I'm so glad to be back in my home temple, in our home temple. And it's so wonderful to see so many old friends and familiar faces and so many new faces. And I just feel the heart and the spirit of this temple. And as always, my deep gratitude to my teacher, Sochen Roshi. who has guided me over the years in giving talks to speak about what's alive for me in 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, how I practice with that, how people are practicing with that, and the dharma of meeting whatever arises. And I gave a somewhat similar talk on this at Tassajara about two weeks ago.

[01:07]

And just before I was giving the talk, the smoke from the Kincaid fire came into the valley. So what had felt sort of like something a little distant, you know, because I'd been in Tassajara for a few days before that, you know, I knew about the fires, I was aware of them generally, but suddenly it was right here in the valley. And three years ago, I was director at Tassajara, and the Soberanus fire was going on. So I was there for the whole three months of the Soberanus fire, and it just brought so many memories back. The Oakland Hills fire when I had to evacuate, the campfire from last year when my nephew lost his home in Paradise, and it's just happening faster and faster. They used to have red flag conditions, now they had to add another one, extreme red flag conditions.

[02:17]

They mark it on purple on the maps instead of red. And now the words that I hear a lot, 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. You know, you just meet it. When I was in Tassajara during the Sober Honest Fire, things were pretty straightforward. You know, it was meeting each moment as it arose. Like the rest of the concerns really fall away. What do I love? What do I protect?

[03:18]

What do I save? Who are these people here with me now? How are we working together? How are we connected? What can we do? Who are the people, you know, who are the, you know, the CAL FIRE and US Forest Service? How are we interacting with them? What's skillful? What do we do? It's really clear. You know, one of the challenges of the Soberanus was that it went on for three months and we were continually engaged in this sort of preparation, like when is enough enough? And we never, you know, it's hard to know quite what's happening. And actually on the day I gave my talk was the third anniversary of the final containment of the Soberanus fire. And it just felt like, wow, all these things are just, you know, coming together. So here in the golden state, golden in so many senses, you know, in many, many areas of the state are just on the front lines of the climate crisis.

[04:26]

And during the Kincaid fire, after I came back from Tassajara, you know, I live in the city, I live at city center. where it wasn't even by then smoky, and 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, and Marin, Green Gulch, you know, and I know lots of people who were evacuated in Sonoma, and what I gather is that it went a lot better this year than last. You know, it went a lot smoother, so we're getting better at dealing with this. So that's a positive. You know, evacuations went more smoothly. Yes, everyone's mad at PG&E. But, you know, we have an amazing capacity to meet what arises. But one of the things I want to talk about is the day-to-day, how it kind of,

[05:29]

how it lives on, how the experience of it tends to reverberate in our bodies, in our minds, in our hearts, in our relationships, and how we can meet that in a skillful way and not turn away from it, not succumb to it, and find some peace within ourselves and some joy and connection with each other, because that's just key. One of my favorite stories about the Buddha, I can't locate this, but the Buddha was once asked by a layperson, he said, wise sage, I've heard that you can help me with my difficulties. So I'd like to ask you a question, may I ask you a question? He said, yes, you may. He said, so I'm having trouble with my wife. and proceeded to describe the difficulties he was having with his wife.

[06:35]

And he said, so, sage, can you help me? And the Buddha said, no, I'm sorry, I cannot help you with your troubles with your wife. He said, ah, 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? And he said, no, I'm sorry, I can't help you with that either. And he said, ah, well, what can you help me with? And the Buddha said, there are 80 kinds of suffering in the world and 79 of them I cannot help you with. The man was kind of fed up and he turned to go and he said, wait, what's number 80? He said, how you meet the other 79. 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 things are always arising.

[07:39]

sometimes more intense, sometimes less intense, but everything that we have learned through practice helps us to meet this moment just as it is. We're in the middle of it, it's not a problem, really, we're just meeting it. And I've thought about my friends who do hospice work and contemplative care, and it's like, this is where you can come alive. It's like, oh, right in this moment, how do we meet it? I thought also of Buddha's experience before he awakened, of going out of the palace, seeing the sick, the old, and the dead. and from being so protected and having so much privilege in his life, being kept away from all forms of suffering. He, you know, in order for his father to keep him as taking over as the next king rather than becoming a spiritual leader.

[08:50]

He was overwhelmed, he was overwhelmed by seeing suffering of this kind. And then he saw a monk who was peaceful in the midst of distress. And he said, ah, so there's another way. What can I do? So he went forth from this cocoon of privilege and discovered 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 in the sense of being free within 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 the world.

[09:54]

And maybe that's, actually I think that is more so from having lived for 18 years at San Francisco Zen Center, which I treasure. You know, and many forms of suffering come through in terms of people and what we meet and the issues that arise. But to live in a community that way is to not see what's happening on our streets in quite the same way. And I know that in Berkeley, income disparities are right there, right there, in a way that they're depending on which neighborhood you're in in the city, are maybe not quite so evident. City Center's in Hayes Valley, so you kind of dip in and out of things. There's a homeless man who sleeps on our porch at City Center every night. He used to practice there many years ago. And one day I stopped to ask his name, because I only saw the blankets over him, and I knew that it was someone who used to practice there.

[11:04]

So I stopped and said hello to him for a few minutes, and I silently say hello to him every morning on my way to the Zendo. So a few months after his awakening, the Buddha gave the fire sermon to a thousand newly converted ascetics who formerly practiced a sacred fire ritual. Bhikkhus, 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 is felt as pleasant or painful, that too 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,

[12:13]

The mountains and waters of the present moment are the expression of ancient Buddhas, are the sutras, are the expression of ancient Buddhas. 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. No more, no less. How do we meet them that way? How do we meet what's happening with an open and courageous heart. I was going to say peaceful. And I think within courage there's a peace. But I think we need to lead with courage and with joy. How do we not succumb to numbing or denial or anger or despair?

[13:26]

Joanna Macy talks about how to prepare internally for whatever comes next. She says, yes, it looks bleak, but you are still alive now. You are alive with all the others. We are all alive together in this present moment. And because the truth is speaking in the work, it 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 bodhisattva. To, ah. continually renew that spirit. Big deal.

[14:29]

It looks bleak. So what? I think this offers a vision of joy and possibility in the midst of crisis. And she says, we need to make friends with uncertainty and reframe it as a way of coming alive. Many of us, I think, certainly myself, were taught to be in control, to smile, to have positive feelings. I grew up with have a happy day. It was always 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. So this, this burden, in a sense, that I think some people with privilege can carry, where it's not okay to share what is difficult to express what's going on.

[15:35]

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 suffering. So much of our practice is precisely about meeting the suffering, both of ourselves and of others and of the world.

[16:40]

And it's developing the capacity to hold our pain and the world's pain that we feel in many, many ways and many levels in a way that we can find freedom and not overwhelm. And this is not easy. And I've thought a lot lately about, as 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 change is with income inequality in terms of who gets impacted, racial justice issues. And I thought about it in a very personal way during the Soberanus fire, or in a way that directly impacted me during the Soberanus fire, because the fire never came to Tassajara.

[17:52]

The fire crews were able to keep it no closer than two miles away from Tassajara. And they worked enormously hard to do that. And the terrain around Tassajara is very steep, it's all wilderness. and there weren't really ways to cut line out there, so it had to be done with air power. And I was so grateful that they were working so hard to protect Tassajara, and at the same time, I had tremendous ambivalence, sort of a grief at the amount of resources that were being expended, dropping water and fire retardant on the hillsides, You could see it for a long time afterwards, these kind of reddish-pink swaths on the hillside. I was told that it's not ultimately harmful to the plants, but you feel it, you really feel it. These questions, these unanswerable, impossible questions.

[19:01]

This morning we did the Bodhisattva ceremony. You know, all my ancient twisted karma, from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through body, speech, and mind, I now fully avow. How do we stand up in the middle of our complicated lives and use our privilege in life-giving ways? How do we give back? So I started reading a wonderful book called Braiding Sweetgrass. It's Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. It's by Robin Wall Kimmerer. And she's talking about the woods around her home.

[20:04]

There are different areas of woods and there's some walls between them that mark off 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 a century of regrowth, the post-farming forests are impoverished, while the untilled forests just across the wall are an explosion of blossoms. The medicines are missing for reasons ecologists 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.

[21:06]

The Sky Woman woods across the valley have never been plowed, so they still have their full glory, but most other woods are missing their forest floor. Left to time and chance alone, my cutover woods would probably never recover their leeks 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 leeks can return to their homelands. They give to me, I give to them. Reciprocity is an investment in 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.

[22:15]

the ones we know inside and out because we've lived them, sat with them, been 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.

[23:19]

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. and to let our hearts be broken so that we can mend them together. My recent experiences, and this is a very new learning for me, really the last couple of months, I've done some workshops around climate justice and racial justice. that have been so deeply transformative to me, precisely because they were able to touch the grief and move beyond it into connection. It's alive, feels like coming alive.

[24:20]

It touches trauma, heals trauma. It's vulnerable. It's way vulnerable. And to share that with other people is incredible. One of the exercises was, how do you know if you're in a, the facilitator called it a stress shape. It's like, where do you go under stress? You know, how do you recognize that? Oh, I kind of stopped breathing and my thoughts get a little flat. get a little frozen, you know, 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's so encouraging to me, because 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,

[25:28]

that I was vulnerable, that I could share something of my own challenges, then that's encouraging to me too. 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 Youth Climate March, I went in San Francisco. There was such a feeling of joy, you know? There were lots of youth there, and they were partying. You know, this is gonna affect their lives way more than it has affected ours. And the life energy was palpable. And the Women's March the day after the inauguration, I went to that in D.C., that was amazing. So much joy.

[26:30]

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. It's like going to the gym. It's really hard to start going and to keep it going. But after a while, it develops its own momentum. And then if you have a buddy going to the gym, then that helps a lot. The first time I ever came to Berkley Zen Center was on a Monday morning, the early morning sit. And I'd arrived late. I was confused about the time. And there was someone very kind. I guess it was the little interval where you can go out and go to the bathroom. So some people were going out, going to the bathroom, coming in. This woman got that I didn't know what was going on. I don't know who it was. And she was so kind.

[27:31]

She just silently 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 was so important. And the space, it was like, oh, the 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 had committed suicide a number of years before. And the form was that people would stand silently The 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.

[28:32]

And I thought, this is where I'm going to practice. I could feel the energy of the space and the 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 meeting what arises. 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.

[29:38]

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 have 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 pain for yourselves and for others Please continue to treasure each other and treasure your practice. I'm so grateful.

[30:39]

Thank you. Are there any questions or comments? Yes. How do you reconcile impermanence How do I reconcile impermanence? I have to meet my own agony and not be overcome by it. and my experience of agonizing or ambivalence, discomfort, that yucky feeling, 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,

[31:56]

and to make the best choices that I can, the most skillful choices that I can. we are creating. Our actions are creating the problem. That to me is that we are destroying ourselves through what is going on. So, as Buddhists and Bodhisattvas, I just wonder I just stopped.

[33:07]

And I just, it just seemed real. My own thinking about it is I see, yes, exactly, human beings are causing tremendous harm. And stopping the harm and turning it is not just an individual issue, it's a political issue, it's an economic issue. I mean, it has so many levels. And I'm 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.

[34:12]

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 to not be consumed by their own grief and anger and struggle. Someone told me recently that activist organizations actually in their budget account for burnout of their staff. It's such an issue that it's like, you know, you have to account for like, okay, well, we have this person and then, you know, probably we have to, you know, account for some period of time while they'll be gone to recover from burnout. And they watch for that now. So what can we do to show up, to be present?

[35:15]

to see, to make choices, to be more engaged. And I think also to look at, you know, Buddhism 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? You know? I think there are infinite ways and I feel, you know, Joanna Macy calls it the great turning. Lately, I feel it, you know, and I feel it in the country. It's rocky, but there seems to be some energy that's moving. Can we be part of that energy that moves in a new direction? That's my hope. uh... uh...

[36:17]

My own very personal practice is writing a little bit, doing journaling. I use 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. Tight breath, feeling of anxiety, whatever it is, and connecting with that. And somehow writing it and getting it out of my head and connecting 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 in 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 it's better up ahead.

[37:51]

It's a little more airy and spacious. And the one you're in right now is just stifling, but you're kind of falling asleep in the stifling, crowded, yucky, smelly train car. because there's that space in between the cars and 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 be like, oh, yikes. So this is what this is like. Not dead yet. Actually had some idea I would die if I felt that and I'm not dying. It's like in horror movies. The big thing about horror movies is they don't show you the scary thing. It's like a little hint, the ominous music, the suspense. When you actually get to see the scary guy or the monster full on, it's like, oh.

[38:52]

It's worse? 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. It's like this, and grief is like this, and oh, here comes this part of my experience of grief where I'm adding in extra stories, and this is my old childhood grief, and this is this, and it's like, hello, old friends, old sticky friends, Linda. Absolutely, and we're much better at dealing with the actual scary monsters if we're less consumed by our own internal demons.

[40:05]

When we can see them, we're much more free to act. That's the point. Not that we should just stay inside, but we need some reserves, we need some resources in order to in order to keep going, day to day and moment to moment. So I see the magic striker has arisen.

[40:33]

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