Good morning and welcome. So I want to talk this morning about a special practice of Thanksgiving, which is coming up this week. And I also want to continue a conversation we just started a couple of Mondays ago about practicing in the middle of these difficult times. So we say Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them as part of our bodhisattva vows. So I always think of Thanksgiving as a kind of American Buddhist holiday, not because of its history, which is in many ways, officially the Pilgrim's Landing and beginning of the decimation of many of the Native American peoples, but just the words Thanksgiving, and it's often a time of gathering, family gathering, and of practicing gratitude and being thankful and being grateful for all the many

[01:27]

good things we have to be grateful for in our lives and to remember those and appreciate them. And that's part of the practice of Thanksgiving. So yes, each of us this week can remember all the many wonderful things we have to be thankful for. And this is a practice of both a personal and a communal practice. We come here and we sit together. We each sit on our own seat facing the wall. So this is a radically personal practice and it's also a radically communal practice. We do this together. But I want to suggest that the bodhisattva practice of thanksgiving is to be grateful for the difficulties we have, both personally and communally.

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For the bodhisattva to be born in difficult times, to be practicing in very difficult times, is a great blessing and joy. Our practice now can make a big difference. Of course, when everything is going well and there's peace and harmony between all people, that's wonderful and we can enjoy that. But when we face all the traumas that we face now, this is a time when we particularly can express the practice of awakening, the practice of kindness, the practice of thankfulness. And Thanksgiving expresses, just the word Thanksgiving expresses that when we're grateful, we also see that we have something to give.

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So I mentioned a couple of Mondays ago that on the Soto Zen teachers list, there's discussion now about how to activate sanghas for facing the grief and trauma of all that's happening now, of climate breakdown. and all the other breakdowns that are happening in the world. Now again, this is communal and it's also personal. Each of us has our own particular problems and difficulties and sadnesses, sometimes more, sometimes less. But these are not separate from what's happening in our world. And of course, there's not just that. So I want to say more about climate, but also, of course, there's the

[05:02]

collapse and trauma of our government, of species extinction. I just saw yesterday how the koala bears in Australia are probably going to go extinct because of brush fires that have wiped out 80% of their habitat. Koala bears are kind of the emblematic cute animal, right? But droughts and deforestation have wiped out 80% of their habitat. So there are many traumas that are going on. There are the concentration camps for children and detainees on the southern border who are fleeing climate damage in Central America and horrific governments in Central America and so forth. This is happening in our world, and we can go on and on about that. There are many examples.

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The racism that black and brown people face in our world today, in our city today, and so forth and so on. So how do we be grateful? How do we face both the joyful things that we have to be grateful for and also be grateful for, how do we face the grief? This is the bodhisattva practice of thanksgiving. And how do we find ways to act communally as sangha? How do we not become overwhelmed? How do we face the genjo koan? How do we activate our response? So we can hear that we can feel overwhelmed by all this.

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That's not helpful. So to face all of this, to face grief, To really face, be thankful for the grief of the world today means we give something. We can both grieve and act. And, you know, many, many of us here do personal acts of responding to to what's happening. So changing our diet or using less carbon, using less gasoline, using better ways of transportation. There are many personal ways. But actually, what's going to change, what's going to make the systemic changes that will make a difference

[08:24]

For those of us who are older, we're not going to see the worst of this. But for younger people, it's going to get really bad. It's going to get really bad. How bad is up to us. The systemic changes in terms of fossil fuel divestment, in terms of changing to alternative energy sources, that has to happen on a systemic level. Each of us doing our personal work, that's fine, that's emblematic and that brings it to consciousness. But we have to make real systemic changes. I was going to read again, some of you have heard this testimony from a friend of mine, a Zen teacher in Sonoma, Chris Fortin. who talked about her disruption from the Sonoma climate fires. This was in early November. I've just returned home from being evacuated in the Sonoma County fires and then going directly into Sasheen, which produced an opportunity to sit intimately with all that had and is transpiring in this great burning.

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the visceral expression of smoke-filled lungs, burning eyes, sleeplessness, how quickly everything that we assume and depend on in our daily life dissolves in an instant, including cell phone and email connection, loss of power, light, gas, blocked and impassable major highways, facilities for the elderly and the mentally vulnerable disappearing, as well as the generosity of local grocery stores staying open and guiding us down darkened aisles with flashlights to find food and water, and the courage of 5,000 firefighters who endangered their lives to meet the fire. Coming home, ashes covered every plant. Evacuated and darkened communities felt like ghost towns, and of course, those with limited resources are impacted the most. I offer all this because the reality of climate crisis, new norms, and the surety of increased suffering in climate refugees is no longer a distant idea. It became very clear to me during the session the ongoing importance of offering retreats focused on sitting with and on this precious earth.

[10:51]

We did a six-week study in my local sangha on climate disruption. I would be happy to join our hearts and hands as we feel our way in the dark with our thousand hands and eyes. This is a bodhisattva work. And then she added, our neighbors just told me 350,000 people have had their home insurance canceled because of the fire. Also neglected to include that all the local hospitals but one were closed and evacuated. So this is just an example from the Bay Area in California where I used to live. This is intimidating and daunting and yet feeling helpless is not, it doesn't help. Feeling like there's nothing we can do and feeling like it's over, that's not actually realistic. The future isn't set.

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things will be difficult for the next generation and for those of you who are under whatever, 30 or 40. But how bad it will be depends on us. And how to respond to this means facing this as a sangha. So I'm going to try and stop talking soon. This is difficult for me. But I want us to have some discussion about this. This is something we have to face as a sangha, this sangha and many communities. How do we respond systemically to this? Chicago Buddhist Temple on Cornelia Street will have an Extinction Rebellion speaker soon, and I'll post that. And that's one of the groups that I think is calling attention to this in a very strong way, a nonviolent but strong way, to really try and get the people who

[13:01]

can make systemic change to do the kind of drastic change that we need to do. And it's not that the scientists say we have to do it in the next 10 or 12 years. And maybe that's true in a way. But also, that shouldn't intimidate us. We're going to have to keep working at this the rest of our lives. So again, I don't want to make this a downer. Of course it is. But also, this is Thanksgiving. As bodhisattvas committed to liberation, awakening, this is Wonderful. We can make a huge difference together as Sangha and as the wider Sangha of all beings to helping beings, all beings in the future. It's possible.

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We don't know how. What's going to make the difference? What's going to make the changes that need to happen? And how bad it's going to be is up to us. How can we face this with joy and grief, with grief and action? It's important to grieve. It's important to feel the sadness. It's important to feel the sadness. But then? How do we, you know, this is the great genja koan of our time. How do we find ways to act together? And there's not one right way. We don't know what will make the changes. But we can try things. We can explore. Each of us has our own, you know, and talking about it together is one of the first things we have to do. Acknowledging it and just being with it.

[15:11]

So, okay, I'm going to shut up. I want to hear what people have to say. I may chime in with things, but comments, responses, please feel free. Hoketsu. Thank you very much. I don't know what this means. Domingate. I was thinking about things and helplessness is awful. But you know, or something like that. Yeah. But I feel like in practice, that stain of helplessness, those are dominates. Yes. And that's a picture of grieving. grief, but also there's another one that after, like, acceptance, there's transformation.

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And I feel like, you know, not to be prominent-ish, but that's part of what's awesome is sustaining that deep pain and not freaking out around it too much and helping each other so that this transformation occurs. So even in this great difficulty, I feel like there's openness, you know, Thank you. And I meant to mention Zazen in our practice as a gift that is part of this practice of Thanksgiving of Bodhisattva Welcoming of Grief. So thank you for everything you said.

[17:15]

And yes, Stephanie Koss will be here in April. And I'm reminded of what Florence Kaplow talked about when she was here about practices for facing this, including gratitude, slowing down. And really being willing, so acting out of just franticness doesn't help. But our zazen practice gives us a chance to actually consider this all deeply, and to settle, and to be upright in the middle of it. And that's a great gift. And to take care of one another, as sangha, to take care of each other. And that extends to taking care of, you know, people of Chicago, the people on the north side. Yes, Chris. how do you face that?

[18:36]

So in any case, so it's always been very, very central as a core element of my practice. And I feel like in many ways I've gone through a similar cycle again. Recently reading one of these various names. On the one hand, it talks about how she says we don't ask just this dynamic of, so that when things get really bad, she talks about practicing so that when things get really bad, we don't turn on each other as humans. And I feel like, in looking into how can we practice, even in facing just the reality of it, that maybe it's more likely than not that we go extinct in a decade or two decades from now, is facing that and still finding out, okay, how can we face this and

[19:44]

of stability in the world, and how can we reconnect and help? I think that we occupy a very unique place. As a brief aside, I've been reading through The Whole-Hearted Way. Uchiyama Roshi, in his commentary, talks about how he sees Zen as this just wondrous gift to society, the largest gift we could possibly give to society, and that everyone is running around so frantically all the time. enabling people to be liberated from this fear, this just mounting terror that's sort of coming and is already here as well, in many ways.

[21:19]

Just that there's something there that I just think is totally unique. It's a gift just on a level that can't be expressed. Yes, thank you. So maybe that's the space. Yes, thank you. Yes, just a very brief response to that. It's possible that humans will go extinct and that large animals of all kinds will go extinct. I think it's more likely that some humans will survive, but that what we take for granted the infrastructure, electricity, and it's certainly going to be challenged in a lot of places and mostly in the places where people are most vulnerable. Joanna said to me last time I talked to her and we were talking about, one of the things that she talks about in The Great Turning is building community. as a strength, and also envisioning different ways of thinking about things, cooperation instead of aggression and competition.

[22:30]

But she said to me, well, maybe in the future, in 50 years or 150 years, people will be reading Dogen in the back of caves. So what we're doing here is two of the three things that she talks about, the third being holding actions, which is the demonstrations and trying to stop, trying to change. Bo, did you have something? climate crisis is an opportunity too, right? That it's a universally experienced thing, which is sort of rare in this history, right? And I was reading an article about I think binds some of the division that is obviously a huge issue at the moment.

[24:19]

So I just think, let's do that. I don't know how to do it, but I really hope people will start to come together by acknowledging it and acknowledging the grief and the suffering a little bit too. Yeah, so one of the traumas is, amongst many others, is just the incivility and the polarization in our society. Kathy's pointed this out a lot. And that's part of the situation. But yeah, food prices are going to become difficult. That's going to affect us. And farmers' markets is one of the alternative structures that, you know, Joanna talks about. Yes, Dylan. Your comments about the importance of the Dharmakaya facing the saddnesses are reminding me of, I don't know how many folks remember the never-ending story from the 80-step book.

[25:22]

So the world of imagination is facing extinction and there's no He has to go through the swamps of sadness. Thank you for pointing out imagination as one of the gifts that helps us both grieve and act. Yes, Sarah? or scarcity of money.

[27:07]

And I think, as I was talking, I was thinking about what's happening in a lot of these places is kind of a microcosm of what we're all experiencing. We have to be dependent on these people on the restriction of our planet because we have no other way right now.

[28:11]

We have other ways, but they're not open to us completely. Thank you. Yeah, two things, two responses. First, that yes, community like this is... You know, and I would encourage people who want to start small, smaller, I mean, we have a lot of people here tonight, today, this morning, but to start, you know, smaller groups, just discussion groups. This Ancient Dragons Zen Gate is an opportunity to talk about this, and that's what song is about, is that we join together and to have the chance to to meet and talk and think about action.

[29:12]

Part of, in terms of the situation that you're talking about, about people who are trapped by their employment for coal companies, for fossil fuel, what has to happen on the macro level, on the level of systemic change that I was referring to is something like the Green New Deal, where where it's just the systemic change is training people, the people who are now working for fossil fuel companies to work in alternative energy systems. That can be done. We did it in the Green, the New Deal did it. I mean, that can be done. But that requires lots of people putting lots of pressure on the government to make it happen. And maybe that will happen as there are more and more climate calamities. But that's the kind of thing that we can do in a systemic way in terms of pressuring. Yes, Aisha. I was thinking about it from a slightly different vantage point, although complementary. Because I was thinking about how our privilege and the inequality

[30:19]

experiencing the effects of this now, and largely we're not. We will pay more for avocados, we will pay more to fly places, and I was thinking back to the energy crisis in the early 70s or things I've heard about during wars in this country of things where you know, there's rationing, and it doesn't really matter. I mean, there's still going to be some corruption around it, but until it really starts to impact everybody, and that was sort of what rationing did. It was, you know, the days that you could get gas were the days that matched with the number on your license plate. Until these things start to impact about it. So it seems like part of the solution, a lot of being systemic, that we're going to get enough people to change something.

[31:44]

Yeah. Thank you. Somebody who hasn't spoken yet? David. Let me say, let me say, all my ancient twists are kind of born from greed, you know, hate, delusion. And that hate, that it's part of it, I think it's very much part of it. I think it's an opportunity for us, I know it's an opportunity for me to let go of the anger. I have a sense that many of us, myself, I get very angry at people who are in a position of being able to make It's very personal.

[33:25]

we can make a change. Thank you. Thank you very much for adding that into the picture. But I want to speak a little bit to the value of anger. It's not that we should deny anger, just like we should not deny grief. We should face the grief and we should face the anger. Our precept about anger is to not harbor ill will. So if we take the anger and turn it into to hatred, as you described really well, that's the problem. But we can face our anger and then turn that into, OK, how do we act from that? Just like we can face our grief and say, OK, well, how do I act from this sadness about what's happening? And going back to what Aishan was saying, yeah, probably most of the people in this room are relatively privileged, certainly compared to the people in the cities in South Asia that are going to disappear, the scientists say, in the next 20 or 40 years because of sea levels rising.

[34:59]

And people much closer who are in food deserts and so forth. And who are persecuted by police and so forth. Anyway, so yeah, so facing our anger as you described, doesn't mean that we hate those people and demonize them and make them evil. How do we, you know, the bodhisattva practice of facing anger and facing grief means that we can act wholeheartedly, openly, and try to see. How do we make, how do we try to respond and act communally to make systemic change from a place of uprightness and openness. So thank you for throwing that piece in. We have a little bit more time if anybody wants to. Yes, Jason. For me, it's been the best part of this conversation is having this child and seeing the astonishing things that he's taught me.

[36:46]

He can't talk, he can't walk, he can't move. But his bravery and imaginativeness and just his presence. Thank you so much. Yes, so there are many young people who are not having children, and I understand that. But also, I read an article by someone in that situation who said the love from a child is a wonderful gift to help do this work. So your child is your teacher in how to respond and for all of us.

[37:51]

So I think it takes tremendous courage now to have children. And this is a testimony to the future and to the power of love. And yes, we can work to keep this world alive. I was thinking about the polarization and how it affects things. And so in some of this conversation, I feel like sometimes we need to back up from it a little bit in terms of it's not like one of us as opposed to somebody who doesn't agree with us. It's like, first of all, polarization, I think, is the cause in ways, and also losing the middle ground, losing the ability to talk to each other.

[39:02]

I think there are a lot of things that have contributed to this. But the point being, how can we, I don't know if other people agree with that, but if you do, the issue becomes, part of it is how you then speak to people in their own particular way, thinking about it in a different way. Like the families in Eastern Kentucky, you know, who maybe they are stuck with the coal companies, but they don't particularly connect that to climate change as much as maybe they do. But I think there has to be a way to be compassionate and be interested in people who think a totally different way about this than we do. before this complete polarization is ever going to stop or get limited or lessened.

[40:09]

And so I was just reading a fundraiser thing for this organization in California, and they were saying that just the language that they were using had to do with finding And Deirdre Garden's granddaughter is now talking about climate a lot. And one of her comments was she feels we need to make things a little more specific when we're talking about climate change. Thank you very much. Yeah. And I don't know that we should assume that we all totally agree.

[41:15]

I think part of the value of having these kinds of conversations is to listen to each other. and to listen to maybe subtler variations of opinions. But also, we need to listen to differences. So I agree with you. This is one of the challenges of this situation. Yes, Alex. I think this theme of connection is really important, and one word that I think a lot when I think about not just the connection, but maybe even the specific type of connection that we need to do whatever it is we can is building real solidarity with people. we're facing a common goal, we're facing a common obstacle.

[42:22]

So I think the solidarity, right, is the fact that we build with people who, you know, maybe they don't believe in the same things we do, but we can all agree that we are facing a problem together. And, you know, even if you might think differently about coal companies and you think differently about the sort of energy we use, you are clearly experiencing this and you see that So again, just the value of community. We need to have lots of conversations about this. Yes, Jerry, I'll give you the last word. And I said, well, the two biggest ways to do that is, you know, not eating animal products and not pregnant care.

[43:40]

I think part of the issue is not that they don't care, or not that they're not interested. They just don't know. Yes. I can tell you. I had another conversation at work once about the five garbage bins and the five oceans. People had no idea. Yeah. And this was maybe a year and a half ago. I still get people come up to work, give me a hand, and go, look at what I'm studying. Look at this. So I think- Good for you. Let's talk about it. Yes. In normal conversations, it has a huge spread of benefit because people will know. And if you talk about it to a friend who even is a Trump supporter, they're going to look it up and think, oh, what is she talking about? And it's going to help. Good, yes, so we're talking about it here and yeah, that part, so Zazen, you know, we sit and we face the wall and we turn the light within and we face ourselves and we settle deeper, but also we're facing everybody and so this, it's this interesting dynamic between

[45:14]

you know, this person and all beings. And so, yeah, lots more to say, but we'll stop for now. Thank you all very much.

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