Good morning. Good morning. Today is Sunday, February 9th, full moon, sometimes called the snow moon. Those beautiful poetic names for the moons in January, the wolf moon, in October, the harvest moon, now in February, the snow moon, are indigenous names for the qualities of moonlight during the seasons in which the moon is full. So we might say that today is truly the moon of newts walking in the long light of night because they are moving right now. The newts are moving across the world. And this morning's address comes up from the deep root system of gratitude to be able to be here at Green Gulch Farms Zen Center with you. today to celebrate our 45th anniversary of planting and caring for trees in this living watershed.

[01:10]

45 years. How many people in the room are younger than 45 years old? Ta-da! Look at that beautiful wave. One more time, nice and hot. You can even, oh, it's so wonderful and healthy. So, what joy. to be able to celebrate today. And I'm gonna say something about Arbor Day, but I do first want to begin with gratitude and acknowledgement for the privilege to be a visitor, a journeyer, a pilgrim, a cloud and water wanderer on this old land, which is the primal ancestral territory of the Kosmiwak people, strong and long to this day, alive and well, and thriving day by day, learning language more deeply, remembering the voice of this country. So it is a privilege today for each of us to be, I hope, to be present as visitors, guests, and settlers, privileged settlers on this beautiful country.

[02:19]

So gratitude is the heart of prayer in the beginning of this morning. I'm particularly grateful to see the Coming of Age program spread out in front of us. And is this like the 18th year or many? Yeah, something like, I know that our daughter Elisa, she's 31 years old now, and she was one of the first young people to be in this program about 17 or 18 years ago. So... It's beautiful to see you this morning, and you have a full and wonderful day with your leaders. So I'm just in the very beginning. Is this the first time you've been in the Zendo? I know you've been in the Zendo plenty, but first time for a Dharma address that's particularly dedicated to you. Excuse me, could you wait till I finish before you say no, no, no. This is completely, particularly dedicated to you to thank you. children of the Sunrise Movement, children of Extinction Rebellion, children of unknown courage and unnamed force.

[03:29]

We honor you this morning and want you to know a little bit about the history, the herstory of this valley and how it is that we came to celebrate Arbor Day. So the beginning words are coming to you. And take them in and do with them what you will. And I also want to acknowledge that on Tuesday, The 70, I think 76, Jenny and I were talking, I think 76 practice period begins here at Green Gulch, a time of peaceful abiding, ango. And in the old language in Japan, this time is called when people come together to gather the heart and mind. We've just finished a beautiful time like that in January, now going into this next ango, snow moon ango. It's often called in Japan a time of assembling a forest thicket. It's a beautiful so-rin is the word in Japanese.

[04:29]

So you come together to practice meditation, and you're like a forest thicket. So-rin, different plants growing together. Beautiful and apt expression of what we're doing today. Also, celebration of the tuba shvat, or the traditional new year of the trees, beginning tonight with this full moon, a time of regenerating hope and hopefully for all beings in the ten directions. So a beautiful time of celebration. And just so you know, I'm sneaking this in before I tell you the history of Arbor Day. On January 30th, which was about nine days ago, nine or ten days ago, we began what we traditionally mark as a season of nonviolence, 63 days, beginning, sadly, with the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on his way to prayers in India on January 30th, 1948, I believe.

[05:37]

He was assassinated on his way to prayer. And then we end this season, these 63 days of nonviolence, rededicating ourself to peaceful abiding with the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination. Two sad days, but they give us courage to work and to acknowledge the importance of planting nonviolent work in the world. So April 4th, 1968, Dr. King assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. a little bit more than 50 years ago. So during this period, people all over the world make a special effort to be peaceful in their abiding. And one of the best ways to do that is to entrust a living plant to the living ground. So in this season of nonviolence, in this time of peaceful abiding, we've taken up the practice of planting and tending trees.

[06:39]

Now, I want to say that this celebration was initiated or inspired by a wonderful writer, a German economist named Dr. Ernst Schumacher. He's the author of a very powerful book, a classic book, called Small is Beautiful, Economics Because People Matter. He wrote in the title As If People Matter. Of course people matter, especially when they remember that they're made of more than human elements. So economics because people matter. They matter mightily. So he's the author of this book. He left his country to live in exile because he could not abide to live in Germany as a young person during the Second World War. He moved to England, and he also studied in India with Mahatma Gandhi to learn... more about nonviolence as an economist and to write about it. He was head of the Soil Association in England, a very wonderful teacher.

[07:43]

And in 1975, I think it was 1975, he came to Green Gulch Farm to address us and to meet us. His work was considered appropriate technology. That was the name for the work that he did. And you can study about this. It's worth studying. So appropriate technology. Small is beautiful. Let's find a technology that's small and agile and beautiful and makes sense to the world. And he came here to look at our composting toilets. We used to have composting toilets. And also to talk with us about Buddhist economics. And while he was here, we walked around with him, a few of us, Abbott, Mio Gen, Steve Stuckey was one of them, one of the founders of the farming program here at Green Gulch, and a few others of us walked around with Dr. Schumacher, and he encouraged us deeply and fully to spend one or two days a year planting trees. So we had already begun in 1975 doing that, but he in particular reminded us of the long tradition of planting trees.

[08:55]

from this wonderful book. Let me read Dr. Schumacher's words. And this book was a gift to him from one of his favorite authors who, upon reaching very much elderly status, sent Dr. Schumacher his favorite books, including this book, Forest Farming. All my life, writes Dr. Schumacher, All my life has been a journey of discovery of the generosity of the natural world. I started out thinking we had to do everything ourselves, and of course, we couldn't. But then I discovered everything will be done, provided, only that when we realize our nothingness and thereupon start to search for a way fitting to be with the great processes of nature to make the best of them. for all beings. Traveling through India, I came to the conclusion that there was no salvation for India except through trees.

[10:00]

And so I advise my closest friends as follows. So please listen, young people coming of age. No children of this earth have been disinherited as long as we together remember to plant a variety of trees, trees unsurpassed for their value anywhere in the world. There are trees for almost all human needs. One of the greatest teachers of India was the Buddha, who included in his teaching the obligation, the call, the encouragement of every good practitioner to plant and see to the establishment of at least one tree. at least every five years. So this is not a truth that's so well known, but apparently in the Buddha's time, it was something that he very strongly encouraged, especially during this time, the rainy season.

[11:02]

So, again, to plant and see to the establishment of only one tree, but at least one tree, every five years. And as long as this practice was observed, the whole large area of India where the Buddha walked, taught, and practiced, that whole area was covered with trees, free of dust, with plenty of water, plenty of shade, plenty of food and materials. Just imagine how you can also establish an ideology which encourages every able-bodied person Man, woman, child, beings born or to be born to plant and see to the establishment of one tree a year, five years running. This thus, in a five-year period, would give you 2,000 million established trees. Anyone can work out on the back of an envelope the economic value of such a practice.

[12:09]

So I so love this introduction to forest farming, a permanent agriculture by Dr. E. F. Schumacher. And the fact that he was here. And it was precious words. And you know, only a year in 1977, one or two years after he was here, he died very suddenly and sadly. So those of us who remember practicing with him remember that encouragement. So you can take a look in the dining room. and see many posters that record four decades of planting trees and taking them. There have been lots of calamities. I remember one woman once planted a tree in the pot it was growing in. And when I asked her, where is the pot the tree was growing in, she said, it's all planted, really happily. I said, but the pot, she said, is planted with the tree forever. Can you remember where the tree is? Yes, she said. She took me and showed me. I said, oh, this tree looks wonderful. Thank you so much. And I put a little marker by it and came back at dark and dug it up and took it out of the pot, kissed the pot, sent love and affection to the woman that had planted the pot and the tree for her diligence, thanking her, and returned the pot to the pile of pots that soon had more trees in them.

[13:29]

So 45 years of working together. It's beautiful. Now, let's see. Who among you coming-of-age people would like to come up here just for a moment and help me, just for a moment? And then you can go. You can't go until one of you comes up here. So come on, especially if you don't want to. Come on. Good. So I know this is probably elder abuse, but I wanted to... I wanted you to just have a feel of this. Be careful, because it's heavy, right? Yeah. So can you come stand closer to me? So this shovel was the dream a few years ago of very courageous practitioners, meditation practitioners and activists, young activists. They had a dream. What would it be like in the world if we took some of the military armaments, some of the guns,

[14:32]

and weapons that were so amply generated in this country and melted them down and created a shovel. That was their dream. And so they received 50 guns from the San Francisco Sheriff's Department, took them to Atlanta, Georgia on the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination. And a friend from Minnesota came with them with a forge and took the guns. and melted them into molten metal and formed them into shovels. And this is one of the 50 shovels made from the guns. And today, when you go out the door, which is going to happen in a moment, you'll take this heavy shovel that says, can you hold it up and can you read it? As we decompose violence, may the earth again be free. Right. So this is the vow of the alchemy of generation. Kyle Emley, Bronte Valles, and many, many, many other young people who are training in meditation and mindfulness and activism and continuing to do the work.

[15:39]

So your team will take this shovel out, and you'll be the first to use it today, which seems really fitting. Thank you for holding up this incredible decomposing tool. What do we use it for? You're going to plant. Kogan and Katie and team will advise you, and then they'll get out of your way, and you're going to dig a hole with this heavy shovel and plant. The first tree of the day will be from your care and attention. So thank you. And now it would be beautiful to see the coming-of-age groups stand up and get out of here. So we take this too? That's right. and you'll bring it back to me. It'll be your responsibility. If there's some folks at the back who don't have a seat or who are uncomfortably seated and would like to take a cushion or move forward to here and see Wendy more clearly, all of the cushions at the front are now available.

[16:46]

Thank you. Come on up. Flow up. That's nice. You can loll around. There's a lot of warm space. I love it. I see some parents of the young people who were here coming. It's beautiful. And they're incredible parents, too. I'll tell you. Lovely. Thank you. Thank you very much. And this is the way it is. Now we're sitting on the warm seat of 13, 12, 13, 14-year-olds who are

[17:52]

doing the work of the world. We acknowledge this, what it means, what it actually means to take our places in conjunction. And how can we not but join together? You know, just a year ago, a little bit more than a year ago, almost a year, a little bit more, at the event of the vernal equinox in all over the world, one million people climate strikers, most of them young people, younger than the age of 18 or 19, gathered 2,000 strikes, 2,000 demonstrations in more than 125 countries all over the world to call for sane response. to how we're living in these times. And of course, dharma and ecology have long been intertwined, twining vines. The twining vines of dharma and deep ecology belong together, speak together in the deepest and truest tongue of truth and activism.

[18:58]

So I think it's significant, March 15th, the Ides of March, beware the Ides of March. These young people on Freedom Friday, The people that gather to say, I can't be going to school when school is ignoring what's happening in my world, in the world I love and know. So I'll stand on the front lines and remind everyone on this Sacred Fridays, the beginning of the day of rest in so many cultures. I'll remind human beings that we can do better. We can be more alive. I think it's significant. Last March and then again in September. 2019 at the right close to the advent of the equinox is the evening out of the year the balance of dark and light thousands and thousands and thousands of young people taking their place on the streets and in September only six months after that climate demonstration four thousand five hundred demonstrations

[20:01]

150 countries, 2 million people worldwide, right in the advent before the United Nations summit to listen to the call of the earth. And we have so much more work to do, as we deeply and fully know. So I beg your forgiveness for not reading out a litany you know so well that we're almost immune to it. Rising seas... Fire on every continent. I'm the mother of a child who was born in this valley 42 years ago, who is a fire captain in the fire service of California and has been on the front lines meeting fire. We won't say fighting, but directing fire, being directed by fire for the last more than decade of his life, born here in this temple. He's on many of the Arbor Day posters, digging deep holes and planting trees well below ground level. And fired up. Fired up.

[21:02]

So I need not, I know, mention that every province in Australia is now still burning. That fire and flood and famine and fierce bias and confusion, injustice, misused privilege... is rampant in our world, and we know we can do better. You wouldn't be here today if you didn't fully and thoroughly know that. So let's sit strong and long in the awareness of this, and let's also make a pledge not just to plant and tend trees, but also to find time in our lives to have peaceful abiding within the communities and the circles of friends that we are privileged to live and practice with. Some of us in the room many in the room have just come out of the January practice period, and a few of us have made the trek home to the Bay Area from northern New Mexico, where we've also spent a month in peaceful, abiding winter ongo at Upaya Zen Center in northern Santa Fe, really practicing and connecting beginner's mind and the ancestral heart of Dharma activism based on

[22:17]

not really knowing what to do right now in these times, and letting that not really knowing, not being sure, be most intimate with who we are. So we don't really know what we're doing. We do know that we're called to bear witness to the life of the world and to sit still and present in that witnessing, wit, to see, to keep our wits about us, even though we're living in witless times. We bear witness to that, not really knowing what to do, and then we find a way to get up and serve nonviolently, dedicating in some way. We have 63 precious days in this period of time from January 30th until the 4th of April to rededicate ourselves, peaceful, abiding, looking, holding the not knowing, holding the witnessing, and holding the commitment to get up and serve very close. So it is so important and valuable to find time in our full lives to sit still and not turn away.

[23:26]

You know this, or you wouldn't be here on this beautiful day in this dark redwood hall, sitting on black cushions and listening to many different awarenesses. Yesterday, Sometimes that peaceful abiding begins by setting out, by walking, by walking with an open heart. In the Buddhist world, Thich Nhat Hanh used to love to remind us, we don't just sit still, but we get up and walk. You see the wonderful visions of cloud and water wanderers or the patch-robed monks willing to live and die together, walking peacefully with arms, flowing, walking out into the world and then coming home and sitting down. So not only do we practice and maintain and watch and marshal our energies around Arbor Day, but we also spend the day before walking. Walking and looking at the world that we live in and where we practice.

[24:31]

When you find your place, where you are, practice occurs. Not only an insight of Dogen Zenji from the 1300s, a person who lived vividly and brilliantly and passionately and died in his 50s. Not only the insight of a settled monk, but also the insight of dedicated activists who get up and serve as well. So thus we did yesterday. We met at the beach and we walked for eight miles, eight long miles. It was a beautiful day, sunny day, 10 of us, 10 or 11 of us, setting out from the edge of the ocean, acknowledging the privilege, again, of being in this beautiful country, and then the opportunity to walk the margins of the watershed we love and know. And I want to say how grateful I am as a longtime practitioner here in this temple for the deep work and steady activism of Suki Parmalee, who lives here at Green Gulch and has for decades...

[25:35]

been dedicated not only to good organic farming practices, but also to planting and restoring this watershed by virtue of what we see on the trails. So Suki was very much with us yesterday as we set out honoring the native plants and honoring the indicator species of this watershed that remind us, please be aware of who you are and the effect and tread of your actions. So the indicator species, the monarch butterfly, The silver salmon in the endangered coho salmon line. Only a very few, less than 10 fish, have come up this year into the park. And it's a relatively good year for them to be able to come up. But we are aware. We sit with the truth. And that is, according to human eyes, seeing them, let us really acknowledge that there are more monitors than the human world. So there are more eyes and ears and noses on different organisms than human organisms.

[26:41]

So to our count, to the human count, very few silver salmon are making their way from their three year gyre out in the Pacific, 3,000 mile gyre, to the waters of their natal streams to come home. And we call on them and thank them and honor them as indicators. of how we're living and who we are right now. Silver salmon, monarch butterfly, the longest migration route of any insect on Earth is the great circle of migration of the monarch. And this is a time when the world, the migrating world, is very much present with us in whatever way we monitor the difficulties in the borderlands. We also treasure the teachings of the more-than-human world. So the monarch, and this has been a banner year for them, for the Eastern monarchs coming home to Mexico. So there is good news in the world. In unprecedented numbers, returning to the Ollamal forest.

[27:44]

Not true, however, for the Western monarch. So we carry the gravity and truth of our times as we ask the indicators to show us a wider path of practice and service. Monarch butterfly. silver salmon, the great spotted owl, and the redwood trees themselves, ancient prehistoric beings, indicating how then can we live in your tread, in a hotter, warmer, and more attenuated world. How do we live? We, who are fog-sainers, who take the moisture from the summer skies and draw on it to water, our roots. How do we live when your effect on the world is drying and making that fog seining almost impossible? So in our case, in this watershed, in this one of the 25 hot spots in the world for biodiversity, looking at the Bay Area, because we live on the edge.

[28:49]

We live on the edge of the known world. We live where the broken puzzle pieces of pangai are rubbing up against each other And there is tremendous upwelling of creativity and possibility and also dire consequence right now, and especially in the ocean, brimful of acidified rain. So we live in such a hot spot where we monitor what's happening in these watersheds and in these public places very closely for an indication of how to live and respond to the human tread. in the life of the world right now. So gratitude, we began with gratitude to the indicator species. And a tattered monarch butterfly also had the bravery and somewhat decency to fly past us with a wing partially eaten by a bird, but flapping nevertheless. I think seven times a second the wing flaps of a healthy monarch, and they travel thousands of miles riding the thermals.

[29:51]

If they can migrate, Can't we migrate away from our mistaken borders between sanity and insanity and come home? So we expressed gratitude to these beings and then set out along the creek, understanding that probably there were fish in the darker corners of the creek that we couldn't see and walked along above Redwood Creek and then climbed up onto the flanks of Mount Tamalpais, Sacred Mountain, West Hill. ancient mountain of the Kosmiwok people. And we noticed from above, from higher up, after a number of hours in the sunlight when we stood and looked... west toward the ocean and toward Muir Woods National Monument. We could see a thin trail that still is an active foot trail for many walkers on the mountain and recognize that this was, this is the ancestral trail of the Miwok people connecting inland villages, forest villages with coastal habitats.

[30:57]

And the pathway that we walk and hopefully in awareness in Not only the awareness of beginner's mind possibility, but also ancestral present awareness. From Antonio Machada, Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar. Traveler, there is no settled road. You make the road as you walk. Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace camino al andar. And we chanted that chant internally yesterday while walking. There is no settled path. We make the path as we walk into the heart of the world and acknowledge the more than human world that supports and surrounds us. So I want to tell

[32:03]

a story from the walk that was instructive to me of coming down, right before we went up and ascended to the meadow flanks and overlooked that ancient trail between coastal village and inland village or forest village and inland harvesting place, we stopped and paused and there was a giant cryptomeria tree tucked into the folds of the lower reaches of Mount Tamalpais. A surprising tree, a tree I remember well. It's been planted. It looks like it's at least 50, 60, maybe 70, 75 years old. A magnificent being. Some of you may well know this Japanese cryptomeria in the redwood family. And I learned from Mia Monroe from the National Park Service, long friend and advocate and protectress, of all things natural and certainly alive.

[33:06]

Gratitude to me and the Park Service for teaching us about the indicator species. And we stood there in the presence of this tree. I remembered a Dharma sister from Green Gulch who lived here with us for many, for decades. She's a brand new grandmother, newly born granddaughter. But, you know, after she left Green Gulch, she missed meditation so much that every winter during our Rohatsu session, She found a way to take a day out of her busy life and to sit still. And she used to sit at the roots of this cryptomeria tree one year in driving rain, wrapped up in a raincoat and just sitting under the tree. It's not my job only to be comfortable, she said. And I know whenever she goes home to Tassajara, the first thing she does is take an empty bowl, fill it with cold water from the tap and from the creek and just taste. the truth of the natural world. So I looked at that cryptomeria tree and I thought of her.

[34:09]

And I thought of her long years of practice and growing up and being here together. And I thought of the mystery of who planted this tree? And it turns out Mia knew that in 1950 until 1958, not something I knew, there was a little nursery tucked into the folds of Muir Woods National Monument before it was such a big parkland. And in that nursery, the keepers of the way looked in the presence of the redwoods. They said, let's plant in a family way. Let's plant all the trees that are in this great family of the redwoods, acknowledging the rim of fire that runs around the Pacific countries in a crescent shape where the trees in the redwood clan are growing. Mimitsu no kafu, the wind of the family house, the wind of the redwood family house. And so they planted cryptomeria trees, the tsugi from Japan, the dawn redwood from China, of course the coast redwood right here, Sempervirens, and another redwood, the great giant redwood from the Yosemite area.

[35:24]

The tallest tree on earth known. and the widest or largest trees. And they had a nursery of these four species, and they also ventured out and poked a few into the folds of the landscape. So these trees are kind of beacons of intention, reminding us. We don't really know how it is that the ancient redwoods of China were protected, but we do know that when you trace back... generations and these are some of the oldest trees on earth that they were in pockets where Buddhism was practiced actively and vitally in old China and the trees were protected by monastics for generations and generations we can only assume just as this cryptomeria tree was given new life by a practitioner sitting in the rain at its roots so it was beautiful to come upon it yesterday, to be surprised, to step up, to feel that fragrance coming from the bark and the blood of the trees, and to pause for a minute in complete silence and to imagine not so long ago, 70 years ago, somebody planting that tree as a symbol of not only the Coast Redwood, but also the connection between the Redwood family members.

[36:52]

So we are a family beyond measure. And this is family business, too, to take care of the world and to welcome members from other cultures and to sit together and grow together in that extraordinary lateral root system. If you inject red dye at the roots of a redwood tree, that red dye will appear, oh, two miles away from the original tree, carried by a network, a branching network of... extraordinary richness and microbial wealth so remembering that it was part of our walk yesterday and I loved when we finally reached the crest of the new walk trail of the Diaz trail that joining and looking down at Green Gulch which was beautiful and out to the ocean the young of the year The younger members of our team from Slide Ranch flew down the hill, as they often do, before us to just kind of spread their wings and descend on the thermals.

[37:58]

And then we met and walked up to Green Gulch, where Suki had prepared a pot of fur-tipped tea and some very substantial cookies, which we actually incorporated into our body's speech and mind by gulping them down. willingly. So in question and answer I want to go a little bit more deeply into the story of the cryptomeria because there is a long winding story that connects us with the vow to acknowledge trees from different cultures and to not only see them as exotic but to find the interconnectedness of all species right now and to dynamically and fully Acknowledge that. A good farmer's mind and body. This is adapted from Wendell Berry. A good farmer's mind and body, management and hard work function together as intimately as heart and lungs.

[39:01]

Farmer and farm, walker and landscape are one being. One organism grounded in the cyclical process of nature and the intricate web of all life. human and more than human. So a good solution to the challenges of our times depends on each of us solving the issue, solving by pattern or solving for pattern in harmony, calling up good character, cultural value, and deeply moral law. So a reminder of what it means to be human and When you spend a day walking pretty much in silence or listening, looking, being surprised and being renewed, this vow feels extraordinarily appropriate and contemporary. So let me finish this address by encouraging us.

[40:10]

Again, going back to the 1300s, to the early writings of priest and poet Ehe Dogen Zenji. And remembering what he calls sanshin, or three minds, the three great minds. So this is something we studied pretty deeply at Upaya Zen Center in the Ancestral Heart Retreat, Beginner's Mind Retreat. we dedicated ourselves to really looking at what are the three minds that we can call up now as we go forth. So maybe they can be with us today as we go out, first of all. Sometimes called parental mind or grandmother mind. But I must say, as an elder person, I appreciate that this mind, Roshin, is also translated as the mind that nurtures. beyond parent and grandmother.

[41:12]

There's something that binds me in a binary way that is not conducive to growth and misbehavior and radically useful activity, even though I'm 72 and should know better. Like walking eight miles in boots that really have lost their tread, as have I somewhat lost my tread. So I like... translation of this mind as nurturing mind and from the old admonitions handle a nurturing mind handles every ingredient these are instructions to the cook to the Zen cook so we're how do we cook our lives right now in this burning world how do we cook our lives first of all generate a nurturing mind a mind that handles all ingredients as if they are your own eyes. That's very radical teaching.

[42:14]

Handle every ingredient as if that ingredient is your own eye. Your dharma eye, your subtle eye, your deep eye, your true eye, your treasury eye. And allow yourself to be polished by others in the way that rice is polished. Brown rice, the nurturing food of many of the nuns in Korea, unpolished rice gives long life, whereas white polished rice is a little bit more hard to be nourished by. So nevertheless, we polish our rice, each grain, each grain, a grain at a time. Polish our rice and sieve, out the chaff and look at the kernel of meaning and vow that this is what I will serve lifetime after lifetime to a hungry world. Make the soup, polish the rice, clean the rice, sort the rice. Is the rice polished yet?

[43:19]

It's polished, answered the illiterate monk who... carried the Buddha's robe on and out into the world. It's polished, but not yet sieved, meaning sieved, not yet has it gone through real discernment. That depends on each of us. To discern means to sift, to separate the chaff from the kernel, and to serve the very best food to a hungry world. That's the mind of Roshin. To sort and clarify. to sieve, riddle, separate, sift, and to decide, and to decide what is often secret and to serve it, joyfully and fully, as any being tending the world would want to do. The second mind, kishin, joyful mind. Joy and ease. Joy and ease, the features of settled practice.

[44:21]

Peaceful abiding depends on joy and ease and also being a little bit uncomfortable. If we're not uncomfortable and feeling the difficulty right now, then we are truly not practicing. So can we be, as Wendell Berry says, joyful, although we know the facts? Old joy, some joy, some broken-hearted joy. It comes up out of gravity, comes out of the edges of the world and rises up, upwells. Gratitude for all that is, every bit of it. Love people and feed them. And do it joyfully, although you know the facts. Gratitude for challenge. Difficulty, welcome. There's a story of a friend from Minnesota Zen Center who practiced in a monastery in Japan where it was freezing cold. Finally, he went in for interview to the teacher and he said, cold, [...] cold.

[45:23]

And the teacher said, difficulty, welcome. So I think difficulty, welcome is important. And a reminder from the Diamond Sutra about this joyful mind. When we arouse way-seeking mind, our inmost request, expect to be blessed with difficulty in a short period of time. I met a young Dharma sister on the way into the hall. And we acknowledge together the importance of difficulty. Fast, burning, vivid, inescapable difficulty. Not long, prolonged difficulty that makes you, just wears you down. But vivid, intense difficulty. This is the world we're living in now. Vivid, intense difficulty. You should see this world. A drop of dew from the diamond suture. See this world. A drop of dew. A bubble in the stream. Lightning in a summer cloud. a phantom and a dream. Not very encouraging, Diamond Sutra, but food for the ages.

[46:28]

You should see this world. A drop of dew, a bubble in a stream, lightning in a summer cloud, a phantom and a dream. So can we be joyful and see this world and meet it, witness, not know what to do and get up and serve? And last of all, magnanimous mind, Daishin, the great mind. And from Suzuki Roshi, we had the deep pleasure of listening to old tapes of Suzuki Roshi, teaching from beginner's mind. He says, Zen mind is a big mind, directly Zen mind-o, bigo-masu mind-o. Zen mind-o, bigo-masu mind. So this year she first talked about the big mind, the magnanimous mind that will not discriminate and differentiate between a broken, wilted leaf of cabbage that might be floating down a stream away from a monastic kitchen.

[47:34]

You think, oh, very bad practice there at that monastery. Look at that wilted cabbage leaf. I'm not going to practice at that monastery. They waste food. And just as... The judgment people were turning around to walk away from that wilted leaf that was flowing softly down the stream. A monk running from the kitchen. She's out of breath. A monkus, let's say. She's out of breath. She has a dipping rod with a little basket on the end and asks the arrogant wayfarers who are returning away from this debauched monastery, have you seen a cabbage leaf? I dropped it in the stream and it got away from me. great magnanimous mind treasures that broken leaf and knows from this wilted leaf carried away by the stream of life a 16-foot Buddha rises up and remembers that food is not matter but the heart of matter. This is from our teacher and long friend Edward Brown.

[48:40]

Food is not matter but the heart of matter. The flesh and blood of rocks and water, earth and sun. And so the big mind does not discriminate between a broken leaf and a 16-foot Buddha and knows all is food for a hungry world. And from a single leaf of cabbage, the world is renewed and made fresh. And there's no preference whatsoever for ingredients. Shugyo, the beginner's mind, says, oh, I can make a world, a magnanimous and undeniable world from this broken leaf. Daily deep. This is a translation of beginner's mind. I love this translation. Daily deep mind-body training is beginner's mind, magnanimous mind. Bigumindo. Daily deep mind-body training.

[49:41]

And that's what cooking is about and what practice is about and what activism is about and what our life together is about. So in closing, truly in closing. Yesterday, after that eight-mile walk, when we limped, you know, happily, but definitely limpingly, When we came up to the kitchen and entered into the dining hall near the hearth, I thought of the three minds. They rose up so strongly. Drinking that fur-tipped tea and tasting those extraordinary cookies and looking at 45 years of action without any trace, except a few photographs on the wall. I felt such an upwelling of gratitude and awareness. just fierce dedication to practicing lifetime after lifetime, cloud and water wanderers together.

[50:51]

And as we left the dining room, the sound of the Han, the sound of the Han calling practitioners to evening zazen, it was almost dark. You know, the original characters... on the Han are really, there were only four characters I learned from one of our teachers at the Ancestral Heart Beginner's Mind Retreat, one of our young teachers in his early 30s who's fluent in Chinese. He reminded us, Chinese and Japanese, reminded us that the characters on the Han, or the wooden sounding block that calls us to meditation, only four, shou ji ji dai, The dai, that's great. That's the word for great. Sho ji ji dai, meaning great matter, birth and death. Great matter, birth and death.

[51:53]

And one of the women who'd been walking with us all day said, oh, I love that sound. We just stood outside here and listened to the Han. And she said the first time she heard it, it went right into her heart. And she went home and found a bamboo chopping board, you know, a bamboo chopping board, you know, like a little bamboo chopping block. And she said she got the bamboo chopping block and she got a chopstick or two and she played out the cadence that she'd heard at Green Gulch to kind of remind her that she could wake up in her own life as well. So. From the Tassahara Han, wake up. Life is transient, swiftly passing. Be aware. Great matter, shoji jidai. Birth and death, great matter. Don't waste time. Thank you very much.

[52:58]

Have a beautiful day, and what a pleasure to practice and work together today.

[53:04]

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