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. I want to talk about the mountains today, tonight. I come from a background of one of my prior careers was as a geologist. And then it was an artist, and now it's religion. So, making the rounds. I want to talk about the fluidity of mountains and how they look stable and unmoving, solid, durable, reliable, and how... they can be otherwise.

[01:00]

And I wanted to frame this in a little bit of a sharing about our winter weather here and the dynamicism of it for everyone here. And this also parallels with Dogon Zenji's Sutra, Mountains and Waters, and my favorite phrase is the mountains and waters of the immediate present. That's where we all hear right now. You can think of mountains as karmic consciousness and waters as enlightenment throughout this story, I'll tell you. Karmic consciousness is everything we bring to this moment on dependent core rising, all of our past thoughts, actions, Intentions, volitions, and each of us have our own karmic consciousness as well as group karmic consciousness.

[02:06]

And we have a country karmic conscious as well as a world karmic conscious. So there's bigger and bigger groups and they're all inclusive. We all affect each other. And it kind of parallels well with our current situation in America as well as our winter here in the monastery. We got almost 70 inches of rain this winter. Our usual average is about 37. In past years, it's been, for five years, it's been drought. We've gotten perhaps less than 30 at some points, maybe less than 20. And I haven't lived here for some time. I just came back about a year ago. And I'm director now. So this is my first year. And it was kind of an epic winter. And we're all here still. And it was open for guest season.

[03:07]

And it's amazing, I tell you. So all that rain had to go somewhere. And originally it soaked up into the soil. And... It was awesome. The waterfalls were like Yosemite everywhere. You go up the road, and it was just like a waterworks everywhere. It was amazingly beautiful. And then the mountains became saturated, and gravity took over, and they started sliding, which is still a beautiful thing. But there was like some... First, there was what we called them, slip-outs. Technical term, the engineers told us. That's when the road... It slips from below, so it slips off. So the road's narrower. You might have noticed that the road's a little narrower this year than other years in the past. Its widest point, the narrowest point is 11 feet. So technically, most vehicles can get down.

[04:08]

Our propane truck, hopefully our septic in the fall. It will require a lot of engineering to actually fix that road. So it didn't happen this spring. And we don't know when it will happen. But the county was really, with much prodding, was really helpful in fixing some of the slides for us early on, opening the road for us. It was closed at many points for long durations of time. Big VW side, bug-sized boulders were in the middle of the road. And our shop and the work leader at that time were there addressing every single slide through the snow and muck. And it was ongoing. Just 24 hours passed and we're like, okay, so this is what's next. And the river got quite high, and there was these huge trees going down.

[05:10]

And the most exciting thing, I don't know if you have all heard this, is boulders rubbing against each other in a strong current. What's the best way to describe that sound? It's kind of... What's that? It's a rumble, a deep, loud rumble throughout the valley. And the river itself is really loud. And it's like... you know, you want to see them, but the water is so muddy and so high, you don't know exactly what they're doing, and then the water goes down, and you're like, were those the boulders that were rubbing against each other? And that, you know, similarly, all of us were these big boulders rubbing against each other. We all had problems with the... Well, our geothermal area is about where the creek level is. So when the creek rises, the geothermal area gets inundated with... cold water, which we use for geothermal heat in the wintertime, as well as we wash our clothes with it, etc.

[06:13]

And that was pretty much suppressed or absent for great parts of the winter. So some people were more accommodating than others regarding that, but we really couldn't do anything about it. So... We did write for the next practice period, emphasizing the cold weather and the instability of nature and our ability to offer luxuries like heat. But we did have these amazing things, like our electricity never went out. Our solar panels mostly worked. One flew away, but they mostly worked. We had a backup generator for when the... When it was stormy, we didn't have enough sunshine. And we have all our phones were always working. This is a miracle. In the past, we had a radio phone that went from Hawk Peak here to Anderson Peak over by the coast.

[07:15]

And it barely worked when it was supposed to be fully functional, let alone when the storm. So for me, I just felt like this is a huge success. No one's injured. And we had some near injuries, but no one was critically injured. Let's see. The internet and phones never went out, so we were able to conduct business and stay in touch with the city. And we had enough diesel here, and we kept bringing in more and more food just in case. We had this whole shuttle system over the boulder fields or along the slips out. A third of a mile, we had to hike with... various things, to keep all the monks fed and content, if not happy, I'm not sure. But it was just an ever-changing situation with each store, and we just couldn't believe it kept coming.

[08:18]

And then we had, as far as the road opening, it was a lot of meetings with county supervisors. As you know, all of Big Sur has problems with their roads. Obviously, Highway 1, all those businesses are still closed. We're very fortunate to have been able to open in time for guest season. It was right to the crunch there for the last week, and we did get permission for guests to come down our obviously closed road still. We're still under a hard road closure. And the other thing that happened is all our all the Los Padres wilderness is completely closed. So part of our offerings is hiking, and no one else can hike in the Los Padres, but we were able to gain permission to hike in a kind of two-mile radius of Tassajara in the unburned zones. And the Ventana Wilderness Alliance, which is this group of people who apparently they're not, they are allergic to poison oak and ticks as much as anybody, but they go out there, like every weekend clearing trails, and they cleared a couple of the trails that we have open for your enjoyment.

[09:25]

Not to say that you won't encounter poison oak or ticks, but it's so much better than it was. So we're really happy that it's kind of a normal year so far, summertime-wise, and everything seems to be operating okay. So I mentioned Ehe Dogen earlier, and the sutra I mentioned, the Mountains and Water Sutra, was written in 1240. He was born in 1200 and died in 1253. He's one of our most scholarly, or it's one of our most important ancestors that we still chant daily some of his sutras. Not this particular one, but... It comes up often with me. And, yeah, I just thought it was a great mirror for this winter's activities and the ever-changing dynamic of our world, both internal and external.

[10:40]

You know, rocks move. Geology happens very slowly. I'm not going to give you the full picture. I'm going to give you like a sweep. So if you're more interested, there's a book actually available both in the library and in the stone office. It has a natural history of Big Sur and it has a section in there that details the geology quite well. And it's very interesting. It's very complex. Last time I tried to do this with my hands and without a... whiteboard or something. I think it was overly confusing for everybody. So I just wanted to keep it really simple, and you're welcome to talk to me some other time if you have bigger, broader questions. As I said, in Buddhism, mountains are often... symbolize karmic consciousness and water enlightenment. And you can think of these particular mountains, which are quite young and steep.

[11:48]

The rocks themselves are 55 million years old, but that's young still. But the mountain range has been... Those rocks have been moved around a lot, which I won't go into, and are what they are now. And they... That big shift and uplift happened about 1.8 million years ago. So you can think of them as geologic teenagers. And constantly, that's why they're so steep. They're the steepest coastal mountains in the continental United States. There's like a 5,000-foot elevation gain from the ocean to Cone Peak within a three-mile distance. So that's quite steep. And anyone trying to run up the road, which I did this morning, will... notice that. As I mentioned, so karmic consciousness is where our thoughts, our words, our actions, dependent core rising, anything we think or do creates us.

[12:59]

And we're constantly evolving with every new thought, With every new experience, within every new meeting, we're constantly changing our karmic consciousness, just as these mountains are changing their landscape, both internally and externally. And I just wanted to read you one of my favorite passages. Unfortunately, I made it into a light green I can hardly see here. The mountains and waters of the immediate present are the manifestation of the ancient Buddhas. Abiding in their true Dharma position, they cultivate the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. Because they are the vents prior to the eon of emptiness, they're the livelihood of the immediate present. Because they are the self, before the emergence of subtle signs,

[14:03]

They are the penetrating liberation of immediate activity. The virtue of riding the clouds is realized in these mountains, and the subtle work of following the wind comes forth from these mountains. This goes through a lot of different imagery, and it's kind of a koan, something to ponder. It's a very popular... phrase within that sutra, and you can easily find it if you are interested in it. The mountains and waters, just like us, are the manifestation of the ancient Buddhas. We're no different than them. They cultivate the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness, just as we do in our practice. in this valley.

[15:04]

They are events where some of all of our activities in our life and all of our thoughts in our life, all of our intentions in our life, how we interact with others, and that brings us to this present moment. So that's the livelihood of the immediate present. Maybe that's enough of that for now. I wanted to go into a little bit of geology just to give you more of a frame. We're on the Pacific plate. Most of California is on the North American plate. And right at this time, there's a strike-slip fault, the San Andreas Fault. So we're going north. But Salinas is going south.

[16:08]

And it moves pretty slowly, about a thumbnail's worth each year, except some of those big years, which perhaps you've heard about, if not experienced, where it might move a great distance. But you can think about this in your own life. You can think of this as a mirror of... of where we are in our life. And especially as you get older, I notice, as I get older, I notice many years go by, but I don't see a lot of change, at least compared to when I was younger. And I think that's like, yeah, it's like a thumbnail change sometimes. I have these great ideas, but it just doesn't get there. But yeah, a thumbnail. So anyway, the Pacific... This piece of ground we are on now is a jumbled mess. It's kind of like a jumbled mess of our minds, of our bodies.

[17:10]

And it both came from the Pacific Ocean and from Mexico. So we have granite, we have sandstone, we have faults and fissures, we have uplift and some volcanics. And this is just like... our everyday life here. To say the mountains are, the world of these mountains are the world of our minds. are created in a specific way is based on a small view of assumptions. People speak this way about knowing how something is made or who someone is, who this person is here. You know, it's inconceivable what we are.

[18:12]

It's inconceivable how the mountains are made. We're all some of our parts, and we all share those parts within this broader frame. of this valley, of this world. Now you've come to visit us. You're part of our frame. Water. And then I'm just going to say a few things that might be a little confusing, but go along with this. Water exists inside water and inside mind, thought and discernment. So think of water as enlightenment or an enlightened idea, or in this previous phrase about the wind, enlightenment is right there with you all the time. It's just that we don't realize it. It exists inside water, inside mind, thought, and discernment.

[19:14]

Where water abides... It is us not concerned with the past, future, present, or world of phenomena where Buddha ancestors reach water never fails to reach. Study water and how you view the water used by Buddha's ancestors. So this is studying. Maybe the easiest way to say it is a simple way of studying gain and loss. For me, that's why I always go to. It's like. Do I have gain or loss about this idea? Do I have gain or loss about my views, my opinions, my preferences? It's okay to have preferences. You know, we all want to have lunch or desire to have lunch. But do we have a preference about if lunch doesn't meet our standards or... So for me, to look at gain or loss is really a parameter, and so I can see where I'm holding on to something.

[20:20]

And I feel like our ideas of the mountains don't reach the mountains. So our ideas about what is true doesn't reach the truth. When you take a view of mountains, the mountains won't flow. When you think of them as a solid thing to depend on, there's nothing reliable. We ourselves aren't reliable. Our thoughts aren't reliable. We want to believe our relationships are reliable, but even that's not true. We all just co-arise in each moment. and affect each other. And in that way, the water and wind of these mountains affects the mountains.

[21:23]

I have a lot more written down to say, but I feel like I might confuse people. So maybe I'll stop here and ask if there's any questions. Sometimes the mountains look really solid. It's really hard to see the solidity or that there might be some movement possible. So what do you do? We always think that's the same thing. We think solid, reliable. We think this ton is solid and reliable. We think the roads are solid and reliable. We think our trucks are solid and reliable. And one of them, the lumber truck, does seem to be that way. It saved us on many occasions with its winch this winter.

[22:45]

Yeah, but our health, our minds are just like the mountains. They're always shifting. Even the Himalayas, you know, we think the Himalayas aren't growing, but they actually are, like a thumbnail a year. Just like they're crashing the Indian plain against the... I want to say China plate. I'm not sure what that one's called. But it's just crushing together still. So there's this huge force rising up. So everything's constantly changing. And it's so steep because these are so young. And, well, you know, gravity works best if there's no obstruction to it. So everything just comes directly down. Is that? Yeah. Go ahead. Gain and loss. I think we all have opinions about mostly everything.

[23:54]

At least I do. But to have gain or loss about those opinions and think that they are necessarily... I mean, we can argue them and make, you know, the valid, the validity of them, but not holding on to those opinions, being open to hearing other opinions, other views. But then about gain and loss, about what I was referring to, to our health, or, I mean, usually when my parents are, my father's parents, is more and more elderly. And so I see this... He still wants to be this strong man and do the same things, but he has to... He recently visited here, and he... He what? He did... He's 85, and he did get all the way up to the birdhouse and to the Suzuki Roshi Memorial. And I was really happy he was able to do that.

[24:57]

But obviously, he... He wants to do so much more, and he can't. So do not have gain or loss about that. Be exactly who we are right now. I don't run or swim as fast as I used to, and mostly, yeah. I can't really do anything as well as I used to. Is that clear to you? Yeah, again, it's fine to desire lunch, but can you have... no gain or loss about getting lunch or having it be the exact thing you want. In the winter, we eat in the Zendo. We have three bowls, and that's just what you receive in those bowls. That's what you get. And you're used to just accepting and feeling nourished by those offerings. But I admit, I have some gain or loss about sometimes what's in those bowls.

[26:01]

Yeah, forgiving yourself, being kind to yourself, that really helps. Being kind to others and being kind to your views. Is there anything else? Wind and water affecting mountains. So those are all symbolism, kind of in Buddhism. They're both ways to erode any land structure, the wind and the water. These mountains in particular... Because they were uplifted, the water obviously drains with gravity, has carved these steep canyons, and the wind is constantly blowing, changing, moving things around, refreshing the landscape in some way, we could think.

[27:09]

And we can think of that in our mind, how... something comes to erode or change our mind, and it can be swept free of an idea or a particular concern about our opinion about gain or loss. So being the Stollard, having to have a mind, thinking you know your mind, thinking you know what's right, and then being able to flow and listen to other people and to not have gain or loss about others' views. I mean, it's fine to have views, but just not to hang on to them. And the same, I think that's true with the wind and water. They're kind of erode and shape things, kind of like the boulders. What was the word you used? Grinding in the water. That's how I felt. Everyone was doing the most they could to keep the valley functional, and I felt like we were these rocks.

[28:17]

like grinding against each other in a good way, in a good way. I still want to see the underwater film about those. And these huge logs are going across the top. They must have come from the 2008 fire from Church Creek. They were just huge trees. They were just, yeah, it was an amazingly violent river at that point. And... But you can go to sleep really easily. The rock's crashing. Strangely. Yes, Dylan? Where does your practice of just sitting come into play with, I guess, realizing the truth, which is like... We spend the summer inviting guests in, and we just sit a little bit in the morning, a little bit at night.

[29:31]

But in the winter, it's like we sit most of the day. We're silent most of the day. It goes on and on and on. I mean, I've been away for a number of years, so this winter, it's like, wow, I don't remember it being this long. And it's both... It's both difficult and incredibly grounding and just being with yourself with all of your ideas about what should be different or what's right or wrong or this is uncomfortable or not uncomfortable. Just sitting with everything that's happening. With our whole political landscape that was going on out there as well as the roads about the grinding roads boulders and just sitting with everything. Not trying to change anything, but just sitting. So it's hard, it's inconceivable what it actually does, but anyone who's done a practice period has felt that.

[30:40]

And if you do them for many, many practice periods, things just shift and change. And I can't say exactly what that is, but it's great if you can keep asking people or you can come back one day and do one yourself. Anyone else? The snow makes the mountain. I don't. You don't know? What do you think of this? I think the snow is water.

[31:44]

It's gorgeous. It shows a new shape or story of the mountain, and then it... It melts and recreates the mountain by carving it and changing the landscape. I'm sorry, I don't know that quote. Does anyone else know the answer to her query? Okay, I think it's about time to stop unless there's other questions. I did want to read... One very short poem. It's a Gary Snyder, The Mountains and the Rivers Without End. It was kind of a... He loved Dogen, and this is kind of based on the Mountains and Waters Sutra. And this poem is very short. It's called Earth Verse.

[32:44]

Wide enough to keep you looking. Open enough to keep you moving. Dry enough to keep you honest. Prickly enough to make you tough. green enough to go on living, old enough to give you dreams. Thank you very much. And if you want a bigger geologic story, you can come talk to me individually. Thank you. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[33:42]

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