Welcome to Green Dragon Temple on this drippy morning. This is a perfect day for dragons. So we say dragons to remind ourselves that we don't know everything. There's some energies that are maybe too subtle for us, or things that we're afraid of, the monsters under the bed. I haven't seen the movie Where the Wild Things Are yet. Has anyone seen that? Yeah? A few heads are nodding. Are there dragons in the movie?

[01:02]

So here we are on Sunday morning before Thanksgiving, reminding us to be deeply grateful. So just grateful to be here. And one month before winter solstice, though it's the time of the year, the days are still getting shorter, daylight hours are getting shorter. For some people, that's a particular somber thought, you know, and it affects all of us. So it's good to take that into account. It may be a time to slow down, but I think because our bodies want to slow down, I think we're more aware of the frenetic pace of the holiday season. So I think there's a kind of a disjunction there in the way we have things organized.

[02:10]

So you may want to make some effort to simplify. That may be a contradiction there, just make effort to simplify. So just simplify. see what you don't need that enables you to stop and settle. So in another week here, we're beginning Rohatsu Sesshin, so we will be sitting here for seven days, settling. So this comes from 50 years of kind of a ripple response to Shinryu Suzuki Roshi coming to America 50 years ago, and I've been talking about that all year.

[03:13]

Just to note, and when I think about Thanksgiving, what is there to be grateful for? I'm actually very grateful that he decided to make the move from Japan to San Francisco 50 years ago. and offer the practice of beginner's mind, the practice of simply sitting. Last night I was at a gathering with some old friends, and they asked about, you know, what am I thinking about doing for the next ten years? What might be of interest? And I didn't really say what was most important, I think. But today I'm saying that the practice of sitting together with people is the main thing. So I offer you that practice of sitting silent, upright, together with other people, which is the practice that Shinri Suzuki brought

[04:31]

So if I say to someone, well, that's sitting silently is the main thing I want to do in the next 10 years. Someone may say, well, that's really not doing much, is it? That's really not what I was asking about. I was asking about doing something. And I feel like there's a need to speak up for the subtle power, the power of people sitting together silently. To say it's power may be not quite right, but there is a way that the confusions of the mind that actually contribute to us causing more trouble and feeling more alienated from ourselves and from each other those confusions or delusions can settle out in sitting.

[05:44]

And then the activity that follows is clearer. So over the past 50 years, more and more people have been taking up the practice of sitting, partly because of Suzuki Roshi and partly because of other teachers. So now there are tens of thousands of people, at least, who are willing to enter the space of not quite knowing, the space of beginner's mind, or today I'm calling it resilient mind. Resilient mind. Resilient coming from the Latin words for re, which is back, and then to leap or to rebound. So resilient mind means to be able to recover one's form or one's balance when things are difficult.

[07:01]

when things are kind of choppy or fragmented. So in the recent land report from West Jackson in Salina, Kansas, near where I grew up, West Jackson's doing wonderful work. You should all send him money. He's developing perennial grain crops, perennial grain crops that don't erode the soil the way annual crops do because annual crops have to be tilled every year. So our future food supply may depend on Wes Jackson's work and others like him and also the notion that we actually take care of topsoil. So in the recent land report, Wes Jackson was talking about resilience and that he

[08:04]

borrowed an image from an ecologist whose name I've forgotten, but I have it here, Walter Reed, who wrote a book called Resilience Thinking. So Walter Reed presented the image just to help understand how to live, saying if you're in a big ship that's in the harbor and you need to carry brimful cup of water from one side of the room to the other very quickly. You can just walk across the floor of the ship, right? Being careful not to go too fast so you don't spill it. But when the ship is out at sea and there's a storm and it's pitching from one side to the other, the speed of your walking becomes secondary because you have to keep finding your balance and refining your balance and looking for your slippery footholds and maybe even handholds to get across the deck.

[09:22]

So this kind of disturbance then is... gives some meaning to the words resilience. That resilience then refers to the ability to absorb disturbances. The ability to absorb disturbances. And this is, I think, a power that actually comes with the practice of sitting still and upright together with other people over time. So there's a story, we've been studying the Jewel Mir Samadhi in this practice period. This is written by Dongshan Viyangshia, a 9th century Chinese Zen master who was one of the founders of our lineage.

[10:26]

And so here's a little dialogue. A monk named Xin Qing, No, Xu Qing. Xu Qing came to Dengshan and he said, I am without a proper path. I still can't escape the vicissitudes of feelings and discriminating consciousness. And Dengshan said, do you still think there is such a path? And Su Ching said, no, I don't think there is any such path. So then Dong Shan said, so where do you get the feelings of this discriminating consciousness and the feelings of the vicissitudes? And Su Ching says, I'm asking in all seriousness,

[11:36]

So Dongshan says, in that case, you should go where there's not a blade of grass for 10,000 miles. Su Ching said, is it all right? Is that all right to go to a place where there's not an inch of grass for 10,000 miles? And Dongshan says, you should only go on You should only go on in such a way. So this dialogue is maybe not easy to understand. What are they talking about? So you may not go away from here understanding it. But don't worry about that. it may be good just to have the phrase, oh, can you go to a, can you go where there's not a blade of grass for 10,000 miles?

[12:53]

But I will give a little bit of commentary on it. So first of all, when Su Ching says, I am without a proper path, this proper, in the, And the Chinese character for this proper refers to the notion of cutting jade along the veins in the jade. Cutting the jade along with the vein. So there's a sense of being in alignment with things. So a proper, proper in a sense of being in alignment with the natural order of things, with something that's foundational. So I think this is a kind of a complaint, this Qiqin is coming and he's complaining to Dengshan. He may have been practicing for a long time, maybe. He later became an esteemed Buddhist teacher himself.

[14:03]

But anyway, at this point, he's kind of complaining, you know. I don't know what the proper path is. And I doubt it because I have all these feelings. I have all these reactions to vicissitudes of life, to the changes of life. I can't avoid having discriminated consciousness. So somehow he may be thinking that his practice should free him from... reactivity. His practice should free him from having to deal with changes. His practice should free him from having to cope with discriminating mind. So, Dengshan asks, do you think there is such a path?

[15:03]

Do you think there's a path where you don't have discriminating mind, where you don't have some emotional reactions to change. And the response is, no, actually, I don't think there is such a path. So he's heard some teachings. Maybe he's heard that the teaching of nirvana is samsara, and samsara is nirvana. That actually... this life right now is the place to live. That there isn't some other path. There isn't some other life. But when he's saying, is there such a path, he's also wondering.

[16:05]

Maybe he's not so sure what he can trust. So Dung Shan says, so where do you get your feelings? And where do you get your discriminated consciousness? And Sui Ching says, I'm asking in all seriousness. So this is an interesting turn. Asking in all seriousness. this can be heard as a kind of plea or it can be heard as a statement of his willingness to really take up practice. I'm serious. I'm really willing to take up practice. So then Dongshan says, in that case, in that case, go to a place.

[17:17]

where there's not a blade of grass in 10,000 miles. So here is this statement of the wisdom of no escape. No escape. If there's no blade of grass, then there's no Su Ching. Willing to give up being, Siu Ching. And he's cautious about that. So he says, is that okay? Is that okay? Is it all right to go to a place where there's not a blade of grass for 10,000 miles? So that place where he gives up Tzu Ching is actually the place of rest that Dongshan's pointing to.

[18:20]

But it is our usual way to fear what is most restful. Our usual way to not be willing to stay with what is the confusion in our own mind and let it settle. So Dongshan again confirms this saying, that's really the only way, the only way to practice. The only way to practice is this practice of dustness, not escaping what is. So that means that the practice of resilience that one is willing to Cultivate flexible mind. Cultivate beginner's mind. Suzuki Roshi was always talking about beginner's mind, saying the big challenge for Zen students is not attaining enlightenment.

[19:27]

The big challenge is cultivating beginner's mind. The mind that is willing to meet all the changes that is... is not holding on to some particular belief or position that then fixes and freezes one. So this is the teaching of this, of Dengshan and the teaching of Suzuki Roshi. So we're living in a natural world, which is a completely resilient, fluid world. everything is in flux. Strictly speaking, we can't say that there are things in flux. It's just flux. Where we get caught is by the way we grasp at things.

[20:32]

And still we need to work with the things. But working with things with a sense of their emptiness Working with things with a sense that they're not fixed. They're not actually things. Working with a sense that the blade of grass is actually not separate from me. Allowing myself to drop away and allowing the blade of grass to drop away. This is really tuning in to what's happening. Something's happening. And being willing to not know what it is. and keep tuning into it. This is this resilient mind. And this is very difficult for us because we're always looking for how to shore up what we think we already have. Just like we shore up the levees in the delta against the flow of water.

[21:39]

We shore up our own understanding. I'd say right now we're propping up our financial system, shoring it up, trying to keep it in place, still believing that we can endlessly do a growth economy, not recognizing that there are actual limits. So resilient mind actually also recognizes limits. Resilient mind recognizes the limits of this body. The limits of this, say, present moment. And notices which are limits that are given and which are limits that are just adopted, say culturally adopted, that are not real limits in the same way.

[22:44]

We just had a workshop this week here with looking at culture and cross-cultural communication. One of the things I learned was that one of the people felt that she couldn't live at Green Gulch if she had to wash dishes. I thought, okay, that's a different cultural perspective. Here, we're actually promoting work activity as practice. And whatever activity is noble activity. Silence is noble silence, and activity is noble activity. And... Still, I understand that that's a particular cultural perspective that we have adopted here, and I think it's pretty good.

[23:50]

And so it's good that we review it and that we know, oh, this is really important. It's been important for Zen practitioners since Zen arose. There was a big departure from Buddhists in India for Zen practitioners to take up work activity as an expression of Dharma practice. And so knowing that, knowing where it came from and knowing how it feels and what we learn from it and how we feel connected to the practical realities, the limitations of our life in our work, Knowing the value of that, I think we'll probably continue to ask people, whoever shows up and whoever sticks around, no matter how long they stick around. So I better join the dish crew tonight.

[24:54]

But also recognize, well, OK, maybe this doesn't work for everyone. Some people really feel insulted if they are asked to wash the dishes. After all, I have my PhD. So this is just referencing how there are limitations within the total flow of things. And then responding to the limitations and responding to the changing conditions is what we're always doing. So Dongshan says, really he's saying there's no escape. So don't think that you can go someplace other than right here where there's no blade of grass.

[26:02]

This blade of grass, you have to see this blade of grass is empty. Right here. So blades of grass are responding. I wanted to read something from the Chronicle here. Tuesday's Chronicle. So this is about nature's resilience. Bristlecone pines show surprising growth. This is Chronicle Science editor David Perlman's article. Bristlecone pines, those ancient and iconic trees on many of California's mountaintops, reflect the impact of global warming in a curious way. Not by dying off like coral reefs in the world's oceans, but by growing faster than at any time in the past thousands of years.

[27:05]

Anyone who has hiked and climbed high in the White Mountains along the Nevada border has seen and marveled at the bristle cones, some still burdened after countless centuries, but many wind-battered, twisted, and nearly naked with stunted trunks lying almost flat against the barren ground but still alive. Now these stubborn trees that cling to life at elevations above 12,000 feet are a clear symbol of climate change. according to seven years of field research by Matthew Salser of the University of Arizona and his colleagues. Studying the bristle columns near the tree line at 12,000 feet, they have found wide growth rings showing a spurt of rapid growth in the most recent 50 years unequaled in any previous 50-year period during the past 3,700 years.

[28:07]

So the bristle cones are, you know, say older than, about as old as human history, what's written, what is written human history. So there's a group, as far as we know, there's an old bristle cone that's been named Methuselah. Methuselah, 4,781 years old. a gray beard. Reputedly the oldest living tree in the world, as far as we know. Oldest living tree. And this also accords with other findings, that temperatures have been climbing from the Sierra foothills in San Joaquin Valley, across Yosemite, down to Mono Lake, and that the higher temperatures have as these higher temperatures have warmed many species of life, of animals that can move, move up to higher elevations.

[29:19]

So specific voles, mice, chipmunks, it says, have shifted their habitats upward as much as 1,650 feet higher. This is over the last, well, I don't know, the last, decades and I think it was this year I think it was this year earlier this year I talked about beetles and the researcher who was studying beetles had found that the particular beetles that he was used to finding at a particular elevation no longer were there and he had to go higher up the mountain but in some cases the mountains weren't high enough so there were no more of that kind of beetles So it may be, you know, this is the response of the bristlecone pines to changing environment and whether they will actually survive remains to be seen.

[30:22]

So they've been hanging tenaciously to their very difficult climate for almost 4,000 years, over 4,000 years, and the difficulty of the climate may be just perfect for them. And for it to warm up may mean, oh, it's no longer so good. So their rapid growth may actually not be healthy. But the truth is, we don't actually know. We don't know what will actually work out for the bristlecone pines. And we don't know what will work out for many other forms of life that are subject to the changes that are happening now. So because we don't know, again, this is an invitation to cultivate a beginner's mind, resilient mind.

[31:33]

Now because we know that it's really difficult when there's rapid change, it does make sense for us to take care of the world as we know it. So it's, I'd say, part of our practice to Recognize the interrelationships of ourselves and the myriad things. So to pay attention to how one's own actions impact the myriad things. Cutting down the rainforest. Probably the biggest, as far as my understanding, the biggest contributor to the increased carbon in the atmosphere. cutting down the rainforest, which is going on at a rapid rate for many reasons.

[32:42]

One reason, so that we can pasture cattle and then have cheap beef in South America to send to the United States and around the world for fast food. And of course it's been only in the last few decades that the population of the humans on the planet has soared upward dramatically. So naturally we have more challenges to all the systems that we have set up. So going back to one of the old Buddhist teachers, Nagarjuna, saying whatever is dependently co-arisen, which are really all things, whatever is dependently co-arisen is understood to actually be emptiness.

[33:52]

That the things that actually don't, strictly speaking, don't exist, that the grass actually doesn't exist, that you don't exist. exist, actually, in the way that you think. That I don't exist in the way that I think. That our very existence is a part of a matrix, a flowing, dynamic, changing matrix that now for the past couple thousand years Buddhists have been calling emptiness. pointing out that the notion of all things being individual, separate things is a construction of our minds. And if we look really closely, really carefully, the grass is seen as empty.

[34:55]

Grass is seen as non-grass. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This is a big mistake sometimes people make. Old Buddhists talk about no self, right? We chant the Heart Sutra, it says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. So it's a mistake to think that means that there isn't anything there. It's an invitation to look more carefully to see what is there. And what is there is not exactly what we think. So Nagarjuna a thousand years ago said that whatever arises dependently, that actually has to be understood as emptiness. If you don't include emptiness, then you don't understand reality. So this is a big challenge to our

[35:59]

thinking minds. Because we actually can't grasp it. Because we can't grasp it, to take that into account, Suzuki Roshi invited us to do Zazen. To stop, sit still, allow what we're holding onto so tightly to To be held more loosely. With more flexibility. To cultivate beginner's mind and be ready for what we don't know. Be ready to meet what we fear. The unknown. And rest right there. Be content and joyous and grateful. And this is echoing Dongshan, saying that's the only way to practice.

[37:08]

The only way to practice is to not be in the grip of your mind that makes things, that's reducing reality to things. So this is a good time to sit, relax. Appreciate your breath. Appreciate what is a gift. Appreciate that your existence, as you know it, is not exactly something that you can hold on to. To pay close attention to tuning in to the changes of things respecting the limitations of things and taking good care of yourself and those around you in the most simple, direct way.

[38:15]

So I think the best way is for millions of people to sit still together in silence small groups continue this wonderful practice. And be as practically and realistically helpful. Helpful to each other. So that means sitting still like a frog and also being willing to leap. at the right time. So, I think the kitchen has already gone to work on, I mean, the kitchen workers have already gone to prepare lunch, so that's some comfort, right?

[39:25]

And I want to thank you all for your kind attention.

[39:29]

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