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. You just don't mind enjoying your breathing a little bit. I have some props here. so happy to be here this morning in celebration of the trees. Every year at Green Gulch, we take a day to recognize the interconnectedness of all that is, and particularly to notice the extraordinary wooden-based, deep-rooted beings that create shelter here on the farm and beyond.

[01:18]

For more than, oh my gosh, I think close to 35 years or more, we've been planting trees in this watershed, and even more importantly, taking care of them. And today is the day that we celebrate the forest, the life of the forest, and our interconnectedness with the great world. I would like to begin by just, maybe we could, if you don't mind, putting hands on the heart And three deep breaths, recognizing the work for freedom and nonviolence in Tahrir Square and all around the world. Young Egyptian citizens of the world standing up and asking for a peaceful revolution of the teachings and the times. So three deep breaths. being willing to hold all those beings and the human and more than human, deposed and newly situated, and the crisis and celebration of this event in our lifetime.

[02:45]

Recognizing the complexity, welcoming the complexity, recognizing that we are never a part of from the crisis, from the danger and the opportunity of our times. So on Friday night, the 11th of February, there was a great kindling of light all around the world. And here at Green Gulch, a special evening, turning off the lights, enjoying the darkness, welcoming the darkness. So for residents here, the decision not to light the lights on that day, not connected at all with what was happening in Egypt, but a decision from the heart of the community to be welcoming of the darkness, not lighting light, not electrifying our practice. And it was a very deep evening.

[03:50]

I hear a candlelight supper enjoyed in... peacefully enjoyed, and then at 7.30, walking in the watershed, moving around through the land, moving across the face of the land, deeply stepping on the ground, and then coming into this hall to recognize the many beings, human and again more than human, who've been harmed by careless energy extraction. our lack of mindfulness. So being willing in the dark to shine the light on that aspect. So it was a very peaceful and moving night. Gratitude to a place like this that holds the tradition of welcoming darkness and the light in the darkness. This period of time

[04:52]

From January 30th until April 4th, 64 precious days, the United Nations asked or had a resolution, oh, maybe 15 years ago, maybe a little less, a resolution marking this season as a season for nonviolence and nonviolent response, call and response in the life of the world, January 30th. as the anniversary of the death, the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, April 4th, the day that Dr. King was killed in Memphis, Tennessee, included in that the birthday of Cesar Chavez at the end of March, calling up leaders, unnamed and unnamed, leaders and peacemakers, again, human and more than human, So for 64 days, a call to deepen the roots of peace and to do whatever comes up for each and every one of us to make peace, or more than to make peace, to be peace in a very troubled world.

[06:10]

So I have really appreciated this 64-day period It beautifully coincides with the beginning on Tuesday, the 15th of February, Pari Nirvana Day, the beginning of the winter practice period here at Green Gulch, coming together in a time of intensification and sitting together, deepening the vows, looking deeply, and living and practicing nonviolently. And I think throughout the country and wider than this country, there is an upwelling, an intensification, a turning toward this kind of worldly practice in a deep and personal but also deeply connected way, connected to both the sorrow and the celebration of our world.

[07:17]

So in whatever way you are called to to take up nonviolence in your life and practice, in your relations. This is a wonderful time to do so. And of course, tomorrow, Valentine's Day, let it all be connected and grounded with Love, with deep love. Thich Nhat Hanh used to say to us, please, dear, deep-hearted Americans, redeem the word love. It's lost its meaning. It's become a commodity. Redeem the time and the world. Time and the word together. So yesterday...

[08:19]

on the, always the day before, always, we have the wonderful practice on the day before Arbor Day of gathering at Muir Woods National Monument, which is very, very close to us and actually right on the shores of Redwood Creek where we have one of the last free runs of the Silver Salmon right there in Muir Woods National Monument. So we begin... at Muir Woods National Monument and walk the parameters of the watershed, an all-day walk, dropping down into peaceful steps and exploring as complete strangers and lovers and new beings the edges and the boundaries and the openness of this very place where we are privileged to live and practice. That's a wonderful gathering. Yesterday, about 20 or so of us gathered at the woods and walked quietly up to the top of the Miwok Trail and then down the rim of the Diaz Ridge, brand new trail, and into the heart of Green Gulch, making a big circle and then coming back home.

[09:38]

And it was an incredible day to spend a full day walking, a long walk, a long walk, longer than I remembered, which was also a beautiful walk. And on the top of the Miwok Trail, where we overlook the Pacific and the valley, this beautiful, sacred, ancient valley, we could see a whole hillside of trees darkened by shadow and lit by the sun, both together. And I remembered Zen and student and dear friend, Fran Thompson, standing one year with us there overlooking that meadow. She is a Sumi ink painter and saying, we'll always be willing to look at the light. A painter with an ink brush in her hand sees the shadows. So yesterday we stood on the hill. And the first time Fran said that, we were in driving rain, pouring across us.

[10:39]

I thought, I'm seeing more than the shadows, Fran. I'm seeing them. the upwelling of the world here on my face. I do remember standing there with the rain blasting us from the ocean, looking at the shadows, and feeling just as at home in the dark, shadowed landscape as the light. And yesterday, even more vividly, that was true. And as we saw the ocean... Mia Monroe, who's the site manager and the heart and soul of Muir Woods National Monument, we've been walking together for decades. So we stood together and could see the mouth of Redwood Creek, and we remembered that on Sunday, November 14th of 2010, a gathering of citizens convened at Muir Beach to welcome back the salmon. Now, in 2008, there was virtually no salmon run noticed in Muir Woods National Monument, one of the signatures of our times from a signature indicator species of how our world is changing, the warming of the oceans, the clogging of the rivers, the deforestation, the taking down of our hills.

[11:54]

So much so that all of the carbon dioxide that is exhaled into the environment from cars, trucks, planes, tractors, Any vehicle you can imagine doesn't come close to the amount of carbon dioxide that's released from the cutting of our forests. Almost 17% of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes from taking down a forest. So standing at the top, we were able to overlook the truth of our times and to look at the mouth of of the monument, of the river, as it runs into the ocean. And remembering that because virtually no salmon were seen in 2008, because they have a three-year cycle, we doubted, or we wondered, will they come up in 2011? This is the telltale year. And citizens knowing that went to the beach to pray and asked them to come home to dance, to sing.

[13:02]

to step into the waters. For the last couple of years, friends from the Miwok Nation and from other tribes have been tentatively but more and more fully joining us. And this year, children came with little woven salmon. Children from the Federated Indians of Great and Rancheria came out to the beach and to our amazement stayed all day for the celebration. stepping into the waters. And one of our friends and Dharma sisters had woven from the basket willow a beautiful salmon. And then thinking, well, the salmon should have scales. She gave it beautiful, tender scales from persimmon leaves so that the red, shiny leaves would be there. And the people held the fish above the water and prayed to the salmon, please come back. Please come back. And on December 26th, In Muir Woods National Monument, salmon were noticed coming upstream and monitored.

[14:06]

Now, it doesn't mean they didn't come up in 2008. Just because we don't see it doesn't mean they're not there. Yeah. You know, the ancient asked a wonderful question in the Zen tradition. Do tiles and creeks and rivers and stones speak the Dharma? Do inanimate objects speak the Dharma loudly and clearly? Why don't I hear them? asks the monk, and the teacher answers, just because you may not hear them now, do not hinder that which does. So the salmon coming up, they must have come up in 2008 and spawned and carried, and now we're seeing them moving up the river in that last dance, that ancient dance, older than the redwood trees, and flowing home or climbing up to their natal streams. And they find their place, their home place, by the taste of the waters, by that sweet water taste of Redwood Creek. And when we stand above and look at it, and when we walked the watershed walk, we could see the remnants of that fish that has been propped up by the visitor center.

[15:14]

It had fallen over on its side saying, I'm longing for the sea. But anyway, we stood up and watched the water flowing into the ocean and flowing back and also recognized that on February 1st, the first fry was seen in the creek. which means that there has been successful mating. The ancient dance has been effective. And there are young fish in the river. Very few. But this is to be celebrated. In a dark time, the eye begins to see. We find out with dark adjusted eyes how to celebrate. How to celebrate, although we know the facts. So what does it mean? is a question that will very naturally upwell in these days. What does it mean now for a bodhisattva who vows to save all beings when most are being driven or when many are being driven to extinction by our economic and technological activity?

[16:18]

What does it mean to carry out the bodhisattva vow? As long as I'm alive, I vow to work for the liberation, for the freedom, and to save all beings. That great impossible vow. And, you know, that call, the bodhisattva vow, is a very strong call, an ancient call. And it has many blockages in its asking. Ignorance and apathy, strongest among them. I love my friend and teacher, Joanna Macy, told me of her daughter, Peggy, saying to her, Mom, what's the difference between ignorance and apathy? And Joanna thought, that's such a wonderful question. Well, she said, Peggy interrupted her. She said, Mom, I don't know and I don't care. So she baited her mother. You know, we bait each other.

[17:20]

We're going to play. but we're also going to be deeply serious and grounded in this question. What does it mean in our times to take our place and to dedicate the teaching and the benefit of our practice to undoing the knot and making a difference in our times? The Buddha's path... is a path of awakening from delusion. I remember growing up near New York City, a friend telling me about a graffiti on a wall in the Soho district that said, dreaming is a luxury, waking up is an emergency. Temporary writing from the heart of the world on a brick wall. Dreaming is a luxury, waking up is an emergency. And so we are called now to wake up.

[18:23]

And the environmental crisis can be seen, crisis, again, crisis from that wonderful character, meaning, opportunity, and danger. So the crisis that we're facing now in our times is also a crisis for Buddhist practice because Buddhist teaching and the teaching of awakening calls for awakening. to what is happening, awakening and a response to the suffering of all living beings and not just human beings. So, disconnected and removed, we also know that this is true and it is our legacy as human beings to take our place and not turn away from the suffering. In that work, it is immensely valuable and helpful to have a grounded capacity to look, to look deeply.

[19:35]

A book that's been very meaningful to me by a modern philosopher and naturalist, Kathleen Dean Moore, is the book Holdfast. Holdfast is the structure by which the ancient kelp forest connects and anchors in the ocean. So you can imagine that kelp waving in the surge of the ocean have to be deeply connected to the ground in order to be so alive in the tides. So this modern philosopher, not metaphorically, but directly and bravely, says to all of us, reminds us how important it is that we find some way to hold fast to our deepest conviction, to hold fast and also to be extraordinarily flexible. Because if we hold fast and we're rigid, we're lost. We snap like that. But to hold fast and to move with the tides is the call of our times.

[20:39]

And so valuable, it is so valuable to have a place that is an anchorage place for you, wherever it may be, or whatever it may be. I think of friends who work here at Sun Center and beyond who are working every week in the prisons, and in the prison that marks the edge of one of the wealthiest counties on earth, and the water at San Quentin, going into those prisons, and especially into San Quentin and serving. And for the men that come together and sit in meditation, that brief period of time may be a kind of hold fast, a way to reconnoiter and see again how we're living and what possibilities are open to us. So there are so many different ways to both hold fast and flex in our times and look. And in this practice, again, it is extraordinarily important to have a little piece of land or earth that gives you courage.

[21:50]

At least this is where I find so deeply to be true. And I'm not talking about pristine, undamaged land, because that kind of land is now a luxury. But any piece of land where we can settle and call, find a kind of home and groundedness is immensely important in the work of waking up and learning how to serve and how to meet. the crisis of our times. I remember my Dharma sister, Galen, giving me an article about a woman in Pennsylvania who had grown up in the coal fields of Pennsylvania and seen her landscape polluted by the flag, the runoff from the coal mines. And recognizing that she warmed her life and empowered her existence with coal, she decided that rather than trying to hide some of the damage that was so evident in the colored sulfuric poisoned waters around her watershed, she would create a park that celebrated the toxic beauty and terror of that place.

[23:04]

So for her, being willing to do that, to be willing to take her place next to a polluted, toxic environment and not see herself separate from it, was immensely important. And that had a very big effect on me as a new practitioner, thinking about that. And also recognizing that what we're facing now is not a kind of nostalgia or longing for what is or was. Nostos, from the Greek, home, a word for home. And alja, like neuralgia, sickness. the sickness of longing for your home, the yearning that makes you almost sick. So deep is that yearning. Another word for a nostos or home is nest. So yearning for the nest that holds you and gives you strength marks our times, but not at the expense of being willing to stay close to the poison rivers, to the broken landscape.

[24:14]

to the misery mansion of our prisons and hospitals, and to see these as worthy places to set down roots and practice, to really practice in a broken world, and to be willing to find our place. There's a new word that has recently been coined, connected to nostalgia, solastalgia, by an ecological philosopher from Australia Noticing solastalgia from solace or the heart's ease, a yearning, a sickness for the heart's ease, a yearning for that kind of ease that comes from environmental and ecological devastation. So in particular, that is marked in many different cultures and with many different challenges that are being faced right now. In particular, I made a note of this.

[25:18]

In particular, the situation in still arising in New Orleans and in parts of Africa and in parts of Australia where this philosopher began his work, but all over our world, a longing for the solace of home and also, as we know in these places, a willingness to abide, to be alive and present in the suffering, and to respond from that point. So these qualities mark our times. And mindfulness practice has to take its roots in the country of grief as well as celebration. From a wildlife biologist and student of the salmon, Freeman House, In one ancient language, he reminds us the word memory derives from a word meaning mindful.

[26:19]

In another, from a word describing a witness. In yet another, it means a willingness at the root to grieve. To witness mindfully is to grieve and be present for what has been lost. So I don't mean this to be an address, a bummer address. I often say this, but the source, gravity and levity balance each other. So gravity is to go down. It actually is one of the root words of grief, to go down to the grave, to feel the gravity, gravitas, and also the levitas, the rising up of the spirit. And sometimes being willing to go down. into the grave places gives rise to extraordinary courage and conviction. I have been working at Indian Valley, which is a campus, a new campus, a vocational campus of the College of Marin.

[27:28]

And I have the pleasure for the last two years of teaching a class in how to establish an organic farm and garden. And I work with a wonderful team of younger students in particular in this class with a young man who's a very good scientist and environmentalist and an incredible farmer. So I'm 63 and Henry's 29 and we have a good time. We have a very good time together. So he has been reminding me that we are made of the stuff that stars are made of. And we are looking, when we look at the living soil and the living ground, even if it's damaged, We're looking at a kind of attraction that is stronger than our notion of what it is. And when we look with awakened eyes and opened eyes, that attraction becomes stronger and stronger. So you ask some of the members of the class, well, what causes the attraction, what causes stardust to come down and become the living flow of the chemical world? And they'll say gravity.

[28:30]

And what is gravity? One of our... wonderful friends and teachers, Brian Swim, who's a physicist, says gravity is the attraction of all matter to come down and connect with the living earth and make a dance to meet each other. So to come down in grave times, to come down and take our places and to prepare ourselves to do so at every point. One of my closest Dharma sisters told me about a good Dharma friend of hers who takes verses from the ancient texts, which will be the study text for the practice period here at Gringos, verses from the Bodhicaryavatara, the way of the Bodhisattva, 12th century old text dedicated to waking up in our times and practicing for the benefit of the world. So this friend has taken a few verses

[29:32]

And she repeats them when she starts the car, whenever she finds herself, her mind wandering. She's memorized a few of these verses to help her remember both the gravity and levity of our times. So from this 8th century text, may the naked now be clothed and the hungry eat their fill. May those parched with thirst receive pure water, delicious drink. May those who go in dread have no more fear. May captives be unchained and now set free. And may the weak receive their strength. May all living beings help each other in kindness. And then the beautiful... Closing verse, as long as space endures, as long as there are beings to be found, may I continue likewise to remain and drive away the sorrows of the world.

[30:46]

Another verse from the Shantideva's text, may the sorrows of the world, may all sorrows ripen in me. May all sorrows ripen in me. May the gravitas of this world come down and ripen in me and may I be food for everyone who's hungry. So I appreciate so much my friend telling me this story of a citizen of the world who loves meditation practice and is a worldly woman just bracing herself, preparing herself by memorizing a few verses from the ancient texts and carrying them out. So whatever can help you be more alive and genuine and authentic and sincere and true to what your work is, then so be it. Whatever that may be, may it be so. I want to go on now.

[31:52]

I'm going to drop down a little bit lower into the root zone of the trees because And again, I want to emphasize that this tribute today or this turning toward what is a source of strength is not nostalgic, longing for what's lost, but a deep commitment to meeting what is. So I want to confess that walking this watershed at night meeting residents on the lawn and hoping I wouldn't recognize anyone because I wanted all beings to be present, not just the people I recognize and know. And in the darkness, in the blessed darkness, I didn't let myself recognize anyone, and it was such a relief not to have to look around and greet each other, just to stand in the darkness, the night sky,

[32:56]

feared with the jet stream above us, with the trace of the jet stream, almost as if it had been cut open with a mat knife and the light pouring through in the sky and realizing there's nowhere to throw anything away. Everywhere is home. Nowhere to evade the brightness or the electrification of our times. Everywhere is dark. Everywhere is welcome. So standing on that... which is an old dump pile of earth from when we first worked the lower fields. Thank you very much, just to say what that graffy knoll is, that beautiful place where we dance the Buddha's dance and Buddha's birthday. It's an old dump pile that's come back to life. Again, I like to stand on that dump. So standing on that pile of earth and then walking, being led by... Brand new friends into the heart of the matter, into the heart of a place that I love and know from having the privilege of living here for 25 years.

[34:05]

And now I have the privilege of watching the next generation come through. The privilege of sitting in this hall with my 22-year-old daughter here who was born in this place and now goes on. It's just a very beautiful thing. And then being led by some people who are not older than 22. Very beautiful... A very beautiful upwelling. And to walk with dark adjusted eyes into the unknown. And I don't mean to make such a big deal about this for God's sake. We walked down the road in the dark. And we chomped around the garden. And my mind wandered plenty. And I thought, my God, I can't believe that rose is still not pruned. I can't believe they haven't pruned that rose. But then I tried to... That's why I bring my clippers to cut through vanity. But it isn't working. Pruning intensifies often. That's what I'm finding. But anyway, to walk under the arc of the world and under the night sky and then to have the pathway be suddenly turned.

[35:17]

And I was watching the young woman leading the walk and thinking, oh, I wonder if she'll turn up into the hills. And she did turn up into the hills. And I thought it was so beautiful to just be one and to flow uphill and to walk. And as we walked past the reservoir here at Green Gulch, to my amazement, vivid memory, more than memory, witness, grief, sorrow, and incredible joy rose up, remembering some of the plantings here. And I thought, oh. connecting, slowing down, and we did pause once, slowing down enough to let the spirits or the beings of a place claim you is an extraordinary gift. And so for me that happened. And I remembered throughout my body-mind, I remembered some of the, for me, the... of this valley, which has been such a primary story, in 1976 with my husband of many, many years.

[36:24]

We got married in 1976. So the year we got married, walking with Dr. E. F. Schumacher, the author of Small is Beautiful, came to Green Gulch, and with now Abbott Steve, who was then head of the field, Steve Stuckey, and a few others of us, we had the privilege of walking with Dr. Schumacher. in the watershed. His book had just come out, Small is Beautiful. And he speaks in that book of Buddhist economics, of being willing to look at the eikos nomia or the household truth of our times and to look with eyes that are awake to suffering and delight. So Dr. Schumacher spent a timeless afternoon with us. And he's an extraordinary teacher He lived for years in India with Gandhi as a young man and is committed to the work of nonviolence.

[37:26]

He's no longer alive, but I remember his tribute to the years of living in India with Gandhi. And he reminded us that during the Buddha's lifetime, there was a call to practitioners to, in their lifetime, plant and see to the maintenance of five trees. Could you do that in your lifetime? And whole sections of northern India were reforested. So it was a very powerful day. And we planted at the gate to the garden, we planted a whip. from the black cottonwood, the tallest North American broadleaf tree from the Klamath River, a tree that our teacher and advisor, Harry Roberts, had encouraged us to grow. We had a whip of that tree, and we planted it right at the gateway. And as you go down to the garden, you can see, okay, this is 35 years of presence marking the gateway between the cultivated and the wild world.

[38:33]

the cultivated world of practice here, and then the very wild world of the garden, which is in many ways deeply cultivated and opens back to the quite wild world of practice. So we're at the seam line between those two worlds. We planted that tree and made a pledge to spend one day a year. It's spread out to being more like a month or the first Sunday of every month. Turning... back to the watershed and returning our care and attention to where we live. Not as a symbol of anything, but because this is our living practice to plant and care for the living world and to learn from that work and not in any way separated from the beings that we entrust to the world. to the earth, nor separated from each other as we work.

[39:35]

So he made that pledge in 1976. And Dr. Schumacher went back to England. He was head of the Soil Association, which is a venerable, very important organization in England, and then went on to be a good economist. So I remember that day, and I also remember the intention to keep doing that work, not only on Arbor Day, but beyond. And in our time here at Green Gulch, working with Harry Kellett Roberts, who gave us that tree from the mouth of the Klamath River where he was raised, one of our first advisors and teachers here on the farm who taught us to see deeply. He said, look with eyes that allow you to dream for 500 years.

[40:40]

And he would always jokingly say, and don't be green-dulched by the present moment. Meaning this present moment is fine, but there's more to the world and the work than the present moment. So work as if you will be present for 500 years. And he was wonderful receiving teaching from Harry, because he was trained not only as a Western agronomist, he helped to establish and plant the native plant gardens at Children Park. But he also was trained in the Yurok tradition. His mother carried the Yurok bloodlines, and Harry was raised up by his uncle or shaman, Robert Spot, who was Alfred Kroeber's informant and a great teacher. And when Harry was a young man, he told about Robert Spot choosing disciples who would work with him in the replanting and the caring for the Klamath River watershed. And he had a special test that Harry told us about where he would ask those who wanted to study with him, all right, if you'd like to study with me, then bring me five plants that have never been seen before.

[41:54]

And then he watched. And the smartest and best, the most energetic and vital students fanned out across the watershed in search of the unusual, the unknown, the unnamed. And the dolts and most thick-headed commoners just went and looked down at their feet. And those are the students that Robert Spott chose. The ones who had the innocence and the... clarity of mind and a kind of unguardedness to just look right at their feet. Five plants I've never seen before must be right here under my feet because I don't see anything. Those are the people that he trained and worked with. And I must assume that Harry must have been among them because he taught us beautifully and very powerfully. And he wanted us to develop here, a farm, a place of practice that connected to the meditation hall but never turned away from the life of the world.

[43:06]

And so we spent years, many of the plantings you'll see were planted with Harry Roberts. And he worked with us steadily throughout the early years of Green Gulch. He died in 1981, 30 years ago. And I remember right before he died, we had a very special occurrence happen. About a year before Harry's death, maybe two years before, we were visited by Masanobu Fukuoka-sensei, a Japanese agronomist and actually a biochemist who was advocating a natural farming method of For Japan, very radical natural farming method of just spreading seed and trusting that the seed would rebuild the fields. He noticed a decline in fertility and developed this whole system. And he came to the United States, and he and Harry had an extraordinary connection.

[44:10]

Foukoko Sensei said that Harry was the American bodhisattva, and he gave him a rough-hewn block of cryptomeria wood that had been carved into a bodhidharma figure. He and Harry really connected. And they walked together in Muir Woods National Monument, and Fukuoka Sensei noticed that no new redwood trees were coming forth. And Harry corroborated that, and Fukuoka Sensei said, I am going to send you seed of a Japanese redwood on American soil. Maybe the roots will go down deep, and there'll be a revival. So right before Harry died... we received a package of seed. It took him two years, took Fukuoka Sensei two years to find the seed, which he collected from the Koji National Forest, which was a virgin forest uncut in Japan. And he sent back the seed. And one of the last things we did with Harry was to sow a box of seed.

[45:13]

It was very weak. but able to do that. And we sowed a deep box of these seed, and lo and behold, shortly after his death 30 years ago, the seed came up like wildfire. And we took them and grew them out in a nursery and then carried them behind the guest house, behind the bell here, and up to the reservoir and planted them. And I'm sure that walking by in the dark the other night, it was the voice of both the land and the seed, and the giant mistake of planting Japanese redwood. I mean, my native plant friends are probably going, oh, don't tell that story. You know, planting foreign seed in a native landscape, and yet the story has a kind of bridge and connection to our roots, to the Ainu, to the old ones, to the spirit, to the spirit world, to a gift. of raw seed from warm hand to warm hand and the expectation that these seeds, the national tree of Japan, would be strong on this soil and would help with ecological devastation and environmental worry.

[46:27]

Just as being present for Harry and Harry gave Fukuoka-sensei some tobacco from his Yurok world and also some seeds of American redwood. So the kind of exchange or camaraderie that it takes to really hold fast and to anchor in our world was so deeply exhibited in that exchange. And we took the trees and planted them. And today, they're very tall. And this afternoon, for those of you who stay, maybe you'll be lucky enough to work with a young citizen who is Japanese, Yuki, who came here as a gardener and began to practice. soon after chose to ordain and deepen her practice, leaving her life as a gardener, coming here and then finding that life again, right here in her practice. And today she leads the gathering up to the cryptomeria.

[47:29]

And hopefully she'll say a prayer in Japanese and we can listen and gather around those trees and help to clean at their base and recognize this may be a mistake. but it's also an expression of solidarity and commitment and of the gravity and beauty of our times, being able to connect like that in that way. So you never know what's going to happen when you slow down and let the world come home. You know, we have a notion that the Buddha figure on the main altar here, Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha, who has his right hand extended, touching the earth in this adamantine and also very flexible gesture of hand on the living earth. When questioned by Mara, the tempter, by what right do you sit still here and hold your place?

[48:37]

The... Buddha-to-be didn't say a word, extended the right hand and touched the earth. Now we think, often in the story, in the iconographical depiction, that earth's spirit comes up and puts, of course, her hand under the Buddha's hand, and there is a connection the earth shakes. And often we'll interpret this gesture as the earth giving voice, to the truthful legitimacy of Buddha sitting on the earth. But actually, I think that gesture more and more, and particularly in the gravity of our times, beginning to see that gesture as not the Buddha calling on the earth to testify. Maybe that also. But even deeper and older than that, some recognition of, you asked me that question, and in that question, I put my hand on the earth. Because I am of the earth, made of the earth, of the nature of this earth.

[49:44]

We recognize each other and the earth, there is a kind of connection. And so in that kind of recognition, when reading an official document, and I'm coming close to closing now, When reading this official document, which was issued by the Stockholm Conference on Global Climate Change in 1972, a predecessor to the 1997 Kyoto Accord from Japan, a predecessor to the meeting in Copenhagen, which some citizens in this room probably attended, and a predecessor also to the recent meeting of indigenous people and leaders, unnamed leaders, meeting in Cancun to look at how we live in the world. This treatise from Stockholm reads like a Dharma text.

[50:46]

And please listen. Life holds to one central truth. All matter and energy needed for life moves in great closed circles from which nothing escapes and to which only... the driving fire of sunlight is added. Life devours itself. Everything that exists is itself eaten. Every chemical made by life is broken down and, I'll say, unmade by life. All sunlight that can be used is used. Of all this, there is on earth nothing taken away by life and nothing added. But nearly everything is used by life, used and reused and reused in thousands of complex and simple ways, moving through vast chains of plants and animals and back again to the beginning.

[52:02]

Behold, says Rebbe Nachman of Breslov from the 18th century, behold, we're walking a new path into ancient land, a new path which is really an old path, the oldest path traveled again and again by all beings. So we think practically, we cultivate the ground of our practice, and of the garden, and of the farm, and of the forest. We cultivate it, but with a wild and deep mind. Today, we cultivate cryptomeria tsugi, the national tree of Japan. We walk the path of redwood plantings. We walk into a garden that was started a year ago by apprentices from Green Gulch learning at the community college how to graft, how to put together two pieces of plant, And lo and behold, three new apples planted today and a plum from a dream of putting pieces together from a wild old dream that's been cultivated for centuries.

[53:19]

And those trees have good roots. So we'll plant an English dessert apple, of course, a Japanese golden delicious, and a cider apple that's a little bit bitter and a little bit sweet, just like our life. We'll plant that and we'll work together, cleaning and learning and listening and coming home and in celebration of love. I want to hold this heart up for Arlene to see. She gave it to me years ago. Her husband, who's a painter, painted it. I love this heart. It's a reminder of the beating heart of the world. And they were married umpty ump years ago tomorrow. on Valentine's Day. So we're celebrating great love. And my parents were married at the end of the Second World War on Valentine's Day, coming home. That was a very difficult marriage that didn't last. Lots of fire and brimstone and three children. But nevertheless, the intensity of love goes on.

[54:26]

And it is out of love that we do this work. Love for a broken, And for love for the broken and beating heart of the world, again and again and again stepping in. So with a great gratitude for that beating heart of the world, to close with this tribute by Che Guevara. And really, we are in a great revolution of our times. The great wheel of cultivation is turning. The wheel of life into death into life, of decay, the fire of decay is turning. And we are turning it and being present in it and deepening, deepening, deepening our course. So to listen to a young revolutionary who says, permit me to mention, to tell you, at the risk of appearing ridiculous, that the true revolutionary is is always guided by great feelings of love.

[55:31]

One struggles and works every day in order for that living love for humanity and, I'll add, for the more-than-human world to be transformed into deeds, into actions, which set an example and serve to protect the world we love and know. Well, thank you very much for coming today on this beautiful February 13th and for being with us, being together. I do enjoy the pictures of, I put some pictures here of Harry and Fukuoka Sensei and Alan Chadwick, and I'll also leave the verses from Shantideva here on the altar so that you can have a peek. And we'll go more deeply into these matters. after you've had some muffins. I mean, let's get real, muffins. Muffins and mindfulness, they belong together.

[56:36]

So thank you and dedicate the merit of this gathering, this coming together to the great and steady, deep beating of the heart of the world. May all beings in the ten directions have enough to eat and the shelter and the courage to continue working under all circumstances. Thank you. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[57:26]

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