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. Well, good evening. Am I alive too? Oh, good. Wouldn't have it any other way. Amen. So we've been... It's lovely to be here. And we thought we would each say a little tiny bit about the work that we're doing, which connects very much, in my case, it connects very much to finding a way to apply the years of Zen training that have been so fundamental and foundational in my life to the work that I'm doing in the world. I'll take a chance with that, really talk about organic farming and growing food and being politically alive and alert to the times we're living in and how you do that with a mind of practice and a good sharp trowel to dig.

[01:09]

So I'll go ahead and start with that. And then Annie and then Susan will. And then we're hoping to be in dialogue with you just to find out what matters to you right now. So... So my name is Wendy Johnson. I trained here at Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in 1973. Ed Brown was the chouseau. It was that long ago. And after Ed was David Chadwick and Lou Richman and Bill Lane. So wonderful teachers. We learned a lot. We were building Tassajara. We're always building Tassajara, but it was wonderful to train here. And here at Tassajara, I began my life and work as an organic. gardener, farmer, I really think, and a learner, lifelong learner. So in my life and practice, the connection between meditation practice and growing food for a hungry world was always front, right to the front. And it really began to root here at Tassajara.

[02:09]

So every time I come home to Tassajara and join you, I feel an upwelling of gratitude. So I want to begin by saying that and just the privilege of having been able to train here. And this year on New Year's Day, I made a pilgrimage with my daughter and 23 other practitioners to India. My daughter won a raffle at her place of work and all expenses trip paid to India and said, Mom, come with me. It was unbelievable. Right when she graduated from Berkeley, from the University of California at Berkeley, Like a few days later, she won this raffle. So kind of magic. And we've long wanted to walk in the footsteps of the Buddha. So we traveled to India with Bernie Glassman, Sensei Bernie Glassman, which was wonderful, and an old friend from the Order of Inner Being, Shantam Seth, who was our guide. And we penetrated deep into the heart of India, not just, though, following reverentially in the footsteps of the Buddha. There was plenty of that, but mostly meeting modern India, meeting the challenges of...

[03:13]

that world and immersing, plunging, as Bernie said, plunging into the mind of the great matter, plunging into the present moment and bearing witness. And during that month-long trip, what rose up in me was a really strong rededication to organic farming and meditation practice, walking through the rice field robes of India, walking through the the beautifully planted fields, meeting people for whom food and eating was a lifeline source and absolutely intimately connected with meditation was very, very moving for me and regenerating. Not that I was too degenerated, but I felt just a huge spirit being there and coming home, feeling that this is a time now to be more explicitly connected to both farming and meditation, to see how they really go together in a worldly way, without too much fuss about it.

[04:20]

But it was very important to begin the year by making this pilgrimage and walking on the land, the living land, the Gangetic Plain, where the Buddha talked and walked and lived and ate and farmed and lived. So that was a great great experience. And Annie encouraged me to just say a tiny bit about the way that work has unfolded in this year for me and the practice world that comes up in connection with what I'm talking about. And I've just returned from a month of deep and full practice as a residential Dharma friend at the Upaya Zen Meditation Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. So I am full of the arid mind of the West right now. And I was invited to go and practice at Upaya Zen Center to make more explicit the actual connection that a lay person brings up between meditation practice and activism in the world, growing food, doing the work.

[05:25]

So I had the privilege of teaching. with a wonderful ecologist and climatologist, Bill Dubuis, great teacher. He's the author of a book called The Great Aridity, looking at what we're facing. Tassajara has a little bit of a taste, although Tassajara feels tropical compared to New Mexico. So looking in our country right now as the great change, climate change is really very manifest. This is not a doomsday talk, but to be able to be in New Mexico with students 25 practitioners who live in residence there, and to see, well, what food should we be planting? How should we be growing? What should we be doing now? We're obviously not going to be growing even kale, chard, although they are growing kale, chard, and lettuce underneath covered wagons that are over their beds. I also had the privilege of visiting some of our friends who've trained at Zen Center, Deborah Madison, growing food also under these covered wagons because it is too hot and too dry to grow food in the way that we've been used to doing it.

[06:27]

So how does practice help us adapt? So we worked, 25 of us worked to put in a garden that would represent a kind of dedication to growing food well and then figuring out a way to serve it and enjoy it. And that was a wonderful experience to be with the strong practitioners and the neighbors. The neighborhood came and joined us. We planted... beautiful selection of crops that have been grown for thousands of years by the Tewa people of New Mexico, the Pueblo people, growing food that will be appropriate food for these times and growing it in a celebratory way. We also joined together with a whole raft of chaplains coming from all over the country to look at how does a chaplain now prepare to offer his or her wisdom and experience and love to a tired world. Usually the chaplains serve either in prisons or at the bedside of those who are dying. Right now there's a whole new call for chaplains who have a stomach to look at what's happening to our environment and can meet the kind of sorrow and fear and nervousness that's coming up around the environment with a full heart and range of skills.

[07:44]

So we spent almost a week along with the residents, again, about 37 of us really looking at the four great elements, how food, how celebration, how growing together, how eating together may actually be able to help us meet the challenges of our times. So these are grave and challenging times, but also times of terrific and undeniable possibility and joy. So I benefited from traveling to India and then from applying that journey to a climate that is very different. Coming up from sea level, I live, you know, on the edge of the ocean, coming up from sea level to 7,200 feet and being in air that, I mean, I jokingly said you dry off while you're taking a shower in the southwest. It is so dry. And to hold a handful of seed and food that knows in its essentialness

[08:46]

how to grow is really important. So this is exciting to me. It's very exciting and it's meaningful to be able to come here and work with Annie and with Susan and with you, with all of you, also investigating the importance of food, farming, family, the future, and to ground it in practice, in some kind of practice that is meaningful. And I'm doing other work. I would love to say more about that. If you're interested, we can talk, we can bring that up and hopefully hear from you, from some of you about the work you're doing that gives you balance and strength. Again, this is not a doomsday talk, but it would be very remiss not to mention that we are living in incredibly grave and challenging times. Be joyful, says Wendell Berry, although you know the facts. Good reminder. Thank you for letting me begin and thank you, Annie and Susan, for being able to be in conversation. My name is Annie Somerville, and I am the executive chef at Green's Restaurant.

[09:52]

And I've been cooking at Green's for soon to be 31 years. And so I'm not sure what I can say about that. Every day is an opportunity to see things in a very positive light. Because so many things happen in a restaurant every day. I've always felt that I was a person who came into the world with a short span of attention. But boy, it happens really fast in a restaurant. You know, there's a lot of, you know, the point of a restaurant is to feed people and to serve them. And it's all about food. And then it's a lot about staff, if I can say. It's a lot about people. And we have a staff of about, probably about 85 people. We're open seven days and nights a week. Um... I was saying tonight at dinner, there's probably about an hour or two between the time when the janitors leave and our pastry crew comes.

[10:55]

So we have a really dedicated crew of people that are just keeping the place together and going and clean and organized and everybody doing their part. And it's kind of like a city. It's like a small city. And I think Susan really experienced that on Friday morning. when we arrived to pick up all the things I was going to be bringing from Greens for our cooking demonstration and then to meet Wendy. And Fridays are a day where we have a lot of people on because we're getting ready for the weekend and there's all kinds of things happening. We always have, in the way that Tassajara has guest students, we have culinary externs. In fact, they're a big part of what we do is just constantly having new people coming in, being exposed to what we do, how we cook. And also, they keep us very fresh and bright through just the fact that they're there to learn. And in many cases, they're there for five months, sometimes three. So anyway, every time I turned around, there was another person to say hello to.

[11:58]

So it's just a busy place. I think that probably, I'm not sure what anyone at Zen Center thought, what they thought Greens would do. where Greens would be or if Greens would even exist in 31 years. Actually, we're now about to be 33. But here we are, and still doing it, and feeding people and being... I think a big part of my job is recognizing the importance of employment. And just, you know, it's a challenging world. It's very challenging to... live and work in San Francisco and to be able to afford to do so. So many of the people who work for Greens really live on the edge. Some people are working two or three jobs. Because that's just the nature of living in the city and the cost of living in the city and working in a restaurant.

[13:00]

And it's... It's a great place. It's a wonderful place to come to work every day. About three days a week, I'm actually able to walk to work, which is a really good thing for me. I live in North Beach, so I get to walk along the water. Come to work kind of sets the pace, sets the tone for me for kind of whatever I'm going to walk into because I never quite know what it's going to be. I work with a lot of really great people, really good chefs. good cooks, really hardworking people, really people who are just very excited about what we're doing, and they feel like, in the same way, like being part of Tassajara, being part of Zen Center, or whatever it is that everyone here in this room is part of. People feel like they're part of something at Green's, and I think that that's a really important thing. And we have an arm's length. A lot of people don't know that Green's is actually still owned by Zen Center because it's... There was a period of time where I felt like Zen Center was on its timeline and Green's was on another timeline, and we weren't really... We were just going off in our own directions, and even though Green's was continuing to support Zen Center, we've been really working in the last couple of years on bringing that together because it's a good thing.

[14:20]

It's a wonderful thing. There's so much goodwill about Zen Center, all the good things Zen Center does, and then that Green's... does a lot of good things, and to weave those two together into a story of what that restaurant is really about and what its roots are. So we operate separately from Zen Center, but we still report to a board of directors, of which some people are part of Zen Center, and then that board then also reports to the Zen Center. So it's a good connection. It's just we're very lucky. We're in the National Park, in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. That is a wonderful, amazing urban park. And then we're in Fort Mason Center, which is a nonprofit center. And lots of great people working there and doing their work there. So it's a wonderful thing to do. And I think maybe for me the most inspiring or people ask, in fact, somebody did ask me, I think today, was how do you keep doing it?

[15:25]

And for me, a big part of it is just, I think that if I didn't shop at our farmer's market twice a week, I would not be able to continue to do what I do. Because that is the real deal. You know, it's one of the real deals. But the main thing is to be connected with people who are growing our food. I know them. I know their families. I know their friends. I know their stories, how they came to farm, you know, where they farm. Like, I understand... like things I didn't used to understand, like, well, well, you know, the people who start early in the season in Fresno, you know, they're going to wrap it up, and then the people who are up in winters will pick it up with, you know, maybe the same crop, but it's, you know, it's grown on a very different climate. It's, you know, it's just there are all these different geographic places, wild places in California where, you know, we're such an agricultural state. So to get to know all these people and how they grow, where they grow, and the things that they're... dealing with is really compelling. And to get to be part of that and to support them in their work, which also supports us and our work by delivering this very fresh produce, which we feel very connected to, which we then prepare, turn it into food and serve it to our guests.

[16:46]

So it's the real story. And it's been... Really, I feel like I don't know enough about the farmers that we work with because there are just some amazing stories about, you know, Japanese farmers, World War II, land taken away from them, how it is that they came back to be farming. People who, one wonderful farmer, who their, you know, water in California, that's another huge topic, such a big topic. You know, they're farming. They look out at Mineral King. which is like the Alps of the Sierra. And their water comes to them through gravity-fed irrigation system, but it predates the damning of the King's River, which is really great. That's kind of a, I'm not supposed to talk about that, because I don't want the water authorities to come in and tell them, but I mean, these are really, they're wonderful things. So anyway, so that's what I do. And I work with all our cooks and our managers and just do whatever it is that needs to be done to make

[17:50]

Greens feel like the place we want it to be. Oh, it's working. Do I hold it like this? Can you hear me? Okay. I thought I would tell three stories. One about Wendy, one about Annie. You can put your... fingers in your ears and then one about me because I've known these women and they've known me since I was barely born I don't think Wendy even knows this story I was a very young Zen student and I was sitting a seven day meditation retreat at Green Gulch Farm and Wendy had come back from Tassajara and I'd seen you Wendy but I didn't really know you that well and In those seven-day meditation retreats, one's concentration and mindfulness can blossom.

[18:56]

It's a great thing. I recommend it. And every day, the flowers on the altar, the flowers would become more and more beautiful. And I thought, in my mind, I thought, my God, the person arranging these flowers must just be spending hours placing each thing perfectly. And it was about the fourth day... I think I came out after breakfast and this gorgeous wild woman swept in with these buckets of flowers just cascading out of the buckets. And she scooped up an armload. Of course, the woman is you, Wendy. And she just threw them in this vase. And her hand came up the flowers like this. And she took the vase and she put it on the altar and she was like... I was just floored. That might have been my first moment of awakening, actually.

[19:56]

Thank you, Wendy. No, because... Well, you had to get back out to that garden and get some work done, probably. But I realized later that day, I came and I looked at that arrangement. I thought, she's absolutely right. The flowers are perfect. You don't really need to do a whole... as my father would say, hell of a lot. So thank you for that. And anytime in my life that I feel like I'm getting a little precious and overthinking things, which I do on occasion, I remember that moment, but I never told you about it. Thank you. You're welcome. And Annie was at Tassajara when I first came to Zen Center, and I'd heard about you being Tenzo the famous Annie Somerville. And when she came back to the city center, which is where I lived, she was put in the position of being the boss of me.

[20:57]

And we're very, very different in pretty much everything. Although the older we get, the less different we seem. We were very different in temperaments. But I remember... A breakfast. You invited me to a breakfast and you served this beautiful coffee in a little ceramic brown coffee pot and you made poached eggs very simply and you sprinkled a little bit of Parmesan, I think, on them. And you pulled the English muffins apart so that the surfaces would be just right for holding the butter, toasted them. They were so beautifully toasted. And I didn't know what I could say to you. But on Friday morning, when we were getting ready to come here, this is several decades after that moment, we made the coffee in a somewhat broken little... Same pot.

[22:00]

Same pot. It's the same pot. And this sense of these Dharma friends, these friends that one meets and then travels... through this fleeting moment of life with is truly amazing. So then to be here with Annie and Wendy and you all in this phenomenal place where time seems to go. We were talking about the stream. Which direction is time flowing? Which direction does the stream go? Is very powerful. And so a little story about me. I thought I would bring in the topic of compost. And I was so happy to read, Wendy, when you said in your book that the soil is the main thing. Because Annie and I have this wild working relationship. You taught me that one plus one equals something that you can't even count.

[23:06]

You can just work. There's this energy that happens when you're working with your dear friends that is just... It cannot be quantified. And I think you said 50-cent plant. What was the hole? $5 hole? Something like that. I don't know. That the soil itself is where it's at. So in Seattle, where I live, we have amazing gardening and composting and all sorts of programs. So many programs. It's a little annoying sometimes. But they started a red worm compost program about 15 or I don't know how many years ago. And I signed up for it. I thought, this is great. This is perfect for me. And they actually send someone out to your house in Seattle with a box and the worms. And they teach you how to do it. You get a one-on-one, a face-to-face meeting with the worm compost tree. So I was so excited. And I had my garbage and my rotting lettuce and things.

[24:06]

And I put it in. And the worm composter went away. And I had my book. Worms eat my garbage. And so I set the whole thing up, and about a week later, the thing was just a mess. It was just flies and just disgusting things oozing out of the box. It was just... nightmare. I'd look in there. There was maybe one worm. And I don't think I even confessed this to my husband. I sat in front of the box and I wept. My head was on the bus. I can't even make things rot, right? So I walked away from the box. I walked away from it and about three weeks later I went back out And I opened that lid, and it was gorgeous in there. It was just filled with worms, having like the wildest worm parties you can imagine. You lift that soil out, and it's like black gold.

[25:09]

And so my 15 minutes, which I'm most proud of, I believe I appear in one of your cookbooks in the compost section. She does. It's true. Absolutely. And those worms are going strong, by the way. They have taught me a lot about rot. Wonderful. Is that okay? Is that okay? Is that okay? Did I do okay? Good. Well, let's find out what you're interested in bringing up and have a... It's just a little bit of a different forum. Anything you'd like to add, please? Let's see, the philosophy of greens is, well, first of all, we're vegetarian.

[26:10]

I think it's really to just prepare delicious food with really fresh ingredients and to stay true to you know, just kind of not classic presentations, but just like the food is what it is, you know. And we try to make it simple and delicious and fresh, and we try to just source as much as we can. Our goal is to really buy from people we know, support people we know, both in the food, the wine, you know, all aspects, everything we do, we're just wanting to feel very connected to the people who are producing the goods that we work with. You know, you could say that, oh, that's happening pretty commonly now. But it's really important to remember that 31 years from the inception of the restaurant, there was that ideal. And a large part was from practitioners working together shoulder to shoulder. And to know your food is to celebrate your food and to share your food, to grow it well.

[27:12]

And Annie has maintained an incredible... vitality and commitment. It is very rare, let me tell you as a grower, it is very rare for a chef and the executive chef of a thriving restaurant with a staff of 85 to come to the market not once a week, but twice a week every week. And he's there meeting the farmers. And it is a beautiful gift and event. And it's not anything other than absolutely the normal way to live, the humane way to live. And the restaurant is an extraordinary expression of that commitment. You also teach your servers to be completely invisible until something is needed, and then they're right there. Happy to hear that. You know, every day, we just never know. I really mean it. We just don't know what's going to happen. I'll tell you about check, please, in a moment. Yes. I take people there. Every time someone comes in front of town, it's sort of my anchor. to start teaching about San Francisco and about a different way of living.

[28:16]

I had a girlfriend, I'm from Indiana, and a girlfriend who I went to school with who's in Wisconsin trying to make goat cheese and grow organically and grow flowers, and she's like the lone voice in the wilderness. And so I'm just like, come here, I want to take you to this restaurant so that she can feel that she's not alone. And it's where I start teaching about a different way of living. And I think it brings us unbelievably important to have in San Francisco. Thank you. Thank you. And your staff does feel like a family. I have a favorite waiter that I love. He's amazing. It's really, it's, yeah, great. Thank you. I'm really happy to hear that. Thank you. Yes. I worked at Green Gulch on the farm like two years ago, and I remember you would come. Like, you were there at a time, and you were coming like every week or so, and you were bringing... all the other, like some other cooks with you, like walk around on the farm. And like, that was just really cool. It like made us as the farmers, like we're going to like feel really, really good.

[29:18]

Like, look, like this is someone who's actually like, it made the farmers connected with the person who's actually getting their food. Because sometimes at the farmer's side, we felt like, Well, we're just putting things in boxes and we don't know where it goes. It's hard work, too. It's really hard work. We're working really hard. And it's really important to say that the new generation of farmers at Sand Center is a beautiful, strong generation. Thank you for your work in the fields. And real gratitude to Sarah Tasker and to Jiryu, her partner and their baby who keeps everything lively and funny and a mess. And a great, joyful mess. And to Kayoum and the whole crew and the 10 apprentices that come from all over the country. to work and learn farming. One of the highlights of the visit is, of their stay and work and practice, is being able to go to Green's to celebrate the end of every season, to be around the table. And you know, one of the first things that happened at Green's long before it was fashionable was bringing farmers and growers and chefs together. And that happened at Green's Restaurant, a tasting of summer produce in the early 1980s.

[30:22]

Right? Yeah. And, you know, some of the farmers have been growing for years and had never sat down at the table and been served a beautiful meal, never seen what happened to the food. Now, you can think that's inconceivable now, but it was not inconceivable 30 years ago. And, in fact, it was the way it was. The growers never got to taste what it can taste like, and that happened at Green's when a whole bevy of chefs... gathered in the kitchen to cook a whole selection of beautifully grown food from different farms. And that growing of culture, I think, is grounded in a sense of practice and reverence and appreciation for all the ingredients, including the ingredients of deep friendship that make the food so lively and sustaining. Yeah. I had a question. Do you believe that there's now a genetic modification of food to be able to make it grow in less willing climates to maybe help starving cultures?

[31:24]

Do you believe that that is an infringement on the organic philosophy, or is that tradeoff worth the idea of being able to feed those who wouldn't normally be able to get food in their environment? I think that's a beautiful, strong, and provocative question. I don't know the answer. I don't know the full range of it. I'm answering this, okay? Just talk. Are you answering this? I think you are. You answer this. You are the authority. No, I'm not the authority. You're the person to answer this question. One reason I wanted to begin by talking about practicing at Upaya, where we're looking at the leading edge of... Real difficulty, real challenge is that there are so many different ways to take up the challenge and to respond. I truly, my heart and mind and training leads me to look. backwards. Look for the old solution. How did people feed themselves? What does it take to really be satisfied? This to me brings into play an application of the precepts.

[32:29]

What does it take to not take life, to not take the life of a plant in its essential nature and modify it and change it? What does it mean to find satisfaction and just enough not to take what's not given, not to steal from the next generation. What does that mean? That often may mean going backwards and finding out what that could be. What does it mean to be in deep relationship, the way lovers are in relationship with the ground and with food? What does it mean to speak truthfully and listen deeply? And what does it mean to have to, how do we have to modify our lives all the time by taking in... a full range of complicated food that may be more than what we actually need. So my application of mindfulness helps me look back. What were the original foods? Might they still be able to be grown well? What is the arc of taste? What are the heritage foods that deserve to be on the table still without any modification? I find myself linked. One of my true heroines on planet Earth is Vandana Shiva and the work that she's been doing in India with thousands of women

[33:32]

protecting the ancient seed without letting those seeds be modified, finding out how 75 different varieties of rice can be brought to the table in these troubling times and be served. So that's my application of mindfulness. But I also trust the field of science and learning and knowledge that may include some modification, some change. I trust that, respect that. We'll listen to it. but it isn't what I'm doing. I'll tend more toward going back to the original foods and also being satisfied with less. During the retreat that we did with the chaplains that I was describing, we agreed we would only eat what could be grown within 10 miles, really local, except for coffee and chocolate. We had a caveat. Chocolate and... We're not touching them. They're ancient crops. We... You know, it was so amazing watching a practitioner who trained at San Francisco Zen Center, Gina Harris is her name, and now Doshin, watching Doshin find out what could actually be raised or served right from our own backyard.

[34:45]

Now we say, okay, but this is happening. However, it is not easy to do, and it does mean a limited diet. You're going to eat a lot of beans. You're going to eat a lot of corn. You are, and it's going to be monotonous, and it's going to be delicious if you can find... the stomach and gut and digestive capacity to take that in. So, you know, there are lots of different ways to answer that. But I think you've heard me. Questions? Please. Yes. I wonder how you both became passionate about growing and you preparing and serving food. Were that passionate? You know, I don't really know how to answer that question. Are you passionate? You know, I don't feel like I'm passionate. I just feel very committed. I feel really committed to what I'm doing. And I feel really committed to just, you know, the connections between people.

[35:50]

And, you know, it's another variation on what Wendy... It's just another form of what Wendy was saying. I think it's... you know, these are times of real concern in terms of what's happening with our planet and what's happening with water in California. That's one of my big concerns. And just how, and also just what's, just how people, you know, sort of the lack of nourishment in how, in our lives, in our culture. And I feel that it's a, you know, for such a wealthy nation, we're so impoverished in so many ways. So I feel committed to just continuing to do what we do to sort of have that be some contribution I can make to health. Because I also feel that I really want people to feel that when they have a meal at Green's, that not only is everything really fresh, but you actually feel good after eating it. Because a lot of times in restaurants, things look so good, and you eat them, and you go home, and you've eaten all this butter, and you've eaten a lot of really rich food, and you don't really feel that good.

[36:56]

So I'm committed to that. But I'm also... I think it's just I'm committed to a lot of things around that. But I never really thought of myself as being passionate. But I just am committed to the work of doing it. I want to say that for me, I feel very grounded in my training. And my training began in this place. It actually began in Jerusalem, Israel. It continued and really blossomed and opened by training here. And, you know, one of the first people that I lived with at Tassajara was Catherine Ferenas, who is a primary teacher, a woman in her 80s now, who's, I think, is she still alive? Is Catherine still with us? Yeah, she had a fall a few days ago and is in a coma and in the care hospice and the community right now. So tonight, you know, being in this room, I remember Catherine and how committed and passionate she was in her quiet, strong and very pushy way to create hospitality in this community and to have it be represented through good food.

[38:05]

She was a steady and dedicated cook through good teaching and through a good communion with people, bringing people together around the table. So to train with her was really important in the early years and really I think we're all, those of us who know her or have practiced with her or extended community are think about her, hold her in our hearts right now. So you're passionate because of your friendships and your connections and also because of the work. Another person, we have her prints everywhere throughout Tassahara in the office, the work of Mayumi Oda, who's a Japanese person. She celebrated her 72nd birthday on June 2nd. She was in Japan. I spoke to her. She told me that people now at my age, I'm 64, Japanese people my age who've been growing food for generations are now the people who are volunteering in a whole brigade to go into Fukushima province and bring in fresh food to feed the people that are in there, knowing that if they're exposed to radiation, it takes 30 years for that radiation to settle into their bodies.

[39:14]

And they are in their 60s, and it's their work now to serve. These are people who have a dedicated meditation practice and... and know the value of real food and healthy food and want to make sure that the children of the world are fed well and understand that their life is more meaningful because of the opportunity to serve. And this is not just altruism. It's grounded in practice. It's an application of practice. I truly believe and can say that here in this place. It's that passion. I think it's what Annie said, dedication. You know, lifetime after lifetime you step in. So we're so incredibly lucky to be alive now. A couple of comments and then a question. One comment is that I have the joy and pleasure of working at Fort Mason and so I get to go to Green's mostly takeout because I can't afford to eat in the restaurant every day.

[40:17]

But takeout every day and I honestly will say that it's one of the reasons why I directed an organization at Fort Mason for so many years, for 28 years, is because of Green Restaurant. Wow. That's really true. That's my compliment. And this will lead ultimately into a question, but I do believe there's so many things that we don't need to buy in life. We do, but we don't have to buy food. And we have to eat, and we don't have to necessarily eat out, but at times we do, and I think it's like the most political thing we do is buy our food. And so to be able to be a consumer at a place like greens, it's just been a real training ground for me for so many years. And Wendy, when you said, you know, in response to the person about genetically modified. And sometimes, you know, like, I tend to look backwards, and it brings up a comment I heard David Brower say years ago, which is, he said, you know, when we've reached the edge of a cliff, everyone thinks that progress is to continue to move forward.

[41:31]

Progress is to continue to move forward. When you reach the edge of a cliff, progress is to turn around and move forward. Take the backward step. Turn your light inward. Exactly. that, but in terms of food and, you know, urban, especially majority of people with an urban environment and there's so many people who are poor, aren't too fast food because it's cheap and, you know, acute diabetes and lots of children and all these issues. I guess my question is, how to educate young people about food and about just sort of the movement of urban gardening, school gardening, just the need to touch the hearts and minds and bodies of young people, especially young people who live in inner cities.

[42:35]

Well, I think a big part of it is Kids got to eat good food at school. I feel that that would be a start. And I know that that's like such a huge... It's happening, but it's in the early stages of that really happening because all the budget cuts, et cetera. But I do think that that's part of it. I don't really know how to... I mean, I think that... I feel like a farmer's market proselytizer because I think that... Once people start shopping at farmer's markets, it's such a great thing. It's just a fun, unscripted deal, and you get to talk to other people, meet people, talk to people about all kinds of things. And I think that if people had more opportunity to do that, to just somehow be more connected to food, because it's amazing how quickly it's happened in this society for people to be so disconnected from, like,

[43:39]

just real fresh food, like kids that don't know what fruit is or they've never eaten a grape. We experience kids who've never eaten a grape. Yeah, so, I mean, and so I think... A grape. A grape. Yeah, in California. I know. That's a biggie. That's a tough one. May I just respond to Diane, too, just while the topic is out? On Monday, in a few days... 93 public school teachers from all over the country are gathering in North Berkeley at the Edible Schoolyard. Edible Schoolyard was the dream of a great chef who came to Zen Center and asked us, how can we be more alive to our food? This was in the 70s and sat in conversation at Zen Center about how food could really reach the people that need it. She's the owner of a wonderful, fancy, wonderful, not more than fancy, wonderful restaurant in North Berkeley. and one of the founders of the Edible Schoolyard Project in North Berkeley.

[44:40]

Now, after 15 years, the project is realizing it's not enough to just take care of the 1,000 students that are at King Middle School in North Berkeley, but also to spread the word to public school teachers. We recently hosted a wonderful doctor from Harvard Medical School who said it's not enough to train doctors. They have to be trained in culinary arts. So he's working at the Culinary Institute with a whole... This year, there was a wonderful article in the New York Times about the work he's doing training doctors so that good food can be included so that they know how to cook, not just know. They're brilliant doctors. Of course, they know the value of nutrition, but they don't know how to cook. So they're working, learning how to cook and then learning how to be advocates for better food in the hospitals. You know, and learning that, you know, yes, we do need to. And then when you taste that food, you realize how is it that this food is not available. Then you become more politically alert to the topic that you were bringing up. So I think that there is a kind of almost just a very, very strong movement now to link equity with social justice, equity and good food, to link them explicitly, not as ideas that you study.

[45:56]

in good courses in environmental ethics, but to link explicitly good food, family, farming, sitting at the table, access, and to have it begin at the lowest and truest level right away with young people in the schools. So we're really lucky to be alive now to be able to help with this movement. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[46:38]

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