2008.02.10-serial.00229

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are you doing
february
sunny day
arbor day we're going to plant some trees a here here at gringotts

i feel pretty good today i don't know what it is
because and i feel happy actually to be here and i feel
i don't know you know accurately or inaccurately i feel like i'm among friends
hey
this is a little bit of a surprise to me because yesterday i was more i spent most of the day and a kind of terror in the grip of terror what will happen what kind of humiliation realized several when i go to give a lecture at gringotts
i decided to come anyway
ah

and so as i mentioned today and you know is arbor day
i hear and giving having arbor day for many years
twenty years more thirty years now
i'm thirty years home
and so i was remembering and passage from suzuki roshi own
one of his talks where he said i am a tree and each of you is a tree
you should stand up by yourself
when you stand up by yourself we call that tree and buddha
in other words when you practice zazen meditation and it's true sense you are really buddha you are a tree and you are buddha
buddha tree and you are many names for one buddha
carson another luxuries and and there's no buddha
but it will do for the word
you are buddha
so when i come here i i believe this
you know what i'm not here
and i'm just imagining
hey near than i i don't remember that you're all buddhas
mm-hmm
you know so i worry and know about not being good enough
i was that
i've started going to see a chiropractor and recently and no valley she has many little signs and aphorisms around the office so we were talking about some of them and she said that
here's ago she had done many workshops with stephen divine somebody may have done rochelle for steven of mine he and his wife andrea did
any worships for awhile and a lot of places and i actually had been to them we've probably have been to the same workshops didn't meet each other
stephen the vine as a studied for personal meditation and also
and an indian guru i think he would you know i don't remember but you know i wish you know i could have conversations with some inaccuracy you know in the afterlife you know from that i don't know i'm not good at that sort of thing you know
anyway we were talking and my chiropractor nancy said
her favorite stephen the vine quote was when he said
if we age told each other our deepest darkest secrets we will laugh uproariously at our lack of originality
so know i think it's pretty common to as i do sometimes worry about not being good enough
and you know not been able to in a leg to get up here i know now that i'm up here it seems like my mouth is working and words are coming out but
the day before
i'm up here and no words are coming out and forgotten what words are
and i go to use my mouth than nothing comes out
and so i started to worry you know people will say loser
in competent went that to where we heard you were actually funny
and now you can't even say anything
and that's not very humorous and you know that if i have a poem i won't be able to remember the words so sometimes you know just in case i bring them
case i get up here and i can remember and then that would be very embarrassing actually have to use my nodes scuse me and then i'd have to get up my glasses
i made it wouldn't be too bad
maybe a little later my talk i'll try it

so one kind of in a shame i have possible shame is so in our incompetent loser
and then another one is you know to say something then be attacked
how could you say such a thing that was so hurt for that was so mean
and nowadays you know you never quite know what's going to be hurtful or mean
and we all apparently need a lot of in a politically correct language in skills
so you know there's another possibility and then you know i worry about not being zen enough for a of course
some people are you know some critics
so the movie i in and that said edward sp brown is moderately enlightening there's nothing profound in this movie why don't you watch mtv
or the cooking channel if you want to know anything
hey
so in my world you know i have certain kinds of things i rely on or come back to you know in one of them is ah well all i can do is you know what i can do is offer when i have to offer
i think this is also what trees do you know offer what they have to offer share what they have to share
and you know duggan zingy quotes
line from an old poem you know the plum tree the old plum tree blossoming is its offering
i didn't notice this the plum cherry blossom minister and starting over here and between behind the office of towards the diner room there there's an old plum tree that use the blossoms
about this time of year with this
the one time in february
offer what you have to offer and you know it's pretty young
you know this is very simple and also it's very
challenging for us you know it's also to know share what we have to share
and it's difficult i find and in our modern world you know how to do this
oftentimes you know our friends and living right next door
and people that we might get together with for dinner and know we have to drive which one will drive an hour into
and it sounds so it seems so
challenging really and know not to have
i spent twenty years and zen center and then your friends or next door
and you walk across the path or the road and there's somebody to have tea with
our to say hello to
so it's very sweet having an actual and in our community
and when i say this of course i think about trees
rich seem to have a community and trees one of the things that trees have to offer you know as habitat
as you know pavement and doesn't offer habitat
seems like
i'm pretty simple but trays actually opera habitat
and a various creatures can live in the tree when there's trees there's years the at you know birds
and the trees offer shade and
a fruit
come
and a home
and they share you know very graciously
you know they're wonderful hide and of course nowadays
and
some people say for instance you know you don't notice the sky in as there's a tree
finally we notice the sky because there are trees
which is also the same as the silence in the mountains is deepened by the song of the bird
i try to remember that when i'm at my writing retreat on tomatoes bay and the cars are going by
just deepening the stillness

and from one of my windows
there's a huge i don't know what country it is but huge awning of the tree this time of year hasn't yet bad again
right it's a magnificent
in a been to have in my vicinity
and of course nowadays we know that trees
our
it was not just a burning carbon fuels but cutting down trees which is part of what's lead to global warming because the trees were
all those acres and miles of trees and forests that returned in the newsprint and everything you know where otherwise turning carbon dioxide back into oxygen

so you know it's interesting for me i've been thinking about you know what
oh went to offer and you know there are certainly and various possibilities
and you know each of us has
you know various things to offer and sometimes we think it needs to be a scale and many of us of course have useful and important skills to offer
you know doctors and
lawyers and some of the people you know reds and center years ago we had in no couple weeks ago reunion and one of our graduates
see a graduate or as xander about
we're not sure if anybody's succeeded at this business just yet
this same business
and but one of our graduates you know he restores rivers
and some people hire him he went back to harvard after sensor and finished his degree and know people hire him to restore rivers to their natural flow and natural habitat from having been in you're having an industrial things come down and in various things that have degraded to river
graduates is
you know working
our lives in japan and and is working
to combat global warming
and samovar and students are
you know have started a humane farming association and and know anti and in a cruelty to animals and farming also in europe
as as some of us you know on some people one am i am one of the things i have been interested in studying is a you know communication skills so some people have pretty good communication skills
and they actually seem to be able to listen and hear what you have to say and
wow what a concept and and are able to say things and to you that you know i have printing don't cause may be defensive and you know feel small and humiliated
and so some of us have you know we have various skills so god skills
and some of us you know we have the capacity to be of service
and so in a weekend
and we can be of service and is is to like you know today planting trees and we find ways to be of service to cook
for one another or the garden
and to offer our efforts
in order to benefit other people
other paper plans gardens the world in various ways
in some people of course in our gifted in own terms of a writing or in terms of playing music
sometimes i think if i have a chance next life
a musician from the i could be a musician
it seems so other worldly and mysterious i as musicians how to do that and they just the way you just do it as a know you just do it i don't just do it
i just cook
and people say how do you do that and and it you just do it
but now our oliver sacks and who has a new book out about musicians about music and how not everybody has an ear so at last and vindicated
because my music friends in are just tend to say oh you can do it
everybody can do it it's that term
anyway
but i mention this because also finally you know
r m a great offering you know as our on
presence of mind and our own good heartedness and are good hearted presidents that can come in to this moment show up here in this moment and be awake and alive and responsive
to what's going on
what's going on in our own being and what's going on around us we can
with our presence we can show up and respond
and we can be awake and alive
and sometimes you know it will be like a tree and winter it will look like much
and sometimes there will be fruit
and there will be birds and branches
so our presence doesn't always look like much and it's easy to overlook this capacity we have to show up to be present a rag alive and respond
when i was a many years ago it's insane are studying
the are japanese to teachers whose dues and expression i'm not sure actually had literally it's translated but may you know corfu
and they used to translate kind considerate compassionate attention to detail
can i realize with all the things that i knock over and spill
i must not be practicing this
and it's not just and things you know but people and ryan awareness
you know i want to move more quickly and get something done rather than just being present and responsive and kind and considerate
in our taking the time to say good morning and how are you and taking the time to has said quietly
taking the time to
you know prepare food
to clean the floor
so
i know endeavoring to renew my practice
we'll see how it goes
britain

and this you know apparently in as i didn't know this but but is over the centuries and into bed anyway you know there's a actually a doctrine on debate between two schools about in the nature of emptiness
and or know which is in a british technical term for the fact that things do not have any inherent self so this is why we can say when you stand up by yourself you are buddha you're actually buddha you are a tree and you are
buddha voted tree and you are many names of one better
in sometimes we get mean know caught by someone momentary description we have about herself
no not good enough
so the
apparently this a you know emptiness or in your no inherent being
you know there's been a debate whether this is absolutely nothing as emptiness nothing or if there's a presence
so i guess i'm in this school and there's presence
this emptiness
and i'm also now practicing you know having that in your presence is there in a smile
to understand
and to respond and to take care of things
oh

as i want to share a poem with you today which
you know i i am it's my favorite poem when a broke his sonnets are sentenced at murphy's and
i thought about this poem because someone mentioned to me that one of the things being planted today's and you know apple seeds that have sprouted
an apple seeds are very interesting because there was called
heterogeneous
in any apple of the seeds or not you know nobody knows what apple will come out of their seeds
at first they oppose they grow from seeds are not very good the trees the griffin
stayed and then the apples from the seed rm you know often sour and small and
michael pollan now as and in a new book out endeared them the botany of desire and then a book called and omnivore's dilemma which is tracing different meals and now is written a book about food and eating so is summarized visit a little bit of a side but don't worry i'm gonna get to the
i'm and everything you husband i love it you know he's now summarized and
in his new book apparently no food and in in in seven words
eight food
less of it mostly plants
this is because you know a lot of what we eat is so manufactured in process in a reason i'm calling that food
food plants things
it food less of it mostly plans and but in his earlier book in a bot named desire which shows how apple's are one of these plants that has managed to get humans to help along just like corn is another one of those plants you know that porn can't grow unless somebody takes it
puts it in the ground so coin is completely died his destiny to human beings wanting to play it
and with the amount of corn we're going on the united states you know is it's very successful it is it's colonized as and gotten us and so we are in are now become a michael pollan suggesting a coin people
and you can tell this by looking at in the molecules and cells and body and the that kind of carbon it is because corn has a very distinctive carbon am
and whatever it is molecule or something
and of course he in the omnivore's dilemma you know he says that
nowadays you know we don't care about corn you know waves were so affluent you know we don't take care of small things like grains of corn now there's whole corn you know by the roadside in the gothic gutters and galison by sailors and things and in imagine
the aztecs or mind as you know who grew corn
i wouldn't want to waste a grain they felt the coin god would be angry with them if they raced it anything
but in botany of desire then like obama explains how apple's johnny appleseed really was appleseed and he took the apple seeds and he went out and beyond the western movement and started growing apathy
he's in little orchards and and got land ahead of others so that when they showed up they can show he can sell them out a little apple trees
and everybody wanted an apple tree for their front yard and it wasn't so you have apples to eat received have apples to juice and in those days in a few days any apples you induced became hard apple cider so you wanted to have your own apple trees a year to get have hard cider
and plenty of it
so johnny appleseed this cultural hero is actually you know helping people to get come you know drug
interesting man
but so anyway the apples you know we don't know what this apa obey but and every plant an apple tree from seeds and any was like now fuji apples fairly recent in assembly discovered it and then all the fuji trees are from the same tree and taking branches and graft in the mind as rootstock
ugh better you get fuji apples or gala apples which when i was growing up there real fuji apples or gala apples so somebody
planted some seeds and they got lucky they found for year gala and then you can sell them all over the world you know the road switches over to your apple can find the right one

i'm so i mentioned all of that because we're planning and you know some at least one episode
our tree from an episode today
and
so this palm brokers is about presence
and actually been showing up being present observing same smelling tasting touching
i think we have some confusion you know that and to be
am
you know a good a sometimes a good buddhist or a good human being would mean you know we didn't have any i'm you know so much feeling
and that and but feeling is actually work can access with ourself and with one another
and with the world
so in this bone there's also in a failing
so here's the way the phone goes
round apple smooth banana melon gooseberry peach how all this affluent speaks death and life in the mouth
how all this affluent space death and life in the mouth
i sense observe it in a child's transparent features while he tastes
this comes from far away scans from far away
you are a tree in your buddha

instead of words discoveries flow out in the first of the fruit
astonished to be free
dare to say what apple truly is
the sweetness that feels thick dark dense at first then grows clarified awake luminous double meaning sunny the real oh knowledge pleasure joy immense
i so for me it's you know our presence are good hearted presence at brings life to live
brings life to our own life
to our own body and mind our capacity to respond to live and brings life to the world
in your to apples and to trees
and you know if we understand
as as a girl she says when you understand
more deeply you will see how you are a tree each of us is a tree
a tree and buddha
i says when you experience enlightenment you will understand more freely he won't worry about what people call you
i guess i have a ways to go
ordinary mind okay but i'm ordinary mind loser okay i'm laser
and you know say the wrong thing okay i'm buddha yes and burger
so where are like this you know
ordinary mind and buddha
and when i come here i do feel you know this you know energy in the room presence her presence together
and no good hearted people
you have a minute this capacity we all have this capacity to be present awake alive and responded things
and of course is responding to things you know is different than you know controlling them are telling them how to behave
it's more like a tree and providing habitat for birds and
birds insects
you know in it's branches

and again you know so again i want to encourage you to offer what you have to offer
regardless of you know what it appears to be or whether it appears to be valuable or not so valuable are skillful are not so skilful you know this is fine they are all we have you know is to offer
what we have to offer share what we have to share
and then you know whether it's a skills or resources
or are simple a good hearted presence thank you blessings