So good morning everyone and Happy New Year. So I want to start by providing the context of New Year's Pass and our founder in Japan, A. A. Dogen. So on this occasion of the New Year in 1242, Dogen said, as the heavenly sky is vacant and clear, oneness attains oneness and is undefiled. The earth is covered with nourishing moisture, penetrating a thousand and soaking 10,000. How is it right at this time? After a pause, Dogen said, news of spring spreads harmony, and the entire world is fragrant. The deity of spring sits immovably in the cloud monk's hall. On each branch, flowers bloom with coral color.

[01:04]

The blossoms of the world open, and this is a heavenly realm." So this was his invocation of the New Year in 1242. And of course, this was the Lunar New Year. We celebrate it as Chinese New Year, and actually we'll celebrate it The end of this month, Sunday, January 29th, we'll celebrate Chinese New Year. It'll be a children's celebration, the last Sunday morning of this year. And this year is the year of the rooster, or the year of the cock, and sometimes also described as the year of the fiery female chicken. So both of those descriptions seem appropriate somehow. So again, the New Year for Ndogen's time is a little later in the season than ours. Another one he did was in 1247.

[02:08]

On this great, auspicious New Year's morning, I am delighted with Zazen. Zen practitioners engaging the way are peaceful, just as they are. Each person is joyful and at ease with a spring-like face. Noses and eyes manifest presently. The snow on the river is completely pure and white." So there is this. This is a new year. We can enjoy Zazen as ever on a new year we can enjoy this sense of new possibilities, of new resolutions, of freshness, of change. And of course, this year particularly, we have significant change.

[03:17]

We have a new administration. So given our president-elect Trump's bragging about his sexual assaults of women, and apparently women coming forward and talking about their experiences of this, The day after his inauguration, January 21st, which is a Saturday, there's going to be a Million Women March in Washington, D.C. Hogetsu is going, and actually many Soto Zen Buddhist teachers are going. If you're interested in going, whether you're a woman or a man, you can contact Hogetsu to find out about her plans. But there are also going to be events around the country that day, including in Chicago,

[04:26]

I forget the time. I think starting at 10 o'clock at Millennium Park. So I'll be going to that one. So this is, you know, it's a new year, like any new year. And also it's, we face particular challenges. So I want to say, First of all, that I understand that there were people who voted for Mr. Trump, who voted for Mr. Trump. Out of some of the same sense of wanting change as the people who voted for President Obama in 2008, that our system of government is obviously controlled by billionaires and so forth. It was then, is now, and there was a great desire for change.

[05:32]

So I'm not, so you know, this isn't about people who voted for Mr. Trump, and it isn't even about Mr. Trump himself. It's about what the policies that are promised Pretend for us and how do we respond? That's how I see it. This isn't about particular people. It's about how we respond to the issues of our world and our country. And it's also about Sangha and how we discuss this together. We have the opportunity to respond and resist and be present together. So I want to read a portion of an article by my old friend Alan Sanaki. who is the vice abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center in the Bay Area and also is the president of the Soto Zen Buddhist Association.

[06:43]

So I want to read some of this and then talk about it some. You know, this year is, like every year, provides fresh opportunities and fresh challenges and particular ones. And Alan starts by talking about Nyogen Senzaki. And I'll say a little bit about Nyogen Senzaki before I start reading. He was before, well, Suzuki Roshi, in some ways, in the 60s, began Zen practice in America. D.T. Suzuki and other people had introduced Zen philosophy. But Nyogen Senzaki, I think in the 1920s actually, in some ways introduced Zen practice in California. He had various little places along in California where he He didn't think Americans could sit on cushions like this, so he had little halls with chairs.

[07:49]

But he introduced Zen practice and he supported himself by being a cook and a dishwasher and anyway. So this is what Alan wrote in part. Nyogen Senzaki was the first Japanese Zen master to live and teach on our shores. Along with 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry, he was interned as an enemy alien confined at Heart Mountain, Wyoming during World War II. Senzaki Sensei wrote this poem on Buddha's Enlightenment Day, December of 1942. And there are volumes available of beautiful poems by Nyogin Sanzaki. But this one is, excuse me, A Swarm of Demons Infests the Whole of Humanity. It Resembles the Scenery of Gaya, Where Buddha Fought His Last Battle to Attain Realization. We Zen students in this internment meditate today to commemorate the Enlightened One.

[08:53]

We sit firmly in this zendo while the cold wind of the plateau pierces our bones. All demons within us freeze to death. No more demons exist in the snowstorm under the mountain of compassion." So he had a zendo in the internment camp of Japanese Americans. Alan continues, a swarm of demons has arrived to infest the United States government. In the midst of this swarm sits the King B, Donald Trump, gloating and pompous. We need to speak clearly about the incoming administration. I am scared for myself, my community, for our country. There is no need to wait and see what Trump will do to hope that President Trump will become kinder and gentler than candidate Trump. So far, it is not looking good. Consider the generals, corporate executives, and contrarian political appointments he has already named to high positions. Many of us feel like aliens in our land.

[09:57]

Some of us really are aliens in our land. Some suffer more than others, of course. But prison gates are closing around us all and cold winter pierces our bones. The Standing Rock Reservation, excuse me, where Lakota people are fighting to protect their ancient lands and waters is 500 miles east of where Nyogen Senzaki was interned. at Heart Mountain. The brick and steel housing projects of St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, and other cities serve as boot camps for prisons disproportionately populated by young black and brown men. More than 100,000 undocumented minors have found their way across the U.S. border, many from distant homes in Central America, some apprehended, interned, or repatriated, others scrambling for life in the back streets of the Southwestern cities. Good manufacturing jobs in the Northern Rust Belt are long gone. Family farms in the Midwest are little more than precious memories.

[11:00]

We are all doing time in America. This is nothing new for large parts of the populations. The demons have been here all along. They are just more visible now. What is to be done? We urgently need our best thinking and dedicated action. We are called to resist, respond, and find creative and collaborative ways to withdraw consent from a life-denying government. Withdraw consent from our own oppression. Gandhi wrote, and this is a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, I believe in everybody must grant that no government can exist for a single moment without the cooperation of the people, willing or forced. And if people suddenly withdraw their cooperation in every detail, the government will come to a standstill, unquote. Alan continues, our watchword must be non-cooperation with oppression and immorality, cooperation with our friends and those who suffer the most.

[12:04]

We must withdraw consent from collaboration with an ethically tainted government even when it means a diminishment of personal privilege and loss of our illusion of safety. In the broadest way, this principle of resistance resonates with the Bodhisattva's vow. Sentient beings are numberless. I vow to free them, to feed and shelter them, to welcome them into our homes and congregations, to guard them from fear and danger. Years ago, many of us embraced an expression that personal is political. Now we understand that the political is personal, the political is spiritual. We deepen this understanding by talking to our friends, to our sanghas and communities, and within the organizations and alliances we join. And he suggests various ways to bring this about, listening to those most at risk in our song list, immigrants, the poor, peoples of color, to support and stand up with them.

[13:11]

Educate, educate, educate, agitate, organize. study and act together, create a new vision of an equitable society. That's what we've been doing all along as Sangha, as ASEAN people. And then he refers to Dr. Martin Luther King, practice nonviolence. Dr. King wrote, nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, there's a weapon unique in history which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man or person who welds it. These are particular challenges in the year to come. And I want to add that also we have the The joy of practicing Zazen, of practicing together, of seeing the wholeness of our life, of remembering that there have been difficult times throughout human history, that somehow we will continue.

[14:28]

But this is a challenging time. And how do we recognize the potential challenges that particular members of our Sangha may meet? People of color, immigrants, LGBTQ people. women whose health care is going to be threatened. So just to add, Alan mentions the appointments that President-elect Trump has announced. And some of them are really, to me, frightening. From the new Secretary of State, who's the CEO of ExxonMobil, who has sponsored for 30 years, since the mid-70s, the fossil fuel-induced climate damage that is harming the world, to the new Secretary of Education, who has basically pledged to destroy public education.

[15:45]

and I think of my own very good public education, to the Attorney General who has made many racist statements in his past, and so forth and so on. There are many. To the new head of the Environmental Protection Agency who has pledged to end the Environmental Protection Agency and so forth. You know, our practice is to face ourselves, to face our personal greed, hate, and delusion, to also see the possibility of living wholeheartedly, uprightly, with dignity. But how do we apply that in this context? So, you know, I... can say lots more about this and my own views of this.

[16:50]

Again, it's not about, you know, what we have a precept about not speaking of the faults of others. It's not about particular people. It's about problems that face our society and our friends and people threatened with oppression, people threatened with deportation. people threatened with even worse situations. The massive incarceration of African-American young men, which affects us in Chicago because of all the gang violence when young African-American men, many of them feel like they have no other options. Okay, I think one of the gifts of Sangha is that we can look at this together.

[17:54]

I don't have the answers or the last words on this. I'm bringing up this koan for us all, so comments, questions, responses. Again, we do have African Americans, we have Muslims, we have immigrants in our sangha. We have people who have already lost their jobs in our sangha because of Trump announced appointments. Questions, responses, please. Yes, hi Eric. Yes.

[19:08]

Yeah, and I think the rest of the world is going to see the United States as a rogue nation. I mean, sorry to put it that way, but this is going to be the only country in the world whose head of state is a climate denier. Many other countries in the world are responding. And actually, the state of California, the city of New York, and Google Corporation have all announced that they're going to go ahead, move ahead to try and follow the Paris climate, strongly follow the Paris climate agreement even if the federal government doesn't. There are things that people are doing already to respond to this around the country and so the worst of this is already being resisted and how do we support that resistance?

[20:28]

I was just thinking of strength of the city base as appropriate. There's something to the effect of It was hugely encouraging to me because I feel like the rest of the world is going through something too, in terms of where it is. are taking a stand that is more progressive for all of us, and that part is hopeful.

[21:53]

So I just wanted to tell you that. that a country realizes the power of direct action and non-violent action and realizes the power of that in conscious resistance because with My writing director said you are doing something and we have already shown that. A good part of the country is showing that they are going to stand up and say

[23:02]

I think it's key to realize we are not defeated and we're going to stand up for what is right. Thank you. Thank you very much. I totally agree. Yeah, it's true. Change happens not from elected political leaders, although a lot of things are going in this, the way this country is run, are going to be destroyed by this new president, I think. But real change happens through the power of people and direct action, as you say. So I'm going to be, There's also an event happening January 15th around climate in Chicago, and I'll try and get more information about that for people. But that's an action that's going to be happening.

[24:12]

plan to be participating in these things, and I haven't done civil disobedience since soon after the Iraq war started, but I'm looking forward to that this year. Standing Rock is one example. Many, many people gathered in Standing Rock. Native American people from all over, but many other people. I'm pleased that there were also Sotras and priests there. And at least temporarily, that halted that pipeline and that extension of fossil fuel. So it's difficult, but it's possible. I've talked about this, all of the big progressive changes, including women's vote less than 100 years ago happened through women marching in the streets.

[25:28]

all the advances of the LGBTQ movement, civil rights, anyway. Yes, thank you, Ryan. So that's something that, you know, it may not be that all of you are drawn towards that kind of action, but please consider it this year. And I'll be letting people know about events like that. But there's also things like writing to senators and congresspeople to oppose some of these Trump appointments. almost all of them are really egregious, really appalling. At the same time, there are some things that President Trump may do that I might agree with. He's talking about infrastructure changes and he's ending some of the trade agreements that I think have been hurtful.

[26:37]

So, you know, we have to pay attention. But thank you, Ryan. Yes, yes, sir. there's really a expressed effort to kind of separate ourselves out and to sort of want to locate the issues that are going on as basically all somebody else's problem.

[27:40]

I read a very interesting thing in a book by Dale Wright called Laurel sent an email to me in order to do it. I think some of us did. It's not like responsibility and blame is absolutely evenly distributed, but we all play a role.

[28:47]

I mean, we talk about energy, for example, as if the way we live had nothing to do with what's going on. We talk about racism as if it's Trump supporters, for example, and Clinton supporters were pulled for their racial attitudes. that we, as we do things in the streets and elsewhere, that we also be looking at ourselves and also be sort of keeping in mind the causes and conditions that produce certain attitudes in other people are the same way that we're caught.

[30:11]

And so if we, I think, and I've seen this too, Yes, thank you very much for that. I think as ASEAN people, to put it that way, one of the things we have to give to the kind of mass movements that Ryan was talking about is that sense of not finger pointing. It's not about bad guys. We're all, racism, slavery is part of the karma, the collective karma of this country.

[31:19]

We are all affected by it, one way or another. And so it's not somebody else's problem, that's right. And we all benefit from the way Native Americans were treated in the history of this country and their land taken and so forth. And our economy is based on North and South was based on slavery, so forth and so on. Yes, so we're all part of this. So it's not about, so the police who have committed atrocities are also part of the pattern of fear that we all are part of. So to have that sense of not blaming, but trying to respond constructively and positively about how we, you know, that's what practicing nonviolence, I think, is about in part.

[32:25]

So I thank you for bringing that up. This is part of what that and, you know, so how do we, so the whole, the whole, process of responding to anger from a place where we also have this sense of calm and of not reacting to anger, but transforming that to how do we respond constructively and really looking at that and trying to, you know, I don't, I don't, I really don't wish ill to Donald Trump personally or his family or anything like that, that would be silly. Why? Why do that? I wish he wasn't in power and harming people or the people he appoints, but it's not about wanting... Anyway, we have to think more deeply.

[33:29]

So thank you. Yes, Sid. Because we not only have to respond to our collective karma, but we have to wonder what collective karma we're creating right now.

[35:04]

And it's not just a what, it's the how. And I feel that the how has fallen by the wayside, not only in the right, but also very Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and that one sentence of Allen's, I, you know, cringed myself, but I read it. Yeah, but his point about how do we help support people who are going to be, the basic point, how do we support people who are going to be endangered by what's going to happen, you know, I think is something we need to look at.

[36:08]

So it's going to be an interesting year. And how do we use the energy of concern and anger and fear and not be, you know, just controlled by it? Well, yeah, it's possible that the response to seeing

[37:32]

The worst of the activities of Mr. Trump will turn things in a way that will ultimately be very helpful. But there are going to be a lot of people who are going to be hurt. And how do we take care of them? And the situation of the climate is really pretty serious. So, a big koan for us, and I think it's really important in the middle of all of this, in the middle of struggling with this, to remember to take care of ourselves. I've been reading this, let's see if I can find it, this passage from Dogen that I like about the fundamental The starting point of Zazen, of practice, is to first arouse the vow to eliminate suffering and bring joy to all beings, is the starting point.

[39:07]

But then he ends, here it is, The family style of all Buddhas and ancestors is to first arouse the vow to save all living beings by removing suffering and providing joy. So how do we address the suffering that's going to happen? But also we have to find how to enjoy the opportunity to be alive and to take care of suffering beings. He ends, well he says, only this family cell is inexhaustibly bright and clear. Even when climbing up the bird's path, he ends, taking good care of yourself is spiritual power. So it's important as we try and respond to the difficulties, and as we try and nonviolently resist the worst of this suffering, and that we take good care of ourselves, spiritually, physically, take care of our health.

[40:20]

This practice allows us this sense of balance. So one of the things we have to offer, first, I think, to feel the sadness and the anger when that comes up about what is happening. But then also, how do we use that energy? How do we take care of ourselves? How do we enjoy the possibility of being present and upright and find that which we enjoy in our lives? So what Alan says about the political as personal, political as spiritual, this all intersects. We have to take care of ourselves personally, we have to take care of ourselves as Sangha and support each other. I've been calling people in our Sangha who've been ill and trying to, you know, express support. We have to, you know, take care of each other. And then also the people who are in our world who are threatened, and also take care of ourselves, enjoy our practice and our lives, and find the balance of that so as to be able to be more helpful.

[41:34]

It's a big challenge. Yes, yes. context in mind, it's kind of a context, but, you know, he says even if the sun should rise in the west instead of the east, you know, something like the path of bodhisattva is just the same, you just keep doing what you're doing, and of course it's very, very, very curious. I think maybe the first one was a fire sermon, the first sermon the Buddha gave, you know, the world is on fire, and, you know, There is a way in which that's always been true. The specifics always change. I fully believe we're into some kind of a new phase and it's going to call for different things from us, but the fundamentals of the situation in some sense, maybe haven't changed.

[42:36]

And to the effect that all these things, to the extent that all these things that we're worried about with Donald Trump, which are very, very real worries, and it's maybe kind of waking up and paying attention to him, that we're doing it now, as opposed to doing it two years ago, really does sort of indicate that as practitioners or whatever, the Chinese translation of that, one of them is, you know, a sea of bitterness. And part of that is just our situation as human beings and what, you know, the fundamental, you know, however we choose to express it in our daily lives and in our practice in the streets and all that, you know, the fundamental

[43:57]

practice is working with we hate delusion in all its forms. And that shouldn't come as news to us. Right. None of this is new, but it's going to be more intense. Okay.

[44:15]

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