This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Can you hear me? Thank you, everyone, for being here this morning, gathering in the Zen Doh. and on the Zoom. Because of global warming, the weather patterns are changing all over the world, and the Green Goch Farm is not the exception. We had such nice weather for a while with blue sky. However, last a few days, we are back to this gloomy, cloudy, cold summer. which I know of.

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But we definitely need more rain. The farm is beautiful because of the farmer's daily hard work. Squash and potatoes are vigorously growing, as well as we have been consuming our lettuce, broccoli, chard, In contrast to the beauty of the surroundings of our natural world, I have been feeling heavy, bit depressed, and shocked by the national and international news in 2022. Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24th.

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Many Ukrainian cities have been bombarded. Many Ukrainian civilians have been tortured, raped, and murdered. Thousands of both Ukrainian and Russian soldiers have been killed and wounded. has caused Europe's largest refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 6.4 million Ukrainians fleeting the country and a third of the population displaced. Nationally, as you know, 10 people, almost all of them African-Americans, were killed in a mass shooting at Buffalo, New York on May 17.

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The shooting was considered one of the deadliest racial-motivated massacres in recent American history. On May 20, the man opened fire on a Taiwanese congregation in Laguna Woods, California. Killing one and injuring five, his motivation was politically hatred. On May 24, 19 children and two adults were killed in a shooting at the elementary school in Ubalde, Texas. And the list goes on and on. We just don't hear on the news. So many heartbreaks.

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So many violence. So many hatred and ignorance. Today, I'd like to try to talk about our daily practice. and Buddhist teachings relate to human sufferings and psychological trauma, as well as sharing my story about investigating self, which has been shaped by two different cultures and a specific historical period of time. And at the end of this talk, there is Q&A, I would love to hear your story about how your karma or yourself is shaped by your culture, by your language, and your specific historical period of time.

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the late and venerable Vietnamese Zen master, Thich Nhat Hanh, who was exiled from Vietnam in 1966 after expressing opposition to the Vietnam War and refusing to take sides. He was nominated for Nobel Peace Prize by Martin Luther King Jr. in 1967. This Thich Nhat Hanh mentioned in his book, Understanding Our Mind, that the primary function of our store consciousness is to store and preserve all the seeds, maintaining all seeds, keeping them alive so that they are available to manifest.

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is the most basic function of our store consciousness. He goes on. Seeds give phenomena the ability to perpetuate themselves. If you plant a seed in springtime, by autumn, a plant will mature and bear flowers. Cram these flowers, new seeds will fall to the earth, where they will be stored until they sprout and produce new flowers. Our mind is a field in which every kind of seed is sown, seeds of compassion, joy, and hope. Seeds of sorrow, fear, and difficulties.

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Every day, our thoughts, words, and deeds flood new seeds in the field of our consciousness. And what these seeds generate becomes the substance of our life. This is true. This war, or any other wars, is planting seeds of hatred, fear, and misery in the minds and bodies of hundreds of millions of people. It is not just the people of Ukraine. It's also in the countries around and all over the world. Not only that, these seeds will give a terrible harvest, terrible fruits in years and in decades to come.

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Every day, this continues. Plants move and produce more seeds, like this were now. or even centuries ago. The fact that nations are ultimately built on stories, and these seeds are the stories we are planning to create now. The war in Ukraine is starting to create the stories that are going to have an impact in the future. I am very surprised by the fact that I am so affected by this war.

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Every day I have been checking the news media to make sure that the nation of Ukraine exists, still exists, and the Ukrainian people are holding off from the Russian invasion. I became very curious about my seeds. which seeking the information and raging against this invasion. I do not have family members or friends in Ukraine. Or, luckily, I have never experienced war in my life. I am the generation which was born after World War II in Japan. and what's called the children growing up not knowing the world by the older Japanese generation.

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When I carefully think back on my school history education through elementary, middle, and high schools in Japan, I learned some major world events. including wars, but definitely not into the depth. I learned the basic outline of Japanese invasions and empires throughout Southeast Asia and Polynesian countries. However, I don't think I learned anything about how much harm and destruction the Japanese military caused. for these nations and people. Both my grandfathers fought in World War II, and luckily, both came back from the war after Japan lost and the war ended.

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However, I had never had any war stories from my grandfather's. Actually, I did not have a chance to meet one of them. My maternal grandfather died before I was born. His wife, my grandma, and his daughter, my mother, told me that. He was suffering from PTSD. after coming back from the war, drinking a lot, and sometimes being physically violent to my grandmother. But there was no such diagnosis of PTSD at that time. People who suffered PTSD for the war were considered simply as war victims or crazy people.

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Their families often suffered from violence and abnormal anxiety and behaviors from the PTSD war veterans. My paternal grandfather just kept his mouth shut about the war. I don't know what he did, what he saw, and what he experienced during the war. He just did not want to talk about it. Many Japanese who experienced the end of World War II tell us that. The world around them changed 180 degrees after the war. What they are told and believed to be right. during the war became long after war.

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They realized that many stories which the Japanese government promoted during the war were just propaganda, including a story that Japan was winning the war until the end. Many Japanese and Americans and probably people around the world learned about the tragedies of two nuclear bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki cities in Japan in August. We learned a lot about the tragic incident bombarded cities, river full of skinless dead bodies who were instinctively looking for water after the bomb exploded and people were surrounded by fire and extreme heat.

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We learned about people's sufferings. Radiation caused cancers in generations of the families and years of discrimination against them. However, We did not learn much about the atrocity of the Pearl Harbor attacked by Japanese military with the Kamikaze Air Force. During my graduate school period in the United States, the September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9-11, happened in 2001, more than 20 years ago now.

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You may or may not remember, but they were a series of four coordinated suicide airplane terrorist attacks. carried out by the Islamic extremist al-Qaeda against the United States. Two of the planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City. A third plane hit the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. And the fourth plane crashed. in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Almost 3,000 people were killed during the 9-11 terrorist attacks, which triggered major U.S. initiatives to combat terrorism. This war on terrorism not only divided our college campus

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and small community, but also the whole nation seemed to be polarized by pro-war and anti-war. I remember that I joined a local peace organization in a small college town in Illinois and stood with anti-war signs every Saturday on the street corner with other members. Yet, I felt powerlessness, like right now. No matter how much we voiced against the war on the street, on the papers, on campus, the war kept going. We are not able to stop the war. During that time, I joined and organized several peace marches and teachings.

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One of them was the peace march in Washington, D.C. on April 20, 2002, against the war on terrorism. The next notes were from my journal. I still have same similar feelings to the current war between Russia and Ukraine, although my note was written 20 years ago. Somehow, I feel like I'm in a loop. It is a kind of Alice in Wonderland with the same moving picture over and over again. The same propaganda, the same violence, the same suffering.

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In Washington, D.C. on April 20, 2002, the weather was sunny with occasional showers. Approximately, 75,000 people from all over the United States joined the March for Peace. People from diverse ethnic backgrounds and age group came together protest wars and asked for justice. We were frustrated by the unjustified thousands of innocent deaths. and distractions around the world. We discussed it with the economic disparity in a world that is created by a small number of people with power and wealth, who further try to expand their political and economic control using the war on terrorism.

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Activists discussed the problems and alternative solutions to war and violence at four major rallies. One, Colombian mobilization. Two, Israel-Palestine conflict. Three, IMF World Bank demonstration. Four, April 20th mobilization. We marched in protest to wars in Middle East, Afghanistan, and Iraq, as well as impending actions in Colombia, the Philippines, and North Korea. Many raised our voices against the violence in Palestine and criticized the US mass media for reporting only one-sided stories. Others marched for immigrants' rights and questioned the civil liberty in this country.

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Some were simply seeking an end to the violent retaliations. We marched from the Washington Monument down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol building embraced by the power of joy, and desperation while cradling our hope for justice and peace. I wonder if something has changed since then. Did we, the young adult back then, 20 years ago, improve the situation for the younger generations?

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When I see more younger people with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts than 20 years ago, and more extreme weather patterns and natural disasters and crisis. I feel like we failed. Last 16 years, I have been living in a North American Buddhist community. And every month, Once or twice, we perform yaku fusatsu ceremonies, or so-called full moon and new moon ceremonies. Yaku means abbreviated. Or simple, fusatsu means to continue good praxis, or to stop unwholesome action, or karma.

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It is considered to be a precept ceremony when we reaffirm our commitment to live according to the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts, our ethical guidelines for daily life. This is an ancient ceremony rooted in pre-Buddhist India. with Vedic lunar sacrifices performed on the nights of the new and full moon. At that time of Shakyamuni Buddha, 2,600 years ago, these sacrifices were no longer carried out, but the new and full moon occurrences were still observed by the Hindus, as holy days of purification and fasting.

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According to legend, when Buddha Senda sent the first monks and nuns to carry their practice into the world, he was aware of the lonely battles in front of them. In order to motivate them, during times of struggles, but to ensure that they support and sustain each other's practice, he instructed them to gather in groups once a month on a full moon and perform a simple ceremony of precepts renewal. This began as a simple recitation of all the rules of conduct that monks and nuns had to follow, and over time evolved into a confession and repentance ceremony, during which the monks and nuns would speak up if they had violated any of the rules and vows and to do better in the future.

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Since the time of the Buddha, this ceremony has been transformed from India through China and to Japan, and eventually to other parts of the world like North America, changing over time and developing many faces. During the ceremony, we recite. A disciple of Buddha does not kill. A disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. A disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexuality. A disciple of Buddha does not lie. intoxicate mind or body of self or others.

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A disciple of Buddha does not surrender. A disciple of Buddha does not place self at the expense of others. A disciple of Buddha is not possessive of anything. A disciple of Buddha does not harbor ill will. A disciple Buddha does not disparage the triple treasure. When I think about war, I think we, the human beings, violate each one of ten inhibitory bodhisattva precepts. However, in Mahayana Buddhism, the precepts are often considered as a guideline for people to show how to live your life instead of the rules which you must follow.

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The imposition of a rigid morality is foreign to the Mahayana Buddhist spirit. Are we, the bodhisattvas, able to find skillful means to encourage ourselves and others to refrain from harm without imposing a rigid morality? That is a loop I fall in sometimes and cannot get out of it, leaving me with feelings of powerlessness, helplessness like 20 years ago the commitment to our precepts definitely allows us more opportunity to interact and communicate deeply and intimately with one another with other beings including

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non-sentient beings, if you commit not to harm others, and even when you violate your vows, if you commit to confess and repent your false actions, I think others may feel safer around you. And there are more opportunities that they may open up and share their lives with you. When someone is suffering, first, I will try to listen to them deeply if they let me to do so. If their sufferings are similar to my experience, even though they may not be exactly the same, I will voice and share my experience in order to tell you and tell them that you are not an isolated case.

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Even if the cause of sufferings are due to the complicated global affairs such as war, I still voice my opinions as a human being. who has experienced violence, discrimination, and hatred in the society we live. I was listening the story of a Ukrainian Greek Catholic chaplaincy father, who was three years in the front line of the Eastern Ukrainian war. He said, why is chaos but the dimension in which human beings exist?

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And the mission of the chaplaincy is to preserve humanity in the chaos of war. Humanity is not merely a word or an abstract idea. It is realized in our capacity to choose good, in our capacity to seek truth, and in our capacity to contemplate beauty. However, maintaining humanity also requires experiencing pain. The Catholic father used to take a walk with a soldier during the war to observe and contemplate sunset and sunrise until the soldier was killed.

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I try to go for a walk every day for my health. I normally walk to the beach. When I see the ocean, I put my hands in gas shore and I am thankful for the energy in my body which allows me to come to see the ocean and another day of life. And I wish that People of Ukraine also have such moments in their lives to feel something worth or meaning to live another day under the war. And I wish that people of Ukraine and the nation of Ukraine will be able to re-establish peaceful daily life as soon as possible. During my daily morning service in Azendo, performing, chanting, bowing, I remind myself that my bow is also to people who are suffering, oppressed, and discriminated against.

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And I bow to maintain my humanity in this unjustified world. society, which appears sometime, in order to show that solidarity to people's sorrow, courage, determination, and dignity in our and in their chaotic life. I cannot stop war. I cannot stop racial discrimination. I cannot stop gun violence. But I will continue my voice against war, against racial discrimination, and against any violence, including guns. Great spiritual traditions, including them, offer stories of enlightenment, bliss, knowledge, divine ecstasy, and the highest possibilities of human spirit.

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But I think that they are not the goal of spiritual life. In the end, Spiritual life is not seeking or gaining some extraordinary condition or spiritual powers. What special powers? If we are not able to find appreciation and gratitude in the most basic and ordinary of our daily life, connect, and touch one another authentically and intimately. The most exceptional spiritual accomplishments do not make much sense to me. Brother David Stengel Rust, who is a Catholic Benedictine monk and studied them,

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with Suzuki Roshi at Tasahara Monastery, says in his book, Greatfulness, the Heart of Prayer. Together is the word that makes the goal of the religious quest. To find meaning means finding how all belongs together and to find one's place. in that universal belonging. I hope that our daily work and practice in a Zen center, such as washing dishes, cooking, kitchen crews, thank you, and cleaning toilets, weeding, planting lettuce, preparing guest beds, responding emails, snaking sweat pipes, as well as chanting and bowing, all helps us and allow us to recognize the preciousness of our daily life, our own as well as others, and give us a sense of responsibility and connection to one another, in spite of

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our cultural differences, our color of skin, sexual orientation and gender, and our religious or political beliefs. Thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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