Thank you, Helen, and good morning, everyone. It's so good to be here. Thank you, Sojin. I'm very grateful to Sojin Roshi for many, many things, for being my reliable guide, teacher, over many years. and for taking care of this place in Berkeley. It's wonderful. So here we are. Where are we? Ellen said we're not in Kansas. I think it's actually good to wake up each day with that kind of question. Where am I? In time and space. Right now it's say it's the cusp of the fall equinox.

[01:37]

It's a waning moon. Zhao Zhou, Zen master, said a gold or bronze Buddha does not pass through a furnace. And a wooden Buddha does not pass through fire. And a mud or clay Buddha does not pass through the water. So where do you, where do you find yourself? Where do you actually take refuge? I think he's pointing out that if you're depending on a particular image, particular form, particular identity, you have to be also aware that it has its limits.

[02:48]

And so, where do you take refuge? Say, in your own body. do you take refuge in some particular ideas? As I was driving across the country back from Kansas, I noticed there were oil wells and natural gas installations. And this morning as I was lighting the stove to heat my nine grain cereal, I thought, oh yeah, I'm taking refuge in the availability of this fire, this particular kind of fuel, and I'm grateful. I'm grateful that it's there, and at the same time realize that it's limited, just like a gold Buddha or a wood Buddha has its limits.

[03:52]

So this question about where you are is, I think, a very deep, really deep question. A few weeks ago, Wendell Berry was visiting Green Gulch. He had been in the Bay Area for the Slow Food Conference. I don't know, how many of you, would anyone here attend the Slow Food? No one, okay, a few. Attended some, did any of you hear Wendell Berry? Okay, well, we're fortunate that he was able to visit Green Gulch. He's been there a couple of times before. And he and Wes Jackson kind of took a little tour. Some of you know Wes Jackson is also a Kansas fellow like myself, who's working with the Land Institute, developing perennial seed crops that don't say disturb the soil in the same way that plowing for annual crops does.

[04:59]

But anyway, we had a little lunch and I asked Wendell about what does he teach and he said, you know, if you just ask where am I? That could be the basis of the whole university, the whole curriculum of the university. Where am I? And really investigate that deeply. So Wendell Berry is a farmer, poet, philosopher, say cultural observer and critic. So he brings all of those aspects to his investigation of, where am I? Where am I in terms of the, say, environment around me? Where am I on this earth? Zhaozhou is in my mind today, evidently, because

[06:09]

Another time, a student asked Zhao Zhou, where is the single peak of Mount Sumeru? And Zhao Zhou said, I won't answer that question. And the student said, well, why not? He said, if I did, you'd fall flat on the ground. So where do you stand up? Where do you fall down? The question then has to, about where you are, then has to do with, I think, also how you understand who you are, that you are connected with where you are. that where you are and all of the causes and conditions, all of the factors in the place that you're in, contribute to who you are.

[07:15]

And you don't know who you are without taking all that into account, and also taking into account that none of it is fixed, none of it is permanent, that it is all in the process of change. Now, we did have an event that's, say, unusual. We say a crisis, right? Although right now, there are many crises. I was on the news last night about the state of things in Galveston, Texas. and about the state of things with the economy, the whole notion that, okay, we can have an endlessly growing production, is that notion, the way you hold that notion may be subject to impermanence as well.

[08:31]

And we build our temples and we build our houses. And it's good to know, even as you're building it, that it's not permanent. You may have some idea, well, it's good that it will last for some time. My grandfather on the farm in Kansas said, it's not worth building anything unless it's good for 30 years. It's not worth putting your energy into creating something unless that's your intention. Because otherwise you're always just fixing things that are falling apart faster than you can put them together. And so I think he often did way more than 30 years. We set some fence posts for a gate in the pasture I just looked at this week. We set them back in the 60s in there. Massive fence posts just for an ordinary pasture gate. I think they're probably good for another 30, 40, 50 years.

[09:38]

But when the structures that we live our lives in are threatened, then we have a chance to notice how we are, I'll say, attached. and dependent, and we are dependent on things. So it was several months ago now, it was right at the time of the summer solstice that the storm came to the Los Padres National Forest and lightning struck and started a number of fires at Tassajara, around the mountains around Tassajara. And we were told then, and I was not there, But I got the news. I was at Green Gulch at the time. I got the news that, OK, there's fire and it could be approaching Tassajara in a matter of four or five days.

[10:41]

And right away at Tassajara, people were evacuated. All the guests who were there for the summer, there were probably about 160 people at Tassajara. And everyone was evacuated. This was an order that came from the Forest Service. Because this is fire, that's wildfire. Wildfire. This is the universe that we actually live in, where we don't control what happens. And then people at Tassara began to make preparations, check fire lines, begin to gear up for the possibility that the fire could come into Tassajara. And then, after several days, it was clear that it was approaching, but it was approaching slowly. And so, when the fire was three days away, I was talking to my co-abbot, Paul Haller, and some other people, and thinking, well, should one of us go down into Tassajara?

[11:52]

And as it turned out, I was more available, so I went down to Tassajara. And there were about 20 people there, and we every day had drills and were making preparations. And every day we were monitoring, going up and looking, where is the fire? And it was three days away. And the next day, it was three days away. And the next day, it was three days away. So I began to call it the three-day-away fire. And during that time, Various people came in from news media and wanted to know, OK, what's happening? Because you have 20 people here who are violating the recommendation of the Forest Service that everyone leave. It was called a mandatory evacuation. But we found out that mandatory evacuation means that that the Forest Service knows that there's risk and doesn't want to have people at risk.

[12:59]

And so, we took that into account. But at the same time, we're looking at where are we in Tassajara. We're in a valley. We have water. We actually have a whole standpipe system. And we have some people who are trained, and we had a fire captain who was there who was giving us advice and counsel. A crew came in from the Forest Service and cleared some of the fire trails, and then they left. I mean, fire breaks around the perimeter of Tassajara, and they left. And we established our own priorities of what we could do in the case when the fire came. and determined that we had a place where we could shelter safely. And so my own feeling was that we're not going to fight the fire exactly.

[14:10]

Fighting the fire is not exactly what we were about, but we were about taking care of ourselves and about taking care of Tassajara. And taking care of Tassajara means the structures that people have built there, and maybe some of the trees that are there, and with a recognition that Tassajara itself is a unique place. And it's beyond what we can take care of. That the particular characteristics of Tassajara, that there's a hot springs there, and there's a cold stream that runs through, and it's in this unique little spot nestled in the mountains, has been there for thousands of years. And so that is already something that is beyond what we say, think we can take care of.

[15:16]

So when people say to me now, they say, thank you for taking care of Tassajara. Sometimes people say, for saving Tassajara. And I think, well, no. We're not actually saving Tassajara. Tassajara was there before humans even appeared on the scene. But then there is a sense in which we have some things that we can take care of. So one side of our question of where are you is in relation to things. And the other side of the question is where are you beyond things? Where are you when there is no things? Where are you in the realm of no things? So I always, during this time, was reflecting on of being at Tassajara, feeling responsible for the things of Tassajara, but being more responsible for the no-things of Tassajara.

[16:24]

Sometimes we may say the dharma of Tassajara. As the days went by, we would go up the road, and we'd see where the fire was, and we'd go up the ridges, and we'd see where the fire was. And I became more familiar with the fire, and it was moving slowly. And we thought, okay, well, maybe it will come in the tashara, maybe it will not. But we'll just keep watching it and continue being prepared. And then one day things changed. The temperature went up and the wind came up. And the person who was giving us advice, who was the fire captain, Stuart Carlson, who was giving us lots of help and support, he was on his radio and he got the word, everyone should evacuate. Everyone should leave. These conditions are more serious than they have been. And so he said, everyone should leave.

[17:27]

Which surprised me because I thought we were committed to staying there for whatever the conditions were. So we had kind of a confrontation about that. We had a little staff meeting and it was clear that Stuart felt, he was the fire captain and he felt that he couldn't be responsible for people staying at Tassajara when he was getting this order over his radio that everyone should leave. And so we said, well, I guess we have to go. And I won't go into all the details here. I'm going to leave a little time for some questions. As it turned out, as we were going up the road, I was talking with David Zimmerman, who's director there. We were in the last car going out, and we said, we don't feel so good about leaving Tassajara.

[18:36]

What are we going to do? We should not leave Tassajara, we felt. Then we thought, well, how could we, we should communicate with the rest of, at least the senior staff, you know, if we were going to stay. And so, there was a checkpoint on the road where the commander, Jack Froggatt, of the Forest Service, was checking everybody out. He had a list of all the names of the people. Actually, on the list of names, we had had to give the names of our dentists because they thought that they would have to have some way of identifying our bodies. So on that list were our names, the names of our dentists. And we got out of our car, we stopped, and he was checking us out.

[19:41]

And I said, what happens if we stay? And he said, well, I can't make you leave. Legally, I can't force you to leave. I can't arrest you for not leaving. But I would legally have to prevent you from coming back in. So if you leave, I would not let you come back in until we get a clear road and escort. We could escort you back in. And while we were having this conversation, he's saying, okay, you got to leave immediately. We have helicopters flying overhead. They're dropping water up in the road so that you can leave now. There's only a few minutes before the fire cuts off the road. And so we had a little huddle with our staff at that point and we said, Here's the situation. If we leave, we can't come back for maybe days until the fire passes. And we know that the water system in Tassajara, where we have sprinklers set up on the rooftops of the various buildings, are dependent on the pumps running.

[20:48]

And the pumps will run out of fuel in just a couple of hours. So the water will stop. The place will dry out. The fire may not come in for a few days, but when it does, it'll be all dry. and all of Tassajara would burn. And so five of us decided we would go back and stay. So we went back down the road and we stayed at Tassajara. And our thought was that we would take good care of ourselves, that we were not risking our lives, that we understood Tassajara in a way that the Forest Service does not, because we lived there. We know what the capabilities are. We know that we have water supplies. We know that we have pumps that can pump the water. And we had a lot of equipment and hoses and things that we could work with the fire. And so it turned out that the next day the fire came in all around.

[21:51]

It moved very quickly the next day. And it came, those of you who know Tassajara, we had someone patrolling on the Overlook Trail behind and they saw fire coming over the ridge on the creek side of Tassajara. Someone was up on the hogback by Suzuki Roshi's memorial ashes site and saw fire coming up the hogback very fast. And at the same time, I had driven up the road a little bit to see how far it was where the fire was, and it was right at where the Church Creek Trail takes off. I thought, oh, I better get back into Tassara. And then someone saw, oh, there's fire right up at the top of Flag Rock at the same time. So it was coming in from all these different sides. And so we knew it was time for us to get to work. And with five people, we were kind of stretched, so we had to move around and put fire out in various places as it was coming in. But except for some smoke, say, smoke inhalation conditions at some place, I didn't think that we were risking our own health, really.

[23:07]

But it is intense, that the fire is sometimes flames very high, sometimes flames are low, but wherever it is, you are in relation to it. My own feeling is that we all have fire in our own bodies. We live on sunlight, right? All the food you eat is taking in fire, taking in fuel, which then you burn in your own body. But when a wildfire comes, then it speeds up that rate of combustion, accelerates the rate of combustion. And so we were working with the rate of combustion, the rate of impermanence, if you will, how fast things change. So we were working with that, thinking, and this is something that we have a chance to, as human beings, we have certain capabilities that we can use our resources. And so we had this sense of meeting the fire at this place and meeting the fire at that place.

[24:20]

And sometimes there was a fire break that we were defending, and sometimes there was a place where the fire was already on our side and the fire break. And so then, did we have a hose and water? We could put water on the fire. Did we have a shovel? The shovel earthed on the fire. Different times we used all those resources. Now during this, I wanted to share a little, A commentary that came, someone sent me. This is a cartoon that some of you may have seen. It was in the Insights section of the Sunday Chronicle by Tom Meyer. Any of you? I know those of you in the back can't see it. He had picked up on one of the interviews that we'd done with the media about the fire and the whole story.

[25:25]

And so here's the image here is that there's this big flame and there's this little bald-headed monk. The flame is like maybe 10 times taller and bigger than the little monk. And the little monk is meeting the flame like this, saying, Namaste. Namaste. And the flame says, What? And the little monk says to the flame, I'm sensing anger. And the big flame says, I'm a fire! Exclamation point. Now right there, just a comment, my own sense was, I wouldn't say to the fire, I'm sensing anger. I may say I'm sensing danger. But anger is kind of, I would say misunderstanding fire, thinking that fire has some intention, that fire has some will.

[26:37]

But fire is simply fire. But anyway, the little monk in this case says, I'm sensing anger, and the fire says, I'm a fire. And the little monk says, is that what you believe about yourself? Or is it what others want you to believe about you? And the flame says, this is California, isn't it? The little monk goes on and says, when were you born? The fire says, late June. And the little monk says, oh, you're a cancer. Well, there you go. You're a fire, a water sign. You need to bring yourself into balance. So this is a case of what I was talking about, of actually working with balance with the fire. We're bringing the water. to the fire to help an overall balance.

[27:39]

And the little monk says, more water energy in your life will give you a greater sense of serenity. And the big fire says, I have been feeling a little jittery lately. What should I do? So in this case, the fire is asking for spiritual guidance. And the little monk says, have some chamomile tea. And then come in and have a soak in our hot tub. So in the last frame here, it has a bunch of firefighters all in their outfits appearing, and they're saying to the little monk, you're telling us you talked the fire to death? And then another one says, maybe there's something to this talking with the enemy thing. And then there's this little child, baby, that shows up. I don't know how he got there. But anyway, he says, he's kind of leaping off the ground, saying, when I grow up, I want to be a fire monk.

[28:46]

So thanks to Tom Meyer for this. And my wife, Lane, sent Tom an email and thanked him for his observation, and he sent a message back to her to tell me to have a cup of chamomile tea. So, this is... I think it's a way of extending our practice. I was actually glad that he had the last line about maybe there's something about talking to the enemy, because it's clear that the little monk here didn't really regard the fire as enemy, beginning with namaste, saying, I'm meeting you, whoever you are, all of your potentiality. When we bow to each other, we have the practice of bowing, which is this respect, greeting each other and also greeting that which we find is inconceivable in each other.

[30:05]

Greeting both the known and the unknown. Even your friend, who you may have known for many years, even someone that you're living with or you're married to, to meet them at this time with a sense of I greet you with all of your limitations and all of your potentialities and that which is not able to be described, not able to be named. That is, say, your Buddha nature within you. So meeting fire also is this sense of meeting Buddha. this particular aspect and knowing that it's also something that's familiar in a sense, familiar inside me as well as right in front of me. So on very practical terms, I have a shovel in my hands and I'm working around the yurt behind the

[31:11]

the yurt where we have retreats, and I was shoveling dirt on the flames when they were right there, and I'm thinking, oh, this is poison oak burning, and I'm wondering if I'm going to be getting a dose of poison oak from this. And I had the thought for a moment, you know, aren't we going to, we have a plan to replace the yurt anyway, right? So, but then I thought, well, we might use it again. So I kept shoveling dirt on the fire there. And then Mako was on the other side of the yard with a hose that was spraying water, but it couldn't reach completely over. So we, and then I would go out and say, tell her to spray some more water on the other side, because I could see where the fire was moving behind the yard. And she'd kind of aim it over the roof. So right there, working in very practical terms, moment by moment, not having any particular idea of what to do except to be fully engaged.

[32:22]

And later I talked to Stuart Carlson, our fire captain, who was both grateful that he was able to leave. He had very mixed feelings. He actually wanted to stay, but he wanted more support. He wanted more professional support. And he said, if only I had a crew there, I would have stayed. And then later, I talked to him on the phone a couple weeks later, and he said, I just finished fighting a fire in Santa Cruz, and it was really great. We were able to take care of it. And it was just the kind of fire I like to fight. And I thought, oh, that's interesting, very interesting, because as an amateur, I have no idea about the kind of fire I'd like to fight. I don't know. It's just being willing to be there with the conditions that are there.

[33:26]

And I think this is something that's so fundamental to our practice that we don't usually think about it that much. Sitting Zazen is just being willing to be present with the conditions that are there. Conditions that come up in your own emotional field, conditions that come up in your body. Noticing the way in which you're caught by things. Noticing the way in which you have some resources to find some calmness, bring some water element, if you will, to your own emotional fires. We have that capacity. And we can cultivate it. We realize that we have the capacity to cultivate, say, calmness in the face of difficulty, adversity. Not just seeing it as enemy, but seeing it as also ourselves in some way. That this is another aspect that I'm meeting that's also bringing up my own karma in me.

[34:29]

And this is a chance to just be present with that and see how I can work with it. So we worked with the fire more like that, more like in a sense of this intermingling of the known and the unknown. Later, people have been telling me that they're very grateful, and I feel very grateful that I was able to be there and I had four other very dedicated people And we worked a very intense, about six hours when the fire came in without any rest. And then we maintained patrols for the next couple of days. But now that I realize I'm out of time, but I wanted to say that the other side of it is I'm also feeling grief. Because we didn't save all the buildings at Tassajara.

[35:31]

We lost one cabin. We lost the bathroom down at the pool. We lost a couple of our firewood sheds and various other bits of equipment and things. And in the overall context of having a sense of relief that the major buildings were there and we were able to reopen the guest season and so forth. and have a practice period this fall where we will have to deal with the fallout from the fire, namely the erosion from the mountains, rockslides, mudslides, probably some flooding because all the grasses and brush has been burned off the mountains around Tassar. much more serious consequences from a heavy rain than normal. So that's all ahead of us. And so day by day we continue to take care.

[36:33]

But I'm also grieving the loss. I'm grieving the loss of what we did not save. And I'm noticing that's actually something that I have to take care of in myself. All the little details of the situation are still a reality that's part of my own consciousness and my own, say, karmic situation. And so I don't want to gloss over any of it. I want to be able to continue the practice of being present, noticing how things are changing as much as I can, and being as helpful both internally and in my environment, noticing where I am in time and space, and where I am in no time, no space.

[37:34]

So, I've forgotten. We need to end it. Now, right? Maybe five minutes for questions, if there's a couple of questions or comments. Yes, Ross. saving the beings in one's own mind, and saving the beings all around. I see it's kind of like, you may think of it as kind of like concentric circles of awareness, where you're actually taking care of what's right here.

[38:40]

and then what's next and what's next. So when I was reading the Tom Meyer cartoon, I said, well, I wouldn't say anger, but I would sense danger, right? So danger is coming up. So there's a sense of fear that I'm gonna take care of. Noticing that in my body, When I'm thinking of taking care of beings in my own mind, a lot of it is working with my own body. It's a tension that comes up in my own body. Many people have asked about fear, about this situation, and I actually didn't feel so much fear. I actually felt more fear of... I felt kind of a fear I feel every day is a fear of... not being true to Buddha nature, fear of selling the Dharma short, which is a fear of not completely respecting myself.

[39:51]

That's the kind of thing. How do I take care of respecting everything that comes up in me? So that's moment by moment noticing, oh, okay, it's getting too smoky and I need to put the bandana over my mouth and nose so I can breathe. My eyes are burning so I can't see, so I put on the goggles. And now I realize I'm too close to this heat. I need to step back and get away from it. get cooled off, have Mako hose me down. So, just like that, moment by moment, taking care of fear, taking care of tension, taking care of what I'm learning from my own senses. And there's some sense of actually being able to say, stop, right in the middle of activity. There isn't any Not just being purely reactive, but stopping in the middle of activity and saying, okay, what's coming up now?

[41:02]

Yes, in the back. Yeah, I'm glad you saw that. It was amazing, thank you. And we had a lot of, I'd say the preparation that was done made a tremendous difference. Yeah, I think we learned some things that we wanted to implement going forward in how we prepare because this is an ecosystem, the Los Padres National Forest is an ecosystem that's

[42:11]

This is going to have fire, it's had fires for thousands of years, maybe millions, but at least for many, many thousands of years, and already some of the plants, I was just there A couple of weeks ago, I'm going back again tomorrow to meet with a bunch of people about how we take care of preparations for the fall and winter, but the base of certain trees, particularly sycamore and maple, and one madrone I remember, are already sprouting new growth. And what's one of the most beautiful scenes is in the around where our water source is up around the springs is all filled with ferns and the ferns all burned and it was just black and then about a week later new shoots of ferns. It's very tough. You think ferns are really tough. And from their roots, they're sending up fresh green, unfurling their little fiddle necks, you know, and standing up. And you get this vibrant green against this black and gray, ashy background.

[43:20]

It's vividly... That's amazing to me, that the way this dynamic energy of life continues to flow. What was your plan to stay alive if the fire overwhelmed Tassajara? We had the stone office, which is a completely stone walled building, completely protected. We had fire resistant material over all the windows. and the back deck area. And we had sprinklers up on the roof, so the whole roof was wet down. We had all kinds of supplies inside, including oxygen. And we'd been told by various people, firefighters that came through that looked over the situation, that even if everything was burning around, even if the roof was on fire, we could be in there probably for an hour.

[44:22]

before the roof would be compromised. And by then the fire would move on through and then you'd be able to come out again. So that was our shelter in place, which I really didn't think we'd need to use because there was lots of room around. If you know Tassajara, you know the creek. I think the fire actually jumped the creek upstream and came across just up from the baths. I'm not sure how it got there so fast, but I think that's how it came across up there and jumped. So the whole bathhouse was very much threatened, and we had a section of the fence burned there, and so we were working with that. But anyway, that was the place. I think it's time to end. I see a number of other hands, but I'll come back. We'll take a break, have a little bit of tea, and then I'll come back and I can answer some more questions for another 20 minutes or so after that break, okay?

[45:28]

Thank you for listening.

[45:31]

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