This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, dear Sangha here in Green Dragon Temple. Hello to all of you joining us online now in the future and to everybody else who May just be out for a walk right now. My name is Eli. I'm one of the resident priests here at Green Gulch and currently serving as the head of practice. Before I begin, I want to give gratitude to our abbot jury for inviting me to this seat. And somehow he's managed to miss all three of my talks here. I don't... I'm just kidding. He is the hardest working abbot and Zen biz, so no love lost there.

[01:01]

Also gratitude to my teacher, Ed, for turning me all of these years. I think that'll make more sense later. So before we begin this morning, I wanted to guide us in a little meditation, if that's okay with you. So I invite you to close your eyes. you're not comfortable with that, you can just lower your gaze. So just start by simply feeling the weight of your body on the cushion or chair. Just aware and noticing that gravity is already holding you. It's a relationship that you do not have to create. It's already there. Become aware of your breathing and without effort, just watching air as it enters and as it's leaving.

[02:15]

Now what I'd like you to do is to gently bring to mind something that you ate yesterday. Maybe breakfast, maybe lunch, maybe just a cup of tea. And so notice that this is no longer food. It has already begun becoming you. The apple is becoming skin. Yes. The rice is becoming warmth. And the tea is becoming this very breath. I argued with this for years too. So now notice something else.

[03:27]

Notice every cell in your body has not finished its work. It's already being recycled. Cells die. New ones arise. Bacteria receive them. and other cells arrive. This body that we inhabit is continually letting go, continually receiving, continually composting. Nothing here is static. Nothing stands alone. This very body is not separate from the earth.

[04:35]

It's one expression of the earth's continual transformation. So slowly allow your awareness to expand beyond your body, into this room, throughout Green Gulch, the fields, the gardens, all the way past the compost piles, to the hawks overhead, the worms beneath the soil. None of them are outside of this moment. None outside of this breath.

[05:41]

Nothing in this moment stands alone. Nothing is static. We are already participating. So when you're ready, you can open your eyes. So I guess over a week now, I realized that residents, the wider Sangha that comes in, are not the only one practicing Buddhism at Green Gulch. Normally I talk about bubbles, but today I want to talk about compost. The great bodhisattva of transformation. The great bodhisattva of nothing wasted. So as many of you know, there's many, many residents that live here.

[06:54]

And part of what we do besides kind of formal practice is work. We take care of the lands, we cook food, we take care of each other. And so a couple of Fridays ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to work with the farm crew, dear friends. And the job assignment that I was given was compost, which I knew in advance and was kind of curious about. So we meet usually right in front of the bell, circle up, announcements, bow to each other as a whole community. And then each crew goes to their particular department, I guess you could say, Zen department, and has another little bow in. And usually we read a short verse or a passage or from a book and then have an individual check-in. And so the book we were reading... I happened to be reading that morning, was from Reb Anderson, former abbot of this temple, Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains.

[08:04]

It's a great title. I right heard it. So in it, he says that, I heard Suzuki Roshi say that Buddhism is not one of the isms like Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Buddhism is when Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism go beyond themselves. Buddhism is not Buddhism. The Buddha way is not to try to make everyone into a Buddhist. It is to appreciate how all beings are not under their own control, nor under our control, and to be devoted to all of these beings. It is to appreciate beings the way that they are and to examine the mistakes that I am making. So in short, some of what I took from that is Buddhism is not another ism.

[09:05]

It continuously goes beyond itself. Become intimate with your mistakes and that no understanding is complete. So I'll give my best attempt. This week also we had a group, Sangha Week, a Sangha visiting us, studying the Ginjo Koan, and they're still studying over the yurt, but to them I wanted to quote Dogen. He said, to study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by the 10,000 things or myriad things. A lot of things. And perhaps I think that's exactly what compost is teaching us. Nothing in the pile remains only itself. The apple is actualized by bacteria, the bacteria by fungi, the fungi by worms, the worms by soil, and the soil by rain.

[10:14]

None of these things exist alone. Everything is realized through everything else. So after the reading, we just had a kind of a round of check-ins. I don't know if I was supposed to be first. Anyways, I blurted out, today I'm willing to put down my religion and try on a new one. I thought I meant compost. But anyways, the day started. We bowed in. myself, Daniel was driving, Lu Ting was riding with me in the back of the pickup, and Nick was waiting for us down by the compost. So it's really kind of fascinating. The compost, if you don't know where it is, it's all the way down at the end of the property, and the kitchen and the compost buckets are all the way at this end, for the most part. I guess the guest house and yurt are a little further.

[11:16]

But we collected the buckets and started driving down to the compost. It was really beautiful driving across Green Gulch from the front to the back. We could say from the front or the back to the front. But, you know, Lu Ting mentioned it was kind of like a ride at Disneyland. What I now think of it as is kind of like a gondola at Green Gulch. So we were just standing in the back of the bed wind going through her hair, going over my head. And we were both, I think, in this kind of silence of just absorbing what was being brought in. And I remember that she broke the silence by saying, I love compost because it was the first thing I did on the farm for work practice. I'm like, ah, me too. And she said, I love seeing where everything begins. I was like, wow, in my head.

[12:17]

And then I think I did say out loud, I was thinking that this is where everything ends. But it was interesting. By the end of the day, I realized that neither of us were right and that compost is not where things end. They're not where things start. Compost is where things belong. So I'd want to... express a little bit more about this bodhisattva. And I really don't actually mean this in metaphor, but actually as a true expression of our practice. Compost receives everything, rejects nothing, transforms everything, and also returns everything. Isn't that what a bodhisattva does? So I do believe that this compost is the bodhisattva of transformation, of nothing wasted.

[13:19]

Avalokiteshvara, in some images, has 1,000 hands, all serving, hearing the cries of the world and extending an umbrella. A compost pile has billions. It has bacteria, fungi, worms. It's amazing. I was kind of cracking open the... the manure, and out came like, I'm not joking, like a dozen or more worms and just a little clump this big. There's also microbes, just to name a few of these hands. So I thought that instead of just talking about this bodhisattva, that I could pay homage and actually build a living statue, if that's okay with you. So Niyosho, can I have the land, please? And also, actually, why don't we get the paper towels out as well right now?

[15:01]

Sorry, thank you. So the first layer that we use in compost are paper towels. And to a degree now, or even when they're in the pile, they're almost invisible. I don't think any of you came to Green Gulch to pay a visit to the paper towels or to bow to them. They aren't what we'd consider maybe beautiful. Nobody writes poetry about them. Maybe I'm sure someone has. And yet, without them, the pile doesn't quite... Breathe right. And ecology reminds us that ecosystems are dependent on how things quietly relate.

[16:02]

Gravity, oxygen, microbes, fungi. The people who silently wash the dishes. GP, thanks. Excuse me, guest students, thank you. The people who fold the towels and make the beds. The people who light the Zendo before dawn. Thank you, Ray and Doan Ryo. So the Bodhisattva vow is not always dramatic. Sometimes it looks like a paper towel. So before we lay down these paper towels, I have a couple of questions for you to reflect on. So the first one is, what invisible relationships are supporting your life right now? You can think about it. 15 seconds. You have so much support.

[17:06]

Second question is, what ordinary things have you been holding your practice all along? So again, what kind of ordinary things have been holding your practice? all along. And then the last question, what have you stopped noticing because it's always been there? This pile, paper towels. You'll not normally see paper towels go on an altar, but right now it's kind of okay.

[18:19]

So can we have layer two, the food, please? So layer two, food. So, you know, in essence, food is nourishment. And I believe there's a pretty strong emphasis on not wasting, especially nourishment, in our practice. And we receive nourishment constantly from food, from friendships, from feedback, from silence, and from dharma. Food, if you think about it, carries kind of this ancient generosity.

[19:25]

It's always given itself up without any expectation and things back. It never asks to remain food and completely offers itself. So again, every day we're nourished by conversations, by learning, by grief, by friendship, by beauty and silence. So a couple more questions before we offer the food. What have I consumed? But actually, I think the more important question is, what have I actually digested? What teachings have I thrown away? According to our sixth precept. Zen is not about accumulating teachings. It's about actually allowing them to circulate and inform our lives.

[20:28]

And so compost teaches us that nourishment fulfills itself by continuing and by transforming. You should have seen all the residents were a little creeped out this morning when the tanto had a practice in the compost bucket with a little spoon and a fork because you have to get small pieces for this. But now you all know. Had to get the customary banana peels and eggs in there, too. Okay, see, this is what happens out in the field. You get a little stuck. Thank you, dear Nourishment. We're ready for the greens. So next we put on greens.

[21:48]

You could call them weeds, trimmings. And nature doesn't call them that. It's only what we do. Acknowledging that a weed is simply a plant, that we exist simply where we think it doesn't belong. And I wonder how often we do this to ourselves. How many parts of ourselves have we named weeds? Fear, grief, ADHD, anxiety, restlessness, old age, sickness. So a couple of questions before we offer the greens. Which parts of your life have you decided don't belong? Take a moment with that one. Which parts of your life have you decided don't belong?

[22:49]

Next question, what emotion have you considered a distraction? And the last question, what part of yourself keeps showing up asking to participate instead of disappear? What part of you continues to show up and wants to participate instead of disappear? So what if Buddha nature is wider than our preferences? So this dear compost asks, not should this exist, but how can this participate? How can we practice together? So now this is the cool trick that Nick taught me.

[24:03]

So instead of just dumping them on, we do this kind of one, two, three. All right, there we go. Thank you, dear greens. It's interesting I put it in the same bucket that I put nourishment. But I guess it's, well, you could figure that out. I wonder if this is a first for the Zenda, perhaps. All right, so I thought about this in preparation. I think it will. Smells real up here.

[25:23]

So we spend enormous, enormous amounts of time and energy avoiding the shit in our life. Shitty days, shitty jobs, shitty relationships, shitty mistakes. But compost does offer another teaching. But before we... that teaching. I have several questions for you to contemplate. Looking back, what piece of shit in your own life became compost? What disappointment became wisdom? What grief softened your heart?

[26:34]

What mistakes enlarged your compassion? I am purposely using this this word, because a lot of times that's how we view these things. And the shit is not outside of our path. It becomes one of our conditions for awakening, for truly turning. Even though we may like it to be sometimes, the shit is not outside of our life. It's one of the primary conditions for transformation. for liberation. Again, not because Zen folks think suffering is good, but because suffering should not be wasted. Zen practice asks us not to ignore our shit.

[27:55]

Definitely don't hide your shit. Don't worship your shit. be a thing. So again, we turn this shit with awareness and we tend to it with sincerity and reverence. Oh, boy. The flip thing, I don't know about this one. Okay. Nick is so much more skillful. He has like a bulldozer with, you know, anyways, it's not a yogurt lid that totally got on the iPad. All right. Thank you, shit. Okay.

[28:57]

Now we get to the good part. Turning the pile. I will sterilize this kitchen. I'm so sorry to not ask, but I figured metal is okay. Place the fork down so no one steps on it. So practice is not about removing what is difficult. It's introducing oxygen or breath, perhaps. Relationship and movement. Time turning resentment, turning grief, turning joy, turning confusion, turning our entire life.

[29:58]

So recently, I guess because I live at Green Gulch now, I don't know, three months, ecology, I've been a little bit more interested in it. And it really or literally means the study of home, not as a place, but in the form of relationship. It asks what conditions allows for life to live together, to thrive. Buddhism, I think, is asking a very similar question. We call it dependent arising. Nothing exists by itself. Nothing becomes itself by itself. Everything is quite literally a meeting place. A forest is not made of trees. This body is not made of organs. The sangha is actually not made of people. It's all relationships. It's all participation. It's all practice. And a compost pile isn't just made from scraps.

[31:18]

It's made by continuously changing form. Nothing disappears. Nothing remains. Relationships just changing. So this... to forest, to body, to planet, to universe, is dependent arising, and it's simply not just a philosophy. If I had to express it in one sentence, I would say it's the ecology of being, the agriculture of awakening itself. So in our Zen practice, we're very much like compost, becoming intimate with our mistakes and all other matters of our life. Compost, dear compost, becomes intimate with everything.

[32:23]

Nothing remains at arm's length. Nothing remains permanently condemned. Nothing remains waste. You think of our great teachers, Dogen, Suzuki Roshi, Reb, Mel, my teacher Ed, Linda Ruth, Fu, Mako, Abbot David, so many other Abbotts, so many other amazing teachers have tried to express to us one thing. Be ordinary. Become ordinary. Going back to Warm Smiles from Cold Mountains, Reb says, we accept and become intimate with our ordinariness and the ordinariness of others. So as I look here at this profound pile of ordinariness, again, something that is sacred and that I revere.

[33:30]

Going back to our 13th century teacher, Dogen, he said, firewood becomes ash, and it does not become fire or wood again. So the apple does not become the apple again. The paper towel, no more paper towel again. The manure doesn't become manure. Well, it becomes manure again, maybe, but it becomes other things. Again, nothing returns to what it was, and yet nothing is lost. Ash nourishes the soil, soil nourishes the roots, and the roots nourish the forest. So this is the compost teaching. It's not just merely a pile of ingredients. It's transformation itself. And it dissolves identities.

[34:34]

I don't think I mentioned that. Forms disappear. Relationships continue. Teacher, student, success, failure, good Buddhist, bad Buddhist. It's all just participation. All just practice. All just soil. There's really no independent self. It's just all becoming. So to wrap things up, because it's about that time, a couple of Thursdays ago, actually the day before I went and did this composting adventure, our Abbot Jiryu was teaching a Thursday night class. It's kind of like, you know, kind of like a Dharma talk kind of a class. And anyways, towards the end of it, he had us turn to somebody that we were sitting next to and speak to them.

[35:35]

as if they were Buddha. I mean, we all are Buddha, but like Buddha, Buddha. Don't worry. I see some of you sweating, thinking that I'm going to pull that on you. Don't worry, I won't. But in that exercise, me and Amir, one of the guest students that was visiting us, were trying that out. And I know I was kind of hot. Everything was kind of, for both of us, a little clumsy. And the second part of that, the exercise was to actually speak it as a sutra to the other person. I think that's what it was. Was it? Do you remember? Okay. Looking at the residence there somewhere else. But I think that was the prompt. So say hello to the Buddha, whatever you have to say, and then say a sutra. Very, very hard. However, the next day at our compost adventure, it came quite easily. At the end of our... Our time together, Daniel, Nick, Lutang, and myself, bowed to the compost.

[36:45]

And I felt a deep warmth of gratitude, and the words came out, thank you. And I think that's apropos to say to a Buddha. So, thank you. Thank [...] you. Too many eyes, two hands, but thank you. And for the Sutra verse, nothing came easily at the moment. But since I have you here, dear compost, I don't think that's how sutures start. Dear compost, nothing asks to remain itself. The apple lets go of the apple. The weed lets go of the weed. The paper towel, the peel, the worm, the shit. None refuse the turning. May this mind become like compost, rejecting nothing, wasting nothing, holding nothing apart.

[37:56]

May everything we call useless ripen into wisdom. compost body, compost world, compost universe. May all beings be nourished. I think we have a few minutes for questions, comments, concerns. So, I went through an extremely difficult time about five years ago. And... I realized no shit, no lotus flower. So pay attention. The gift is to pay attention and find that being in the present is where the gift is. Thank you, Jennifer. And I was not calling people paper towels, but this space that you all come into every Sunday is often set up, prepared, and greeted by Jennifer.

[39:01]

So thank you. for taking such great care. Anyone else? I'm okay with going out with the baby. I got more bubbles. No online. Thank you for such a unique Dharma talk. I was wondering if you could speak just a little more about the participation. I understand the practice and the importance of regularity, but as far as the choice points of how to show up or where to participate in the process of difficulty, the suffering... S-H-I-T. I don't know why. So you're talking about how to participate in the... Your own composting process. I don't think we have a choice.

[40:02]

Actually, I think it's maybe just becoming more aware about how my body, speech, mind, my actions, my engagements, how am I participating? I think we have a little bit of direction, effort, sincerity that we can give to that. So I hope that helps. You can have a follow-up if that didn't... I need to stew on it a bit more. Turn. Turn, okay. Turn, that's what we say. Oh, very back there, right in the corner. No, we'll bring you a microphone. Thanks. Yeah. What about the things that can't compost and don't transform into anything when they get into the pile?

[41:10]

So we should invent some technologies and science to take care of that. We can mitigate which products that we use. We can pass legislation. We can have companies that attend to waste in a more productive way. And I think that those parallels can be made in our own life. Sometimes we need certain types of professionals to help us through, whether that be relational, whether that be surgery, or something of that nature. So there's things that do not... I do think, however, all things do transform. If you were to look at the earth maybe three million years from now, something would happen to that. But as far as our responsibility in the world is to tend to and turn compost in a way that feels healthy.

[42:16]

And when things don't fit, recycling bin, trash, reuse. the best that I got for you. All teachings are not complete. And I would still say all those things are included. Sorry, we got one more in the back. Lee May. Lee May was wonderfully heading the farm crew on the day I was out there. Thank you for that experience, Lee May. There's time for both. Thank you for bringing the compost into the zendo.

[43:28]

I think maybe just to more of a comment, but something else I've been really reflecting on in this compost process is like, like compost is really intentional. Cause it's like everything will compost in 3 million years, but like we need it now. Like we need good soil now or sooner than that. And so it feels very much like this practice is like really intentional. And like the way that we bring these pieces of our lives together, like it's intentional and it will happen, but it might take like lifetimes, you know, but we're trying to do it a little faster. And at the same time, like we have to wait, like we just let the piles sit for certain amounts of time and then let the microorganisms do their thing and let the worms do their thing. And that sitting and like, not touching it for periods of time is also important.

[44:30]

Like we're not turning it like constantly. Yeah. So I think that also feels relevant to practice in terms of like those periods where like we do the work and we're intentional, but then we really just let go and we really just like let our life do its thing without putting so much control over it. And also, if anyone wants to experience this in real life, you should come talk to me afterwards. I was going to try to get you to plug. You've been doing a great job. And we also do a lot of things that don't involve food waste or poop, a lot that doesn't involve that. So come talk to me. Yes, Lime has been generously, yeah, attaining towards people who want to volunteer. And yes, you don't have to touch the manure, but even if you're picking weeds or hoeing, planting, it is all part of this compost pile that we're sitting in, the lands that we are a part of.

[45:30]

So please come to join us. Get the actual hands in the dirt experience. We would welcome you. Was there one more question over there? Thank you so much for the talk. I'm curious about the questions that are not asked. How do we discover what needs the tending? There's something in your body that might give you an indication, a natural intuition. Sometimes we need education or to learn or to listen a little bit more and then a little bit more. I don't have a right or wrong or a perfect time to tend, but I think that tending is kind of like the bodhisattva attitude.

[46:42]

We have a lot of attitudes, but that's one of them, that we're constantly just trying to tend to this moment, to this body. to what's in front of us relationally. So always tend, but not rigorously, with softness and an open heart. Okay, we've got one online, and then we're going to go have tea, compost, and you can visit the sculpture we've made. See, there's a little wormy right there. I'm sorry. This is a question from Tyler. Hello, Tyler. In living with chronic illness, where there are parts of my body that I want to throw away, how might I continue practicing how to welcome and compost in the context of ongoing illness?

[47:44]

Thank you, beautiful talk. Thank you for your really deep question. I think that sickness, old age, and death, we have a whole slew of teachings on just that. And I am sorry to hear that you're practicing in such a way. I don't have a perfect answer for you. It's hard to tell someone to just keep showing up or hang in there. Or maybe there's this, maybe there's that. But to know that you are supported, you can hold yourself in a wider context. The overwhelm of sickness, old age, and death can feel very encasing and entrapping to our identity. And that makes sense because it's physical.

[48:48]

It's like the most now and immediate thing. But as much as you can, bring forth the other parts of your being, and also include the part of you that is suffering as well. I'd be happy to also help connect you to people who have experienced more physical ailments in our community, but that is the answer I have for now. Please reach out to me if you'd... like to talk more or be connected to someone. Thank you, Tyler. 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.

[49:52]

by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[50:06]

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