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. I'd like to welcome everyone, and particularly I'd like to welcome anyone who's here for the first time. Could you raise your hand if you're here for the first time? A special welcome to you. My name is Tova Green, and I'm a resident here in the building, and I became the director of City Center on Monday, and that's why I was asked to give the talk tonight in particular by our head of practice, Jordan Thorne. So I want to thank Jordan, and I also want to especially thank two of my teachers, Linda Cutts, who is my ordination teacher, and Joanna Macy, who has inspired me for almost 30 years.

[01:10]

So I'm going to, the main theme I'll speak about tonight is interdependence. And I'll talk about how the switch in direction to be the director happened for me. It has a lot to do with interdependence. And I also want to address Earth Day, which is coming up on Friday, and also has a lot to do with interdependence. So the main theme is interdependence. And I'm going to be drawing from some teachings by Ehe Dogen, who lived about 800 years ago, and also from Joanna Macy. So recently, I attended an amazing concert. It was a concert of the Silk Road Ensemble, led by Yo-Yo Ma.

[02:12]

It was one of my heroes because I also played cello. But this was a concert that was dedicated, well, I wouldn't say dedicated, but inspired by the Silk Road itself. The idea for this ensemble came to Yo-Yo Ma because of the metaphor, the image of the Silk Road, which is a very ancient trade route, maybe 2,000 or more years, over 2,000 years old, and it was active until about the 14th century. covered all of Eurasia. And along this road, in addition to goods being transported, many ideas were transported from east to west and back and forth. Some of the things that were transported along the Silk Road include gunpowder, the printing press, silk, and the magnetic compass.

[03:20]

So long after its decline. The Silk Road still is a powerful metaphor for a cultural exchange, and people still travel parts of the Silk Road, although it's much more difficult now because there are some areas that are in extreme conflict. But Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble embodies in music the spirit of the Silk Road, and part it does this by using a blend of instruments. Some of them are traditional instruments like the pipa, which is a Chinese plucked instrument, the shakuhachi, the oud, which is like a lute. It's an Arabic instrument. And there was one I had never heard before, a Galician bagpipe. And the people playing these instruments come from those areas. And then they have the traditional strings, violin, cello.

[04:22]

viola, bass, and an array of percussion instruments. And the music that they produce is, some of it is written especially for them. Some of the people in the ensemble have started composing for the ensemble, and they also play some traditional music. But what I noticed was the intense communication between the players and the way they listen to one another And although Yo-Yo Ma is the musical director, he wasn't obviously the conductor. They watched each other to figure out when to start, when to stop, and when to change rhythms. And speaking of the Silk Road Ensemble, Yo-Yo Ma says, it is a model that requires curiosity, collaboration, and wholehearted enthusiasm from all its participants. So in beginning as director, I really think those are all excellent qualities to cultivate, and I will do my best.

[05:32]

Curiosity, collaboration, and wholehearted enthusiasm. So I'll talk a little bit about how I came to be the director and what my intentions are. And I'd like to refer to some writing by Ehe Dogen, the Genjo Koan, which we studied here recently. And there are two lines in particular. To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. And I think what this points to is that, you know, if I have the idea that, for example, that I'm giving a Dharma talk here tonight, it's a misunderstanding of what actually happens in a Dharma talk, which is a co-creation of all of you and me and this room and

[06:39]

the tradition of having Wednesday night talks here, and all the people who've given the talks here, whose energy is somehow still here. So it's myriad things coming forth together that create our experience, but we tend to see things the other way because of our usual way of seeing things is that we put ourselves in the middle of things. When we begin to look at things in this other way, we can experience this interdependence and how things don't exist separate from other things. And that's what happened, actually. I can really see that my becoming the director was a dependent co-arising, that there were a lot of things that happened Four weeks ago, I was very happily employed as a hospice social worker.

[07:39]

And I liked my job. I wasn't thinking of leaving. But one morning, I woke up and I just had the question, I wonder where my life is going? And very soon after that, I had an image of a little car driving on a road with two big trucks on either side of it. And... I thought of myself as the little car and the hospice I worked for is one of the big trucks and Zen Center is the other big truck. And, you know, when you're in a car between two trucks, you can't see forward and you can't see backward. And I just had this sense of being constricted. And then maybe the next day, Anna Thorne, who was the current director and who was planning to leave, asked me if I would consider being the director. And much to my surprise, I said yes. Because I wasn't, you know, it just kind of, it was unexpected.

[08:41]

I wasn't thinking about being the director, but she may have sensed that there was something in me that was ready to make a change. So I talked to a number of people that week, including my teacher, Linda, and she suggested that I watch the energy in my body. sharing this with you because you may also be dealing with changes or transitions and wondering how to make a decision about things. And maybe this will be helpful to you. But she asked me to watch the energy in my body when I thought about being the director and when I thought about staying at hospice, at the hospice where I worked. And I realized when I thought about being the director, especially as I began to speak with the people I needed to speak with two Abbots and the president. I got more and more enthusiastic. And by the time I had the last interview, the abbot who was talking with me said, I'm really so happy that you're enthusiastic and you really want to do this.

[09:53]

And I realized that by that point, I really did want to do it. So I was invited to be the director. I started training with Anna the week before last, and then this Monday I became the director. I think in part also I said yes because I've been a resident of Zen Center for about 12 years, which includes time at Tassajara in Green Gulch. And I really love living here. I love this building. I'm happy that part of my job includes taking care of it and the other buildings that Zen Center owns. And I love the Sangha. This is my community. And I'm really happy that I have an opportunity to nurture some of the people who've been nurturing me all these years.

[10:55]

I'd like to support all of us to be like the Silk Road, you know, so that every instrument is heard and appreciated, or every person in this case. And I have thought a lot about welcoming over the years that I've been at SEN Center. I've co-chaired the Diversity and Multiculturalism Committee for a while, and I really appreciate everyone who comes to our doors, and I'd like Zen Center to continue to be welcoming to everyone who wants to practice. So this feels like a wonderful seat from which to do that. So Dogen also had something to say about the position of director, which I'd like to share with you. He wrote a book about standards for the Pure Standards for the Temple Administrators.

[12:01]

And this was written for the monastery that he founded called Eheiji, which is a thriving monastery in Japan today. And what he says about the director is, the essence of the director position is to respect the wise and openly accept everyone in the assembly so that seniors and juniors peacefully stay in harmony and friendship and function cooperatively in the great assembly in order for everyone to have a happy heart. The director must not overexert and rely on their power, thoughtlessly staying aloof from the great assembly." So this speaks to staying in touch with everyone in the Sangha, and part of that is being curious, being interested and open to people, and to try to be friendly and and cooperative. And you know, there are moments, of course, when I don't feel that way.

[13:01]

And so I think it's going to be a practice for me to embody friendliness. But I also am learning that there are times when I'm clearly not the director, like on Sunday mornings. So learning how to live in the building where I'm the director is also something that I'm working with. So I'm going to come back to the lines from the Genjo Koan. To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening. So I don't think anyone can be the director alone. I think it takes all of us working together. And I have really appreciated people's enthusiasm with me about

[14:02]

taking on this position. There's a wonderful commentary about the Genjo Koan by Shohaku Okamura, who's a teacher in Indiana who's studied Dogen for a long, long time. And what he says about these two lines is, as long as we are alive, we exist only within relationship to everything that we encounter in our lives. And he calls this the network of interdependent origination. And so that's the way we... It points to our interconnectedness and the sense that none of us is separate from all other beings in our universe, actually. and I've mentioned this already, but I'll just say it again, it's our natural, and I think it is natural, our natural self-centeredness sometimes prevents us from perceiving the ways we're interconnected.

[15:12]

And Shohaku also says, the desire to rid ourselves of self-centeredness and live in accordance with reality gives us the energy to practice zazen, and study Buddha Dharma. So it's really trying to experience that that can bring energy to our practice and to our meditation practice in particular. So in coming to the position of director, my intention is to stay open to the energy and the contributions of every member of the Sangha, the residents and community members, and to view Zen Center as Indra's net. Indra's net is an old image of interconnectedness, where each node is a being, and they're all connected. And it's beautiful.

[16:14]

It's almost not exactly like a spider's web, but where there are strands connecting all beings. And at each node, sometimes it's seen that each node reflects all the other beings as well. So I think the well-being of Zen Center isn't separate from the well-being of each of us in this room. And this is very close to the work of Joanna Macy. I met Joanna Macy in 1982 when I signed up for a weekend workshop. It was called Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age. And Joanna is both a scholar and a Buddhist activist. She's been very involved in the Buddhist Peace Fellowship over the years. And she's still leading workshops.

[17:16]

And many of her workshops now address ecological issues. She started out focusing more on nuclear proliferation and the threats that that pose to our continuing to live on this planet. But later on, she developed some work in what's called deep ecology. And she and some other people developed an amazing workshop called The Council of All Beings, where during the course of a day or a weekend, participants would take on the persona and make masks of an animal or a tree or a rock or something that they felt a connection with. And then all the beings would speak to a few of the participants who were in the centers. Actually, the beings were in the center and the humans were on the outside and the beings had a chance to talk about what it was like, for example,

[18:25]

and nowadays to be a polar bear when the icebergs are melting, or to be a penguin, or a... I'm thinking about the recent oil spill in the Gulf, to be a pelican or another creature that... a fish, a dolphin. I brought a copy of a New Yorker cover that really illustrates this. Maybe some of you saw it, and I'll pass it around. It was on the cover about a year ago in June, and it shows several, well, it's a dolphin, looks like a pelican, this one looks like a platypus, and a fish, but they're covered with oil, and they're

[19:25]

bearing witness to this human being about what their experience was. So that's kind of the way the Council of All Beings enables people to get in touch with their concerns about the environment. And I can hear that I'm switching over to my other theme, which is Earth Day, which is coming up on Friday. So the way, but I want to backtrack a little bit to just talk a little bit about the way Joanna Macy works in these despair and empowerment workshops and in the Council of All Beings. She, you know, often, when I went to my first workshop, I had been an activist in the 60s and 70s, and then for a while, my activism was on a back burner. But when I went to her workshop, I got in touch with my concerns about nuclear weapons and other threats to our planet.

[20:29]

And I heard other people's concerns, and there was a time when we did various exercises that helped us get in touch with both what we love about the Earth and also what we were frightened of that was happening to the Earth. Some people experienced anger, sadness, and there were opportunities to express those deep emotions, and then from that there was a point in the workshop where, she calls it the turning, where we began to envision the world the way we wanted it to be, and then to figure out what we could do to move our communities, our country, or the world a little closer to that. And that is very empowering, to have that energy unleashed and channeled into something constructive. So I think that's the essence of despair and empowerment work. And when Joanna began to do more environmental work, she worked with a man from Norway named Arn Noss, who has developed a concept of the ecological self.

[21:44]

And this is something we all have within us. He says, we underestimate ourselves when we come from our view of ourselves as separate. So it's very much like what Dogen was saying. He says, with sufficient all-sided maturity, we not only move on from ego to a social self and a metaphysical self, but an ecological self as well. And through widening our circles of identification, we vastly extend the boundaries of our self-interest. and enhance our joy and meaning in life. And I think that's also what the Council of All Beings helps us to do. Just tuning into plants or cats, dogs, deer, animals we may see if we go hiking just helps us realize this life is so rich and human beings are just part of it.

[22:49]

We often tend to see ourselves as the center of it, but we're just a part of this really vast array of beings. So Earth Day gives us an opportunity to check in with our ecological selves and to feel our connection with the Earth. At Zen Center, we have gardens, we have bees on the roof, and We can also think about this in our neighborhood and more globally. Zen Center has made some strides in our environmental awareness. Over the years I've been here, I've seen a big change. And many people have adopted maybe eco-sensitive practices. For us, this includes, as much as possible, buying organic, locally grown foods, growing some of our foods.

[23:56]

Green Gulch supplies some of the food that we eat here. And we'll be having some fruit trees just planted, and we'll be growing some vegetables and herbs. We'll be harvesting honey from our bees in a few months. We also have solar panels on the roof, and at Tassajara we try to use energy-efficient light bulbs and green cleaning materials. And so there are many ways in which, as a community, we are increasing our understanding of how we can have a lighter footprint on the Earth. And I think that's something we can all do wherever we live. We now have a green bulletin board down the hallway, past the bookstore. If you haven't noticed it, you might want to take a look at it and might get some ideas and some inspiration.

[24:58]

So these are just some ways we can develop our ecological self. I'm just gonna check the time. Okay, that's good. I want to leave some time for questions, so I just want to say a few things in closing. So I might say these as vows. I could try that. I vow as director to bring my curiosity and interest in people to this position. I look forward to or I vow to collaborate. I vowed to collaborate with all of you and I vowed to bring my wholehearted enthusiasm for Zen Center and our Sangha, our buildings and our interconnectedness with our city and our world to this position. I know I'll make mistakes and I know I can't do this alone and I appreciate the support I've already gotten

[26:10]

and hope that we'll find ways to work harmoniously together. So, I'd like to end with a song, and people have words to the chorus, so could you pass them out now? Whatever way is the quickest, and I'll just say a little bit about this song. It was written by someone in Western Massachusetts named Molly Scott. She was part of the network of people working with Joanna Macy. She's continued to sing, I think she wrote this in the 80s, but it seems extremely relevant to us now. It's called We Are All One Planet. So I'm going to sing the chorus by myself first. And then I'm going to ask all of you to sing it with me.

[27:15]

And then there are a couple of verses that have the chorus in between. And at the end, I'd like us to sing the chorus twice. Does everyone have the chorus? Okay, so while the lights are coming up, I'll sing it for the first time. We are all one planet All one people of Earth All one planet Sharing our living, our dying, our birth And we won't stand by watching her die, hearing her cry and deny. We live as she lives, we die as she dies.

[28:19]

So let's try that together. We are all one planet, all one people of Earth, all one planet. Sharing our living, our dying, our birth And we won't stand by Watching her die Hearing her cry and deny We live as she lives We die as she dies So many ways to divide us So many ways to build boundaries and walls Systems we've set up to hide us Neighborhoods, nations ignoring the calls Of the beings who live outside of the boundaries Inside of the skins that are different from ours Creatures whose eyes reflect the same skies

[29:29]

and watch the same stars. So many ways to hurt and not heal, to speak and not listen, to act and not feel, and too little time to be simple and see. The circle includes every bird, every tree, every you, every me. We are all one planet. All one people of earth All one planet Sharing our living, our dying, our birth And we won't stand by Watching her die Hearing her cry and deny We live as she lives We die as she dies.

[30:30]

Think of the things we love. Remember the ones we love. Open our minds, our hearts, and our hands, and trust when we don't understand. We are all one planet, all one people of Earth. all one planet sharing our living our dying our birth and we won't stand by watching her die hearing her cry and deny we live as she lives We die as she dies. One more time softly. We are all one planet.

[31:32]

All one people of earth. All one planet. Sharing our living, our dying, our birth. And we won't stand by watching her die, hearing her cry and deny. We live as she lives, we die as she dies. Thank you so much. So we've created a little Silk Road in here. Silk Road Ensemble Zen Center. So I'm just going to check, yes. There's a little time for questions or comments if anybody would like to ask one or share one. Yes, Vicky. I'd like to ask a little bit more about the director act for the sake of the public without acting on private information.

[32:45]

What does that mean to you? How does a director put that into action, and how can people support that? Well, I think it means a few things. One is, you know, I might have opinions about how something should be, but if other people feel differently, to really listen and be open to other points of view. and take that into account if it's something I'm making a decision about. I think it's... You know, there's a, and I mentioned this earlier, an element of self-care that's necessary in any of the roles that we practice with at Zen Center. But I think to balance, not to forget about my needs, but also to really... make as much space as I can for the concerns and needs of others, to do my dish shift in a practical way, my zendo job, and show up in the zendo, and, you know, really make wholehearted effort to practice, follow the schedule,

[34:13]

and encourage others to do the same. I think that's part of it. Does that... We'll see how it goes. Thank you. Anyone else? Yes, Lisa. Did everyone hear that question? So there are a couple of things. One thing I loved about my hospice job was that I was always part of a team. I was a social worker, and I would work with nurses and chaplains and home health aides, and often I would do home visits with, I was home visiting hospice with a nurse or with a chaplain, and learning to really appreciate what each person in each discipline brought to that. meeting and what i had to offer but seeing how together we were much so much stronger a team so i learned a lot about teamwork at hospice which i hope i mean i think it's part of me now i also learned that um i never knew at the beginning of the day how the day would go you know i listened to my messages and

[35:37]

One patient might be having a crisis and someone else might be actively dying. So I might have to readjust my plan for the day and being able to respond to what was most important. And I see that in the role of director. I don't know what's going to come on my email or on the phone. was going to want to speak with me on a given day. And so trying to be open to the unexpected, you know, and to meet each situation as fully as I can, knowing that there are times when I won't be able to, but trying to be fully present. And one thing I really appreciated about hospice work is understanding that life is precious.

[36:39]

We never know how much time we have, and it's not so different from our Zen practice. There's a Han, for those of you who haven't been here before, an instrument that we use when it's time to go to the meditation hall, and it says, don't waste your life. Our lives are very precious, so I think that has permeated my awareness, and I certainly bring that with me. Those are a few things. Thanks. Karen? What can we do as a song to support you besides the dishes? Well, I've already asked a couple of people not to knock on my door. particularly on Sunday morning. I'm trying not to talk about work at meals.

[37:44]

I might have office hours at a certain time, especially for people who live in the building and work outside because you wouldn't have a chance to catch me very much. And I heard a former director did this every Wednesday before the Dharma talk. He was in the office and the door was open. to people who wanted to come, so I might do that. So I think just I'm going to have to figure this out. It's a work in progress and to try to be clear about when I'm the director and when I'm just Tova living my life. If it can be separated, you know, maybe not. But I know that there are certain times when I just need to be quiet or do something else. I think to the extent that I can be clear about that and people will respect that. I'm sure people will respect that. So I think that's one thing that I'm working on. And otherwise, just being you.

[38:46]

Hi, Brian. Okay, that was from Shohaku Okamura. And here it is. The desire to rid ourselves of self-centeredness and live in accordance with reality gives us the energy to practice Sazen and study Buddha Dharma. So it's the desire to widen our perspective to have a glimpse that life isn't just about us. And so wanting to fully experience that, I think of that as the desire to rid ourselves of self-centeredness and live in accordance with reality, I think means having this awareness that we're not separate.

[39:53]

And Thich Nhat Hanh calls it inter-being, we inter-are. There's a different There's a reality that is not the one we usually perceive, but we can have access to it. So I think those are things that can encourage us to practice. Does that speak to you? Just check the time again. So I think it's time to stop. So thank you very much for your attention and presence here tonight. 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.

[40:54]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.92