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. Thank you for coming this morning on this beautiful day, coming into the heart of this Redwood being, this room of practice. You're so welcome. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the import of this particular day, Sunday, the 30th of October. We're very, very close to Halloween, All Hallows' Eve tomorrow. But this is the day and the season of the year when we truly celebrate the thinning out of the veil that separates us the different worlds, the different world systems, celebrate being able to see through.

[01:06]

So we say in this dark moon, dark time of the year, that the dead dance with the living. Ancestors come home to strengthen our resolve. And the unknown beings of the future, this is rarely set, but so important to also include the unknown beings of the future coming a little closer to drink out of our eyes and ears, to have an opportunity to speak through us. Very special time of the year. And of course, it should be terrifying. We live in terrifying times. We live in times where terror and joy are dancing cheek to cheek. And particularly in these days, these holy days, these separate days, holy in the sense of wholeness and health, these holy days when we recognize how close we are to that which has come before us, the ancestral world,

[02:19]

But the great majority, as my teacher and friend Son Roshi like to call the dead, the great majority, we are very close to them and to the unborn world speaking through us, asking for voice. So in traditional societies, we're looking at coming up to All Hallows' Eve, Halloween tomorrow night, then All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day, in the Christian traditions, but all those traditions linking up, and in particular, this time of year being considered the beginning, the first day of the new year. At the first day of the new year, coming up at the darkest time of year, because we're making that turn toward the dark. So we welcome, in the fiery brightness of this beautiful Sunday morning, we welcome and take refuge in the dark that is also always present, not always remembered.

[03:26]

And el día de los muertos, you know, celebrating Dancing with the Dead, where graves are decorated, families gather to celebrate, and all beings are welcome, deeply welcome. And in the natural world, huge migration coming to completion now. Monarch butterflies flying as far from the east coast of this country across the Rocky Mountains and down into the deep mountains of Mexico, into the Ollamil forests where thousands and thousands and thousands of monarchs are clustering now in the trees to welcome the blessed dark. And this is an incredible time to be gathering both in meditation and to occupy our commitment to activism in whatever way we are called to do so, to occupy the heart of our commitment to be engaged with the living world.

[04:31]

Wonderful time. A few nights ago, at the lowest... both the lowest and the highest tide, right around the new moon, low and very, very high tides, I went with my husband out to the edge of the Pacific Ocean at dark. It's the best time to travel. And we walked out to see the drawdown of the ocean, of a tide almost two feet below its usual marking. And we saw, really saw there at the edge of dusk and light, the slope of the world. great descent we see the ocean as a flat sometimes as a flat presence mighty and sustaining but in this case the ocean was drawn back its lips were pulled back you could see the long slow descent of the earth underwater that we sometimes forget so standing there on the cliffs and considering that barely being able to see watching fires being lit on the beach as people congregated and feeling in

[05:37]

in a very essential and primary way, our connection with all beings that gather on the edges and come for sustenance and inspiration. So to stand there, first we walked a long slow loop up through the fields at Green Gulch just to be present for the earth beings. And then made that slow, long pilgrimage. Because each walk, each time you go out, as Henry David Thoreau loved to say, each time as a sauntering force, where you saunter into the unknown, to saunter. It's a wonderful practice to saunter, but also to play with the French meaning of that word, saunter, without any sense of your solid land. And also saunter, sacred land. as you move. That's where the word comes from. To saunter means to go to the holy land or the sacred land, but also to go to the place where you have no solid ground you can call your own and stand on.

[06:43]

So it's good to begin by walking through a farm, first of all, to walk through the farm and then into the dark on the edge of the ocean watching the sea pulled back, feeling the mighty, steady presence of Japan and the beings of our world now working to meet the challenges of living in Japan right now. Our beloved friend and housemate Mayumi Oda, they're working in Japan around the cleanup and deep looking sustenance of the gaze at what's happening at the Fukushima power plant in Japan. A practitioner sitting on the edge of the world and feeling her presence on this coast looking out. looking out into the beyond. So it is traditional during this time of the year, the Chumash people of the Monterey Bay region, periodically and unpredictably, sometimes about every 17 years, I know this because of...

[07:50]

being a frontline agricultural person as well as a practitioner of meditation. I know from talking to one of our Chumash, to one of the great Chumash elders of that particular people, she told us at the Ecological Farming Conference that it is traditional to gather on the edge of the ocean in a dark time and to tell stories, but not every year. That's too predictable. How about every 17 years? And the way in the old days, the way the telling of the stories was signaled was by lighting fires on the ridges above the ocean. So as we stood looking at the Pacific and the fires being kindled on the beach, I thought of the storytelling fires being lit all over the world now as we occupy our true home. take our place so every 17 years and they would light fires on the ridge and that was a signal for the different native peoples to come together and as F Scott Fitzgerald loves to see say draw your seat close to the precipice and I'll tell you a story so we are now listening to the great story or the turning of the wheel the turning of the Dharma

[09:16]

And we are being called in every way to pay attention, attend, to stretch toward the voices, both spoken and unspoken, that want to be heard in these times. So the wheel comes full circle, says the tradition, on this very night and tomorrow night, when the new year begins again and a new story begins, has to be told with old roots. A new story with old roots, calling out to be heard and to be told. Sometimes we say, you know, in the trick and treat tradition of All Hallows' Eve, of Halloween, of course the treats are many. The trick, an old trick, was for scamps to knock on on the windows of homes, to knock on the glass walls that separate us, to knock on the windows, and when, with the knocking, to also shatter a glass, to signify that this is the time to break through, to take, to not only see through, but to come through to each other, through story, through practice, and through our deep investigation of the way.

[10:43]

So a very good time to be here. And we commemorate any time we come into a Dharma hall, a hall where we gather together to revivify and refreshen the teachings, the ancient teachings, by sitting together, by following our breathing, by rededicating our effort, and by recognizing the merit of all that is. There's a practice period that has just begun here at Green Gulch. For almost, not quite 90 days, but for many days in a dark time, so-rin is the old name in Japanese, which means gathering together like a forest thicket to consider the world, to be like trees in the thicket of the forest and to consider the world. And any time we do so, we turn the wheel of the teaching. whatever that teaching is for you. In this case, the teaching of the Dharma or the truth or what upholds and gives us strengths.

[11:49]

The truth, the fragile truth, the truth that's always changeable and open for new interpretation. So I want to read, and I think of 2,500 years ago, Shakyamuni Buddha sitting still in the forest thicket of his life in practice, and beginning to turn the Dharma wheel, offering us the original teachings that are meant to strengthen our practice throughout space and time. So beautiful comment from Daido Roshi, who joined the great majority just a brief year ago. He says, I recognize if you walk with someone in which all things, you see all things have mutual identity, They all have codependent origination. When one thing arises, all things, all beings arise simultaneously. And every being, everything has a mutual causality.

[12:53]

What happens to one thing happens to the entire universe. And imagine a universe like this. It's very close to the time of his passing. And in this particular essay, which I love, he's encouraging practitioners to both tell the old story of the Buddha way, but also to please turn the wheel fresh and hear a new story for our times. So this particular article has to do with reinterpreting the roots of the Buddhist precepts from the point of view of protecting the earth or the democracy of the earth. Beautiful, beautiful article, but calling on us to see how interconnected everything is, how co-arising of all that is, is turning like the great wheel at every breath and how connected we are and how much each of our intention and action matters. So I want to acknowledge the first turning

[13:56]

of the wheel, and then five centuries later. It's good, the wheel goes this way, the wheel turning in the middle of the air, a great signal of cultivation and clarity and the teaching. But unfortunately, when the wheel hits the ground, it leaves a straight, linear rut in the earth. And that is why, in many traditions, the wheel is seen as a terrifying object, because it bears into the ground, and leaves a rut. So you want to make sure that as, we all want to make sure that as we turn the teaching of our lives, we don't get into a rut. So it is good now and then to go counterclockwise. Very good. To knock on the window and break the glass and pass through, as happened in the Buddha Dharma. Five centuries after the Buddha initiated his teaching, when the wheel turned the other way, the Prajnaparamita Sutras came out reminding us, not just for our own sanctity and strength do we practice, but for the well-being of the earth and the world.

[15:04]

We practice for all beings. Homage to the perfection of wisdom, the lovely, the holy. The perfection of wisdom brings light. Unstained, the entire world cannot stain her. Meaning a call to be both unstainable and deeply stained by the work of the world. A reminder that we turn the wheel both ways. And now we're coming to a time when we need a fresh turning of the wheel. And we know this. The world is showing us how hungry we all are for a fresh turning of the wheel. In a dark time, we say the eye begins to see. And we meet... our shadow in deepening shade and hear the echo of who we are in the echoing wood. So says the poet, the voice of the poet coming through Theodore Rutke, speaking in 1964, reminding us to have dark adjusted eyes now.

[16:06]

Turn the wheel and find a new story. How are we to do this? It's what I want to talk about this morning. Blah, blah, blah, blah. For the last No, I am a dedicated practitioner of the Buddha way and also a very definitely dedicated farmer and gardener. I have the pleasure of working every day of my life to bring forth, to ask the earth to speak in the tones, tongues of lettuce and angelica, okay? Menial work, real work. staining my life and opening my life. So I have the double pleasure of being able to sit still and consider the Buddha way and also to get up and get to work, dirt under my fingernails. And I work right now, having worked for many years in the Green Gulch garden, now I work and teach and learn, because everyone who ever teaches also learns massively, at the local community college, the College of Marin, Indian Valley.

[17:13]

where for 4,000 years, Native people have been bringing in the harvest with no discernible track or trace of how that happens, and yet the great richness. So I'm working on a very young farm there, close, just turned three this year, and like any three-year-old, it's a mess and full of vitality and, you know, unpredictable, uncontainable, and... deeply encouraging. And so right now we've been involved in the last week, particularly a very dedicated and fierce examination of what is sustainable farming, sustainable agriculture in these times. And I'm so happy, not happy, I'm so strengthened by having the opportunity to sit in this seat this morning and consider what we've been teaching for the last week. And to many, many people yesterday, 200-plus people on the edge of Lake Merritt in Oakland looking, what does sustainability look like from the point of view of farming and growing food, from the point of view of saving seed, from the point of view of preserving and honoring the old fruit so that it will not be lost, and the taste of the old fruit.

[18:27]

So to sustain, to abide and maintain, we say is the work of meditation practice, to abide in no abode, to fully maintain settle the heart and mind in the present moment and abide in that present moment and to maintain the teachings. But to sustain is a little different. Although they share a common root to maintain and sustain, the root tain means to tend, to stretch, to uphold, and to support. So I've been thinking a lot about this word, to keep in existence, to supply with necessity. to support from below. What are the aspects that help us sustain our practice in these times? Sustain and also keep fresh. I want to just a little bit more because I, as a farmer, gardener, organically inclined being, I also, of course, ken the roots of words.

[19:35]

I have to get down in there among the roots of words and find out what's really being said here or not. Is anything said or not? We want to ask that. So this root for sustain, to sustain the way, to sustain the Buddha way, to stretch and extend. In Greek, the Greek understand this as the string that's used to give tone to music. There is no tone. without a stretch string. There is no yurt standing and protecting the desert people of the world without the tension holding it up. So tension makes life sustainable. Cannot have a lax in sustainability. Takes intensity and tenor and to be tenable and to stand up. And then I love the Sanskrit also, to stretch, to weave.

[20:36]

It is the source of the root tantra, to pull yourself beyond where you're comfortable. So we've kind of settled into a rut with the word sustainability, I offer you, both in the Buddha Dharma and also in our worldly use. So let us this morning at the start of the new year, at the edge of the dark, redeem our language and stand by our words and sustain the gaze into the heart of the world, which we are called in these times to do. To take seriously this call to sustain means breaking the glass and moving out of where we're comfortable.

[21:36]

To unblock our frozenness in the apathia or turning away from the compassionate upwelling of connectedness with the world. In the story, the great old story of the Fisher King, the palace of the Fisher King, the searching for the Holy Grail. Most of the beings in the Fisher King's palace had fallen into a deep slumber. I think of writing on a wall in New York that a friend of mine told me about. This was in the Soho district of New York. Years ago, she walked by a brick wall that said on it, dreaming is a luxury, waking up is an emergency. written right on the graffiti, good graffiti, or tagging on a wall. Dreaming is a luxury, waking up in emergency. So in the hall of the Fisher King, many beings had gotten into a rut of comfortable practice. Everything's fine.

[22:39]

The king is fine. All is well. And everyone was asleep. And it took a perfect fool to going into that, a free and perfect fool, going in and saying, what ails you? Everybody here is asleep. And who does it serve to be asleep like this? So waking up is an emergency. And sometimes it takes our own foolish heart reminding us we've gotten a little comfortable. It's time to wake up, tighten the tension a bit and find out how to sustain our work. So it begins, first of all, by that question and also by the commitment to sustain the gaze. And, you know, to do this, is not comfortable. I have been studying the work of friend and colleague Bill McKibben. I love Bill McKibben. He's a great teacher and environmentalist and I had the honor and pleasure of being on a panel with him and the founder of High Mowing Seeds and a wonderful friend from Santa Cruz who was doing the Middlebury student garden years ago looking at sustainability.

[23:46]

And Bill McKibben commented on some of the Zen students that were gathering. He was writing an article, an important article, about how important it is to wake up to the voice of the world. And he looked out the window, and he looked at the meditators, walking slow, walking meditation, and he said, you look like lost rabbits searching for your Easter eggs. He said, it's very endearing, but right now we need those lost, slow-moving beings. to wake up the voice of the world, but we also need to move forward and to really look at what is actually happening. So I was aware the other night, as the ocean drew back, aware of some of Bill's latest teaching in his book, Earths, reminding us that in the ocean, just in the brief period of time from 1995 until 2008, 111 people hurricanes, lasting double or triple their usual duration, have risen up in the tropical Atlantic, which is a 75% increase, meaning that the waters are higher, the waters of the world are rising.

[25:02]

Even as they draw back, they're rising. And we know, even as... Earthquakes move underneath the ocean and great waves sweep across the Pacific, moving Japan, an awareness of Japan, two feet closer to us. Even as that is happening, so also are the oceans changing, becoming... Their blood taste is very different now from how it was years ago. The pH buffer... of the oceans of our world now has an acid level that is rising, 30% more acid due to the way we live in the world, and an acid rise that is higher than it's been in 800,000 years in the ocean. So I know standing on the edge of the Pacific a few years ago with my Dharma colleague and close friend, Stephanie Caza, who's a professor of, and actually the person who heads up the environmental studies program at the University of Vermont, Me exalting in the breath of the ocean, she standing there weeping because of her study and understanding of the acidification of the ocean.

[26:08]

So both jubilant celebration, but also the gravity. So both the rising up and the gravity is called for now. And in the same ocean, two kilometer long masses of jellyfish gathering because the oceans are warming and acidifying jellyfish gathering. completely inundated with E. coli bacteria. Huge masses covering the ocean. I was aware of that the other night, even celebrating the fire and light and drawdown of the ocean, aware of this story too. And then, of course, the methane furnaces. And underneath it all, the last gasp of ancient sunlight, the end of the industrial growth society. has been the end of oil as we've known it, fueling our life. In the last gasp, we're remembering this extraordinary fact that one barrel of oil, ancient sunlight and ancient plant life, yields as much energy as 25,000 hours of human manual labor.

[27:19]

That means more than a decade of hard work If you can translate that, and practitioners can translate. We can do these equations. We are equipped to do these equations. So, again, 25,000 hours, the equivalent of 25,000 hours of human manual labor in one barrel of oil. More than a decade of labor per barrel. And given that the average American citizen... consumes up to 25 barrels of oil a year. We are fueling our work on the history of the generations, 300 years of free labor. So in starting the car, it's good to remember. So is this a bummer of a way to turn the wheel? It has to begin by sustaining the gaze and looking at how we live, occupying the truth of who we are.

[28:24]

and how we live. And being willing to do that, that is, I believe, truly believe the first step. And then the gift close by, almost in the next breath, the gift of recognizing mutuality, how connected we are, how deeply our intention to protect and preserve the earth is as strong as our misguided, mistaken, forgetful way of living. You know, we have a figure on the central altar here, Manjishri, a Buddha figure, Shakyamuni Buddha figure, with his hand extended touching the earth. So sometimes, as a farmer gardener, it is, I love that gesture, the right hand on the ground. When Mara asks the Buddha, how dare you sit on the ground? By what right do you have to sit here? the Buddha extended his, didn't answer, just extended, because it was too jolting a question, just extended his right hand to touch the earth.

[29:32]

And often we say, oh, that gesture is a gesture of mutuality. The great earth goddess comes up underneath and puts her hand under his hand. And there's a direct currency, connection. So we, in knowing how to work and how to move and how to proceed, we have that connection. That is... the usual wisdom, the usual way we turn the wheel. But I propose this morning, with the help of many of my teachers and friends, that we also recognize that the Buddha was doing more than asking for a witness. Can I get a witness? It wasn't that. It was the gesture itself. is an expression of, I am not separate from the earth. I am of the earth, in the earth, on the earth, for the earth, mutually forever connected to this living earth, not asking for anyone to testify and corroborate that. But when you ask upon what right and...

[30:37]

Authority, I sit here, no right or authority. I am of the earth and in the earth and on the earth. So that gesture, particularly right now, is pregnant, potent, powerful. And in the mutuality, a time to celebrate, even though, you know, be joyful, although you know the facts. And to turn the wheel of the teachings right now fresh, without a rut. We do need also to celebrate, this year in particular, celebrating great women leaders, women of Africa. Great women of Africa. We celebrate the life and the passing of Nobel Prize winner Wangari Maathai, who died of uterine cancer, ovarian cancer, a little less than a month ago. Africa she won the Peace Prize in 2004 on my birthday I'll never forget it was my birthday October 8th and I was listening to the radio and I heard I was driving and I heard she had won the Peace Prize and I pulled over and got out of the car and jumped up and down on the living earth because her work with the Greenbelt movement since 1977 protecting the earth and planting trees more than 30

[31:55]

million trees planted by this human being. So she won the Peace Prize in 2004, the first woman of Africa, the first environmentalist to win. And this year, the president of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and Lima Galway, both frontline activists in Liberia, and Tukwal Karman, the daughter of the Yemen, for their peace work. So there's much to celebrate looking at the mutuality. Much to celebrate and remember. I'm tremendously grateful to my root teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, who just a few days ago went into the bowels and the halls of Congress and in the Library of Congress held a meditation retreat for members of Congress who wanted to have a chance just to sit and walk in mindfulness. And then they had an overnight sleepover. Sleepover. I don't know if they were in the Library of Congress. Hopefully. that they could also occupy illegal ground and do that fully and deeply, but they had an overnight and a full day of mindfulness practice.

[33:02]

So there's a tremendous amount to be grateful for. Yesterday at Lake Merritt, on the shores of Lake Merritt, while mariachi bands were playing by the water and children were dressed up as pirates and devils and other princesses and astronauts and other frightening apparitions. I sat in one of the conversations about agricultural sustainability had to do with preserving beautiful fruit. A practitioner and friend who comes regularly here to this temple to practice, Linda Harrington, has been noticing, she lives in Bolinas, and she's been noticing an old tree by the edge of the Bolinas Lagoon with these beautiful apples. So she called the very person who was giving the speech yesterday, John Valenzuela, who teaches with us at the College of Marin, and asked him to come and look at the tree. So he came to the edge of the Bolinas Lagoon, and it took, first of all, it took a careful meditator to notice the tree.

[34:06]

Because it was an old, gnarled, broken, really broken down tree with these gorgeous old apples. So John came and he was excited. He said, this tree is more than 100 years old. And the tree, the fruit wasn't quite ripe. But yesterday, Linda made the pilgrimage across the bay to join us. And we were together and she brought the ripe fruit into the room. And John lit up with joy and talked about this 100-year-old tree and how important it is to receive the story of the tree. And do you know what happened? This is, again, a celebration of mutuality. A woman who was sitting next to me in the talk said, raised her hand and said, excuse me, did you pick that? It was near the, on the believing, she was not so coherent. And he said, he told her exactly where the tree was. And she stood up and said, my grandfather was born in that place. where that tree is planted in 1898.

[35:08]

And he lived and took care of that particular piece of land. She's a librarian. She works in the College of Natural Resources at Berkeley. And she had loved her grandfather. He lost the land in a time not unlike these times, when the land was repossessed during the Depression. He was a poor man. He began to hunt when he was eight years old. He was a great hunter and a wonderful traveler. Anyway, this tree, he sustained himself probably by climbing or playing in the branches of this tree. As a young boy, as so many of us have. So she sat there and we rushed to the front of the room and grabbed one of the apples before we wantonly ate them all. And I mean, I did that because I can. And I'm still spry enough to do that and disobedient enough.

[36:09]

And then gave the apple to Linda and Linda went up to her and passed her an apple, two apples, one for she and one for her sister. Only once did they visit their grandfather there because they were only little girls before he was sent away. They were little girls, but they remember how excited he was turning every curve. And actually, I think what happened is they went back with him because he had certainly been chased off before they were born. They went back and they said he remembered every curve and could only show them from afar that tree. Isn't that amazing? It is amazing when we wake up and causes and conditions come together to encourage us to remember who we are. And then... how important it is also to expand the next step. First, sustain the gaze. Look at what's tough. Wake up. It's an emergency.

[37:10]

Wake up. Take refuge in the Buddha, in awakening. Take refuge in awakening. Take refuge in looking for the truth or for what upholds and sustains you. So first of all, be willing to look deeply and sustain the gaze. Second of all, Remember how interconnected everything is, how a single bellflower apple brings back your grandfather in those early years of hunting on the edge of the lagoon when the lagoon was very different too. And to remember the mutuality of a meditator taking the care and time and attention to pick up the fruit. And then remember how important it is to expand our notion of what the world is. in whatever way you can do it. In chapter 15 of the Lotus Sutra, there's a beautiful story. And actually, it is said that during the time at the end of the Buddha's life, some of his students, understanding this is close to the end, you are soon to join the great majority, said to him, we will protect the teaching in any way, protect and make sure the teaching continues.

[38:20]

The Buddha said, there's no hope. need to do this and gesture to the earth. This is told in the 15th chapter of the Loda Sutra. And the earth split open and bodhisattvas, awakening beings, poured out of the earth, reminding the people of the time of the Buddha's life that there would never be an end to protection and awareness and commitment to the teachings, to those ancient teachings. There would never be a time when we wouldn't remember that all beings have a codependent origination with everything else. When one thing arises, all things arise simultaneously, and everything has mutual causality. What happens to one thing happens to the entire universe. When we can expand our memory and awareness, and any time the earth is open, bodhisattvas awakened beings are pouring out for the sustenance and freedom of the work in the world so that is so important and then you last of all let me finish or bring us bring us around to how important in these times how important your particular application of mindfulness is

[39:46]

How will you, what will be, again, we celebrate the life and passing of a practitioner. Steve Jobs was a practitioner. He was a meditation practitioner. He had a serious Dharma practice. Deep, disobedient, devilish Dharma practice. And his call was to apply the world, to apply Dharma of living systems and of beauty and surprise to to technology. This is the kind of call now that we need to hearken to and listen to. In a dark time, the eye begins to see, we begin to listen, remembering that, remembering how important it is that we find a way to adapt, apply, and express our practice. And it's going to take opening the eyes of compassion, regarding sentient beings, assembling an ocean of blessing beyond measure.

[40:53]

How will we do that? For each of us, it will be in our own unique and distinct way. I will hazard to guess that because you've shown up in this murky, musty, dark and dangerous hall today, you must have some stomach or appetite for sitting still. And also given your imagined and known work in the world, you have some stomach and appetite for getting up and serving. So what helps each of us will be such an animated dialogue after this talk. We'll have a good conversation about what helps each of us. And I just want to offer a tribute to the importance of art and creativity. I really want to say that today, knowing how deeply our lives intertwine with beauty and art. This figure behind me rescued from this beautiful Jizo figure, earth store of the womb of the earth consciousness.

[42:03]

So the Jizo Bodhisattva getting up to serve in the world, facing directly the Manjushri figure, saying, sit still and be settled and dark and deep and get up and serve in the world. There's a direct line of electricity passing between these two figures. This figure was discovered or almost donated to us from an art dealer who understood this does not belong, this figure does not belong in a private world. collection not because we worship the protector of children travelers but because this beautiful figure carved of wood with the halo of light and the wish the wish fulfilling jewel I'm it's hard but like a linoleum block print I'm kind of backwards sometimes so the wish fulfilling jewel the wish the flaming jewel that answers a wish before you make it comes from a human being created this manifestation, this expression. We don't worship this figure. Whenever I come in this hall and I have the privilege of doing it once a year with 60, they come, luckily they come in two batches, 60 disobedient middle school students from Martin Luther King Jr.

[43:14]

Middle School. I work with them in the edible schoolyard. They come in this hall and we look at these figures and I remind them we don't worship these figures. They call up in us the qualities that are needed. So this beautiful figure of Jesus, this person, papier-mâché mask. Hold her up. This was created by a young woman in our class. 20 years old. She's an amazing artist. She lives very simply low on the chain. So this is a cabbage speaking the truth of the Dharma. And we have it hanging in our funky, funky farm office at the College of Moran. But I thought that she should come out today and say, Good morning. All Buddhas, ten directions. You know, the art speaks. Art speaks. My husband and I attended the opening of an extraordinary performance at Yerba Buena Center of red, black, and green blues.

[44:23]

Wonderful. Looking at how... how diversity and environment comes together and during the performance there was an actual earthquake it was about a week ago and the performers included the earthquake in the performance which was quite wonderful that's the kind of art we need a number of them are meditation practitioners you know their work from Oakland and then last of all I want to acknowledge the work of my dear friend and colleague and Dharma sister Barbara Gates, who's the editor of Inquiring Mind. The last time I spoke here, I talked about Barbara's work with the combat paper project, which is an amazing project. And I acknowledge this project today in particular because we're coming up to Veterans Day on the 11th day of the 11th month in the year 2011. The sacred numbers on Friday, 11, 11, 11.

[45:26]

We come together, and every year we go down into the mountains of Santa Cruz for a meditation retreat, a retreat of not only meditation but also art, writing and looking, sustaining the gaze with veterans of the war, looking deeply at our work. So Barbara recently gathered together with a number of veterans and two young vets particularly, Drew Matat and Drew Cameron, to learn how to make paper. And what? Making paper out of what? Making paper can... Paper can be made out of any material. All conditioned existence is of the nature to be torn apart and become paper. So in this case, veterans and other friends of veterans joined together, and some of the younger veterans from both the Iraq War and the current fighting that's going on in coming home have not known how to be reincorporated into this society. So they gathered together for three days and a number of them dedicated parts of their uniforms.

[46:28]

With respect, those uniforms were cut apart and pounded and pulped and made into paper. And my friend included letters that her father and stepfather had written during the Second World War, written home as very young men. She included some letters in the paper, and the paper was all blended together and mixed up and then pressed. She told me a beautiful story of when the paper... You'll have to come and look at it more closely, but this is a picture of Barbara's father, and when she actually pounded together some of his letters during the war and also the pieces of uniforms and other war material and made it into paper, and then... added the image of her father and pulled back the veil to see her father coming out on this combat paper was extremely powerful for her and regenerating. And her, Barbara's daughter, also participated in this project.

[47:35]

I want to show you what she did. Remembering her mother, talking about... how helpful it was to look at a globe of the world. So Caitlin, you can't really see this here, but I'm going to hold it up anyway because this is the work of art crossing the boundaries. So Caitlin, Barbara's daughter, did a linoleum block print of two hands holding up the world and pressed that onto the paper that's made from her grandfather's letters home during the war. And the pulped uniforms... of other peacemakers asking for a fresh start, a new application of mindfulness, a new turning of the wheel, beyond the old voice. So these are amazing times. We are called to be creative in ways we don't expect, dedicated and grounded in ways we don't often think we can be.

[48:40]

and alive and alert to the gift of the teachings. On one of these sheets of paper, well actually holding, I'm just gonna, I'd like to close with this. So holding up a piece of this paper, recognizing that it includes this single sheet of paper really does include and is ready and available to wrap a cold and hungry world in awareness. If we can remember to handle the things of the world, to recognize how sustained nourished we are by our work especially if we're willing not to turn away from the truth and the danger of how we're living and especially if we find a way to rededicate then there will be a fresh turning of the wheel of the teaching in each of us way up in the middle of the air

[50:09]

and then down on the ground. One of the people in this workshop is a young vet, and he worked with my friend and practitioner and co-practitioner, Dharma brother, Ted Sexauer, who is a veteran of the war in Vietnam. Ted served as a medic in the war of Vietnam, and he said for years he was ashamed of the fact that he served in Vietnam, but I do remember one year when he came our Veterans Day sitting dressed in a tuxedo and wearing his medals and he offered incense and turned to the group was wearing a tuxedo and his medals and he said although I'm ashamed of the way of the way of the world right now and that there is so much war in the world I'm not ashamed of my service not ashamed of of my commitment to keep going, to continue practicing.

[51:13]

And he's a writer, simple writer, good writer. So in the paper-making, combat paper-making project that just finished a few days ago, there is a show open at, I can't remember the name of the gallery. Rider Worth Gallery on the Cal campus, a gallery to support young student artists, Rider Worth Gallery. The show is up, combat paper. So if you can do it, please go in and visit that show. So Ted, my friend, the older vet from Vietnam, medic, worked with a young vet, and they made paper together and incorporated their paper, made of their pulped uniforms. So the paper of fresh war. and imprinted with the awareness of an older veteran, a veteran for peace. This is a way the world and the way changes and turns.

[52:19]

And, you know, in honor of the darkness of this time of year, let me close by reading a poem, Ted's very simple poem, that he wrote on the occasion of Tet, or the New Year in Vietnam. And hold up the paper that he made. And maybe I'll hold up. The young hands. Holding the world. This is the poem. That will save my life. This. The line. That will cure me. This word. This. The word. Word. The one. this breath, the one I am. Thank you very much for your attention, your mindfulness, your commitment to sustain the gaze and do the work in whatever way is right for you.

[53:23]

I really look forward to having some time in dialogue of having you feel this paper, and we'll also cut up the apple from the garden of good and evil. And... digest its sweetness and let it infuse our dedication. May all beings in ten directions have enough to eat. May they live in safety. May they work. May we sit down together and get up and serve in this dark and deep time. Thank you very much. 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 by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

[54:25]

May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[54:28]

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