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, everyone. Can you hear me? Okay? Yes? Louder? How's this? Good? Good? and welcome to everyone who's streaming. I want to wish everyone, yes, everyone, a happy Mother's Day. Today's Mother's Day, and behind me, my back is to her, is Tara Buddha, who is the female form, one of the female forms of

[01:03]

awakened ones, and she is sometimes called the mother of the Buddhas, the universal mother, mother of the world, and her qualities are peacefulness and responding with compassion. So she's right there on our altar. Also, Prajnaparamita, the wisdom beyond wisdom of being, is also called the mother of the Buddhas, born of wisdom, born of compassion, our awakened ones. So happy Mother's Day in the broadest sense. Today we're commemorating... the 50th anniversary of the establishment or founding of Green Gulch Farm, Green Dragon Temple, So Ryuji in Japanese, So Ryuzenji, Green Dragon Temple, Zen Temple.

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And, you know, for those of you who are younger and younger than 50, 50 years of something being established might feel really, really like an established institution that's there and, you know, has always been there as long as you've been alive. But for those of us who were here when it began, including me, it feels sort of like a miracle, you know. And this kind of not so substantial, but a little bit foggy, a little bit delicate, that we're even here at all. And as the years go by, especially these last couple of years, we've seen when causes and conditions shift and change, what happens to what we used to think?

[03:35]

was completely substantial and solid. In the Diamond Sutra, there's a verse which talks about conditioned things, what they're like, the reality of conditioned things, meaning everything that we see and hear and touch. The Diamond Sutra says, as stars, a fault of vision or a lamp, a mock show, dew drops or a bubble, a dream, a lightning flash or cloud. So should one view what is conditioned. And that came up for me around Green Gulch and its 50th anniversary. Like a cloud, you know. And when conditions change, we don't know what will happen.

[04:38]

So where to begin this talk? 50 years. I realize there's so much I could say, and I just wanted to start way back and basically saying that we are very recently here. 50 years is like nothing, like a blink, like a half a blink. And sitting on our altar is this object, which I wanted to say something about. This was found in the Green Gulch Valley. Very, very heavy. And it seemed like an unusual stone or rock at the time. A student came across it. And so it was sent to UC Berkeley Paleontology Department. in studying it said it was the tusk of a mastodon now mastodon are these no longer they're extinct now but these animals with like trunks like elephants that roamed North America and

[06:01]

Central America, I think South America too, this particular species, millions of years ago. Millions. And they've been extinct for 10,000 years. So here this was found in our Green Gulch Valley. And it's on our altar to remind us, remind me, that we are here. were just the latest creatures that are taking care of this valley and living here and receiving its bountiful benefits. So they roamed for millions of years and then were extinct 10,000 years ago. This is really heavy, by the way. grazed and browsed and were in herds in this forested place.

[07:16]

So let's not forget that we're just recently here. Also, let's not forget that the first peoples of this area were the Coast Miwok Native Americans. And they were all throughout Marin. Their guiding kind of spirit was Coyote, who still remains in our valley. And we're lucky enough to hear her, him, them, at all different times, morning and dusk. And the Coast Miwok gathered acorns, they fished, they hunted, they gathered oysters up and down the coast and are still a community and still here.

[08:23]

And we, in tilling the soil, cultivating the soil over the years, have found many obsidian blades. Arrowheads. And they took very good care of the land. They lived very lightly on the land. And for also a thousand years, at least. So let us not forget that we're just recently here. So years ago, Dan Welsh, who was a disciple of Suzuki Roshi and an artist, designed a T-shirt with a picture of a bodhisattva, the way he used to draw them. And the saying, I think the bodhisattva was digging, doing some kind of work.

[09:27]

And the saying was, working hard, accomplishing nothing. That was the T-shirt. And it always got a laugh. However, this is a very strict teaching, you know, working hard, but not working to accomplish things, but working as a way to express our life and the reality of our life, not to get something or to gain something, no expectation of gain or grasping after things, working in order to. But we work because that is our nature. to care for things and work and accomplishing nothing. It's a hard teaching. And I am still learning that teaching, working hard, accomplishing nothing. We want to accomplish things.

[10:27]

And we do accomplish things, but what are those things, you know, growing food? Sitting Sachin, the group here, for those of you streaming, a group just finished a three-day Sachin at Green Elch. Very settled. Unusual to have it in the middle of May at the beginning of growing season. So it was, I think, a very good offering for people. So 50 years of working hard and accomplishing nothing, how do we understand our being here? and what's to come in the next 50 years. So this anniversary of the 50th year is a time to reflect on what we're doing, I think, what we have done. And I was reading some old wind bells, which we no longer publish, was a hard copy little magazine that

[11:33]

They're in the library, and they're also online on David Chadwick's cube.com. He has all the wind bells scanned, and you can read any issue. And I was reading one from 25 years ago, the celebration for the 25th anniversary. Norman Fisher was the abbot, and he talked about what we learned in 25 years. what we learned about caring for the land, about power, about teacher-student relationships. He kept asking that question in his talk. And then afterwards, this was on a Sunday, the room was filled with our Sunday guests who we haven't been able to host for the last two and a half years. And then they went out from the Zendo onto the lawn, planted a tree, a coast live oak, to replace a big oak that had fallen down in a storm.

[12:38]

And then there was square dancing and hay rides. And lots of people were there, and probably kids. So just reading about that and feeling the difference now, 25 years later, especially after... this time of COVID and the changes that have taken place and the feeling. So I wanted to try and bring back a sense of the beginnings of Green Couch 50 years ago, and then some of the things, the changes, and what we're looking at the next years. So 50 years ago, June actually of 1970, actually May 11th, we signed a deed for Green Gulch.

[13:41]

And some of you know this story probably very well, but Suzuki Roshi, part of his intention, he died in 1971. One of his thoughts about completing the mandala of San Francisco Zen Center, we had Tassajara, The mountain monastery, we had a thriving city center with accommodations for 50 people at least to live in the building and to add a third center that was a farm and where families might raise children and students come and learn to farm and have a rural center. So this was his intention, this was his wish, but it wasn't accomplished before he died. But very soon after, we're talking May of 1972, and Suzuki Roshi died in December of 71, so about six months later or so, through the great, amazing visionary prowess and abilities of our

[14:58]

Second Abbott, Zantatsu Richard Baker-Roshi, working with also visionaries at the time who were doing Huey Johnson of the Nature Conservancy, who's no longer alive, who helped to establish the Golden Gate National Recreation Area from Point Reyes all the way down. Hundreds and hundreds and thousands of acreage put in conservancy and Tom Silk, who worked with nonprofits to be able to establish them. These people, Tom Silk has died. Yvonne Rand, who was very involved, who passed away. And George Wheelwright, who owned Green Gulch Ranch at the time. He wanted it, after his wife Hope died in the 60s, he wanted to pass on this.

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place to a nonprofit or someone, some group that was helping others. So all these factors came to play. The right people, the right knowledge, the stick-to-itiveness, the vision of these people to be able to have this come to be. And Mr. Wheelwright, George Wheelwright, sold it to us at a very small sum, 115 acres of beautiful land on the Pacific coast in Marin. That was really, went for a song, really. I think it was $100,000 for all these acres, which we didn't have and had to fundraise for. But still, it was really not that much. So the Golden Gate National Recreation Area had also been established, which are these hills above us.

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And we are an in-holding in the GGNRA, and there are not very many. And there was a little pushback about having a private holding. But partially because of our history of being at Tassajara in the wilderness, an in-holding in the Los Padres National Forest. We had a good track record, and so we were able to receive this gift, and were written into the congressional record, actually, that were this private in-holding. But it's really due. We wouldn't be here. We wouldn't be able to be here without the support of many, many beings. It doesn't take much for someone to make a big fuss and keep something from happening. But there was enough support.

[18:11]

Causes and conditions were ripe. So we signed the deed May 11th, which is why this lecture is today. And then in June, like mid-June of 72, a small group of homesteaders were asked to come out to live at Green Gulch, and I was one of them. There were five of us, and I'll just say their names. Bill Lane, who was kind of the caretaker. Sheila McCarty, who was his partner and a Zen student. Ulysses Lowry, me, and Toby Grant, who I don't know where he is now. And then soon after, Issan Dorsey, was the Tenzo at Tassajara, was invited to leave Tassajara in the summer and come up and be the Tenzo, the head cook at Green Gulch. And I was the Fukaten, the vice head cook working in the kitchen. And Green Gulch, I wanted to try and convey the feeling, which I will fail to do, I'm sure,

[19:20]

of what it was like to have this place. This was at a time when people were buying land, having communes, going back to the land, you know, homeschooling. You know, it was right at the height of that, in the 60s and the 70s. And to have this land that was for us to build a Zen center and make a farm was... It was a dream come true. And we were young. Let's see, 50 years ago. How old was I? Let's see, 75 minus 50. I was 24. I was 24. And almost everybody else around me was about that age. A few people were a little older. Isan was older. And people would come out on Sundays and volunteer, and we'd make lunch for them. That was right at the beginning. People would come out in carpools and do things out here, begin.

[20:26]

That summer, Alan Chadwick was invited to come, and I got to meet him. And he was the one who established our farm and taught us a lot about farming and gardening. And he was... the farm apprentices I'm sure have heard, or maybe you've read about him, but from my point of view, he was, he was a, he was like nobody had ever met the power of his presence and charisma. And he was a Shakespearean actor as well as a horticulturist and gardener master, you know, and he taught, you know, not just, the way I thought about gardening, but something beyond that, something. I have a quote that I wanted to read from Kathy Cook, who worked in the garden, and this caught it for me, what she said about working with Alan Chadwick.

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I was astonished at how much energy this charismatic figure brought to the vision. It was a terribly exciting time full of new ideas and a new aesthetic, a new approach to understanding what nature might be and how to respect and work with natural forces. We felt as if we were being shown some ways into the invisible world, connecting with realities we could infer but could not see or hear, as well as their expression through seed, soil, plants, and food in ways we had not hitherto been exposed to. He was offering a kind of school in relating with life force, in spirit training.

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And when I read that, I thought that really captured something. It was really like, working with someone, for me anyway, who was operating kind of in a different, at a different frequency maybe. And to just add, there was shadow to that. He was hard to work with, lost his temper. People were very, very afraid of him. I was. And we worked in the garden. that summer, a day a week if you were in the kitchen, and I remember him complimenting me on the way I sowed seeds. And he said it was because I worked in the kitchen and was used to sprinkling seeds or, you know, condiments or something. Anyway, I was very relieved that I didn't get yelled at. But some people did, you know.

[23:44]

So it was this combination of tornado and that was Alan Chadwick. And after he left and continued to create gardens and is buried here, he came back in his later years and died here. We took care of him. So. Let's see. I realize this is not an easy talk to give. There are so many things, so many people. And I didn't want to list just a long name of these marvelous people who created this place and set in motion. But, you know, so many people came who wanted to work hard and wanted to sit. You know, so we had... The promise, the actually covenant on the land and the request of George and Hope Wilbright was that we maintained in perpetuity a working farm and also that we leave the land open, the trails open for visitors to come and walk the hills and walk down to the ocean and so forth.

[25:11]

So those two things. We've kept, but the purpose was not just having an organic farm and garden and a teaching farm and a place of peace and refuge in the natural world, but to also create a sitting place, a practice place, a meditation center, a Zen temple. And have that be open to the world as well. And the barn that we're in right now was a hay barn with animals that were below where the offices and the library is. And there's pictures. If you look in the windbells, you see these old pictures. These walls were not this white board. And they were wooden, redwood, you know.

[26:12]

And after the Loma Prieta earthquake, we did a lot of renovation in this hall and changed it somewhat and made it very safe for earthquake. But this hall, we began to open. Our first sendo was what's now the office, the Welcome Center. That was our first sendo that summer when I lived here. And eventually we created this and housing out of farm buildings and bullpens and bunkhouses. And just this last years, when we did the last big capital campaign and did a big renovation of Cloud Hall, We finally got our student housing into a good, healthy state with the building of Sky Hall on the hill, which was trailers and kind of ramshackle buildings.

[27:19]

We created beautiful, environmentally sound Sky Hall, and then above Stillwater Hall, more student housing, and then renovated Cloud Hall with heat and water. better insulation and lighting. So over the years, and it's taken 50 years to change a one-family ranch that was raising prize bulls, and before that it had been a horse ranch, up to this state that it's in now, which is pretty good. There's more work to be done, of course, accomplishing nothing. So in looking back, seeing everything that's been established, and also feeling in these last years with COVID, the change that has had to take place.

[28:25]

So many of you, many of you who are on the streaming have not been here in over two and a half years. because we've been closed to the public. And the Zoom possibility was, you know, some people had this in mind pre-COVID, and it wasn't really taken up to have a big online presence. But because of COVID, that was what we needed to do. And Green Gulch, just for those of you who haven't been here, In a long time, Green Gulch has needed to change. For quite a while, we had silent meals, distancing, masking, staying pretty much alone, just like the rest of the world.

[29:27]

And it was very hard on people. Silent meals, the seniors to keep them safe. Not allowed in the central area. No sitting together. No chanting. Sitting on Zoom. And many people left. And those who came, you know, it's hard. Because that Sangha piece, the jewel of the Sangha, was very hard to enact together in that. in those days, in those months. And we're still, you know, we were closed to all the conference and visitors and the public, all the programs just shut down, like immediately. So for those of you who haven't been here, and those of you who've just come, the feeling, it's...

[30:33]

It's the feeling of 2022 May, you know. The dining room is not filled with people. It's very quiet, pretty much. And we're just now beginning to open to conferences and retreats in a modified way. And some guests and our apprenticeship programs and guest student programs So I wanted to say that and not with regrets or sadness necessarily, but noting that there is nothing that is like the real Green Gulch or this is how it's supposed to be. This is responding to causes and conditions, responding. and doing our best to continue to care for this practice place and grow food and make the Dharma available, but in very different circumstances.

[31:46]

So over the years, we did create these programs where people could come and practice here, do practice spirits, which we... We didn't have them at the beginning. And January intensives where people come for three weeks for intense study and practice schedule and working with Tenshin Roshi has usually done those. He started them with Abbott Norman Fisher and then teaches these to a wonderful sangha that keeps returning. This year we had a modified group come. And continuing to care for the land and change with what is happening with climate change.

[32:50]

You know, this is 50 years we've been here and the droughts and the fires. and that climate change is changing how we do things. And the farmers responding to that in many different ways, trying dry farming, trying new things, and also shifting to during COVID, we planted extra food to be able to give it away. We connected with garden programs at schools in Marin City and other places in the city. and temples that were offering food, giving away seedlings to farms, community gardens. This is something that we want to do more of, and maybe we'll switch more and more to that being our main purpose rather than a farmer's market.

[33:52]

We'll see. This is maybe the trend. But, you know, we have the... benefit of these wonderful people who have been training in taking care of the garden and taking care of practice life as one practice. The soil, the care for the soil, and the care for the soil of our practice hearts is, for many people, just one practice taking different forms. And the lineage of Right now we have Sarah Tashker. I realized with this 50-year anniversary, I didn't want to just do a list of names, but Sarah Tashker right now, Kayune Johnson, Sarah Davis, Wendy Johnson, Peter Rudnick, all these people, Leslie Tila, and I'm forgetting many people, Liz, so taking care, learning, passing on the knowledge. And offering this to school children and retreats and creating these environments of calm and peace for anyone who comes through the garden gate while practicing and studying the Dharma.

[35:09]

This is Green Gulch and it's not an easy fit. Alan Chadwick was so angry that we were sitting in the morning and not on the fields before the sun came up. What kind of a farm is that, you know, or garden? So this is what we've been negotiating from the get-go. And then add to that families and single people and couples and old and young and visitors and all the unseen beings and animals who share this valley. I wanted to say something about our big bell, the O Bancho. O is an honorific, and Bancho is a big bell. The one in the Cloud Hall is a Densho, which is a smaller bell. So that bell was cast at a foundry in a bell casting place in Japan called Kine.

[36:22]

I wrote it down. Kin Judo was a casting company. And Paul Disco, who was a disciple of Suzuki Roshi, went to Japan to learn temple carpentry, had a friend in Japan, Jodo Shinshu, a person who was involved with this foundry. And so he arranged... for this bell to be cast. And it's huge. Those of you who know it well, it has a big, beautiful sound. And many people donated. There was a main donor, Gail Schur, whose name is on the bell, donated for the bell. But also people donated precious metals that went into the bronze casting rings. And... silver, old silverware people had from their grandmother and other kinds of gold and silver that went into it, which helps make the sound particularly beautiful.

[37:36]

And it was cast and Reb and, excuse me, Tenjin Roshi and Paul Disko, who were Dharma brothers, ordained at the same time by Suzuki Roshi, arranged for that. in Japan, and it was brought back. And Zentatsu Richard Baker wrote the poem, which is on the bell, cast in the bell, and also in calligraphy that may have been done by Muman Roshi, the calligraphy part. But Richard Baker's poem, Zentatsu Richard Baker Roshi's poem, he wrote, and I'm not sure who did that, English calligraphy. And the poem, which you can read, and maybe you know it, I used to know it by heart. Awakened by this Japanese bell, the sky-headed, sea-tailed, green gulch dragon stirs the mists and rains of right dharma for east and west.

[38:43]

Farming and greeting guests, The pre-voice of this old bell is not hindered by the wind. So if you're up at Hope Wheelwright, that cottage up there, and you look down the valley, there's a kind of S-shape to the valley, and it's dragon. Dragons live in water. So Skye headed with his head up at Hope Cottage and sea-tailed all the way down to Muir Beach to the ocean, the green gulch dragon. Awakened by this bell. And this was cast and the dedication was 1975, the bell. And just in the last couple of years, we were able to build this beautiful bell tower. have it designed and built, and then to hang the bell on the lawn.

[39:45]

And still farming and greeting guests. Those two, that was our covenant to George Wilwright and Hope Wilwright, farming and greeting guests. But that's all part of wringing out the right Dharma. So I apologize to all the people I left out and didn't mention and didn't thank. The numbers, it's countless, really. All the known and unknown people who come through here, who've just had Zazen instruction here on a Sunday. you know, 50 years, practically 50 years of Sundays where 25 people would show up every Sunday.

[40:56]

I don't know what the math is, but, you know, maybe 50 Sundays a year, plus all the other people who've come for retreats and conferences and school children and bikers and hikers and those who come to mourn. and to memorialize their loved ones with gifts of benches. It's innumerable, innumerable beings. And we have work to do in the next 50, you know, this is a 500-year. Harry Roberts, who was the Uroc and Irish teacher who lived with us and told stories about being trained as a... by his Yurok uncle, who was very famous. I'm losing my train of thought, but I wanted to mention him.

[42:03]

His way of teaching also brought us into a spirit realm and a way of looking at things and being upright in a new way. And the wind bell, I found a number of stories that he tells of being trained to be human, to be a man in the fullest sense, to find his humanity. So he, I wanted to be sure and mention him as well. So what we need to do in the next years, we have much to learn. The Dharma is vast, is endless, and so our practice is endless. And also, I feel we need to be ready for what's coming. Some of us will not be alive when the most devastating things of climate change arise.

[43:07]

Many of the younger generation, are thinking about this all the time, and how to be steady and steadfast and are ready to be with others over this precipitous waves the boat of compassion goes. I think we will need to work more on conflict resolution, power issues, DEIA issues, diversity issues of all kinds. These are all things that are laid before us that we need and want to take up and continue as part of our practice and to continue to sit. As I was saying recently,

[44:11]

not fancy. It's not a fancy practice. Taking our seat day after day, opening to what unfolds with wholeheartedness. So thank you all very much for listening. I do feel like maybe this month we're taking this month and inviting some people who were here back in the day. I left in 72 fall to go to Tassajara.

[45:18]

didn't return until 1993, 21 years later. I've been here since 1993. But those first days of being on this land, the promise, the miracle of it, and the determination to make this a practice place in all sense of the word, I wanted to try to convey to you. So we'll now have a ceremony commemorating the 50 years, and it will be a simple ceremony, and there'll be a little bit of preparation for those of you who are streaming, but please don't go away. or take a bio break and come back.

[46:21]

We'll be offering incense, doing boughs, and then doing some offerings of sweet water, sweet tea, and a treat. We'll be chanting the Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra, and then dedicating the positive energy of our spirit this assembly and the chanting and the offerings to all beings. So that will be the ceremony today. And there won't be a Q&A. We'll be having the ceremony instead. 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.

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May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

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