American Buddhist Net

(Marquette, MI) - Members of a Zen Buddhist temple are among two northern Michigan Buddhist communities that joined 100 churches and temples in planting 12,000 trees across the Upper Peninsula in early May during the 2009 interfaith EarthKeeper Tree Project.

Volunteers planted the 12,000 trees by homes, camps, parks, American Indian reservations and many other places with help from hundreds of children ranging in age from two-years-old to 22-years-old during the interfaith U.P. EarthKeeper Tree Project.

Rev. Tesshin Paul Lehmberg, a Soto Zen Buddhist priest, told the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU EK) Student Team Sacred Planet forum how 2,500 years ago "the Buddha sat under a tree" called the Bodhi Tree until he discovered "the root of suffering - and how to rid one's self of suffering."

"The leaf of the Bodhi Tree is one of the symbols of Buddhism, said Lehmberg, head priest of Lake Superior Zendo, a Zen Buddhist temple in Marquette. "It's shaped a little bit like a poplar leaf but it's got kind of a little tail - like a heart with a tail."

"It's said the descendants of this Bodhi Tree are still alive, probably because we want them to be alive. We want this connection between us and the Buddha 2,500 years ago," said Lehmberg, who is also an English professor at Northern Michigan University (NMU).

White Spruce and Red Pine seedlings measuring 12 to 16 inches tall were given to over 100 churches and temples in all 15 Upper Peninsula (U.P.) counties and Minocqua, WI, said Catholic EarthKeeper Kyra Fillmore of Marquette, the project distribution coordinator.

"We hope these trees grow strong and tall," Fillmore said.

"The natural world is very important in Buddhism, particularly in Zen," said Lehmberg, the co-chair of the EarthKeeper Implementation Team.

Rev. Lehmberg told the forum a story about Dogen, a Japanese Monk who founded Zen Buddhism in the Thirteenth Century.

"When Dogen would dip water from a stream or a well to drink, he would always pour half of it back," Lehmberg said. "He would pour half of it back as a sign of respect for the natural world, as a symbol that he is a part of the natural world and must treat that natural world with great care."

Lehmberg said that "Lake Superior Zendo was honored to once again participate with other EarthKeeper congregations in this important work."

"We must - we absolutely must - care for mother earth," Lehmberg said.

"Human life, literally and figuratively, is inseparable from Mother Earth," Lehmberg said. "We are inextricably threaded to her - in caring for her, we care for ourselves."

The EarthKeeper team includes ten faith traditions with over 150 participating churches/temples (Zen Buddhist, Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Baha'i, Jewish, Quakers), plus the nonprofit Superior Watershed Partnership, the nonprofit Cedar Tree Institute, and the NMU EK Student Team. Several other faiths including the Soka Gakkai International (SGI) Buddhist Network and the Evangelical Covenant church have close ties to the EarthKeepers.

The tree planting is the fifth time northern Michigan's Zen Buddhist community in Marquette, MI volunteered during an Earth Day environment project sponsored by the interfaith U.P. EarthKeepers.

Two elementary school students were among eight Copper Country residents with ties to the SGI Buddhist Network who planted trees in the 16-acre Calumet Township Waterworks Park on the shores of Lake Superior.

"We supported the trees with sticks to keep them visible and safe," said Susan Rokicki of Calumet, SGI women's division Chapter leader who organized the Copper Country planting. "We will return from time to time to see if our dozen need anything."

A natural fit with the interfaith EarthKeepers, some of the planters are members of SGI Copper Range District and the others have ties to the network.

All the tree planters attend the SGI meetings. The SGI members are Rokicki; Jean Larson of Toivola, a Shopko department store cash manager; and Jorge Kurita, a Michigan Tech University doctoral student in Mech. Engineering from Paraguay. Kurita is the SGI young men's division Chapter leader.

The Calumet residents with SGI ties are Joseph Mihal, Habitat for Humanity ReStore manager; nurse Maureen Tobin, artist Margo McCafferty Rudd, and elementary school students Max Rudd and Rebecca Naumenko, a fifth grader.

The SGI Buddhist network "actively promotes peace, culture and education through personal transformation and social responsibility, originating in Japan," said Rokicki, who is also restoring a Norwegian Lutheran Church in Calumet and serves as a Lutheran church pianist/organist. SGI is "one of the originators of the Earth Charter and the act of planting and dedicating trees is embedded in our tradition."

"My kids and I had a great time packing trees and planting trees," said Carl Lindquist, who has a son Nels, 13, and a daughter Ingrid, 11, and is executive director of the nonprofit Superior Watershed Partnership in Marquette.

The tree project kicked off on Earth Day 2009 with the interfaith blessing and planting of a three-foot white spruce. The seedling planting was delayed to May due to cold weather.

In a sad irony, just hours after the final trees were planted on May 20, two large forest fires erupted destroying untold thousands of trees - and dozens of homes and buildings - including a wildfire one not far from where the last seedlings were planted.

However, the tree planting project went without a hitch, and at one church an interfaith group was preparing 1,500 trees to be planted when a brilliant rainbow appeared over the church, which they took as a good sign.

"This is very much a marvelous moment in the life of our work together as faith communities," said Rev. Jon Magnuson, CTI executive director and EarthKeepers co-founder.

The trees were purchased or donated by the U.P. EarthKeeper team, Superior Watershed Partnership, Holli Forest Products, the Forestland Group, Plum Creek Timber Company and Meister's Greenhouses.

Some groups and individuals have donated money to help the tree project including Thrivent Financial for Lutherans Western U.P. Chapter 30918 in Ironwood, MI.

The EarthKeepers is "focused on how the faith communities can work together" despite theological differences, said Northern Great Lakes Synod Lutheran Bishop Thomas A. Skrenes.

"Religious differences are a huge factor in many parts of life and certainly there are big differences between different religious communities," said Bishop Skrenes, an original signer of the EarthKeeper Covenant and the head of 94 U.P. Lutheran congregations with 40,000 members. "EarthKeepers has provided us the opportunity to again renew our relationship with people who are very different in some ways and yet very similar."