Good evening. I ask for you all to sit over on this side now. I feel like I should turn this way. Goodbye, Heather. I feel a little bit out on a limb because I've been... gone so much and maybe especially for last night's meeting which I heard was very touching and mostly I heard really good things about how forthcoming and honest it felt like everyone was and I wasn't there so I'm kind of I feel in some ways like I'm stepping into the void with my mouth open and about to say things that I think, not knowing for sure whether I would be meeting you.

[01:07]

On the other hand, you know, I could say I've been through this many times, and it feels very similar in some other ways, so I think it's probably similar. I imagine that... these kind of things are going on. I imagine that we are, a lot of us, a little tired. People have been working really hard, doing, you know, really a lot of wonderful work, and that people are tired and also sometimes a little exhilarated, you know, like feeling the group effort and feeling supported by that and like they want to support it. And I imagine that people are feeling maybe some nervousness about the fire, although right now, you know, it's quite wonderful out there. There's a nice, nice, cool breeze and not much smoke and no planes going over.

[02:12]

And why are we? What's going on? What are we doing here? And I imagine that people are feeling some confusion. and maybe even frustration about, especially maybe the people who are leaving, like what's, when, and couldn't it have been done in a better way? Couldn't it have been laid out with more clarity or, anyway, many things that probably could have been done differently and maybe better. When Maka was here, who was here, you know, central on the 2008 fire, she thought, She said, it was so organized. She was here, I guess, for the guest evacuation. It was so organized. Right. That's because we hadn't got to the hard part yet. So each one of these evacuations has been heart-wrenching in a way and also organized, very organized, and not so organized.

[03:19]

Things maybe could have been done better. And I imagine that there's some hope for things and prayers even for things to turn out all right in every way and also some sadness about many things, you know, about maybe even some sadness about that guest season, you know, that we were just starting to get tired of and suddenly it was wrenched away from us. We were hoping to slug it out to the last moment, so there may be some sadness about that. Certainly some sadness, I've heard some sadness from people about the Sangha being split, with some people needing to leave and some people staying, even some people who want to stay being asked to leave. So I think with all those feelings and maybe some others that you have, that if there's time for some discussion,

[04:23]

Please, if there's more, feel free to bring them up. With all those feelings, a question that I've been having, and maybe you are, is what does practice have to do with this? How do we practice with this? How do I practice with my particular part of that? Because all these things and the stress and the fatigue even kind of make more... what tasara normally does which is brings up our own stuff about all this like each person experiences whichever part of that in their own way it brings up something that probably for you is probably very familiar to you something maybe that you were hoping to never feel again but yet there it is oh no that same old feeling of being abandoned or not being chosen or being pressured to do too much.

[05:25]

And as I said, I think this is something that Tassajara actually is in some ways designed to do and does very well and very naturally. It both wears us down, pushes us to an edge, wears us down with sitting zazen and with the amount of sleep and the kind of pressure of it, and at the same time supports us so that we can stand to notice, oh, this is that old thing again. This is that same feeling again. Or, oh, I'm having a feeling. I may think something's going on, something that's bothering me, some person or some schedule or some policy or something is bothering me, But at Tassajara, it's hard to just be absolutely focused on that thing that's bothering you.

[06:28]

For most people, along with it comes this, oh, I'm having a reaction here. And this reaction is actually pretty familiar to me, although a lot of the time I don't really focus on it. So I think that's where, at least one of the places where practice comes in. What do we do with those familiar, difficult, usually difficult feelings? So I was thinking about this, and I remembered a story from, not from Dogen, actually one of the Buddha's early lectures, talks that he gave. It's called the Kattianagata Sutta. And it's about Katyana, a man who asked the Buddha a question. He asked him, Sir, people speak of right view, right view. To what extent is there a right view?

[07:33]

So this is really the same question. How do I work with, how do I view, how do I be with life? In the Only a Buddha and a Buddha text, the last one I talked about before the fire started, there was a part about what does one do when hundreds of millions of things all come at once? And the answer was, don't try to control them. They aren't things anyway. They are the Buddha Dharma. So this is that same, but getting down, getting into it a little bit more. While you're not trying to control them, what are you doing with them? What is it to have right view with these events, emotions, people arising? So Buddha said, this world, Katayana, is generally inclined towards two views, existence and non-existence.

[08:40]

To him or her who perceives with right wisdom the uprising of the world as it has come to be, the notion of non-existence in the world does not occur. To him who perceives the uprising of the world, the way things come to be in the world, with right wisdom, this notion of non-existence doesn't occur. To her who perceives with right wisdom the ceasing of the world as it has come to be, the notion of existence in the world does not occur. So these terms, existence and non-existence, I think are not really so familiar to us. We don't, I think, most of us don't really think... these things exist or they don't. We don't spend much time worrying about whether things exist or don't exist.

[09:42]

Maybe you do. I don't. I figure they're there, and, you know, I know that they're changing, so there's some mixture of existence and non-existence, right? But at a more personal level, maybe even a more emotional level in some ways, I think we're constantly gauging something like that. And it maybe could be said, instead of they exist or they don't exist, it could be, do they matter or not? Does this feeling matter? Do I need to take this seriously? Or should I just, you know, does it not matter? Should I just get over it? So things happen, and I think we're Unconsciously sometimes, but often unconsciously kind of gauging, well, is this worth putting my energy into? Or even should I not put my energy into this because it's just this old feeling that's coming up?

[10:50]

Or I know they're really trying, they're just irritating me, so just let it go. Or do I need to take this up and really get to the bottom of it? figure out what's going on with me and get straight with it, or tell those other people about it finally, you know, actually come out with it. So I think we have that kind of a question going on, and that's really the question that I think the Buddha is talking about here. And so he says, you know, he ends up with saying, the Tathagata teaches you a doctrine by the middle to actually not fall into either of these extremes. It matters or it doesn't matter. Feelings are a great place to work with this because they are so vivid when they're happening and they're so gone when they're gone. So if you're having a feeling that you notice, it's a great place to try out what would it mean to not decide

[11:58]

Does this matter or not matter? Should I be giving this existence or should I be pretending like it doesn't exist, acting like it doesn't exist? But to actually let it be, but in this way that leaves room for change, that doesn't solidify it in any way, and yet is very respectful of its existence, but leaves it all the space for non-existence, for changing, for not being true. True, with a capital T. It's maybe true that you're feeling it, but if you have a feeling that I'm not really worthwhile, I'm not of much value, either they think that or maybe I think that about myself, if you have that feeling, to actually just have it as a feeling without believing this is the way it is.

[13:11]

That kind of, sometimes it's called bear listening or bear attention to what's happening. It's, you know, it's a very interesting kind of way to be with things, and it works for everything. If you can get a feeling for it, it isn't always easy to do, because some things grab us more intensely than others, you know, like, no, this one really does matter. And other things that really do matter, we actually have the opposite response to. It's like, this matters so much that I cannot, I don't even see it. It's not really there. I'm definitely not feeling it. But in spite of that, whatever it is, if we can work with it, how do I let this exist, respect it for existing, and leave it with lots of space to move?

[14:19]

And that doesn't mean that you don't do anything with it, like talk to another person about it, like if someone is... bothering you in some way and you're having this feeling it is okay actually to talk to them and it's possible to do it in this mode of seeing it's sometimes it's almost like you can see it and it's transparent it's like you can see this blob of um let's see what should we pick i would say jealousy and envy are some of the hardest so maybe That would be a hard one to start with. But, you know, pain. You can see this blob of various kinds of pain. Sometimes you can even do it with joy. You can see this, like, joy happening, or feel it, find it in your body, and just, like, let it be there and watch how does it, you know, how long does it last?

[15:27]

What kind of edges does it have to it? Is it any more complex than that? Does your joy have some fear in it that it might not last? So I think that's the kind of practice that we're, again, not just being encouraged to do, not just, you know, told to do by the Buddha speaking to Katayana, uh, but at Tathahara really tricked into doing in some ways, you know, like you come here and you think, Oh, I'm going to a Buddhist monastery. You know, it'll be like this and I will be like this. I'll be a monk. Um, and then you get there and they have a guest season. So you adjust. Okay. I'm at a Buddhist monastery, but it has a guest season. So now I'm a, dining room worker, but I'll practice Zen while I'm doing that, right?

[16:31]

And then it changes, and you're a firefighter or a dish digger or a leaf raker. Okay, I'm doing that. And while that's going on, I think here at Tassajara, basically you're being supported... basically told over and over and over again in various ways, it's okay to feel what you're feeling. It's okay to be who you are. It's okay to have the thoughts that you're having, not because they're right, but because they're dependently co-arisen, because they're flexible, because if you have them, it doesn't mean they're going to stay there and be stuck in your life. If you actually have them, they might just like poof, be gone. Or they might be the impetus for you to make your next move in a way that could it possibly be beneficial to have this thought, to have this feeling, no matter what it feels like.

[17:42]

So we're being supported, kind of maybe not noticing that we're being supported in that way. At the same time, we're being, like I say, worn down our resistance to having those feelings and the energy that we normally put into avoiding them. I think we all have old, young feelings and habits and thoughts that have grown out of our life. and out of our lives, and out of our ancestors' lives, and out of our species' life that come together in us in a particular way. And along with that particular way that I have my feelings, I have developed ways to avoid them. The ones that I really don't want to feel, I've developed ways to avoid them, and I think you have too.

[18:47]

And the ways that I've developed to avoid them depend on what my strengths are. So if you're really good at, if you're really smart, you might find a way to think your way out of your feelings. If you get angry easily, you might find a way to puff up and get big and kind of scare people away and get your own attention away from whatever difficult feelings you're having. If you have the capacity to be nice to people, you can use that. If you don't have anything else, you can always try alcohol or drugs. We find some way to try to avoid them. So here at Tassajara, we're being worn down. We're being supported to have more strength to actually feel and notice these things. And at the same time, we're being pushed

[19:48]

pushed by the, okay, work in the dining room. No, hurry up and clean those cabins. Well, you have to sit next to this person. You have to room with this person. You do have to keep getting up early in the morning. So there are lots of ways that our way that we've been protecting ourselves start to not, we don't have the energy to do it. It's not so readily available to us. So that practice, of actually meeting ourselves and finding out, is it okay to be this version of reality? Is we're helped, we're supported, we're forced into doing it. I hope to never again say that I am right. I'm right. You know, I've made... many many many decisions in my life and certainly in my life at Zen Center and I hope to be able to say I did my best actually I sometimes can't say that sometimes I have to admit if I'm being honest I averted from it I

[21:14]

got distracted from something else, and I actually didn't do my best, and I'm sorry. But I don't want to pretend that I know what's right when I'm making these decisions, and I don't want to pretend that the other leaders of Zen Center know what's right, or that the heads of crew know what's right, or that any of us know what's right. We're just doing our best. At our best, we're doing our best. And at our worst, when we're not doing our best, hopefully we get back on track and remember, oh yeah, I want to do my best. So we manifest our part. We do what we do. If we need to apologize, we apologize. If we need to take the consequences, we take the consequences and we continue trying to benefit the world. That's... That's what we're doing here, I think. That's what we're all doing here. And I wanted to bring in a little of only a Buddha and a Buddha.

[22:22]

Of course. There should be continuity in something here. So I chose the next part, which says, after that part about the don't try to control it, says... I know it says a lot of things, but part of what it says is, an ancient Buddha said, the mountains, rivers, and earth are born at the same moment with each person. The mountains, rivers, and earth are born at the same moment with each person. All Buddhas of the three worlds are practicing together with each person. A Buddha's practice is to practice in the same manner as the entire universe itself. and as all beings, to somehow practice just like we're practicing. Do not think that Buddhas are other than you. So in this moment when we are, you know, when some of the people we've been practicing with so closely have left, some of them would have left anyway.

[23:35]

It's the end of this, you know, past the middle of the summer. A lot of people were going to leave. Some of them have left. Now more have left. Maybe if the fire actually comes here, more will leave. We don't know for sure. Well, some I think are planning to leave tomorrow, so probably those people will actually leave tomorrow. Still, it can't break our Sangha. Even though we do different things, even though some of us stay here and some of us go, even though some of us decide and some of us... receive, supposedly receive decisions, even though it may look like some were chosen to do something and some people were not chosen to do that, that doesn't break our sangha at all. If it did, that would be such a sad sangha. Our sangha is the mountains, rivers, and earth are born with each one of us.

[24:36]

And each one of us is a Buddha practicing in that way. And we need to see each other that way. We need to see, mainly, we need to see ourself that way. We need to see if I'm going to the city to help in the kitchen, I'm going to do my best to help my Sangha. If I'm staying here to work in the kitchen or to fight a fire or I'm going off to Iowa to go on with my life, I'm going to I'm going to practice with all the Buddhas. I'm going to be there with those mountains and rivers and earth that were born with me and are in me. And I'm doing it with, you know, not just my Sangha who's been here this summer, although this is a good emblem of my Sangha. What we did, what we're doing together is a good example of how we are, how we support each other, how we can support each other. But really, it's much wider than that.

[25:38]

We're stuck with at least this earth and probably the whole universe. How do we actually live for the benefit of all beings? How do we be part of this, you know, all Buddha's sangha that we're in? So I hope that as we do that, as we... feel some part of that, or when we don't feel it, we can come back to this practice of, okay, how does this particular person and what this one is going through right now, how it's interacting with the mountains, rivers, and earth, and all the beings and all the fires that are going on, what is it? How do I be with that in a way that I can actually express it, live it, embody it, and yet not hold on to it in a way which doesn't allow it to respond to everything else that's around it, to change with, you know, if I say, blah, and the person next to me goes, ah, then, you know, it might have an effect on me.

[26:51]

I might think, oh, is that what I wanted to do? Well, do I really feel that way? Maybe not, but I have to see. Maybe I do. Maybe I still feel blah. It's a very alive world. That kind of world is very alive and very out of control. And therefore, kind of nervous making, you know, makes us like, really? That's how I have to live? Like finding out who I am each moment? Yeah, I think that's really the way it's always been happening, no matter what we were hoping for, you know, to be a certain way. to go to a certain kind of place, to become a certain kind of Zen student. In spite of all that, it's always been mountains, rivers, earth being born each moment with all of us, with each of us.

[27:51]

So let me see, how are we doing? Time. We have... A few more minutes if any of you have something that you would like to say or ask. Hero wanted me to say something about the marble cone fire, but Do you have any idea of what? Could you be more specific? My brief experience, given that we only have a... Does anyone have anything that they want to bring up before I, like, take a jag? Okay.

[28:57]

Oh, boy. useful or entertaining to say about that fire I told some people at dinner yesterday I was out at Jamesburg answering the phone because Mary was doing the town trip and by chance my dear teacher Baker Roshi called and he called it turned out later he told me later in the conversation he told me that he called because somehow I I don't know if my email was hacked or... Anyway, everyone who I've ever gotten an email from got an email from me saying that it was a scam. And so I've been getting a whole lot of emails from people I haven't heard from in years saying, did you really mean to send me this Dropbox thing? I don't even know what a Dropbox is. No, don't open it. Anyway, so Richard Baker got this Dropbox thing, so he called to see whether he should open it.

[30:03]

But, of course, he asked about the fire, which is probably why he really called. So we were talking about this fire, and I don't really remember what I said, but it took us, of course, back to that fire, the Marble Cone Fire, which we were both here for in very different roles. I was a brand-new student. He was the abbot. But we basically disagreed with our memories. about what had happened back then. And luckily we could blame our memories because he just turned 80 and I'm 69. So, you know, our memories are uncertain. But it does make me wonder about my memories of it, how accurate are they? So with that caveat, oh boy, it's not a short story actually, but it has to be because we have to go to bed. So that's important about it.

[31:04]

It was started... Actually, all three of the other major fires were started by lightning. So for all of them, there were actually numerous fires, not just one fire. This one came from an abandoned campfire. But in all of those fires, there were numerous fires around the wilderness area. And it always... It took each of the fires, it took them a while to get to Tassajara. And then, so in this one, the fires had been going on out there in the forest for a while. And then at some point, it happened to be when the leadership was gone to San Francisco for a meeting, similar to this one in some ways, the forest service guy arrived here and said, you need to evacuate. You need to send, so the acting director... Peter Vandersteer, who some of you have met. We called the guests together, and we said they need to leave, and we said, you know, some of the students left with them.

[32:08]

It was very similar to this time. But then Zen Center went into action. Like, people from Green Gulch and City Center started arriving with pipe to put on the roofs and, you know, digging... digging, not digging, but clearing lines around Tassajara and all. And then at some point, they evacuated all of us. They came and evacuated all of us. This is my memory. This is not what Richard remembers. So I have to go back and look at an old windbell and see what they say and what we said there. But my memory is we were all evacuated to Jamesburg. Some people went elsewhere, but a lot of us were sleeping on the lawn at Jamesburg. And they had a sheriff there to keep people out, just like now. But at night, the sheriff would go away. And so a bunch of guys, not guys, real guys, would jump in the cars and come back into Tassajara and fill the pumps with gasoline and start the sprinklers going again.

[33:18]

spend the night packing up things that we took out. We took out almost, we took out bunches of the guest furniture. We took out, you know, all the Zendo stuff. We, you know, because this went on for a long time of coming in, taking stuff out, getting the sprinklers going again, then going out before the sheriff got back in the morning, sleeping during the day. Yep. and then in a tent on the lawn at Jamesburg, and then when the sheriff would drive away, jumping in the trucks and driving back over, doing the same thing over again, with the furniture piling up on the lawn at Jamesburg. Until finally, and we have to stop, it all turned out all right. Everything, you know, what do they say at the end of a story? Once upon a time. And then it's, so... You can't believe this. This is what I think, but he said no. Okay, I'll leave out the part he actually disagreed with. The hot shots came in, and in the middle of the night is my memory with some of our guys, and lit fires on the other side of the creek so that it would burn up that hillside, and then we would have a safe place to go if a firestorm came roaring up the canyon.

[34:39]

because the fires were downstream and everything. And then a bunch of us came back in and were here waiting for the fire, which part was coming up the canyon. Some of it was over there somewhere. And this fire went up creek, jumped the creek, and then came back down on this side. So in that one, like the 2008 one, for some reason, they all came at one. They came from all directions at once, that one day. Really intense. In 77, it came very slowly. First, it came up from the narrows and just came across the top of Flag Rock with things rolling down into the garden where we put them out. And then later, it came over the hog back, and we backburned with help from the forest that was behind the hill cabins. And then much later, it came down the road. So it was like burning out by the gate, but not very fast. Okay. Okay. Sorry, that's your bedtime story.

[35:39]

And eventually we all went back to the guest season in that year, and life went on. Thank you so much. I really am honored to be here for another one and with you this time, and I feel really good about how we're doing it so far, and I know it's hard in some ways, really hard, is hard at various times, but I think it's okay. It's what we signed up for, you know, meet this person, meet this person. That's the most important thing. And now we're doing it in the midst of the possibility of a fire. So let's support each other, love each other, and really try to start here. Thank you.

[36:31]

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