I want to start by introducing our guest, Zenshin Florence Kaplow, has been here before, but for those of you who have not met her, Florence is a Soto Zen priest in the Suzuki Roshi lineage. She's also a Unitarian Universalist minister. She's minister at the Urbana-Champaign Church in in Illinois. She's also a professional, or was a professional, is a professional trained conservation botanist and environmental activist. She's also co-edited with Sue Moon a wonderful book, which probably we won't get to tonight, but you should know about called The Hidden Lamp, which is a wonderful anthology of women teachers, Buddhist teachers and practitioners going back to the time of Buddha and with stories about them with commentaries by modern women teachers.

[01:12]

So a wonderful book, The Hidden Lamp. So tonight Florence and I are going to talk about a current topic. So the year 2020. thankfully is drawing towards a close. We'll see how the next year goes. We've been amidst the COVID pandemic, the exposure of systemic racism, economic distress for many, but also In the background, still present in the world, still an existential threat in the world is climate breakdown. We haven't talked about that as much as the other situations, but Florence and I thought we'd talk about that a little bit tonight and that as climate as a

[02:24]

Something that we also need to be aware of, but also how to respond appropriately to it. So I'll just introduce this and then Florence and I'll go back and forth and we're hoping we'll have discussion about this. But just to say that the situation of our planet continues to be serious. The Arctic is melting. Glaciers are melting, there continues to be record warm temperatures in the Arctic and Antarctic. Our current administration is opening up most of the Arctic to oil and gas drilling. And so the need for shifting, the critical need for shifting from fossil fuel energy systems to the sustainable energy systems that are now available technologically.

[03:31]

Solar and others is critical. Of course, we know about the fires in the West Coast, along the West Coast. And Florence is from the Northwest and can speak to that. great fires in the West Coast, the hurricanes in the Gulf and in the Atlantic. Hi, Ed, we're talking about, I'm introducing the topic of climate along with everything else that we're seeing. The deforestation in the Amazon and other of our great forests. So it's serious. So how do we actually think about appropriate responses on all kinds of scales from just eating more sensibly, recycling, but also how do we think about systemic responses?

[04:41]

Just as we think about systemic racism, how do we think about systemic climate damage? What are appropriate responses? How do we think about this in terms of our own Bodhisattva teachings and precepts? How can we act together as a species in terms of Sanghas and the various interconnected Sanghas move towards a real response to the situation. So I'm going to turn it over to Florence, who as a scientist knows a lot more about what's actually happening and has thought about what, you know, what we can actually do. So Florence will speak and I'll respond and we'll go back forth a little bit.

[05:42]

But then we wanted to have some discussion because I know a lot of you and know a lot about this too. So, Florence, welcome to Ancient Dragon again, and please take it away. Well, it's great to see familiar faces and some not familiar faces on this chilly, almost December night. And I was just considering, Teigen, how many years you and I have been in some kind of dialogue around climate change. I think it's how we originally connected at Green Gulch, which was sometime in the 90s, early 90s. So, and I know that over the years we've corresponded about it and had long conversations over at various coffee shops in California.

[06:43]

And so this just feels like a continuation of the conversation. And I hope that this can be not just a conversation between Taigan and myself, but a conversation with all of us. This is a, a challenge and practice for all of us. And I might just add a little bit from what Pagan said that as well as being engaged professionally around issues of conservation and climate. And actually one of the reasons that I'm not currently doing that work that I did for a long time, the conservation of endangered plants, is that it's a very, it's very intensive work. It takes tremendous effort to protect even one population of an endangered species.

[07:44]

But when the whole planet is shifting and changing, that work also changes. And so my work now is to provide support, inspiration, I often said I went into the ministry in order to accompany people through the storm. I had no idea that the storm was so close upon us. I think we've all been feeling that we're living in a storm this year. As I'm sure you know, in a way, you don't need more facts and figures from me or from anybody. Many aspects of this storm, including, honestly, the original election of our current president, are pretty directly related to climate change. The biggest funders, the very first thing, literally the very first thing, that President Trump did upon getting into office was to reverse the Obama administration decision around the pipeline crossing the Standing Rock Reservation.

[08:54]

That was on day one. Because the funders, his funders, these were the things that mattered to them. So part of my, also part of my background is connections with and activism work alongside and as a ally of indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest. I did go to Standing Rock in September of that year before the election in January or in November, followed by the decision in January. And I also spent a lot of time when I was in the Northwest doing activism work around stopping some of the really, really huge fossil fuel transportation projects, mostly ports that were planned for Puget Sound and up and down the West Coast. A lot of those, frankly, were victories and have continued to be victories even under this administration.

[10:01]

And so I'm very aware of the role of indigenous people and also the role that we, as people engaged in religious and spiritual practice have as a kind of moral weight during this time. And this is really important. This is something that people within Native communities said to me over and over again, is that if Native people and I'm just gonna, it's sort of a Christian word, but I think it very much includes us. People of faith come together. This is powerful moral ground that we can stand on together and make a difference. And I do believe this. So I just wanted to add that in terms of my own background. Tonight, when Taigan and I talked a little bit about what to explore, What came to mind for me, because I think the real question for each one of us is, it's the question that we are all engaged in anyway, is how do we practice with this massive

[11:19]

planetary change that we are connected to through our actions, through our inactions, through the systems that we are part of. How do we practice with that? How do we face it? How do we make change? How do we work with our despair and our grief? These are all very deep practice questions. utterly indebted to Joanna Macy for her work around this question, these questions, over quite literally decades. And if you're not familiar with her work, which what it's currently called is the work that reconnects, I really recommend taking a look at what she continues to do. And she is over 90. Now, I believe she's about 91, 92, somewhere in there.

[12:21]

So one of the foundations of our practice are the precepts. And there are many frames that we can use to look at how we practice with climate change. But I thought for tonight, maybe we could all turn together, Eigen and myself, but also all of you, what it might mean. And of course there's 16 precepts, but I thought maybe we'd focus on the first five of the 10 grave precepts. And I got the translation that you use so that we'd all be speaking more or less the same language. And how these might help us, might give us some foundation to think about these huge forces that are going on right now and how we might practice with them. So with your permission, perhaps we will take up that exploration.

[13:28]

Does that sound good? Yeah? Some of you may have I don't know anybody else who was there other than Teigen from the night that I spoke at DePaul about a year ago. But actually, that was another frame. Ah, I see. There was at least one other person who was there. And there I looked at sort of five practices that, like the practice of, you know, appreciation and gratitude for the world that we have, even as it changes and breaks, or the practice of looking straight at what's happening, facing it. And I think, again, these different frames can just help us in different ways, but I think that we can look at these precepts and we can see some real practices here. So I wanna really bring this like down to earth, down to what's in our own hearts and minds and bodies as we practice together.

[14:35]

So I just want to remind you of the first five precepts, again, in the version, which is actually the same that I'm familiar with from San Francisco Zen Center. A disciple of Buddha does not kill. A disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. A disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexuality. A disciple of Buddha does not lie. A disciple of Buddha does not intoxicate mind or body of self or others. And in a lot of the Buddhist, Asian Buddhist world, these five, the first five precepts are the ones that are taken and practiced by everyone across the board. So the monks and nuns have hundreds, but lay people practice these five. So these are really, these are really foundational.

[15:36]

And I want to start, maybe we could just sit with this and then maybe Taigen has something to say, then maybe some of you have something to say. And I might say something about disciple of Buddha does not kill. And let's just sit with that in relation to this thing that we're living in, climate change and the way that it is sweeping across our planet. What does it have to say to us? How do we practice with a disciple of Buddha does not kill at this time in relation to climate change? And I'll just add, for those who might not be maybe so familiar with practicing with the precepts, that they're also poems. They're also more or less infinitely deep in terms of a kind of absolute understanding of them, as well as being right here in our lives.

[16:53]

my long-time teacher, Zoketsu Norman Fisher, loves to say, one of the things that makes them so wonderful is that they're impossible. That they can never, you never kind of get the precepts and then you're done. And so, they're, Each one has the potential for opening up your life in many different ways. And they are not in any way, shape or form the same as say, Christian commandments. They're really understood as, or Judeo-Christian commandments. They're understood as practices. So I don't know, Taigen, do you have a response? Yeah. I think of, well, I think of each of the 10, Verse five is, there's the, please don't kill, please don't destroy life, but also please help others not to do that.

[17:56]

But also the opposite, please support life. Don't kill, but also support life. So in terms of climate, I think immediately of the mass extinctions, biodiversity, So how do we try to negate the extinctions? How do we try and preserve biodiversity? And what other practices we can do and how do we encourage that in our society? How do we support all the different creatures? And of course, Sometimes we can't, on one level, we cannot help but kill. There are bacteria in our stomachs that are constantly digesting in any way.

[19:01]

We're part of the food chain on some level, but how do we pay attention to what it is that we eat? How do we pay attention to what it is that's happening in the world in terms of biodiversity, but also in terms of, you know, whatever neighborhood we're living in and how do we help with that? And paying attention is supporting life and paying attention to all of this is a huge go on too. How do we, because we don't know all of the complexity of it, but what part of it can we, look at. So yeah, these are not commandments like good and bad and right and wrong. And we don't have there's no simple answers. These are questions and guidelines and situations to look in terms of what's happening to the to our world.

[20:09]

How do we try to support not killing and this applies to so many levels to the availability of weapons and guns to our country waging wars that are costly and destructive and other countries waging wars and so forth. There's so many levels of it. So to look at all of that and then how do we support life in our terms of our interactions? How do we not, how do we support vitality and energy in terms of the people around us, how do we encourage each other, how do we encourage liveliness in our sangha and in our relationships and in our interactions and not stop, not deaden the possibilities for our interactions. So there's really no end to it, but yeah, that's just first thoughts that come up.

[21:12]

Are there others? And again, you know, one of the great things is that there's no wrong answer. There's just, what does this mean for you right now? What comes up in your heart around this precept and climate change for you? Anyone can just unmute themselves and speak. I feel so moved. Hi, thank you very much for your talk so far. And I think what I'm sort of thinking of initially is just the simple thing of being present in all the moments of our days, especially in terms of decisions that we're making daily about things like what we're eating

[22:19]

whether or not we, I mean, not that people are really doing much traveling right now, but like, do I fly somewhere? Do I need to fly there? You know, like, do I drive to this, you know, do I need, you know, just sort of, and then also, you know, because killing and supporting life happens in so many different ways on so many different levels, like literally to just like processes, you know, like systems that you're involved in that sort of eventually lead to killing, you know, and on some level, like in terms of people working in, you know, factories that are toxic for them, you know, for like things we buy or, you know, so just, um, so I guess I'm just thinking of that, like continual return to the question and that maybe, you know, that it's, it's, maybe not even this situation where like every decision we always make is like supporting life. I mean, that would be the best, you know, but like to just constantly return to that question and have it be like a living question.

[23:28]

Thank you. I like that. A living question, constantly a living question. Please. Wade. On a somewhat related note to what Amina just said very eloquently, and I also agree that that praise living question is fantastic, is something that's been hard for me is realizing that you're always going to fail at this precept, as with all of the precepts. I mean, in order to eat food, you have to kill at least the vegetables. that you're eating, if not, you know, other things. So part of the practice for me is sitting with that discomfort and like trying to be comfortable with the fact that, you know, the fact that I'm using light bulbs right now in my home is contributing to the whole issue and not carrying the guilt

[24:42]

not allowing the guilt of that to crush me as I feel like it sometimes, oftentimes threatens to. Thank you. And I'll add also being involved with kind of anti-racism work, I often say that, you know, white guilt does absolutely no good to anybody. And I think it's the same thing with climate guilt that we have to watch when we stray into that land, right? Because it actually paralyzes us in some significant ways. So to be aware of when that's happening is a practice in and of itself, I think. Maybe one more on this and then we'll, is there someone else who wants to add something? Yes, please. Yeah, I thank you very much.

[25:49]

Great talk. I struggle with going off and just recently going off my diet and I kind of want to bring myself back to how great it made me feel you know, people would ask, well, why are you a vegetarian? And I, I would say, well, you know, I feel better and, and I feel like I'm making a contribution to the planet and there's a kind of a oneness to it. And it seems a little spiritual to me, you know, and I somehow or another have lost sight of that and kind of gone into my cravings. And, and I know it's about just a recommitting and recommitting. Um, But I seem to be failing, especially over this Thanksgiving, but I think I'll just recommit. Thank you. And that was a perfect segue to what I was going to say, which is that the other night I was thinking about this and this talk, and I happened to hear an interview, a video, with the man who developed the Impossible Burger.

[27:04]

And I knew nothing about him before this interview, but he was a very highly respected organic chemist at Stanford and actually became in his heart, incredibly concerned about climate change. And he started doing all this research about if there was just one thing that he could do given who he was and what his expertise was, that could make a difference, what would it be? And what he realized was, you know, the meat industry is an enormous contributor to climate change, enormous, especially when you consider like, you know, we live in Illinois, I live in Illinois, the corn and soybeans all around me is mostly, which is very energy intensive to produce, is mostly going, to feed cattle.

[28:05]

That's where it goes. I drive through the cornfields and I think, this isn't even for human consumption. And so because of that, He developed the technology, really, of the impossible burger and went into business to try to make a difference. That's his way of trying to make a difference. And I just thought that was a beautiful example of somebody taking this right into their own life and saying, well, what could I do, given who I am? And to find a way to do a little less killing, actually, as part of it. So the next one, a disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. I think this one has a huge realm of possibility within thinking about climate change. Maybe I'll just say a little bit to begin and give it to Taigan again. I think again about the indigenous peoples around the world and how they are, many of them,

[29:12]

who did very little to contribute to climate change in many ways at the front lines of the effects of climate change. For instance, the Arctic is changing faster than anywhere else, and the indigenous people who depend on a functioning Arctic ecosystem for their lives are extraordinarily affected. Or the people in the Amazon where the rain patterns are changing, or in Africa. how we take, and again, I don't want us to fall into guilt because that isn't helpful, but just recognition of the truth, right? Of how we take and what it would mean to really practice this precept in a culture where we're trained to take and consume.

[30:15]

We call ourselves consumers. So I'll leave it at that and let them, I can say something if he wishes. Just briefly, yeah, we are so trained, our culture is based on taking, you know, our oil under their soil or, you know, all the resources of the so-called undeveloped world, which is to say that, you know, Society is based on starting from taking the land of the Native Americans in our history. So it's so pervasive in our culture. We take it for granted. Anyway, and our whole society is based on this in terms of the predominance of our military and our economy.

[31:16]

ingrained in us culturally and karmically as racism. And again, I appreciate you talking about that guilt not being useful, but just to recognize that we feel so entitled to all the resources of the world, our country culturally. And to change that is going to take a major change in awareness about not taking What's not given? And how do we receive what is given, which is solar energy and water energy and so forth? That's a beautiful example, actually, the way that solar energy is given freely to us, right? And we don't diminish it when we receive it. So, yeah, that's beautiful. Does anybody have any response to this one? And I know this is hard.

[32:22]

We are not doing easy work here, but we did not go into Zen practice. This is a practice of courage. And so we're doing courageous practice here, this looking in this way. Anybody have a response? Yes, please. I just have a question. In your work with native peoples, indigenous peoples, how would you characterize the difference between native people's attitudes toward, for example, hunting and life-sustaining activities that involve the death of other creatures? And what we are most, what we in the United States and, you know, being Europeans, you know, what Teigen was talking about, sort of more of an ethos of just assuming that we can appropriate anything.

[33:25]

So how would you characterize that? Thank you. Well, first, I'd just say that in my experience, you know, Native people is like, that's a huge category. And even within, you know, one group of people, you know, the Lummi Nation or the Navajo Nation, right? There's an enormous range of understandings. They're not monolithic. I will say that elders that I've spent time with, what they talk about in terms of hunting And hunting is sacred. The animals are sacred. In the Northwest, you know, in many parts of the world, you can't survive off the land without hunting. It's that they wait for the animal to offer themselves. there is a moment where the animal offers itself. Now that is not within our worldview, but that is very much within, in fact, not even just animals. I've been out in the forest with elders where even before they take a plant, like for medicinal use, they ask permission.

[34:30]

They wait for a particular plant to say yes. from a kind of spiritual point of view. So that's just a perspective to the world that is not, it's foreign to us, but there are people who that's how they live. And again, many Native people also live, I remember this man I knew in Western Colorado who was a Ute tribal person, and he did a lot to try to educate people about traditional Ute ways. And somebody asked him in a class, a community college class where he was speaking, what do you people eat? Your people eat? He said, we pretty much eat what you eat now because you moved us over into the desert, which is not where we're from. And there's nothing to hunt there. There's very little to, so we eat what you eat. And that's, you know, that's true for a lot of people now. So, yeah.

[35:31]

Any other thoughts on this one? Not taking what is not given. I've always been, what is, Taigan, can you remember what is the sort of positive, because each of these, there is language that's the positive side of these. To accept what is given. To accept what is given, yeah. Like solar power, water power, yeah. Yeah. Or when the animal comes and offers itself. So it looks like Ian had his hand up, yeah. Hi, good evening. When I hear that precept and the positive version of it, I think of how do we use all the parts of our life that we have on hand to promote better policies and climate. You know, what are we, what are we doing instead of trying to go out and buy, you know, we might not be able to start a company that makes Impossible Burger, but we could hold a Dharma discussion about the effects of climate change, or we could

[36:42]

encourage our family members to make better decisions. So looking at it from that end, I hear how can we use the ingredients of our life to, how can we put them to good use in service of this goal? How can we use the ingredients of our life? Yeah. This is kind of happening with me lately. A neighbor has introduced me to the fact, we live across from a water company, and a neighbor has introduced me to the idea that there's a lot of black soot on our sidewalks. kind of probably being produced from their turbines or something.

[37:45]

And I guess there's one guy along the street who had a lawsuit for breathing and stuff, and he won it because of the pollutants that this water company is taking advantage of, is taking and putting onto people without, you know, taking without us giving it, because we're not aware of it. And Ian triggered the thought that I'm trying to start to get together with maybe even just a newsletter or to get some people together to see what's up with this water company and where this soot is coming from. Our sidewalks are black. I go to power wash them, and it's unbelievable. So I see that as taking, you know, kind of like, because they're the water company, they have the right to do this, you know, and they don't.

[38:50]

You know, it's kind of takes a bunch of people to get together and make them upgrade their system. Thank you. Right. Again. Corporations don't get to actually take our health and well-being. That sounds like Doug, that sounds like the kind of situation where you might contact local representatives, or I don't know if there's some environmental lawyers near there, but it sounds like a real situation for action response. So the third one, and I think this is really, this is one, sometimes it's called kind of the third, there's a third rail in environmental thinking, and this speaks to it, which is a disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexuality. And you might be thinking, what is she talking about? But maybe some of you know, which is population.

[39:53]

There was a time when we talked a lot about population as a contributor to environmental degradation. And then because of the way that sometimes conversations about population ended up seeming like conversations about race, like all those people in the third world who are having babies, there was a kind of freeze on that conversation. And yet what we know is that actually one baby in the United States is equal to many, many children in other parts of the world, including in Europe and other developed countries. So what do you think of this one? They say that one of the most powerful things you can do in relation to climate change is to have one less child than you were otherwise planning on having as an American.

[40:57]

Please. Sorry, David. Hi. I'm not likely to increase the population, but I'm thinking about this precept and the relation of sexual desire to the to consumption, and just that the whole theme of advertising is actually, you know, that I grew up with, and that, you know, is definitely part of my inner erotic life, that it's just all bound up with consuming the planet and that systems of oppression are eroticized, eroticized in my imagination and the imagination of the, well, of, yeah, of the community that we live in. Thank you for that. That feels right on the mark.

[42:01]

Yes, please, Zoe. First of all, David, what you said is very interesting, and I would love to hear more about that at some point, either now or later. That was a really interesting idea. But just in regards to population, I've been hearing recently, and I don't know if this is more of a theory or not, but I don't know if it's the fact that there's too many people or the whole idea of like population control I find to be pretty racist and I think that's what you said as well sorry but um. yeah thinking about that, and I think it's not that there's too many people, but it's the way that wealth is distributed and. just how things are organized on our planet that it appears that way. And it's a very easy thing to assume that there's too many people on this planet, but I think that's a very easy, like, scapegoat, I guess.

[43:07]

But yeah, just thinking about that in regards to sexuality, it's interesting that you brought that up. Yeah, I've just been thinking about that. It's just a pretty, it's a pretty racist thing. it's it's and I never thought about it like that before because I had always thought like oh yeah there's too many people on this planet population control all that kind of stuff but it's I can't think of. I can't think of what theory it aligns with, but there's that theory that was kind of brought up by the Nazis in regards to eugenics. Thank you. I associate it with that. I had a conversation about that in my ecology class, actually, but I'll stop where I am right now. But it's something that's evolving, and I'm hearing more people talk about it, and it's a big realization for me. Because we've, as a society, we've definitely got that population control idea in our heads, I think.

[44:13]

There is a wonderful book about this by, I believe, Bill McKibben called Only One, which was the process that he and his wife went through around whether or not to have a second child. I think I have the title right. I could have both the title and the author wrong, but I think I'm sort of there. What's his last name again? McKibben, a very famous writer and activist around climate change. Oh, cool. OK. Yeah. Pretty sure the title is only one, so it could be somebody other than Bill McKibben, but anyway. Kaigen, is there anything you, I sort of, people jumped in. There was energy around this. Is there anything you want to add? That's good. No, I think what Zoe brings up is interesting. I think there's, I know that there are people who have talked to me about their concern about whether to have children.

[45:18]

And I think that's something that comes up for people now, given the situation of the world. whether to have children or whether to have another child. The world is very challenging now, and to think of the next generation and what they will face can be daunting. On the other hand, having children now is an act of courage and faith, and to try and bring children, to try and raise children who will respond and the younger generation now who are acting on things like climate are inspiring to me. So it's complicated. And I really appreciated what David brought up about desire, whether it's desire for consumption of goods

[46:24]

resources and so forth, and how that's related to sexual desire, I think that's a real issue. So yeah, it's, I think this is a complicated issue, but one that is related to how do we see how we take care of this world? This is a story from my own life that was very poignant at the time. I've thought a lot about it. I have a niece who teaches environmental policy and ethics at a university in Alabama, and she recently had her first child. and I was visiting them, and she's maybe, at that time, she was maybe about a year and a half. We were all sitting at a table together outside at a restaurant, and we were talking about this and about their decision about whether or not to have a second child, and she actually said, I assume that she, talking about her daughter, will not live a full lifetime.

[47:36]

I assume that she will not be a grandmother, just from what I know of what's happening in the world. And I'm so happy that she's here for however long she's here, but that is my belief, that she will not live the full lifespan or the kind of life that previous generations have had. And I don't think my niece is alone in feeling that way. I think there's been some studies shown that this is affecting people's decisions around having children, how they feel about their children. This is a hard thing to look right at, say. So I'm watching the time getting close. Just have a little bit of time. We have a little bit of time, but not a lot.

[48:38]

Yeah. So a disciple of Buddha does not lie. And we could all go off, I'm sure, on the lies that have been part of our life here over the last few years, and before that, too. But I'm actually interested in how do we lie to ourselves? So I ask you that question. How do we lie to ourselves around this? Mike. Yeah, um, uh, immediately made me think of, um, my anxiety. I have pretty bad anxiety sometimes. And something that I've been working with is, um, what my anxiety does, which is, um, uh, I, you know, thoughts enter my head and I, I grasp them or I attach them or I, I swim in them sometimes. And they're either negative towards myself or negative towards another person or towards a situation. And sometimes it becomes really hard to pull myself back out of that.

[49:43]

And so I'm believing this lie that my brain has constructed for whatever reason. So that just made me think of that right away. Thank you. Other responses? Zoe? I'm just piggybacking off of what you said. Remind me of your name again. Mike. Mike, thank you. And hi, it's nice to meet you. Yeah, I'm just thinking about. pretty much just stating what you just said, it's like cognitive distortions, um, is what they are. And I have an incredibly similar experience with that. Um, and I don't have much to say on that, but, um, yeah, just thinking about that, that is very, very much. It's interesting because it's not, it's a subconscious lie to yourself and it's interesting. Um, the evilness that it, it feels evil because it, because of what you're doing to yourself, but it's a very, it's a very innocent experience.

[50:49]

And it's, it's very hard to grasp to me, the fact, the ways in which we lie to ourselves. So I think about that all the time, but I learned about cognitive distortions and in regards to delusions too, as well. Yeah, just very similar things. I don't know. Well, there's also a concept of willful blindness. One of the most interesting books I ever read was about willful blindness, which is a very powerful human tendency. So I think this plays a really big role in our difficulty at facing and changing our circumstances around climate change. Anybody else want to respond to this? A disciple of Buddha does not lie to oneself. Wait, go ahead. I mean, I'm just thinking about, you know, like, I definitely see climate now as an emergency, you know, like that we're at the emergency phase, the crisis is here.

[52:02]

And so I think, not, it's a kind of lie to ourselves if we're not sort of, if we're not taking it up every day, you know, and if we're not making decisions based around it, um, and you know, just the story you told about, um, you know, like, like, no, like thinking that your niece won't live a full lifetime. I mean, I, you know, I've thought about this a lot in terms of like, the question of having children, just that, you know, I think all the time about babies that are being born now and the lives they're going to have. And so, yeah, I just think like denial and not being willing to like look at the total truth of, and I feel like such a nihilist now when I talk to people and I kind of talk about these things, but it just feels like it's the truth of what's happening and we have to face it. If we have any chance, you know,

[53:03]

like making things better or stalling or, you know, I don't know. When we used to eat dinner together, you know, have dinner out, you may have noticed that this is actually a taboo subject at the dinner table, climate change. Not anything anybody really wants to talk about. And yet we have to be talking about it, right? How do we make change if we're not engaged with it? For me, as we've been talking about, there's this willful blindness, or there's this kidding ourselves, or there's not wanting to face, almost as a survival mechanism, we have to not face how desperate the situation is just to get through taking care of our ordinary everyday and paying the rent or whatever. So if we just get stuck in the anxiety and feeling desperate about how much of a crisis it is and has been for actually a long time.

[54:17]

But the other side of this precept is of not lying is to speak truth. This is something I struggle with a lot. how to speak truth to power, how to say things that, you know, when I'm giving talks, how to say things that are gonna make some people very uncomfortable. And it's, and you know, and also knowing that none of us know the whole truth of anything. So how to speak, something that's true is a real challenge. And I try to, I want to do that, but the truth is, involves listening to everybody, but also not everybody sees the truth. People see the truth more or less, and some people are more blinded than others, objectively, scientifically,

[55:27]

you believe in science. So climate deniers are really causing a lot of damage to the planet and to each of us and all of us. Before we stop, I wanted to ask Yoshin, who's also a professional environmentalist, if you have comments on any of this, I wanted to give you a chance to respond to any of the things we've been talking about. So wonderful to see you, Florence. I know, I was hoping to hear from you. Yeah, it's so overwhelming. It's hard to know how to begin to talk about it. And I'm sure everyone has had many thoughts during this evening that they didn't find an opportunity to voice. I just wonder if the drastic changes we've all made because of COVID will help us realize we're capable of drastic changes, because we have to make drastic changes.

[56:41]

And people don't think we can do it, but look what we've had to do. Not happily, but we've done it. So many huge changes. So I keep thinking, can we turn that into I mean, as things improve on the COVID front, which they will eventually, who knows how long, but we have at least this experience of culturally making this huge change. How can we use that some way? I keep trying to figure out how that could be a story that our culture tells ourselves to help us move things in the right direction. I don't know. I probably have way too much time on my hands. It's where my mind is. Trying to make something positive about this difficult thing. Very sad story about your niece.

[57:44]

My own daughter decided to not have children, period, for similar reasons. She was very thoughtful about it. It's so heartbreaking to have that decision have to be made for that kind of reason. She said it very differently, but it's basically, this is not a world I want to bring another beloved human being into. Anyway, thank you for this. I'm so happy to see you, and I hope our paths will cross multiple times. Yes. Taigan, I have a poem to end on, if that would be all right. Sure. But first I want to just say thank you to Kiyoshi and Laurel. I really think what you said is right on, that it's important that we recognize that yes, we have all had to radically change how we live thanks to the pandemic.

[58:47]

And it's been, some of us have been in relatively better situations than others, but it's been a huge change. somehow may this be mobilized such that we can make the change that we need to make to change our energy system and to change what needs to be changed to stop the plastic everywhere, for example, and to do the, what do you call those burgers? The... Possible. The Impossible Burgers. I haven't tried one of those yet, but I've heard of them. They're good. Yeah. They're not that healthy. Oh, well. Oh, well. We have to keep trying to do things that, you know, to move the change. So thank you, Gioshen. Thank you, Florence. Please, a poem.

[59:48]

So, what I wanted to say just to close, and I think this is really important, is that, you know, guilt doesn't really get us anywhere, neither does despair, but love does. So, sometimes we say, a universalist say, love the hell out of the world. Love the hell out of this beautiful world. And it is still beautiful, even as it's broken. It is also beautiful. And so, I wanted to share this poem, which I really love, in that spirit. because I think it's important. Love can really keep us going through this. It's by a poet named Dale Byron, and it's called On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the Destruction of the World. It starts with a quote from Wallace Stegner. One means of sanity is to retain a hold on the natural world, to remain insofar as we keep good animals. Here's the quote. Well, yes, I have written such poems on occasion and several times, in fact, not because I was asked, but just because my heart or soul or maybe some other nameless part of me couldn't help but do so.

[61:01]

I've quoted Rachel Parson, Walt Whitman, and Wallace Stegner just to add intellectual heft to my haranguing. And based on what I can tell, so far none of my writing or talking has made a single bit of difference, except that I now stare dumbstruck at the magnificence of a single ocean wave and cannot take my eyes off clouds and full moons or giant egrets taking one tiny sacred step. at a time. After all, isn't every poem ever just a search and rescue party for our heart and soul? Nothing protected, nothing saved, nothing sustained, except maybe, just maybe, me and you and every other blessed thing.

[62:09]

So I leave you with that, with the clouds and the moon and the trees and the birds. May they bless you. Did you say Gail Byron? Gail Byron, E-I-R-O-N. Thank you for that. And on that note, Wade, would you please lead us in the four bodhisattva vows? Beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. Beings are numberless.

[63:14]

I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it. Beings are numberless. I vow to free them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to realize it.

[64:08]

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