Thank You

Ginger has the night off. She and her new friend Kala are living up high in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Tim and I went surfing today at Sharks beach in Santa Cruz. I just want to take this opportunity to say:

Dear Everybody:

Thank you all for the love and courage it took to save Tassajara.

Thank you to the students who stood their ground and sat their practice in the face of danger, hard work, and frustration.

Thank you to Leslie James and Keith Meyeroff. Their own home is hanging in the balance as I write this. Thank you both for your tireless hours of coordination, errand running, phone calling and answering, anxiety assuaging, housing placing, driving, feeding, and all the other myriad things.

Thank you David Zimmerman without whose leadership we would certainly be facing a different outcome. Thank you for making the tough decisions and for standing your watch to the very end.

Thank you Mako and Graham for your equanimity, leadership, skill, knowledge and courage.

Thank you Colin for your uprightness and bravery and most certainly your humor.

Thank you Steve Stuckey, the admiral who stayed with his fleet through the darkness and danger.

Thank you Chris and Kathleen for everything.

Thank you Shundo. Thank you Greg Fain. Thank you Devon.

Thank you Robert Thomas for your guidance, comfort and leadership. Thank you for correctly acknowledging the fearless sacrifice demonstrated by all the students who struggled so hard with clearing and digging to break the co-arising attachments of flammable materials connecting Tassajara to the organic antecedents of fire.

Thank you cooks, dishwashers and room cleaners who supported all the efforts of the myriad beings fighting the fires. Thank you fire fighters. Thank you inmates.

Thank you Sonja for calling everyday and for chanting our names and keeping us together in your heart.

Thank you to the myriad supporters of Tassajara and of Zen Center. Thank you for housing and feeding us and for sitting with us.

Thank you Katherine, Jean Marie and the Santa Cruz Zen Center for taking such great care of me and Ginger.

Thank you survivors of Marble-Cone for your anecdotes, poetry and the comfort of experience.

Thank you lightning for striking far enough away to give us time to work with our abilities and our limitations.

Thank you water. What would we do without you?

Thank you fire for testing us, singeing us, teaching us,
and ultimately for sparing us and our home and place of practice.

Thank you Suzuki Roshi, you always knew what you were up to.

Thank you all for all the conditions and causes that manifest as you, my heroes, my family, my heart.

love,

Alec