Good morning. Thank you for coming to Green Gulch today to be together in this wonderful old hayloft hall and to mingle our breath and minds together, hearts and minds together in the present moment. Today we're celebrating our 28th year of planting trees and tending the wider body of this watershed. Arbor Day is today. So if you're able to stay and join us at 2 o'clock this afternoon, we will dedicate and care for trees in this watershed. It's a wonderful thing to do and an honor to be able to celebrate together. The first Arbor Day was initiated by Dr. Schumacher 28 years ago when he encouraged us to take care of the place where we live and practice by dedicating a tree and seeing to its care and nurturance in the life of our practice.

[01:08]

So it's been a wonderful honor to to practice in this way for 28 years. I'd like to begin this morning's address by inviting us to enjoy one deep minute of silence. I know some of you have come from sitting practice, which is wonderful. You'll be great inoculant for the room to enjoy one minute of silent, deep breathing. Sometimes when practitioners say, or when human beings who are in a big hurry say, you know, it's hard to find enough time to meditate, to give the kind of attention I want to give to meditation, it's wonderful to remember that one minute is quite sufficient and especially given the situation of our world right now.

[02:09]

One precious moment with all of us offering our deepest intention and presence, our true presence, is probably the greatest gift that we can give to one another and to our world. Sitting in this hall while the country is on orange alert and war drums are beating, let's join our hearts and minds together And in the San Francisco County Jail System, a number of us, and a particularly close friend of mine, practices breathing with the Man Alive program, a program for violent offenders who are willing to take a look at violence in their lives and try to turn it around. So I suggest that we practice the meditation that they use to begin their three-hour sessions, which are held every week, where you put your right hand on your heart and your left hand firmly on your belly, your lower belly. Enjoy your breathing.

[03:12]

And I'll begin by ringing. I have a little bell, and I'll ring it three times to help us just gather and become present. And then at the third sound of the bell, if you can just say to yourselves, with your hand on your heart and on your belly, I am here. And enjoy your breathing. Just say that to yourself. Work with that and all that that means. And after about a minute, I'll ring the bell. You can enjoy your breathing. Thank you.

[06:20]

Recently I had the pleasure of working with a very lively class of seventh graders at a local middle school. And they wanted a simple introduction to Buddhism. Without the sitting, I think. But they got a little bit of... a taste by at the end of our discussion, which was very lively and engaged, quite inspiring, we dedicated one minute of silence. And I suggested that, you know, generally in a minute of silence we enjoy in a worldly way, we enjoy about 10 to 15 breaths. So I suggested to the young people that they might want to follow their breathing and actually see how many times they breathed within a period of a minute. And then I was horrified to find that to my six breaths, one child had breathed 42 times. And I thought, that may be the most accurate expression of immediacy and connection to our times.

[07:28]

But he looked quite healthy. Anyway, it's a wonderful treat to give ourselves one minute of silence. A wonderful, strong Buddhist teacher, Hanipola Gunaratne, mentions that if you can arrange your life so that for one minute every hour you take the time to just enjoy your breathing, it can make a true difference in your life. Some of you are probably already experimenting with this. But in honor of the trees and the wider watershed in which we live and evolve, this is an offering. I love this time of year. It is definitely a time when we're called to go within, to go deeply within. Having just finished a practice period, strong practice period here at Green Gulch and beginning a new one very soon, dedicating ourselves to knowing the mind.

[08:30]

shaping the mind, freeing the mind, and offering the benefit and the intention to all beings. It is a wonderful time of year, wonderful and dangerous time of year, to be alive. These are the best and worst of all times. It was said years ago. And today I'm thinking about this particular season We have a tradition of marking the season from January 30th until April 4th as a season of nonviolence, beginning on January 30th with the death of Gandhi, the assassination of Gandhi, and ending on April 4th with the assassination of Dr. King. We mark this season as a time of looking deeply at waging peace, in our world." Agandhi said,

[09:35]

Actually, I think I'll just speak from my heart because it's hard to read these little words. I remember Gandhi, somebody asking Gandhi, what do you think of Western civilization? And he said, I think it's a good idea. Let's begin. And of course, thinking of Dr. King, one of my favorite teachings is we are all... interconnected with one another, caught in an inescapable net of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. What affects one personally affects the whole world. Now we know this very deeply. We know it in every way. This morning I'd like to dedicate the teaching to to the wider world in which we live and find our sustenance in place, in particular to the natural world that includes trees and birds and plants and disease and death and loss, to that wider community that supports us and gives us life.

[10:52]

Yesterday we spent the whole day, a small group of us, walking the boundaries of this watershed, something we do every year before Arbor Day. And one of the people on the walk told a very beautiful story about some rainforest activists who noticed little cutter ants in Columbia cleaning plants and taking down the diseased parts of the plants that actually had been sprayed by pesticides. and carrying the leaf parts, the poisoned leaf parts, underneath the ground, underneath the litter. How did she say it? Offering the leaf parts to the justice of the earth. That was a beautiful teaching. So that's very much in my mind and heart today, this morning. And I'm thinking, remembering a wonderful story of the Emperor Ashoka, these great examples, teaching examples of worldly rulers in the secular world.

[11:57]

The Emperor Ashoka, who lived about 250 years after the Buddha, was a very strong emperor and he worked and lived in northern India. And there's a story of him accruing more and more of the empire for his dominion, under his dominion, and walking on a battlefield after a particularly rough battle and walking through the carnage and the corpses on the field and feeling the enormity of what he had caused. And the story goes that while he was crossing the battlefield, he observed a Buddhist monk on the field just walking slowly in full awareness and with true presence through the carnage. And the emperor pursued the monk and asked, let's say, asked her to just shake the world a little bit, asked her, are you happy?

[13:03]

And she said, not happy, but aware. And the emperor and she had a long conversation about how to live in awareness without causing harm. And it is said that from that encounter on the battlefield, this particular emperor changed the course of his rule and dominion to include edicts of peacemaking written on rock walls throughout northern India. And a long reign of peacefulness began. And I love the story of the emperor's own children carrying the teaching of waging peace outside of India and to the wider community. His daughter, Princess Nun Sangamita, means friend of the Sangha, that's how her name translates, crossing the straits of, I think, Minar from India to Sri Lanka, carrying the branch, one little single branch or a twig from the Bodhi tree under which the Buddha sat.

[14:16]

vowing to wake up for the benefit of all being. There's a beautiful drawing of her crossing the Straits of Minar with this branch and a little leaf coming off the branch and then planting that branch in the good soil of Sri Lanka at Anaranapura. where the cutting took root and established itself as a great offshoot of the Bodhi tree. And you know, we have a cutting from that tree down in our greenhouse that is suffering mightily here at Green Gulch, wishing to be in Sri Lanka, but representing hardship and pleasure that's involved in this task of carrying peace into the world. So I love that story very much. It's an important story for me. And the Buddha's commentary that in war and aftermath of war, there are no winners.

[15:20]

So this is very much on my mind today. And I'm thinking in particular about the Buddha taking his place under a tree. Under the Bodhi tree, ficus religiosa, a simple ficus tree. Some of us have ficus trees in our home. We do have a beautiful young Bodhi tree in the greenhouse. And then we have the old gnarled offshoot from the Princess Sangamita's tree in Sri Lanka, growing side by side, encouraging each other down in the greenhouse. and reminding us to take our place at the roots of the natural world and serve fully, become fully alive human beings. And when the Buddha found his place at the roots of the tree, he made a vow that he would not move until he understood the roots of suffering and how to relieve suffering in the life of the world. And I think it's significant that there was a tree at his back with the roots going down

[16:26]

Modern advice from a tree includes ascend your roots into the ground, drink plenty of water, stand in your own presence, and enjoy the view. I like that one from the top. So I, in particular, love the image of the Buddha sitting with a tree at his back and taking his place at the roots of the world and making that vow not to move. Now, during the time of his sitting, and I know many of you know the story, during the time of his sitting he had many temptations to move. calls from the natural world and from the world of human discourse and intercourse. One, it occurred to him in the form of Mara the Evil One or Mara the Distractor. The thought came to him that his kingdom at home was burning and there was war in the kingdom. He should get up from under the tree, take his rightful place and protect his kingdom.

[17:28]

But he was able to maintain sitting And then the temptations of pleasure, which he knew so well, and the temptations of fame and knowledge and fear. They were all mighty temptations, but he was able to keep sitting with the tree at his back. And the only temptation, the only unsettling occurrence that moved him out of his sitting was Mara saying to him, bringing up great doubt and saying, you are ridiculous. Look at you sitting there. So many have tried to sit still and taken this position. Who do you think you are? And that challenge was enough to make the Buddha put his right hand out on the earth. And if you look on the main altar here, we have a beautiful statue of Shakyamuni Buddha with the earth touching mudra, putting his right hand on the earth for support.

[18:30]

for groundedness, for a wider understanding of what he was doing. And legend has it that the great shout came up from the earth. Sometimes there's an iconographic depiction of the spirit of the earth putting her hand underneath the Buddha's hand to confirm the importance of sitting still. And he was able to continue sitting. until he understood that it was time to get up and walk for 30 or more years throughout India offering his teaching, more than 30 years, more than double his lifetime walking through India. And teaching. So I love that story. And especially right now, thinking of fear and unsettledness in our times. The mudras, how we hold our body and mind is so important. And drawing on the teachings of the natural world. So a right hand on the earth, a great mudra for encountering doubt.

[19:38]

And another classic mudra with the left hand open and the left thumb going toward the heart, exposing the open palm. This is the abhaya mudra or the mudra of fearlessness, exposing your vulnerable hand. I come in peace. And this is a universal gesture. You know, Carl Sagan in a wonderful account tells of a space capsule being sent into orbit with a simple drawing of a man and woman etched in gold. A naked man, a naked woman standing next to each other with this gesture, I come in peace. sent into orbit. So these ancient gestures of putting the right hand on the heart, the left hand on the belly, grounding ourselves, settling ourselves on ourselves, and letting our life force bloom, come into bloom.

[20:42]

Extremely important. And these are unsettled times when it is difficult to take our place. We say in the Buddhist tradition, we say that there are three gifts, the three greatest gifts that we can give to each other. Material security, enough to eat, shelter, clear water, fundamental gifts. The gift of teaching. Maybe in the same way that the homeless wanderer crossing the field of battle was able to give King Ashoka the greatest gift of one dharma, one simple teaching. And then the gift of fearlessness or meeting fear. And these seem like very true teachings for our time, very current teachings for our time.

[21:47]

the gift of material resources. Maybe it's as simple as something that we'll do today after lecture. For those of you who were present in this hall last week, when Ed Brown talked about feeding people who don't have enough food, there is a practice that is happening throughout this country of sending half a cup of rice to the White House. And including a simple phrase from the Bible, feed those who are hungry. If you're hungry, please feed your neighbor. So may this rice be delivered in place of more grim terror. May we feed people that are hungry. So this morning, after lecture outside, we'll have a table set up where you're invited to draw from our stash of rice and fill a bag with love and attention with half a cup of rice.

[22:53]

And try writing. a love note to the resident in the White House and point out that this food is offered in place of bombs. Food, not bombs. So the gift of material resource of real food, not a ghost. As a child said years ago coming to Green Gulch and tasting a slice of bread that Ed had baked, or at least it was from a recipe that Ed had made, this bread, he said, is good. It's real bread, not a ghost. And our ghost food is not a true gift. So to make an offering of food is an ancient practice, cuts across all cultures. And you're invited to do that this morning. I know Diana will tell you more about this after lecture or just join us at the table. And the gift of teaching, the simplest of teaching, one minute of silence,

[23:54]

your own commitment to sit still on the earth or to stand near a tree and take your true place and remember who you are. And then offer that gift to a friend. You know, the central path through the Green Gulch Garden, we laid out so that it would just be what... We didn't use tape measures or any... any of those kinds of contrivances. Instead, we planned the width of that central path for exactly the size of two adults walking together with a child. That's how wide it is. So walking on the paths that you follow in your life with a friend is a gift of one true dharma, one true deep dharma, and sitting together and being willing to ground in what is not always grounded. And then maybe the hardest gift of all is fearlessness or facing fear in our times.

[25:06]

And I propose this morning that all beings help us do this work. Facing fear begins with looking at what's difficult. From Wendell Berry, The Gift of Good Land. I was feeling the relief of moving from talk about problems and what I'm afraid of into the presence of the problems themselves. In the presence of the problems, intelligence encounters details. It is like stepping from slippery footing onto dry rock. The relief is physical and it is hopeful too, for it is in the presence of the problems and their solutions and meeting the problems that we make our true path. Solutions have perhaps the most furtive habits of any creatures.

[26:14]

They reveal themselves very hesitatingly in artificial light. and never enter into air-conditioned rooms." Little political statement there. But this business of encountering problems and welcoming them is, I think, the first step. And throughout Buddhist tradition, two images are quite strong, the image of the tree and the image of fire. And in a way, they belong together, the tree representing rootedness and interconnectedness, and in a way, courage and revelation, especially now this morning. Early this morning, before sitting, I went outside of our house and looked at the naked cottonwood trees standing against the sky with their branches up in the, you know, the air. And because the trees are naked and some of them are dead, the turkey buzzard, turkey vultures like to sit on them.

[27:19]

So there were some turkey vultures this morning sitting on the branches. I could see their silhouettes. And it seemed to me that the tree, that naked tree standing there under the open sky was the most encouraging vision. I could imagine the roots underneath the ground being matched by the top growth. And I remembered this expression of the tree representing life and the interconnectedness of life. And then fire representing the willingness to shine, as a Baptist minister in Albany, Georgia, said years ago during the civil rights movement, shine by perishing. So fire burns by perishing. And there's some teaching there having to do with fearlessness that's maybe even older than touching the earth and holding up the naked palm and willingness to see interconnectedness and to see how we shine or grow by perishing.

[28:25]

I think yesterday we began our walk in the redwood forest, and I put on the altar this morning a bowl made out of a burl from a dead redwood tree. When red dye was injected into the root system of old-growth redwood forest, a trace of a dye ran out for acres throughout an interconnected mat of roots. So we understand on some very deep level our interconnectedness. But the expression of that interconnectedness, especially in these times, is so much through brokenness and through destruction. And it is important to see both. It is our responsibility as modern-day peacemakers to see both and to see how they inform and deepen one another. So that means that it is just as important, and not easy, but just as important when we see the interconnected web of roots that unites a redwood forest to also remember that close to 3% of the original 2 million plus acres of trees are no longer here because of the way we live on the earth.

[29:50]

The shelter of this hall depends on redwood beams. Look up. so many of our homes. So as Dharma friend and teacher Darlene Cohen says, suffering and delight are mixed together. And when we forget it, it's good to stick to our suffering. And when we remember suffering too much, it's good to also remember that suffering is not enough, that we're called to be active beings and to respond to what we see. This is the source and the heart of fearlessness. And we can learn it from the natural world and from one another. On the altar, there also is a bowl of acorns gathered from healthy oaks.

[30:57]

You know, sudden oak death was first discovered in this county, in fact, at Muir Woods National Monument, where people take the time to sit still and take a look at what's happening in the forest all around. So that first expression of sudden oak death, which is ravaged the great oaks of Northern California and many other places, was noticed here and began to be studied here. And we had a wonderful oak tree out on the lawn that for years was a sheltering, kind of anchoring being. And during a Chousseau ceremony, a stormy night in December about five or six years ago, that tree was fretted by the wind all night and blew over. fell right toward the office, uprooted. And we'd had long discussions about whether to prop the tree up, try to solidify it, make it strong. I know, because I was really an advocate for that.

[32:00]

But I don't think anything would have protected the tree from the reality of the weather. And yet, that tree, fallen in our midst, became a great teacher. And we let it lay in state. for about a month. until it was time to cut it up, section it up, and carry it away. But you know, part of the work of developing fearlessness and being able to look at beings that we hold precious like we did that tree is feeling the continuity of their presence. So for years, walking from my house to the meditation hall, I could feel the phantom presence of that tree So today we have some acorns from healthy oaks from the land of Medicine Buddha in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a forest that was cut, a redwood forest that was cut, and the oak trees grew up and cut over redwoods, and the redwoods grew back, and the oaks are just in certain parts of the land of Medicine Buddha.

[33:11]

So I brought back some acorns, hoping that we could plant them here in this watershed. And this is... a huge part, important part of developing fearlessness, being unafraid to look at destruction and loss and to live with it and to keep going. Maybe the trees are our easiest teachers. I want to close, though, by asking us in our practice life and in our daily life to go a notch deeper when it comes to fearlessness or facing fear. And that is recognizing the violence and confusion and enmity that we carry in our own hearts. Because without seeing that, we're really missing an opportunity.

[34:15]

Twelve years ago, I was a head student here at Green Gulch. We take turns sitting in a teaching seat and enjoying one another's confusion and effort to assemble our experience and offer it. So we take turns for three-month periods. And my turn happened 12 years ago when my daughter was two years old and Norman Fisher died. asked me to take my place. And it happened that right at the beginning of that practice period, the Gulf War began. And it was a very difficult time. We made a vow and a pledge to stay in this watershed and to dedicate our practice to the well-being of the world. And there was a tremendous amount of fear and anger and righteousness. among many of us. And I remember on a day of a peace march in San Francisco, many of us wanted to go to that peace march. Instead, we had agreed to stay here, and we were out on the hill above the second reservoir planting pine trees to stabilize the hill, and we had offered prayers of peace.

[35:31]

And while we were doing that, a local resident on his way to the peace march, pulled over at the top of the driveway and began screaming at us at top volume, "'Why are you planting pine trees there, you jerks, you assholes?' at the top of his voice. And we just stopped and listened to this tirade. And I remember feeling this rage and righteousness coming up in my heart and thinking, "'You don't know what saints we are.'" willing to miss the march, the peace march. Of course, I didn't know that he was heading to the peace march. And we had this amazing kind of electrical connection, static electric connection across the valley with his righteousness. And I don't know about the other practitioners, but my own righteousness and rage meeting. And it was only...

[36:33]

Like four or five days later, I found out who had been yelling, and I contacted him and asked him if we could talk. And we met and sat and talked together, and it was very difficult. It made me look at my own assumptions and at my own judgment. and righteousness and what a block that was to true dialogue, to listening to him. He'd been living and learning weaving from indigenous people in Peru for years and had just come home and had realized how much this watershed he knew and loved so well had changed by gardening and people innovating and planting. So when he saw us planting trees that he didn't believe were native to this area, his response was absolutely violent, and it was when we met face to face that he told me he was on the way to the peace march.

[37:37]

So I think that real peacemaking has an edge to it, and real facing fear has an edge to it. that isn't always easy to cross, especially when it comes close to our home base. I can talk very powerfully and fully about the importance of peace, nonviolent peace armies going out, practitioners who carry in their hearts and minds the teachings of the Buddha. and walk into the battlefields and take their place sitting on the front lines. It's all very noble. But when I encounter a neighbor and we yell at each other across the valley, then there's real cause for fear. When I recognize how much violence and righteousness I carry in my own body and mind,

[38:46]

then there's need for a wider context. And maybe it's sufficient to at least be aware. I don't know what else, how else, where else to begin. Just the other day, I had an encounter with a resident here, an indirect encounter, and I noticed that righteousness come up. So I hope that the deepest pledge we make today, beyond the grand and huge pledges that may come up when we encounter the noble trees, is the pledge to fully know our own bodies and minds and with full attention become familiar.

[39:52]

I have a friend, my next door neighbor, is a practitioner of 40 years, an old student of Suzuki Roshi's. And I delight in listening to her call her black dog, whose name is Shadow. Sometimes I'll be outside working in the garden, and I'll hear her walking through her garden on the other side of the fence going, Shadow, Shadow, Shadow, Shadow. And I think, yeah, that's great. If we could all call our Shadow. and really welcome them, and be willing to stand in their light, in the light of really looking at our shadow. And not the great national shadow, but our own deep shadow. And take our place in the shadow and in the light, at the roots of the great trees, being willing to shine and shadow by perishing.

[41:08]

then perhaps that's the beginning of true nonviolent communication in a season of nonviolence and true investigation of the gift of fearlessness, true welcoming of what is. So we can discuss this more fully after lecture. And I'd like to close by reading a poem from from my friend who teaches and works with the violent offenders in the Man Alive program. And at the end of the poem, we can just sit for one minute. If you'd like, you can take whatever. You can do the right hand on your heart or not, whatever you're called to do. And then Diana will end that one minute with the bell. So thank you very much for coming this morning and listen to the teaching of Pablo Neruda.

[42:16]

And we'll go right from the poem into sitting for a minute. So please be comfortable. It's called Keeping Quiet. Now we'll count to 12, and we'll all keep still. For once on the face of this earth, let's not speak in any language. Let's stop for a second and not move our arms so much. It would be an exotic moment without rush, without engines. We would all be together in a sudden strangeness. Fishermen in the cold sea would not harm whales and those gathering salt would look at their hurt hands. those who prepare green wars, wars of gas, wars of fire, victories with no survivors, would put on clean clothes and walk about with their brothers and sisters in the shade doing nothing.

[43:24]

What I want should not be confused with total inactivity. Life is what it is about. If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death. Perhaps the earth can teach us as when everything seems dead in winter then later proves to be alive. Now count to 12 and keep quiet and we'll all go together. May our intention...

[45:16]

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