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. I just realized that... I don't come back to that. I want to thank the disc crew. They're still working. As I was making my lay of me up. I want to thank everyone for being here and for taking out Class of Haya this summer.

[01:10]

We're supporting Class of Haya. Some of you have been coming for years and supporting Class of Haya. Some of you have been working here on staff. This is the last environment talk of the summer season. Last weekend, retreats, workshops, some of your guests. I just feel legally grateful that everyone's here taking care of myself. Bless you. I want you to take a moment. You know, it's a difficult time. In many ways, you know, this planet, and it's very difficult for our city leaders.

[02:19]

And I know that many people are concerned what's going to happen, but the decision about whether the United States will send bombs into Syria. And also, I'm going to talk a little bit later about the Keystone XL pipeline. Another decision that's pending. I'd like to take a moment, in whatever way you do it, to just let me silence. I invite our leaders to be wise to study wisdom. and compassion. And from here in Tasahari, send that envy. It took a moment to do that. Now there's a saying in Zen and in Logan, Zen after Logan, the voice saying that the entire universe is the true human body.

[04:24]

The entire universe being the true human body points to the way we're all completely interconnected. John Muir, when he was up in the Sierra, taking notes to me or start reading. I wrote something like, when you really look carefully that any, anything, any species, any particular leaf, you take a rock, even a single glass of water and study it, you realize that it's pitched to everything else in the universe. See, my kind of idea against him is something we need to be reminded of. I don't want to say anything new. I was going to remind myself of some things that you already know, but don't necessarily know how to map this.

[05:40]

Usually we experience some disconnect between our own notion of who we think we are, a disconnect between ourself and the whole universe. You only see it to ourselves as I live so intimately into woman. It's scary. We don't control unless we have to be any grateful for it. So one side is my tendency to want to protect ourselves in order to have some control. And there's a practice of, say, of influencing. what happens, and then sometimes they say, Zen is, doesn't, this city, still must, and it's pending a day, pending a day means taking care of the environment.

[07:08]

It can actually be, it can actually be taken care of our human body. We begin with ourselves, finding alignments, finding ourselves at home in our lives, which means making friends with what's sometimes painful. By the time I'm going to make friends with the results of doing three periods of yoga today. The last time I did three days of yoga in the day was the last tutor. So I'm feeling it. When I sat down there and then I took this posture, I realized, oh, it's much easier to bear the discomfort when

[08:13]

when I'm in this hospital, in this body of closure, or this body of liberation. Body and mind of liberation. So we say body and mind of liberation is to say that our freedom is not what we think it is. Our freedom is to be willing to be who we are completely, which includes all the discomfort. If we have some other idea of how we should be, then that's a kind of bondage. So taking this posture is a way of expressing our true being. way beyond who we think about it.

[09:17]

So it may not be so comfortable to face letting go of who we think about it. But there's always something much bigger than I saw being manifest. And even though I smart and So we don't necessarily know the end results. We don't necessarily know who he's doing. So there's an event story about Yin-Yang. Yin-Yang is logged in China and he's sleeping. And his brother, Zhao Wu, comes up and says, Too busy. Hey, you know the story. So what is that?

[10:23]

So I get to speak, sweetie. But it goes to the couple to say, you should know there's one that is not easy. Now this was kind of an English statement. Where is that one? Where is the one we've not been? So now we'll come back and says, does that mean there's a second moon? But he doesn't want to set up. He's concerned about setting up some kind of idealized reality. You've got a second moon, so Yin Yang holds up the moon. Which moon is this?

[11:24]

And that will sit no more. So, in the midst of all of our everyday life activities, you know, do you think, you know, food is doing this activity? I know there are people who are coming to these repeat workshops this weekend, wanting to learn how to do meditation. And so we offer some instruction how to do medication. And it's helpful to have some body to work with. It's helpful to have a notion of alignment.

[12:25]

It's helpful to understand body from the inside, to understand body in relation to reality. And at the same time, you eventually realize you can't do it. You can't do it. It's too big for you. To do that is actually too big. To do any activity, in that sense, is bigger than yourself. We say it's kind of an instrument with just a patient. Infinite dissipation with whatever appears in a relational way. So this is the, to even see who's appearing is a practice of compassion.

[13:29]

To hear, feel, have some sense of what is arising in some form which is limited. And because it's limited, it always has some aspect of suffering. It's fair. Not so easy to accept our limits. Not so easy to accept our limits by self, and not so easy to accept the limits of others. Really, the limits of others when they're doing something stupid. They're doing something that... cause it needs to stress or is disrespectful harmful in some way. So then what to do? We can sometimes call for bringing awareness. So maybe that's the thought, what to communicate to the president. For last week,

[14:38]

I joined an old friend, Shodo. She was playing Songdina Shodo. She was here doing a ball practice game a couple of years ago when I was here. And she told me that when she was here, she had the idea of walking along the route of the pipeline. We talked about it various times and I told her at some point, well, if you actually do this, I'll support you in some way. She actually did. In July, she and a small group of people started riding from Hidaski and Alveda, down through Alveda, through Montana.

[15:45]

And then they just crossed over into South Dakota, to the Northwest. Northwest, probably some people that started and met them. The first day, the first morning I was there, I was watching the shows. Now, the way the walk is going is that there's this staff, the staff of Jisoo Bodhisattva. So you know that. There's a little image of Jisoo down there, just across from the kitchen. A little Jisoo Bodhisattva, and Jisoo Bodhisattva's staff has rings. This staff, there's a staff that was personally made for this walk. And so the staff is doing a whole walk.

[16:48]

The people are doing relays. So one group will walk. So we walked that way and we walked about 10 miles to the staff. And then we came up and they decided to do a way of passing the staff, which is where we passed the staff and she's still still in the morning. So I'm feeling that the staff, becoming more and more kind of residents, residents are powerful as it goes along. It took me a couple of days to realize that to the stairs and have a kind of willingness, energy, from all the people and to learn to each step of the way. So Shiloh decided that she didn't want to do this as a protest in March, but to do it as an invitation to bring compassion and awareness to the coast and recognition of the compassion of the earth.

[18:06]

The dirt isn't giving up on us. Most of the people are concerned. We're doing this lot particularly concerned about the goal of one. Wouldn't it be an amazing thing that the human beings could leave some oil in the ground? that we actually have to clean it all up. We've already created an atmosphere that's over 400 parts per million outside, and then there's also other things, and other things that are creating conditions that have us. Then part of this evolutionary biology of the scheme of the Earth, we're all into evolution as a species. And so we don't know the effects of our actions.

[19:19]

Pretend we practice on restraint. Part of the practice of the compassionate, wise mind is to fairly lightly, to not take more than what one actually needs. of community resources. The original Buddhist monastic group with Shakyamuni Buddha, twenty-five hundred years ago, and still, in some Buddhist studies, continued to not store up anything, but each day to go out to the lake and go, and receive And that's just as we used to date. But I'm not suggesting that we do that, but I'm suggesting that we actually study that.

[20:24]

That we study how it is in our lives to take just enough. And that's such a good example of myself. I have accumulated a lot of stuff. And people keep telling me things. So I really have to work at this, this talk. But to have this thought, it's actually detecting that earth. So the compassionate earth walk, it goes along, it's continuing. During the time I was walking, I would show that that first morning, some woman, there was a rancher, Lord, there's hardly any traffic. Big highway, hardly any traffic. We're walking across an ATV pulled up beside us. What's going on? Are you walking for your health?

[21:27]

She said, we're walking for the health of the earth. She looked kind of puddled. And she said, well, this morning I've been cutting scotch thistle. She had a big bag in the back of the ATV. She said, her horses tend to like to eat it, and then it passes through their body and reseeds. And so she was actually trying to clean up after the horses, seeding an invasive plant. So we had a little conversation about taking care of the environment. She didn't want to fight who else had to fight one. There was another grandchildren who did, who was really upset about it coming across the country again.

[22:28]

He was upset with the state of South Dakota for supporting the official state. Actually, we felt disregarding the responsibility of protecting the environment, the ranch land. And then we also contacted the Lakota people, representatives of the indigenous people who gave several of these reservations in South Dakota. It's a whole painful dispute. You should know about it. And then a group of walkers decided, or Navy decided, that we should go and join, go to the Pine Ridge Reservation, which is not right on our routes, on the route of the pipeline right there, and go to the Palace Pine Ridge, and join a Women's Walk for Peace, the Pine Ridge Reservation.

[23:38]

Women's Walk for Peace is an effort to limit. and alcohol flowing into the Pine Ridge Reservation in a little town of white clay in this very possible border. So he packed up that bus and drove, got there really late, actually, 11, 30 at night. Pulled in the Pine Ridge, there were basketball games going on. We found a place that can't talk for the next day. And he saw Mr. Raleigh and walked. And one of the speakers, after one of the speakers spoke before the walk, I went up and talked to him a little bit. He said, I'm one of the militants.

[24:40]

They asked me to come in down. Today. I was getting a typing and then someone introduces a woman, a wonderful man, the name is Endurist Respects Nothing. Endurist Respects Nothing is a prayer. And And she starts with a prayer in Lakota. And she's next day, and the person who I've just been talking to, I said, you should just take off your hat. I was playing with a little Tasa Hara cap. And in that moment, I realized that all I had

[25:46]

I was very grateful that I had this conversation with him, just enough so that he felt, we were standing right next to each other, he could tell me not to be rude and disrespectful. Here, I don't know if I want any work support. I used to get a trip off my hat. They didn't register until he pointed it out to me. I mention this because we need to be willing to point out things to each other in community. And we need to be willing to receive what's pointed out to us in community. And communities are forming all the time. We're actually creating every action. We're creating institutions. Because the prospects of a very difficult future for future generations are staring us in the face, the private community is paramount in shortness.

[27:07]

Now, when things become difficult and stressful in terms of the quiet people, that's what we really need to study to show our connection, our fundamental connection with each other. So here, even at Zen Center, we have to work with that. We just don't know that we have differences with each other. We don't hear what someone else is saying to us. Or we don't know how to say what we feel we need to say to someone else. And For me, as an ad lit, it's, it's a, most distressing dance. It's a, when there are unresolved conflicts, on boundaries of community. And it takes a lot of work. And sometimes it seems it's not worth it. It's not worth it to spend the time, you know, to stop sleeping, stop making beds.

[28:15]

not complaining about it, whatever, what moment, to say something that may be a little hard to know how to say it to each other. And to know that everyone cares. You know, you always care back to your family, to your community at various times. And this gets always questioned. Am I in good relation with the people around me? Am I in good relation with my own species? Am I in good relation with other species? Am I in good relation with the water, the earth, the fresh air? Am I in good relation with the whole process of energy, flow? So we did talk with the led by the women of the Lakota people.

[29:34]

And then there were drummers, and they were joining the group. And there was a pickup truck with the drummers on the back of the pickup. That was actually readings. So then I thought, well, the drumming is playing. So I said, keep my hat off. My lips are still running and my shoulders are on. Anyway, I'm feeling that it actually is kind of a disrespect. I don't know, so I'm going like this for a while. And I felt complex feelings walking. I'm walking for the sins of my own ancestors. There isn't any single solution.

[30:40]

But I think it's fundamental to our practice that we show up for each other. liberation of doesn't, better speak, is the willingness to go beyond one's own idea, to go beyond one's own beliefs, to go beyond one's own figures. And realize that we're intimately interwoven. So our liberation is not the liberation of me as a person but it's the liberation of all existence the notion that the true human body within the entire universe and then it shows up in these specific ways we need to make decisions how can we

[32:02]

So here's the best MBA. Let's get to the company. My third time. For the benefit of all means. So then I thought, oh, I'll do a little bit of a song. I sing from time to time, because the song relaxes your mind. And the song relaxer in mine is an American teaching song, right? Talking from the one who is out. The singer, Pookie Ledbetter, you know, it's always Ledbetter. And Ledbetter created the song from driving around the country, realizing that in driving... There's many situations where you might be distracted and you need to pay attention.

[33:08]

It might be followed to you. It's not that different from passing face and anxiety. Not being distracted by the normal worries, the things you're adapting, the conversation with the other person in the power. So Red Belly said that she always looks to the right city head, right through the windshield. He said, you're talking to me, you're sitting here, you're talking to me, I don't look at you. I just looked at you, you want a chicken. He said, I'm living all over this country and I never even get a chicken. So you can join in singing, relax your mind, relax your mind. Helps you live a very long time. Sometimes you've got to relax your mind.

[34:11]

Open the back, turn the green. Put your foot on it, yes I'll eat. That's the time you've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. That's the time you've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. I lost a friend and he forgot to relax [...]

[35:26]

It has to be easy to put on your hands inside. So something's happening that you've got to relax your mind. That's not the time to get confused. That's the time you've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. 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.

[36:29]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[36:39]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_72.39