Shishi. He's been enslaved. He's deprived. He probably doesn't get enough to eat. Maybe his hands are bruised. Feet are bruised. But the statement is he has forgotten that he has feet. He has forgotten how his feet are moving. Where has he gotten to? And Master Rinzai says, drowned in the deep spring. So the koan, if you ever work with a koan, your task as a student would be, my task when I worked in this koan was to meditate on this phrase that is the turning phrase in koans.

[06:46]

The turning phrase here is deep spring, deep spring. What is this deep spring, right? As you can imagine, this is not simply someone who has gone unconscious because they just worked so hard. Not that, not that. Now there are these traditional koans, lineage koans, and regardless of whether or not we relate to them, All of us human beings are facing many, many cons, right? Many cons. We call them life cons. These difficult questions that we can't seem to work with, right? As a society, we are living through the COVID con, right?

[07:48]

One of the fundamental cons that you can imagine that I work with all the time as a climate scientist is the con of our climate emergency, climate crisis. I refuse to call it climate change because change feels, oh, change. Things change all the time, impermanence. And one of the biggest cons with climate crisis that I am living with these days is the deep call within me, deep call within me is how do I prepare myself, my beloved communities, and people who would hear my voice for the trauma that is about to come our way in a way that is trauma-informed.

[08:52]

In a way that is trauma-informed. What do I mean by that? I am seeing on my screen that there are 134 of us today gathered right now. 134 of us. Every fifth person in this room at the minimum, this is CDC data, has faced sexual abuse as a child. We don't think about these numbers. One in three have witnessed, as a little kid, domestic violence, which often means they have seen their mothers beaten. So yes, I don't want to make anyone feel like a statistic, but I know that There must be people in this gathering who face these things.

[09:54]

And then they are layered. There is alcoholism in the family. There have been suicides in the family, right? Regardless of our race and gender, there are things that we have all faced. We don't talk about the depth and scope of that trauma enough. Buddhist communities, insight meditation, teachers, Zen teachers who have done psychotherapy training, psychology training are beginning to bring that insight about how much trauma we have to our meditation communities. It has begun to happen, but we haven't yet begun to understand how to deal with the trauma that is on its way. necessarily on its way, from my perspective, in a trauma-informed way. People say, we have solutions, we just need good leaders maybe, or we have, science is understood, right?

[11:09]

Science is clear, we have the solutions, we just need to apply it. Why are we not able to apply the solutions that we know exist one of the fundamental reasons is that the the depth and breadth of trauma that we have as individuals has taken away from us our ability to form relationships relationships you know one of the things that trauma does when It comes, comes is, it makes us, puts us into these three or four fundamental states of neurological, neurobiological states of mind, which is fight, flight, or freeze. Okay? Does that make sense? Fight is...

[12:12]

aggression that I am going to get into the fight mode. Flight is running away from the situation and freeze is becoming like a lizard hiding away, right? Not facing the situations. None of those three ways of being is conducive to forming relationships. When we don't have relationships, when we don't have relationships, how will we come together to enact the solutions that are in front of our eyes? Some sense? You see, this koan that we started talking about, she, she is working so hard His robes have been taken away from him and he's been enslaved.

[13:15]

He's working day and night as a slave, grinding rice. One fundamental teaching that Buddhism, all schools of Buddhism give us, that we have access to what this koan is calling deep spring. No matter when and where we are, We settle down, we pay attention to our breath, the space between our two breaths. We allow ourselves, surrender ourselves to those spaces and deep spring can open up. That is an absolute point of view, right? There is an absolute reality that is always accessible and that is like a deep nourishing spring. What I am talking about here is how does that deep spring inform the times we are in today?

[14:19]

And if I focus on climate emergency, climate crisis, I feel that we need to address this fundamental con of trauma that we are surrounded with. Because unless we have ways to face the trauma we are already in, we will not have the energy, clarity, courage to face the trauma that from my perspective is on its way even if we stopped all greenhouse gas emissions today. I've spoken about it elsewhere. It's not as if we have crossed the tipping point and all we have in front of us is doom and gloom. No, there are tens of tipping points. We have crossed only two and we need to do all we can to stop our planet from crossing others that have not yet been crossed.

[15:31]

The ones, the tipping points we have indeed crossed, they are going to cause a lot of suffering. I mean, COVID is causing enormous pain. I hope everyone attending today has not faced too much pain or death in their family because of this crisis. I suffered from COVID for four months. My mother got sick. There's tremendous suffering going on right now. And my heart hurts, pains, when I think about how much more suffering is on its way because of climate crisis, climate emergency. And my heart also hurts aches when I think about how unprepared we are both for facing what will come our way even if we stopped all the emissions and number two how ill prepared we are for stopping the damage we still can stop.

[16:49]

The place where I have landed in the last year and a half or so, working through this, both knowing what I know intellectually as a climate scientist and what I hear from teachers all over the world when they face difficult situations. I've come with this phrase called islands of sanity in a sea of chaos. We don't know how much chaos we will land into, but there will be chaos. We are already facing it. San Francisco Zen Center community, Sahara community, California, Bay Area knows the apocalyptic fires are here. You all, if you are in California, you've seen, you've lived through those fires. we gonna have more and more chaos no matter what we do.

[17:58]

What we can do is create islands of sanity in a sea of chaos. And what are the elements of these islands of sanity? One fundamental aspect of island of sanity in my view is our ability to come together as small communities, not necessarily in a group of 100 people, but in groups of 10, 15, 20, maybe 30, small groups, and their ability to shed the masks that we go around with. We go around with these masks. I am okay, I am strong. I have my Zen practice helping me. Those are masks. Yes, Zen practice helps me and my heart hurts. We need people who can come together in their authentic vulnerability and share their grief and anger.

[19:07]

I have found myself liberated by being able to do grief work. We simply do not have enough psychotherapists in this country, let alone the world, where psychotherapy, one-on-one psychotherapy can hold the kind of grief and trauma that already exists and is on its way. Yeah? So that's my point number one. And this ability to be vulnerable, to say what breaks my heart, makes communities like anything Anything, especially when people in leadership roles become vulnerable, it opens up a wave of warmth in entire community. I know San Francisco Zen Center community has been doing a lot of work on racial healing, on white people unpacking white supremacy.

[20:18]

And all of those trainings, I've been very happy to see what I saw last few days as I was thinking about this talk. And I have found that in my experience, no matter how much we study, we come to a point where unless there is this basic thread of trust, all actions can be misinterpreted. Misinterpreted. these layers of privilege that exist and the privilege differential that exists in a community, among residents, among teachers and students, among teachers, the layers of privilege, there are many layers of privilege and to live with warmth and to live with trust

[21:19]

Nothing works better than vulnerability. Nothing works better than me opening up, removing my mask and saying, folks, I'm really hurting. When I hear climate news, my climate scientist friends and I get panic attacks. See, and I need your help to prepare for this. that makes some sense. So in my framework that I'm working with these days to create islands of sanity, to create these communities that will have resilience to face what is coming our way, number one thing we need is vulnerability among community members. Point number two, And vulnerability, one thing that's important to say about it, somehow I feel that we have lost it, at least in some Zen communities.

[22:31]

I haven't been in Zen center or lived there. But my experience sometimes with Zen tradition especially is that we have... Somehow I had this message early on in my training that a good Zen student doesn't cry. You work through it. You access deep spring. You get courage and clarity and at least you don't go around being public about it. But being in the ability to release the grief and to put my tears in a public sphere has been utterly liberating, especially in the context of climate crisis and racial justice crisis that we have. Point number two is this little story that comes from Oakland, California.

[23:34]

I was working with a group of climate activists in Oakland, And I met a farmer called Sean. I knew Sean lived very simply. And he's like this pollinator activist who goes from place to place, sharing his skills. He's an excellent cook and grows food. I happened to ask him one day, Sean, how much money do you need in a year to to do well, to be happy. And he's a happy kid in mid-20s, I would say. He told me $1,000. I had to ask him again, do you mean in a year? He said, yes. The story in itself has stayed like a con for me.

[24:37]

And I by no means want to romanticize poverty. I am sure there is a lot, there is a lot that people who make $1,000 or $2,000 have to struggle with that I can't imagine. The place where I am going with this is Each person living in America, their carbon footprint is 30 tons, 30,000 kilograms, or you should say 62,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year. Everyone sitting here, if you are joining from United States, that's the average amount of emissions you personally are responsible for because of the way we live, the way we heat our buildings, the way our food is produced, and so on.

[25:50]

Everything together. Do you know how much this needs to be for us to have a planet with living human population by 2030? I don't know if the chat is open. We could ask people. I just want people to take a guess if you are not familiar with climate science. And I can't also see everyone, so I am not able to see if people know. I'll tell you the answer. Someone said half of that. No, that's not going to be enough. We need to have maybe half our emissions as planet, but what Americans need to do is weigh more because we produce way more than global average. Okay?

[26:51]

I'll tell you the answer is from 62,000 or 65,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year, we need to come down to 5,000 pounds every year. And you know which country has 5,000 pound emission average per person today? That's like countries we call poor. That's most of India. That's Africa. What am I saying here? Coming back to the story of Sean. It is not just about renewable energy. It's not just about solar panels or windmills. We use so many resources, so many resources.

[27:53]

The production of plastic, our computers, just about everything it adds to our footprint. To have sanity, to have climate sanity, We need systems that are different, of course, but we also need to prepare ourselves spiritually, psychologically, for living a lifestyle that is very different from where we are today. And why did I tell us this Sean story? I am trying to learn from people like Sean how to live simply. Communities around the world, communities of people of color, indigenous people, poor people, they need to teach us, we need to learn from them how to live more simply and how to live in community so that

[29:03]

All of us don't need our cars and our landmowers and anything we use around our house, that we have a community pool that we can share from, that we have relationships that when I need something, my neighbor will give it to me. And I don't need to hoard everything in my house. We need the village life. So this whole work of undoing white supremacy or understanding whiteness, it's not just because people of color will, in some ways, people of color have had a kind of resilience that we in the Western privileged world don't have. I'm a person of color, but I don't have that kind of resilience that my mother or grandmother's generation had myself. we need lessons.

[30:06]

We need lessons from cultures that have been minimized and subjugated to get through this time of climate emergency. I hope it makes some sense. I want to end, go towards closing by sharing this story. and I'll make a few last points. The story I'm going to read you now comes from this man called Dr. Bayo Ekomolafe. The story will speak for itself and then we'll connect it back to what we've been talking about so far. He says, let me tell you a brief story This is something from my own history. I grew up in Nigeria, but I traveled the world at a young age very quickly because my father was a diplomat.

[31:17]

He lived and worked in what is now called Democratic Republic of Congo. When I was a little boy, Congo was ruled by a dictator called Mobutu Seko. One of those heavy days, there was news that the shoulders of that country were disgruntled and angry because the dictator Mobutu had not paid them their salaries. So the soldiers took it upon themselves to hunt down the foreigners who, in their opinion, were the causes of their misery. That meant me and my family. I remember the night they came into our home. They broke into our home. They hurt the people who were living with us. They took away property. They held the gun to my head. It reminded me of the fires we are having around the world right now.

[32:25]

We've been through the fires before. On that day, they threw us out of the home we were living in with only the clothes on our backs. Miraculously, we lived. My sisters, my mother, my father. No one died. In the morning, the air was rent with cries of death and pain. It was like the sky was painted with blood. Siren cries in the sky. Warnings to avoid. This is important. Warnings to avoid the highway. We had no shoes, no clothes. We barely had memories of trauma we had just endured. But we decided somehow that there was something still worth living for. So we decided to make our way to the Nigerian embassy, which was miles away.

[33:30]

How did we do it? We went through cracks. We went through gutters. We stole through neighborhoods. We slept in the bush. We begged for bread on the road. And we got there safely and we survived. As this story goes on, I can send the link later on. Bayo explains this thing very beautifully, what he calls going through cracks. Going through cracks. Why am I highlighting this here? We have a new administration in this country coming in January 20th.

[34:32]

In my view, we have avoided that descent into dictatorship. Good, good. Our climate crisis challenge is still extremely steep, extremely steep, and we're going to face increasing chaos, as I have, in my view, tried to explain earlier. And we are going to reach times where the highway is not going to work for us. Once again, we will need lessons on how to go through the cracks and gutters and sideways because the highway is not working. And the courage and clarity and resilience to go through the cracks, I feel is going to come if we... Keep maintaining our relationship with deep spring.

[35:34]

Deep spring. Okay? So it's the absolute deep spring and then the deep spring of community that knows how to be truly in relationship with each other, vulnerable, authentic. Right? Okay. going through the cracks and deep spring. If you could remember two things from this talk, maybe the third one is village life, shared village life, where our footprints are way smaller than what they are today. And by the way, we cannot work on those footprints by ourselves. We will need community to go. It's like descent into those choices together. I imitate my friends.

[36:39]

Some people say we are average of 10 friends we have. We move together. That's why we meditate together in sanghas. My friends are meditating. I am inspired to meditate as well. the basic psychology we have as human beings. So where do we land? In my view, my heart's calling is to do everything I can to prepare myself, communities around me for the depth of climate chaos we are going to face And to do everything to be prepared for chaos at the same time, I'm repeating myself so the messages land, do everything to resist the system so that we can still stop the damage that can be stopped.

[37:46]

There is narrative around which says all we need to do is to adapt, right? There are forums around on the internet, if you follow climate news, which says we've crossed the tipping point and all we can do is to adapt, to get used to the apocalyptic events. Not true. We have to prepare for trauma, we have to be vulnerable, be ready to grieve what has already happened and what is baked in what is necessarily going to happen. But we also have a lot we can do to resist, to stop the bleeding, to stop what has already happened. And our resistance, in addition to the absolute deep spring that Buddhism is so good at, Buddhism has pointed the way towards that deep spring.

[38:48]

Our practices, our liturgy, our... Sutras, they give us teaching to access that absolute nourishing, illuminating, luminous energy, whatever you want to call it. Buddha mind, big mind, you know, different traditions use different words. Yes, that. But in addition to that... more vulnerable, more authentic community that learns from people of color, the cultures we have subjugated. It's time to go back and reconnect with them, stand in solidarity with them, not just because they need our help for healing, but because we need them to emerge from the climate crisis. I hope that made some sense.

[39:49]

Thank you so much. And I'm happy to take questions and go deeper into anything that was talked about. Thank you very much, Sensei. We'll take a moment to offer our closing chant together while the questions begin to bubble up. Tension equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them.

[40:51]

Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. Please, if a question is arising, raise a blue hand and we can unmute. Thank you, Reverend Kanko. Thank you for the comments. You're in Boulder. Many of us are in the San Francisco Bay Area. So in terms of local actions, we both are already in environments where the local awareness and orientation to some of these problems is probably at a fairly

[41:52]

relatively high level, anyway, compared to other locations. I work with an organization, Interfaith Power and Light, that deals with congregations around the country. So I know, I think your point about climate crisis is a very strong point and well-worded, and the wording is more than just a semantic difference, it's a substantive difference there. And your point to local centers of activity and resilience I think is well made also. My question has to do with at the broader national level. I think the local activity is all important, well directed. Do you have any thoughts as to how to expand this beyond our areas and communities and what is effective at broader scale? Or is that just outside the realm of focus?

[42:59]

No, nothing is outside the realm. Thank you so much for that question, Jerry. I've associated some with interfaith power and light. There is also green faith. There are a number of interfaith initiatives. We absolutely need massive, massive resources global, national level mobilization, right? Maybe something similar to what has happened before World War II. I gave that example of our annual emissions being 65,000 pounds or in tons, it's 30 tons. The units are different. The climate crisis is... because of 60 billion tons, right? It would be many trillions of pounds if I converted into pounds.

[44:04]

So yes, individual level effort, our community's local effort is not going to be enough. Sometimes we actually feel, one can feel depressed that the problem is so much bigger. And the piece that I did not get to elaborate on in my main talk is importance of how local groups work in an emergent way to build power at national and global level. So solutions are once again in front of us. Sunrise movement is a... youth movement all around the country, they are trying to get officials elected who will make the promises that we will invest in Green New Deal, we will invest in fair climate pricing, right?

[45:13]

If we stopped externalizing the cost of climate pollution, I will break it down if you haven't worked, heard the word externalization. You know, scientists have done these calculations that even if you didn't account for all the damage that is caused by extreme events, fires, droughts, floods, if you just took the average impact of these greenhouse gas emissions, every ton of carbon dioxide, which is... 2,200 pounds of carbon dioxide should cost $40. That's the amount of damage. It's a very small amount. It's a very conservative number. But for every 2,200 pounds of carbon dioxide that anyone releases, they should pay to the government or to the entity that is leading to that emission

[46:20]

And if you add up all of this money, this money can help us fund climate solutions, right? But we have a huge resistance from, we have huge resistance from fossil fuel lobby. So all of that to say, Explain what did I mean by externalization? We don't see the cost of carbon emissions and we keep doing it. So ultimately, we need to agree. We need to keep the carbon in the ground. We need to keep fossil fuels in the ground at a national level. But until we get national level policy, how are we going to build our power? to get our leadership, political and corporate leadership to act in the ways that is aligned with climate sanity.

[47:24]

The argument that I haven't been able to develop fully in this talk today is that local power is essential to build that national power in a decentralized paradigm. See, if we were in a dictatorship and the dictator was... kind and wise and somehow could magically pull the wand and get us to accept a carbon price, which will solve our problems. I will accept it for a few months, okay? But the problem is that even in Biden administration, that's not going to happen. We have to keep building our communal power. And even if you didn't want... community to act on resistance, right? Community needs to come together to face the trauma that is on our way. I hope that made some sense. It does. Thank you. And I hope that that community action building up to a national scale can happen fast enough.

[48:29]

So thank you. May next, please. And then Frederick after that. I used to be a scientist myself. I have two questions. One is from a personal level. The other is from a more scientific level. Personal level, you mentioned that I really like the word I recently heard. We're in the high-intensity trauma activation period. It's just a high-intensity trauma activation period. And then how do you, you know, two, I think it's actually be vulnerable is such a courageous act. You know, and then I'm instantly glad we have a word called imposter syndrome, meaning I'm fine, you know, I'm just so strong.

[49:32]

I mean, I'm so proud, you know, but I think it really takes power. And then when people have to be powerful enough to be vulnerable, you know, how do we break the shell? You know, everyone. I mean, a lot of people have a deep wood in it, but they just don't admit it. They just don't accept it, right? This is not about anybody else. It's about ourselves. So that's number one. Number two is you're a scientist. I always dream that I really want to have communication with economists such that we can talk about truly the intention of money. intention of money. I hope, I really hope some people like this shared mind can talk to, can talk with venture capitalists. You know, they are, they are the big force to, to, you know, they're the intention. That intention will ripple, ripple for the next whatever, you know, how many years.

[50:33]

So I had, I already have a dream that can we change the definition of GDP? You know, um, By the way, there's some still have signs like there's some startups actually doing track everybody's carbon footprint, which is really aspiring. I just see a little ripple, but I just I hope, this is my hope, I hope there's some conversation with those big guys with big money like Bill Gates. More and more people turn them into Bill Gates and then change the definition and then change the intention of money. I think that's probably the way. Thank you. Thank you for your questions, May. Let me handle the second one first and then come to trauma. I work, my day job is to work for a big green, we call it big green in our language, big environmental nonprofit called Environmental Defense Fund.

[51:38]

Environmental Defense Fund two weeks ago got, I believe, $100 million from Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO. So the big, big, big corporations who can see climate crisis, the depth of climate crisis, of course they see they will not be able to make any money if the climate crisis keeps unfolding the way it's unfolding. So, people in my home organization that I work for are talking to economists, are doing all of these different modeling to say, this is how you should invest. You know, BlackRock, one of the biggest I don't understand the finance world, so my vocabulary might be off, but people are saying, some of these big finance institutions are saying, we are stopping our investments in fossil fuels.

[52:44]

The divestment movement started by Bill McKibben has made a huge difference, and that is still not enough. The top-down solutions are not going to be enough. We need, in my view, we need active participation of all individuals and all communities at all levels, all levels. And that brings me to your first question. How do you break that shell? How do we begin to take off that mask? I lead grief circles around the country these days. We've started doing it on Zoom. You know, the grief and rage and fear and anxiety is right here beneath the mask. It's a very thin player. You know, you set up a container. I set up a container. We set some ground rules. We begin sharing and it doesn't take people to start bawling.

[53:49]

What have we done? What have we freaking done? What are we running after? You know, we know the tree is rotten, but we are trying to climb to the top of this rotten tree. We're trying to make more money, gain more power in this rotten system that inheriting the Mother Earth, Gaia, that supports us all. That raw grief is right there. I don't have to work hard at all. When I first started grief work, I thought, I don't know, maybe my mentors, my teachers with whom I did grief work, they were very skilled or somehow they could bring out the truth in me. Not true. It's just right here. You set up some intention and it comes right bubbling up. So I hope that answers your question.

[54:50]

Maybe we can go to the next one. Thank you. Please. Hello, Sensei. Hi. Do you hear me? Very good. Thank you so much. I'm moved to feels to the core that you speak of. wanting to open up and hear from my neighbors. I'm talking to you from the coast of Maine. I'm two hours north of Boston. Maine is 350 miles from New Hampshire all the way up to Quebec. And it's about 250 miles from New Hampshire to Quebec. Newfoundland.

[55:51]

And our governor, who's a poet, a woman, has convened 200 people that have been meeting for the past 12 months. They are Native American leaders, people from our African immigrant community, they're fishermen. They're business people and scientists and university professors, and there's a caundry of young people. their labor union leaders, their bankers, their co-op managers, for 11 months they have been meeting about designing a new life in this state. Because the coast of Maine is the second warmest, it is heating up at the second highest rate in the world. This is the tailpipe. This is the end of the road from where smokestacks from my native Pittsburgh and Ohio and Michigan deposit.

[56:58]

We were talking about acid rain here for those old enough to remember. In the 80s, acid rain. My son-in-law has been working with an oyster firm and they're needing to design new oysters. They need to bioengineer new oysters because the water, the oyster cannot live in the acidic water of today. So this group of people are going to announce their initiative for the governor's review on Wednesday, December 1st at 12 o'clock East Coast time. If you go to the main climate council the main climate council, you'll see what people in a little nondescript where 1.3 million people, maybe about the size of Silicon Valley population-wise, just Silicon Valley.

[58:08]

We're spread out, we're poor, but it feels to me that I need to be involved with my local city council in this town of 5,000 people. The nearest town is eight miles from us and there are 8,000 people. And then going the other way, the nearest town is 15 miles from us and there are 8,000 people. There's no one that lives here. So it feels that the local, the energy of our local communities, I need to plug in with, the indivisible chapter, we all have indivisible chapters throughout the country, I'm sure, could connect with whatever plans are in the works, wherever people live, but it feels like our little state is being the Saskatchewan of Canada that created a national healthcare province. And from that national healthcare province in the 70s became the socialized medicine of Canada.

[59:10]

I couldn't agree more. I mean, look, regardless of what actions are being taken at national level, state level, thank you for describing that initiative in Maine. I didn't know what was happening there. Community resilience, family resilience. Please talk to your family about climate crisis. That itself is a big test for some of us because our kids, our neighbors are busy. We are consumed by our daily commute, our efforts to keep our family healthy and COVID safe and all of that, right? So in the midst of this, and this is where dharma comes in, how do we do it in a sensitive way? We meet people where they are, but we don't stop speaking our truth. authentically and vulnerably, right?

[60:20]

It's test stuffs. It's easier to talk, even for me, it's easier to talk about climate crisis with students and strangers as compared to talking about climate with sometimes my own family members who are consumed by corporate culture, consumed by madness, consumed by wearing more masks. So perhaps we can go to the next question. That is complete. Next, Shannon, followed by Peter. Good morning, Kuti. Thank you for your talk. And when you were asking if it was making sense, I wanted to put up my thumb, but my video doesn't work well. But yes, many times it was making sense. which is a really nice thing in a Zen setting, so I appreciate you're able to hold both of those.

[61:22]

I had two questions, and you answered one of them, and I'm curious about the other. Institutionally speaking, I'm hearing that we need vulnerability from all of us, and I'm hearing a grief circle is a way to have that, a system for that. And I'm curious, too, how we can create a place where we are hearing from people who have the resilience, who have experienced this, how systemically as a sangha, what can we put in place so those voices are informing our decisions? First is just having intention to grieve or intention to be open in an emotional way. And I don't know, I'm not aware where San Francisco's and center community is in that regard. What might be helpful to just like jumpstart thinking in that direction is maybe to just experience a grief circle.

[62:28]

There are many local facilitators too. This whole field is, at least for me, it took birth when I came in touch with Joanna Macy. Joanna Macy has started these practices that she calls the work that reconnects. And grief work is just one of the four parts of that set of practices. I highly recommend every sangha to go through that. It changed my life. It liberated me, right? And Joanna Macy is a Buddhist. You know, she's a trained Buddhist herself. She's a Buddhist eco-philosopher with a systems view. She herself doesn't lead any grief circles or these work that reconnects circles herself, but she's left behind.

[63:31]

She's still alive. I think she's 96, but still alive. But she has trained a lot of people to do this work. I would recommend highly that the sangha bring in some of these facilitators. I am one of the facilitators, but there are many local ones. Just sit down and I promise you, you would be moved and inspired and shaken by what is in your own sangha. And one thing I wanna say about this is our grief, the way body experiences grief It is not just climate grief or racial justice grief. All of our grief, personal grief, personal trauma, it all comes together, right? When we sit in a grief circle, it's like the tap opens up and whatever needs to be released can get released if the person holding the circle is skillful.

[64:41]

they are very healing. I think I just saw a message come in from TOA that San Francisco Zen Center will be offering one day workshop on work that reconnects in January. So that's wonderful. You already have a start. There is a link that popped up in the chat as well. And I have done these circles myself. One of the most powerful ones is called Truth Mandala. I like to do them three, four times a year for myself because it's like my body as a climate scientist, I'm hearing news before it gets published, you know? Climate scientists know two, three, four years in advance what public and policymakers will see in 2024 is in front of us several years before that.

[65:46]

We suffer the impact earlier. I need grief work for myself so I stay sane and I can keep accessing my deep spring. This grief works in insidious ways, right? And then I have to spend lesser energy. It just access to deep spring, which is always there, is just easier with this work, with grief work, with anger work, rage work. So I'm very happy that the work that reconnects workshop is already scheduled for the sangha. I see that we have just about seven minutes remaining and two hands raised. So Peter and then Fenian, please. Reverend, thank you so much for your practice, for your teaching and your presence.

[66:58]

I wanted to ask you If you could, and you probably have, and I just haven't heard it, but it's been told and demonstrated to me even this week that goals don't get achieved unless they're realistic. And so, just to make it short, if you could give us three realistic goals for us in the first world, you know, I don't think I'm spending 100,000 kilograms. I don't think I'm spending 65,000 pounds, but I'm definitely spending more than 5,000. And I'm wondering if you could give us three realistic goals to where we could both reduce our carbon footprint and help others to reduce their carbon footprint.

[68:07]

I believe if we look at the pie chart of emissions, our food is one of the biggest ones. Buddhism already says that we should work towards reducing suffering of all beings. Non-vegetarian diet causes enormous violence to animals, especially the way it is done in concentrated industrial feed operations, you know. So see if there is great joy in cooking together as a community. See if there are vegetarian, vegan diets, rich in herbs, full of nutrition, healing otherwise that we can bring in. Transport is a huge area. I know in an... It is not easy. It's not straightforward.

[69:12]

Sometimes equity and justice for people of color actually means we give them more resources to be connected, which means more transport, more fossil fuel emissions in the short term. And it's a complication I will not go into now. But if you can look at your transport, the ability to afford an electric car, to get solar panels and all of these, they have their own privilege layer. It's complicated. I hesitate to ask people sometimes that get on solar panels or get on, you know, access to renewable energy doesn't come easy, but transport and food is huge. I personally am a vegan. I saw a question come in about veganism. Yes, dairy has a huge footprint too.

[70:14]

Can you have dairy in ways that honor the being that cow is? I believe it is possible, but the way dairy is produced, mass produced, and the amounts of dairy we consume is lot of emissions and violence too. So I didn't have three points, but food is huge. Food is something that can give great joy. Food creates community. It's hard to share food in COVID times, but maybe there are creative ways to do food circles over Zoom. Maybe let's take the last question and we can come back to. Hi, thank you for your talk.

[71:17]

That was really wonderful. I think. Yeah, there's definitely like an urgency that you brought that I think is like processing the grief. around it, it feels really necessary in order to be able to hold that urgency without feeling overwhelmed, like for me at least. But I've been a part of some of Reverend Angel's like group meetings and stuff. And one of the points that sort of brought up there is about creating culture around anti-racism and that sort of work and like transformative work. And it feels like to me, like with the internet, being this massive connectivity tool that, yeah, I've just been sort of thinking a bit about how to like create culture around sort of the movements that we wanna see in the world to make it more accessible to people like through like art and music and different means like that. But I was wondering like if you have any thoughts about that, or I know like your Zoom grief circles and stuff is one of the things you mentioned, but yeah, just anything on that topic.

[72:23]

Thank you. Are you an artist? Yes. That's why you asked the question. I mean, music and art have enormous, enormous role. But I feel like you're asking a deeper question. How do we create the culture? And music and art can definitely help us. One of the things that I'm very passionate about, and I'm working with it with social permaculture community, how do we keep ourselves empowered in an ongoing way? Ongoing way. Not just, I heard this talk, I heard this article. on climate crisis and I wanna do something about it. One of the ways to build accountability, which builds culture that you are talking about, is to form a group of friends.

[73:29]

And I feel the group size should be between five and eight. Any more than eight group size, we are not able to hold the web of relationships in a group. We lose that personal touch. We tend to get into the white supremacy culture of wanting to be the leader and expert and someone everyone listens to. We forget the mutuality, mutuality and web of horizontal relationships that are needed sometime for this work. Form such a group, maybe with fellow artists and talk about it on an ongoing way that creates culture. I have started many groups around the country where I say, here, this is your pod. This is your team. Come back to this team every two weeks. Talk about race. Talk about class.

[74:30]

Talk about relationship with money. Talk about climate. Take actions together. Even if you don't take actions together, come back and report the actions to this group. have an accountability circle that reinforces the values, reinforces the intentions we have. Because when we are by ourselves, the monster, monstrous global economy, monstrous neoliberal system, it's just like ensnarling, you know? just catches us. And it's like, even if our parents are not asking us, the whole society is screaming, how much money are you making? Instead of saying, how is this earth going to survive this time? How is this human species and all of other species that we take vows to protect from all suffering, that's going to survive?

[75:33]

So... I don't think I answered your question very directly, but one thing that definitely helps with culture is having an ongoing group of friends that keep us accountable. Thank you. Yeah, I don't know if I articulated it, but that was the exact answer that I was looking for. So thank you. Thank you, Sensei. Thank you, Assembly. Appreciate this conversation very much. Reverend, would you like to offer a closing word before we depart? And I can allow everyone to unmute after that and say goodbye. Thank you so much for the invitation, Kodo. David, if you are still here, thank you, Nancy. I'm happy to connect and chat with anyone who has questions in this realm. What I like to talk about, I call that eco-dharma.

[76:35]

ecology or climate and dharma, you know, how do we inform and talk to each other, these two things. So happy to stay connected in any way that serves. Thank you once again. Thank you so much. Everyone should be able to unmute now. Is it true? Yeah. Thank you. Take care, everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye, Bernie. Bye. Thank you. Great talk. Namaste. Muchas gracias. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Bye bye. Thank you.

[77:42]

Have a great weekend. Thank you. [...] Great talk. Yeah. A lot of nourishment for food for thought. Thank you. See you. Good to see you, Victoria. Thank you. Well, yeah, to be continued. Thank you, Kriti. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, Kriti. I'll be in touch. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you so much.

[78:24]

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