Today I wanted to talk about how my move to Oregon three and a half years ago has affected my practice. I was thinking about this and a lot of different things have come up around it. I sort of hit upon the other day to talk about is how up in our practice my understanding of life and death has changed a lot, and my experience of life and death. So that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about life. I want to talk about death. talk about how death is what makes life possible, life is what makes death possible, and how we really can't separate the two.

[01:07]

And this has given me a chance also to look at my whole attitude and my understanding of death, how it's been over the years. Probably a lot of people moving with death. And those have been kind of spread out over the years, and they've been seen by me as kind of like a punctuation at the end of something, and then okay. And they're not really related to anything else, just kind of descending. Since moving, it's been a much more frequent visitor and it really started happening because I started basically dealing with all kinds of death all over the place.

[02:26]

It started off with the fact that I find myself going around our place. I live out, for those of you who don't know, I live in a rural area. a cat, and right now I've got a cat, a dog, and 25 chickens. And the cat would start off basically leaving corpses all over the place, and quite often just in front of the house, up on the porch. And a lot of times it would be sort of And sometimes we just thought the whole thing. And I initially would, when I would come across these things, I would bury them and sort of homage to them and then kind of go on.

[03:30]

But it felt like, again, it was an abstracted quality to it. John, corpses of what? Oh, okay. squirrels, rabbits, birds, you know, things like that. But it was kind of abstracted. Okay, well that's just the way things, you know, happen in nature. And I thought it would kind of pick things up. But then it started getting a little bit closer to home and a little bit more personal. I came back from a hike one day, a little over two years ago, and in front of the house there was a mess of chicken feathers, and then over on the side of the house were the remains of one of our chickens that was killed by a raccoon.

[04:34]

a cougar had come and killed the three sheep. And so that was really one of the first things, oh, there's a cougar just roaming around the area. And I realized that I felt personally affected in a kind of a fear that arose in me. And I used to tramp around through the woods When I'd walk around there, I had a very different relationship with it. I realized that I was afraid, and that something more palpable was going on there.

[05:50]

And I was sort of thinking about it because I was going through this process where initially it was kind of fairly abstract and impersonal, the remains of the animals. And then I got closer to home with the chickens. And one day, probably a couple of months after that, And so I got thinking about, and this is the thing going into this whole life and death thing, the issue of predators and prey, and the relationship between them.

[07:15]

And I started thinking about this process of how the living are living on the dead, the constant churning and that this And I started looking at this in terms of myself and saying, well, what does this mean for me?

[08:28]

What do I think about it? And a lot of it being triggered by the Cougar. And I started getting fairly closely in touch with my own But just leave me alone. People who have known me here for a long time know that I tend to be kind of very much a controlled person.

[09:33]

And is that I have a lot of fear and anxiety. And this really was just very, very triggered by all of this. It really brought me to Just like this is the sojourn's talk on Saturday, The Man in the Tree. What I found myself in this practice is that my clinging to what I thought was my life, holding on to things for a certain kind of assurance, security, was actually something that was really inhibiting my being alive.

[10:51]

And it was almost a feeling of kind of a pretend living. as against a feeling of freedom, openness, expansiveness. And I started to gain a was just holding me back and an image that would come up and I that experience comes back when I think about this issue of letting go.

[12:11]

Letting go, release, and freedom. And then I would feel, when I would realize how this was keeping me bound and keeping me tangled. is that I felt just a pain, a sadness. And that became kind of an inspiration for me to go more into this and just face this more. And so I would begin practice is similar to the little Buddhist monks meditating on the Triumvirates.

[13:14]

And I began to watch the process of And it was kind of an eye-opening experience in seeing how the whole, all the life forms that were there, the insect and other animals and even the moles and things like that, visibly got to work. out, that the Yellow Jackets had actually completely cleaned off all the flesh.

[14:17]

And that's kind of in awe. And I started to get an appreciation for that, and a sense that, oh, I can't find a way to separate, to divide. And so I keep practicing with this as far as, okay, how about for you? What is it for you? When I'm sitting, what comes up?

[15:20]

When I've experienced myself in zazen or any other situation, it's really kind of letting go. What arises? I find that in my, these five skandhas here, going around, it's like there are these little things jingling around, looking around for something to grab onto, something to attach to, this constant sort of searching, and this process of seeing that, and how do I let go of it? If I do, what do I have to rely on? And in doing this, what's really kind of amazing is the space is kind of opening up inside and

[16:22]

It's just right there without any need to grasp onto anything and really nothing to grasp onto. So I approached this What is my life? And realizing that it's not what I always thought it was. It's not this clinging on to this other thing I called life. But there's something much more profound that I just don't understand. It's like a mystery that's there. So that's really what I

[17:48]

thought of saying, and I'd really love to just sort of open up for a discussion and hear what people have to say. Maybe, First Sergeant, if you want to say something. Well, thank you for bringing this to our attention. Thank you very much. And I think this is a very interesting and important talk. I have, when you were talking about putting out the chipmunk, leaving the chipmunk's body out there in the yellow jackets, pretty much clean off all the flesh in one day. It seems to, and then that was kind of said, that was kind of, and by the way, I think that's very interesting, rather than burying the animal, to just watch the processes.

[19:01]

But it seemed to me you said this little anecdote or incident, you chanted that shortly after saying something about life and death They're sort of all one or so. You didn't use that term, but you know that they're kind of a mystery or something, that they're the same thing or something. Now, when you're talking about the chipmunk and the yellow jackets, it seems to me that they're not all one. The chipmunk is dead. The yellow jackets are alive. And the dead chipmunk's body has now become food for the yellow jackets. And they are efficiently finding it and eating it. But that's all that is, as far as I can see. I mean, one is dead, one is alive. They're not the same. Well, you know, they're not the same, but they're not different. You can kind of cut it up so that one part of life, this great dynamic activity, is the Yellow Jackets, another is, you know,

[20:10]

dependent on each other, that you can't, I think, draw those distinctions. Just as we talk about ourselves in our interdependence, you could say, okay, this is where our they're so intertwined with each other, so dependent on each other, and it comes down to, and this is one of the questions that's in this, I think it's the great matter of something like this, but even more than just that is, what is it that you mean by life? And what is it that A lot of the stuff that is my being alive is stuff that's dead.

[21:20]

Where do you say this or that? Where do you put life in the middle of this? People used to do this. What is the vital essence that gives life to something? I say, I can't separate them so simply. And for myself, I can say in terms of my practice, every time I'm engaged in trying to is that the yellow jackets and the chipmunk can't live without each other. We can look at them and say they're different, but on a deeper level, I don't think we can.

[22:29]

Yeah, Kim? I had a question on the same account. imagine on a conceptual level life and death. And thank you for bringing that forward, going deeper into that. That was my question. But then I'm also wondering, I'm hearing that in your practice that this is about not getting tangled up in the mental formations. Does it also have to do with being able to let go of the branch that you're gripping with your teeth? Yeah. That's the whole thing. I'm afraid to let go. Still am. Yeah. Well, it seems to me that on an organic level we're hardwired to protect what we consider to be our life, right?

[23:40]

That's really deep in us, and we do consider that, as Judy was saying, to be our life. But I think from the perspective of view, we're looking at what's alive as the entire system of existence, the total dynamic working. that's a harder view to encompass, right? It seems to me that's what you've been trying to do, is to step outside of the understandably self-regarding perspective. That's what I'm hearing in this experiment. We talk about, you know, we're hardwired to protect ourselves.

[24:43]

It's even more complex. That's not complete. There's also, you know, various other empathy and... We make sacrifices. Right. Laurie? Actually, Ross has had his hand up longer. I'll let you decide. Well, I hope this isn't opening a can of worms, but I was very interested in this book, The Omnivore's Dilemma. He talks about the difference between, like, animal rights activists tend to think in terms of individual animals that are already born. And oftentimes environmentalists don't think of that, they think of the whole system as maintained. So they introduced the wolves into that area where the deer had run amok and destroyed the vegetation.

[25:45]

They sacrificed a whole bunch of deer who were alive, had to die to restore that ecological balance. But both are true, I think. And so I think we tend as individuals to think, and especially in our culture now, the survival of the individual is the most important thing. and the tragedy of one individual life coming to an end. And I'm not saying that's not true, but you kind of have to look. That's kind of what you're saying. The chipmunk has to die or the wasp won't live. And you've got to sort of try to see beyond the individual somehow. And maybe that even helps you with your own life. comes into this is it's very hard for us as a species not to think of this in a very self-centered way.

[26:53]

And we think we're special. And we think we can be kind of outside of things. Things shouldn't happen to us. And I don't think nature works that way. the universe doesn't work that way. And again, it's not to try to put it on the level of an ethical or moral dilemma, but it's something to ... it's like you're just sitting on a question, this great matter of life and death. What is it all about that this goes on? that's the not doing harm.

[28:12]

But there's a bigger process that goes on, and we tend to avoid it, I think, because we are very I'm curious how it is for you and Catherine, when you sit down for a meal now, having been up there for a couple of years, versus when you lived here and the experiences that you've shared with us, your relationship to food and taking care of yourself. produce our food.

[29:39]

I sometimes think about the things I do in the vegetable garden, which I think of as my hired killers. It's like inviting what you call beneficial insects and things like that, or turning the chickens into the garden in the winter Thank you. can deal with.

[31:00]

Last year when we had a bunch of chicks, we just increased the size of our flock and we had some people who needed a couple of roosters, so we gave them two roosters. But we had an issue of like, what do we do? You know, you were mainly vegetarian If I'm going to eat chicken, I should be able to kill the chicken.

[32:04]

So that's one of the things that comes up, and it's an important part of our practice. Thank you. I've been pondering this issue in terms of restorative justice, and my personal history, my family history, and sort of our collective backstories. And just to where we just had Memorial Day, a few weeks before that we had the Holocaust Remembrance Day, and we could look anywhere in the world and see issues of how killing happens, and the ripples through time.

[33:08]

So for me, where this comes home is in terms of kindness, and in terms of how do I meet what is happening now, who is here now, in order to both be intimate with the great matter, And in doing so, be this turning of the wheel that can also offer healing. And I notice there's a lot of the bearing witness piece of it that I hear you speaking to. What I'm wondering about is, when you go to that place of the question of choice, like right now with these chickens, How do you rate the chicken that you might need to be killing, the chicken that you're eating?

[34:12]

I'm not sure. my relationship with looking at the world the way it is and the suffering that's there and my relationship with it I'm not sure I know there's a discussion with somebody once about this, and I think we all kind of find where we draw boundaries, where we make distinctions, where we say, I can do this, but I can't do this.

[35:26]

And I think sometimes the question is, There's chickens, there's mice, there's mosquitoes. And I think each of us has an obligation in ourselves to really look at that and say, where do I draw the lines? and then live with it and fully take the responsibilities. This is a karmic issue. Am I willing to fully take responsibility for my actions and just bear whatever the consequences are?

[36:32]

We are two minutes over, but I have a question. I'm going to allow my question. When you started your talk, you said, I thought of death, and I thought, oh, fine and dandy. Just don't bother me. And I wonder if it's still fine and dandy, you're coming a little closer. Did I say fine and dandy? You sure did. Oh my goodness. OK. Well. And it's not something that it's easy just to kind of dismiss. I can separate myself from it. But it feels a lot closer with these experiences? Yeah, closer to these experiences, but also just realizing that whether or not I like And so it's like, you just have to look at it and say, OK, that's it.

[37:57]

I don't necessarily know how I'm going to deal with this or what all that means, but I just have to stay with it. I have to sit with it. Just be present. Well, since you asked me, I think the problem is that I'm alive, but there's all this death out there. We have to realize that we're every moment right in the midst of birth and death. And we use the word life as opposed to death. But actually, life includes both birth and death. If you realize life includes birth and death, then you see it as one whole being, one whole process. world.

[38:59]

So every moment we're in the midst of my body is being eaten and I'm eating. Everything is trying to survive by eating itself. So the universe, our universe, is self-devouring. That's the nature. It's self-devouring. And because we're human beings, we want to protect ourselves and want to protect each Some of us don't, but some of us want to take advantage of others. But if you don't want to take advantage of others, then we have sympathy for each other and try to, you know, not eat each other. But we do. We're eating each other all the time. We're preying on each other in various ways, always. But, um, birth and death, regardless of it, constantly So if we have that awareness, then we can sort things out.

[40:05]

Our sympathies, and our regrets, and we wish things weren't happening the way they are. But they do, because that's the nature. Everything is meaning everything. Right now you have all these creatures under your eyelids. You're cleaning them out. Get in there.

[40:31]

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