My pleasure to introduce our speaker today, Jake Van Ackeren. As many of you know, I think he's the Shuso for this spring practice period. Jake received lay ordination from Sojin Roshi in 2001, when he was given the name Hoshin Bokuren, which means Dharma Faith Unadorned Practice. And at our temple, he's held a number of positions to support the temple and currently is vice president of the board. Outside the gate, Jake was a teacher in public schools for 34 years, mainly teaching fifth and sixth grade. He retired four years ago. And since then, he's been doing things like a lot of hiking and working as a docent and hike leader for a group on Mount Diablo. in the state park there, also plays softball. And he also has done an excellent job of holding down the home front while I was still working and taking care of the cats.

[01:08]

He has been teaching us what it means to wash your bowl. So we look forward to hearing what he has to say today. Thank you, Leslie. So perhaps 10 minutes ago, I was passing through the kitchen, and a couple of people were there. And the head cook said, oh, are you giving the talk? And I said, it appears so. And someone else said, I was holding this, are those your lecture notes? I said, it appears so. So, a bit of background on this. So yesterday afternoon, Sojin Roshi wanted to speak to me and so he said, would you like to give a talk tomorrow?

[02:11]

It's two o'clock in the afternoon. Well, you know, I'm rehearsing Zazen. I said, no, actually, it's fine. I don't feel a great need to give a talk. I've given it before. And there'll be plenty of opportunity in the future. But thank you for asking. I kind of nodded and said, OK. I just thought I would check in. He said, I appreciate that. And I'm not just rambling on here. There's going to be a point to this. So maybe an hour later or so, he said he would like to see me. And he said, have you changed your mind about wanting to give a talk? And I said, no, Sojan. You asked me an hour ago, and I'm still of the opinion that I'd rather not. And he looked at me somewhat, hmm, hmm. And I said, Sojan, would you like me to give a talk?

[03:15]

And he said, well, yes, I would. I said, I'll give a talk. But I said, find me some material. I don't have time to hit the stacks. So, of course, he found Zen Mind, the Guinness Medal. Very appropriate. So this is the fourth day of Sashin. And I've been averaging about five hours of sleep. Someone said that much. So, yeah. I decided last night not to dwell on the topic and try to fall asleep, and I actually did, so that was good. Now, another piece to Sojin asking me to give this talk was, he said, well, you know, in Japan there's an indirect way of asking, and I said, oh, I didn't pick up on that. I said, I'm just American, pure American, a direct-speaking Western guy.

[04:19]

And he nodded. So the reason I told this is not to be amusing, although maybe it is somewhat amusing. It's because it's really hit home at a place that I need to be hit home at. And that is, as I said in one of my talks, I'm a planner. I often dwell in planning mind. For you procrastinators, I'll give you some of mine. So I tend not to procrastinate, although sometimes I like to pretend I do. I don't. When I was given my koan back in, I don't know, early March, the very next day, if not that night, I was researching and looking at my koan. first two Saturday talks well in hand, before practice period began. This is a confession.

[05:19]

And the Friday morning, evening talk, the Away Seeking Mind talks, I wasn't too worried about that, put that together fast. So, this is the way I like to do things. I specifically requested that there be a clock for me here, so that I could manage my time. There's no clock. So this is good. Because I'm having to really live in no planning, no sense of time, except it's going to have to be continuous time, not discontinuous time. So I don't know if there was method in your madness, Sojourn Roshi, but I suspect probably a little bit, because you know me so well. So I think it's worked out. probably for my benefit, perhaps not for yours so much. I'm going to end right on time, so I'll be watching that dawn closely.

[06:21]

Someone said to me, you know, Jake, you use humor a lot. Beware of not hiding behind your humor. And, you know, there's a point to that. I think humor has two aspects for me. One, it's a way not to take myself so seriously, because I have a tendency to want to go to that place. And the other is, by making light of things, I have my shields up. And so, whatever one might say, the shield is already up. I used to work as a playground director in San Francisco, in the Haight-Ashbury, and also up toward Hunter's Point, not right in Hunter's Point, but near Charles Drew School, the Bayview. And, you know, kids in those areas cap all the time.

[07:23]

Do you know what capping means? Capping is you say something to someone else and someone else says something back to you and the idea, which I've got now, is If you could be teased mercilessly and not lose your cool, then you were okay, and you were a cool guy. And boys particularly do this. And I really learned that on the playground. And kids would tease me, and I'd say something back, self-deflecting. What really brought on the laughter was when you could laugh at yourself, when someone would cap on you, and you would burst out laughing and high-five. Those days it was high-five. I don't know what they do now. I play senior league softball, and this isn't just an African-American phenomenon. I play with 60-, 70-, and 80-year-old geezers, and capping is what we do.

[08:27]

It's just constant kidding one another, razzing one another. So it has that aspect, and I think You know, it's protective, but it's also not taking yourself so seriously. Anyway, my topic. Well, I've selected the topic of unadorned practice. So as Leslie said in her introduction, at my lay ordination, Sojin Roshi gave me two names, Hoshin, which is Dharma Faith, and Bokuren, which is unadorned practice. And it's my understanding that the first name was more as I was seen. And I think Dharma Faith did it well. I have trust in self, dharma. I'm not particularly a skeptic that way.

[09:29]

Boko Rin, unadorned practice, is what I look at as the pointer. So to look at that. And Sojin had another bullseye with that, I thought. Although at the time I wanted something like Mountain Cloud or something like that. Oh well, I liked my name. Just like Jake. I didn't originally like the name Jake. Because when I was growing up, and this is not premeditated going off the track because it's somewhat related to unadorned practice, I was the only Jacob in my class. The only people named Jake were people who lived in the 1860s and were gunslingers, as far as I knew. And apparently my grandfather, as I was named after him, And I remember in my class, in Spanish, we had a nun who didn't know too much Spanish, and she said, Jacob, well, you're just going to be Diego, James.

[10:40]

So I was Diego, and that made me further convinced that Jacob, Jake, was just not cool. And then, you know, are you going to use the Jake? You know, that is, it's the John. John is the Jake, and so there was that. Ha ha ha. And there are Jake breaks, which the big rigs use. You know, they slow down like that. Anyway, so to my name, I came to like Jake. Now it's, you know, number one for the past 10 years. And so it's come around. But I like my name now. And I like my name unadorned in practice, because it's been something I've I've wrestled with and thought about over the years. So, not only in practice, what I've thought about has changed over the years. When I first got it, I thought more of, oh, my Zen practice, because I thought, truly,

[11:45]

practice was inside the gate and it was very specifically inside these walls and particularly in my serving I was very finicky and I was called to task on that, not by Sojin but by other people like, come on, lighten up here, but I was one of those, you know, how many steps, how many this, you know, When the head server comes, why isn't the head server in Shashu? The head servers were in Gassho. For God's sakes, one does not approach the altar in Gassho. So I brought that up at practice committee. This is to give you an idea, huh? There was a debate over that, and finally, yes, that was approved. Anyway, little things like that. So I figured, well, that's probably what Sogen's looking at. I need to maybe... I have a bit too much Adorn practice, too much on the forms and and I was maybe a little over-corrective of people, and I can remember my head-serving meetings sometimes up in Dolly's room, that's where Ken and Katie now are, and there's some, at least one or two people here, I won't mention your names, who are really kind of, huh, let me know that this is a bit much what you're going into.

[12:57]

But now, I think of Unadorned Practice, it's more what I spoke about regarding my koan, and for those of you who weren't here when I talked about my koan, it was case number seven in the Mumon koan, where a monk enters the monastery and says to Master Joshu, please teach me. And Master Joshu asks the monk, have you eaten your rice porridge yet? And the monk replied, yes I have. And Master Joshu said, Well, then go wash your bowl." The monk bowed with some understanding, with some insight. Well, I am that monk, and I'm not bowing with some understanding, but I am that monk, and I understand that. And as I said in my Koan talk, for me, have I eaten my rice porridge is have I done my zazen.

[14:02]

Well yes I did, I did two periods of zazen and then I skipped the last one because I was working on this talk, but that's zazen too. By the way, in reading Suzuki Roshi this morning, there it was, where Suzuki Roshi was saying, Zazen is rice. Rice is Zazen. And I had missed that my first Go-Round, so I get to plug it in. So that's how I looked at that. And then, well, have I washed my bowl? For me, to make a long story short, I came to really embody that it was to... Everything is Zazen. To meet myself whatever I did, whatever I do. similar to Chozen's, wherever I go, I meet myself. And that has really sunk into here for me.

[15:08]

And unadorned practice then, for me, is to meet everything I do, everyone, without adding stories which obfuscate what's in front of me. which blind me to what's in front of me. And it's interesting, in preparing this talk, at first I was a little unnerved, then I went to a place of, believe it or not, equanimity, and then I came out of that and, oh my God, and I thought, you know, just do what's in front of you. I am what I'll be. Just do it. Get these stories going about, well, this is unprecedented. I don't think Sargeant Motion usually asks the day before. Maybe he does. But I have all these stories about, this is not fair. Not fair.

[16:12]

He just wants a day off. He does. So I'm like, no. Shane, Shane, just return. Don't give the talk. Give the talk. So I'm giving the talk. And I think it's pointed to me that Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind was what Sogen Roshi pointed me toward with a couple of sections, because this was the first Soto Zen book I picked up. And it was way back in the early 70s. I have a Sogen first, he said, well, you can use my book. So I started paging through it. Fascinating. There are all these notes and things, and pencil only. And I've come to agree with the pencil only thing, because then you can let it go, you can erase. And I really didn't get that until recently. And anyway, he's got some notes and stuff.

[17:14]

And then I realized I want to make my own notes. So I went to the book box in the community room and I stole the book. No, I didn't. I actually paid for it. It was $14.95, and I happened to have $15, and I wrote a check and put it in the slot. I had the cash and put it in the slot. And then I began penciling my own notes. And that, for me, was embodying this Suzuki Roshi's talk of many years ago. It felt good to do that. So, with that, I'm going to read a few selections from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind of Suzuki Roshi. And the section I've picked out is called No Trace. And there are three parts to this book. Part One, Right Practice.

[18:15]

Part Two, Right Attitude. Part Three, Right Understanding. So this is from Right Attitude. So Suzuki Roshi says, when we practice Zazen, our mind is calm and quite simple. Well, I had to say, not always, not always so. But then you said not always so, so I get that. But usually our mind is very busy and complicated, and it is difficult to be concentrated in what we are doing. Well, case in point, I must have spent a good 30 minutes just kind of gnashing my teeth and whoa was me, that kind of thing. So I was complicating this overly. This is because before we act, we think. And this thinking leaves some trace.

[19:15]

Our activity is shadowed by some preconceived idea. The thinking not only leaves some trace or shadow, but also gives us many other notions about other activities and things. These traces and notions make our minds very complicated. I'll stop there. This is so true for me. I've spoken in past talks about how my stories I tend to compartmentalize and I would build houses of my stories and I would keep some stories in some floors and others and often I wouldn't let them meet and it also affected really how I meet people, how I did meet people and I get that now that I'm overly complicating things with

[20:18]

my commentary, which is added, and it's totally unnecessary commentary, a quick story to elaborate, a Sashin story. I think I told this one, but I love it because it involves Gamasu, and so I was sitting, I think I was the don, yeah, where Paul is now, and there was someone else next to me, and that person is not in this room, the person's long practice stairs, and so it was time for me to pass the Gamasra. After the second bowl was served, you'd pass, and our form is to offer, and the person looked at me and said, not now, and kind of gave me a look, a dirty look. I had recently been an orioke instructor, and I darn well knew the form. Sure, we don't do the form of Siddhisthana or Tathagata, but that's okay.

[21:22]

We have our own form, and we offer that. Of course, we don't always have to do that. It's sort of a custom here. And of course, when you're an orioke instructor, you have to teach both ways, because you never know what you're going to get. There are some people who go way back here who will never offer you the gamasha, and it's because they're so stuck in their... No, I'm not looking at anyone. So anyway, but the point is, I spent not the next zazen period after that, but the next day in zazen. Who does she think she is? And it was kind of ridiculous, and by the second day I was gone, and this was many years ago, but still, and afterwards, and she was going through the same thing, because afterwards, when you're out there and talking, we immediately went up to one another and hugged one another, and were laughing and almost crying, and were you? Uh-huh, and it was good. So we let it go there, but we were both doing the same thing. So there was a trace. Now, that's kind of a silly example.

[22:24]

Perhaps, perhaps not. Another one, which I will admit to, was that I've kept myself estranged over the years from certain people because I have felt slighted. And it's interesting because I would construct logical reasons why I should be slighted and how it was appropriate to be slighted and so that remained and yet there was a heart loss because in certain cases these were people I really loved but I was not going to say I was wrong or let's talk about this and I have to say and that's happened in this practice here and I have to say there's some people who have been real bodhisattvas for me and to me, you know, I was really hurt by what you said, or I sense I hurt you, and could we please talk about this, and not just blutter, fester.

[23:30]

And I get that, not to say I'm arrogant, but I do get that. So, when he speaks of a trace or a shadow, I think of that as a shadow sign. There's a very good person who no longer practices here, and who I've... something came between us, and I felt that that person did not meet me when I tried to reach out to that person. And I've kept myself away from that person, but I now... that person reached out to me through an email, and we're going to have tea together. probably in July, and talk about it. And there was someone here today who pointed that very thing out to me.

[24:32]

You know? Have you ever thought of talking to the person? Well, I thought, you know, that person, I apologize, that person did not apologize to me. I thought the person treated me like an object. I'd annoy the person, but I'm not going to go there. I don't want to talk to her. So, that's another example. When we do something with a complicated mind in relation to other things or people or society, our activity becomes very complex. And I was thinking, too, about maybe why I like backpacking so much. I think it's related to simplifying things. I like to do cross-country backpacking.

[25:34]

I've done it with some of you. One of the reasons I like that is I'm hiking on a trail, which could be a well-groomed, graded trail. The mind may be on what you're looking at, it may not be, but as one As one leaves the trail, you have to become more and more attentive. You have to pay attention. Because if you don't, you may stumble and fall, you may hurt yourself. This is class two. Class three is when one is doing cross-country travel and you need to use... well, true class three is where you need to have three points in contact with the ground. the rock. Two feet and a hand, two hands and a foot. Because if you lose contact with three points, you're down to two contact, you are in jeopardy of injuring yourself. If you fall, it means there's going to be an accident. You may not be killed, Class 4.

[26:36]

Class 3, you may break a leg. And I've been in those situations, but I have to tell you the clarity of mind that passes over. John Muir spoke about this. He was climbing Mount Ritter and he reached a point, climbing Mount Ritter, where he said, I reached a point where I couldn't either go up nor down. If I were to try to go up and lose my hold, I would fall to my death. If I tried to go down, I would lose another hold and fall to my death that way. And so he froze and then he said a clarity came over his mind. And he just went up, he just did it. And he got down somehow. So, what's interesting to me is that in our practice, this clarity, you don't need to go class 3 backpacking to reach that kind of clarity.

[27:38]

Opportunity, and why do I like that so much? Because it's just this, it's just you and the rock. you are the rock. So I think what's drawn me to this practice, and very early on it was, is that I experienced in Zazen of being able to let go of this garbage that came up. Not saying go away, but it comes up. Breath, breath, breath. And that's really with the rock climbing. It's breath. You have to be one with your breath when you're in those situations. If you're tense, you have to be relaxed, you have to watch your breath. That's a description of zazen. You're relaxed, letting things go, and you walk into breath. Suzuki Roshi goes on to say, most people have a double or triple notion in our activity. There is a saying, to catch two birds with one stone.

[28:45]

That is what people usually try to do. Because they want to catch too many birds, they find it difficult to concentrate on one activity. And they may not end up catching any birds at all. That kind of thinking always leaves its shadow on their activity. And I don't think he's referring here to multitasking in the sense of riding a bike. In riding a bike, you're steering, you're shifting, I love the new shifts. You're braking, you're turning, you're balancing. You might say, well, that's multitasking. No, that's one whole activity. It's just riding a bicycle. It's riding. But I think it's more, for me, it's when I'm not paying attention, because when I'm riding my bike, I tend to pay attention. When I'm not paying attention wholeheartedly to what's before me, because I'm also trying to semi-wholeheartedly pay attention to something else and to something else, and I think that's what he's talking about.

[29:53]

And when that happens, there are traces. If you leave a trace of your thinking on your activity, you will be attached to that trace. And that's what I was saying about when I've gotten upset about people who I thought who have slighted me, insulted me. It's not what transpired, it's that trace in my mind that's lingered, that has created the shadow. And I've become attached to it. I know this, because otherwise, why wouldn't I just say, let it go? But no. It makes my ego feel too good to let it go. It makes me feel a little more important. So yeah. He says, also, you may say, this is what I have done.

[31:03]

something, accomplishment. But actually it is not so. In your recollection you may say, I did such and such a thing in a certain way. But actually that is never exactly what happened. When you think in this way, you limit the actual experience of what you have done. So if you attach to the idea of what you have done, you are involved in selfish ideas. Ego. Talk. Stuck in the ego. I was thinking about this a little bit. Sojin Roshi does not talk about, you do not talk about accomplishments. And I always kind of wondered about that, but in reading this, I think I've gained some insight. In order not to leave any traces, when you do something, you should do it with your whole body in mind.

[32:06]

You should be concentrated on what you do. You should do it completely, like a good bonfire. You should not be a smoky fire. You should burn yourself completely. If you do not burn yourself completely, a trace of yourself will be left in what you do. You will have something remaining which is not completely burned out. And this metaphor really resonates for me, too, because as a backpacker, campfires go with the territory, although not anymore. They used to. In the old days, we used to cook over the campfire, and I know what the smoky campfire is, and I know what the clean burn is. Now, we use these little gas-burning stoves, because they're ecologically much sounder. I had to throw that in. burning up the woods with my campfires. But yeah, he's hit it. You know, it's the smoke of the trace that creates the problem.

[33:13]

It's rarely, and I'm not going to say never because it's not always so, but it's rarely the act that creates the problem. It's the trace, the smoke that remains, that clogs our lungs, clogs our minds. It's those stories. And getting back to my problem of wash your bowl, I really feel that that applies to every moment. Every moment. to meet myself wherever I do, to meet myself wherever I go. I can say I feel we are washing the bowl right now. Thank you, Sojourner Russia.

[34:16]

Any comments? Well, since you've asked, I just want to clarify It's a little story about when I asked you to do this. When we have the shuso entering ceremony. Oh yes, that's good. There's a little drama that goes on between the abbot and the doshi and the shuso. in the ceremony, there's a little drama where the Juso starts walking away. And then the abbot says, wait, don't walk away. Don't walk away. No, come on. He says, this is too much for me. Too much for me. I can't do this. And so he starts walking away. And the abbot chases him and says, no, no, come on. You can do this. And he says, OK.

[35:19]

And he says, may your good health continue. These are beautiful days. These are beautiful days. May your good health continue. And so, Hozon asked me, he said, you know, usually, before this, he said, usually Shuso gives a talk during Sashi. And I said, that's right. I remember that. But secretly, I wanted to continue because I'm on a roll. I didn't say, would you like to? I said, how would you feel about doing this? Something like that. And he said, oh, no. And then just before he left, he said, these are wonderful days.

[36:28]

And I thought, now I have to ask him to do it. So you waited another hour just before you got here. You let me to think I was off the hook for an hour. I see the striker is being held. I just want to let people ask some questions. We only have eight minutes. Well, if you have any questions or comments, then go. This is trivial, but I'm trying not to be a procrastinator, so I'm just going to go ahead and say it. Why do you say Gamaccio when there's no H? That's because I'm from Del Norte County and not Del Norte. And up there, we like to speak like that.

[37:28]

We say Willow Creek and so Willow Creek. That's why. That's your problem. Something I really wrestle with is No Traces, as I heard you speaking to, that's about the interaction and some story I can get into about willingness of someone else or else's, you know. And so, I was wondering if you might say something about No traces in the not knowing, so to speak, where someone else is at. So, not knowing where the other person is.

[38:35]

Who has the trace? This one or the other? I'm asking you to understand your question. It's a great question. I don't know. I think that's part of the answer. Peter? Jake, I know you've only had a few months to work with this koan, and I'm sort of wondering whenever I... I'm wondering Have you seen this story in Joshua's shoes? Oh, how? I'm in my shoes. Isn't there a way to inhabit this story?

[39:41]

Remember where he's placed? Oh, that's a good question. Well, you're asking how did I embody Well, I'm sorry, I don't know how you were working on this, obviously, but I'm just sort of wondering, it's inhabiting the story from various angles. The monk is Joshua. Joshua was a monk. Our ancient tangled karma is just with us and it comes and goes without our seeming to have control over it.

[40:53]

Somebody says, no trace, leave no trace. I can't follow that advice with this karma just arising all the time. Can you? Who is letting the karma arise all the time? Who is that? Who is letting, not letting? It's just... You're the boss. Do you want to be the boss? What? Do you want to be the boss? I don't know. I'm asking. I don't know. No, it's silly to say I'm the boss. Well, that's what your feeling is. What are we talking about the boss? Of being not manipulated by stories. by not getting sucked into thinking you are your story, your stories.

[42:01]

That's how I look at it. Because what's left after the stories are gone? What is that? It. This. That's what's left. Now, if that's not your experience, that's okay. I just went into a cloud of karma. Well, I love your clouds when there's some blue sky mixed in. Partly cloudy, partly sunny. Temperatures in the 70s. Part westerly breeze. Thanks for your talk, Jake.

[43:05]

Was this talk sort of like, what did you say, a Class 3? A what? You talked about Class 3. Oh, Class 3. Yeah, it was just a Class 3. Yeah, that's pretty good. Yeah. Because I knew the worst they could do was fire me. Yeah. Class 3. Yeah. John. Let's go back to Linda's question a little bit. Maybe a slightly different perspective in that we live in the relative world all the time. we have in our families, in our relationships, attachments, we leave traces with each other. And how do you balance the practicality, reality of everyday life, where you leave a trace, where you don't leave a trace? How do you... In fact, with Leslie, I'm sure that the two of you leave traces with each other.

[44:11]

Well, in a very practical sense, since you brought up Leslie, we don't go to bed angry at one another. I can't ever remember going to bed without having talked, if there's been a trace. So I think that's pretty important. The longer you let things simmer, sometimes things have to percolate a little while, but that's how I would say it. Mary? That led me to another question. Thank you for your talk. Can you let go of stories by yourself? And I talked about that, that's a good question, I think, in my last Friday talk.

[45:15]

I don't know if you were at that one. Because I think there are times when the stories are so dominating that Zazen will not You can't let go of them. And I gave the example of my friend who recently hanged herself because she was so immersed and tangled in her stories that it tormented her so that she felt she had one option and that was to take her life. So even though she was in therapy, a psychiatrist, Yeah, and there are times when, and I've said too, that if things keep coming up in Zazen, they're different levels. Sometimes it's a simple matter of talking to someone. I felt like I insulted someone once in a Saturday director remark, and it kept coming back, and I thought, I better talk to that person, you know, on a bigger scale, you know, with depression and things like that.

[46:28]

That calls for, and so did Roshi mention this yesterday, there's some things you need to see a psychologist for. You need someone to talk to. Maybe a friend is not enough. You need a psychologist, a therapist. With me and my pain that I live with, I was getting very depressed and I went to a slew of doctors. Eventually, I found the right mix of treatment for me, so that I could not be worn down by that pain, and not suffer. But Zazen, it wasn't doing it. But, as I also said, I had some severe problems with obsessive compulsive disorder earlier, and also depression. had a therapist and we've looked at the root, anger and mother and all that. And that helped, but it's really only been finally through Zazen that I've let the remnants go, let the traces finally go.

[47:38]

And I'm at peace with mother, the Catholic Church. I don't have any resentment. I don't know how this fits with unadorned practice because it does seem to me to be a complicated thing that we co-create are a reality, and that our abilities to sort out what's delusion and what's not really depends on each person's ability to sift through the grains and separate them and do that, both individual and joint. And so I'm wondering about what that mix is. I mean, there's some people that I can talk to that I might have traces with that I won't get anywhere with. There's some people who try to talk to me that don't get anywhere And there's other people where it just resolves and has that very... it's a dance of some kind. And with those people that you just can't get anywhere with, then let her go. I mean, what's the option? To hold it?

[48:40]

If the person really won't hear you? Seems to me. I think it must be time.

[48:47]

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