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 evening. My name is Tova Green. I'm a resident here, and I'll be talking tonight on... An Understanding of Hope. The title of my talk is Starting Over. I want to express my gratitude to our tonto, Mary Stairs, for inviting me to give this talk tonight, and also to my teacher, Agent Linda Cutts at Green Gulch Farm. Just to say a couple of things about myself. Currently, I have a position that I started in March.

[01:02]

It's called the Zone for the Branching Streams Groups of San Francisco Zen Center. San Francisco Zen Center teachers have spread all around the country, and there are some in other countries. And those groups, sitting groups and Zen Centers, are invited, and many of them have joined this branching streams. It's not really an organization. It's more of a way of gathering people together and sharing what different sanghas' experiences have been and are. And so it's been... Part of my job is visiting some of these groups. And... I've been traveling much more than usual, not entirely for work, but I realized since May I've visited Rome and Belfast.

[02:07]

I went to Australia for a conference, which I will mention in the talk, and also to Tassajara to teach, and I... just returned from a writing conference in Napa Valley. So I'm very glad to be back and be here for a little while, anyway, before I go back to Tassajara this month, later this month. But I met some wonderful people and learned a lot in these travels, and I want to share some of that with you tonight. Just before my talk, I remembered... a person I heard about before I went to Belfast. Her name is Lyra McKee. And I read about her in the New York Times. She was a journalist. She was 29. And she was at a rally in Londonderry in Northern Ireland covering a demonstration when she was killed by a stray bullet.

[03:18]

And... She's someone who I found out more about when I read her bio in the New York Times. She had written a letter to encourage... She came out as a lesbian when she was quite young and was bullied and had a really difficult adolescence. And later, after she'd gone to college, to school and had become a journalist, she wrote a letter that was widely circulated, at least in Northern Ireland, maybe wider, encouraging younger people who were LGBTIQ to be themselves, to take risks, to speak out. And it was very sad that she was killed so early. And in Belfast, there was a mural painted on a wall with a picture of her.

[04:22]

I'm going to pass it around. And so her words were, it won't always be like this. It's going to get better. And she's got her arms like this with a big smile on her face. And, you know, I think this... Thank you, Burke. You can just start it going around. it won't always be like this. It's going to get better. I think many of us would like to think that, but I think things don't just get better because we hope that they will. And so I want to talk about hope tonight, but it's a kind of hope that comes with doing something to create the kind of world or community that we would like to see.

[05:30]

And so I wanted to talk about a couple of experiences that have given me hope and also something that our community experienced that... that I wrote about in a poem that I want to share with you. I don't usually read my own poems in Dharma talks, but I thought this one just might touch a chord. Because many of us who live in this building, I know some of you don't live here, but you may have heard about this wonderful thing that happened this spring. It was not... only wonderful. It had its dark side. The poem is called Starting Over. We watch the two robins through the glass doors to the courtyard, flying to fetch food for their fledglings.

[06:38]

We can barely see the nest hidden among pink camellias, the three open beaks. The fledglings fall from the nest before they are able to fly. one manages to hop across the courtyard to the open door of the Buddha Hall, perhaps attracted by the tatami mats, vibrations of the big bell, or the sonorities of our chanting. The stiff body is found by the gardener, who buries it in a small box. The parent birds frantically try to feed the other young ones as they thrash in the grass and low bushes, in futile attempts to take to the air. They, too, soon die. Within weeks, we notice the two robins building a new nest. The way lupins and California poppies paint hillsides purple and gold, the spring after wildfires have blackened the trees.

[07:44]

So... Many of us were fascinated by the robins, tried to watch them as they were bringing food to the nest. And then there was this great sadness when one by one they died. And yet there was something so encouraging about the robins, the two elder robins starting over and building a new nest. not knowing what would happen to those chicks when they matured. And that kind of resilience I think we may have experienced in our own lives, recovering from an accident or an illness or recovering from great grief, from loss of a loved one. And what is it that gives us the the energy, the most just deep sense of that ability to regain our enthusiasm, our engagement in our lives.

[09:12]

And I think, you know, in the last 10 days, there were three shooting massacres, one in California, in Gilroy, one in El Paso, and one in Dayton, Ohio. And I very rarely see a banner headline that goes across the whole page of the New York Times, but on Monday there was one that said, one shooting massacre follows another, shaking a bewildered nation to its core. And there are many things, I think, that have been happening in our country and the world, not only around violence, but also so many of the things we notice about changes in climate and so that the sense of this climate emergency is getting stronger for many people.

[10:16]

What... And what can we do in these situations that affect us so deeply? So when I went to Australia to attend a conference called Sakyadita, which means Daughters of the Buddha, and it was a conference of 800 Buddhist women, many of them from Asian countries, but they were... a number from Australia and from the U.S. And there I heard a talk by Joan Halifax, who's the guiding teacher at Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She gave a talk about wise hope. And I was really inspired by her talk, and I had a chance to talk with her after her talk. I've shared that talk with a number of people. written form and the way she spoke about wise hope was very encouraging to me and it's starting by differentiating hope and wise hope from optimism you know just thinking well everything is okay so I don't have to or will be okay which can lead to a certain kind of passivity

[11:42]

feeling we don't have to bother because things are going to turn out all right and in a way that may be wishful thinking. And it's also hope is in contrast to the narrative that everything is getting worse, which can also be overwhelming and lead us to feel, well, there's nothing I can do anyway because things are so bad and they're only getting worse and they're only going to keep getting worse. And, you know, And so both pessimists and optimists are free or they don't engage with the world as it is. And what Joan Halifax said was that wise hope is born of radical uncertainty rooted in the unknown and the unknowable. how could we ever know what is really going to happen?

[12:45]

And it's when we realize we don't know what will happen that wise hope comes alive. In the midst of improbability and possibility is where the imperative to act rises up. We don't really know what the effect of our actions will be. And wise hope reflects the understanding that what we do matters, even though how and when it may matter and who and what it may impact are not things we really can know beforehand. And, you know, there are many things we do every day that can make a difference, particularly in thinking about climate change. the climate crisis. We may think they're so small that we don't even, or we may not even notice that we do them.

[13:46]

One of the, you know, I've noticed our work leader, currently May, takes a lot of care around recycling. And she notices things like when we rinse out and flatten milk cartons. and put them in the recycling. That's some very small thing, or I've noticed the light bulbs were changed recently, using light bulbs that use less electricity, having our solar panels on the roof, turning off lights. And then on a human-to-human basis, we have a lot of guests staying at city center. And often in the morning, they don't know where to find the coffee, showing them where the coffee is, talking to a newcomer after a Saturday Dharma talk, receiving feedback with openness, listening to a friend who's having a hard day.

[14:52]

These are all ways in which we could make a small, maybe a small, maybe a large difference in someone else's experience of coming here. feel greeted and welcomed, or in feeling that you're connecting with someone when you may be distraught or worried or upset about something. Wise hope doesn't mean ignoring the suffering that's present in our community, our city, our country, and planet. And it may require both and thinking. One of the things Joan Halifax said is, our journey through life is one of peril and possibility, and sometimes both at once.

[15:53]

So being aware of some of the challenges that we're facing, but also being able to appreciate the flower arrangements or gardens that we pass by when we go walking in the city. We also see the people who are sleeping under cartons or walking around with shopping carts. It's all there. The pain is there and also the beauty of this world is there. The other thing that I appreciated about Joan's talk is that she connected wise hope to living by vow, to our bodhisattva vow to be lived and be lived for the benefit of all beings. And living by vow also reflects on our capacity for insight and our ability to

[17:07]

stand up for what we think is right and to live with the precepts, you know, to do our best not to cause harm, to speak the truth, to listen with an open mind, to meet people on equal ground. And... in a way to stretch, to be open to points of view that may be different from our own and to be able to hear them. So our vows are strengthened and actualized through the medium of wise hope and can help us take a stand. to choose or not to back away from a situation that is challenging for us.

[18:16]

And so after her talk at Sakya Dita, when I had a chance to talk with Joan Halifax, I told her how encouraged I was by her talk, and I also told her that I was, even though I was in Australia, I was... checking the news. I read the New York Times whenever I can, and I sometimes read it on my phone. So I was very aware of the situation of the migrants at our southern border, and the photograph of, many of you probably saw, the photograph of a father and his two-year-old daughter who drowned in the Rio Grande River was on the front page of the paper and just talking with Joan about our shared concern and at that time I didn't really know what I could do if anything about the situation I've been going to a monthly vigil at the ICE offices on Sansom Street it's an interfaith vigil and it's

[19:38]

really in support of people who are detained, some of whom have family members who are trying to raise money for bail for them to come out of detention centers while they're waiting for hearings. But I heard about... while I was still in Australia, I heard about an action that Duncan Williams, who is a Buddhist priest who recently wrote a book called American Sutra, about the role of Buddhism in the Japanese internment camps during World War II. And Duncan Williams was... he sent a letter asking Buddhists to join him, if any could, at a place called Fort Sill in Oklahoma.

[20:45]

And he wanted to conduct a memorial service there because Japanese Americans had been interned at Fort Sill, which is a big army base in Oklahoma, in a very small town called Lawton. And during World War II, about 700 Japanese Americans had been interned, including 90 priests, 90 Japanese American Buddhist priests. And four of them had died. A couple of them had been shot by guards there at Fort Sill. So he wanted to conduct a memorial service. And he had... connected with a group of Japanese Americans, many of whom were fourth generation, so in their 20s, called Tsuru for Solidarity. Tsuru is the Japanese word for crane. And they wanted to bring origami cranes to Fort Sill.

[21:53]

And the connection was that I forget which department of the government, but there were plans to house 1,400 children, immigrant children, in that place at Fort Sill, which had been the site of the internment camp. It had also, quite a bit earlier, been a place where Native Americans were kept, and they were fleeing west. And it had been a place where Native American children had been sent to go to school, had been separated from their families and sent to school. So it had this really challenging past. And so Duncan Williams was asking if people could come and join him there.

[23:00]

And... After I returned home, I contacted him to find out where this place was, whether I could join, and I decided to go, even though the practical side of me said, oh, you just got back from Australia. Are you thinking about getting on a plane again? And so I slept on it and then woke up the next day. knowing that I did want to go and I didn't know why it was so important to go until I got there. And one of the first things we did, the first evening we gathered, there were about 30 Buddhist priests from different parts of the country, three of us from Zen Center, Greg Fane from Tassajara, Linda Ruth Cutts from Green Gulch and me. but people from some of the other branching stream sanghas, and also quite a few Japanese-American priests, and then a group of Japanese-Americans from the organization Tsuru for Solidarity.

[24:13]

And we gathered in a circle, and each of us was asked to say what had brought us, why had we come. And one after another... person said well a few people said it was the idea of the children being detained there they just couldn't bear it they felt they had to do something to protest that and some of us said we just didn't we just felt we had to come that was I feel I just felt I had to be there and there was so the 30 of us gathered that night. And then we also went, we went to a, we rehearsed the memorial ceremony that we were going to do the next day. And then we went to a much bigger gathering with about 500 people from many different groups. Most of them were quite young.

[25:13]

I forget the name of the group they were with. They were from not only Oklahoma, but they'd been bused in from neighboring states. And there were also Native Americans and people from the ACLU. And we all shared some food and then kind of went through what would happen the next day. The young people were all going to have mylar blankets, which they were going to open up at some point. There was going to be a march to the gate of Fort Sill, which they would lead. And then at some point, they were going to be chanting, and then there would be a signal, and then we would do the memorial service, chanting the Heart Sutra in Japanese.

[26:14]

And there were a lot of uncertainties. We didn't know if the police would be there, if there would be counter-protesters. It was going to be 103 degrees. So there were some challenges. But the way the groups came together was really beautiful. And the next day, it was a march to the gate in the morning and one service. And then in the afternoon, we all gathered in a park. And at that time, we had these strands of cranes about 50,000 cranes arrived at Fort Sill, and they were strung together. And part of the ceremony that afternoon was bringing the cranes up and hanging them on a long clothesline. And initially, those of us who were the Buddhists

[27:21]

contingent were going to start. And then many of the young people who were in the other groups started joining us, bringing up the cranes. And also there was part during the ceremony where we had traditional Japanese memorial plaques for the four people who were killed, four Japanese Americans, and for the ten children who had died in detention. And then we offered an opportunity for anybody who had lost someone to write on a paper the name of their loved one and bring it up. And we were joined by many of the other participants, many of whom were Latinx and had relatives who had died and or were being detained. And I think the... part that was moving for me was that this ceremony, a very traditional, in a way, traditional Buddhist memorial ceremony was so relevant to other people who were there and gave them a way of processing their losses and finding some solace, I would say.

[28:47]

So... The other part of that experience was that people were wearing T-shirts that said, let our people go. And there was no separation between any of the groups that were there. And thinking of the children who might be detained as our people. And we heard, we did hear... We didn't know what the outcome would be, but a few days after the vigil, there was the news that the governor of Oklahoma had decided not to use Fort Sill as a place to house those children. So that was... I think whether that had happened or not, we would have all felt that showing up and...

[29:52]

giving voice to our concerns was in and of itself worth doing. So Joanna Macy, who's one of my mentors, has written a book called Active Hope. It's interesting that people are talking about hope. Another Zen teacher, Diane Rosetto, who's book about the precepts many of us use and read, just also wrote a book about hope called Deep Hope, where she talks about the role of hope and connects it with the six paramitas, the six perfections, different qualities we can bring into our lives to live in a more fulfilling way. So this theme of hope, I feel it's maybe arising so much because the times we're living in are so challenging.

[30:59]

And Joanna Macy says, it's no surprise if we experience a profound loss of confidence in the future. Uncertainty is a pivotal reality of our time. And yet, if we don't talk about or talk about our concerns, or if we do talk about our concerns and acknowledge that the time we live in is confronting us with realities that are painful to face and difficult to take in, we may just sink into a kind of hopelessness and inertia of And when we start talking about the things that we care about, and particularly if we can talk about them with others, we can find a source of energy.

[32:06]

Joanna Macy says, active hope is something we do. When we become aware of an emergency and rise to the occasion, something powerful gets switched on inside of us. We activate our sense of purpose and discover strengths we didn't even know we had. Being able to make a difference is powerfully enlivening. It makes our lives feel more worthwhile. And it also reminded me of kanodoko. It's a word, a Japanese word for call and response. and it's often used when we think of Kuan Yin, the bodhisattva of compassion. So hearing the cries of the world and responding. Kuan Yin is often depicted with many hands and arms, and sometimes each hand has a different tool in it, because in order to respond to situations skillfully, it's helpful if we have many different ways of responding.

[33:17]

One solution doesn't fit. every situation and being able to draw on a number of ways of responding and particularly responding by hearing the cries. Being able to listen is sometimes just such a meaningful way of responding to someone's pain. So I want to leave a little time to see if you have any questions or comments. And I also wanted to just honor someone who died a couple of days ago, Toni Morrison, a great... african-american writer she was the first african-american woman to win the nobel prize in literature and one of the things she said is if you have power then you need to empower someone else and also make a difference about something other than yourself so her encouragement to you know um

[34:41]

I think it's an expression of active hope or wise hope to be able to turn our attention outward and find a way of sharing our resources in whatever ways we can. So... Maybe I'll end there and just see if anyone would like to make a comment or ask a question or share what arose for you tonight. Well, we're tied up with expectations.

[35:55]

I think one way we can have hope is by realizing we don't know what the outcome of any of our actions will be. So if we are able to do something, however small, about something we care about, we don't know what the outcome will be. if you do something to make it better. I think that's the thing. Hope is doing something about it. It's not just hoping things will change by themselves. It's how do we put ourselves into the... into the mix.

[36:59]

Things will get better in some way if we do something to make them better. You're welcome. And even then we don't know if things are going to get better. I'm not sure. I think that statement might not be true. Things will get better if we do something. I think we just do something not knowing if things will get better. Was there a hand over here? Yeah, hi. One thing that rang true with what you said was about a lot of things, but one thing that stands out is the idea that you get energy when you take action. I don't know. I've had that experience before. I guess you gave an example of it when you had the feeling you had to go to the fort.

[38:04]

I've had experiences like that where you take an action and you get energized by it. So in addition to your point about the truth of the matter, we don't know what the consequences of what in the moment, we all get some kind of reinforcement by that energy that sometimes comes. Yes, we do. Are you willing to share an example? Yes. My personal experience is irrelevant. I'm just offering this. Maybe it'll be useful to someone, but I have children and I was a child once, as everyone was. And out of fear, parents often make children do things by the road. And I had that experience.

[39:05]

Some of it was good for me, I suppose. It's part of all education. But there are moments when you're taking action and you don't have to fight as much. outwardly people might not understand why it's meaningful. But I sometimes have the difference out of this, and it's difficult to trust it when no one else can see it. In my case, I like that I'm a musician, and it seems like if I can I keep doing that, whether I care about success or failure, it doesn't matter. But just being true to that source of energy, that would be the ideal. If I could have the confidence to generally act in accordance with that. But it seems as if, from my upbringing, I want to dismiss it or characterize it as

[40:14]

immature and it's something I try to be on guard with my children to give them freedom to listen to their voice but you know I have to practice it myself but it's difficult it's you know one of the things I tried to do was ask for help to do a task that I thought was more in line with the corona part of me and it's been very painful not to be able to carry it out. But I had an experience where I set it aside and I practiced my music and it was very energizing. So I'm trying to find out whether I should take it more seriously. Thank you. Playing music can be extremely energizing. Thank you for sharing. Anyone else? Hi.

[41:17]

Yes. Do you have a... Yeah, just grappling with the idea of the attachment to death. And, you know, we think that's just, as we get older, that that's the only way to die, right? But dying happens. In unexpected times, right? And we get so attached to it, right? And we fight to the nail. Can you say what you mean by the attachment to death? Yeah, just like the grieving of it. The grieving of it? Yeah. And how emotional that can be, right? And just your perspective made me really... the extent that you'll go to and how unattached we should be as Buddhists but how we do care I know it's harsh but I'm not exactly sure what you mean but I think grieving is part of life and we do grieve as Buddhists when people we love die or when

[42:40]

Thank you. Anyone else? Well, thank you very much for your attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[43:25]

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