Good evening. I've received a call to clergy of all faiths for a faith convergence at Standing Rock, where the Standing Rock Sioux Nation is encamped, standing up to the Dakota Access Pipeline. It's a call for clergy to come to help and stand with the Standing Rock. I'm not able to go to North Dakota this week. with various things happening here, but I thought I'd talk about it at least tonight.

[01:03]

I'll read the call. This is dated October 25th from an Episcopal priest named John Floberg. Dear brothers and sisters, I write to my fellow clergy of all faiths today to invite you to join me on Standing Rock Sioux Nation on the banks of the Missouri River on November 3rd. We will gather to stand witness to Water Protector's acts of compassion for God's creation and to the transformative power of God's love to make a way out of no way. I have been serving for 25 years as the supervising priest of the Episcopal Churches of Standing Rock in North Dakota. In recent days, the repressive power of the state has increased. Armed riot police are guarding ongoing pipeline construction, increasing arrests and repression of nonviolent prayerful action. At the same time, Osseti-Sakowin water protectors have reclaimed land never relinquished by treaty directly in the path of the pipeline and established a new camp.

[02:07]

Our duty as people of faith and clergy could not be clearer, to stand on the side of the oppressed and to pray for God's mercy in these challenging times. We need your help at Standing Rock. I invite you to join me and other clergy November 2nd and 3rd. Our vision is a day of protective witness and solidarity with the Standing Rock Sioux Nation and with the Water Protectors. We will gather Wednesday for non-violence training and fellowship, and on Thursday we will act. I know this invitation is last minute, but these are extraordinary circumstances. I hope you will sit in prayer with this request, and I pray that this may be the opening door that you have been searching for to engage with all that is happening here in North Dakota. God's best John Floberg. So as I said, I'm not able to go myself, but I am responding to this call by speaking about Standing Rock tonight.

[03:09]

and encouraging you to respond and encouraging all who hear this to respond. So Wendy Nakao, the Abbot of Zen Center of Los Angeles, the Mizumi Roshi lineage. Maybe Ken knows her. Yeah. And I did Suisei with her in Eheijin's Sojiji in Japan ceremony of recognition by the Sotoshu. She is going there with four other Zen priests. And also, from Clouds and Water, our Jenny Obst, who practices with us sometimes as well, but she practices there. Sosan Flynn and Laura Kennedy, two priests from there, are going. So there is a gathering. John Flohberg followed up today his call by saying, 300 clergy have registered to come and stand with Standing Rock.

[04:17]

There's 16 different faith traditions represented. 10 of those are various Christian traditions. We made a call for 100 to come and stand with Standing Rock. So 300 are coming. I am humbled by the response by these people, faith communities, to come for a peaceful nonviolent prayer full of witness and solidarity with Standing Rock and the hundreds of indigenous nations that are standing with Standing Rock. So there are now thousands of people there, people from the Lakota tribes, all seven of the Lakota tribes gathered for the first time since the Battle of the Little Bighorn, plus many, many other native peoples. So I want to talk about what's been happening there. I think I've talked about it some before. I think it has What's happening there is an important event in our country and has a lot to do with our practice as well.

[05:21]

Another report about, from another, well written by a reporter talking about people who are going there and what's happening. So I'll just, Just a little bit of background, the Dakota Access Pipeline is, for those who don't know, a pipeline of North Dakota fracking oil, which is made through very dangerous chemicals, which are pipe pumped into, horizontally into the, deep into the ground, using very toxic chemicals. We don't really know what they are. They're proprietary. And then this pipeline is going to be going through several states, through South Dakota, through Iowa, into Illinois.

[06:31]

And eventually, this oil will go down to the Gulf of Mexico. It was originally going to cross under the Missouri River, which given the record of these pipelines spilling, it's a danger to the water in the Missouri River. It was originally going to be going be just upriver from Bismarck, North Dakota, the second largest city in the state. And the people of Bismarck objected. So they moved it to just north of the Standing Rock, Dakota people's reservation, and showing the racist aspect of this. And the Standing Rock people have been protesting and they've been violently suppressed. going back to early September where dogs were used and pepper spray and basically they were attacked by security people of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

[07:39]

And now armed riot police are guarding the pipeline, increasing arrests and repression. Heavily armed with tanks and batons and dogs and pepper spray and armored personnel carriers and rifles aimed at the Native peoples who are praying and standing there peacefully and unarmed, helicopters dropping pepper spray. just a little more about this. They've brought in police from different areas, our Minnesota area deputies.

[08:48]

There have been masses of arrests. In many ways, this is parallels the civil rights movement of the early 60s in terms of the repression and what these people, this encampment, the largest encampment of native peoples in well over a century, thousands of people from all over North America, from Alaska, some from South America. and various non-native allies are doing is just trying to stop this pipeline, the effects of it, as well as their water protectors and their trying to protect the water from being poisoned. So I want to talk about the background of this a little bit and how it relates to our practice, which is

[09:58]

communion with all beings. Our practice is basically about benefiting all beings, one of the precepts that the people who are taking lay ordination in a couple of weeks will be saying, to liberate all beings, to relieve beings from suffering. So our practice is personal. We talk about our ancient twisted karma, and that's personal. But it's also collective and systemic. We're not separate from, as individuals, from what happens in our world. So we had a wonderful speaker here last Wednesday from the Black Lives Matter movement in Chicago, a few of you were here, talking about the karma of slavery and racism and reparations, and we're all so affected by that. in our own lives and here in Chicago, we're all affected by that.

[11:05]

The idea of being white is something that was, Edward talked about that in terms of how that was Originally, there were slaves who were both black and white, and they bonded together to oppose the slave owners early on in the 1600s. Then the Irish slaves, for example, were given some greater power, even though they were still slaves, over the black slaves, the African slaves, so that they were divided and seen as having higher status. So there's this complicated karma legacy of racism and slavery and now mass incarceration that's part of the world we live in, on the society we live in here in Chicago and throughout our country. And also, of course, as well as our economy being built on slavery, it was built on taking the land from Native people.

[12:13]

This land used to be Potawatomi land. We have one person in our sangha, at least, who was partially descended from Potawatomi people. But 500 years, for 500 years, The people of European extraction have been taking the land and the land that the Standing Rock people are trying to defend, the land that was bulldozed in early September, they told the courts the day before it was bulldozed that this was burial grounds and sacred lands and then the Dakota Access Pipeline people came in with their bulldozers the very next day and bulldozed over it. And the Dakota people tried to, the Sioux people tried to defend it and were attacked, attacked with dogs. This is what's happening there. So people of faith are gathering to try to, you know, not that we can undo the karma of taking the land from native people.

[13:23]

But this also has to do with how our water, how our earth, how our lungs are being poisoned. So we have our tradition, our adopted tradition of this practice of sitting on the ground, on this floor. and settling into awareness of this body-mind. This ancient tradition that we do in this form of Zazen, you know, is about touching the ground. It's about connecting with the earth. This is an earth tradition, this tradition of Buddhist practice. And this tradition of this legacy, this karmic legacy of our country, of exploiting the earth, of expropriating the earth from the native peoples who had a deep, not without romanticizing it, but a deep connection to the earth.

[14:37]

communal connection to the earth. Now we exploit the earth, we're draining it of fossil fuels, and through that we're destroying human habitat. So what the Standing Rock encampment is doing is also trying to stop the increased use of fossil fuels, the continued use of fossil fuels, Our human habitat and the habitat of many other animals and plants is being changed and we're now at 400 parts of carbon dioxide in the air. So 350 was supposed to be what's safe, and now we're at 400, and it's going to take a lot to reverse that. Glaciers are melting, the Arctic is melting. This is obvious, the effects this is having on the

[15:46]

not necessarily causing all the forest fires in California and all the storms in the Atlantic, but increasing the severity of them. The so-called extreme weather, which the meteorologists on television won't even refer to climate change. I think it's illegal in Florida, where they tried to pass a law to make it illegal to use the word climate change, and yet they're threatened by it. So this denial, which is paid for by the fossil fuel corporation in the media and in our government, is why the mass media doesn't have much coverage of what's going on at Sanding Rock. And yet, I think what's happening and the courage of the Native people standing up to the Dakota Access Pipeline is one of the most important things that's happening in the world today.

[16:54]

So I'm responding to this call by talking about it here and celebrating the courage of these people. It's not just native peoples in North Dakota, although I think, you know, it's really important that indigenous people now are standing up against fossil fuels. I think this is something that, you know, for indigenous people, and this is happening actually around the world, to lead the fight struggle against the increase of fossil fuel is really important, but this same pipeline is going through Iowa and farmers are having their lands taken by eminent domain, which is supposed to be for public works, but actually it's being taken for this privately owned pipeline. And so in Iowa, farmers are opposing this pipeline.

[18:01]

And the pipeline's actually going to go under the Mississippi River, too. So given the history of spills and breaks in these pipelines, this is a danger, a public health danger, to everybody downstream from Standing Rock and the Missouri River, and everybody downstream from the Mississippi River. It's just really interesting that while these Native people are gathered peacefully, praying, standing in front of lines of police and National Guard's people paid by our tax dollars who are opposing them with tanks and rubber bullets and rifles aimed at them, who are representing these privately owned fossil fuel companies, it's really interesting.

[19:02]

Again, Buddha, when he was awakened, touched the earth. This is what Buddhas do when they realize complete awakening, they touch the earth. and the earth is what is sacred to us. So I have some more things that I can share. There are ways that we can help from this distance. Shodo Spring, who has been here and spoken here, who's a Soto Zen priest who's up in Minnesota. She has a farm called Virochana Farm. You can go to her website. If you just Google Virochana Farm with a C-H, V-A-I-R-O-C-H-A-N-A Farm, you can find a long list of links to ways that you can help.

[20:18]

And if you go to sacredstonecamp.org, there are lots of links about ways to help. donations that can be made to the Standing Rock tribe. There's a link for, and if anyone wants copies of these, you can email info at ancient dragon and I'll send you the whole page. And I think I sent some of this out in the monthly email, but for the people in Iowa who are opposing this in solidarity with Standing Rock, there's a link at mississippistand.com. So again, there are ways that we can help even at a distance. There are many petitions online to President Obama, to the Governor of North Dakota, to Hillary Clinton.

[21:26]

Interestingly, one of our two major presidential candidates is heavily invested in the Dakota Access Pipeline. The other one has said that Native peoples should have the right to peacefully protest, but also that pipeline workers should have the right to continue building pipelines. Anyway, we have an important election coming up and afterwards we have to work on this. There's an article, I have a few extra copies out front from Bill McKibben who founded 350.org. And I'll just point out a few things that he says. Well, just to again stress the obvious environmental racism involved in this. They intentionally moved the site of the pipeline crossing the Missouri River from Bismarck, this large city in North Dakota, relatively large, to the site of the Standing Rock Tribe.

[22:36]

And which is, you know, has the standing reservation, it has a poverty rate nearly three times the national average. It's like watching this, and Bill McKibben says, this has been like watching the start of another Flint, Michigan, except with a chance to stop it. There have been statements from President Obama and other politicians about, you know, addressing climate change. And yet, still, the company building the pipeline has pushed the local authorities to remove protesters from lands where construction has already desecrated indigenous burial sites with law enforcement agents, government agents, using tasers, batons, mason, sound cannons, So anyway, this is the situation. Again, the determination and the courage of the Standing Rock people defending their land.

[23:53]

This is treaty land that's guaranteed to them by treaties And they see themselves as water protectors, protecting the water from being poisoned. There's an address, Sacred Stone Camp, PO Box 1011, Fort Yates, North Dakota, 58538. I can give that to anyone who wants where you can send support. So I'm responding to this call. to clergy to support Standing Rock by sharing it with you all and hope that you will talk about this with your friends and share this information and respond in whatever way you can. sending donations. They need blankets because the North Dakota winter is severe, but they are determined to stay through the winter trying to block the pipeline from construction with its fracking well.

[25:02]

This is not so far from us, relatively, and it affects us. This pipeline will come to Illinois, and it affects the climate of the whole of North America and the planet. Thank you for listening. Comments, questions, responses, please. And I wanted to mention in this context, Laurel's going to be giving a talk three weeks from now. three weeks from tonight about a trip she made to Africa and her witness to what's happening there in terms of climate. I don't know if you want to say a tiny bit in terms of as a preview now, but just how this is all related around the world. Maybe you could say something there. So this is pretty amazing desert landscape.

[26:19]

It's sort of scary to, it's not sort of scary, it's downright terrifying. that extent of the desert and then to connect that landscape with the desertification that's happening all over the world because of climate change. So yeah, it's something. Okay, well you have a few weeks, but just to, you know, I would love for you just to describe what you saw, you know, since we haven't seen it.

[27:23]

Bill, did you have something? I have two questions. Yes. One is just, what is being prayerful in a Buddhist context? And second, one thing I've been wondering about is Are there national forms of organization of indigenous peoples and what are they like? I imagine they're involved in this if there are. Yeah, this is it. And this is it. So what we did tonight is Buddhist prayerfulness, we could say, just to sit and be present. Our practice, I think a lot of people come to meditation wanting some refuge, some help in terms of our own, each of our personal problems or situation.

[28:27]

And that's part of it, you know, it's not separate. We each have our own, this is really, this is something I've tried to talk about for a long time, that we each have our own patterns, personal, individual patterns of grasping and anger and confusion. And that's something we deal with and respond to and see and become aware of as we sustain our practice. But they're not separate from the things that are happening in the world, the pattern of racism, the pattern of, well, what's happening with the climate. and the effects of, I mean specifically, the two, there's so many, we can point to so many things if we look at history, but the karmic legacy, we talk about our ancient twisted karma, we each have our own pattern of ancient twisted karma, but in this country, the legacy of African American slavery and racism and the legacy of what we as, what the Europeans

[29:30]

you know, have done to the Native Americans. And it's still happening to the Native Americans. Native American reservations are probably the poorest places in the country. So, and what we did tonight, we chanted the Enmei Juku Ken'ongyo, the Kanzeon. This is the short sutra for protecting life. That's what that means, Enmei Juku Ken'ongyo, the short sutra to the Bodhisattva of Compassion for protecting life. So it's a call for support for life. And so, I feel like we dedicated that tonight to the native peoples and to the Standing Rock encampment. So this is being prayerful. And I think, yeah, we could say that. And chanting, and so there are many Buddhist traditions where chanting is the major practice.

[30:41]

You do meditation and chanting, but they go together. So just, but also being close to the ground, you know, being on the ground, being present in our body, mind. And then pilgrimage is another huge practice in Asian Buddhism. And I think it's already a practice in American Buddhism in terms of Buddhist practitioners going around to different teachers. We've had many people come here who have practiced in other places. And many of the people who practice here regularly have practiced previously in other places. And going to Standing Rock, as some Buddhist people are doing and other clergy also, is a way of being that.

[31:45]

And the dedication we do at the end of our chanting, we dedicate the energy of our practice to specific, we mentioned specific ancestors, sometimes we have a well-being list, but we also dedicate this to all beings. And then for Native Americans, Amazingly, despite the best efforts of European settlers, Native American spirituality was not wiped out. The American Indian movement in the early 70s sort of resurrected it. It was underground for a long time. It was actively and violently suppressed for many years. So maybe some of you know this history, but I've studied it some and worked with it some. So there are places around, and parts of it have died out, but there are traditions of sweat lodges and various other spiritual.

[32:59]

activities that have been shared between different native peoples. And now what's happening at Standing Rock is amazing because there are thousands. I don't know how many. We don't know how many because the main roads in have been blockaded by our police and military that we pay for with our tax dollars. But somehow people are getting in anyway. And we don't know, but there are thousands of people, Native peoples there, and others, allies. There have been Hollywood actors who've come, and some have been arrested with them, and now. But they're doing spiritual practice there, too. So this is, what's happening now, Standing Rock, North Dakota, is a major event in Native American history. There have been others, but, yeah. And how we deal with the karma of, you know, the karma of what has been done to the Native Americans is part of the karma, I believe, of what's happening to the earth and what's, and, you know, the mass extinction and the deforestation and desertification, is that the word?

[34:21]

And for us to be aware of that and to pressure governments and representatives and corporations to respond, because change happens not from elected leaders, but from people, from movements like the Standing Rock Movement. We have on our altar now, I was down in Albuquerque visiting our affiliate sangha that Quezon helps lead. And there's a new little incense holder that's from the Jemez Pueblo.

[35:32]

from a modern potter on the Jemez Pueblo, but that's where in 16... maybe you know the story, Brian lived there in Albuquerque too, but I think it was 1680, 1670, where they threw the Mexicans out for about 50... Yeah, the Spanish. They threw the Spanish out for about 70, 50 years before they came back. And then when they came back, they were more, they worked more with the Pueblo peoples. So that was one rebellion that was, you know, helpful in some ways. Yes, Jack. loaded guns at FBI agents.

[36:43]

Are you talking about in the Pacific Northwest, the right-wing militia people? Yeah. And so, I don't understand why the Indians, the Native Americans in North Dakota are being arrested by the dozens, and all of these people... By the hundreds. Yeah. They've been... I don't know if it was a federal case or if it was a local case in Oregon or Washington. Yeah, so, yeah, yes, so just to, we're running late on time, but just, yes, obviously there's a lot of question about our justice system that comes up with all of this, and obviously in the case, in terms of the lack of accountability for police murder of unarmed blacks and

[38:16]

Yeah, but in this case, in the case of Standing Rock, where we have police authorities blatantly defending a private corporation against people peacefully protesting, it's so stark. And yeah, the contrast to that other case is just part of that. But there's clearly a racial component in that. So thank you. Yeah, Douglas? Go ahead. I think it's a little different from what we're used to seeing. Yeah.

[39:37]

Yeah, I don't know all the aspects of that, so it's a different situation anyway. Yes, Brian. If a group of heavily armed black men had taken over federal property, or if Hillary Clinton had talked the way Donald Trump did, had they talked the wrong way? the other group doing it tells you the bias. Yeah, it's a very interesting, difficult time we're in and maybe I don't want to get into advocating for any particular candidate or party because we're a 501c3 so I'll just leave that.

[41:06]

But I'll just, and it is time to stop, so we can continue informally, but there is an election a week from tomorrow, and please vote. And please vote not just for president, but for the state and local races as well. Thank you all. I just want to encourage everyone to continue to follow what's happening at Standing Rock. It's really important. I really think it will become more important after the election when all of that is a little bit, well, I don't know if it'll be settled, but anyway. This is not going to go away, the situation there in Standing Rock and whoever wins. This situation with fossil fuels and climate and the Native Americans bravely standing up to this will be maybe even more of a story.

[42:18]

As a Buddhist and as a clergy person, I want to express my support for them and hope you will continue to look at that. And there are lots of petitions online that you can sign if you're so inclined. So thank you. Thank you. And let's close with the four bodhisattva vows.

[42:42]

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