Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me? Okay, so welcome everyone from, I see people from California and Israel and Italy and Eileen, are you still in Massachusetts? Great, in Massachusetts, in Pittsburgh, and anyway, and of course, Chicago, and environs, and Indiana. Anyway, welcome everyone, wherever you are. Today, I'm going to talk about a line from a Dogen essay. This morning, I'm gonna talk about how to, how to, How One Returns Oneself to the Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth. So this is from an essay by Dogen, Keisei Sanshoku, The Sounds of the Valleys, The Shapes of the Mountain.

[01:05]

And this is about an eighth century master named Changsha. How does one return the mountains, rivers, and the great earth to oneself? Changsha responded, how does one return oneself to the mountains, rivers, and the great earth? So that's the question. And that's actually part of a seminar I'm going to be doing this afternoon from 1 to 4.30, Chicago time, on Dogen's environmental teachings. and how he links them to devotional practice. So I'm gonna talk this morning about materials that are tangential to that. But this is a question about the relationship of humans to our world. So, Well, I could start with the Genjo Koan, which is not one of the Shobo Genso essays I'm going to talk about this afternoon.

[02:14]

But in that, Dogen talks about how, well, if one's out in the middle of Lake Michigan, one cannot see any of the shoreline. Of course, Duggan doesn't mention Lake Michigan. He lived in Japan in the 1200s. But anyway, out in the middle of a body of water, it looks circular because we don't see the details of the shoreline. So this question about our relationship to our planet has to do with a lot with the limitations of human awareness and consciousness. So Doken also talks about how different beings see water differently. Humans see water one way, fish see water another way. He says hungry ghosts see water as pus, and that's kind of disgusting, poor creatures, and dragons see water yet another way, as some of us know.

[03:20]

So what is our relationship to the planet and all the beings on the planet. And part of this is our inflated ideal of human intelligence. So humans, you know, can build skyscrapers and can write books and can do all kinds of things, build airplanes and rocket ships and do brain surgery and so forth. So we tend to think that we are the superior beings in our world. And this is supported by the Abrahamic religions. And of course, I must, as a disclaimer, there are, find spiritual teachings in Islam and Judaism and Christianity.

[04:22]

And yet, they're more geared towards human beings. Human beings have dominion over the environment. We're obviously the superior creature on earth. We have language and well, maybe because of our opposable thumbs, we can build temples and skyscrapers and so forth. However, from the point of view of, not just Dogen, but I would say Chinese Buddhism, some of Chinese Buddhism, even before Chan and Zen, the planet is alive. Reality has consciousness. And specific examples, it's been demonstrated now that octopuses are very intelligent.

[05:26]

Unfortunately for them, they only live about a year or so, but I recommend a film, a documentary called My Octopus Teacher, about a human type person who got to be friends with an octopus. He lives in South Africa, this guy, and a wonderful film. I recommend it. Octopuses have, you know, can communicate, can problem solve, can use tools, can do all kinds of things that we think of, that we might think of as intelligent. So I'm going to try and keep this talk short because I want to have discussion, but you know, there's various ways of thinking about all of this from the point of view of Cheyenne peoples who lived in the plains of North America before European invaders. Rocks have intelligence. And what does that mean for rocks to have intelligence? So,

[06:29]

You know, if you go to any of the Japanese Zen gardens, which I've talked about all throughout Japan, but I got to know them very well when I lived in Kyoto for a couple of years. You know, you see some rocks and you can see they've been through some things. You know, there's something going on. So I mentioned the movie, My Octopus Teacher, which I highly recommend. I want to recommend another movie. called Fantastic Fungi, which I saw this week. I don't know if anybody else has seen it. It's now, yeah, over there in Italy, he raised his hand. Yeah, it's now one of my favorite movies. Maybe along with Casablanca and The Big Lebowski. So Fantastic Fungi talks about Funguses, fungi, I guess is how you say the plural, which are everywhere on our world.

[07:35]

They're part of the mold that breaks down dead things and does something creative with them. They're our disposal system. They are, of course, in our body, they're bacteria. Penicillin came from fungi, so they're medicinal. They're also, Part of the mycorrhizal, which is a word related to fungi, the mycorrhizal undergrowth of forests. So it turns out there's a network of fungi underneath forests. I don't know if the people who, the Huayen, the great Avatamsaka teachers who talked about Indra's net, which we talk about in Buddhism and how everything is interconnected, if they knew about this. But at any rate, it's another version of Indra's net, this mycorrhizal network.

[08:40]

So underneath forests, there are these webs of tendrils and of fungi. trees in the forest uses them to communicate. So forests are intelligent, they're an intelligent biosystem. It's very clear now, scientifically. So through these microarousal networks, trees can warn other trees of danger, even trees who are not the same species as them. So, Yeah, and actually trees can share nutrients with other trees through this undergrowth. So this is, again, a model of Indra's Net, which is, for those who haven't heard of Indra's Net, this is also in the Flower Ornament Sutra, and the teaching is that the universe, our world, all worlds, is a network.

[09:50]

And at every place where the nets meet, there's a jewel. And each of those jewels reflect all the jewels around them and the light from those jewels. And all of those jewels reflect the light from the jewels around them and so forth forever. So it's a model of how It's a holographic model of how everything is connected. And so through mycorrhizal networks, forests are connected, the trees in the forest are connected. We now know through, thanks to this pandemic, which has been, it's over 700,000 people in the United States who are now dead. Didn't need to be that many at all. But we also know, just looking at your screen, that we are very connected to people in Massachusetts and Italy and Israel and Indiana, even, and Massachusetts.

[10:55]

Sorry, Nicholas, I didn't mean to put down Indiana. And California. Hi, Paul. So anyway, we're all connected. We knew that theoretically, but now we see it. Oh, and I left out Deborah in Pittsburgh. Okay. Anyway. We're dynamically connected and through the COVID pandemic, we're connected with everyone because we are not going to be finished with this pandemic until Everybody is vaccinated and not just everybody in the United States, Southern states, but everybody in India and Africa and South America where the pharmaceutical companies are not sharing their knowledge of how to make this vaccine, which could be made elsewhere. Anyway, we're connected. Everybody's interconnected. We know that now.

[11:55]

on so many ways. And this fantastic fungi, this mycorrhizal network that's in everything is part of that. So there's so much to say about all this, but I'm going to keep it short. Again, humans think that we are the crown of creation, we are the most intelligent, the most skillful, and thanks to our thinking that we have a right to, because of our intelligence or whatever, we have a right to plunder and take in all the stuff that's in, all the resources that are in the earth, on our planet, and cut down forests and so forth. Now we're facing, there's mass extinction of many species, and there's this climate calamity that's happening. How do we connect

[12:58]

How do we return ourselves to the mountains and rivers and great earth? How do we bring ourselves back into this network of everything? And of course, you know, the climate is being, The world is being damaged by human so-called intellect, by human greed and materialism, and we all have a part of that. fossil fuel companies that are making billions off of the climate destruction and spend lots of money lobbying Congress people to keep giving them subsidies. You know, there's a particular responsibility there. Anyway, there's so much to say about all this, but

[14:01]

Another part of the Fantastic Fungi, and it's in this film that I recommend the Fantastic Fungi, is available, I think, on Netflix, anyway, is that fungi, along with everything else they do, are also the source of psychoactive substances that can be medicinal. So there was, Other things that fungi can do, which is really, which were in the film, and it's really encouraging, they can break down oil. So they may be part of how we save the planet from climate destruction, because they can actually break down oil. There are some fungi that can actually break down oil and turn it to carbon. So anyway, there's so much in this film, but also part of fungi is mushrooms. And some mushrooms make you taller and some mushrooms make you small.

[15:06]

And anyway, there are poisonous mushrooms that'll kill you. And there are also psychoactive, psychedelic mushrooms like psilocybin that were being researched by psychologists. We have psychologists on our Zoom page now. There are mushrooms that, like psilocybin and others, that are psychoactive. And there was a lot of research being done by psychologists in the 60s that demonstrated that these, that showed scientifically that these substances can have a positive medicinal effect, can help with things like Alzheimer's, can help with various psychological distress. That research into psilocybin and other psychoactive fungi and unrelated material was shut down in 1970 when President Richard Nixon declared a war on drugs and

[16:21]

That research is now starting, I think it was said 1999, 1997, that research is resuming and they're finding out wonderful things about how some of these psychoactive substances actually help, can help with depression, can help with Alzheimer's and various things. So, and of course the war on drugs we now know was a totally racist enterprise. white people smoking joints weren't arrested, but black people with any amount of marijuana were fed into the mass incarceration system, which we now have. So there's so many different aspects of this, and all of this relates to our relationship to our world. How do we return ourselves to the mountains, rivers, and great earth? So yeah, so going a little further, I wanted to confess something or share something.

[17:32]

So sometimes people have asked me, Eve is just joining us. I don't know if you can hear me, Eve, but some people have asked me how I came to Buddhist practice. And that was a long, long time ago. And I've given various answers. I've said Vietnam, and that certainly was one part of it. And I've said that my viewing Japanese Buddhist sculpture in Kyoto and Nara and elsewhere in Japan inspired that. I did a talk about that a couple of months ago, I think. You can look on the, podcast for UNKEI, wonderful, wonderful Japanese Buddhist sculptor, statue maker, Buddha maker, called, considered by all Japanese as the Japanese Michelangelo, but all of you Western Buddhists probably haven't heard of him until you, at least until you heard my talk.

[18:36]

which includes pictures. Anyway, another answer I could give to how I came to Buddhism has to do with fantastic fungi. Because from, oh, I don't know, 1967 till maybe till Nixon's war on drugs, I, along with many other things, I was involved in an exhaustive experiential study of the psychedelic experience. And I'm not recommending drugs to anybody, but I don't regret any of it, of my own experience of that. And it's true that, you know, people who came to Zen, many of the people who came to Zen in the 60s and early 70s had experience of psychedelics. And in the same way that neuroscientists are now seeing that Zazen actually changes how the brain works, changes different parts of the brain. They also have studied and now in more recent studies of

[19:44]

fantastic fungi, psilocybin, that similar things happen when you take those substances. Now, again, I'm not recommending anybody do that. I don't think it's necessary. If you're doing Zazen, you don't need to take psilocybin, I would say. But I don't regret having done it myself. Part of all of this is to open up our consciousness to the fact that humans are not the only conscious beings, not the only intelligent beings on our planet, as I've been talking about. Octopuses, forests themselves, many, many other creatures that we think we should be able to do whatever we want with because we're human beings. Anyway, intelligence is, our form of intelligence is wonderful, of course, I'm not putting down intelligence or rationality or language or tool using, but we, when we realize interdependence, we should respect all the other intelligent beings on our planet instead of, you know, trying to use them for our own selfish purposes.

[21:02]

So, How do we go beyond our ideas of self? That's another way to talk about this. How do we get beyond our own personal notion of me and mine and all of the material stuff that we want to collect? So, So I've been talking about this mycorrhizal network under forests, which feeds the intelligence of forests. And we know a lot more now about plant intelligence generally. that there's a form of intelligence that plants have. This goes back in Buddhism, in Buddhist teaching. Dogen talks about this in various ways, but also before Dogen in China, in some of Chinese Buddhism, there was a discussion of this.

[22:08]

They talked about it in terms of Buddha nature and, you know, do even dogs have Buddha nature? But actually there was a sense of, plants having awareness. This is one division, by the way, of most of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, which does not think that plants are sentient beings, and at least a lot of East Asian Buddhism, not just Zen, that sees consciousness and awareness in many things, plants, and Dogen takes that further. And actually some of Dogen's predecessors in China talked about the Buddha awareness of reality itself. So this is getting down to it. not just elements of our planet, but reality itself has awareness, has consciousness, has intelligence. If you define intelligence not only in terms of human intelligence,

[23:09]

So the last part of this I want to mention, two more things. One is that I know some of the people in the Sangha, at least a couple people in our Sangha, are fans of Star Trek. Maybe more, I don't know. Ruben is smiling and so is Eileen. Anyway, there was a most recent series, it was called Star Trek Discovery. They had a, in the Star Trek Discovery, there was a beyond warp speed way of traveling throughout the universe that was based on sport drive. And the engineer of the Starship Discovery in Star Trek was named Paul Stamets. And Paul Stamets happens to be one of the stars of the movie I'm recommending, Fantastic Fungi.

[24:12]

He is a student and promoter of the awareness of fungi and mushrooms. And he's a mycologist, which is I think what they call people who study mushrooms. And anyway, so they took his name the engineer who developed the Spore Drive for the Starship Discovery that allowed them to travel from all kinds of, and because everything is really interconnected, according to this idea and this Star Trek television show, that one can travel across the universe. Anyway, he harnessed this into a Spore Drive. So anyway, that's, I think I've said all the things I wanted to say, just talking about, again, the intelligence of other beings besides our self-centered human beings and how that affects how we are damaging our world.

[25:18]

but also how that can be resolved through awareness of interconnectedness and other forms of intelligence and sort of these fantastic fungi that can, as I was saying, break down oil and oil spills. So again, I found this fantastic fungi film very inspiring. And it matches my own experience from a long time ago when I was involved in those substances, as I said. So I mentioned at the beginning that this talk is related to, but tangential to, the seminar I'm doing this afternoon from 1 to 4.30 Chicago time on Dogen's Keisei Sanshoku essay and a number of Dogen's teachings about the environment and how he connects them to devotional practice. So how is our Zazen practice?

[26:24]

rituals and ceremonies. How is that faith practice based on this environmental awareness or connected to this environmental awareness? So according to the announcement, yesterday was the last day to sign up for the seminar this afternoon. However, as a special dispensation and possibly to the consternation of some of the people organizing it, any of you, I know several of you are already signed up for it, but anybody else who would like to attend that seminar this afternoon that I'm doing, there is some donation requested, but you can sign up on the Ancient Dragon website. So, That was a lot. But I want to hear your responses. And Jerry, sorry, you have to go. Bye bye. So anyone who has any comments, questions, responses, please feel free.

[27:34]

Emily and maybe David, you can call on people. And if we can't see you, you can go to the participants window and there's a raise hand function there. So any comments? Nyozan has been wanting to speak. Can you hear me? I've been having trouble with this. Thank you, Taigen. Just to follow up on some of the things you mentioned. I can recommend a couple of really wonderful things to read. One called Entangled Life, which is by a scientist named Merlin Sheldrake. And this is basically a very, very rigorous look at the way the various roles of fungi. It's like taking the film that you mentioned and just really following up on every point.

[28:40]

It's really wonderful. He happens to be the son of a guy named Sheldon. I always want to say Mandrake, but it's Sheldrake, Rupert Sheldrake is his father, Rupert Sheldrake. And Rupert Sheldrake is kind of a renegade scientist in some ways, who people remember from 1980, the whole harmonic convergence thing, that was sort of, he was the guy behind that. And he was propounding precisely this idea of sort of panpsychicism, this idea that everything has awareness and intelligence. And then finally, I will mention, For those who don't know it, Michael Pollan, who's another of the people who was featured in this film, Fantastic Fungi, and is known mainly as a food kind of guy, wrote a book recently, a few years back, called How to Change Your Mind, that takes a very careful historical look at the fate of research into sort of medicinal plants and so on, their suppression, and sort of an update on its reemergence

[29:46]

that's really very good. But he's got a more recent one, This is Your Mind on Plants, which I've not read, but further develops this. So I'd recommend any of these to anybody to kind of, and of course, Dogen. Start with Dogen and follow up with these guys for dessert. Thank you very much, Niazan. Yes. So Michael Pollan is featured prominently in the movie I mentioned, Fantastic Fungi. I'm not sure how to pronounce it. Anyway. Yeah, Michael Pollan's, there's a book called The Botany of... Anyway, his books are very good. The Botany of Desire. Yes. Yeah. Wonderful book. I've read that. In addition to Michael Pollan, somebody else who's featured in the Fantastic Fungi movie is Suzanne Simard, who I'd heard about because she's done a lot of the research into forest intelligence and the mycorrhizal network under forests by which trees and forests communicate.

[30:54]

I think her work is the basis for a book that I haven't read yet, but I've heard a lot about called The Overstory, which talks about the aliveness of forests. So yeah, thank you, Nyozan. Other comments, responses? Debra? I just wanted to correct something. Richard Powers wrote Ova Story, which is a novel about trees. But I wanted to also recommend, it's called The Enchanted Life of Trees, and it was written by a German arborist who observed trees for 40 years. It's his first hand observation of this interconnectedness and the actual observing of the root systems that extend throughout a massive forest and how trees help to take care of each other if one becomes ill or damaged. I just wanted to share that. Thank you. Thank you. And I didn't mean that Suzanne Simard wrote the Overstory, but her research is part of the background that's used in it. Yeah. And I think she wrote another book that came out recently that people have mentioned along with the one that Deborah just mentioned.

[31:57]

Yeah. This is really, you know, and of course, it's relevant to Dogen, definitely, and to aspects of East Asian Buddhism, but before Dogen and after Dogen. But yes, this is a different way of seeing our reality. And it's, I think, something that's very helpful in terms of our stopping to just exploit and destroy our planet and the other beings, I'm sharing. Eileen has her hand up. Eileen, thank you. It's my little yellow hand. So I'm sitting here, not in my usual kind of spot. I am sitting here with the trees. There's a river. Oh, why not? Eric, can anybody see the river? There's a river and something of a mountain behind me.

[32:58]

And I sat on this wooden platform. Oh, it was really hard to find a spot next to the river. I was determined to do this next to the river. And I finally did find a spot. Anyway, I won't go into all that. I found the spot and I managed to sit on the wooden platform. But I have a lot of trouble keeping my eyes open. I often meditate without keeping my eyes open because when I open them, there's such a hit of information that it can be unbearable. Lately, I've had a little more success and it's been a little less unbearable. Now my mind wants to go sleep when I open my eyes. But, but there's no way. And I'm listening to the river and listening to the traffic. And it's all it's all right there. It's all right here. I mean, I actually Deborah, I read both of those books, and they're both amazing.

[34:03]

And I think once you allow once I allow this kind of thing into my consciousness, then you just keep seeing this planet not to get on my little soapbox, but I will. This planet is, we're not part, we're not on this planet, we're part of this planet. And I don't even, I don't think that's philosophical. If you were, you know, flying around, you're alien, no more Martians, right? We can't say that anymore. If you were, okay, if you were aliens and you were looking down, we don't say, oh, look at those people on top of the planet. We're all, We're all very, very interrelated. I'm sorry, this is a little fragment. I'm going to get all my little thoughts out on this. The other thing is something that bothered me. I was raised a secular Jew. And I got Eastern religion by being a teenager in the 70s, where it was sort of in the air.

[35:09]

You couldn't help but breathe it in. But this word, dominion, always really bugged me. And I had the opportunity to talk to a scholar who's a minister, a Protestant minister who's also a scholar. And he says, well, there's a lot of, and I said, this is not obviously the original word. There was probably Hebrew, right? The word dominion over that. He says, well, there's been a lot of discussion about that. There's no true consensus. But more or less, the consensus lies around stewardship. And I find all of these little fragments very helpful, because I don't see the world the same way anymore. I really don't. I don't see this tree next to me as the same way. Um, I don't feel entirely apart from it.

[36:11]

Um, energetically speaking. So I think, you know, good old fashioned, sit your butt down on the cushion and just let your mind open. Um, that's, and then when you move through your daily life, that's, that's with you. Um, of course, we're not going to get most of the people in the U S to do this, but I think that that consciousness then feeds out into the world. And hopefully, it's a few, I don't know, it gets out there and something happens to create a change. As I said, it's very fragmented, but I'm sitting in the middle of that. Thank you. Thank you, Eileen. Yeah, that was good. Yeah, this word stewardship, you know, that's when in the context of this aspect of Abrahamic religion where humans have dominion over you know, the plants and animals and, you know, mountains and rivers and everything, and we can exploit it, you know, a positive spin on that is stewardship that, you know, that we have a responsibility to it, but that's still really dualistic and really paternalistic and imperialist that, you know, we, the earth belongs to us rather than us, rather than, as you were indicating, we are part of the earth.

[37:37]

So this is part of what Zazen gradually teaches us. It's part of what these fungi materials can inform us of. Yeah, so thank you. Other comments, responses, questions? Yes, David Ray. Thanks so much for this. I'm loving this discussion. And thank you for mentioning Discovery. My partner, Christopher, is going to be delighted. He has initiated me into that, and he's very excited about the Paul Stamets character. So we're definitely going to watch Fantastic Fungi soon. I wonder if either Buddhism, the Buddhist tradition, or some of the references that people are talking about, have anything to say about the ways that as a human being, I might feel like a plant.

[38:41]

I might connect with my vegetative, you know, what the ancients called the vegetative soul, you know? I find it easy to connect with my mammalian nature. That seems easy. I don't know. I experienced the feeling of being in relation with plants, like a couple of trees in my life. I feel like they've been important friends. And there was a mint plant that I would thank every time I pulled some mint plants off for my protein shake after working out. But I'm... I'm wondering about the possibility of, like, connecting more with my vegetativeness as a way of entering more into relation with plants. You know, we say, like, veg on the couch, but I'm not sure that's quite what's meant. Yeah, that's a great question. And part of what I'm going to talk about this afternoon is how Dogen turns this way of thinking into ritual devotional practice. So, and how he links it.

[39:44]

I don't think, one thing that, one way you were talking about that, David, was our relationship to plants. And I think that might be, perhaps a little too dualistic. How Eileen was describing it, I thought was wonderful, just that she's sitting there next to this tree, near this tree, and feeling everything around her. And I think that's maybe more like, you know, what how we can find, you know, they talk about our, we can talk about our reptilian brain, right? So there's a reptilian part of us, there's a mammalian part of us, but, you know, we are descended from fungi. I mean, funguses are not plants, they're not animals. There's something more basic and older and plants and animals emerge from them. And then fungus is developed in a third way.

[40:45]

So we are, part of the Earth, part of, I mean, not part of, yeah, we are expressions, I would say, of the planet. And we were returned to the planet when, in the fantastic fungi movie, it talks about decay and decomposition, how fungi actually create that, make that, and that supports the cycle of life and death. Anyway, I don't have a specific suggestion, David, but just to feel what it feels like to be, as Eileen was saying, sitting under a tree. Anyway, Ayshan and then Eve. Can I just throw one little thing in? Yes, please. Because David, so one another thing that's helped me is that, oh, there are a lot of a lot of teachers now will say that, you know, give your give your weight to the cushion.

[41:56]

We've all heard this. Give your body to the cushion and then allow the earth to support you. And that is that somehow or other seems key to me. to being a little bit closer to plants. I hadn't thought of it before. Yeah, no, I think that's important. We sit on the ground, you know, when we sit on our cushions, or even sitting in a chair that we're supported by the ground, even if we're on the second floor of a building right now. But Buddhism is very, very much an earth religion. When Shakyamuni awakened, he touched the earth as witness. Planting trees was a traditional Chinese Chan practice. In India, before they had constructed temples and zendos in China, but before that, Shakyamuni's disciples and Indian Buddhists would sit under a tree and face the tree rather than facing the wall.

[42:57]

Our practice is about grounding. There's many more examples, the underground Bodhisattvas and the Lotus Sutra, for example. Anyway, yes, thank you. So Ishan first. Thank you. Technically, Eve was ahead of me, but what I have to say pertains directly to what we're talking about in this moment. And I know that my Wi-Fi coverage keeps coming in and out. So please forgive me if I get broken up. But I was thinking as David was talking about how in psychology and psychiatry and probably medicine, we talk about vegetative symptoms, which are things like very basic functions of life. How's someone eating, sleeping? Are they showing physical signs that are beyond volition or consciousness? And that made me think about, You know, we also, you know, we talked about the reptilian brain or, you know, our animal nature. And it just made me think about the ways in which our physical bodies have an intelligence that

[44:06]

is outside of or goes beyond our consciousness. And so that might, so reflecting on that might be one way that we could get in touch with our vegetative nature. You know, fungi have evolved so that they have these amazing functions that help keep them alive. And part of what helps keep them alive helps keep the planet alive. And so, you know, I think that maybe some of what we can practice with is just reflecting on, you know, even on our cushions, just observing your breathing and observing the ways in which maybe your breathing changes in response to a feeling that you're having or a thought that you're having, observe the way maybe your heart starts to pound a little harder when you're experiencing a particular thing on or off your cushion or thinking about a particular thing. There's so much intelligence within our own bodies that we overlook that I think goes along with overlooking that intelligence in the rest of the

[45:13]

world. Whether we're thinking about it or not, we're constantly responding to our environment. And so I think just a nice practice would be observing the many, many ways in which that happens constantly as part of recognizing how the world around us is impacting us at every moment and we're mutually impacting it. So thank you for the comment that just brought up those thoughts for me, David. If I may follow up on that, and then I'll call on Eve. There's an old Zen story that Dogen cites many times that very much pertains to this. It has to do with our great ancestor, Yaoshan, who was sitting very solidly and steadfastly, as it's translated, and a monk asked him, what are you thinking about when you're sitting there like that? And Yaoshan said, I'm thinking of not thinking.

[46:18]

And The monk asked, the very good monk asked, how do you think of not thinking? And then Yashan gave a response, which is often translated as non-thinking, which I find not a helpful translation. I went to Japan for two years to translate Dogen with Shouhaku Okamura, because he translated it as beyond thinking. So beyond thinking is a kind of awareness, and it's something we all experience in Zazen. or we can experience, it's awareness as you were speaking about, Aishan, that is kind of somatic, physical, but it's not about thinking about something else. It's just here we are. I hear sounds. I feel sensations in my body and so forth. That's a kind of awareness. That's a kind of consciousness. It's beyond thinking.

[47:20]

So anyway, I just, what you said, Ashen, reminded me of that story. Thank you. Thank you. I agree completely. So Eve, and then Emily. Yeah. Tygan, are you familiar with Gregory Bateson's essay, Form, Substance, and Difference? I'm not. I've read some of his work, and I actually sat with his body because he died at San Francisco's Zen Center, and some of us sat after he died with his body. And his wife at the time helped found the Chapel Hill, North Carolina's Zen Center. So I have a relationship to him, and I've read some of his books. Mind and Nature, is that one of them? Yeah, that's after Steps, but Form, Substance, and Difference was given as a, I think, the 19th Memorial Korzybski Lecture, and it was published for the first time in Steps, which came out in 72.

[48:23]

But anyway, he makes the argument in there about the difference between the imminent God and the transcendent God. The transcendent God, you know, being, well, But the thing is, both of them are actually in the Old Testament, but the predominant image in Western thought has been the transcendent God, the God that's outside of his creation, and that is a he. And that does have to do with all the things you were talking about, about even still stewardship, but that idea of control. And Bateson links it with uh, the imminent versus transcendent, you know, notions of, of deity as, um, uh, you know, being connected with the way we think about mind and mental process and whether we see, you know, the whole cosmos as, as part of mind or, or, you know, that, that mind is something and emergent property that comes out of the interrelationships of all things.

[49:28]

Um, I mean, you know, I, I didn't need mushrooms. I mean, I read that essay when I was 15 and it did rewire my brain. And it was a conversion experience. I knew it at the time. I mean, that it was a conversion experience. I think I didn't know exactly what I was converting to, but it certainly did, you know, in later life, make me more receptive to Buddhism. And I don't think it was an accident that, you know, that Gregory chose to die at the Zen Center. But one, yeah, I mean, I just read you a couple sentences. So one of the things that he says informs substance indifference is that as you arrogate all mind to yourself, you will see the world around you as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical consideration. the environment will seem to be yours to exploit. Your survival unit will be you and your folks or conspecifics against the environment of other social units, other races, and the brutes and vegetables.

[50:34]

If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have an advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell. You will die either of the toxic byproducts of your own hate or simply of overpopulation and overgrazing. The raw materials of the world are finite. Yes, thank you. And I could also mention that one of my teachers, Baker Roshi, brought Gregory Bateson into a sesshin on the last day of sesshin. And he actually sat in the zendo and spoke to us. So yeah, he was part of San Francisco Zen Center in a way. But that whole thing about imminence and transcendence, this is a basic category in religious studies, imminence, I-M-M-A-N. that think that, so in transcendence is that spiritual realization, divinity is up there, you know, and that's, you know, we have to transcend our phenomenal world and our physical life to become spiritual.

[51:46]

And that's the major mode in, not the only mode, that's the major mode in Abrahamic religions, But it's not the only mode. I mean, yes, I know. Yeah. Yeah. The Shekhinah is, you know, yes, absolutely. She is a good example in God. Yeah, there there are. Yeah, there is within the Abrahamic tradition both. And there is it within Buddhism, too. But I think Buddhism tends towards the eminence, which is absolutely which is groundedness. And that's the tradition of indigenous people around the world, of shamanic religion that is based on the ground, the earth, and us being part of the earth, as I've been talking about, as we've all been talking about today. So yeah, that polarity is worth noting. So thank you very much, Eve. And thanks for the Star Trek reference. You're welcome. And Leonard Nimoy was interested in the Shekhinah, you know, as a sort of one connection.

[52:51]

Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I want to end somewhat soon. But Emily and Paul have their hands up. Emily, first. Yeah, Paul, if your comment pertains to that, mine is a bit different. If you want to go first. Paul. Please go ahead, I'm off on a different track. Well, Teagan, thank you so much for your talk. One of the things that, you mentioned my octopus teacher as well, and that, You know, I really enjoyed that film a lot. And I think the moment that I connected to it, I think most intensely was to do with like my emotional reaction to the moment where the octopus reaches out and like touches him for the first time. And then later in the film, you see the octopus just like wrapped around his chest. They're very much like almost one creature.

[53:55]

They've spent so much time together. Um, and so, um, my, my question, you, um, Asian brought up the, the topic of kind of our body's intelligence, um, that we are sometimes not aware of. And I, I, I was thinking about how perhaps another part of that is our, our emotional intelligence, which we don't, aren't always completely aware of. how we're emotionally reacting to things or how that's influencing our behavior. But I'm really curious, um, just how you feel that, um, kind of our role of our emotions plays in our, our relationship, our understanding of, of, um, of how we fit into the natural world and things like that. Since emotion is another thing that we dualistically see often as a human thing, even though there's clear evidence of emotion in other animals. But we do see it as a very human thing. And I think it has a profound role in our relationship with how we treasure or value different things in the natural world.

[55:06]

and preserve them or don't preserve them. So I was just curious if you had anything on that subject. Sure, yeah. to use another word, we're very anthropocentric about how we see the world. We think of humans as, even if we think of, think of stewardship, we still think of humans as, you know, the superior beings. And yeah, emotional intelligence is a big, big part of practically of Zazen practice. How we come to, uh, for example, the precept of not harboring ill will, how, how we come to realize, uh, look at, be aware of, uh, the emotions when anger arises and transform those into something constructive rather than holding onto them and turning them into hate, uh, or ill will.

[56:10]

So working with different problematic emotions is a huge part of the long-term development that changes our brains, as you were saying, in Zazen practice. And yes, emotion. I don't know if we've found a way yet to measure or Well, actually we have in terms of, I was going to say that we don't know about plants' emotions, but there was a study way back, this was 1970 or in the late 1960s, a guy I met had been studying uh plants responses and when a when a when a plant was when a tree was cut down there was screaming not that we could hear it but uh plants do have responses we might call them emotional to uh damage.

[57:12]

And we don't know so much about plants' emotions yet, as far as I know, but that's there. Clearly, the octopus in that wonderful movie, My Octopus Teacher, yes, he had this very deep emotional relationship to the narrator who was this diver who went down and formed an emotional relationship with this octopus is, yes, very touching. And I know I have cats who sometimes appear on my Zoom screen and, you know, they have emotions, definitely. So, yeah, if we think we're the only beings with intelligence or emotions, that's how we're destroying the world. And then, you know, the fossil fuel executives can feel like it's okay to just, you know, they knew in the 70s that fossil fuels would lead to climate damage and, you know, but they were making a lot of money, so they let it go. We have to see that, you know, we say beings are numberless, I vow to free them.

[58:18]

We talk about all beings. This is very much part of Buddhist discourse and, Yeah, how come we think we're better than all beings? That's really arrogant. So thank you very much for your comments, Emily. Paul, you were next. This is a wonderful discussion, and people seem to be quite united in their feeling that we are linked together and should be stewards of our environment. But on the same time, we live in this world that forces us into other patterns. And the shamanic people didn't have a refrigerator to go to, it opened up and take out a piece of fragile vegetable or meat that was spoiled easily. They had to like ferment it and use use the world of mushrooms to help preserve it.

[59:24]

And they had to know exactly when this tree was going to bear fruit. They had to be very conscious of that tree, so they knew when that was going to happen. They had to know when various things, they had to be very aware of their environment, which we have no need to do whatsoever. We buy a piece of fruit, it comes from Chile. We have such vast opportunities to transgress the whole interaction of the world. And so the question for me is, how do we deal with this in our everyday life? How do we deal with it? In my business world, I'm trying to establish circular economies with various different crafts, but also just how do you live your everyday life in a way in which it isn't all wrapped up in things with plastic or driving to the store for a sugar hit when you feel the urge. None of these things are bad, necessarily, and they're all

[60:25]

They're all part of what we are induced to do by the advertising and the pressure of society. It's very hard to go against the pressure of society. To not, you know, not to participate fully is somewhat shameful. So how do we individually, this is a question that I have no answer for, but I'm constantly thinking about how do we deal with this, in many ways, corrupted world? How do we deal with that in a way that doesn't make us crazy and that helps all sentient beings and that has some effect on the future of the planet? Anyway, I have my own little set of answers that I do, but it's a much bigger story, and I don't know how we get out from under this, because we're all so totally tied into the system that it would be very difficult to extract ourselves from it.

[61:37]

Anyway, it's easier for me at my age, and I have my own little environment, so I can do things pretty much as I want. But not everybody has that privilege. Most people have to figure out how to make a living, and how to not alienate their neighbors, and how to gain some recognition in the world and how to be part of the environment. But at the same time, the environment is sucking us down into this realm of mass extinction and air and water pollution and chemical pollution. It's a question I think of constantly. I would be very interested if anybody has any helpful suggestions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Paul.

[62:40]

I just want to say that being aware of these questions is very important. I don't think, you know, there, I don't think, well, there may be many answers, but we don't have the answer in a way. But I think awareness of the question, awareness of the issues and how it, applies to our own life and to our world is really important. I think awareness itself is transformative. So the more we can share this awareness of this deep interconnectedness, the more we have a chance. I'm going to give, Mac has his hand up and maybe that'll be the last word because we're getting near time, but Mac, go ahead. Hi, good morning. Thanks for having me. Eve invited me this morning, and she's my dissertation chair at University of Illinois, Chicago.

[63:45]

And this actually topic is some of the stuff we were just talking about that I'm writing a dissertation on. But I live here in New Orleans, and I had posted in the chat earlier, I grew up in West Virginia. A fellow named Peter Tompkins, I believe, was one of the authors of the books you were referencing. about doing research on plants in the 70s. He had a biodynamic farm called Claymont. You could probably look it up if you wanted. They would actually play music. They had speakers lining the fields. I think the research advanced where they realized plants are responding to different vibrations that are affecting them and influencing them and stuff like that. So that was kind of cool. I wanted to comment on that. But I also was responding to what, I'm sorry, I can't remember the prior person's name who was speaking about adaptation and stuff. And I think just reminded me in my own sitting group here in New Orleans, I've seen how people, even people who work for the fossil fuel industry here as part of joining the sitting group had got the awareness that their livelihood was not aligned with their values anymore.

[65:03]

And they've, left those roles or seeing how people stop eating meat when they become aware. I think it's just, I love the pragmatism of the last comments of where does the rubber meet the road for this, for all of us. And given that I'm researching a lot of this, actually, I think this is it. It's not gonna come from the top down anywhere. It's individuals that are self-organizing into small communities that I think are, branching out and upwards. And we're doing a lot of adaptation to climate here in New Orleans, where our actual environment itself is degrading underneath our feet. And we're a recent trip to the smoky air of Salt Lake City and just the adaptation. It's not the interesting time that I was hoping to live in in that way, but it is. It is it. And, you know,

[66:04]

I think that these climate changes are helping us all, helping the broader public, maybe who wouldn't realize how connected we are to the biosphere. So thanks for letting me comment. Mack, thank you very much. Welcome. Please come again to Ancient Dragons and Gate events. Check our schedule. You're very welcome. And I appreciate everything you said. And yeah, we all can make a difference in whatever ways we respond to these questions and problems. And yes, I think the change does come from the bottom up, not from politicians or whomever. So thank you all very much. We will have a closing chance soon. Thank you. I'm only for that. I just wanted to repeat the announcement that I made in the beginning. Some of you know and some of you have signed up. I'm doing a seminar from one to 430 on Dogen, the founder of Soto Zen in the 1200s.

[67:13]

and some of his environmental teachings, and how he links them to faith practices, which may not be the answer to the questions that Paul and Mack were asking, but is part of a response at any rate. But even in the 1200s, Tolkien was thinking about this. And as I said at the beginning, it was announced that one had to sign up by yesterday, Saturday, but I'm now extending that for any of the people here, you're welcome to go to the website and sign up for this afternoon's seminar. So thank you all very much. Thank you all for considering these questions and awareness. And Emily, would you please join us, help us with this chanting? Yes. Today we will be chanting the repentance verse three times, followed by the Ehekosuho Tsukanmon and the well-being dedication.

[68:19]

I'll share my screen. All my ancient twisted karma From beginningless greed, hate, and delusion Born through body, speech, and mind I now fully avow All my ancient twisted karma, from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. All my ancient twisted karma, from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. We vow together with all beings from this life on throughout numerous lifetimes not to fail to hear the true Dharma.

[69:34]

Hearing this, we will not be skeptical and will not be without faith. Directly upon encountering the true Dharma, we will abandon mundane affairs and uphold and maintain the Buddha Dharma. And finally, together with the Great Earth and all animate beings, we will accomplish the way. Although our previous evil karma has greatly accumulated, producing causes, conditions that obstruct the way, may the Buddhas and ancestors who have attained the Buddha way be compassionate to us and liberate us from our karmic entanglements, allowing us to practice the way without hindrance. May the merit and virtue of their Dharma gate fill and refresh the inexhaustible Dharma realm so that they share with us their compassion. Ancient Buddhas and ancestors, whereas we, we shall come to be Buddhas and ancestors. Venerating Buddhas and ancestors, we are one with Buddhas and ancestors. Contemplating awakened mind, we are one with awakened mind. Compassionately admitting seven and accomplishing eight, obtains advantage and lets go of advantage.

[70:40]

Accordingly, Longya said, what in past lives was not yet complete, now must be complete. In this life, save the body coming from accumulated lives, before enlightenment and ancient Buddhas were the same as we. After enlightenment, we will be exactly as those ancient ones. Quietly studying and mastering these causes and conditions, one is fully informed by the verified Buddhas. With this kind of repentance certainly will come the inconceivable guidance of Buddha ancestors. Confessing to Buddha with mindful heart and dignified body, the strength of this confession will eradicate the roots of wrongdoing. This is the one color of true practice, of the true mind of faith, of the true body of faith. May all awakened beings extend with true compassion their luminous mirror wisdom. With full awareness we have chanted the Ehekosuhotsugonmon.

[71:43]

We dedicate this merit to our first ancestor in India, great teacher Shakyamuni Buddha. Our first woman ancestor, great teacher Mahaprajapati. Our first ancestor in China, great teacher Bodhidharma. Our first ancestor in Japan, great teacher Ehe Dogen. Our first ancestor in America, a great teacher, Shogakushin Ryu, the perfect wisdom bodhisattva, Manjushri. Gratefully we offer this virtue to all beings. All Buddhas throughout space and time, all honoured ones, Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas, wisdom beyond wisdom, Maha Prajna Paramita.

[72:38]

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