Good morning, everyone. For new people, I'm Taigen Leighton, the Guiding Dharma teacher at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. Welcome, everybody. I'm very glad to have you here. And I found out about 20 minutes ago that my friend and Ancient Dragon friend, Alan Sanaki, who was scheduled to give the talk this morning, is ill this morning. hopefully we'll give the talk tomorrow evening when I was going to. We were both going to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and on his this weekend of commemoration. So Alan is actually a true scholar of Dr. King. He's been very involved in studying the writings and works of Dr. King. So if you can't come tomorrow evening, it will be on our website later in the evening. And I urge you to listen to it.

[01:02]

Alan was gonna talk about beloved community, which was a major theme of Dr. King's and also training for both for social action and for being alive in this time. So I'm gonna talk this morning about Dr. King. And actually every year around this time, I talk about the work of Dr. King. So there's a lot of things to say. I'm gonna try and focus two aspects of his work, voting rights and opposition to militarism. But just generally first, Oh, I have to say that, uh, talking about, uh, current situations is part of our practice. Uh, this is, uh, the Bodhisattva tradition where we, um, work for the benefit of all beings. We will chant later, uh, the Metta Sutta, which says, may all beings be happy.

[02:05]

But as part of the bodhisattva practice, we also look at and think about and speak of social injustice and oppression of that is happening in the world. That's part of what is the sessionist of the world. That's part of the reality of the world, but also our potential responses to it is also part of our practice. So again, I want to focus on Dr. King, at least for most of the talk today. So, you know, most people most of you are too young to have remembered him during his life. Some here are, will, but mostly Dr. Martin Luther King is remembered for the, I have a dream speech and his aspiration that all beings have

[03:12]

justice, and yet Dr. Cornel West talks about this as the Santa Clausification of Dr. King. Martin Luther King was an activist in many ways. Martin Luther King spoke strongly about the situations of his time. He didn't just have a dream, he had, he responded to what was going on. He was killed in Memphis in April 1968, organizing a labor union, working on a poor people's campaign, trying to speak for and really actively speak for workers. And speaking about all of these things was important for Dr. King. He said, a time comes when silence is betrayal. So, well, before I talk about his anti-Vietnam work, I want to mention he's also very well known for his, for working for and actually managing to have passed it by the government at that time, the Voting Rights Act.

[04:35]

And many, many people worked on the Voting Rights Act. Many people died working for the Voting Rights Act in the South and in the North. So one thing that Dr. King talked about in connection with that, which is totally relevant today, is his opposition to the filibuster, which is currently blocking any voting, any, Voting Rights Act in the Senate in our time. Again, this was in 1960, in the 1960s, 64 was passed. So he's about the filibuster. Dr. King said there are men in the Senate, and it was all men then, who now plan to perpetuate the injustices Bull Connor so ignobly defended. So probably most of you or many of you don't know who Bull Connor was.

[05:38]

He was the sheriff, I believe, of Birmingham, Alabama, the police chief. And during the efforts to desegregate schools and desegregate lodge counters, Bull Connor, well, As Dr. King said, his weapons were the high pressure hose, the club, and the snarling dogs. theirs is the filibuster," he said. If America is as revolted by them as it was by Bull Connor, we shall emerge with a victory. It is not too much to ask 101 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, as Dr. King was speaking, that senators who must meet the challenge of filibuster do so in the spirit of the heroes of Birmingham. So not only were there people in Birmingham working for desegregation, many of them, but there was also a bombing of a Black church in Birmingham just very recently before this in which four young Black children were killed.

[06:44]

Four young Black girls were killed. And Dr. King said, quote, there could be no more fitting tribute to the children of Birmingham, then to have the Senate for the first time in history, bury the civil rights filibuster. So again, Dr. King is very well known. In addition to this, I have a James speech for his work on the voting rights and arguably today and next year, if the, party that is controlling things in Washington has its way, voting rights will be much worse than they were before Dr. King. There's also voter suppression happening in many states. So anyway, I wanted to mention that. In addition to working for economic justice,

[07:48]

Dr. King courageously gave a speech April 4th, 1967, a year to the day before he was murdered in New York City, talking about time to break the silence about the Vietnam War. So the Vietnam War became very unpopular. Alan Sanaki and I were both arrested trying to oppose it almost 45 years ago. But we go back together quite a ways. But Dr. King spoke very eloquently about about the Vietnam War and opposing the Vietnam War. And he did so at great sacrifice. He was a leader of the civil rights movement and even his supporters were very upset with him for talking about the Vietnam War. People said, that's not your job. You should be talking about civil rights.

[08:52]

And to Dr. King, they weren't separate. And this is still very, very relevant today. So, At that time in 67, when he gave that speech, he said, we must speak with all humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. Again, he said, to not speak about this is complicity. And he said, I must speak clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government. He also talked about the war in Vietnam as but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit. So again, Dr. King was a religious, spiritual teacher in his Southern Baptist context. He said, a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social justice and social uplift

[10:02]

is approaching spiritual death. He said this in 1967 and it's very much relevant today. So today our the military budget of the United States is about 53% of our total budget. And this is passed in a bipartisan way. Both Democrats and Republicans actually recently passed a military budget that was much more than the Pentagon had requested. So what Dr. King said about militarism and about how that is part of the situation of our country is very much relevant. We have, so I have, I didn't have time to put this together since.

[11:13]

So for those who came late, Alan Sanoki was supposed to be speaking today and he is ill this morning. Hopefully he will be talking tomorrow evening because he's actually really a very learned scholar about Dr. King and his work. But anyway, I think the United States has about 800 military bases overseas, outside our borders. Russia, on the other hand, has eight military bases outside its borders. So the dominance of military spending and military power in the world today is very strongly in our government. on our country. So this is dangerous. And part of what Dr. King spoke about is the cultural aspect of this.

[12:18]

So we know about all the gun violence and school shootings and so forth. I don't know that there are some people who have guns for legitimate reasons, for hunting and so forth. But just the atmosphere of violence and aggression is so much a part of our culture today. And this is what Dr. King was pointing to. The aggressiveness of the debates in Congress, for example. members of the what I call the white supremacy terrorist party carrying guns onto the floor of Congress and and threatening violence. So this isn't just on the national level. There have been local government administrators who have been threatened and whose children have been threatened with violence because they don't go along with white supremacy.

[13:30]

So the whole atmosphere of violence and aggression is so dominant in our culture and our entertainment and TV and movies and so forth, is part of, part of how we live now. From a Buddhist perspective, we emphasize compassion and caring and cooperation so that, so, There are President Biden and many of the people who've been in Congress for a long time talk about bipartisanship, but to be bipartisan with people who explicitly threaten violence, explicitly are against truth of science and so forth, it's not really possible.

[14:35]

So I think part of our work as Bodhisattva practitioners is to encourage caring and compassion. And how do we work together? How do we, in all the realms of our world, how do we cooperate? rather than being combative and aggressive. This is part of what, a big part of what Dr. King was talking about. And Dr. King and the others in the civil rights movement voting for, working for voting rights made great sacrifices. They were beaten by police. They had water hoses sent at them. Of course, we know now that racial injustice is very much part of our current world, too, just from seeing the murder of George Floyd on TV and so many other Black Americans who are being, in effect, lynched by mostly white policemen.

[15:41]

This is not to say that all policemen are racist, but the whole system of our police departments was started as slave patrols. So the history of police departments was that they were slave patrols. You know, what we see with policemen murdering unarmed Blacks now regularly is a continuation of that. So part of what we need to do to really express caring and kindness in the world is to study history. So again, in terms of what the mass media talks about Martin Luther King, he had a dream. He spoke about his dream of equality, but he actually worked very hard for that and sacrificed.

[16:46]

And he had many death threats and he was actually killed, of course, murdered a year to the day after his anti-Vietnam speech, which I don't think it's a coincidence. So there's so much more I could say about, and I'm looking at my notes from past years since I just found out I was giving a talk this morning at 20 minutes before. Again, Dr. King said that the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today back in 1967 was his own government. And we could look at the militarism of our country as also encouraging violence, and also just to think about cooperation and caring as opposed to aggression and hostility. So I want to shift from Dr. King, and we'll have time for discussion.

[17:54]

Some of you may, you know, some of you may have things to say about this. And I'm expressing my views of Dr. King's work and its significance. And please feel free to express different views. Everybody is welcome here. But I want to shift from Dr. Martin Luther King to another important figure of the 60s. and early 70s, which is who was Dan Ellsberg. And some of you may not know who he was. How many of you do not know who Dan Ellsberg was? Several hands went up, of the hands I can see. So he is famous as a whistleblower. He published the Pentagon Papers, which led to Richard Nixon's resignation. Dan Ellensburg had been working as a contractor for the Defense Department for a long time.

[18:59]

He worked for the RAND Corporation. And he was involved in studying the Vietnam War for the Pentagon. He was also one of the people who planned our nuclear war policy back in the 60s. And I think before that, I got to know him when I was living in Berkeley the year before I moved to Chicago. So he published what's called the Pentagon Papers, which were documents from the government that demonstrated that the government and the administrations going back, so this was during the time during while President Nixon was elected around the time that these were released, but these showed that the generals and those who made the policy for the Vietnam War from the Defense Department knew from very early on in the Vietnam War that it was not winnable.

[20:19]

And yet they continued to send more American troops there. That was very different from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars because there was a draft and all of us who were of, you know, older than 18 were subject to being drafted. But the government knew that there was no way that the Vietnam War could be won. But they kept, for administration after administration, starting with Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon. Kennedy actually had wanted to end the war and was planning to do that just before he was killed, after he visited Dallas where he was assassinated. in 63. At any rate, this is somewhat of a history lesson. But Dan Ellsberg actually found all of these documents, because he had access to them, since he was a contractor for the Pentagon, that proved that the Vietnam War was known to be unwinnable from very early on.

[21:24]

And then he did this courageous thing of actually making, they didn't have, you know, there was no internet then, there was no, you know, they were, they had to, he had to make copies, hard copies of all these documents, thousands and thousands of pages. And he released them to, you know, to newspapers, the New York Times first published them, then the Washington Post. And he was arrested for violating the Secrets Act. He knew that he would be threatened with decades in jail, maybe life imprisonment. But however, Richard Nixon freaked out, even though his administration wasn't the main subject of the Pentagon Papers. They went way back. But Richard Nixon called Dan Ellsberg the most dangerous man alive, the most dangerous man in America.

[22:32]

He started, so again, this is a history lesson, and it's important for us to know real history. I'll come back to that. But Richard Nixon had what was called the Plumbers Group, who later did the Watergate break-in, which led directly to Richard Nixon's threat of impeachment and resignation. But part of that was that Why Dan Ellsberg wasn't put in prison for many decades was that Richard Nixon had these same people who broke into the Watergate break into the office of Dan Ellsberg's psychiatrist. to try and get papers on Ellsberg because he wanted to harm him in his reputation. And because of that malfeasance, Dan Ellsberg was, his charges against him were ended.

[23:34]

So he was free. This is all background because I wanna talk about what Dan Ellsberg is talking about today. But again, as a kind of history lesson, there has much more recently been the Afghanistan papers, which were released a year or two ago, which similarly to the Vietnam War, these were documents from the Defense Department proved that the people who started and continued the war in Afghanistan in our time knew that there was no way to win the war in Afghanistan. So the tragedy of Afghanistan goes back 20 years, and the same with the war in Iraq. Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded after 9-11, after the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center. Not that they had so much to do with that attack, but because President George W. Bush said, we have to attack somebody.

[24:42]

But again, the Afghanistan papers prove that the generals knew very early, you know, from almost 20 years ago, that there was no way to win a war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a place where empires go to die. Alexander the Great tried to conquer Afghanistan on his way to India, and that led to his defeat. The Russians tried to invade Afghanistan much more recently, and actually the United States government paid Osama bin Laden and other Afghan rebels to fight the Russians. and then they ended up attacking the United States. I'm giving a very quick gloss on history. There are a lot of details to fill in. But it's really important that we know about history. And currently, the white supremacy party in many states is trying to obliterate the study of history.

[25:51]

This is very dangerous. There's this nonsense about, what do they call it, one of you knows anyway, that trying to not have as part of school curriculum study of slavery or of reconstruction and the history of racism. People don't want that to be studied now and they're banning it in some or trying to ban it in some states, any study of that in schools. So studying history is a radical, liberative, bodhisattva action now. And so much of, you know, as the history of Dr. Martin Luther King as merely a dreamer, a man who had a dream, but actually Dr. King was a fighter for people's rights, supported labor unions, started a poor people's campaign and came out

[26:55]

very much against the war in Vietnam. So coming to currently, Dan Ellsberg had a recent book called The Doomsday Machine, because in addition to being privy to what was going on in Vietnam, he was sent to Vietnam to investigate what was going on there by Secretary of Defense under Kennedy, Robert McNamara, and found out then that the war was unwinnable and revealed that. as a whistleblower in his Pentagon papers. His more recent book is called The Doomsday Machine. And amongst the things that the Pentagon and the United States military are doing now, with the approval of the Congress, both parties, is developing really dangerous continuing nuclear arms race. So recently, Dan Ellsberg talked about the importance of eliminating the hair triggers in the doomsday machine.

[28:00]

So I'm just gonna read a little bit of this. The, He talks about almost any other use of the budget money, the 53% of the United States budget that goes to the military, almost any other use of that towards health, education, infrastructure, would involve more jobs than for the weapons industry. So the weapons industry talks about passing more and more, weapons programs and because of the jobs they create. But as Dan Ellsberg says, almost any other use of that, healthcare, real healthcare to fight the pandemic, education, work on housing, work on equality would create more jobs, work on alternative energy systems.

[29:06]

to help respond to the climate breakdown that's happening everywhere. So, but Dan was amongst other things, was part of the people who in the, I think in the 60s and going back to the 50s, he was involved in planning nuclear war. So in the Pentagon and the Pentagon contractors were talking about how to do a nuclear war. And so he knew about what was going on then. He says that the money for these nuclear weapons systems is the most dangerous, reckless, irresponsible, obscenely immoral program in human history, unquote. And There's a launch on warning program for ICBM nuclear missiles that's on a hair trigger that could be, this is not new, this has been going on for a while, but it's the hair trigger to what he calls the doomsday machine.

[30:13]

He also says in a recent talk, the Congress people who overwhelmingly vote for this, Republican and Democrat, except for the Progressive Caucus, have no idea what they are voting for, except for the jobs Northrop Grumman has thoughtfully located in most of their congressional districts. and the campaign contributions that the weapons industry gives to the most influential people in Congress. And that many of the most influential Congress people and senators rely on. So, So Dan Ellsberg is trying to encourage people to respond to media, to Congress people, to end this, to vote for human survival. I'm going to end very soon, but a little bit more from Dan Ellsberg.

[31:23]

He says, how can Congress vote fall for this easily preparing for these in unfeasible goals of nuclear weapons of nuclear of nuclear war is good for business and taxpayer finance jobs. votes, lobbyists, campaign donations, revolving door jobs for military officers who then go into the weapons companies, and above all, profits largely for Lockheed, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Arthur Brumman, and their subcontractors. In nearly every state in the Union, helps persuade Congress people to continue to vote for this nuclear arms race, which is you know, there was progress in having, in treaties to stop nuclear arms or to decrease nuclear arms, but under Trump and still under Biden, these nuclear weapons are being developed and increased.

[32:31]

So again, as Dr. King said, not speaking is complicity. We have to look at what is happening. We must speak out against injustice, he said. Dr. King said we must not cooperate with oppression and fear. We must support people in our, this is my version, my comment on what Dr. King said. We must support people in our sanghas and in our cities and societies who are being abused and oppressed. So this was part of Dr. King's campaign of love. So Dr. King worked strongly against oppression during his life, but he also talked a lot about love. And maybe in his talk tomorrow evening, Alan Sanaki, who unfortunately had to cancel for today because of illness, will talk more about sacred community.

[33:49]

which was the main focus of Dr. King's beloved community. And what does love mean really? And Dr. King spoke in one of his early talks about different kinds of love. and really analyze that. So again, I'm speaking this morning. I found out 20 minutes beforehand that Alan Snoky was not able to speak today. He will be speaking tomorrow evening about Beloved Community and other aspects of Dr. King's work. But I wanted to mention this issue that was important to Dr. King of militarism, and also voting rights. So I'll stop there. And I welcome your comments, your questions, your responses, anything I've said. And Ruben, would you help me?

[34:52]

If you're visible, you can just raise your hand on the screen. If you're not visible, you can go to the participants window on the bottom. And at the bottom of the participants window, there's a raise hand function. So comments, questions, responses. Any remarks about any of this? Please feel free. Yes, David Weiner. David, you're still muted. I'm sorry for coming on first. I really want to let other people come. But talking about history, and I want to take it back a little bit farther than what you did. And after World War II, we were on top of the world. We had defeated Hitler. We wound up in a confrontation with the Soviet Union.

[35:56]

But the big thing that really changed was when Shanghai Shek was overthrown, and Mao Zedong and the communists took over China. And it became this question, who lost China? As if China was ours as a possession, and that we had the right to control it. And it would set up this whole theory of containment that we have to contain the communist threat, the godless communist threat. communism was known as an atheistic ideology at the time, or thought of as an atheistic. And that whole sense of containment, which eventually led to the Cold War, that's why there are 800 bases all over the world, because we have to contain the communists from spreading their ideology. And I find it interesting that during the Cold War, baseball, which used to be the

[36:57]

national pastime has now been replaced by football and the violence and the sense of winning and Coach Lombardi saying to his Green Bay Packers at the time, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing. And that sense of we have to be constantly victorious and I remember during the 60s, we had posters that said, wouldn't it be wonderful if someday the schools got everything they wanted and the armed forces had to have a bake sale so they could build a battleship. And that was one of the anti-war posters that was there. But it's just all this money that even Ike, the general who led D-Day and became president, said we have, in his farewell speech, we have to beware of the military-industrial complex. And he was the one who coined that term and said it, a former general.

[38:01]

But I also want to relate this to very much Dr. King and his even though he is a Baptist and a beloved community and how that relates and how it's very much in a Bodhisattva way. On my personal email, I have one of his quotes, which is, what affects one directly affects everyone indirectly. I cannot be who I ought to be unless you are who you ought to be. And that to me is a very clear bodhisattva statement. And he was an absolutely loving, giving, and hardworking man who cared for all people. I guess Alan will talk more about that tomorrow. But I want to at least give the little historical context going back to World War II and quote, the loss of China and the Cold War and how it set up all of this that is going on now.

[39:05]

Thank you very much, David. And I want to comment on a couple of the things you said. And just for people who don't know David Weiner, actually marched in campaigns that Dr. King started in Chicago back in the back in the 60s. So he was involved with Dr. King. A couple things you said, the whole thing about history and and not knowing our history is really, it's really important. Going back to what you were talking about, about the Cold War. Yeah, after, you know, I talk sometimes about how change is possible and change happens. And one of the kinds of big changes that happened in my lifetime anyway, the apartheid. the vicious apartheid in South Africa ended. The Berlin Wall came down.

[40:09]

The Soviet Union collapsed. Many things have changed seemingly suddenly. Some of you have heard me talk about this many times before, but things change seemingly suddenly after lots of work. Gay marriage is now legal, to give a more recent example. Smoking tobacco, which used to be popular, all the movies in the 40s and 50s, the characters were smoking constantly. And with all due respect to those of you who still smoke cigarettes, because I know it's addictive, but that was a big change in our society. Things do change. But the Cold War, as David pointed out, was against communism, particularly against Russia and China. And even though Russia and China are now arguably, well, not communist in a traditional way, but more, I don't know, some kind of capitalist,

[41:19]

We are still spending, you know, 53% of our national budget on containing China and Russia. We have bases all around China. The whole dispute with Ukraine is, you know, it's on Russia's border. That's like when there were Russian missiles in Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This is not to say that there are not terrible things that the government of China does and the government of Russia does. But the whole thing that Dr. King emphasized and David Weiner gave the example of NFL football, and we now know that many of those players after just several years of playing are subject to life-damaging concussion. Anyway, the whole context in our society of violence is part of the issue here.

[42:26]

So again, we have all these military bases now ringing China and Russia. even though there's no more communism really to be opposed to. So, okay. And then last thing, and then I'm gonna call on Matt who has his hand up. Yeah, what affects one, affects all is very relevant to the pandemic. So, You know, we have now the Omicron variant and we have the Delta variant and they're not really sure, but arguably they were they came about in India and Africa. And the big pharmaceutical companies now, who are making billions and billions of dollars, many, many people are making lots and lots of money from the pandemic.

[43:34]

But pharmaceutical companies are not releasing their recipes for for vaccines to third world countries, to Africa, to South Asia, where there are companies who could manufacture vaccines, great numbers of vaccines, if they had the information from Pfizer and Moderna. But this is really an example of Dr. King saying what injures one injures all. We are now suffering from the extended pandemic because the greedy pharmaceutical companies will not share vaccine protocols with other countries. And they're making lots and lots of money on it. So just to say that in response to what David Weiner said. Thank you, David. Matt has his hand up. Yes, Tegan.

[44:37]

Thank you for your talk. Very important and great impromptu talk. I just want to add a couple Martin Luther King things, and then I want to get your perspective on something. You know, he was, he worked with Thich Nhat Hanh and that beloved community. I thought of that when you were talking about that, you know, him and Thich Nhat Hanh, they were radicals. You know, they were not Democrats or Republicans necessarily. They were really trying to break the system that was set in place and is still set in place, not just with civil rights, but with poverty, anti-poverty measures. And when he was in Memphis, You know, when he was assassinated, he was there for a sanitation workers protest. And he was really, after the March on Washington, he really focused on poverty. And I think that's great. You know, I'm really glad you brought up this military-industrial complex, because this is definitely something that's been going on with Republicans, Democrats. It's really a fault of our two-party system. And I want to get your perspective, Teigen, on the courage that we can take.

[45:38]

You know, those like me who voted for Nader instead of Al Gore, we have this guilt that we led to something worse. And it's it takes a lot of courage to vote for someone outside the two party system because you're always trying to fight the worst of two evils. Right. And I just want to get your perspective on courage, because whether it's voting or protesting all this military spending, which is absolutely insane. We need a military, but we don't need to spend half a quarter of what we're spending. goes to things that it could have gone to programs for anti-poverty and education, all these other things. So if you want to speak to just the courage that we can do, whether that's through voting, whether that's through other actions of really trying to fight this system that's in place, that seems so entrenched, but hopefully down the road with a long view, maybe something will change down the road. So thank you. Yeah, I do want to say something about President Eisenhower that David mentioned, which is relevant to what you're saying.

[46:42]

President Eisenhower was the great general of the allies in Europe during World War II, and a general military man. But as David mentioned, his last farewell speech before John F. Kennedy became president, Eisenhower talked about the military-industrial complex. And he actually had initially wanted to talk about it as the military-industrial-congressional complex. And he warned the danger of spending too much on military and having the, as Dylan called them, the masters of war, the weapons companies, have undue influence, as he put it, in society, in the government and in other aspects of society. And that's what we are facing now. And we have been for a while. So yes, to speak about this takes courage at this point, because as you said, Matt, we have this entrenched two-party system.

[47:52]

And so we vote for the lesser of two evils, those are so so-called. But how do we, but part of what's, Part of what is possible for us to do is what might be called education. So I talked about talking about history, and there is such an attack on history now. And so just hearing about all of these things, and please, those of you who don't know about the Cold War or don't know about Eisenhower's farewell speech. Now we can check all this stuff on Google. So just look it up. Anyway, just to talk about this stuff. is important. And, you know, most, in addition to Congress being controlled by weapons corporations and other, and pharmaceutical corporations and so forth, and fossil fuel corporations who have stopped, blocked a lot of discussion that shouldn't be happening on mainstream mass media,

[49:05]

You know, the media is part of the problem, because they're also controlled by these corporations to a large extent. There are definite exceptions, but it takes some work to find out what's really happening. It takes looking at alternative media sources. So there's different kinds of courage. Alan Sanaki, who will speak tomorrow evening, hopefully, he was too ill to speak this morning, He and I have been arrested doing civil disobedience more than once. We were involved with the occupation of Columbia University to oppose the war and to work against racism then in 1968 where we were both arrested. I've done civil disobedience and gotten arrested numbers of times, I think it's seven or eight by now, but not since 2003 when Alan and I were both arrested in front of the federal building in San Francisco for sitting down and blocking it because we were protesting the war, George Bush's attack against Iraq and Afghanistan.

[50:20]

And before the invasion of Iraq, this is an important part of history too. And maybe, I don't know, maybe all of you know this, but for those who don't, there had been for three months before the invasion of Iraq, huge demonstrations I was in San Francisco and there were at least 100,000 people in front of City Hall trying to agitate against the invasion of Iraq. And all around the world, I don't think it's ever happened before, maybe not since, there were huge demonstrations, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people all around the world demonstrating against an invasion of Iraq. But it happened anyway. But that's notable. So courage is to stand up and oppose what's happening. And it's not easy. And I think it's more difficult now because people who try and do civil disobedience, the kids in the sunrise, I say kids, not as the young people, I don't mean any disrespect.

[51:32]

kids, but the young people like in the Sunrise Movement who are trying to work for climate against climate breakdown and for some sanity. People arrested for civil disobedience these days are may face much worse situations than I did. I think I spent, well, one time I spent a couple of weeks in jail, but anyway, the repercussions now can be much worse. So I'm not advocating that any of you do that, but there are demonstrations. And again, it's difficult in the time of COVID, but just to talk about this, requires some courage. And Dr. King spoke strongly and he was covered by the mass media, is what he had to say, and he was killed because of it.

[52:36]

So just to talk about it though, just to remember history, to study history is a courageous, important act now. So anyway, that's a couple of things. Cole, you had a comment. and welcome. Thank you. Yeah, hi, everyone. It's my first time here. So I feel a little bit maybe bold speaking, but just I felt like saying something. So I decided to. Yes. Thank you. So I'm actually going to go back even further. Because This is a topic I think about a lot too, and maybe I'm not the only one. Sometimes I'm just lying in bed and I'll think, oh man, what if a nuclear bomb just hits Chicago? It's just your mind goes to scary places and you just think in an instant it could happen. what it was like when the nuclear bombs were dropped in Japan and just how just horrendous and nightmarish and just unimaginable suffering that it caused.

[53:42]

But one thing that I think about sometimes is, so I'm, you know, I don't, I'm not a scholar or anything, but, you know, I read a little bit about the Native Americans and, you know, their lifestyle. And sometimes I think to myself, you know, that they had a really, you know, it seems like they had a very just healthy, enjoyable lifestyle. You know, they were more in touch with the land. They were, you know, I won't belabor the point, but it's just a very good lifestyle, I would say. Unfortunately, they were essentially completely overrun and decimated, we can say, by European powers that came from abroad. I think that kind of explains a little bit of why. you know, we do these, we build nuclear bombs and we sort of arm ourselves to the teeth in these very scary ways is because, like the American Indians, I think they're almost a lesson and it kind of, as humans, we're afraid, you know, if we don't arm ourselves as much as we possibly can,

[55:12]

Then what if the next guy does and he is able to oppress us and kill us and destroy our society? Not to say that it's okay by any means, but in a way to have maybe a compassion or an understanding of how we've gotten to this point is, I do think it stems really from fear. It stems from fear of the next guy being stronger. We've pulled out all the stops. I think that bears consideration to have maybe compassion for the fear that sort of underlies these doomsday weapons, and to realize that it's going to be a pretty profound shift in humanity as a whole, I believe, before we're able to become really a more peaceful society where we don't live under the threat of nuclear weapons.

[56:19]

Thank you very much, Cole, and welcome. And please check our schedule and come again. So there's a few new people, and you're all very welcome here. And I just have to say that sometimes I don't talk about current events, but I talk about very traditional Buddhist teachings. And I wish I could just do that, but I feel some responsibility to talk about some of this some of the time. And Eve has her hand up, but just to say a couple things in response to Cole. First of all, I think it's possible to romanticize the Native Americans and indigenous people. There were wars between different Native American tribes. There was slavery that happened by Native American tribes against other Native Americans. That said, a lot of what you say is very much to the point that our whole history of the United States is

[57:24]

you know, based on racism. And our whole economy is based on slavery and racism, and as you say, decimating the indigenous people. This is not just history though. Juan Pablo Restrepo, who was here earlier in the talk, lives in Patagonia in Argentina. And he informed me, and I shared this with some of you, of a battle that's happening there with the Mapuche people in, Southern Patagonia, who are trying to block mining companies from coming in and wiping out their their Indigenous lands. So yes, in general, Indigenous people, not just in the United States, not just in North America, but all around the world, have a sensitivity, still have a sensitivity to nature and to the planet and to the well-being of the world. And yes, The invasion of European people wiped out, not completely, but wiped out lots of the Native Americans, partly just from diseases, because there were infectious diseases, pandemics of that time that were part of the European people.

[58:46]

Anyway, that said, there was something else I wanted to, oh, I wanted to say something about the Cold War. Again, a history lesson. So some of you who are younger may have when you were in high school had or in grade school had fire drills in your school where there was drills, there was a time to evacuate the school in case as preparation in case of fire. And I understand now there are, in many grade school and high schools, there are active shooter drills where people are, where students, kids are made to be afraid of there might be an active shooter. When I was in grade school, we had air raid drills to protect us from nuclear bombs, because there was much more of an awareness of the Cold War and of the possibility of nuclear war back then.

[59:49]

This was in the late 50s. And so these air raid drills, these nuclear bomb drills, that the whatever the signal would go off and In the schools I was in, we had to go down to the basement of the school and stand around the edges of the walls of the basement to protect ourselves from nuclear bombs. That's so farcical, but that actually happened. there were other of these air raid drills where children were supposed to duck under their desks. I mean, as if that would, David Weiner was shaking his head, he had to do that, I guess, as if that would protect you from a nuclear bomb. So, you know, education and awareness is so important in all of this. And we don't think about nuclear war so much anymore as a threat.

[60:50]

We somehow, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, somehow we've managed not to have any nuclear wars. But Dan Ellsberg, this hero of the Pentagon papers, you know, is talking about because he was involved in planning for nuclear war. He was involved in the Pentagon as a contractor for planning for nuclear war. And the United States still has a first strike policy that when the United States military feels like there's a threat, we can launch nuclear weapons before whoever, Russia or China launches them. This is still part of our policy. People don't realize this. So Dan is trying to campaign for a new anti-nuclear weapons policy and nuclear disarmament. And this is still very relevant. Probably most of you don't know about the nuclear weapons drills that kids had to go through back then.

[62:00]

OK, that's what I wanted to say in response. And thank you, Cole. And thank you, everyone who's here for the first time. And please do check our schedule and come back to hear talks just on traditional Buddhist and Zen material. But to continue, Eve has her hands up and Greg. So I'll call on Eve first. Hi. Yeah, well, you know, Taigan, as you know, I'm, what, seven years younger than you, but yeah, but I went through that too when I was in grade school at Starrett in Pittsburgh. I had an older principal and she made us, yeah, we had to go downstairs with our face against the wall. And that, you know, that did actually have a big effect on me. I mean, frankly, That's why I went into social science, because, I mean, my brother's a physicist, and I felt like, you know, like, we have enough physics. I mean, part of me felt like, you know, that there was this inequity between our knowledge in the natural sciences and the social sciences, and that, you know, given, and I was afraid of nuclear war as a kid, and I was like, well, you know, we need to

[63:17]

figure out how to manage ourselves better. In terms of history, I totally agree that we need to learn about history, and I also agree that you can overly sentimentalize Native American cultures. I think one of the things that's important to acknowledge is that the Iroquois Confederacy was the source of some of the ideas that were built into American democracy that, yeah, there was political theory that came from Enlightenment and Europe, but the, quote, founding fathers also were influenced by some of the ways of organizing community that were developed by Native American groups that did organize across large swaths of territory, that it's not like everybody was just thinking about their own little village.

[64:30]

But I do also think that some of what's gone on lately, like in the controversy over the 1619 project that there's caricaturing on both sides, that there are some legitimate complaints, I think, that people on the right have about some of the curricula that have been developed. And I think the problem is that a lot of the debate has gone on on you know, very ideological grounds and not around, okay, so let's look at curricula and see what we can do. One of my friends has been arguing what we really need is more primary sources, because, you know, we have access to primary sources, more access in some ways than we've ever had before, because there's stuff you can easily get for free on the internet, you know, personal accounts of slavery, accounts of indentured servants, you know, we have access to materials and my friend has been tutoring high school kids and discovered that, you know, because sometimes people say, oh, but, you know, people can't read that, that's too inaccessible.

[65:42]

But he's actually found that with kids who do read primary sources, that they get more interested, that this stuff seems more alive. And so, you know, that he's argued that that's, you know, we should be structuring our history. briefly include that. Um, and the other comment I had was about, um, you know, what Cole was saying about, um, you know, we're being constrained about what you think the other guy is going to do. And that's game theory. And, you know, there was a lot of development of game theory that went into, you know, the strap strategizing around the arms race. Um, but there's also, countervailing ideas that came from both in terms of game theory and social system modeling.

[66:45]

So one of the first realizations or well, I mean, I'm sure it happened before, but one of the sources of thinking about feedback loops and vicious cycles and virtuous cycles was Richardson's work on arms races and the mathematical modeling of arms races, which I think goes back to actually the 1920s. And the recognition that the problem with arms races is runaway escalation when everybody's responding, each side is responding to what the other side is doing. But in the course of the development of not just strategy, but also weapons themselves and the software that's built into missiles, that Wiener's work on cybernetics, one of the sources of it came out of

[67:48]

looking at automatic guidance systems and missiles, but he developed that into theories about, you know, what he called the human use of human beings and recognizing that we need to be able to think about feedback loops, not just in terms of AI, but in terms of how we respond to each other. So there's a whole systems theory, systems thinking, there's a whole body of work that's come out of that that does offer possibilities for recognizing openings for systemic change. And there is a convergence between that and Buddhist thought. You can see it in Joanna Macy's work The idea of dependent arising is the same kind of thing, the recognition that it's about relationships, it's about how we respond to each other, and that we do have choices. Thank you, Eve. Yeah, I want to call on Greg, but first, just a couple of things.

[68:53]

Dylan noted in the chat that there were many, many, many different, just in North America, Native American tribes and peoples. So it's not a homogenous story. It's a complex story in terms of how Native peoples relate in North America but around the world to the land and to nature and the environment. So just to mention that. Oh, yeah, just another history lesson. So of course, Dr. King was just one of the tragic assassinations that happened in the 60s. Of course, his brother, Bobby Kennedy, a little later on when he was likely to become the Democratic nominee, was assassinated along with Dr. King. Malcolm X was assassinated. And of course, John Kennedy.

[69:56]

and about the history of the arms race. So, you know, the arms race, and some of you have spoken of this, the idea of do unto others before they do unto you is kind of the unspoken context. And, you know, from our Buddhist perspective, we can try and talk together and negotiate diplomacy as possible. But I wanted to mention another historical note that John F. Kennedy, I mentioned before, was planning to end the Vietnam War when he came back from his trip to Dallas where he was assassinated. Also, John F. Kennedy was trying to end the Cold War and really working at it. He was working together with the Russian, the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, to try and end the Cold War, to try and do things together. They were even planning a joint moon mission, not just a competitive space program.

[71:00]

So Kennedy and Khrushchev were both doing this secretly from their own military. So there's an important book about this called JFK and the unspeakable by James Douglas, the two S's at the end, very important book. So anyway, it's a complicated history and all along there have been people who've tried to work for Peace and sanity, but I wanted to say that about John Kennedy. There's so much to talk about, about this is, all of this is a huge topic, but Greg, thank you for joining us and you're up next. Hi, I'm Greg. Thank you everyone for being here and for having me. I've been here before, many, many years ago, briefly, but Yeah, I wanted, I just wanted to say, I think I get very discouraged because I think speaking out and because of the media environment and because, you know, essentially everyone has a microphone now with social media and whatnot, I think a lot of it gets lost.

[72:15]

And so I think, I also just wanted to briefly say, I think, like in addition to speaking out and educating and learning about history, I think there also need, if you want to bring about change, there needs to be organizing, you know, institution building, kind of nitty gritty stuff. Because I think the way things are, things are the way they are Because people, you know, I think don't know, and there's a lot of misinformation, but also because there's like really, people's material interests are at stake. And so I think even if you were to kind of educate, you also have to do, you have to kind of organize and strategically deploy power, to be honest with you. I hope that doesn't sound cynical. But the way things are, I think the way they are, because people's material interests are at stake.

[73:23]

And so even if you were to educate, and they may they may not care, I think. So I hope, you know, and I don't want to sound too cynical about it, but I think organizing and institution building is important as well. Thank you, Greg. And glad you're here and please come again. Two comments about that. Yes, I agree with that. There needs to be organizing, there needs to be organized affirmation of other possibilities in what is happening now. We have to organize to promote and present the possibility of peacefulness and of support for marginalized peoples.

[74:26]

And all of that is really important. And it's difficult. It's difficult. It's really difficult. I was very involved in that. Well, I've been involved since then, but I was involved in the 60s, the anti-Vietnam movement. And it's very easy to get into factions and advocate particular strategies or tactics from the point of view of Buddhist Sangha, I think. In addition to organizing, we have to be respectful of everybody's responses to the situation. There's not one right tactic or strategy even to respond helpfully. So listening to each other is important and organizing, but with a kind of, I talk about radical respect with openness towards different views. And, you know, kind of sanghas are about building islands of sanity and sanghas in the wider sense, not just Buddhist sanghas, but to get to have groups who are working to promote peace and justice.

[75:39]

The other thing I wanted to say is that it's very, and I've talked about this before, but it's very, very easy to feel discouraged. what's happening today in terms of white supremacy party, in terms of climate breakdown, in terms of racial injustice, in terms of the real threat in our country of fascism. I mean, I don't think that's an exaggeration. And of the misinformation that you were speaking of, those are all real. But feeling like this, it's hopeless and we should just be, we should be we should give up and be discouraged is not helpful. So just in the realm of climate damage, climate breakdown, the fossil fuel companies knew in the 70s what their business plan was going to lead to in terms of climate damage, but they doubled down on climate denial.

[76:46]

Now, it's pretty hard just to maintain that there's no climate damage, because it's happening everywhere. But instead, I think that the fossil fuel companies want to encourage us to feel like it's hopeless, and there's nothing we can do, and just to give up and not speak up. And that's not realistic. We can make a difference. We can by informing ourselves by talking together by organizing in whatever way strategically or whatever way might be helpful. We can make a difference. There are lots of and it's not that there's one right way to do that. That's really important from the point of view of Buddhist skillful means that each of us has our own way of responding and we have to respect that. But there are organizations out there in the media and in social policy and environmental organizations who are doing good work to try and speak up for sanity.

[77:48]

And so, if you see an organization or some group that is doing something that you think is good, support them, help them, join in even. So there are things that can be done to mitigate the worst of possibilities. And it's not gonna be easy. This is a difficult, difficult time. So Eve mentioned one of my teachers, Joanna Macy, and I heard this from her. I think maybe it's just a kind of global fact, but from the point of view of Bodhisattva work, helping to liberate all beings, which is the, you know, on some level, the point of our practice. So this includes working on oneself too, which is difficult and challenging and requires sustained practice. So, you know, the most important thing about Zen practice is just to continue, just to stay with it.

[78:48]

But what I've heard, And this may seem like it's the realm of mythology or something, but I've heard that there are Bodhisattvas in many different world systems and many different dimensions, maybe in different solar systems, I don't know, who are lined up eagerly waiting for the opportunity to be born in this world, in this time. because this is the place where we can make the biggest difference as Bodhisattva practitioners. Everything we do to promote kindness and caring and awareness and awakening and mutual support, everything we do now can make a big difference because it's such a pivotal time. I think this is a very interesting way of thinking and it fights against that, you know, fights, you know, we have all this rhetoric of combat.

[79:54]

It works with the idea of supporting awareness and not succumbing to, you know, feeling overwhelmed or, you know, there's nothing we can do. So maybe we'll end on that note, unless there's somebody else who has something you really wanna say and please feel free, everyone. And if I may, just one important thing before we go. And Martin Luther King, John Lewis, and Rosa Parks trained at the Highlander Polk School in Tennessee. And it was founded based on the philosophy of Jeremiah Royce, who was a American philosopher in the late 1800s, early 1900s. And he believed that to agree to disagree was not allowed, should not be allowed. That rather, as a beloved community, we have to bring out the best in each other.

[80:55]

And I think one of the things that we talk about in protesting and everything else, we have to be aware that if we're making the other guy a bad guy, or the other woman, a bad woman, we're actually contributing to the problem. And what we have to find out is what are their fears? What are their concerns? And try to alleviate their fears and their concerns so we can both work for a common good. It's kind of like the old Anne Frank quote, I still believe people are good at heart. And that if we could see what their fears are and help believe those fears, we could work towards common good. And it's very important for us not to just, oh, here are Trumpers, you know, over there, you know, and we're against them. That's not quite in the Bodhisattva tradition. And it's a matter of understanding and caring for them and what their fears are. And by working together, we will solve.

[81:58]

If we just try to one-up them, it's just going to be one up, up to them against one up, up to them against again and again and again. And I think that's something and that's, hopefully Alan will talk about that tomorrow because that was a very big thing about Martin Luther King and saying that hate begets hate and that we, you know, either we will live together as brothers or hang together as fools. So it's a matter of being able to understand other people. And it's hard to do, it's not easy. It's not easy, but that's part of our Bodhisattva tradition. At least I feel so. Thank you, David. I'll just add one thing to that. One of our Bodhisattva precepts is not to speak of the faults of others. Yeah. But I also have... heard a very fine Buddhist teacher recently say that people have buddha nature.

[83:03]

Dogen would say people is buddha nature, persons is buddha nature, but institutions are do not necessarily have good in nature. So we can speak about systems. We can speak about the difficulties and the harm created by systems and institutions and structures rather than demonizing particular people. But, you know, to talk about corporations who, you know, intentionally help create climate breakdown. It's an institutional thing. And the way that institutions are set up in our society is that their goal is not common good, but to maximize profits for their shareholders. And so we can talk about problems without demonizing individuals. We can talk about problems that are created by systems of organization.

[84:07]

And I think that's useful. So I just wanted to say that as an addition to what you were saying, David.

[84:12]

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