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. Good morning. Good morning. And good morning, especially to the young people who come to the lecture this morning. This is our first Sunday of the month, and the first 10 minutes or so that will be for the young people. How many of you young people have never been to Bengals before? This is your first time. Okay. Well, I hope you have a big nightmare. Wow. Are you out of school now? Is it summertime for everybody? Yeah. A little bit more ago maybe for some of you?

[01:01]

Okay. Well, I think one of the things you're gonna do today for your program is planting, is that true? So this is Greenville's farm and you're gonna have a chance to go down to the kids' garden and do some planting in this wonderful soil, this wonderful Earth that for many, many years we've been taking good care of the Earth. What? Did you want to say something about the Earth? Anyway, this Earth has billions and billions and millions of lives a lot of skin.

[02:02]

Did you know that about the earth? But one cup, one cup of fertile garden earth has more alive things in it than all the human beings, all the people on the earth. And one cup of soil, one cup of earth. Isn't that amazing? And then we get to plant seeds in that soil up and vegetables and flowers and all that. So it's alive. The soil is really alive. And one thing that our soil has is the nutrients and the good things that make the soil really strong that salmon have brought to the soil. Because our creature We had a creek called Grigold Creek. And for ancient times, many, many salmon came up the creek and laid their eggs.

[03:09]

And then after they gave birth, after they laid the eggs, then those salmon died in the creek. That's just their natural life cycle. And then the nutrients that they leave in the water is taken out of plants that live around the creek, and then those become part of the soil. So our farm has been nourished by salmon, by fish. Isn't that kind of amazing? So I wanted to tell you a story about taking good care of things. It's about salmon. Do you know what? So all of you know what salmon is, a kind of, just how you like to eat salmon sometimes. Yeah. Well, this is a Native American story about taking good care of things, and it's about salmon. So long, long ago, salmon, the fish salmon, were actually people.

[04:17]

They were called the salmon people. And the salmon people lived... Underneath, they had homes and palaces and places to live underneath the water. And they knew that the Native American people who lived near them would sometimes get very, very hungry at certain times of year, in particular. And the salmon people decided that they would help to feed the Native American people. This is a squash Indian tribe. So the salmon people turned themselves into fish and gave themselves to the tribe to eat for a delicious meal. But they said to the tribe, we will give ourselves to you, but you have to be very, very careful and save every single salmon

[05:23]

Bone. Salmon has a lot of little bones. You have to save every single one. And no matter how small. And then when you finish with your meal, with your feast, you have to throw your bones back into the water. So the regular people agreed that they would do that. And the salmon people turned into fish and gave themselves... And they cooked them up and had delicious meal. And they saved every single bone. They were really careful. And threw them back. And then those bones would turn back into salmon people again. And then they would give themselves to the earth people. And they would eat and they would throw the bones back. Well, there was another tribe that didn't have salmon people to help them. They heard about this. And they decided that they were going to ask for help, too.

[06:25]

They didn't have streams that had salmon people that would give themselves to try this fish. So they went to the salmon people and they said, please, could we also receive this gift of fish? And the salmon people said, yes, we will do that. And they showed them, they chose four salmon people who turned into fish, And then they served them to this new tribe, and they subjected to every single moment. So the first time they had this meal, they saved all the gnomes, and through the back, and the next time. But then, one day, one of the Earth people decided to hold back some bones and had not jumped into the water. So they gave their meal to sleep. He held back some bones. And they threw most of the bones in, except for these few.

[07:28]

And when the salmon people came out of the water, one salmon man didn't have any jaw. And another salmon woman didn't have a part for arm. And the chief of the salmon people said, we give ourselves to you, and you promised to throw back. every single bone. And the person who had kept back the bones, he realized the effect of his actions, the consequences of his actions, what happened. And he found those little bones that he still had, and threw them back in the water, and those satan people went back in the water, and they came back out, and they were perfectly whole again. So from then on, everyone understood how important it was to take care of every little detail, every little tiny moment. And in that way, the giving of the saddened people and the giving back of the earth people made a wonderful circle of giving.

[08:33]

And each took care of each other. And that went over. So this is a story that we can all learn from about taking care, even the tiniest intel in our life, because even a small thing can have a big, strong effect. So in taking care of the soil, in taking care of the water, in taking care of the air, all those ways of taking care of our environment, when we take care of things, very small in details, then when we're taking care of the earth and the air and the land, the earth and the air and the land and the plants will take care of us, okay? So that is your story for today. So parents, the children will be down at the farm, so after lecture, they could come down to the farm to take their luck, okay?

[09:41]

Thank you all very much for coming. I've been reflecting on fish and salmon and interconnectedness for the last couple of months. And I keep turning this and turning this. And I would want to turn it together with you today, these images and teachings that all beings are a teacher. can be our teachers. And the natural world teaches interconnectedness, teaches everything changes, teaches impermanence, teaches generosity. Anything can teach these basic teachings of awakening life.

[10:49]

So I wanted to to terminus with you today. I realized this week, this June, first week in June, is my 39th anniversary of when I first came to Greenhouse. I haven't been here for 31 years, but the first time I was invited to be here was in June, 1972, when we had just gotten Greenhouse. been great beneficiaries of this wonderful, amazing place. And to the goodness of George Millwright, who gave it to us outright, but made it possible for us to receive it. And many, many other people helped us to be able to be here in this

[11:54]

middle of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, this private bin holding, there's just a few. And this has been a big responsibility to take care of this place, to take care of it well, and to continue year after year to find better and better ways, and more and more deeper ways, I think, to understand this valley and our streams. water and vegetation and soil. There were just five of us that June. We just started out. And I remember, I was thinking about this this morning. I hadn't ever lived closely with honey birds, and they kind of stared the heck out of me. They were done pretty blind by them because of a lot of fuchsia, and I've never, Yeah, like so closely.

[12:56]

And banana sluts I had never really seen. So to begin this meditation with you, there's a koan from the collection of koans and stories called The Book of Serenity. This is case number five. And it's called Ching Wan. That's the name of the Chinese Zen Master and the Price of Rice. Ching Wan and the Price of Rice. So a monk asked Ching Wan, what is the great meaning of grism? What is the great meaning of grism? And she once said, what is the place of grace in Luling?

[14:01]

Luling is a tiny city. So this monk comes to his teacher, the Zen master of this particular practice place, and says, what is the great meaning of Buddhism? Which may be your question, too. What is it all about? What is the practice all about? What is the great meaning of Buddhism? And she didn't want to answer, what is the price of rice in Lu Ling? And one might think, why don't you just answer the thing that he wants to know the great meaning of Buddhism and give him some riddle or some So this particular co-op, that's how I thought about it when I first shared it. Like, why aren't you? How come you can't answer straight out? Or something like that. What is the price of rice? And it didn't seem like an answer to me.

[15:05]

Maybe that feels my way to you as well. When I was in China getting $2,000 on the pilgrimage, to various temples of the teachers of this lineage, Chinese lineage masters who then transmitted and left teaching came to Japan. We went to many temples. And we happened to pass through the town of the city of Lu Ling. I said, why is it nice and bright? I know it's beautiful. I happened to be told after a rice harvesting time, and they had these big mats, bamboo mats out with big piles of brown rice, and they were raking it, drying it, I'm not sure what the process was, but unholed rice, and I was very excited because there was the rice of blue wing, and there we were on our pilgrimage, but still, what's the price of rice of blue wing?

[16:14]

So, just in... in reflecting on this cause over the years, the price of rice, it would lay, just as we know, is dependably co-agreasing. It depends on what? Depends on how good the weather was that year. Depends on whether they were dying. storms and rice problems from floods. I don't know the rice problem. They flood the fields, but maybe they also, if they have too much water, then that's not going to work, or if it's too cold, or if there was an insect infestation, and all the rice was diseased or cleaned. What is the price of rice in woodland? What is the price of rice in woodland now?

[17:16]

This moment depends on whether there's war going on in that place, in that province, or whether there's a black market, whether there's hoarding, whether there's... What's going on in Britain? What's going on in Britain? What's going on with the people? All of this contributes to the price of race. in believing. So what is the great meaning of Buddhism? What is the great meaning of Buddhism? What is the price of rice and believing? Now, in turning this, this koan came up, that's why I say during this long meditation on this, this occurred to me in April, this koan, what is the great meaning of Buddhism?

[18:20]

And what came up for me, conditioned by what is the price of rice in the language, this thought that arose, what is the great meaning of Buddhism? What is the meaning of cocoa salmon in Great Gulch Creek? What is the meaning of cocoa salmon found? in Greenbelt Creek, which can seem like the same, you know, the same terming of this question, what is the great name rhythm? So I wanted to tell you another story. You've heard this story in Santa People and this wonderful story of reciprocal giving and care and love, actually, and paying attention And the story of the Koho Saturday Greenhouse Creek, this is now becoming not an early legend, a farm legend, a rural legend, but this is a story about a student that came up.

[19:38]

Actually, this student is actually in our midst today. A student who came up from Tassahara in I think it was in January or so, middle of the, you know, rainy season. And this particular student, you know, a lot of times they hired me, didn't necessarily want to come up here. No, she didn't know if we didn't know that well. But anyway, on this rainy old day in 2005, took a walk down the farm road, which anybody would take down to the beach. about 15, 20 minute walk, walk through the farm. And on this walk, Miss Jimmy happened to see a couple of bobcats, you know, playing around Green Ocho. And thought, oh, I guess there's bobcats that hang out at Green Ocho. That's pretty interesting, bobcats.

[20:39]

And then walking along further, and then she saw Coyote. Oh, Miss Simpson. It's like there's coyote playing around the greenwich, too. And there are probably other wildlife things, because greenwiches are filled with wildlife, birds, and who knows what. But on the way it's coming back up from the ocean, I just didn't hear this sound. A kind of slapping sound, which sounded kind of strange. And the way this bird was told to me, the person thought maybe somebody needs some help or something. So this person came away from the farm road, coming up from the beach, it would be to the left, and went over to where there's a creek, Greenwich Creek. Now, if you just go down the farm road all the time, you may not know that there's a wonderful creek called Greenwich Creek that runs now pretty straight, actually.

[21:42]

It used to be, and we're all over this valley, down to the ocean. And our great benefactor, Joe Fulbright, in order to make agricultural land, as many other farmers did, kind of straightened, because took the big moving gathering creek and channeled it, actually. And so it runs down this side, a bring-up. So the stick that went over and saw, looked in the water and saw two great big red fish in a creek. And, you know, I guess this was pretty much two great big red fish hanging out in the creek. And this person didn't say anything then, but he just went out to the wedding being pretty much different. And then, like later, like in April or something, months later, this is the way the steward was told to me, they happened to mention this at the dinner table here, and we were in the woods, big red fish in Greenville, that might be cobalt salmon, you should need to talk with Sookie, who's our land steward, and Sookie also was, big red fish in Greenville, and she called Darren Fong, who was the aquatic biologist from the watershed, and he came out, and

[23:10]

The student brought them all down to where she had seen them. And Darren Fong, who thinks like a fish, dug around in a place where he thought there would be and knatted a little tiny, cold scent. A fry, they call it. A little. And this was very unusual. And very wonderful that this stream was healthy enough and there were just the right conditions, there have to be just the right conditions for coho to come up this stream. Now, Pringle Creek is a kind of spur or part of the Redwood Creek drainage, Redwood Creek runs in the woods, and there have been cohoes have been there, but in many, many, many creeks, the cohoes have diminished and are gone from many, many creeks.

[24:20]

And to have coho come up Greenwich Creek, and then there were furlip chests, and there was the possibility that this could be a sand run again. So, what is the great meaning of Buddhism? What is the great meaning of Buddhism? What is the meaning of ? And if we begin to look at this carefully, there's an ecologist named Derek Hitchcock, who spoke at an event at the Marine Headlands, in which the book Invisible Cities by Rebecca Solman, maybe 17 on this book, was being, there was a kind of workshop or an offering, a talk given, and one of her maps, she has a book of maps of San Francisco, was very unusual juxtapositions like butterflies and

[25:35]

David Barr's, I think, is one of her expositions for Cypress Trees and the Murders in 2010, things like that. And another of her expositions is Suzuki Roshi's Lineage and the Migration of Salmon. This is a lot. And she shows on this map that salmon go all the way up our coast and up to Canada and around to Japan is salmon spawning areas. And so to see the migration of salmon and Suzuki Roshi's founder of Zen Center's migrations, and then see the sighting of salmon and the establishment of Zen practice places all over California is a wonderful map. We actually have a large one that we're going to be Framing, I don't know, we'll have to paint some of what people can see.

[26:41]

Anyway, this fellow, Derek Hitchcock, spoke at this event when they were talking about the Suzuki University of Lillian Salmon, and a quote from him is that the fact that Kohose had one found on the streets, he said, I just, this is the quote, I just think it's interesting that after a few decades of people doing really good practice on this land, that those fish could have chosen a lot of different waterways to go up. The sand will go where they're called most. This was the actual quote from the workshop. I heard it as Derek Kitchen. I said, because our practice is where it is, the sand chose very much to come. And I thought, well, that seems a little far-fetched. But in looking at it, there were close When we say our practice, because they came because of our practice, it's not that they came because we're sitting sasad.

[27:48]

Actually, it is. In terms of kind of reduced, kind of reductionist way, you might say, well, just because we're sitting sasad doesn't mean koho salmon will choose our creaks. But actually, what is sitting sasad? What is great middle egoism? It's out of flowing from a practice of sitting and attention to detail, attention to all the aspects of our human life and all the functioning and taking care of everything that is before us with sincerity. This is the effort. This is the practice. The practice isn't just sitting in the zendo, this wonderful zendo, sitting quietly. Although out of that practice comes actions of body, speech, and mind, and those actions are taking care of water, taking care of our food, taking care of the soil, taking care of our waste products, taking care of what chemicals we do or don't use, etc., etc., etc., which means the creek is taken care of, which means the creek is healthy.

[29:04]

which means the soil is healthy, and if we have healthy soil, we have healthy creek. So, you know, this quote, after a few decades of people doing really good practice on their land, those fish could have chosen other places, but they chose, they chose to come to this creek. And I would say yes, they did choose to come to this creek because of the practice. Because of the practice, in the widest sense, conditions are created where that practice is an offering and giving, and then there's a response, a giving and response that come up together that can't be separated. What is the great meaning of Buddhism? What is the great meaning of Buddhism in each of our lives, our interdependent life where our actions matter? Even the smallest action, the smallest load, you know, being with Calum, you know, down getting, you know, up in Mill Valley, all those drains that say, what do they say?

[30:15]

What? Drains to the bay. Drains to the bay, right? Those stencils, right? You know, it goes right to the bay. Oh, I'll just pour it in this time, it doesn't matter. The consequences of that, are untold. And of course they are told. The degradation of our earth and land and air and water is told. This story is told. And how it returns. This is the great meaning of Buddhism. This is the great meaning of awakening life. Buddhism just means awakeningism. Buddha means Buddha, the Buddha, which is to awake. So the great million-hour wages are living an awake life in all of the details, the smallest details, making that a problem.

[31:16]

So, I wanted to say more about but I also wanted you to bring up another koan and hopefully weave those two back to heaven. So there's a story about two Zen monks who were kind of brother monks, they called each other brother, brother and sister, and they happened to be visiting a river. They were going for their pilgrimage and visiting the river. And this river's name is this. They were Chinese monks, the river flies. And they were walking along the river, and they saw some fishermen working on the river and walking their nets.

[32:24]

And these two monks, one is named in Chinese was Shen, and one was named Ming, and those words mean, in English, shen is deep, and Ming means bright. So you could say deep and bright, walking along, came from the river wide. And they looked out over the river, and they saw fishermen there who were on their boats working with their nets. And they noticed that, while they were just watching this, some of the fish, had gotten free of the nets. There was a hole of lady in the nets, and they slipped out of the nets. And Shen said, Brother Ming, how skillful the fish are, just like patch-robed monks. These ropes are made of small patches, so they're called patch-robed monks. How skillful, watching those fish slip out of the net, how skillful, just like patch-robed monks.

[33:28]

And that's what Deep said. And then Bright said, well, it would have been better if they had never gotten nannied in the first place, because they hadn't pushed into those nets in the first place. And then Deep said, you haven't understood the truth. You haven't completely realized the truth, brother. Later that night, at midnight, in the middle of the night, right, understood completely those words. So, just to briefly tell the story, and deep and bright, watching this, I remember watching these fishermen, and noticed the carp, the golden-scale carp, flipping out of the net. And Deep says, wow, how skimful, just like a patron monk.

[34:35]

And then his brother Bright said, although that's so, it would have been better if they never got netted in the first place. And then Deep said, maybe you wouldn't understand yet. And later, that night, Bright, So, you know, when I think of this story, one might think, oh, what's the problem? How come he said he didn't completely understand? We all want to be free, right? Liberated, free from suffering, free from our afflicted states and our actions that create suffering. Wouldn't it be better if we never were caught in these difficult, problematic suffering of medicine, of our life?

[35:43]

Wouldn't it be better if we never were led in the first place? How come that's not complete? How come? So I know this is a kind of teaching story, so I don't mean to You know, for each of you to turn that and reflect on it is probably the most, you know, meaningful. But I'll just share my journey of reflecting on it, how it is that when he said, well, it would have been better had they never gotten in there at all. And looking at my life, my being caught in various ways, and working with those difficulties, working with the problems, working with the failures, misunderstandings, actions that were precipitous, actions that were not socially reflected upon, actions that stem from selfishness and not a full understanding of the situation.

[36:55]

Those are the times, those are the actions and ways of being caught and studying those that have been the most helpful, yes. I think when we look at our lives, the most difficult times, the times when we didn't know where to turn and were caught, you know, if we stayed with it and stayed with it, those who are going to really understand how to help ourselves and consequently how to help others, too. So if we never got into the net, how are we going to help anybody else who's in the net? If we never got in there at all, or if we got out, because they're just the nets, they're going to be oval, and we slipped through without doing our due diligence, without our own efforts and joyous efforts to understand our life, to understand how we got caught, then it's very difficult to detect someone else, help someone understand the suffering of someone else.

[38:13]

Through our own efforts and our own difficulties, we understand the difficulties of others. Only a fish understands the heart of a fish. Only a fish can understand a fish's heart. But when we do our work, and we don't have the swimming, the cobalt salmon swim up, we swim up the skin against the currents, They make this effort, huge effort. If you've ever seen it, I haven't seen it, I've just heard about it. And it's instinct, you might say, and yet, what, you know, this web of our life together of giving and passing on and transmitting and transforming

[39:22]

There's a combination of, I don't know, you could call it instinct, you could call it awakening life. So when there's a koan also about fish going up, and when they get to the dragon state, they turn into dragons. This kind of effort to go upstream, to lead, to enter the stream of rock, no matter how difficult, no matter how confusing, and swim. We transform ourselves into dragons. And the Kogosanwana wave, you know, they need particular, in order to spawn, I don't know where to start, in this circle, but Saturn, when they're coming back up to spawn, they choose their own, they took, and they can taste the native waters or smell, and their sense of smell.

[40:30]

This is called the martini analogy. They can taste the native waters as if there was a drop of vermuth. This is kind of odd. I'm not going to see anything. 500,000 barrels of water. one drop, is that how you make a routine? Or a game, or whatever. Imagine this, 500,000 barrels, one drop. At that, I don't know, what's the word for it, that? Concentration ratio. Yes, concentration ratio. That's how they can chase their own stream where they respond, where they were born. Is that a building? Oh, yes. And so they come up these streams, and they have stopped eating in order to make all their effort to swim up.

[41:34]

And they turn red, and their own organs, they dissolve their own organs. They sometimes are left with just a heart and kidneys, just one red part swimming. in order to spawn. The slapping, the female slaps the bottom of the creek to create in the gravel what's called reds, but next it's called them red, and they move the sediment and the gravel make the right spot. They need water flowing by the gravel to add enough oxygen for the eggs, but not too much, and not too much sediment, so they slap They deposit like 100 eggs. They go to the next place and they deposit until 3,500 eggs are deposited. And right behind comes the male who's depositing the milk, and it will go into the eggs within one second.

[42:37]

It has to go in within one second. So the two of them are coming upstream together, working together. to deposit and leave the eggs, and fertilize the eggs, and the eggs are left, and that means, I think this is very interesting, they're called yolks. When they hatch, they have large yolks that they feed upon me. The pears are gone, and they're called fried. So it's sort of like fried eggs and yolks. So our screening, the Green Oak Stream, it won't be, we want to not totally restore, it's impossible to totally restore because we're farming and farming means we don't want the creek to go back down the middle of Green Oak Valley.

[43:40]

So we want the stream to the side, but it's been, It's degraded, that stream has been degraded, it's been channelized, it's been cemented, and we want to create a healthy stream and a healthy habitat for cocoa. And there's enormous amount of work. We had this study done, we were supported to do this, and this work of bringing the stream into health, parts of it are already healthy, as we know, making places that are safe for the fry to be, because they stay there about two years or so before they go out to sea. And when they go out, they transform their bodies, their kidneys, so that they can handle salt water. So it's such a wonderful practice image of, as we practice, we transform our bodies so we can handle salty tears,

[44:45]

sweet water and the sweet and the salt of life, our practice life, makes it possible to handle and enter any stream or any ocean, any deeply merciful ocean of our life with all beings. This is our practice transformation and this transformation of the cohort as they live in the sweet water, the stream, and then pan them out, and then they spend, in the marine ocean life, they spend about three years or so, and feed, and then come back. So our efforts are to make our creek restored into habitat, and along with the coho will come plant life and bird life, and all sorts of reptilian, riparian habitat. So, our practice of sitting and taking care of our lives thoroughly, which is all the precepts, all but many practices, myriad practices, the effect of that is not just some kind of internal, I've gotten out of the net.

[46:10]

Practice is expressed through taking care of and living for the benefit of all beings and being lived by all beings. And that's the full expression of our practice life and the full expression of awakened life. And that's the way they are, actually. being inspired by us and being inspired by all of nature. And, you know, these ancestors, all these stories, they lived in the mountains, the Zen monasteries were in the mountains, they made pilgrimage, they walked, they lived outdoors. You know, more and more, as we know, we were less and less close to the land and close to nature.

[47:22]

So I encourage all of us to make that a part of one's practice life, taking care of the earth and receiving the gifts. It's not the one way. Just given and taken care of. We receive and are nurtured and nourished and restored by this kind of offering that we made. I want to close up a poem by Johan, because this was a poem that he called a self-portrait.

[48:24]

And I somehow skipped the fact that this was a self-portrait when I saw the title. And then later, when I looked at it, I thought, self-portrait? Whose self? What self is this portrait of? And to me, this is a portrait of the awakened self of which all beings, myriad beings, partake of this one awakened self, awakened body. This is self-portrait. For 10,000 fathoms, the cold lake is soaked in sky color. In the quiet night, a golden scale of fish swims along the bottom.

[49:26]

From center to edge, all the fishing poles are broken. On expansive water surface, bright moonlight. Sighted again, self-portrait. For 10,000 fathoms, the cold lake is soaked in sky color. From eating a quiet night, a golden-scale fish swims along the bottom. From center to edge, all the fishing poles are broken. on expansive wire surface, great moonlight.

[50:30]

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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[50:56]

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