AZH Update by Steve Kanji Ruhl

Appalachian Zen House (www.appalachianzenhouse.org) is enjoying a busy and productive season.

As part of our "Green Appalachia" program, we're involved with the Garden Starters project (please see Bill Sharp's report in this AVC newsletter), which is receiving enthusiastic interest from two other Centre County organizations that we're involved with through our "Many Paths, One Heart" multi-faith outreach -- the Interfaith Mission and Interfaith Power and Light.

Through our work with the Interfaith Mission, the Appalachian Zen House is participating in a blanket drive to help low-income people keep warm this winter; we also provide emergency fuel assistance, overnight shelter for homeless people in Centre County, recycled furniture, and other assistance. We're the first Buddhist congregation in the Interfaith Mission's 40-year history, and we've been warmly welcomed by the Christian and Jewish congregations. Kanji serves on the board, and he and Jiko regularly attend meetings. Member congregations of the Interfaith Mission have expressed interest in possibly doing Garden Starter projects at their churches.

Through our work with Interfaith Power and Light, a national organization focused on religious responses to global warming and climate change, Appalachian Zen House has helped to organize the first Pennsylvania chapter, and we are currently developing local environmental projects at Penn State and in the State College area. Kanji and Jiko serve on the steering committee and represent Buddhists in the otherwise Christian and Jewish membership. Again, our participation has been met with warm hospitality. Our Interfaith Power and Light group has expressed interest in endorsing and supporting the Garden Starters initiative.

Also, we soon will begin advertising nationally on the website of the Zen Peacemakers Order for a person to coordinate our Bald Eagle Bio-Fuels program, and also for a farm manager to run the No Harm Farm community-sustained agriculture initiative at Ahimsa Village.

We also have been in contact recently with our supportive friends and neighbors, the Mount Equity Zendo in Pennsdale, PA. The resident monk there, Daishin, is interested in our Bald Eage Bio-Fuels project. Also, the abbess, Dai-En Bennage roshi -- one of the first American women ever ordained as a Zen monastic in Japan, a major figure in international Soto Zen Buddhism, the only authorized Zen teacher in central Pennsylvania, and one of Kanji's teachers -- is featured in the current issue of our Zen Peacemakers Order electronic newsletter, "Socially Engaged Buddhism," speaking of her work in the federal prison at Lewisburg. The Appalachian Zen House is grateful for the friendship of our dharma brothers and sisters at Mt. Equity Zendo.

Jiko is currently working on projects in New Zealand and will return at the beginning of April; she'll assume directorship of Appalachian Zen House in June. Kanji, meanwhile, is training intensively for preceptorship in the Zen Peacemakers Order, assisting his girlfriend Myoki in her studies as head trainee during the Montague Farm Zendo ango period in Massachusetts, and preparing for his new job there as director of the seminary training program and the residence program, which commences in early summer.

Floating Lotus Zendo continues to offer authentic and formally authorized Zen training at Ahimsa Village each Saturday morning; all are welcome.

Garden Starters Program by Bill Sharp

Garden Starters was organized just a few months ago as a vegetable garden project to support new food gardens and gardeners. We are working with Clearwater Conservancy, Spring Creek Watershed Association, Master Gardeners, and a growing list of other groups in and around State College.

To help groups and individuals grow their own fresh food, we plan workshops on making, planting, and maintaining gardens; and cooking and canning food. We will offer mentors, a demonstration garden, and seasonal celebrations. Materials to make gardens, tools, and plants will be provided to those in need. We will present raised-bed gardens for paved areas, the less mobile, and elderly. Involvement of children, youth and families is sought.

The benefits of gardening are many including: self-sufficiency, reduced food bills, fresh vegetables at the peak of their nutritional value, secure food, improved health, a delightful past-time, and having something delicious to share and exchange with neighbors.

We meet twice monthly at Clearwater Conservancy. All are welcome. If you would like information please contact Bill Sharp at bsharple@comcast.net.

Reflections on Green Buddhism Talk by Bill Sharp

I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by Steve Kanji Ruhl on Green Buddhism at Ahimsa on December 12, 2009.

For those who may not know Kanji, allow me to draw briefly on his biography. Kanji, born and raised in Central Pennsylvania, has roots in this soil. His academic prowess was evident: He has a MA in Divinity from Harvard. He is a writer and poet. He is a lifelong Zen practioner who has trained in Japan, studied with John Daido Loori Roshi at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York, is a graduate of the Maezumi Institute's Zen House Seminary for Socially Engaged Buddhism and currently a novice minister training with Roshi Bernie Glassman of the Zen Peacemakers. He and Rosalind Jiko Kisan McIntosh opened the first Appalachian Zen House, based at Ahimsa Village last year.

It is impossible to give more than a glancing impression of the experience of his talk and I can do so only from the perspective of how it filtered through my own nervous system. Kanji gave a brief but concise history of Buddhism as it evolved across India, China and to Japan. He related the history of that tradition with that of the West and with our collective ancestor’s reverence for the Earth, trees and animals. I found this intriguing because, although I was brought up in a Christian faith, which is perhaps more focused on life after death than the experience of the real miracle of life between birth and death, I have always had a deep reverence for the Earth; perhaps as a result of growing up in a rural environment and due to my Celtic and Native American blood. But he also brought home the lessons I learned from the Japanese while once stationed in a remote area of Kyushu where I had my first direct encounter with both Buddhism and Shinto and my first real spiritual awakening.

Over my lifetime there has been a gradual, albeit limited, return to a more earthy religion. As Kanji pointed out, in the dim history of all our faiths, at the root of all of our civilizations, there were religious and spiritual traditions that reverences earth, air, fire and water and the flora and fauna that gave life to the world of matter and energy. As a longtime resident of the Southwest, and familiar with its Native cultures, I am reminded that the food we grow has been reverenced by our forbearers. Such traditions live, if barely, in forms such as Holy Communion where bread and wine are used as symbols of our deepest reverence. More and more people are returning to a sense of the sacred in growing, sharing and eating good foods.

Kanji talked about the spiritual people who retreated to the countryside in China and Japan, and also St. Francis. I’ve toured both Zen and Christian monasteries and marveled at the beauty and simplicity of life withdrawn from the bustle of city life. I find the best of the monastic traditions, both East and West in the times they were self-sufficient. Such highly disciplined and focused lives give the residents of these places an opportunity to sharpen their spiritual perceptions and may, I would hope, allow them to more completely focus on the here and now such as celebrated by the Buddhist.

Kanji talked about the Bodhisattva path, the deep compassion felt by great souls for all living things and the commitment by them to foregoing final enlightenment until all have been brought to fulfillment. He brought the spiritual dimensions of the environment movement up to date with examples of Green Buddhist leadership such as that of the Dali Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn but he also gave due credit to Pope Benedict, who just a couple of weeks ago denounced the world leader’s failure at the Copenhagen Climate Conference, and mainstream Protestantism and Christian evangelicals such as Rick Warren and Jim Wallis. I have worked with faith-based groups for a number of years and I am delighted to see a resurgence of interest in spiritual stewardship which needs to be encouraged.

There are important lessons for us in Kanji’s talk and his mission. I believe we are experiencing one of those times in human history like those that gave rise to its great spiritual traditions. We need, I am convinced, to more deeply reflect on our reality and flame that spark of compassion that assures us not only of personal salvation but the well-being of all that lives on this Earth.

Bill Sharp lives in State College. He is retired from a career in education, public service and business. He is active in developing more sustainable communities, is affiliated with the Transition Towns movement and chairs the Garden Starters group that meets twice monthly at ClearWater Conservancy. Bill can be reached at bsharple@comcast.net

It's Time to Step Up & Defend Animals in PA

There are two important bills being considered by our State Legislature in Harrisburg. Let's let our elected officials (and candidates) know where we stand.

House Bill 1411 and Senate Bill 843 would ban live pigeon shoots and the use of launched or tethered live animals as shooting targets.

Senate Bill 50 would amend and strengthen the Dog Purchaser Protection Act, which holds sellers accountable for the health of the dogs they sell.

Please let your State Representative and State Senator know that you support these Bills and expect them to do the same. And anyone new running for the Legislature in 2010 also needs to be asked where they stand on these issues.

We need to be united in favor of protecting innocent birds and animals in Pennsylvania.
(information from Bob and Lynn Millar)

Vegetarianism: The most important solution to Global Warming

A friend sent this to me. Thought it might be of interest to some of you.

Dear Friend,

In the run up to the Copenhagen climate change conference, it is vital the following information be disseminated to the public as well as to our political leaders.

A widely cited 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, Livestock's Long Shadow, estimates that 18 percent of annual worldwide greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are attributable to livestock….however recent analysis by Goodland and Anhang co-authors of "Livestock and Climate Change" in the latest issue of World Watch magazine found that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions!

http://51percent.org/

The main sources of GHGs from animal agriculture are: (1) Deforestation of the rainforests to grow feed for livestock. (2) Methane from manure waste. – Methane is 72 times more potent as a global warming gas than CO2 (3) Refrigeration and transport of meat around the world. (4) Raising, processing and slaughtering of the animal.

Meat production also uses a massive amount of water and other resources which would be better used to feed the world’s hungry and provide water to those in need.

Based on their research, Goodland and Anhang conclude that replacing livestock products with soy-based and other alternatives would be the best strategy for reversing climate change. They say "This approach would have far more rapid effects on GHG emissions and their atmospheric concentrations-and thus on the rate the climate is warming-than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy."

The fact is that we are being informed of the dangerous path we are on by depending greatly on animal flesh for human consumption. We still have the opportunity to make the most effective steps in saving ourselves and this planet. By simply choosing a plant based diet we can reduce our carbon foot print by a huge amount.

We are gambling with our lives and with those of our future generations to come. It's madness to know we are fully aware of the possible consequences but yet are failing to act.

Please make a truly environmental, healthy and compassionate choice, choose to drastically reduce your meat intake or simply go vegetarian or vegan. This is the single most powerful action for preventing climate change as it is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

Thank you for your consideration.

Yours Sincerely

Amber Sykes

Top Ten Green Buddhists by Steve Kanji Ruhl

Among the many activities of the worldwide movement in Socially Engaged Buddhism today, perhaps the most significant are those related to Buddhist environmentalism, or Green Buddhism. Ranging from efforts of the Dalai Lama to have the entire Tibetan plateau declared a "natural park" and wildlife refuge called the Zone of Ahimsa, to strategies by monks in Thailand to prevent over-logging, to Thich Nhat Hanh's ecological awareness campaigns within his Order of Interbeing, to the decades-long commitment of American Buddhists such as Gary Snyder and John Daido Loori and Joanna Macy to honor and protect wilderness and sustainable human cultures and all living beings, the Green Buddhist movement is dynamic, vitally important, and inspiring to Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. (And it also includes the activities of the "Green Appalachia" program sponsored by the Zen Peacemakers Order in partnership with Ahimsa Village in central Pennsylvania.) Unlike the Christian environmental movement, Green Buddhism does not espouse the ideal of responsible human stewardship of God's Creation, a view that affords humans a priveleged position within nature. Rather, Green Buddhism invokes the fundamental Buddhist principle of interconnectedness, in order to express the truth of the profound interdependence of everything within the cosmos, humans linked to animals and plants and oceans and mountains and stars in a harmonious network of interbeing.

Here's my top 10 list of Green Buddhists, in alphabetical order:

1. The Dalai Lama

2. Wendy Johnson

3. Stephanie Kaza

4. John Daido Loori

5. Joanna Macy

6. Peter Muryo Matthiessen

7. Thich Nhat Hanh

8. Prayudh Payutto

9. Sulak Sivaraksa

10. Gary Snyder

Honorable Mentions:

Robert Aitken, Rita Gross, the Karmapa (Ogyen Trinley Dorje)

Film Recommendation - The Shift by Wayne Dyer

I just finished watching a great new film titled The Shift (2009) by Wayne Dyer. This is Dyer's first film. He is best known for his many bestselling books on self-help and the spiritual life. The film follows the lives of a group of people who are on vacation at a beautiful California oceanside retreat center. One group is a film crew who has come to interview Dyer about his latest book on the spiritual life. The segments of this interview are masterfully interwoven with the lives of the people at the retreat center illustrating in dramatic fashion what Dyer is talking about. Its a very powerful and effective method. I really learned a lot from this film - its all about making the shift from an ego-centered life to a service-centered life, letting go of our personal agendas and allowing our true self or as Dyer calls it our Authentic Self to manifest. Its there all the time, we just have to let go of our ego so it can shine forth. A truly remarkable and inspiring film. Highly recommended. To learn more about the film, visit the film's web site at http://www.dyermovie.com/. We plan to have a showing and discussion of the film at Ahimsa Village this year. -- Bob Flatley