This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Green Gulch. I know for those of you who don't live here, it was an effort to get here this morning, so I appreciate that. And I especially want to say hello to the children. So welcome. Have you noticed that the trees are starting to show that it's getting to be spring? So some of the trees have little green buds coming out. Some of the trees are flowering. So this morning I'd like to tell you a story about a tree. And by the way, I teach third grade. Are there any third graders here?

[01:00]

Oh, wow. Okay. So this is a story called The Magic Listening Cap. It's a Japanese folktale. And once upon a time long ago in Japan, there lived a very old man who'd lived a good life... But he got very old and soon he didn't have very much food to eat. And one day he had no food to eat and nothing to feed himself. But what made him really sad was that he didn't have any food to take to his temple to leave as an offering at the foot of the statue of the Buddha. So the old man went to his temple and he bowed low to the ground and he said to the Buddha, I have nothing to give you but my life. and I give it wholeheartedly. That's all I have to offer you. And when he raised his head from his full prostration, there was a little red cap sitting in front of the Buddha. And the Buddha said to him, you've lived a good life and a fine life.

[02:07]

If you wear this red cap, you will hear sounds you've never heard before, and your fortunes will change." And the old man said, well, I may be old, but my hearing's very good. I hear very well. I've heard the rustling of the leaves and the trees and the songs of the birds. I've heard the sound of the rain on my roof and the sound of rushing water. What more is there to hear? And the voice said, wear the red cap and you will see. So the old man bowed again and thanked the Buddha and went outside and he put on that little red hat. And at first... He didn't hear anything special, just the usual sound of the trees and the birds. But then he looked up and he saw two crows sitting in a tree above him. And one of the crows was saying to the other crow, how are things going out your way? And the other crow said, fine, fine. And how are you doing? And the other crow said, well, I'm doing all right. But, you know, up on the hill, there's a house of a very wealthy man.

[03:09]

And he chopped down a camphor tree and built a guest house on top of that tree. And now the tree is very old and very sick, and now the man is very sick. The man doesn't know that his fate is tied up with the fate of that tree. If the tree dies, the man will die. And the other crow said, that is a very sad story indeed. And they flew away. Well, the old man... thought and thought. He had a very big heart. He loved people, plants and animals. So he went back to his hut and he thought and thought. He said, if I go tell that wealthy man that I heard two crows talking, he's going to think I'm crazy. So he decided to disguise himself as a fortune teller and he went to the home of the wealthy man. Fortunes, fortunes, I'll tell your fortune, he cried. And the wife of the wealthy man came out of the house and said to him, Oh, dear sir, please come in.

[04:10]

I will feed you and give you rest. Perhaps you can cure my husband. He said, I'd be delighted to try. He went inside. She gave him a lovely meal. He said, if you will let me sleep in your guest house, in the morning I will tell you the answer to your husband's problem. And she said, yes, yes, that would be wonderful. So she went into the guest house and she laid out a futon on the tatami mat, and he lay down. And then in the middle of the night, he got up and he put on his magic listening cap. At first, he didn't hear anything. And then he heard the pine tree speaking. And the pine tree was saying, camphor tree, camphor tree, are you well? And the camphor tree said, no, I'm not well. I'm not well at all. Then he heard the cedar tree say, camphor tree, camphor tree, how are you doing? And the camphor tree said, I am dying, I am dying. Well, the old man had his answer now. So the next morning, the woman rushed in to see him and he said, did you not build a guest house in the back of your house on top of the stump of a camphor tree?

[05:22]

She said, yes, that's true. How did you know that? He said, we fortune tellers know many things. Now, if you can dig up the stump of that camphor tree and build it up and replant it where it can grow, your husband will be well. So she called the workmen. They tore up the floor of the guest house. They dug up that stump of the camphor tree and they planted it in a mossy field near the house. And the old man who was wearing his magic listening cap He heard the camphor tree sigh and say, thank you. Thank you, old man. Now I can send my roots down into the ground and my branches up to the sky, and I can live again. And right then, the wealthy man began to get well. The color came back into his cheeks. He called the old man to him, and he handed him a small bag of gold coins. He said, old man, if you use them wisely, these coins will last you the rest of your life. You've saved my life and the life of the camphor tree, and we both are deeply indebted to you.

[06:29]

The old man gave a low bow to the wealthy man and went back to his little hut. And that very day, he bought rice and oranges and took them to the temple and put them at the foot of the Buddha. And of course, that food would be used for the monks in the temple. And he did that every day for the rest of his life. But he never told another fortune. He put away his magic listening cap and lived his days in serenity. And that is the story of the camphor tree. So I thought it would be nice. I'd like to teach you a song. And this is a song about a tree, an oak tree. And this song was written by my friend James Harding, who's a music teacher. If grown-ups and children alike, if you'll join me, if you'll repeat after me. Round the oak tree, round the oak tree, come with me. Round the oak tree, round the oak tree, come with me.

[07:32]

In every acorn, every little acorn, there's a tree. In every acorn, every little acorn there's a tree. Something great is inside of me. Something great is inside of me. Let's sing that together. Round the oak tree, round the oak tree, come with me. In every acorn, every little acorn, there's a tree. Something great is inside of me. Okay, we're going to try this. This side of the room only. Round the oak tree, round the oak tree, come with me. Round the oak tree, round the oak tree, come with me. In every acorn, every little acorn, there's a tree.

[08:32]

In every acorn, every little acorn, there's a tree. Something great is inside of me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So children, do you have a favorite type of tree that you like to climb or play in? Yes. Pine trees, they smell good too, right? Any other favorite trees? Well, is there a hand back there? Yes. Redwood trees. Do you have a favorite tree? Uh-huh. Do you climb it? Yeah. So we don't need a red cap to listen to the trees. Let's listen to the trees together and see what they're teaching us, okay? So I think the children can go now. Bye-bye.

[09:47]

Bye-bye. Bye now. What's your favorite tree? Apple trees and plum trees. Those are the best, aren't they? But I also make an oak tree. Oak trees are great. And they have acorns, too. What's your favorite tree? Oak trees. Someone left their magic listening cap. Here. That's a red cap. Yeah. A lot of seats up here in the front. Yeah. So I'd like to talk to you today about trees.

[11:13]

And Willa Cather said, I like trees because they're more resigned to the way they have to live than other trees seem to be. I like trees because they're more resigned to the way they have to live than other things seem to be. So how do trees have to live? Well, trees plant themselves right where they find themselves. And they're able to take from the ground and from the air and the sun what they need to live. And they give us back fruit and shade and beauty. And we cut down trees. If we look around this room, this room was given to us by trees. In our Zafus, there's something called Kapok. And Kapok comes from a tree that grows in the Amazon. So we're deeply interconnected with trees. And I think that we too can live the way trees live, planting ourselves in the life in which we find ourselves, taking what we need from the things around us and giving back what we can.

[12:25]

So trees are central to the Buddha story. The Buddha was born under a tree. As a child, one of the children told me his favorite tree is an apple tree. The Buddha sat under the rose apple tree as a child and, of course, as an adult, part of his search and journey, he sat under the bow tree where he was enlightened and then spent the rest of his life teaching under trees and he died under a tree. So I want to share with you some magic things about trees that I've been learning about. First, the teachings of a forestry professor named Suzanne Simard, and she teaches at the University of British Columbia. And she says, a forest is much more than what you can see. So she grew up in the rainforest of British Columbia, and she had a dog named Jiggs, kind of a mutt. And one day Jiggs ran away, and she couldn't find him, and he managed to have...

[13:34]

catapulted himself into the pit of their outhouse. And so their family, they went and they found Jiggs, he was howling, and they had to dig away the sides of the pit to get down deep enough to save the dog. And Suzanne was just a child then, but she was amazed to look around the edges of this pit and see the tangled roots of the trees that grew all around. And there was a massive kind of mat of intertwining exposed roots of the surrounding trees, kind of an abundant tangle of trunks and branches above the ground, but also just as much going on below the ground. And that was the day that she began to think about the forest beneath the forest. And, you know, as a teacher of children, I'm always very struck when I learn about an adult who had an intimation as a very young person what their passion in life would be.

[14:39]

And she is such a person. So we've always thought that trees of different species compete for sunlight, that they're competing against one another. But what Suzanne found out was that as a forestry person, she noticed that if she removed a birch tree, that the fir tree next to it would sicken and die. And she started to realize that there's a kind of benefit between the birch and the fir tree, and that she came to understand that trees form a more healthy community when they are mixed with different, you know, species of trees living in community together. And so, you know, as a scientist, she decided to do an experiment, and she took a Douglas fir, a birch tree, and a cedar tree, and she covered each of them in a plastic bag, and then injected them and tagged them. She injected a gas that was tagged with an isotope, radioactive material.

[15:41]

So now the tree's branches were filled with this radioactive gas. The experimenters had a Geiger counter, and they could see that the tree was hot. You know, it was bubbling with this energy. They wanted to see if once the radioactive particles were in the tree, would they stay in the branches or go down into the roots. And what they found out by tracing the activity of these isotopes was that the trees were feeding each other through their roots. Through photosynthesis, they were feeding one another underground, releasing sugars to one another through their roots. And by tracing the action... Are those frogs I'm hearing? Wow. By tracing that action, they found that these trees were all deeply connected to one another, and the oldest, biggest tree that she had to work with there was connected through this network to 47 other trees in the area.

[16:45]

So the trees that were the biggest and the oldest were the most highly connected to other trees. They were sort of like the hubs in this network. So this is an incredible communications network that nobody had ever plotted before. And we all thought that trees were individuals, but they're actually deeply connected to one another, and they speak to each other chemically, much as the way the trees in the story that I told you were speaking to one another. But there's even more to it than this, and that's that... there is something else going on in the ground around trees. If you dig at the base of an oak tree under the topsoil and find a sapling root and look at it with a magnifying glass, there are little white threads attached to the roots of the tree, and they're one-tenth the width of your eyelash, these little white threads. And the scientists that I heard speak about this said there can be seven miles of this threading

[17:51]

in a pinch of dirt. I mean, it's so miraculous. And this threading is a type of fungus. Fungus are not exactly plants, and they're not exactly animals. They're very ancient. If you look at 400 million year old fossils, you can see evidence of these threads. But it turns out they're not actually threads, they're tubes. And they branch and reconnect with other fungus underneath all the trees. It's a kind of fungal freeway system connecting the trees to each other. So this is a fungal network of reciprocity. The tree has something the fungus needs, and the fungus offers the tree something in return. So... During the process of photosynthesis, the tree sucks up sunshine and water and air, the CO2 in the air, and the sea of that, the carbon of it, the tree stores in its trunks and makes the thick parts of itself.

[19:02]

So the branches in the trunks are made from this carbon. And it turns it into sugar, you know, through this process of photosynthesis. But if that was all the tree lived on, it would be kind of floppy like a tulip, and it wouldn't get very tall. What it needs is also minerals and water from the earth. It doesn't get very much of this from its own roots, a little bit, but it needs this fungus. So the tree needs nitrogen and magnesium, calcium, copper, lignin, these things that are in the stones. And the fungus has this ability to draw up water and nutrients from the soil and offer it to the tree. So the tree and the fungus communicate with one another chemically. The fungus tells the tree that it needs sugar, and the tree softens up its roots and cell walls.

[20:05]

The tubes wrap themselves around the roots of the tree. and to exchange sugar from the tree and minerals from the fungus. How does the fungus get the minerals? Well, the fungus has some acid in it, and it can actually bore its way into stones and retrieve the minerals in those stones. And this tubal network gives it to the trees. And here's another amazing thing that I found out learning about this. There are salmon rings in trees. How does salmon get into a tree? Well, I'm picturing a bear kind of lounging around at the root of a tree, eating a salmon, tossing away the remains. And the fungus captures the nutrients in that salmon and feeds it to the tree. So you can see evidence of fish in trees. So... Here's another thing. Trees can send warnings to neighboring trees.

[21:08]

They can alert other trees that they're being damaged in some way or that an animal or an insect is eating them. And a tree can produce chemicals that taste bad so that insects don't find them so tasty. And acacia trees in Africa, when a giraffe is feeding on an acacia tree, it releases this tannic acid. But it also sends a chemical warning downwind to other acacia trees saying there's a predator in the neighborhood. So this is how we're finding out the trees speak to one another. And I was telling a good friend about this, and she said, she's coincidentally is reading a book right now called The Secret Life of Trees. So she started to talk about this stuff. I said, that's just what I'm going to talk about tomorrow. A dying or sick tree can release its nutrients into the soil and feed it to the trees around it. So a dying tree gives what it has as it's dying to the trees around it.

[22:10]

So we don't normally ascribe intelligence to plants, but the below-ground structures of trees look a lot like a brain. And it's almost like there's a nervous system in the forest where the forest itself is acting as an organism. Trees sending nutrients and resources to one another, communicating in this chemical way. And so this is a very recent and I think just a marvelous discovery about trees. And I want to say there's a Radiolab story about this called From Tree to Shining Tree that you can listen to. And also, Suzanne, C. Mard, she has a YouTube talk about this as well. So when as Buddhists we say that all things are interconnected, we're not using that as a metaphor. You know, it's not just a nice way of thinking or a poetic way of thinking.

[23:14]

It's actually grounded in science. And John Muir, our great naturalist and the namesake of our beach and the beautiful Muir Woods, he said... When you try to pick out anything out of the universe, you find it hitched to everything else in the universe. So my daughter Nova and I had the good fortune to practice with Thich Nhat Hanh in southern France. And I know he's recovering from a very serious stroke, sending him good wishes right now. And my daughter was 11 at the time, and she just loved Thich Nhat Hanh. He really had a way there with children. And he held up a piece of paper, and he asked the children, what is in this piece of paper? And the children knew. You know, they started calling out, there's sunlight, water, rain, there's trees in that piece of paper. And beyond that... the logger that cut the tree down, the trucker that took the tree to the plant, the woman that worked in the paper mill, who wouldn't be there without her mother and her grandmother and her great-grandmother.

[24:27]

So this is another way that when we look at anything, it's hitched to everything else in the universe. And, you know, the wonderful astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson He was asked, what do you find beautiful about science? Science, which is sadly being discredited right now. So sad. He said, he immediately said E equals MC squared. But then he thought, you know, he said, you know what else is beautiful about science? And he just said this off the cuff. This just came right out of his brain. He said, you know what else is beautiful? That the atoms and molecules in your body are traceable to the crucible in the center of a star that manufactured those elements over a lifetime, went unstable on death, exploding its enriched guts across the galaxies, scattering it into gas clouds that would ultimately collapse and make a star and have the right ingredients to make planets and people.

[25:40]

That means we are a part of this universe. And not only that, the universe is in us. That is a profound concept. And I think the greatest gift that astrophysics has given this culture, we are stardust. And of course, we're all deeply connected with one another. And I think it's so important for us to cleave to that vow right now when so much is asking us to be separate from one another, and so much is asking us to focus on our differences rather than our similarities. You know, maybe just like a forest that contains many kinds of trees that communicate with and support one another We're stronger when we live in a diverse community, when we celebrate our differences, when we draw a wider circle of compassion around ourselves and one another, sharing our different strengths, sharing our different cultures, and supporting one another.

[26:53]

The music teachers at the San Francisco School, where I've been teaching for many years, and some Zen Center kids went to my school, and now have children in my school. They wanted to respond to the travel ban that was briefly imposed. And so they brought musicians to our school to share the music with us from those seven banned countries. Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen. And we reveled in this beautiful music. For me, those musicians were like the fungus under the trees just feeding us this music. And in response to the election, Jack Kornfield, our neighbor and wonderful Buddhist teacher, released a statement that said, in part, after viewing the elections, whatever your point of view, take time to quiet the mind and tend to the heart.

[28:01]

Then go out and look at the sky. Remember vastness. Learn from the trees. Practice equanimity and steadiness. And since I was a small child, I've considered trees to be my friends and teachers. I can smell right now the smell of poplar leaves decomposing in the earth behind the poplar tree where I would... hide and there was a beautiful willow tree in my backyard that with the leaves that came down and I could be reading up in that tree and my mother could be calling me and she couldn't see me and I'd be up in that tree and now I teach my third graders this poem by Dorothy Aldis that goes halfway up a certain tree there's a place belongs to me two branches make a little chair and I like it sitting there I like it And it's secret, too.

[29:02]

No grown-up guesses where I go. And if she did and climbed to it, she would not fit. She would not fit. So I like trees because they are more resigned to the way they have to live than other things seem to be, said Willa Cather. And it turns out... that trees aren't just passively standing there, although they do stand there passively and with such dignity and integrity. You know, a friend of mine asked me, how do you get through staff meetings? I said, I always sit where I can see a tree out the window. They're not just standing there passively, they're also actively and generously exchanging gifts with one another and with us. So I'm a city person, but I need trees. And this past week I went to Golden Gate Park and I walked through our beautiful arboretum and I sat in the shade of the redwood grove that's there.

[30:09]

And redwoods can live to be 2,000 years old. So almost stretching back to the time of the Buddha. And they've graced our planet for more than 240 years. million years yesterday agent Linda Ruth was talking about finding a sanctuary right here is a good place for a sanctuary and go to near woods it's a sanctuary and sitting in the redwood grove in the Golden Gate Park I found a sanctuary you know I found solace from the tumult of the world right now redwood trees have very shallow they're the they're the largest living things on Earth, sequoia redwoods. But they have a very shallow root system. And how does that work? Well, it's because the roots spread out and the redwood trees support each other and hold each other up.

[31:11]

It's like this forest underneath the forest. So sitting in the shade of those trees, I found a sanctuary and I remembered what solace there is in trees. We need to seek trees out and learn from them and plant ourselves in the life in which we find ourselves. There's much now that's very difficult to accept, but we find we can also take action and make a difference. We don't have to stand there passively. We should not take trees for granted. And we can take with gratitude all that they have to offer. And of course, we care for them and plant them in return. We recognize that their fate is our fate. So Susan Berry, who's a neurobiologist, had a vision impairment since a very young child. And she could only see things in two dimensions.

[32:13]

If you can imagine that, she had no depth perception. Everything looked like a flat screen. And she had a surgery that corrected her vision and suddenly she could see things in three dimensions. And she was asked, is there something thrilling you've been able to see since learning how to see in three dimensions? And she said, I guess I would have to say trees. Over and over again, something that I see every day as I walk to work, a canopy of trees over my head. the branches reaching out toward you, where the different branches enclose palpable pockets of space. I used to see, I sometimes find myself imagining those places in between the branches of a tree, actually walking and immersing myself in those pockets of space. I used to see a snowfall as a flat sheet

[33:18]

at just a little distance in front of me. I didn't feel I was part of the snowfall. Now, when I watch the snow coming down from the sky, each snowflake is in its own space, and there are volumes of space between each snowflake, and each snowflake produces its own unique three-dimensional dance, and I feel immersed in the snowfall and part of it. When I first heard Susan Berry say this, I thought, here's a woman who does not take her vision for granted, who does not take trees for granted. And having to slow down because her body demanded it, she found riches beyond compare. And of course I also thought, what have I been taking for granted? What am I not seeing that's right in front of me? What am I not appreciating that I see every single day?

[34:19]

So I'd like to thank Green Gulch for inviting me to speak to you today. And I'd like to thank the trees. And I'd like to thank my teacher and Dharma sister, Aja and Linda Kutz, for your inspiration of your practice and your deeply rooted support of me all these many years. Thank you. So I want to close with a poem by Mary Oliver, When I Am Among the Trees. When I am among trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness. I would almost say that they save me and daily. I'm so distant from the hope of myself. in which I have goodness and discernment, and never hurry through the world, but walk slowly and bow often.

[35:27]

Around me the trees stir in their leaves and call out, stay a while. The light flows from their branches, and they call again. It's simple, they say, and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy. to be filled with light and to shine. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:25]

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