Today I would like to study one of the stories of Momonkan, Gateless Gate, which is titled Tipping Over a Water Vase. Hyakujo, Hyakujo Zen Master, wished to send a monk to open a new monastery. He told his pupils that whoever answered a question most ably would be appointed. Placing a water vase on the ground, he asked, who can say what this is, what this is without

[01:03]

calling its name, calling its name. The chief monk said, no one can call it a wooden shoe. Eason Zen Master, Eason Zen Master, the cooking monk tipped over the vase with his foot and went out. Hyakujo smiled and said, the chief monk loses. And Eason became the master of the new monastery. And Momon's comments, he says, Eason was brave enough, but he couldn't escape Hyakujo's trick. After all, he gave a bright job, a bright job, and took a heavy one. Why, can you see? He took off his

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comfortable hat and placed himself in iron stocks. This is his whole story. Hyakujo, Hyakujo Zen Master, was a very outstanding Zen master in China. He educated many outstanding Zen masters in Zen Buddhism. Eason Zen Master was one of his disciples. Eason Zen Master was also a very strange Zen master, and very brave, and very strong. The other day I said, Eason saw the story of Eason,

[03:15]

so he said to one of his monks, I will be reborn, I will be reborn as a cow. As a cow, this cow has some letters on his arm, saying, I am Eason Zen Master. Then when you, the moment when you see, when you see this cow, you say, oh this is Eason Zen Master, not a cow. It is also, it is not the right answer, because this is a real cow. And then you say, oh this is a cow, but it's also not the right answer, because it has some letters,

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some letters on his arm, I am Zen Master, Eason Zen Master. Both are the right answers. What would you, what could you, what could you call this cow? This is his statement to one of his monks. How could you, how could you call this cow? You say, you could say, you could say, this is Eason Zen Master, no. You could say, this is a cow, no. What should I do? No name. Hyakujo, Hyakujo wished to send a monk to open a new monastery. He told his pupil that whoever answers a question, most A.B. will be appointed. Zuda means detachment. Zuda means detachment, detachment, detachment, detachment of delusions.

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This is, this is the meaning of this word, Zuda. So in this case, this is a person's name, Shima. Zuda means, using modern word, this is Buddhist, Buddhist, Buddhist, layman, like this. So Shima Buddhist, layman, which is called Shima. Shima was very interesting in Zen Buddhism and was contributed to many Zen temples in China at those days. Then he built, he built new Zen temples in Mount Eason, Mount Eason. Then he came, he came to see Hyakujo Zen Master and asked to find,

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asked him to find one of monks, one of monks who would be, who would be the head of this new temple. Then at that time, Hyakujo called the chief monk, please come to my home, come to my room. And this Shima and Hyakujo Zen Master tested, tested him to see if he, he would be, he would be the head of the new temple or not. The moment when the Shima saw him, saw the chief monk, he said, oh, he was, he is not so good. He is a right person, right person to become the head of Zen temples. Then next, next time the Hyakujo called, Hyakujo asked the Eason Zen Master, Eason Zen Master,

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the cooking monk. At that time he was a cooking monk. He called him to come to his, his room and to see whether he would be the head of the new Zen temples. At that time he was, the Shima was willing to, willing to see him because he was a very nice person, a very nice monk. And he said he is, he is the right person to become the new Zen temple. Then Hyakujo Zen Master asked the Eason Zen Master, Eason Zen monk, Eason monk, please go to the new Zen temple in Mount Eason, Mount Eason, and become the head of this temple. Then he, he told, he told about this, about this, about this event to all monks, the, all monks in the lecture time.

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At that time Chief Monk was very angry with him because Chief Monk is, is the chief position, the first position, important position, you know. In other words, Chief Monk is leader, leader of all monks in Zen Monastery. Now why, why do you ignore the existence of my position, of myself, of my existence, as a Chief Monk? To tell the truth, you should ask me to go to the Eason and new Zen temple and become, and become the head of this temple. Why didn't you, why didn't you ignore me? Then Hyakujo, Hyakujo tested, Hyakujo tested, Hyakujo Zen Master tested the Eason and Chief Monk and the rest of them to give questions, to give questions.

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Then Hyakujo Zen Master put the vase, water vase on the ground. What would you call this? Don't use the word, the word vase. Please call this a water vase. What would you call? Then nobody answered to these questions. Then Chief Monk, Chief Monk answered, only Chief Monk answered to this question. Oh, that's a piece of tree like this. It seems to me that it is, it is a piece of tree. In this book, no one can call it a wooden shoe, wooden shoe. Like a piece of tree. Then at that time the Eason Zen Master, oh it's not a good answer.

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He was thinking in his mind. Because the Chief Monk clinked, clinked to the water vase, the existence of water vase. That's why he has to, he had to say something, you know. In another word, a piece of tree or wooden shoe or anything. Or whatever it is, alright. To express, to express, to express this water vase as a wooden shoe or piece of tree. Is to cling, is to cling to the existence of the water vase. Without, without using the word, any word.

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What would you call, what would you call? Then Eason Zen Master, Eason, Eason didn't completely, completely cling to the existence of water vase. Though he kicked it out, like this. Eason, the cooking monk, tipped over the vase with his foot and went out. And Hyekyu smiled and said, the Chief Monk loses. And Eason became the master of the new monastery. And Genbo. Genbo was the author, author of Tetteki Toshi, Tetteki Toshi.

[14:08]

This is, this is collecting, collecting the many interesting stories of Zen. Like Gateless Gate, like the book of Gateless Gate. Genbo said, Genbo explained about this story. Of course, of course, the Eason, Eason could, Eason could kick it. Eason could kick the water vase off with his foot. But if this water vase, water vase was, now water vase was, is a very small one. So you can't easy, you can't easy kick it out. But if this water vase were, you know, the big mountain. How, how about, how, how did, how did, you know, the Eason kick it out?

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Kick it out, kick it off, you know. Because the big mountain is very heavy. He couldn't, he cannot, he cannot kick, kick off. Then, then his disciple, his disciple, the Fugai, Fugai says, Fugai says, Fugai says about his men, you know. Who is, who is it, who is it to, to speak, to speak about the funny, funny things, you know. Funny things. Who is it, who is it to tell, to, to express, to express that funny story, funny, funny explanation?

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Do you understand, you know? Now who is he, you know? Who is he that the, the, if, if the water vase was, water vase were, you know, the big mountain. How, how could, how could the Eason kick, kick off, kick it off? Now who is he that, to tell us such a funny, funny thing? Try to, try to come to see me and I will, I will kick it, kick, kick him off. Kick him off. That's very interesting, you know. That's the illusion, that's the illusion. If the water vase, water vase was, water vase were the big mountain, how could the Eason kick it off?

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It is also a delusion. It is also a delusion. The question is, the question is now. The question is to, the question exists on the stage of now and here, you know. Not, not delusions, not futures, not past, not right now. Then Hyakujo said, how could you call this without using any word? But Gendo says, Gendo says, it was, it were, if it were the big mountain, how could you kick it off? It's also delusion. Because he, he explained about his thinking. He was thinking about the futures or his delusions. Something which was created by his delusions. So Fugai said, hey come on, come to see me. Come to see me, I will, I will kick him, kick him off.

[18:29]

Then Unmon, Unmon's comment, Eason was brave enough but he couldn't, he couldn't escape Hyakujo's trick. After all, he gave up a light job and took a heavy one. Why can't you see? He took off his comfortable, comfortable hat and placed himself in iron stock. You know, monks, it seems to me that the monks, the monks says, Unmon, Unmon said, Unmon said that Eason, Eason was not a good, not a good priest. Because the, he couldn't, he couldn't be, he couldn't escape, you know. He couldn't escape Hyakujo's trick, you know. Hyakujo tried to set his own trick to test, to test him if he is, he could be,

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he could be the head of the Zen Monastery. Because this, if he could be, he could be the head of the Zen Monastery, this Zen Monastery was very poor, very poor financial situation. He has to, he had to be great patience, great patience. If this Zen Monastery was very poverty, then if he made, he made a choice of becoming the head of this temple, it seems to Unmon, Unmon's, Unmon's Zen Master, he gave up a light job. He gave up light job because if he was, he stayed in the Hyakujo's Zen Temple

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and keeping the position of chief cooking monk, you know. It is very easy job. Why, why, why did he, why did he make a choice of becoming, becoming the head of the temple? Because this, this job task was very heavy one. So he took a heavy one, a very poor, poor monk. He said, you know, why can't you see he took off his comfortable hat and placed himself in iron stocks. He, he anyway, he took off comfortable hat and he put on the very heavy iron trucks. It seems he tied up completely something bind, some bind. But next he, he says also giving up cooking, cooking utensils,

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defeating, defeating the chara box. Though his teacher set the barrier for him, his feet will tip over everything, even the Buddha, even the Buddha. You know, for, for Isen, for Isen, he didn't care. He didn't care to become, to become the head of the Zen Temple or to keep the position of, the position as a monk, cooking monk. He didn't care, really. He didn't care to kick, kick the water base off. He never, he didn't, he didn't cling to anything, anything. Even though the Zen, this Zen Monastery was very poor, he didn't care. He doesn't care. Even though this Zen Monastery was very rich, he didn't care.

[22:55]

Just to accept, just to accept his, the, a certain situation, certain situation with brave, I think so, braveness. So, the woman says, his feet, his feet are not only, not only kick, kick off, not only water base, you know, he kick off, but also, but also mountains, even the big mountains, even the Zen Monasteries, even Hyakujo's head, I think. He doesn't care, you know, because his mind was completely freedom. One of Zen Masters was asked by his followers,

[24:08]

this Zen Master lived long and concentrated on studying Buddhism and concentrated on only Zazen, practicing Zazen day after day. One day, one of his fellow fellowships, followers, came to his temple and asked him, what is best, favorite, favorite thing that will make you happy, make you happy? What is best, best thing? What is favorite, favorite thing that will make you, make you happy? At that time he thought, to tell the truth, there was no room to think whether I had been

[25:24]

happy or not. Because twice a month he had to conduct one day's session, or three days' session, or five days' session. In his temple or in another temple. Twice. Twice a month. And then he had to give lectures, he had to see many people when he came back to his temple. Actually he was very busy with taking care of his tasks, you know, session, and contacting with the people, and giving lectures, and writing, making papers.

[26:27]

He was very busy. So actually he had never thought, he had never thought whether I had been happy or not. At that time he was very surprised to hear that. What is the favorite thing that will make you happy? Suddenly he had good ideas because every day he said, Oh yes, I have one thing. It is now my daily delight to drink two or three cups of whiskey in his bed.

[27:35]

Reading magazines, reading magazines, very relaxed, completely relaxed. Nobody is in his room. He stayed, he stayed alone, and he was delighted in drinking two or three cups of whiskey. Like this. And then he added to something, he added to this, he added something, something more to this story. He said, this is not, this is not, this is not my, this is not my life worth living. In other words, I couldn't, I haven't found myself, my life worth living.

[28:47]

My life worth living is to take good care of my whole existence of my life. Then I think if you find your life worth living within the world of making you happy by drinking a cup of wine, a cup of whiskey, you know, it is impossible to drink a cup of whiskey, a cup of wine, always. You know, if you find your life worth living in drinking wine, you have to always drink a cup of wine, a cup of whiskey.

[29:57]

Every day, moment after moment, you have to drink. And you have to, you have to find emotional pleasures, you know. Emotional pleasure, moment after moment. But to tell the truth, it's impossible, you know. It is really impossible. You know, a man, it seems to me, that man, human being, looks like, looks like babies.

[31:01]

Like a person, a person who is interesting in playing, interesting in playing with his, with their, with their own toy. The moment you are born in this world, you find unconsciously, you find unconsciously, you know, the mother's, mother's milk, mother's milk. Mother's milk is, seems, seems baby's, baby's own, baby's own toys. This is, this is first toys for, for his baby, for baby, you know. Then he is getting older, he finds, he finds, you know, many toys. He became, he becomes, when he becomes six or seven, the other day my son became nine years old.

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He, I bought a racing car. Racing car, he was, he was very interesting in racing, playing racing car. Now when you become, when you become seven or eight or nine, you know, you are very interesting in several toys, you know, racing cars or bicycles. Now when you become, when you become twenty or twenty-one or so years old, you are very interesting in different sex, you know, women, men and women. Then, then, I think the other day I said the, you should never, you should never work with the Buddha.

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You should never work with, you know, the Zazen. You should, you should play with Buddha, you should play with, you know, Zazen. You know, this is, now this play is not the, is not the toy, is not to play with toy. If you, if you play, if you, if you play, if you work with Zazen, with Buddha, this Zazen is like a toy, like a toy. Zazen is not toy. Buddha is not toy. You have to completely, you have to completely play with Buddha, play with Zazen, means the Buddha is beyond, Buddha is beyond the toys.

[34:24]

You know, the Zen Master, the Zen Master had the chance to talk, to give lectures in Osaka, you know, explaining, explaining about how nice Zazen was. Then, for about one and a half hours, he explained about how nice Zazen was. Now, after that, after that, he had the chance to talk with each other, gathering together, drinking a cup of tea. One of the ladies came to see him and said, Thank you very much, Roshi, your talk is very nice.

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I found, I found, I found, I found how nice Zazen was right now. Thank you very much. Then she said, she said, If the Zazen is, Zazen is so nice, so nice, what do you say, as you said? How about the combination, the combination practice of Nembutsu and Zazen? How about the combination practice, the combination practice of Zazen and Nembutsu? Do you know that? Nembutsu, chanting the name of Amitabha, you know. The chanting, the practice of chanting Amitabha's name is pretty good also. So she thought, Zazen is pretty good, you know, Nembutsu is pretty good.

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And then she tried to combine the both, you know. If combined the both two, you know, Nembutsu and practice, at the same time if you can practice the both, at the same time, how nice, how nice it is. So she said, how about the combination practice of Zazen and Nembutsu? It is also that she played, she played a toy. She played with a toy as Zazen and as Nembutsu. It is not real Zazen, it is not real Nembutsu. So then the master says, don't say that. Don't say that. You have too much desire, you know, you have too much desire.

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If you do Zazen, if you do Zazen, all you have to do is just to Zazen, just to do Zazen, that is enough. Even though there are many things, even though there are many things that are very nice, even though many things are better than Zazen, are there in this world, you know, you don't have too much desire. If you have to do Zazen, you should do Zazen, that is enough. But if you play, if you play with toys, which is called Zazen, which is called Buddha, which is called, you know, which is called fame, which is called wealth, which is called money, you have to say, you have to say, how about combination practice of Buddha, Zazen and Nembutsu?

[38:37]

Because you can get, you can get lots of money, and also you can get a very high position in this world. You can get very famous, you can, you can become, you can become famous in this world. You think how nice it is. Because at the same time you can get two things, money, fame, and wealth. If you play with toys, money, wealth, Zazen, Buddha, God, you can't understand, you can't understand who you are. Then, the Dogon says, you should, you should go planting into the Buddha's hole, Buddha's hole, Buddha's hole.

[39:52]

You should go planting into the Buddha's hole. Go planting, to go planting into the Buddha's hole. It's not something which exists apart from our life, from yourself. But maybe you think, perhaps you think, if I can, if I can have such a power, which compels me to go planting into Buddha's hole, it is not necessary to make effort to practice Zazen. On the contrary, I don't have, I don't have such a power, such energies to impel me, impel me to go planting into the Buddha's hole.

[41:00]

That's why I am suffering now. You know, this is our suffering, this is our suffering, this is our doubt. But if you think, if you think such a Buddha's hole, about Buddha's hole in that way, the Buddha's hole is, you play, it seems to me that you play with toy which is called Buddha's hole. Because Buddha's hole is not, doesn't exist apart from myself. Buddha's hole is completely identical with myself, myself. Then, to go planting into the Buddha's hole, Buddha's hole means, you know, to find, to find yourself, to settle on yourself.

[42:07]

In other words, every place, every place, every matter, when you encounter, when you encounter is the absolute, absolute field. If Buddha's hole, Buddha's hole to let the flower of life force bloom, this is Buddha's hole, Buddha's hole. Then, as Gendo, as Gendo Zen Master said, if water base were, water base were big mountain, how could you kick it off? That's the delusion. Then, Fugai said, hey, come on, come to see me. If there is such a funny person who explain, who explain, if the water base were, you know, big mountain, how could you kick it off?

[43:10]

The delusion. The question is not, is not, is not the question, is not the question if water base were mountain, big mountain. The question is now, the question exists now. How could you, how could you call this base, water base, without using the word? This is point, this is question. You know, in Zen Monastery, I, I, when I was in my temple, I always washed, washed my master's back in bath, bath room. When, when he took a bath. I said always, shall I wash your back? Shall I wash your back? He said, no. He said, no. Next day, I said, shall I wash your back?

[44:16]

No. He said, no. Next day, I said also, shall I, shall I wash your back? No. It's funny, so I asked him, why? This is my kindness. Please accept my kindness. The master said, why did you, why, why did you, you say, shall I? Shall I wash, shall I wash my, your back? Shall I is extra word, extra word. If you want, if you want wash my back, right now you show washing my back without using word. That's why I said no. No, if you say, shall I, if you say, shall I, means to have some doubt. Means to see, to see, to test, to test my mind, you know.

[45:25]

To test my mind, to see if, whether I am willing to wash his back or not. Or the moment when I say, shall I, you know. When you want, when you want, really, when you really want to get to eat something, you know. Or the moment when you think so, you know, you can't get food, something already, you know. Before you... ...back without using word. Now open the door, open the door, I wash, I want to wash your back. Now question is not future, you know, question is not the past. My teacher said always, right now, when I say, when I say, shall I,

[46:30]

he know, he knew already, he knew already my mind, you know. So he said no. This is very important. So Buddha's home, don't play, don't play with toy, which is called shalai, which is called buddha, which is called zazen, which is called nenbutsu, which is called money and fame, wealth, or something like that. We have to go, plunge into the Buddha's home. This is very important. Right now is the absolute field, to live in, to a better place, to live in. Then, every place, every matter, every moment when you encounter, I should be absolute field, to let the flower of your life force bloom.

[47:40]

When you want to wash master's back, you should let the flower of your life force bloom, right now, right here. Before using words, shalai. If you say shalai, it means to play with toy, word, as a word. Shalai. Then, the isan zen master, isan, that's why isan kick off such a toy. Isan kick off such a toy. What would you call this vase, water vase, without using words? Vase is, that's delusions. Now, what could you call this vase, water vase?

[48:42]

This question is also a delusion. It's also a toy. Then, he kicked off. The question is, right now, such an idea, conception, any conception should be taken away. Then, on the stage of right now, right here, you should let the flower of your life force bloom. This is a very important point. Then, that's why the umman says, giving up cooking the utensils, defeating the chatterbox, though his teacher sets the barrier for him, his feet will tip over anything, everything, even the Buddha, even the God, even the enlightenment, even the delusions,

[49:46]

even the big mountain, even the universe. So, when you reflect upon yourself with your conception, you are always at a loss, what to do, what shall I do? What shall I do? At that time, try to zazen. Try to zazen. Zazen is pretty good. Pretty good is pretty bad. Because zazen is completely no use. Within the no use, within the world of no use, if you can't do something, it is pretty good.

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It is pretty good. It is enlightenment. If you can do, within the world of no use, it is enlightenment. But it's not so easy for us to do so. But regardless of whether you understand or not, you should remember, within the world of no use, if you can't do something, it is enlightenment. Bujo Jinjin wa kono kunoku wo motte amane kui sae ni hoyokoshi

[51:57]

Warenako shugyoto minato no ni Utsurojyo nenkoto Shikyo yonsei kanto Ono yonsei kanta Ono yonsei kanta Utsurojyo nenkoto I vow to save them, each life as early as possible.

[53:05]

I vow to put an end to them, the harmless are boundless. I vow to master them, the worthless way becomes impressible. I vow to attain them. Professor Kingsley Davis of this university's Department of Sociology. Professor Paul Ehrlich of Stanford is another certified hawk, viewing with alarm at what might happen. There must be something about the air out here that causes this.

[54:09]

If we are to urge developing countries to consider population policy for their national welfare, I certainly agree that we must engage in this kind of consideration for ourselves. What is appropriate for New Delhi is also appropriate for Scarsdale. Clearly, we need systematic study as an antidote to shrill polemics. Sadly, I am told, I don't know what it is about this West Coast, there's some group of nature lovers here that think that 150 million people, you know, 150 really creeps into this, is the right number of the population for the United States in order to preserve open spaces, and I assume they have a plan to deport the extra 50 million to Canada or something to achieve it. But population policy for the United States implies much more than advocacy of far-reaching fertility limitation. A small population by itself does not guarantee air fit to breathe, water fit to drink, good schools, good housing, and national parks that don't look like the extensions of the Long Island Expressway.

[55:13]

You can see I'm an easterner, all my illusions are back east. In his presidential address to the Population Association of America, should the United States start a campaign for fewer births, Ansley Cole of Princeton asserts that a population half or three quarters the current one in the United States could ruin the potability of our fresh water supplies and poison our atmosphere by the unrestricted discharge of waste. He points out that Australia has a population of less than 12 million in an area of more than 80% that of the United States, yet Sydney has problems of smog, water pollution, and traffic jams. In fact, he says most of the social and economic problems ascribed to our excessive population in the United States or to its excessive rate of growth are affected more by how our population has chosen to distribute itself than by its size. The problems arise from excessive concentrations of the metropolitan areas, not from excessive total numbers.

[56:13]

The density of population in France is 4.5 times that of the United States. In the UK, it's 10 times greater than it is here. It's 30 times greater in the Netherlands. And their pollution and traffic jams and delinquencies are probably no worse in these countries than in ours. Clearly, it is easier to attack problems of the environment when one has to accommodate a smaller population than a larger. But we in the United States have the capital and the ingenuity to solve these problems if we give them the priority they demand. If we are to preserve that important component of the quality of life, freedom to have children in accordance with our personal wishes, we shall have to abridge freedom to ruin the environment. And we must be willing to vote the huge sums of money necessary to carry out plans to maintain a livable environment in which future generations of America can enjoy adequate standards of living.

[57:17]

Thank you very much, Dr. Harkevy. We go now a little closer to our upcoming panel. Dr. Paul O'Rourke has had extensive experience in the supply of public medical services, both governmental and other public institutions. And at present, he is project director of the Neighborhood Health Center in Palo Alto. His topic is going to be medical and legal barriers to family planning. What's in the way of carrying out these national policies that Dr. Harkevy has been talking about? Dr. O'Rourke. Thank you, Dr. Overstreet. The assurance of freedom of choice in our complex and pluralistic society is perhaps the central dilemma of our time. In theory, our democracy seeks to protect individual freedom and behavior,

[58:30]

which does not clearly intrude upon the public health or welfare. In practice, however, our laws too often reflect popular prejudice and outworn traditions. They dictate a wide range of restraints against behavior, which poses no objective threat to the common good. This observation is especially applicable to laws regulating sexual behavior, which today perpetuate attitudes in tune with our Puritan beginnings. Strict law enforcement in this field, in particular, is simply not possible or even advisable, and hence the question arises as to the need to continue to revise these statutes drastically. In general, the evolution of American law affecting sexual behavior reveals a struggle to cast off restraints, which, as I've said, do not have any demonstrable ill effect on the public health or welfare. But individual freedoms, even when they are adequately protected by law, can be denied by poverty, ignorance, and oppression.

[59:40]

It's perhaps not an exaggeration to allege that the poor and the young in America will be the last to gain emancipation from the tyranny of uncontrolled birth. The social factors which result in large families amongst the poor are complex, but one fact is very clear. They are denied access to family planning knowledge and materials. At present, we all can be tempted into complacency because of recent victories in the law which indicate that family planning service is an essential component of public health practice and its benefits must be made available to everyone. This hard-won victory in policy is yet to come to reality. We still deny the fundamental right of controlling birth to the poor and children, and we rationalize our failure by pointing to senseless legal and political restrictions and harsh rhetoric on individual responsibility.

[60:44]

This rhetoric thinly disguises a cruel hypocrisy. Many who insist righteously upon rigid prescriptions for the behavior of the inexperienced and the poor are critical of behavior in others which they piously condone for themselves. And even the business of keeping statistics distorts venereal disease and illegitimacy rates amongst the poor by under-reporting these same phenomena in the private sector. Another paradoxical obstruction which I wish to talk about today is the innocent but patronizing enthusiasm of some family planning zealots. Having been convinced of the importance of family planning and the inequities of its denial to the poor, some such enthusiasts descend upon the poor and preach the gospel without sufficient knowledge of the sensitivity to their attitudes and styles of life.

[61:45]

The result is predictable. They are either considered offensive or accused of promoting genocide. This problem is a real one which calls for an immediate and candid appraisal of the nature of training professionals in the presentation of family planning programs. I'd like to, I hope without embarrassing anybody, tell a story of an appearance in a meeting in our community of a family planning advocate who was seeking to get a community action council to prescribe for a project in family planning. She came to the meeting ill-prepared as to what the facts were in the community in question and proceeded to trip off an extensive and spirited discussion of the white desire to wipe out blacks. East Palo Alto is a community of 30,000, 80% of which are black.

[62:49]

It is an extremely well-organized community in that there is a surfeit of competing leadership. The day after the debacle, which I read about in the paper, I approached a leading figure who had chaired the meeting and who was on our board of directors and asked him about the community attitudes about family planning. The reason that I questioned him is that we had discussed the matter before the board of directors on several occasions and I had never gotten the kind of response that had been reported in the paper. He told me, and I must say with a very broad smile, that that was par for the course, that I shouldn't be alarmed by the political rhetoric which had gone on the night before, that they fully intended in their clinic to offer family planning services to all who requested them. What the person, a professional who had come into the community was not aware of

[63:56]

is that we had a project already funded for comprehensive health care services under the OEO policy. And I'd like to review for you some of the facts which perhaps should have been known to this family planning advocate before she went to a meeting in the community. The first fact, of course, is that the services were already there, not an unimportant fact. The second thing that I would have told her is that one of the great insights which many of us professionals, as we learn by stumbling and bumbling more and more about community organization and community development as it relates to health services, is that participation by people in a community in any effort to bring services to it is the absolutely critical factor around which many failures are taking place because of lack, in some instances and by some projects, of appreciation of its importance.

[65:01]

Our project, I think, has done fairly well. We have a board of directors that is controlled by residents of the community. We have on our board 11 blacks and 4 whites. And of that group, 10 are non-professional residents of the community. It has been their policy to have something to say about every blessed thing that happens in the neighborhood health center planning and service. For example, their employment policy is dictated by a committee on employment that interviews every applicant for employment before they are hired, including all physicians and the director and going all the way down to community aides. This kind of power on the part of laymen may appear to some of you to be a dangerous kind of policy to pursue, but I can report to you that it has worked exceptionally well.

[66:03]

This employment committee has also given clear priorities to residents of the area and has stated that they will have first choice in being employed if they can come up with the training and competence required for the job in question. And when they have been unable to come up with the competence, it has been their policy again to recruit black people outside of the community and bring them in there for service. They don't have a prejudice against whites and have in several instances employed white people, but they have also asked all white applicants to live in the community if they intend to work in the community center. This kind of policy for employment has made a world of difference in the attitude that East Palo Alto bears towards its project. From the beginning, they have stated that they would not permit either Stanford or San Mateo County Health Department to come into the community

[67:06]

to open a service without their control. And I think that not to have given control would have resulted in many, many unnecessary battles and would have delayed the onset of services. One of the other things about the contribution of residents is reflected in their attitude towards the building. And even though this is a little bit remote from family planning, I'd like to tell the story briefly to show you how the setting, the physical plant is of importance for all services, including family planning services. We were told at first to renovate a shopping center for the purpose of setting up the clinic. This policy forced upon OEO by the Congress is a regrettable one in that renovation of buildings simply never turns out a quality clinic setting.

[68:09]

In fact, it's more expensive than building anew. We got an architect to state this flatly and then our community board with its committee on the building, we have a committee on anything you want to name, went to work exploring how they could build a new building. Finally, they won their battle by gaining permission to go to the group practice facilities title of FHA and OEO agreed to make the 10 percent payment down for that and they will, in fact, have a new building. The building committee sitting with the architect has done the following things to the building. They have said, first, we do not want large stuffy waiting rooms. Why not build this building around a patio so that the good weather we enjoy in East Palo Alto can be used by patients waiting for service through most of the year? Put some coffee tables out there and take some speakers and call us into the building when we're ready. The building is built around a patio.

[69:10]

Give us a child care area because we have to take many children with us when we come to service and we find that they disrupt the doctor. Why not put a day care kitty corral into the building? And this concept was expanded later by employees of the center who wanted and got a day care center enclosed in the building for the children of employees of the center. They insisted on green belting the building. There are patios that surround it and open into group spaces throughout the building. They asked for a health museum, although they didn't call that a health museum. And within our building we will have a health exhibit area that will have models and audio-visual aids for the purpose of taking particularly children in for education on a whole variety of issues that relate to health. We also have a plan to train community organizers in health,

[70:12]

recruited from the community and trained on a new careers model so that they will become proficient and eventually qualified as allied health professionals. These family workers, I think if we mirror some experience we've had with migrant workers and Mexican-American workers of this description, will make a very significant contribution to crossing this barrier between professionals and patients of low income. These family health organizers need also, I think, to be viewed as general ombudsmen and we intend to professionalize them and to use them in any case conference that involves families with which they're particularly well acquainted. Their recruitment, in fact, will reflect both geography and demography and we have recently asked for and received a grant from a foundation in the area to pay sufficient money to attract males into the program.

[71:15]

This we feel is especially important for attracting young males into health services, which has in many people's view too much of a feminine connotation. The use of AIDS, particularly amongst teenagers, we anticipate will be of great importance. One youngster whom I talked to at the age of 19 was discussing the status teenage and said, you know, Dr., teenage lasts in East Palo Alto until you're 26 years old. By this I think he meant that the very high unemployment rate amongst unskilled males in the black ghetto keeps them in the teenage milieu longer than is average for other types of community. I think that another thing that we're doing relates to family planning in a very direct way.

[72:18]

The venereal disease investigator who works for San Mateo County, a very skillful white interviewer, reported to me that he was having increasing difficulty in getting successful interviews amongst blacks in the East Palo Alto area and made the very sensible recommendation that in our program we train a black venereal disease investigator. This then for us became a new career since we recruited an adult male of 24 who did not graduate from high school who has been to the CDC interviewing school which was held in Los Angeles and is so far working out very nicely in his training. I think then that all of this I bring before you for one important reason. It appears to me that family planning clinics in which groups of patients,

[73:21]

particularly if they are black or Mexican American or Indian, are brought for the sole and specific purpose of receiving advice and attention on this issue are probably not a good thing. In talking to our consumers, and I forgot to mention that we do have a consumer committee, a committee of users of our services who meet regularly with the professional staff to feed back to them their pleasures and displeasures, it seems almost universal that they express a desire for personalized, private, and individualized care on all fronts. When our center is fully operating we will run no clinics at all. There will be no prenatal clinics, no venereal disease clinics, no chest clinics, no TB clinics, no postnatal clinics, et cetera. In substitute for that pattern we intend to use a team of professionals and I'll give you their identification so that you get a feeling for the composition of the team.

[74:25]

Pediatrician, internist, OBGYN specialist, supported directly in the same building and in the same part of the building by public health nurse, medical and public health social workers, health education, home economy, and nutritionist. This team of professionals will take specific numbers of families who will then join that professional team and relate to it continuously from that time on and they will have a freedom to choose their team eventually and to change it if they feel this is necessary. Now this team approach to practice we think is particularly pertinent to the problems that we face in this community and we anticipate that by using it that we will overcome even more of the institutional traditions to which black patients have become appropriately disenchanted. It's hard for me to translate to you the negative feelings

[75:27]

that our community has towards institutions that deliver health services no matter what their sponsorship. They seem equally disenchanted with Stanford University Medical School clinics, with the county hospital clinics, and even with some private clinics of high quality. And when one discusses with them the nature of their disenchantment, it's the same old story. It's hard to travel to these places. It's hard when you get there to get the feeling that the physician understands everything about you. It isn't home. There are no familiar faces. When the East Palo Alto Clinic eventually opens, it looks as if 80% of its employees will be black. Many, many of them will either be from the community originally or, as I indicated, living in it. It will be a pleasant place to come to. It has been humanized by the participation of patients in the planning process in every way. And I think that the personalized care, which we anticipate we will be able to give,

[76:30]

will offer family planning services not as a special isolated concern but as a natural concern for anyone who is seeing his team of physicians. I think you can also perhaps get the feeling for the emphasis which we will place on health education. And to me, health education, which most public health professionals have either a very high or a very low opinion, who are not themselves health educators, is to me a topic which professionals of all sorts should look to with a little more sophistication. I've come to believe that the phenomenon of patient participation is critical to success in education in the health area of any kind. And we hope that in our building, which is generously supplied with group spaces, that our professionals at all level will undertake activities with groups of patients that share common diseases or common concerns

[77:31]

and attempt to get them, through participation, to learn as much as is possible about family planning, venereal disease, heart disease, et cetera. The marriage also of preventive medicine as a clinical specialty with clinicians is long overdue, I think, in the way we organize care and has, I think, great implications for success in the particular field of interest of this conference. It seems to me, then, that community organization and the application of principles of community organization are almost critical in succeeding with family planning. I think that we're dealing with an intensely sensitive area, considering the political tensions that surround blackness and black isolation in these days. But I feel that the genocide issue, which has been discussed, and which perhaps is an import from Africa,

[78:34]

can best be handled by making sure that black patients, Mexican-American patients, Indian patients, get the feeling that they have something to say about the policymaking in any project that addresses itself to this particular field and, indeed, in the manner in which such services are given. We've ignored the consumer in medicine all too long, whether he be poor or middle class. And I think if there is a new era ahead of us in medical care, it is the era of the consumer. Even though consumer participation is strange to professionals, I think that the manner of delivering services can be very, very much improved by continuous and serious participation by consumers. In the last analysis, I think that the attainment of control over unwanted pregnancy must be fought for in the public domain, in the classroom, the legislature, in the public media,

[79:38]

and perhaps at times even in courts of law. At issue is the public attitude, which today remains, as you all know, surprisingly punitive towards sex education in the public schools, education which needs to encompass information about contraception, venereal disease, and abortion. There is no scientific evidence that knowledge about such topics constitutes invitation to children to experiment, and yet this premise seems to lie at the heart of all opposition to instruction of children on these topics. How naive are those parents who assume that children denied accurate scientific knowledge are being somehow protected. In fact, they rather are at the mercy of inept and inaccurate distortions culled from various places and information which comes from people ill-equipped to give any accurate information on these topics.

[80:42]

It has always puzzled me that the topic of sexuality is so heavily excluded from the basic knowledge that we impart to our children. The health and teaching professions bear an obligation to face with courage the task of fighting in all these places for equal access by all to contraceptive information and service. Long since, the medical profession has stopped minding the morals of victims of venereal disease. As a matter of fact, it is essential not to mind them if you wish to control venereal disease. And I submit for you to think about the possibility that it may not be too illogical to take the same stance in regard to unwanted pregnancy, which truly can be looked upon as a disease which is preventable and easily cured. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. O'Rourke.

[81:50]

Dr. O'Rourke has given a beautiful concrete example answer to some of the questions that arose this morning regarding the rendering of comprehensive health services in such an environment. This is a fascinating example of it. We'll go then for our coffee break and may I ask you to be back promptly at 3.30 so that the panel can have full opportunity to explore. Planned Parenthood. She'll introduce to you the members of her panel. Mrs. Gray. Thank you very much, Dr. Overstreet. And our panel is delighted that so many of you decided to speak. Stick with us to the end. Our panel for this afternoon will deal with patients and laws.

[82:54]

And we're going to try to give you an overview, one of the national legal situation as it affects family planning and the delivery of services to people. And perhaps out of our discussion may point the way for new kinds of legislation that may be needed. We have a very distinguished panel this afternoon. And we met and decided in a very democratic way how we will proceed. We will have the presentations by each of the panel members. And then there will be an interchange between them. And then there hopefully will be time for questions from you, the audience. I shall introduce all of the panel members in the order of their presentation. First, Mrs. Harriet Pilpel. Mrs. Pilpel is a senior partner in the law firm of Greenbaum, Wolff & Ernst.

[84:00]

She received her BA from Vassar College, her master's degree from Columbia University, and her Bachelor of Law degrees from the Columbia Law School. Mrs. Pilpel was a member of the Committee on Political and Civil Rights of President Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women and served on the Special Task Force on the same subject of President Johnson's Citizens Advisory Committee. She is the editor and articles editor of the Columbia Law Review. Mrs. Pilpel is also the attorney for Planned Parenthood World Population, the Association for Voluntary Sterilization, the Association for the Study of Abortion, and Abortion Reform Association. Therefore, Mrs. Pilpel is very well qualified to give us a national overview. Following Mrs. Pilpel, we will hear from the Honorable Willie Brown,

[85:05]

who kindly agreed to substitute for the Honorable Merv Dimely, who was unable to be with us. Assemblyman Brown represents the 18th Assembly District in the California State Legislature for San Francisco. He is a graduate of Hastings Law School of the University of California. He taught there before going into the private practice of law. For those of you who observed the recent Democratic Convention, we'll recognize him as an outstanding and dynamic member of the Californian delegation and served as a member of the Credentials Committee, which was instrumental in seating the Mississippi and Julian Bonds Georgia delegations. He is indeed an activist and a member of numerous civil rights organizations. Following Assemblyman Brown, we will hear from Mr. Socrates Mamekos.

[86:10]

Mr. Mamekos is a practicing attorney in San Francisco and a lecturer in law at San Francisco Law School. He received his B.A. at New York University, an M.A. at both Michigan and Oxford Universities, and his law degree at the University of California at Berkeley. Our fourth panel member, Ms. Constance Cox, who is a community action field representative who has been designated as family planning representative in the San Francisco Regional Office of the Economic Opportunity. She has her master's degree in political science and her master's in public health education from the University of California at Berkeley. And our last panel member, Mr. Gordon Cumming. He is currently the president of the California Hospital Association. He is an administrator of the Sacramento County Hospital.

[87:13]

He has been a member of the Hospital Research Study Section, the National Institutes of Health, the National Advisory Council on Regional Medical Programs, and the Committee on Hospital Planning of the American Hospital Association. He received the California Hospital Association Award of Merit in 1955. Mr. Cumming received his master's in public administration from the University of California. I present to you our panel. Permit me to add one other qualification. I introduced myself as a dove in the field of population control as referred to by Dr. Harkavy. It seems to me that it is somewhat far-fetched in the United States today

[88:15]

to hear voices crying for compulsory birth limitation when we have not given voluntary birth limitation a chance. And the history of the control of reproduction by law in this country is a history of discrimination against minority and low-income groups. There appears to be, in my mind at least, no question but that the laws relating to birth control, to abortion, and to sterilization, as they have been passed and interpreted in the United States, have always had a direct impact on the poor and the minority groups, and where they didn't like them, practically no impact on the middle- and upper-income groups. They may not have been intended this way, but that's the way they've worked out, and one of our jobs is to see that they don't work out that way anymore. Were we to go in for compulsory family limitation, I have no reason to think the result would not be the same. When Mrs. Hamilton called me about this conference

[89:15]

and said that the title of our panel was Patience and the Laws, I thought she meant P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E, and I thought that was a very good title for a panel in which we were discussing the law. It was only when I got the program that I found out that it was I-E-N-T-S, but I think I shall be talking probably more about I-E-N-C-E, which is not to say that the law, or at least public opinion, which eventually makes the law, has not moved. When I was first on the Committee on Political and Civil Rights of President Kennedy's Commission on the Status of Women, I had the temerity to suggest this was about six years ago, that one of the subjects on which we should interest ourselves was family planning and birth control. There was a discernible chill, apparent, on the part of the government representatives at the committee meeting, and afterwards, one of them, for whom I had considerable regard, came up and said, for God's sakes, don't push that. So I said, I don't know why not.

[90:17]

If we're talking about the status of women, there is nothing more important than their ability to control their reproductive lives. Therefore, the availability of birth control, it seems to me, is item number one on our agenda. Well, she said, you'll split the whole committee wide open, we won't get anything done, and so forth and so on, and nothing was, in fact, included on the subject of that committee. However, six years later, when the similar committee under President Johnson's commission met, not only did we pass strong resolutions in favor of making voluntary birth control available to all, but we came out with a very strong report urging that the abortion laws throughout the United States be modified to permit an abortion to be a procedure to be decided upon by the woman and her physician. And nobody raised the question that that was not appropriate. Now, if we're going to look at some sort of national overview of the laws in these three fields,

[91:17]

abortion, sterilization, and birth control, perhaps I ought to remind you of a few things which I certainly had tended to forget about our legal structure. When I was in high school, I learned about the system of checks and balances, which it appeared Montesquieu, whoever he was in France, had something to do with and pertained to the balance between the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. I mention that because the history of birth control advance in this country has been by and large executive, like the excellent talks we've heard from the OEO, which is part of the executive branch, and judicial, such as the decision of the United States Supreme Court invalidating a Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraceptives. The legislative pattern has by and large been disgraceful. The other distinction that I would like to call to attention is the difference between federal and state law, which you all know, but in this field, that distinction is important

[92:21]

insofar as the operation of actual centers and clinics in various states are concerned. Now, if we take a quick look at the legislation affecting birth control in the United States, we find that it has gone from an absolute prohibition through an intermediate stage of sort of laissez-faire to the present stage, which is not enough, but which is in the direction of making available birth control to those who want to use it, toward this dangerous signal of, thou must use it. Since the figures we heard here indicated that about 750,000 women in low-income groups are now being serviced by the Planned Parenthood and government clinics, leaving something like 4.5 million unserviced, I repeat, I see no reason to even talk about whether we should have compelled birth control, and when Dr. Harkavy says, quote, what is appropriate for New Delhi is also appropriate for Scarsdale,

[93:24]

I disagree heartily. I don't...

[93:27]

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