By Jikyo Bonnie Shoultz Sensei

In November 2024, we shared a vision for an Engaged Buddhism Eco Workshop at DBZ and invited the sangha to join us in bringing it to life. We were heartened by the enthusiastic response—twelve members expressed interest in helping shape this initiative, and the group has already met twice. We will continue meeting via Zoom throughout the spring on the second Friday of each month at 10 a.m., with the intention of gathering at DBZ this summer to begin implementing our ideas. If this project continues to thrive, we envision hosting a larger-scale event in the summer of 2026, inviting broader participation and engagement.

The Eco Workshop reflects our collective commitment to ecological responsibility as an integral part of our practice. The ZSS 2024 Annual Report describes it as follows:

“In 2024, ZSS launched a new initiative aimed at fostering ecological responsibility through community engagement…This event will explore DBZ’s natural and structural environment, showcase its innovative stewardship practices, and engage participants in collaborative sustainability projects.

While initial projects may focus most on benefiting DBZ, the workshop welcomes participants with expertise or interest in broader ecological fields, such as sustainable urban planning. Enthusiastically supported by the Abbot and retired Abbot, this initiative represents a meaningful integration of environmental care with spiritual practice. It offers a platform for collective action, learning, and impactful contributions to both the monastery and the global ecological effort.”

The group began forming a foundation for this work during our initial meeting in December. Soren Cathy Shrady generously offered to coordinate logistics, and others contributed inspiring ideas. Keirin Brian Smith proposed leading a tour of DBZ’s sustainable systems—including solar power, heat pumps, roof coverings, and water systems—to highlight current efforts and future opportunities. Drawing on the environmental science expertise of several group members, we envisioned a meaningful weekend of workshops and hands-on projects framed by zazen and other elements of our practice.

At our second meeting in January, Shinge Roshi spoke about the urgency of the climate crisis. We discussed the need to approach this work with clarity and hope rather than despair, and this led to a deeper exploration where Myorin Catherine Landis shared the idea that an impactful goal could be to make climate knowledge and action part of the Sangha as a whole. She highlighted how, among indigenous groups, ecological awareness is woven into every aspect of life—their cosmology, rituals, and politics—and shared writings by Potawatomi and Haudenosaunee scholars with us. Shinge Roshi encouraged us to consider how, as Buddhists, we might teach an approach rooted in shared responsibility for climate change, a principle central to indigenous perspectives. Our group is now deeply engaged with this question.

Our next meeting will be on Friday, February 14, at 10 a.m. via Zoom. It is not too late to join the planning group—we welcome your ideas and energy. Please email engaged@zenstudies.org if you are interested.

By Jikyo Bonnie Shoultz Sensei

Are you concerned about the climate crisis and want to explore ways in which you can address it close to home? Would you enjoy working with other Sangha members on a tangible project that embodies Engaged Buddhism?

The ZSS Engaged Buddhism Committee has been exploring ways for Sangha members to connect meaningfully beyond our Zoom meetings. The objective is to create a sustained initiative that benefits our community, the Engaged Buddhism mission, and ZSS at large. However, with members living across the country, finding a suitable in-person activity has proven challenging…and this is where you come in!

We invite you to join the Eco Workshop Planning Group, which will meet monthly on Zoom to plan an exciting Eco Workshop Weekend at Dai Bosatsu Zendo. During this in-person workshop, participants will explore the monastery’s natural and structural environment, and learn about the stewardship solutions that have been implemented. Participants will also be able to collaborate on specific environmental sustainability projects at the monastery.

While the first Eco Workshop Weekend will focus on projects that will directly benefit Dai Bosatsu Zendo, we warmly invite planning members with a diverse range of ecological and climate interests or expertise—such as sustainable urban planning—to share their ideas as well. We are open to all insights that can enrich our discussions.

The inaugural Eco Workshop Weekend will be scheduled for Summer 2025. We envision a small gathering which will initially consist mostly of planning group members. Building on the insights and experiences from this first workshop, we aim to expand and launch a larger event in 2026. While the planning group will ultimately shape the details of the weekend, below are some of the activities we anticipate will be included:

• Zazen
• Workshops by Keirin Brian Smith, Kanchi Lucia Oliva Hennelly, and others who can provide specific insights into DBZ and offer in-depth teachings on the environmental issues faced at the monastery.
• Work on projects that will be identified and agreed upon with DBZ administration

We’d love to have you join the planning group. Once the group is established, we’ll set a time for our monthly Zoom meetings and discuss how our Buddhist vows can guide our collaborative efforts on this project. If interested, please contact us at engaged@zenstudies.org.

By Jikyo Bonnie Shoultz Sensei

In April and May, articles by Yuki Eric Michels and Michael Fayne asked us to look at our own mortality and the impermanence of all things. Their approaches are the “same yet different,” hitting on both the absolute and relative truth. Yuki asked us not to be lulled by our awareness of impermanence but instead to “continue questioning the things we are not taught to question, and especially the things we are taught not to question.” Michael reminded us that “through a loving engagement with all things, we can see with amazement the miracle and transcendent value of each life, each name, each body, and each moment.”

Even if we don’t fear death, even if we feel we are clear about impermanence, something within us encourages us to look away from writings about death. At age 82, I find the same to be true when we regard aging. As a woman in the later stages of life, it can be confusing…is today’s loss of mental clarity or physical energy going to last? Does my practice mean just accepting what I notice in myself? Can I continue to question what I experience and at the same time embrace lovingly that which I uncover, whether in myself or the social environment?

Aging also makes me reflect on how I can continue to engage with the apparent injustices and suffering in the world. I worked in prisons and jails for many years, as an advocate in the 1970s and as a Buddhist volunteer from 2005-2020. The pandemic lockdown stopped that work, and by the time things opened up, I was in my early 80s. Even if I had started up again, I knew it wouldn’t last many more years.

I was also involved in anti-violence work, as a board member of OGs Against Violence, a local organization founded by a man doing bodhisattva work in the streets of Syracuse. Every day, he intervened personally to stop shootings, knifings, and fights, all the while showing love and care to everyone affected, even those who were engaged in violence. When board elections came around, I stepped down to leave a slot for a younger person, preferably someone from the neighborhoods he worked in.

For an aging person who still wants to contribute, I’ve found the book The Engaged Spiritual Life by Donald Rothberg (Beacon Press, 2006) provides suggestions. He reminded me that I have felt called to do work that addresses injustice and supports those most impacted by it for most of my life. I still feel that calling, but I meet it in different ways now. I can join an organization led by people with very different lives than mine and stay with it if they accept me. I can work with an interfaith coalition that addresses social issues. I can become more aware of the needs of others in my own Buddhist community. The options are endless if I just pay attention to others and am honest with myself about what I can bring to the needs I am finding. It is both continuing to question, as Yuki urges, and finding ways to engage with love, as Michael Fayne advises.

By Jikyo Bonnie Shoultz Sensei

In today’s world, where there is so much war and suffering, we yearn for peace. In November 2023, Jifu Devyani Sadh, the originator of the ZSS Engaged Buddhism initiative, held a workshop that explored the delusion of separateness, the root cause of conflict and strife. This workshop examined Buddhist Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s famous poem, Please Call Me by My True Names, and I invite you to experience this poem today as we contemplate the possibility of peace.

This poem was written soon after the Vietnam war ended, and it provides us with insight into how we cannot separate ourselves from the world around us, even from those who cause harm. I find that each time I read this poem, its meaning deepens and sheds new light on my questions about peace.

“Please Call Me by My True Names” by Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

To me, this poem exemplifies that peace cannot come as long as we separate ourselves as “us” vs “them;” peace will only come when we truly realize our oneness. Can we look at each other and recognize ourselves in each other? Can we generate peace?