Shifu visits Marine Mammal Center

On Monday, July 19, Shifu Jian Hu and a few disciples, accompanied by new CTZen Center member, Charlotte Bear, visited the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito. It is the largest Marine Mammal Hospital in the world, with a group of very dedicated doctors, researchers, and team of volunteers that accomplishes something quite amazing. However, what is even more amazing is what humans do, out of ignorance, to these animals. Shifu asked Charlotte to write the following report:

Marine Mammals teach us about how our choices here at home affect the health of the oceans and all the living beings within them.  Master Jian Hu urges CTZen Center members to learn about The Marine Mammal Center--its mission and the education it provides about the impact of our human choices on the coast.

Our planet is almost 80% oceans.  With about 6 billion human beings now living on the planet, the impact of our presence on the land impacts the ocean environment tremendously.  In recent years, the oceans and all of the living beings within them, not to mention the living beings who depend upon the coast lines, are now facing increasing perils.  Much of those dangers are because of mindless human impact upon the planet.  Education about the ocean environment and our interdependence with ocean creatures is needed now more than ever.

Increasingly, fish supplies are being depleted by over-fishing, global warming and oil spills, which produce micro-organisms that consume oxygen in the water available for fish to breathe.  New increases in contaminants in ocean waters are causing mysterious rises in toxic algae blooms, producing seizures and brain damage in sea lions, for example.  Sea lions are an "indicator species," revealing trends in the health of the entire ocean environment.  Whales have been beaching more commonly, and upon examination after death, reveal that they swallow large amounts of netting and plastics that have been dumped into the waters.  Sea turtles are found dead too often, having eaten plastic bags, which resemble jelly fish, their natural food, and then starve. Rates of cancer have been rising in seals and sea lions, which correspond to human cancer.  If allowed to continue unchecked, the food web itself in the oceans will begin to collapse as a result of human consumption and pollution.  Fortunately, some people are working hard to intervene and to educate others.

One place that leads world marine science in understanding the impact of human choices on the oceans is The Marine Mammal Center (TMMC), the largest marine mammal hospital, research and education center in the world.  Tucked away in the Marin Headlands, near Sausalito, north of the Golden Gate bridge, TMMC runs a year-round operation rescuing, rehabilitating and releasing marine animals, such as California Sea Lions, Stellar Sea Lions, Elephant Seals, Harbor Seals, Northern Fur Seals, dolphins, migrating whales and sea otters.  It rescues orphaned, injured, sick and stranded animals from 600 miles of California coastline by deploying a fleet of rescue trucks and volunteers out of several "stranding outposts," stretching from San Luis Obisbo to Mendocino County.  The main hospital is in Sausalito, and last year, when the facility opened, it received much public acclaim and won a Bay Area Green Architecture Award for its green building/engineering design.

We, the Zen Center group, was led on a tour by the center's Executive Director, Dr. Jeff Boehm. They learned about the centers' history as a converted missile base to a marine mammal hospital on public lands overlooking and protecting the coast at Rodeo Beach.  They learned about marine mammals, animal medicine, volunteer programs, leadership development and education at the center.  Charlotte Bear is a volunteer at the center in animal care, education and the Speakers' Bureau.  Oliva and Judy wanted to become members on the spot, and they took home information for their family members and the CTZen Center about volunteering and donating.  Master Jian Hu talked about the center in the Level I Buddhism class that evening, and he encouraged disciples to get to know the story of the center.  This article is intended to provide information that assists Master Jian Hu's request.

The center offers year-round community education about ocean conservation, marine mammal protection and marine science.  It hosts interns from all over the world, and it has an outstanding youth program as well as kids' outreach.  It also shares vital science, dating back 20 years, about marine mammals and ocean changes.  The doctors at TMMC are some of the best in their field, and yet they live humbly in coast guard quarters and work tirelessly day in and out treating the center's patients and developing state of the art surgery techniques.
Almost 1,000 volunteers keep the center running, working in animal care, education, outreach, development, communications, youth program and special events.  In 2009, the center treated 1,700 patients.  About 50% of these endangered species survived the trauma they had suffered and were released.  That's 50% more than would have survived otherwise.  The center is open everyday to the public for free, with low-cost tours available.  For more information about The Marine Mammal Center, visit www.marinemammalcenter.org.

Zen Center Fleeting Moments

Zen Center Fleeting Moments A set by CT-Zen » You can also view all 32 items as a slideshow Some selected photos of the Zen Center on Flickr. They’re in a set called "Zen Center Fleeting Moments". Hope you like them! -- Jianhu Shi

Zen Center events update

Hello everyone, Jianhu Shifu has been the "invisible shifu" recently, now he's here, now he's gone. I haven't kept up with the blog, so it is time to give a little update about what has been happening in the past couple of months and what is to come:

Some of the events in September and October:

• Returned from the Pilgrimage trip in Taiwan
• Two lectures at San Jose State University
• A weekend in Vegas: two lectures and a half-day meditation retreat
• Hosted an ING Interfaith meeting
• A workshop at Hewlett-Packard on stress management
• Presided at San Francisco annual Dragon-Boat ceremony
• Two lectures in Denver & Boulder, Colorado
• Attended a 5-day Western Buddhist Monastic conference
• Working on a booklet of Dharma Talks by the Grand Master Wei Chueh for the December Parliament of World's Religions in Melbourne
• Focus on the theme of Buddhism and the environment for adults, Dharma Youth, and AWESOME children classes.
• Two monthly services: Guan Yin and 88 Buddhas at Sunnyvale & Buddha Jewel.
  
• Of course, all the regular classes are still going at Sunnyvale & Seattle
• Our Go Vegetarian 1 Day a Week Facebook group now has over 600 members.
• Our solar panels have generated 110% of the electricity the Zen Center needed (and returned the extra 10% to PG&E so others can use it).
  

Events for next week:

• Give an invocation at Santa Clara County supervisor's meeting
• Two lectures at Harker High School
• Receive visits from three religious classes from Santa Clara University
• Two lectures at Santa Clara University
• Monthly service: Guan Yin Ceremony at Sunnyvale
  
• October 24: Green Action Day, everyone attend!!

All of these Dharma deeds we thank all the shifus and you, the Dharma supporters to help make them happen.

Coastal Cleaning Day

20090919

Zen Center joined the California-wide effort on Sep. 19th to clean up the coast. Our team of volunteers ranged from middle school kids, Dharma Youths, and adults and helped cleaned up the Guadalupe Slough, near the Water Control Plant in Sunnyvale. Many tennis balls washed up from the Bay, a chair, a bed, beer bottles, etc. It's amazing how we treat our own ocean and land.

See our pictures on flickr.




Also, this is provided by Bessie: photos from 2005 International Coastal Cleanup

http://marinedebris.noaa.gov/photos/sources.html

"Everything that happens in the ocean will affect us." --Fabian
Cousteau (Jacques Cousteau's grandson)

Every year, trash in the ocean kills more than l million seabirds and 100,000 marine turtles through ingestion and entanglement. What we do on land directly affects the oceans. If you visit the beach and ocean this summer, take a long look at the lovely sight, and think about how you can help save it. Click the above link to see a slide show of the ocean debris that we humans have
created.

Some Pilgrimage Pictures

Some pictures from our 2009 Pilgrimage have been uploaded to flickr.

請大家看看一些太谷精舍及佛寶寺2009年中台朝聖之旅的照片。

Zen Center roof painted white

"I see a black roof and I want to paint it white."
(apologies to the Rolling Stones)

This from Michael (Chuna Guan) of the Zen Center:

For the past week, Jian-Xie shifu led a group of volunteers painting
Zen Center’s roof white. This effort is one action of Zen Center’s
overall SunnyZen Green Initiatives.

A pale colored roof would help to contain climate change both by
reflecting more solar radiation into space and by reducing the amount
of energy needed to keep buildings cool by air-conditioning. It also
has the potential of increasing the efficiency of solar panels.

We used a surface thermometer to measure the temperature of two areas,
side by side, of our tar roof. One area is painted white while another
is not. The difference in temperature is about 40F degrees (please see
the posted photos in Files section). Using the rule of thumb that
“1000 square feet would offsets 10 tons of CO2 emission; our action
would offset about 160 tons of CO2 or more. For comparison purposes, a
typical US house emits about 10 tons of CO2 per year. The average
world car emits about 4 tons of CO2 each year. “

There is a winter penalty of a white roof as more heating is needed.
The penalty is about 5 to 15%. There is no specific data for
California, but it would be on the lower end of the scale. “In the
winter, the sun is low and sees mainly the south wall. As long as the
south wall of the building is in dark color” that should compensate
the penalty to great extent.

California has an ordinance, since 2005, that requires all flat roofs
on new commercial buildings to be white. This ordinance is the brain
child of Dr. Art Rosenfeld, a member of the California Energy
Commission. In 2008, Dr Rosenfeld and two colleagues from the Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory in California, Hashem Akbari and Surabi
Menon, calculated that changing surface colors in 100 of the world’s
largest cities could save the equivalent of 44 billion tons of carbon
dioxide — about as much as global carbon emissions are expected to
rise by over the next decade.

Dr, Rosenfeld’s research result influenced Steven Chu, the Nobel prize-
winning physicist appointed by President Obama as Energy Secretary. On
May 26th of 2009, Dr, Chu announced a global initiative to change the
color of roofs, roads and pavements in containing global warming.

Please see following links for more information:
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=09-P13-00007&segmentID=7
A link to an interview with California energy commissioner Arthur
Rosenfeld on the reasons to paint our roof white. It also commented on
the CO2 emission and economy of this action.

http://www.loe.org/images/090213/White%20Roofs%20Cool%20the%20World.pdf
A non-technical summary of this action.

http://www.loe.org/images/090213/Global%20cooling.pdf
A technical summary of this action.

Go Vegetarian 1 Day A Week

We are encouraging people everywhere to pledge "Go Vegetarian 1 Day A Week".

Director of IPCC, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has stated that the meat and dairy industry contributes 18% of all the greenhouse gases that causes global warming. In comparison, all the air, land, and water traffic produces 13%. (IPCC shared the Noble Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007.)

If everyone make a slight change in our diet, we can make a real difference to our world.

Be kind to your body. Be kind to the animals. Be kind to our planet.
Go Vegetarian 1 Day A Week (more than 1 day is even better, of course).

Show your support by pledging (joining) the Facebook group we created.

Ask your family, friends, boss, coworkers to pledge.

If you're not on Facebook, please make your pledge by signing up at the Zen Center of Sunnyvale or Buddha Jewel Monastery.

Currently, we already have over 200 people signed up from all over the world. Our goal: 100,000 people. This will effect a change of lifestyle for human beings.


Some facts taken from the book "The Food On Your Plate" (references to these data can be found in the book):

The more than 2.5 billion pigs and cattle excrete more than 80 metric tons (176 billion pounds) of waste nitrogen annually; by comparison, the entire human population produces 30 million tons. (Nitrous oxide has 296 times the effect on global warming than CO2).

The EPA says that the 3 trillion pounds of waste from factory animals is a greater source of pollution our our rivers and lakes than ALL OTHER industrial sources combined.

Animals on factory farms in the U.S. produce 87,000 pounds of waste EVERY SECOND, which 130 times more than the entire population of the United States. This equivalent to about 5 tons of animal waste for each person in the U.S.

A typical pig factory farm generates as much wast as a city of 50,000 people.


Cornell University research has calculated that it takes 13,000 gallons of water to produce a single pound of beef. Other researches found that it takes 2,600 gallons of water to produce a single serving of steak.

Producing 2 pounds of animal protein requires about ten times more water than producing 2 pounds of grain protein.

EPA: chemical and animal waste runoff from factory farms is responsible for 173,000 miles of polluted rivers and streams.

Our water sources are also disappearing fast. 17 trillion gallons of water were used for irrigation annually to produce feed for U.S. livestock.

New York Times: "As the world's appetite for meat increases, countries across the globe are bulldozing huge swaths of land to make more room for animals and the crops to feed them. From tropical rain forests in Brazil to ancient pine forests in China, entire ecosystems are being destroyed to fuel our addiction to meat."

Zen Center of Sunnyvale's permanent use permit approved in public hearing

Four years ago, the City of Sunnyvale Planning Commission approved our use permit (for nonprofit, religious, assembly use), but it was a four year temporary permit. Monday night, June 22nd, we finally passed our second public hearing, as Sunnyvale welcomes the Zen Center with open arms, granting us the permanent use permit.

It was a long, five hour public hearing (with two controversial projects before us that took four hours). By the time we finished it was 1am in the morning.

We want to thank all our great friends, from the Interfaith Community, Academic Community, from the Industry, and of course, all the participants of the Zen Center, who wrote support letters, and the 80 of you who showed up and stayed till 1am at the public hearing and impressed greatly even the commissioners. They loved your testimonies and stories from the heart.

Thank you all!

太谷精舍拿到永久使用執照。感謝所有居士的支持！

Ten Commandments and Eightfold Path for Inter-religious Dialogue

Shifu attended an South Bay Interfaith meeting today, and in part of the meeting we discussed the "Ten Commandments for Inter-religious Dialogue". It was quite interesting. Here they are:

First Commandment: The primary purpose of dialogue is to change and grow in the perception and understanding of reality and then to act accordingly.

Second Commandment: Interreligious dialogue must be a two-sided project—within each religious community and between religious communities.

Third Commandment: Each participant must come to the dialogue with complete honesty and sincerity.

Fourth Commandment: Each participant must assume a similar complete honesty and sincerity in the other partners.

Fifth Commandment: Each participant must define him/herself. Conversely—the one interpreted must be able to recognize him/herself in the interpretation.

Sixth Commandment: Each participant must come to the dialogue with no hard-and-fast assumptions as to where the points of disagreement are.

Seventh Commandment: Dialogue can take place only between equals, or par cum pari.

Eighth Commandment: Dialogue can take place only on the basis of mutual trust.

Ninth Commandment: Persons entering into interreligious dialogue must be at least minimally self-critical of both themselves and their own religious traditions.

Tenth Commandment: Each participant eventually must attempt to experience the partner’s religion “from within.”

This is called "Dialogue Decalogue" written by Professor Leonard Swidler. This is a good beginning. Now can you come up with a "Four Noble Truths" or "Eightfold Path" of inter-religious dialogue and, more importantly, cooperation? That is, after fruitful dialogues, how do we apply the ideas of Eightfold Path to bring different religions together to work on projects of common human interest?

中國評論新聞報導惟覺老和尚

「中國評論新聞」社高層專訪中台禪寺，老和尚親自陪同介紹。

五月二十二日、二十三日，連續二天 老和尚登上「中國評論新聞」首頁：

惟覺大和尚：兩岸是兄弟　勿結冤仇



惟覺大和尚：我要送溫總理一件寶物



China Review News did an in-depth interview on Chung Tai, making it the headline news for two days in a row, introducing Chung Tai Chan Monastery to the greater general Chinese population.

寶島名剎：走進中台世界 (第二集)

這是 5/16/2009 第二集

(This is part two of the special on Chung Tai)

鳳凰衛視 惟覺老和尚及中台禪寺專訪

鳳凰衛視北京製作的「智慧東方」節目介紹 導師惟覺老和尚及中台禪寺:

(This is the first of a two-part special on Chung Tai Chan Monastery and the Grand Master Wei Chueh, made by Phoenix Chinese TV for broadcast in China)

Buddha Birthday coming up!

Don't forget the Buddha Birthday Ceremony this Sunday!

Chinese service starts at 9am
Bilingual service starts at 11am

We'll have a special performance of Indian Dance that tells the story of "Diamond Chou" and his encounter with Master Dragon Lake, a classic Zen koan. Don't miss this one of a kind dance!

別忘了周日是今年度的佛誕浴佛大法會。我們將會有一個特別的印度舞蹈，講述「周金剛」遇到龍潭禪師而開悟的故事，不可錯過！

Rocky Mountains, Colorado

Jianhu Shifu got to spend a few days in the Rocky Mountains in solitude. A wonderful experience.

萬物靜觀皆自得，大塊假我以文章

Calmly observe
And the myriad phenomena become self-evident.
Nature narrates itself
Perfectly.


山中無甲子，人間幾千年

Living in the mountains
there is no sense of time
meanwhile, in the mundane world
a thousand years have passed.

You can view a gallery of these pictures here.

Inneswoods, Columbus, Ohio

Jianhu Shifu gave some lectures in Columbus, Ohio from 4/13 ~ 4/15. At Columbus we visited a beautiful garden, Inneswoods, which was donated by the Innes sisters, and very well maintained by the City.

Forgetting both the mind and phenomena, still veiled in delusion;
Realizing the non-duality of form and emptiness, the dust remains.
The birds do not visit, spring has gone again,
Who is the person abiding in this hut?

-- Zen Master Xing Kung

心法雙忘猶隔妄 色空不二尚餘塵
百鳥不來春又過 不知誰是住庵人
--性空禪師