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BZ-02712
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i'm so back to glad to be back in my home temple in our home temple and it's on
so wonderful to see so many old friends and familiar faces and so many new faces and
yeah i just feel the the heart and spirit of this temple
and as always my deep gratitude to my teacher and such roshi
who has guided me over the years in giving talks to speak about what's alive for me and my practice and what's been most alive for me lately has been things around the climate crisis so i wanted to speak about
that the how he practiced without how people are practicing without and the dharma of meeting whatever arises
oh and i i gave up a somewhat similar talk on this a toss a half of but two weeks ago
and off just before i was giving the talk the fire from the smoke from the kincaid fire came into the valley
so what had felt sort of like something a little distant you know cause i've been in tassajara for a few days before that you know i knew about the fires have is aware of them generally but suddenly it was right here in the valley
and three years ago i was a director at
tassajara and the sober on his fire was going on so i was there for the whole three months of the the sober on as far as has brought so many member he's back the oakland hills fire when i had to evacuate the camp fire from last year when my nephew lost his home in paradise of
and it's it's just happening faster and faster
ah
i these to have red flag conditions now they had to add another one extreme red-flag conditions the market on purple on the maps instead of a red
and now hear the words that i hear a lot and this could especially in talking about california wildfires are the new normal and unprecedented
and i've started to think that unprecedented is the new normal
it's kind of a joke but it's really not you know so when we meet the emergency of a fire when something happens when it's right there it's enormously clarifying here you just meet it
when i was in toss harder and the sovereign's fire things were pretty straightforward you know it was meeting each moment as it arose like the rest of the rest of the concerns really fall away
and so
what do i love what do i protect what do i save who are these people here with me now how are we working together how we connected what can we do who is the people you know the he has a calfire and us forest service how are we interacting with them what skills
it's really clear
one of the challenges of the so brahms was that it went on for three months we were continually engaged in this sort of preparation like one is enough enough and we never it's hard to know quite what's happening then ah and actually on the day i gave my talk
was the third anniversary of the final containment of the sober on as fire and it just felt like while all these things are just
we're coming together
so here in the in the golden state golden and so many senses
in many many areas of the state are just on the front lines of the climate crisis and during the kincaid fire after i came back from our tassajara know i live in in the city and that city centre
ha where it wasn't even buy them here we hadn't lost power and i wasn't so attuned to that but then realizing that like everywhere else in the bay area had lost power and i think you did here too for a while yeah not right here but yeah the whole area
merryn crinkled shown on i know lots of people who were evacuated and cinnamon
what i gather is that it went a lot better this year than last year when lot smoother so we're getting better at dealing with us so that's that's a positive in no evacuations went more smoothly as everyone's mad at g any but
in a work we have an amazing capacity to meet what arises
ah but one things i want to talk about as the day to day how it kind of
ah have it lives on how the experience of it tends to reverberate in our bodies and our minds and hearts and our relationships and how we can meet that in a skillful way
and not turn away from it not succumb to it and find are some peace within ourselves and some joy in connection with each other because that's just key
ah
one of my favorite stories about the buddha i can't locate us but the buddha was once asked by a lay person he said to wise sage i've heard that you can you can help me with my difficulties so i'd like to ask you a question ask your question is yes you may
so so i'm having trouble with my wife
and proceeded to describe the difficulties he was having with his wife and he said so sage can you help me in the buddha had no i'm sorry i cannot help you with your troubles with your wife
set off well i'm having troubles with my job
people are doing this and that and having a lot of trouble can you help me with that it had not i can't help you with that either
i said that
well what can you help me with
the buddha said their eighty kinds of suffering in the world
and seventy nine of them i cannot help you with
the man was kind of fed up and he turned to go he said wait what's number eighty
so how you meet the other seventy nine
so in one sense you know unprecedented climate change you know we call it the new normal but on another level it's just the normal because we're always happy things are always arise and sometimes more intense
sometimes less intense but everything that we have learned through practice helps us to meet this moment just as it is where in the middle of it it's not a problem really were just committing it
and i've i've thought about my friends who to one hospice work and contemplative care and it's like this is where you can come alive how it's like oh right in this moment how do we meet it
i thought also of but as experience before he awakened
of going out of the palace seeing how a sick the old and the dead
and from beings are so protected and having so much privilege in his life being kept away from all forms of saffron ah he you in order for his father to keep him as taking over as the next king rather than becoming
spiritual leader
he was overwhelmed he was overwhelmed by saying suffer of this kind and then he saw a monk who was peaceful in the midst of distress he said ah so there's another way what can i do
so he went forth from this cocoon of privilege
and discovered are not how to escape the pain of being a human being in this life of being in this world but how to find freedom within suffering freedom not get away from suffering but freedom from suffering the sense of being free will
in it
and after his awakening he chose to live with full engagement in the world for the benefit of all beings
and i thought a lot about my own privilege and how i've been cocooned in my life from seeing the suffering of world
and and maybe that i've actually i think that is more self from having lived for eighteen years at san francisco zen center
which i treasure and and many forms of suffering come through in terms of people and what we meet in the issues that arise
but to live in a community that way is to not see what's happening on our streets and quite the same way
and i know that in berkeley ah income disparities are right there right there are in a way that they're
depending on which neighborhood your and and not the city
or maybe not quite so evident
a city centres in hayes valley so you kind of dip in and out of things
the homeless man who sleeps on our porch at city center every night he used to practice their many years ago
and when they i stopped her task his name because i never saw i only saw the blankets over him and i knew that it was someone who is to practice their so i stopped and said hello to him for a few minutes and a silent of say hello to him every morning on my way to the santo

so a few months after his awakening the buddha gave the fire sermon two thousand newly converted a sex who formerly practice to sacred fire ritual
because all is burning an analogy he knew would resonate with them
the eye ear nose tongue body and mind are burning
forms are burning consciousness is burning whatever as felt as pleasant or painful that to is burning
burning with what burning with the fire of greed the fire of hate and the fire of delusion
and today the world is quite literally burning with the fires of greed hate and delusion
and
in the mountains and waters sutra it begins the mountains and waters of the present moment or the expression of ancient but us or the sutras
the expression of ancient put us
so these mountains and waters of the present moment the mountains that are burning exactly as they are on fire
with the fires of greed hate and delusion these are in themselves no different from expressions of the buddha and more no less how do we meet them that way

how do we meet what's happening with an open and and courageous heart i was going to say peaceful and i think with encourage there's a piece
but i think we need to lead with courage and with joy
ah
how do we not succumb to numbing or denial or anger or despair
joanna macy talks about how to prepare internally for whatever comes next
says yes it looks bleak
now you are alive with all the others were all live together in this present moment and because the truth is speaking in the work at a unlocks the heart
there's such a feeling and experience of adventure it's like a trumpet call to a great adventure in all great adventures there comes a time when the little band of heroes feels totally outnumbered and bleak
you have to learn to say
it looks bleak big deal it looks bleak
i thought what a what a bodhisattva
to ah continually renew that spirit big deal it looks bleak
so what
i think this offers a vision of joy and possibility in the midst of crisis
and she says are we need to make friends with uncertainty and re-frame it as a way of coming alive
many of us i think certainly myself were taught to be in control to smile have positive feelings i grew up with have a happy day
it was all a problem for me when i wasn't having a happy day i didn't know what to do something was wrong i mean it wasn't just that i wasn't having a happy day but now something was wrong and probably with me
service pub
this burden in a sense
but i think some people with privilege can carry where it's not okay to share what is difficult to express what's going on ah
these kind of cultural habits can be deadening and numbing
and we end up really cut off from each other
so in my own practice it's been extremely important for me to make friends with my own grief
and despair and all the feelings that arise both from the past and in the present
so that nothing is cut off and every time i do that
i connect more deeply with the people around me because my heart is open
another level another depth
and i continually drop off the fear of saffron
so much of our practice is precisely about meeting the suffering both of ourselves and of others and of the world and it's developing the capacity
to hold our pain
and the world's pain that we feel in many many ways that many levels
in a way that we can find freedom and not overwhelm and this is not easy
ah

and i thought a lot lately about it was i was saying about privilege and looking at my privilege in relation to climate issues and seeing again and again how intersectional an issue climate changes
with income inequality in terms of who gets impacted
racial justice issues
and i thought about it in a very personal way during the sober on his fire or in it in a way that directly impact on me during the sovereignists fire
because the fire never came to toss horror
ha ha
the fire crews were able to keep it no closer than two miles away from tassajara they worked enormously hard to do that the terrain around ohio is very steep it's all wilderness
and they weren't really ways to
cutline out there so had to be done with air power and i was so grateful
that they were working so hard to protect us sahara and at the same time i had tremendous ambivalence
sort of grief at the amount of resources that were being expanded
dropping water and fire retardant on the hillsides you can see it for a long time afterwards is kind of reddish pink swaths on the hillside
i was told that it's not ultimately harmful to the plants but it
the feel it here you will feel it end
these questions these unanswerable impossible questions and on this morning we did the but he stopped the ceremony now all my ancient twisted karma from beginning was greed hate and delusion born through body speech and mind i now
fully of how how how'd we stand up in the middle of are complicated lives
and use our privilege in
in life-giving ways how do we give back

so i started reading a wonderful book called braiding sweetgrass
indigenous wisdom wisdom scientific knowledge and the teachings of plants by robin wall camera
and she's talking about the woods around her home and are there different areas of woods and there's some walls between them that markoff areas that used to be fields that used to be tilled and are now have been returned to forest
from a distance the new post agricultural woods look healthy the trees came back thick and strong but inside something is missing the april showers do not bring may flowers even after as
century of re-growth the post farming forests are impoverished while the until forests just across the wall or an explosion of blossoms
the medicines or listen for reasons ecologist do not yet understand
but it is clear that the original habitat for these old medicines was obliterated in a cascade of unintended consequences as the land was turned to corn
the sky woman woods across the valley have never been plowed so they still have their full glory but most other woods are missing the forest floor
left to time and chance alone my cut off her woods would probably never recover their leaks or their trillium
the way i see it it's up to me to carry them over the wall
over the years this replanting on my hillside has yielded small patches of vibrant green in april and nurtures the hope that the leaks can return to their homelands they give to me i give to them reciprocity is an investment in a
abundance
so we carry the healing message the healing medicine of wholeness
of the heart of the buddhist teachings the teachings we've heard
but particularly those that have been carved on our own hearts by our own experience
the ones we know inside and out because we've lived them sat with them
ben humbled by them struggled with them
and found the truth of them for ourselves
i still practice with grief and i still struggle to know how to hold it skillfully
with some sense of grace to not numb out to not be in denial
but more and more i can return to a place within that is upright that is connected
that is connected and caring and courageous
the mountains belong to those who love them and we belong to the mountains
mountains are not just mountains they are all the implacable stuff of our actual lives
we belong to our lives when we love and when we love we belong
takes courage to love takes courage to let ourselves belong
until at our hearts be broken so that we can mend them together
my recent experiences that this is as is a very new learning from me really the last couple of months i've i've done some workshops around climate justice and racial justice
that have been so trans deeply transformative to me precisely because they were able to touch the grief and move beyond it in the connection
it's alive feels like coming alive
it touches trauma heels trauma it's vulnerable it's a way vulnerable and to share that with other people
is incredible
one of the exercises was how do you know if your honor the facilitator called a distress shape it's like where do you go under stress you know how do you recognize that i've had to stop breathing and my thoughts get a little flat and
can love frozen do whatever it is and then how do you return how do you come back from that and then how can others help you with that
and what came to me about how others can help me with that is when they're vulnerable when they take a risk that so encouraging to me cause i'm shy about that
and then i thought oh and if i'm vulnerable and other people tell me that that was helpful to them
that i was vulnerable that i could share something of my own challenges the that's encouraging to me to that helps me remember to connect
and it helps me reconnect with this deep through line of love
and the many many conversations i've had in the last few months i think particularly starting with the use climate march i been i went in san francisco there was such a feeling of joy
hell
there were lots of use their and
they were in
you know this is going to affect their lives way more than it has affected ours
and ah the life energy was palpable and time
and the women's march the day after the inauguration i went to that in d c i was amazing so much joy
yeah and the practice is how do we sustain that joy how do we sustain it with each other
and like any practice it's hard work to get it started like going to the gym it's really hard to start going and to keep a gun but after a while it develops it's own momentum and then if you have a buddy going to the gym and that helps a lot
the first time i ever came to berkeley's and center
ah was on a monday morning the early morning said
and i'd arrived late i was confused about the time and there was someone very kind i guess it was the law interval we've gotten go the bathroom so some people going out going bath and coming in this woman got that i didn't know what was going on i don't know who it was as she was so kind she just silently like indicated to me
where to go and then she kind of watched over me during service made sure i had what i needed
and it was just that connection which is so important
and the space you know it's like all a space is so i could feel the energy here and i could feel the energy of everyone sitting i could feel the strength of the practice
and then in morning service it was a memorial service for the father of a man who's ah who had committed suicide a number of years before
and a form was that people would stand silently and person who had requested the memorial service would be invited to say a few words
and he did and he
was crying
he was emotional and everyone just held the space with him
and i thought
this is why i'm gonna practice
i can feel the energy of the space and strength of the practice and i thought and there's room
to be messy to not have to be perfect
that that could be held
and that meant a lot to me
to have my whole being welcomed

so we have to do this over and over and over again it's like coming back to the cushion coming back to the breath
coming back to practice
coming back again and again
to meet in water rises we don't have to go out there looking for challenges or suffering or anything else
i'm not trying to draw your attention
to something that you don't have to deal with one way or another we're all being touched by this
so
how do we meet it in a life affirming life giving way
how do we care for this beautiful fragile world
and each other
to love
to freedom
and i am so grateful
to repeatedly gaffe the opportunity to connect
with people like you
all of you who are so dedicated and have such open hearts
and connect and come back
and hold the pan for yourselves and for others
please continue to treasure each other and treasure your practice
so grateful thank you
there are any questions or comments
yes
are you reconcile
say

how do i reconcile impermanence
ah
i have to meet my own agony
and not be armed
overcome by it
and my experience of agonizing for am but ambivalence discomfort that yucky feeling
and to watch it come to watch it go
to not get stuck on it to find some space and freedom around it to take it very seriously to be informed by it to not be limited by it
and to make the best choices that i can the most skillful choices that i can

kathy

so

ah
my own thinking about it is your eyes i see yes exactly human beings are causing tremendous harm
and ah
stopping the harm and turning it is not just an individual issue
political issue it's an economic issue amir has so many levels
and i am deeply grateful for the people who are doing everything they can to try to turn that
and i do everything i can to support them and i don't know how to do those things if there are if there are specific issues that i can help with i will help with them
in the meantime what i feel that i have to offer is how to support the people who are deeply thoughtful and steeped in this work how to help them not burn out how do not be consumed by their own grief
and anger and struggle
someone told me recently that activist organizations actually in their budget account for burn out of their staff it's such an issue that it's like
yeah you have to account for like okay we'll we have this person and then you probably be after you know account for some period of time while they'll be gone while to recover from burnout and they watch for that now so
what can we do to show up to be present
to see to make choices to be more engaged and i think also to look at
you know put some has such wonderful teachings about community and renunciation and letting go and being content with what is you know how can we practice with that you know how can we share that practice of simplicity
yeah
i think there are infinite ways and i feel no joanna macy calls it the great turning lately i feel it you know and i feel it in the country is rocky
but there seems to be some energy that's movement can we be part of that energy that moves in a new direction that's my hope

ha

out
my own very personal practice is writing a little bit doing journaling i used just quarter sheets of paper so i don't write too much although sometimes they do pile up
my husband is laughing at me he knows
and i start with just writing down very simple words like what i'm noticing in the moment
type breath
feeling of anxiety whatever it is and connecting with that and somehow writing it and getting it out of my head and connected with my body allows me to feel it and once i can this is me so i think everybody has their own path but for me my greatest suffering is and now
not being able to feel it because i think i should be feeling some other way
so once i can actually get through that to me it feels like the space between train cars you know you kind of have some idea that better up ahead it's a little more airy and spacious and the one and right now is just stifling but you're kind of fallen asleep and the stifling crowded yaki smelly train car because there's that space in between
the cars you have to open one door and go in completely and it's all shifting and it's all moving and it's very unstable
and to just be there and a be like oh yikes
so this is what this is like
not dead yet
actually have some idea i would die
if i felt that and i'm not dying
and of it's like an horror movies the big thing about horror movies is they don't show you the scary thing
now it's like a little hint
ominous music the suspense when you actually get to see the scary guy or the monster full on it's like oh
a it's worse
ah
but if you can stare at it it might get a little less scary a little less overwhelming because it's familiar it's like oh i know the contours of despair is like vests and grief is like this and oh here comes this part of my experience of grief while i'm adding in extra stories
and this is my old childhood grief and this is this and at all it's yeah it's like hello old friends
all sticky friends linda
yes

yes
yes
absolutely and were much better at dealing with the actual scary monsters you know
if we're less consumed by our own internal demons
when we can see them were much more free to act
that that's the point
not that we should just stay inside but we need some reserves we need some resources
in order to up and are to keep going
are today a moment to moment
so i see the magic striker has arisen
south