There is more to bees than meets the eye. Beyond fulfilling the critical role of pollinating our crops and providing us with honey, a bee colony can offer a glimpse into a world with its own social order, its own rhythm and its own sense of interconnectedness. To former San Francisco Zen Center beekeeper Michael Thiele, there is an entire universe of untapped knowledge and wisdom to explore. He has turned apiculture into an exploration of this universe, an exploration that is informed both by his Zen practice and nearly a lifetime of beekeeping in both California and Germany.

Michael will begin a three-class beekeeping series, “Zen and the Art of Living with Bees,” at Green Gulch Farm on June 2.

Amity: Who or what in your life has inspired you to study and care for bees?

Michael: I had dreams about bees during a practice period at Tassajara, and the following spring a bee swarm landed at my house at Green Gulch.

Amity: You use the term “Bien” a lot in your videos and website. Can you describe what a Bien is?

Michael: To call the Honey Bees “Bien” restores the old understanding of the hive as one being. The modern biological term for this is super organism: the multitude of all individual bees constitutes one being. In addition, the notion of the “Bien” describes the emotional aspect of this oneness and enables us to perceive it in its individual personality.

I think it is important to return to this understanding in a time when contemporary beekeeping approaches the bees as if they were a machine with interchangeable parts.

Amity: Has your understanding of the nature of bees and their behavior encouraged their well-being and production levels?

Michael: Once apiculture is inspired by a bee-centered approach, the natural health of the Bien can be restored without artificial manipulations or chemical treatment.  The global environmental crisis requires a radical change from production-oriented beekeeping towards an approach that honors this animal’s basic rights and needs. We also should remember, our well-being depends on theirs!

Amity: How did you come to study Zen, and has it informed or enriched your beekeeping practice?

Michael: Life and death brought me to Zen Center. For me, my Zen practice and decision to live with bees mutually inspire and inform each other. Zen seems to be the framework for studying the Bien, and a Bien has qualities of a riddle and a koan—it merges paradigms similar to how modern physics offers the contradicting concepts describing light as wave and particle. The Bien often makes me think of the teaching “Harmony of Difference and Equality.”

Amity:  Has studying the behavior of bees informed your deeper understanding of human nature or communities in general?

Michael: Bees have been central in ancient cultures and monasteries. To study and observe the Bien can be very inspiring, especially when we examine the sense of self and the interdependency of all parts within and without the Bien.

I think bees can inform our practice and become an encouragement to leave home. That’s what swarming of the bees in the spring is about: leaving home, leaving their precisely-defined nest location and taking the risk to fly into the unknown. It is amazing to witness this event and to be exposed to this faith and trust of the process of moving through the unknown! And finally, a new home is found.

In ancient Europe, this process was depicted on tombstones, describing the dying and reincarnation process.

Amity:  A description of your workshop says that “as bees became a commodity of modern apiculture, a deeper meaning and understanding of their true nature was lost.” Can you explain how bees were once understood better before they were more commonly viewed as a commodity?

Michael: In ancient cultures and myths, bees play a central role. In Central America, bees were perceived as the keeper of time and the integrity of the universe. In Scandinavian mythology, bees were at the base of Yggdrasil, the tree of life. Honey was considered a sacred substance and, in many cultures, it was only used as medicine or in ceremonies. It was not allowed to be sold.

Amity:  You grew up in Germany, working on a farm there and studying bees. Can you explain the different attitudes on beekeeping in Germany compared to America?

Michael: Interesting topic. Cultural differences between Germany and the US are subtle.

Europe has more small-scale beekeepers, using a wider range of hive designs. This comes with the cultural and regulatory reality of allowing bees to build their own comb, where, in the US, around 95% of all managed hives contain plastic implants (called a plastic foundation), which are introduced to manipulate comb growth. Politically, European beekeepers have been very successful in keeping GMOs out of the landscape, whereas, in the US, GMOs are not a strongly enough questioned reality.

On the other hand, recent innovations in regulating health and approaching the problem of Varroa Mites are coming from US beekeepers in the new “treatment-free” approach. German beekeepers are still holding on to an obligatory treatment paradigm.

Amity: What do you tell people who are afraid of bees and the possibility that they may get stung?

Photo by Clare Hollander

Michael: Unfortunately many people who get stung by a yellow jacket think it was a bee, when the two are very, very different. Yellow jackets are warriors and carnivores; bees are nectar loving and enjoy a vegan diet.

There are some basic rules for approaching a honeybee nest, but most importantly, one needs to be guided by one’s comfort level. Bees are very sensitive, and the more relaxed we can be, the more at ease the bees will be.

By the way, their venom is beneficial for those who do not respond with an allergic reaction. The latest I heard, it is used for prostate cancer therapy.
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To see Michael move a swarm of bees with his bare hands, watch this video.

More information about Michael’s services can be found at his website, Gaia Bees. Michael is also co-founder of The Melissa Garden in Healdsburg, CA, one of the first Honey Bee Sanctuaries in the US, which serves as an innovative apiary and global resource center for biodynamic and holistic apiculture. He was recently featured in the documentary Queen of the Sun.

Do you drive to Green Gulch Farm for the Sunday program? Or do you need a ride? Green Gulch is delighted to announce a reactivated rideshare program, featuring special benefits for vehicles with multiple passengers as well as a new online resource that makes it easier to help the whole earth while helping each other.

Drawing by Claudia Sackett Hennum

Elements of the rideshare program that have been reactivated since the beginning of May include Zen Center’s online rideshare board, which serves travelers to all three temples, and donations for parking for the Sunday program.

Carpools consisting of two or more people will be able to park for no charge during the Sunday morning program. However, again we are asking for a $5 donation from single drivers, and these funds will go towards purchasing carbon offsets.

In addition to the rideshare board, a new email group has been set up specifically for those who visit Green Gulch Farm’s programs more frequently. By simply emailing ggfsundayrideshare@googlegroups.com, you can be added as a member of the group. You can easily reach other Sangha members who regularly attend the Sunday program and who are either from your area or able to meet you at Manzanita Park and Ride, where Highway 1 and 101 intersect.

The program is especially timely for several reasons. First, the environment: for example, earlier this month, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hit 400 parts/million for the first time in at least 800,000 years. Next, the sangha: helping people who don’t own vehicles to find a way of getting to Green Gulch. Finally, the closing of the Muir Beach parking lot this summer, mid-June through November, will likely make parking much tighter at Green Gulch.

By participating in the program, riders, drivers, and even donors can make a difference. For questions or feedback regarding the program, please contact Ecosattvas representatives Kogen Keith (zenoceanfarmer@gmail.com) and Hakusho Ostlund (hakushojohan@gmail.com).

“Water, water, everywhere . . .  Nor any drop to drink.” Each year as the rainy season comes around I sit indoors and, like a seasoned Californian, say to myself, “Good. We need the rain.” But each year in San Francisco, rainwater overruns the city’s flood and sewer system, damaging property, causing traffic jams and accidents, and sweeping gallons of under-treated sewer water into the bay. This is rainwater that did not reach the topsoil, which lay dormant under the regulatory 4-inch thick concrete sidewalk, and consequently did not sprout a single spring bud nor sweeten a single honey bee’s summer.

But, this year will be different for the sidewalks at Page and Laguna Street. Through the collaborative efforts of San Francisco Zen Center, Friends of the Urban Forest, and the Public Utilities Commission the dormant topsoil saw daylight. A community of eco-friendly volunteers and Zen Center residents installed sidewalk gardens over a four day period in May. This project harmonizes with “Touching the Earth: Gardening at the Urban Temple,” an ongoing initiative for revising green space at Zen Center from ornamental to sustainable.

Here’s our story about turning concrete into gardens:

Twice a year, Zen Center holds a book sale, the profits of which are used to support Zen Center’s Outreach Programs.

Photo by Dana Velden

One such program is prison outreach. We are currently in contact with over 200 prisoners throughout the country to whom we make the written dharma available at no cost. We also connect Buddhist prisoners with free world penpals.

Other outreach projects supported by this sale are Zen Center’s weekly free food distribution, outings with the families from a local shelter, visits to jails, rehabilitation centers and a retirement center. These funds also support the visits from schools and special interest groups, as well as memorial services in residences for the formerly homeless.

How you can help:

• Bring donations of books for the sale at any time before Thursday, June 20. Bring books on any subject that you’ve enjoyed, would like to read, or would give to a friend. Please limit your donations to books in good condition that have resale appeal. We can’t accept magazines, DVDs, CDs or specialized books with a very limited pool of readers.
• Come and browse and buy. The prices are great and every purchase helps to serve our community.
• Consider becoming a prison pen pal. There is an ongoing need for practitioners to reach out to Buddhist prisoners. This is one of the easiest ways you’ll ever find to make a profound difference in another person’s life.

If you would like more information about this program, please contact Outreach Coordinator Jeffrey Schneider at either outreach@sfzc.org or 415.354.0379.

Treasuring the road together at Green Gulch Farm.

Article by Sachico Ohanks, Communications Coordinator at SFZC
Photographs by Clare Hollander

Awareness of self is one of the core abilities that we develop, from which all other abilities draw support. And yet, as adults we often have little opportunity to explore this aspect of ourselves in a safe and supportive environment. In this interview, Keiryu Liên Shutt discusses the theme of “Me, Myself and I: To Have, To Hold, and Then To Let Go When Needed,” providing an opportunity to explore our sense of self. How do we do this, you might ask? In this interview, Liên offers some insights into the process.

Sachico:  Your work today focuses on bringing awareness into everyday life, but you also have a monastic background with experience in Japan, Thailand and Viet Nam. Are there ways in which monastic practice influences your approach to today’s daily life?

Liên: If we view monastic practice as a container for practicing with our ability to be aware, then my time at Tassajara and overseas was the fullest container in which practice was fostered and supported. From having practiced in such containers, the two aspects which I think most influence me and my teachings these days are Zen as community practice and how forms and rituals really bring out our sense of self.

In life we do not act, make effort, or have experiences such as suffering in isolation, but as a result of causes and conditions. We really get to see how this teaching is true, especially so, in a monastic container because of the close-knit environment. We do everything together, over and over, day after day. At first, we see things from our own perspective, then we may learn to see someone else’s perspective, and eventually we get to understand a fuller perspective beyond duality (my experience and the experience of others) and how it is the result of many elements.

Soto Zen forms and rituals, especially when enacted in group settings, can be an opportunity to see and observe the arising of a self or a collected-self (group identity).

Sachico: On the theme of “Me, Myself and I: To Have, To Hold, and Then To Let Go When Needed,” you focus on  exploration of our sense of self and how it plays out as we go about our ordinary lives. What is fundamental or key for you in your own sense of self?

Liên: A sense of self has validity. Asserting a sense of self can be useful; even necessary in certain contexts.  A sense of self is not “bad” or “good”. A sense of self is relational. A sense of self is fluid.

Sachico: Many of us hold on to our sense of self out of an intention to create wholesome outcomes, such as to lead an authentic life or not be overly influenced by others or simply to not get hurt in situations where conditions are indifferent to us. How does the practice of letting go of self work in relation to intentions such as these?

Liên: Having intentions is useful. It isn’t having an identity or a sense of self—“good or wholesome” or “bad or unwholesome”—which can bring suffering or dis-ease. It’s the clinging to an idea of a sense of self and the inability to let go, to shift when needed, in response to internal or external conditions, which is the cause of suffering or dis-ease. Therefore, the more we know when a sense of self tends to arise and solidify in each of us—in different contexts and conditions, as individuals and in relation to others—the more we’re able to identify, evaluate its usefulness or value in a given moment, and use the tools and ability to shift when change comes.  Then, the possibility for ease is more accessible.

We look at three areas: Can we identify which sense of self is which in a given moment? Do we have the capacity to be with it fully in all its dimensions or nuances versus what we think it should be or what we want it to be? And then do we have the skill or ability to adjust when conditions call for flexibility? These three aspects correspond to the phrases I use in the title of the workshop – to have, to hold, and to let go when needed.

A Shamatha Sitting is a more relaxed form of one-day sit that is excellent for beginners and for anyone who needs a gently nourishing day of meditative practice.  With a focus on joy and abiding in the moment, our next Shamatha Sitting will be led by Mark Lancaster on Sunday, May 26, at City Center.

As a Zen priest and the Director of People Development at San Francisco Zen Center, Mark Lancaster is one of the most available teachers at City Center.  We’ve engaged with him on the front steps of 300 Page Street, in the courtyard, in the residents’ lounge, at breakfast, lunch and dinner in the dining room.  Climb some stairs to the second floor of the Conference Center, and he can be found in his colorful and welcoming office at the rear of the building.  Behind the labors of Human Resources policy development, numerous conferences and meetings, and his steady attention to the details of People Development, Mark is a quiet Buddhist scholar and guiding presence for our daily Zen practice.  He agreed to field a few questions.

Kogan:  We’re looking forward to the Shamatha Sitting you will lead at City Center on Sunday, May 26.  Would you describe how Zen and the ancient Buddhist shamatha are related?

Mark: Shamatha means dwelling in tranquility. Zen (Dhyana) implies a state of absorption or connection between subject and object. This state of immediate connection is also a state of Prajna, or Wisdom. Like a lamp and a flame they are intertwined.  Zen, the act of quietly sitting, involves both activities—Shamatha, dwelling  in tranquility, and Vipassana, clear seeing.

As an American practitioner, I feel that our culture lends itself to psychological construction and analysis, intellectual and conceptual creationism, and self-criticism.  Our sharp self critic is particularly difficult for many of us to work with. It tends to solidify our intellectual projections in unhelpful ways. The ground remains unprepared. Therefore, I like to concentrate on one aspect, Shamatha.

Historically, Shamatha was seen as a necessary ground for the development of concentration and wisdom—a suitable mind-body that was soft, pliable and “juicy.” Imagine a farmer softening the ground with water, fertilizing and preparing the earth for planting. Unless the preliminary work is done with care, the crops will be stunted or die.

Shamatha is linked to the Brahmaviharas (sublime ways of being), which were in turn linked with the Jana (Dhyana) practice: first softening mind and body, creating a sense of ease and enjoyment, and then allowing the pleasure to dissipate until a focused equanimity shines.

The Sunday Shamatha sittings are preparing the ground. Of course, we are the ground!

Kogan:  Did you take up the path of calm abiding, or did you realize that you were already on it?  I guess what I want to know is, was it difficult to begin and maintain shamatha practice?

Photo by Susana Millman

Mark:  By observing where I got stuck and suffered, I realized that I could not think and project my way out of Samsara, or the wheel of attachment to conditioned existence. Instead of solving the problem, I had to become the problem, manifest the difficulty in my body and mind.  In order to relate, I needed to soften and accept.

The difficulties arose in the thought that I was not really doing anything. Nothing was being accomplished. This actually is a true insight! Once I had passed that gate, then sleepiness and vagueness arose. When we are not working on ourselves as a project, we get bored and fall asleep. So then I asked, “How do we engage with our lives without falling asleep or getting angry?”  I had to explore more deeply the situation itself, how subject and object were related, in order to see the vivid quality of form as not being different than emptiness.

Kogan:  Being at the hub of people-relations in your work here at City Center and also a great Giants fan, would you say something about your experience with calm abiding in the midst of action?

Mark:  Calm abiding is not inaction or quiescence. This is a difficult life and the Giants often lose a game! Vivid experience means seeing the wild magic of all the forms expressed in life, without attaching or investing in ways that are distorted and painful. Now, pain is just pain, but My Pain is an idea of pain that can cause deep suffering if I get lost in it. Letting go, I cheer and cry and laugh. Something happens. Win or lose the game goes on!

Kogan:  Is there anything you would like to add?

Mark:  Buddha described his state as one who had appeased his dispositions. Often, we concentrate on conquering and subduing, making better. Making peace with ouselves, appeasement, is our creative relationship with the functioning aspect of existence. Form, Sensation, Perception, Formation, Consciousness. Just that.

You will have the opportunity to practice with Mark on Sunday, May 26, when he will lead Shamatha Sitting at City Center, assisted by Nadine Lau.

May 19th-24th might be a good time to play the lottery if you can’t join us — very auspicious days! Pine 2, Yurt 2, Courtyard 5 are available for multi-night stays and there’s room in the Men’s Dorm, too. And a smattering of 1-nt stays — the stars are aligned!

For questions or to reserve your room, please contact Tassajara Reservations by phone, 888-743-9362, or email.

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NOTE: TassNow room availability updates refer only to last minute / near future availability at Tassajara. These updates don’t necessarily mean that other dates aren’t available.

For all inquiries about availability and reservations at Tassajara, please contact Tassajara, as indicated above.

Rooftop altar at City Center, one of the stops along a procession as part of the opening ceremony for the Spring Practice Period on May 6. From sidewalk greening to rooftop offerings, the urban temple finds various ways to express Buddha’s compassion within its natural environment.

Limited availability in May, but there are lots of opportunities for 1-nt stays. Got room for a last minute, quick Spring getaway? Call us to see about our precious gems, a little sanctuary in a crazy schedule.

For questions or to reserve your room, please contact Tassajara Reservations by phone, 888-743-9362, or email.

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NOTE: TassNow room availability updates refer only to last minute / near future availability at Tassajara. These updates don’t necessarily mean that other dates aren’t available.

For all inquiries about availability and reservations at Tassajara, please contact Tassajara, as indicated above.