Good morning. This past week, we had a guest teacher here Monday evening, Joanna Macy, and she also did a workshop all day Wednesday, 4th of July, nearby at the Tai Chi Center. This morning, and actually not all but many of you were here Monday evening and several of you also for the Wednesday workshop. This morning I wanted to reflect on some of what she talked about and maybe there'll even be time for those of you who were here to share your reflections. Joanna is an old friend and a well-known teacher and scholar, a Buddhist teacher and scholar. So there's so much material, but I wanted to touch on some of it. Monday evening she talked primarily about time and deep time and how she was impelled to do despair and empowerment work because of

[01:14]

the reality which we all know in some way since World War II of the possibility of nuclear war and even annihilation of our species and even more so the waste, the poison fire from nuclear weapons manufacturer and also from nuclear power plants. And the significance of this in terms of future beings and our whole sense of our presence connecting to a future and the possibility or the question about how it might be for future beings. And we face that in many ways, but certainly with the global warming that we're all feeling now across the country and across the world. but that this nuclear waste from nuclear power plants, which she calls the poison of fire, is going to be deadly for not just tens of thousands of years, much longer.

[02:25]

And how do we deal with that? And so in terms of our present and presence and present awareness, she talked about how We feel severed in some way from the future. There's some uncertainty about the future. Something will be happening on this planet, but will there be a future of our species? This is a question that we're kind of numb to. We don't... We can't... You know, we can't go through our week and so forth thinking about this. And yet, all of us know about this. And there's a kind of numbing that happens as a result. And because we're cut off from the future, we're in some ways cut off from the past as well. So there's this idea, this narrow idea of being present that doesn't acknowledge what Joanna calls deep time, or re-inhabiting time, and what Dogen

[03:33]

the 13th century Japanese master who founded this branch of Zen, calls being time, that we can't actually be present here this morning without actually, in reality, the whole, all of the future and all of the past. And yet we have this numbness about that, this sense of being cut off, and that this is one of the diseases of our time. And Joanna's made a point of actually meeting with beings of the future, actually engaging beings of the future in the workshop Wednesday that some of us were at. It was a whole day, so I'm going to want to talk about some of the points of that, but we actually did exercises where some of us were future beings listening to present beings. and vice versa. So having a day to work with this and some of the exercises and practices that she's developed, you start to get an actual sense of who are the people on Irving Park Road in 50 years, in 150 years, and beyond.

[04:55]

complementary with our practice. We talk about teachings from the Buddha who lived 2,500 years ago, and we talk about old Zen masters who lived in the 800s or the 1,200s in China or Japan, and before and after, and our sense of what we do here, this practice of being upright and present and facing the wall and facing ourselves. and actually having time to be present with this body and mind here this morning, beyond our ideas and stories about ourselves and the world. This practice is something that's been given to us by people in each of these generations going so far back. and into the future.

[06:05]

So how do we fully be present? So this is a little bit about the reflections on future beings, and the future, and our time, and how to fully be time. But I wanted to talk about a little bit of some of the ideas she shared Wednesday. And several of you were there, but most weren't. about what she calls the work that reconnects. And I'm, again, just going to touch on several aspects of this and focus on a few of them. So she talked about the spiral of this work. And in some ways, maybe this is very much like the ten ox-shirting pictures in Zen, or various other ways of seeing our practice in Zen.

[07:09]

This is a kind of practice of how we reconnect with beings of the future, with beings of the past, with all the beings present on your cushion or chair right now, and with each other, of course, and with all the quote-unquote things of the world, which we usually think of as just dead, objects to use for our own, as assets for our own resources, rather than respecting the awakeness of the world, the vitality of the world, the Buddha nature, we call it sometimes, of the world, which Toget and other Zen people have talked about for a long time. And she talked about it in terms of you know, human history, and I'll come back to that, but just this, she talks about a spiral of this work of reconnecting. So I'll mention the four aspects of it, but then focus on the first two.

[08:12]

The first is just gratitude. That all spiritual traditions actually start with this deep sense of gratitude. And then there's grief, which I want to connect with the first noble truth in Buddhism. And so working through these stations of gratitude, grief, and then seeing with new eyes, how we start to see things differently. And then going forth, which is like the last Oxford picture. But first, just to say more about gratitude, Thanksgiving. Actually, gratitude I like the American Buddhist holiday of Thanksgiving because it connects gratitude and generosity. What is it to be grateful? So each of us, in spite of all of our problems and losses and so forth, there are many things we have to be grateful for.

[09:18]

Just to be in this human life, Buddhism talks about how rare and wonderful, that is. But also, I liked what Joanna said about gratitude being profoundly politically subversive, at least in our time. That our society, our culture, the economy of growth and consumerism teaches us to be needy, to need more things. And this gets converted in terms of spiritual practice and to need more achievement or to reach higher stages in some spiritual map. But Buddhism talks about suffering as coming from craving and grasping. when we feel grateful, when we remember, and I think it's helpful as, you know, through your day or, you know, at some point in the morning to just think about the things you're grateful for today.

[10:39]

We can find some contentment. And our society really needs this, to actually appreciate all the things that we have to appreciate rather than feeling some neediness which we have to satisfy by shopping and getting more stuff and so forth. So really, I like this idea of gratitude as subversive to the worldly realm of fame and gain, to just be grateful for, as Dogen says, our dharma position, situation that we're in, each of us. This is the starting point of practice, actually. Oh, yeah. So you can actually, you know, kind of think about, remember that which you have to be grateful for. This allows a fuller presence and appreciation of how we are.

[11:47]

But then the second part of this spiral is what is called in Buddhism the first noble truth, the truth of suffering or dissatisfactoriness, which Jonah talked about in terms of grief. So in addition to having many things to be grateful for, both in our society and the world as it is now, but also each of us in our own lives, have are damaged. We've suffered losses. We have regrets. There are things that we have not expressed of the fullness of our potential and so forth. And this may be the hardest part of Zazen and practice, to actually be able to feel the sadness and not turn away from it. So again, our society and consumer society

[12:49]

kind of encourages us not to feel that, not to feel what we feel, to pretend that the world is fine and that our lives are fine and all we need to do is buy more things. And yet, it's important to feel the sadness. This is why the First Noble Truth is called a Noble Truth. Usually it's translated as suffering, but it's also just that things are not quite the way they should be. Or maybe they're very far from the way they should be. But to actually feel that, we need to honor our own pain and sadness. As Joanna said, to honor our pain for the world. And there's so many things that we all know about what is happening in our world and the corruption of our political and economic and justice systems in terms of our society and damage to the environment and so forth, but to feel our pain for the world and to feel our pain for our own lives and those who are close to us is actually an expression of love.

[14:04]

I loved that Joanna said that. To actually meet the First Noble Truth, to actually feel the sadness we feel, is how we can connect with our love for the world and our love for our life and our love for those around us. And so we have to feel this sadness about many things. It's okay to feel sad. I suppose if one obsesses on that in a certain way, we enter depression. Maybe a little of that's okay, too. But there's more to, of course, the story of reconnecting with ourselves and the world and each other than just the grief. But that's a necessary part of becoming whole, becoming more fully ourselves.

[15:11]

When we're willing to do that, after the gratitude, and not forgetting the gratitude, both sides, gratefulness and then sadness or pain, we can start to see the world freshly. We can see our love for the world and ourselves and each other as a wholesome response to the First Noble Truth, to see with new eyes. And that's a whole other process. And then the next part of it is going forth. What do we do about that? So in our practice here, we emphasize, through this sitting, connecting with this deeper awareness and insight and kindness. And then what do we do about it? So I like our being here in this urban, Sangha, each of us has many other Sanghas, many other communities and activities and aspects of our life.

[16:14]

And for those of you who were here for the first time this morning for meditation instruction, to do this practice regularly, if not every day, several times a week. We usually sit for 30 or 40 minutes here, but even 15 minutes. just to stop and, you know, with blankets and pillows or with a chair, just face the wall and be at home in your spare time. Except it's not spare time, it's actually connecting with the fullness of time. It's actually, you know, just be with whatever comes up, to be present, with gratitude, with grief. And this helps us to see freshly, because insight arises in our settlements. This is part of basic Buddhist teaching. But then, how do we express that? So the point of doing this meditation is not to become some expert at meditative exercises, but how does this awareness then help us to respond to the situations of the world and of our life and of the people around us?

[17:32]

How do we become helpful in the world? This is the Bodhisattva way which Zen is based on, to try and promote and encourage universal liberation. We don't do this practice just for ourselves. It's a possible entry. We are connected. And then there's this work that reconnects us to that connection. So we, all of us, actually, step out from meditation hall, from our seat, into the world, and each of us is involved in various activities, and what I you know, emphasize and appreciate about the Sangha is all of the different activities that you are each involved with and each of the ways in which you are expressing this awareness in the world, in this life. So this is the last part of the spiral of going forth. It's very important. It's actually we have Bodhisattva precepts, we had a ceremony, precept ceremony a couple of weeks ago, that are guidelines for how to do that, how do we express Buddha's love in the world, each in our own particular way.

[18:51]

So we can talk about these visions of some path, but each of us has to find our own way to be Buddha. and to express that and to allow the awareness which we develop and which unfolds in our civic practice to be in the world and helpful in the world. Helpful in our own lives and those around us and also for all the problems of our world now. And again, each in our own way. So, you know, what I like about Joanna's teaching is that It faces the realities of the poison fire of nuclear waste, which is really the greatest legacy of human activity in the last 50 years for vast reaches of the future. How do we take care of that? How do we recognize the problems of militarism and injustice and so forth in our society, of greed and of violence?

[19:56]

aggressiveness that are in the world, how to recognize that, but then also how to respond to that. And also, you know, I feel this deep hopefulness is one way to say it, this deep possibility that she expresses. So again, I'm kind of trying to summarize something this morning and share some of these ideas. each part of this is a whole study. But Joanna's idea is that we are in the, not just Joanna, but other people working in consciousness and history now, in cosmology, that we are in the midst of a great turning. And this is very much connected and related to the practice we do here. She puts this in terms of the history of human beings.

[21:00]

We've been around, I have trouble remembering these numbers, but as a species, what is it? 500,000 years? Something like that, a long time. And just 10,000 years ago, there was the first major revolution in human history. the agricultural revolution. We settled down from being nomads and started growing food and having communities. And from this, all of human history as we know it developed. This possibility of having cities, of having towns, this possibility of actually being located So that was about 10,000 years ago. The second great revolution in human history was about 300 years ago, the industrial growth revolution, technology.

[22:13]

So this is one way of talking about all of this. There are many other ways, too. all of, you know, the modern world and our technology and all of the things that we create and, you know, now leading to electric lights and fans and air conditioning and all the stuff we take for granted that's part of our world. But this is product of the last few hundred years. But now there's this, again, what she calls a great turning or great transition sustainability revolution. This is what we're in the middle of now. How do we find a way to sustain life? So what's really hopeful, realistically hopeful, about talking this way is that this is actually something that's happening. It's not, you know, anything that you'll hear about or read about in the mass media consumer, you know, the corporate mass media, but all around the world this is happening.

[23:16]

This is part of what we're involved with doing, you know, Buddhist meditation practice in North Central Chicago. This turning towards how do we sustain this world? How do we sustain our society? How do we sustain, you know, given the reality of global warming and climate change, given the reality of the dangers of nuclear waste and what's happening in Fukushima and Japan, given the corruption that comes from this kind of, you know, this industrial growth revolution, industrial growth society is so short-sighted. everything is based on the way our society is organized in terms of economic growth, doesn't factor in the reality of what it does to people's lives and what it does to the environment. Mountains exist just to cut off the top off and get the coal, and forests exist to cut down and sell the lumber, ignoring how much

[24:26]

forests are connected to us in terms of providing oxygen for us to breathe, and so forth, that the mainstream corporate society is focused on quarterly profits and market shares. So this is the product of this industrial growth society, which is something that's developed in the last few hundred years, and now we see how it is kind of cancerous. Unlimited growth just for growth's sake, that's the definition of what happens in our bodies when cells start to metastasize. And that's what's happening in our world, in our economy. So, yeah, so we have to, so this is something to face and to be sad about. And again, I'm going through this so quickly. I spent a whole day working with us on this. want to kind of summarize and hear other people's questions and responses and reflections. But what's going on now is kind of the unraveling of that, which is also the great unraveling, the destruction of this industrial growth society.

[25:37]

It's not sustainable. It's very powerful. It's got control over the economy in such a way that for young people now, they're saddled with huge debt from going to college, and then there are no jobs, and so forth. It's not sustainable. It is unraveling. this world we're living in and the way that it's organized in terms of how it's portrayed in the mainstream media anyway. But at the same time, many, [...] many people all around the world are involved in something different, which is how to develop new ways of sustaining our life, sustaining our culture, developing that. And we don't know how this is going to come out.

[26:44]

But one of the ways she puts it, which I think is right, is that this transition of the sustainability revolution, which is happening, like the roots growing up out of the concrete, it's happening. Like weeds bursting forth. In many ways, it's happening all around the world. And in some ways, what we're doing here, developing uprightness and awareness, is part of that. That needs to develop at the same time that the old way of cancerous growth is unraveling. And so I can go into more specifics about that. She sees there are three realms of this. And I'll just say this. Briefly, one of them is kind of holding actions. This would include things like political activism, but slowing down the damage, trying to protect what can be protected, trying to strengthen the worthy things that remain.

[27:58]

That's one aspect of it. Then there's developing new structures, and this is happening you know, all around the world too, developing new ways of doing agriculture, for example, neighborhood gardens. There's a number of people who are here Wednesday who are doing that, working on that. Developing new ways of, new kinds of communities, new structures for something that's more sustainable. And then the third part of that, which is, I think we're involved in all three, but what we're doing directly is, shift in consciousness. This is happening. This is crucial to this whole sustainability revolution, really. That not just in Buddhism, but in many forms and traditions in our country and all around the world, people are becoming more aware. So our work as meditators is very much part of this.

[29:02]

How do we develop this new view of reality that sees the earth as alive, that sees how we are connected to each other and to the planet? And to the various parts of ourselves. So there's many levels of this. Just all of the beings sitting on your cushion or chair right now, we need to reconnect with and honor and be grateful and appreciate and also feel the loss and sadness that's there. But our work of being upright and being willing to face all of this and look at it and take our time to see how to respond constructively will, in all of this, each in our own way, this work shift in consciousness, which is one of the three aspects of this sustainability transition.

[30:04]

So I kind of summarized a whole day of material that Joanna worked with us on, and those of you who were there for that take can add something. But I think this is a context for seeing our practice, for seeing the Bodhisattva way in the world here and now. It's very helpful and encouraging, and that something's happening. We don't know what it is exactly, but something's happening. And even though it's not on the nightly news or in the newspapers, it's really happening all around the world. So I could keep talking, but I won't. I'll ask if anyone who was here, and thanks again to Douglas for it. We managed to fit almost 50 people and seat all of them in this room, which was amazing.

[31:08]

So if you were here Monday night or if you were at the workshop Wednesday and want to add something, please do. Or if you just have questions, if you want to be here because you're hearing about this for the first time, please feel free. I'm really struck. I feel like I'm kind of connecting this idea of this holding action to the way you were just speaking so much about occupying our position. And that's occurring at many levels, but one of the things I'm responding to is this idea that we're holding, we're occupying positions so that these ancestors of the past can connect with these ancestors of the future, and how they rely on us. And it's not some abstract thing, I know what I'm experiencing, it's not abstract, it's truly physical, in that these places that aren't being occupied or honored,

[32:20]

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and so part of this is that we each have a responsibility. We each have an ability to respond to all of this, each in our own way. This isn't about something that we can accomplish even in our lifetime, but we have a responsibility to beings of the future. That was part of the dialogue between future beings and present beings at the workshop. And the precepts are all about that. How do we take on responsibility for expressing something deep and beautiful and loving each in our own way, in this world, that makes a difference.

[33:25]

And everything we do does make a difference. So thank you. Steve. Yeah. Maybe a little more ground level situation. I worked for a corporation that had received a bailout. You did what? I worked for a corporation that had a bailout, a significant bailout. And I was remembering when you were The revenues don't increase. And these cataclysmic events will be laid off and pulled in. And yet, now we're in a position where the only way we can grow, which is what we promised the investors, is to take every time we put capital in the US, we actually lose more than we put in. So the movement is going to be to go to third world who knows where else, but the movement is to move the capital.

[34:33]

It's sort of not recognizing the fact that that's ultimately not sustainable either. Right. It's a finite world, isn't it? Yeah. And that's, I don't know why, but that struck me as the, maybe that's part of the dukedom, the fact that we're not greedy. for the old position of growth. It's sort of a manic sense of growth. Yes, yeah, there's a manic quality to the people working at Wall Street and all of the new kind of, what do they call it, the new tricks that they develop to manipulate finance. Yeah, and it's all based on we have to keep growing. As you said, that's the responsibility of the stock brokers. It's not, we can't actually keep something that's wholesome and sustaining, which was how the agricultural, pre-industrial world functioned for centuries and centuries and centuries. But I also appreciate that you work at one of those corporations.

[35:36]

So it's not that we should disdain. The point is to bring consciousness to all of it. So I'm very glad that there are meditators in the big corporations. and in the Pentagon, in fact, and, you know, how do we bring, share and bring awareness to all of this? And the change from cancerous kind of growth, we have to keep growing, growing, growing, and so we'll, you know, grow it in Brazil or in Malaysia or Singapore and this country becomes more and more of a third world country or fourth world country on so many levels. But still, the whole world is connected and if you depend on cancer, eventually it kills the boss. The reality is that the delusion is still there. Yeah, of course it is. It's still there and all it's doing is It's no different than moving the bottom parts. Yeah, but we can see the unraveling of that that is not sustainable and start to build awareness of sustainability and structures of sustainability and try and limit the damage as this new possibility becomes more and more

[36:55]

At some point, things don't change through some kind of gradual progression. Things change suddenly after lots and lots and lots of work and awareness. So how all of this is going to change, we have no idea. There's so many examples. Egypt and the Berlin Wall coming down. Anyway, things change. They do change. That's the other teaching of Buddhism that's very helpful in this. This is going to change. Jerry, you had your hand up. I just had the seminar, let's say, in the form of those practices, and one of them really struck me. And for people out there, you pretended like you were at a creative center. You walked around in the fact that you were like at Union Station, working throughout the day, obviously, and very, like, you know, into your little world about general market communitism. And then you started to slow down, still at Union Station, and still trying to get to work at your school. And you get this real sense of, you know, you're sitting and practicing in a quiet space.

[38:06]

Really, no matter where you are, you're in a quiet space. And that exercise really, you know, when you talk about occupying, it's occupying that space of being aware, being present. all the time, and the exercise really brought home to me that sometimes we think we only occupy that space when we're sitting on the cushion and we're practicing regularly. But the truth is, we're always occupying that space, and to sort of be more aware or conscious that that's what we're doing, we're occupying that space, and bringing everybody with us into that space, was really an interesting practice. Yes, so our sustaining our own caught on us in awareness does affect people around us. Thank you. Yes, Laurel. So I was here Wednesday as well, and thank you for that excellent summary. For me, in addition to what you said, the most powerful thing of the day, or the genius of the way it was put together was there were 80 people in the room, and you were

[39:16]

every single person was forced to interact intimately with other people for a long time, for an uncomfortably long time, all day, and be honest, creative, and you were sort of on the spot a lot, and so much came out of that, so much came out of me that I didn't know was there. And so much came back to me. And I haven't been in that much intimacy for a long time with strangers, with mostly strangers. And I haven't stopped thinking about it because it's an unusual situation. It was very young. I mean, I keep thinking, well, why don't we do that in our culture very often?

[40:20]

And I think I know why, because we don't like it. It's uncomfortable, but it's so important. So I feel as if we made progress toward the Great Turning, and one day with those 80 people self-selected. That was just wonderful. Yeah, in the sense of intimacy and meeting one-on-one. And we don't have that so much in our practice forms here, except that people are welcome to come and have an interview, doksan practice discussion with me. And we're going to be expanding that with the other priests here. But to have some exercise where we actually pair off. That happened a lot during the day, where you paired off sort of randomly. face-to-face. So that is part of our tradition in a way, but usually not on the horizontal level, usually the teachers. And it was not just being forced to speak and say forced, it was also being forced to listen.

[41:24]

Yes. Equal amount of time. Right. Yeah, I haven't found the same experience, although I think the most intense one I had The very first, where you're just walking around and then whoever you happen to be next to, didn't touch them, just looked at them, just acknowledged them. And the amount of energy just being truly present for somebody, and silent for, like you said, an uncomfortably long period of time. By the afternoon, I was green. I was sitting in place. But it sort of tied back later on when she was talking about sort of the groups, and you mentioned it, that are, you know, those that are sort of doing the holding. And she mentioned, you know, the folks like us who are changing the way of thinking, of, you know, stopping that grasping mind, and how that undergirds everything else. Because there's so many people in our society who are paid to create or manage conflict.

[42:27]

And honestly, I don't need to create and manage conflict. Hopefully, I do it in a way that's sustainable, so that it's actually resolving things, unlike people making guns or warheads or whatever. But as long as we have that mentality of us versus them, as long as we're not connecting with each other, we're going to have this. But to the extent we can do exactly what she was doing, and one-on-one, on one of the people, or every day, the people we meet, to have the energy to be there and truly connect and present with people, I think is the key to all of it. Good, yeah. And just, you know, you mentioned that first exercise, and that brought that back to me, where we just walked around, milled around, more quickly and then slowly, and then suddenly we were in front of somebody, for many people, a stranger, and holding hands. And then she would talk about all of the potential and awareness and gifts of that person and how that could unfold.

[43:42]

Anyway, it was very intimate without a word being spoken. It was really an amazing exercise. Jerry? The other thing that actually was just new to me is the whole idea of the Great Journey was a completely new thought to me. I mean, I kind of get the industrial real estate, and I get the great unraveling. And I guess I'm going around thinking, that's what's happening. We're going to unravel here, and stuff appears, and stuff goes away. And that's just what's going to happen. And sometimes I think of my nieces in a little sadness, thinking, well, OK, the end of the unraveling. But the idea that we could turn this around was sort of like, you know? And I realized that I have to... I need to go other places for my information because every place I go tells me more about it. Yeah, it's interesting. It was kind of a... Well, I think this is the genius of Joanna's work, and it's really true.

[44:53]

All around the world, there are people trying to develop awareness in various ways. Meditation in other contexts, and also working at developing this other kind of structure of sustainability, and also in various ways, political and otherwise, trying to mitigate the damage of the unraveling. So that's all happening and it's not, you know, you're not going to get it in, you know, CNN or Fox News or the New York Times or, you know, any of, you know, it's just not, that's, it's happening under, again, the weeds popping through the concrete. It's happening. It's not necessarily so obvious. And to become conscious of it is, I got to hear her Monday night and I had listened to her online so I heard her talk more about paternity in a couple of online speeches but I was struck, I mean it It was an experience Monday night.

[45:55]

I mean, she took you into this sense of thinking about time in a different way. So there was experientially, and then that song at the end, it was encouraging to me because sometimes I think there can be a sense of desperateness, a sense of futility about all of this that you think, okay, you know, and that doesn't lead to the same kind of participation. And, you know, so it made me think more about how can we all be more involved in our communities, and when do we tend to say, that's somebody else's problem, or, you know, we all want to be better, or, you know, it's like versus getting involved in small things, or in, which I think is, a huge part of this and kind of turning over decisions and all those to whoever will do it?

[46:58]

Thank you, yes. There are lots of ways to be, as we become more aware of this, there are lots of ways to be involved. So we'll keep talking about this, we'll keep turning and finding how to sustain our practice and community and this world.

[47:24]

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