Good morning, everyone. Welcome. I want to talk this morning primarily about the karma of Zen, the strengths and weaknesses of the tradition of Japanese Zen that we have inherited. And this is based on a talk, one of the keynote talks given last week at the Soto-Zang Buddhist Association Conference that I attended, given by Dale Wright, who's a professor of religion and philosophy, although he specializes in East Asian Buddhism. He's at, I think, Occidental College in Southern California. But first, I want to say a little bit about, well, I attended two Soto Zen teachers' conferences, actually, last week at Great Vow Monastery in Oregon, downstream away from Portland.

[01:04]

So I want to say a little bit about those and what they are. So the context is we are an independent Zen temple. But we have lots of affiliations, but it's very different from, for example, the Catholic Church or most Protestant denominations. We don't have a formal hierarchy that we're connected to in the same way, but we are affiliated and connected to Soto Zen, which is one of the main branches of Japanese Zen. American Zen generally in various ways. So I want to say a little bit about that before I talk about the karma of Zen. So the Soto Zen Buddhist Association is an organization of authorized Dharma teachers in American Soto Zen, which I'm a member of.

[02:06]

It meets every two years. I believe there are 120 members total. There are also associate members, those who are ordained but not yet transmitted Dharma teachers, like Aishan and Keizan also, one of our other priests, attended as associate members. There were 68 members at this conference, which again means every other year. Seven of them were inducted in what's called a Dharma Heritage Ceremony. So they received transmission, not necessarily within the last year, but they had not yet become official members of Soto Zen Buddhist Association. So we had this fairly formal ceremony in which they are inducted as members. Again, they're required to have received Dharma transmission from their teachers. So maybe this is, we have a lot of new people here this morning, which is great.

[03:11]

So just kind of giving a sketchy background of how we're connected to the rest of American Soto Zen. In addition to that Soto Zen Buddhist Association meeting, there was following it a meeting of the One is SCBA, the other one is ASCB. It's almost the same. The association of Sotos and Buddhists is those teachers affiliated, as I am, with the Japanese Sotoshu. So they had a somewhat shorter conference immediately following. And that's a smaller subset of the people who are in the SCBA, and a few additional ones. representing our strong connection to Japan. So those are people who've done the Zuisei, it's called a Japanese ceremony, which is sort of like being abbot for a day at Eiheiji and Sojiji, the two Soto Zen headquartered temples in Japan, which I did in 2008.

[04:15]

So this Dharma heritage ceremony is supposed to be the American equivalent. And part of, one of the main topics was for the conference, not the only one, but developing a set of standards. So there are already some standards or requirements. We have an ethics statement or policy for each temple, which we do, and authorized Dharma transmission. But one of the big issues is what are the standards for accepting teachers into the Soto Zen Buddhist Association? And there are a lot of issues. There are many monastic temples, residential temples, and there's a strong tradition in Soto Zen of teachers having done significant periods of monastic training, and a lot of people find that very important.

[05:18]

But then there are other temples probably the majority of, certainly the majority of Soto Zen places like ours that are non-residential lay centers for people to come and have a chance to hear the Dharma and do Zazen practice. And so, anyway, one of the other issues was ministerial training and what are the standards for that. Anyway, this is a long process which is in the middle, which is happening and we're working on and will be working on until the next meeting in a couple of years. But this is just to say that we are connected to these other Soto Zen groups. And also, later Roy will speak about Branching Streams, which is a meeting of affiliates of San Francisco Zen Center and the Suzuki Roshu lineage. That's where I was trained. And Roy represented us at a meeting of that group recently.

[06:19]

So that's just a little bit of background. But I wanted to talk primarily about... comment on and report on this talk that I thought was very interesting that Dale Wright gave. He's a professor of religion and philosophy and has edited a number of the collections of books together with Stephen Hine, who's been here several times, a few times, about Zen koan and Zen rituals and Zen masters and Zen canon. I contributed chapters to a couple of those books, so I know Dale for a long time, but he has a background in Western philosophy as well as Eastern religion, and he talked about the karma of, I think he was talking about Japanese Zen generally, and he presented his view of strengths, and weaknesses and challenges for American Zen given the karma, as he put it, of Japanese Zen.

[07:29]

So that's what I want to talk about mostly this morning. So he had a list of strengths. He had 11 in that list, a long list. He had a list of So one of the strengths of Japanese Zen is, as he put it, is that it takes practice seriously, from Dale's perspective, more than any other religion. Zen takes practice, actual religious practice, seriously, mostly in the form of Zazen as an exemplary practice, what we've just done here, this upright sitting meditation. So he founds that important and a strength that we have in this physical practice. I would say that part of my own interest in Zen, what brought me to Zen, was that there was actual physical practice.

[08:39]

So when I started more than 35 years ago, just that there was some physical regular practice. that this centered on. Oh, another one he said is that this practice, another of the strengths is that the practices of Zen, including Zazen, develop qualities of character. That the practices, both sitting meditation and the practices of expressing the meditative awareness in our everyday activity, develops excellence of human life. in practitioners and supporting those around them. Another one of the strengths was, so I'm looking at my notes, that Zen mind is not local. That it's not focused on one particular thing.

[09:43]

that there is a deepening of anything connected with Zen mind. So I feel this very strongly in terms of how much I enjoy our Sangha of many wonderful, talented people, busy in various ways out in the world, in Chicago, and that Zazen supports whatever we do in our everyday activities, in our regular life, in terms of relationships and work and our connection with people around us. So that was another one. Fourth was, he thought that, Dale thought that Zen is more thorough in rejecting otherworldliness than any other religion. That there is a tradition, we can look at the tradition of Zen lay people like the Momokirti, but that Zen is not focused on escape from this world, reaching some other state of being or realm, that Zen, more than other, and he said any other religion, you know, we could debate that, but that Zen is focused on not

[11:00]

depending on transcendence, but on actually activities in this world and seeing the wonder and joy and spiritual qualities of this world right now. The fifth on Dale's list was that there are no lists of required beliefs, that there are many teachings. many scriptures in Buddhism, and there are many basic teachings, but it's not that there's some doctrine or dogma that one has to take totally seriously. to do Buddhist meditation, to do Buddhist practice, to be a Buddhist even. He cited Stephen Batchelor, who's written a lot recently, a fine Buddhist scholar about Buddhism without beliefs, I think is the name of one of his books.

[12:04]

This led to a long discussion about rebirth. Bless you. So anyway, that was his fifth. Sixth is that Zen is not in conflict with science, unlike some other religions. Zen is, in some sense, an empirical practice, a rational practice, that respects science. There are many different aspects of this. in terms of how it's arriving in the West, in many ways is interacting with Western science in terms of psychology, in terms of neurobiology. One might also cite His Holiness the Dalai Lama from the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, who very much supports, who has said that if there's any Buddhist teaching that is in conflict with science, it should change, it should change the teaching.

[13:07]

So this is another one of what Dale sees in his list of strengths. And I do want to have time to discuss this and any questions you have about this. It will not be a test, by the way. But I thought this list that Dale presented is interesting. The seventh one is that Zen has a focus on freedom. And by that, we can talk a lot about Buddhist liberation and principles of freedom and participatory democracy, whatever's left of that in the United States, but it's one of our principles. But he also talked about it in terms of personal freedom, having an open mind, the quality of relaxed spontaneity, which is part of the Zen tradition. process of Zen practice, both in meditation and off our cushion, of looking at how to deepen freedom, how to express and expand freedom both in our own hearts and in the world around us.

[14:26]

So that's another aspect. Eighth on his list was And these are all interesting, and I kind of agree with all of these as strengths of Zen. Zen playfulness, that the tradition of Zen has a great sense of humor, that there's a quality of Zen and we see it in many of the great Zen masters who have actually had this great sense of humor and in a lot of the literature and the Koan stories where there's this kind of release and release of anxiety and a great letting go. So again, this is a strength of Zen as a religion. The eighth one he had is the principle in Zen of going beyond the teacher. that's part of Zen transmission is that in some way, it's not enough to be equal with the teacher in terms of authorizing successors to teachers.

[15:34]

And even for all of us to go beyond, Dogen talks about, Dogen is the 13th century founder of this branch of Zen, of Soto Zen. translated a lot and written a lot about and talk about a lot. He talks about going beyond Buddha, that Buddha is not something that you, some experience or some understanding or some state that you reach and that's it, but that it's an ongoing living process of awakening. So this is related to this, but the sense of going beyond the teacher means also that the Zen tradition based on Indian Buddhism, but starting in China, and Korea, and Japan, and now the United States, has to adapt to this present situation. So this is what we're all doing together here in Chicago, to find a way to make this tradition alive, and relevant, and real, and helpful for us in our situation, and each of us in our own particular way.

[16:43]

So this going beyond is important. The tenth on his list of strengths of Zen and the karma of Zen that we've inherited is aesthetic sensibility. Embracing art as practice, the practice of beauty. So, you know, Dale said that all religions start with art in some way. And Zen has particular qualities of aesthetics and of art that were important to me personally. I had the chance when I was young to travel in Japan and go to see Buddha statues and gardens and architecture and Kyoto and Nara, the old capitals, and that was very informative to me. And Zen has a tradition of, you know, with the gardens, with painting, with calligraphy, the poetry of great art.

[17:46]

He did mention the one limitation of Zen aesthetics, which is the area of music. And this came up in the second conference, the Japanese conference. There's nothing like Bach or, you know, You name it in terms of a Western religion, Mozart or Coltrane. There's nothing like that in terms of Buddhist or Zen musical context. But it's something that can develop. So we have musicians in our sangha. the Japanese Teachers' Conference, a couple of examples that are pretty much unknown in the West were cited. So there are some, and there's one tradition called Shomyo, which is a very melodic kind of chanting. It's in the Seto Zen tradition in Japan. If any of you have heard the full moon ceremony, the repentance ceremony.

[18:51]

That's an example of it. And there's another one called Baiko, which is maybe only a century or so old. It's particularly done by Japanese Soto Zen women in their temples, but using singing, but also a bell and a little drum or clapper. So there's potential there, but really that's one of the ways in which Zen does not compare to Western religious art. Anyway, but there is so much of the aesthetic sensibility in the Zen tradition. The 11th and final strength that Dale cited was the literary tradition. the importance of narrative to spiritual practice, the importance of Zen stories, which we talk about a lot here. We have this huge literature of poems or teaching stories and comments on them and comments on the comments and comments on those comments.

[19:53]

Zen is supposed to be a tradition beyond or not caught by words and letters and yet has produced this huge literature. And Dale was talking about the importance of narrative, of stories, of teaching stories in religion generally. So those are the links, the lists he gave of what he sees as strengths of the karma of Zen that we've inherited. not to name them all again, but just the importance of practice and taking practice seriously. Rejecting otherworldliness, not being caught by a particular set of required beliefs, not being in conflict with science, the focus on freedom and playfulness and the sense of going beyond the aesthetic sensibility in the literary tradition So, I think that's a pretty good list of some of the strengths of Soto Zen, or of Zen, Soto included.

[20:57]

Coming back to practice, and we have this actual physical practice of sitting upright, facing the wall, facing ourselves, being present, calm, but aware, relaxed, but upright. And then all of these other aspects of the tradition flow out of that, So, I thought his, but he had a list of three, I think, weaknesses of, or somewhere, four. Oh yeah, no, there are four, excuse me. Weaknesses of the Zen tradition. And these are a little more complex. And actually, I kind of feel like we're not doing so badly on these. even though they are weaknesses of the tradition, I feel like, in terms of the teaching here at Ancient Dragon. We're not doing so badly, but these are weaknesses of the Japanese Zen tradition. The first one being morality. This is complicated, but in most East Asian Buddhism, Buddhism didn't really focus on ethics and morality.

[22:09]

Now, I think we do that more here. We talk about the precepts a lot. And Dogen, our founder in 13th century Japan, warned about the problems of karma. But in most East Asian Buddhism, there was a kind of sense of not focusing on that so much, partly because in that society, there was, in all of East Asia, a very strong background of Confucian ethics. And that was kind of assumed. So Buddhists thought they didn't really have to focus on that so much. It was part of the society. Confucian ethics are complex, but they're the basis of all East Asian society. So it was there in the background. But as Dale said, there was not a tradition of questioning morality and authority, which led to the moral blindness that allowed Zen and all the other forms of Japanese Buddhism to contribute to the militarism that led up to World War II.

[23:18]

So Dale claimed that there was not in the Zen tradition enough of a focus on generosity, on moral deliberation, on justice and compassion. that this is more present in the West, the sense of justice. And I think this is where, you know, we've had Zen practice in America now for 50 years or so. And I think this idea of engaged Buddhism and incorporating a Western sense of justice and ethics is part of what we're doing. But if I look around at American Zen, maybe we're still a little overall not so clear about this. So I think it's a good kind of warning. Again, I'm covering a lot of material that was in this talk, and any bit of it that you want to bring up in the discussion, we can look at again. The second weakness, according to Dale, was the political.

[24:21]

So he quoted Aristotle as saying that politics is morality writ large, and that there is a tendency in the Zen tradition to not take positions on justice issues, for example. And he saw this not taking positions in terms of social justice as a kind of failing of the Zen tradition. Of course, it's challenging how to respond to social issues. And those of you who've been here before know that I do that regularly. But how to do it respectfully, not just venting anger. How to actually look at the issues and respond with some meditative depth to the problems of the world. So, from Dale's point of view, that's not enough, that's not a strength, that's a weakness in that tradition we inherit, and I think he's right, and something that we need to look at. So many of you have heard me quote the tax status for religious non-profits as we are, 501c3, that I'm not supposed to advocate for particular candidates or legislation, but it's perfectly fine for us to talk about issues of social justice, the problems of our economy, the problems of all our

[25:47]

militarism and wars. And even though I'm not going to mention any candidates, I would encourage you all very much to vote next month. Very, very important election. But this is an area where there's a weakness in the tradition. The third one is very interesting. And he said it was a weakness in the intellectual aspect of religion. that people today, young people today, he teaches college, are looking for some kind of philosophy of life to put the pieces together, some comprehensive, sophisticated way of making sense of our world and of reality itself. And so he cited part of the Japanese tradition, which is kind of anti-intellectual. in its extremes, avoids reading at all, and that rationality can be demonized. Well, I often talk about going beyond rationality, to question how we know things.

[26:55]

But as an academic and a scholar myself, I'm not anti-intellectual, and I hope we don't fall into that. But it is a weakness in the in some of the Japanese tradition. Dogen was very scholarly. Actually, of all the classic Zen masters who talk about not getting caught in words and letters, almost all of them had mastered the Buddhist scriptures and really knew them backwards and forwards. So it's a kind of funny issue, but there is some tendency. There's a temple I did a session at in Japan where There are a lot of Westerners there, and they're not allowed to read, period. If they get a magazine in the mail, it's confiscated. So there is still that aspect of this that is not willing to look systematically at used intellect and rationality in presenting what I think we do have as a kind of comprehensive worldview that is part of Mahayana Buddhism and Zen.

[28:02]

So I think there is intellectual work that can be done to support the principles that arise from our meditation. Anyway, that was his third. The fourth one, I'm not sure that I'm clear on, but maybe it's related to the last one. The sense of mystery. He cited this as a weakness of the Japanese Zen tradition. I don't know, I can see it as a strength too, but parts of that tradition. But the sense of the thought of enlightenment, the first impulse, so we have numbers of people here who sat Zazen for the first time this morning, which is wonderful. We had like seven people here for Zazen instruction. That first thought of spiritual practice is considered in some way to include all of enlightenment or awakening.

[29:03]

But in terms of how we expand our understanding of that and our experience of that and our expression of that, that's the going beyond that's very important. I think that maybe Dale was speaking more to traditions, the aspect of Zen that sees enlightenment as some one-time thing. So maybe I'm responding defensively to his list of weaknesses because I don't think they're as much part of our practice here. But still, to realize that our awareness our meditative awareness, requires growth and expansion. But it's a mystery that we need to continually, so this is an ongoing practice. There's always more to see and deepen and express about how we see reality and awakening and suffering. So we need to revise that. So, finally, based on this list of strengths and weaknesses, Dale had a list of half a dozen

[30:10]

challenges or we can say opportunities for American Zen. And these are also interesting and relevant also. So thinking about Zen as it's been transplanted here and We have 50 years of experience with Americans, and that's nothing. It took several centuries for Buddhism to settle in China, and then Zen helped evolve that after that. So all of the struggles of the Centers and Booths Association to see what are appropriate standards for Americans and teachers is part of this long process that we'll know what works in a couple hundred years. And yet here we are doing this practice, trying to see how do we meet the world and ourselves in this complexity right now. So the challenges and opportunities

[31:13]

One, and I think it's very interesting, the tension between extraordinary individuals, and I feel like in the history of Zen, in the history of Buddhism, there are many extraordinary individuals, and even in terms of our Sangha, many, many, many extraordinary individuals. But the tension between that and community. Very important issue. How do we come together and work together as communities and as individuals? The idea of individualism is so strong in our society that this is a really interesting place to work on. Sangha is very important. We couldn't do, you know, we couldn't have long retreats, day-long retreats like we will next week. It's hard to do on your own. Having a group of people together, many people working, so, you know, we're not part of some hierarchy like most Christian denominations, but we have a board and a practice council and people who take the Doan positions and other positions and a book director.

[32:23]

treasurer, we have many people who take on a lot of responsibility to make this work collectively. Certainly not just about me as the teacher. My job is to sit up here and talk about this stuff, but other people do as well. How do we fit together, I think again, a challenge and an opportunity, particularly for us as Americans, to support individual awakening and practice, and also how we do it together in community. So it's a very interesting question. Related to that maybe, the second one Dale pointed to was the challenge of Zen self-mastery. And he talked about The samurai tradition in Japan, great discipline, self-discipline, very important. But as opposed to the Bodhisattva tradition of compassion, gentleness and sensitivity, how do we fit those together?

[33:29]

He said that one of the strengths of American Zen so far is its feminization. And I very much agree. We've talked about that here before, that the brilliance of the feminization of Zen that's happening in American Zen. that are, I don't know what the percentage of teachers at this conference were who were women, probably more women than men. I'm not sure. But certainly, you know, pretty much on a par. And in Zen groups like this, women taking responsibility. So how do we, at the same time, have this self-discipline that's part of the Samurai Zen tradition, and then this gentler side, the side of Bodhisattva compassion? Another challenge is, some of these are related, but Zen and innovation. How do we see Zen freshly? So how do we see this fitting? This is related to actually the last one I'll mention in this context, to find what is the meaning of American Zen, that we are Americans, we're not

[34:35]

Chinese or Japanese, even though we inherited some of these forms. How do we make this American? So I think this is also part of the sense of innovation, that we need to try new things at the same time that we're taking care of, caring for this tradition of practice and teaching that we have. So these are challenges, significant challenges. Two more that he mentions. One is environmental activism. This is related to political activism, he says. But how do we find sustainable personal life and sustainable engagement with the world? And this is just based on, you know, which I and others here have talked about sometimes, the terrible danger to our environment now, the ice caps are melting, of climate change, of the horrible nuclear power and the waste that are so deadly for so long and the Fukushima meltdown.

[35:36]

Anyway, there's so many challenges to our environment. And so how do we include that in our practice? Dale cited as a challenge and an opportunity for us. And then the last one, very, very important, how do we remain attentive to suffering? So this is the basis of the compassion of the Bodhisattva way, which then is part of universal liberation. But he also emphasized locally, how do we focus on attention to the suffering around us and within us? How do we stay open to our own loss and sadness and frustration and fear? How do we respond to that in ourselves and in people in our community and in the world locally? Aisin is sponsoring for our Sagaki ceremony, a kind of food drive for the local food pantry to help people who were in need.

[36:40]

So I'll talk about that in the announcements. But that's just one example. So anyway, that was the, those are the challenges. opportunities that Dale mentioned. So that's a long list of stuff. But I think it's interesting in terms of giving us a context for thinking about what we're doing and how it fits in the tradition that we've inherited and where we're at in terms of that, in terms of making Zen American. going beyond the tradition at the same time that we take care of what's important in the tradition. So there's a lot of challenges there. And this applies to the Sangha, all of us together, and also to each of us on our own Krishna chair. How do we find our own strength and gentleness and express expression of each in our own way of this awakening awareness that we connect with in meditation. So I want to have some open discussion, but before that, briefly, please, I wanted to call on Aishin, who was also an associate member at the Soto Zen Buddhist Association meeting, the second one, and then also on Roy to talk about the branch extremes.

[37:53]

So Aishin, anything that you want to add? generally or not. There were really great talks and this was a wonderful talk to listen to and it was a lot to take in and I'm really grateful that you took such good notes. But it was really wonderful to see a number of different teachers from different traditions within Sozen. We can feel very insular and think that, well, OK, so we come here every week or whenever, however many times we come here. And we're like, OK, this is Sozen. And then to be practicing together in one place with people from all different kinds of traditions who bring different flavors, some are living in A monastery in a semi-permanent way. Some are living in more residential centers. Some are thinking about doing some ministerial training or outreach like pastoral counseling.

[39:02]

Some are more like us. And it was really great to hear the different perspectives of people whose way of understanding Zen and experiencing Zen has been shaped very much by a different context than ours. Yeah, it was a very rich experience to have all these teachers together and priests together. Thank you. Roy is our work leader and a member of our board, and he represented us at the recent Branch and Streams meeting in Houston, which is a meeting of affiliate temples of the San Francisco Zen Center Tsukuroshi lineage. So maybe you could say just a little bit about that meeting for us, Roy. It was sort of the inverse of that in that there were different flavors of different groups and talking to them, but at the same time, we had shared forms, shared ways of doing things.

[40:16]

So I always have that feeling whenever you go and sit with a group that comes from the San Francisco Design Center, it's always a sense of coming home because it's the same chance. Sometimes a little different translation, but same chance, same forms, same general approach. That was really lovely. had a lot of conversations over three days about a number of topics. It sounds like ours was much more sort of concrete, how do you do these sorts of things, rather than kind of general theoretical. So it was as simple as, OK, how do we address couples, where one is a practitioner and one isn't? How do we deal with children and the children good, lively conversation, a lot of different approaches. Some of the overall themes that I sensed was that there are a few different sorts of venues for this practice.

[41:23]

So we've got city centers, centers like this one, that are monastic practices. And there's residential, which I think of as a hybrid or in-between, where it's less And how do we practice in those different settings? And so there was different flavors. But at the same time, very much with an emphasis on there isn't this sharp line between lay and clergy in this tradition that Americans in is very much bringing And so kind of blending that and softening those distinctions, the emphasis on real life practitioners and how we can make this more approachable for them.

[42:29]

Interesting discussions on how much of This is the San Francisco Zen Center lineage kind of branching out into new areas and new communities versus those communities shaping and flavoring those practices in those communities, and how much we speak to the needs of individual communities versus bringing this preset practice to a community. I always sort of think of it like, you know, Chicago pizza versus Southwest California pizza. So those sorts of decisions. It was a wonderful meeting. We met some really incredibly wonderful people. It made me feel very good about the tradition we're in, very good about the strength of the depth of practice of people.

[43:31]

And I just had a wonderful time eating. Thank you very much, Roy. So this gives a context, all of this, to what we're doing here, which is more what we usually focus on. But I want to just open this up. Any comments or questions or responses to any of Dale's strengths and weaknesses or challenges or anything else? And I appreciate many new people. And please feel free to ask basic questions, too. Laurel. Thank you so much. That was really a walk to a storm, as Katie said. I really resonated with the strength. I loved that it was 11 and not 10. And I also shared some of your defensive reaction to the flaws, or whatever they were called. But the part that I'm most interested in thinking

[44:33]

more about is the challenges and the opportunities, which I think are just very stimulating. And I would just suggest to all of us and to our board and to our practice council and anyone who's thinking about Ancient Dragon that this could be a really interesting ongoing conversation among us. I don't have nearly enough time to even start talking about one of them today, but I find it very exciting and I really appreciate you bringing those to us. Has he written anything that we can read? He's very, very cogent. Yes, he is. He's very bright and very clear. And he has a very fine book out now, recently, on the six perfections. We've talked sometimes about the 10, but the first six are separate. I think it's in our library, which Yeah, and very practical orienting.

[45:36]

And yeah, so this talk will be on our website amongst the other audio-drama talks, so I'll recommend it to the groups you mentioned, but everyone. But do you want to just randomly pick up one of the things as challenges that struck you we could say a little bit about? Well, I mean, I'll just start with the one that's obviously related to what I do, which is connecting more to the natural environment in the way we act, in the way we practice, in the way we live our personal lives, in the way we talk. And just more explicit, it's all there. It's not like adding something different to the teachings. It's looking at the teachings through that lens that's very rich. And the people that have done that, that I've discovered so far, have greatly magnified the meaning for me.

[46:42]

And I think we've barely scratched the surface of that possibility. in things like the poetry and all of the teachings. And when I was listening to Mary Oliver on the radio this morning, as I was driving somewhere else, and I'm thinking, oh, she's the same. It's wonderful. So anyway, that's just one example. But every single one of them seemed really interesting. Thank you. Aisha? I wanted to comment on the challenge of intellect. You didn't mention something that I remember him saying, and I don't remember where it came from, but I think it came here, because I think he was talking about his understanding of Zen as being sort of anti-intellectual. The point that he was making, which I thought was great, one of the points he was making was he said something along the lines of, you know, I think we can all agree that Einstein was not just experiencing monkey mind when he was coming up with the theory of relativity, and that there is a place for intellect, and yet, you know, I think he maybe just didn't go far enough in

[48:06]

thinking about this, because although that's true, my understanding of Zen is that it is really making clear of intellect. It's not something that you can understand intellectually necessarily. is very, wants to understand things intellectually. We want to have points that we can take home and sound bites. And Zen doesn't give us that so much as you know, it's more experiential, but I wouldn't say it was anti-intellectual. You know, I guess what I was thinking in response, and what I think he actually said after saying, you know, Einstein wasn't just having monkey mind was, you know, the point is, how do we bring our Zen practice and experience and presence to And so the point is maybe finding a way to bridge those two things rather than sort of dismissing Zen as being anti-intellectual.

[49:19]

Thank you. Yeah, and I'm just looking at my notes. Let's add a couple of things. But yeah, I think he was talking about some part of the Zen tradition, which historically has been anti-intellectual. And he was focusing on that as a kind of fundamentalist aspect of some branch of Zen. But one of the things he said that I think was very interesting is from the perspective of Zen awareness, of meditative awareness, that we need to rethink the role of thinking. So to include the wider sense of awareness that we develop in meditation into how's thinking as one of our ancestors said. Yes? I think that, just listening to what you said, that is the foundation of the Americanization our experience is just in how we live our daily lives and the awareness that we gain through our meditation we bring to how we deal with people who are less fortunate or how we deal with the arts or how we deal with sharing knowledge that we have with people who don't have the knowledge that we have in terms of

[50:44]

call me an intellectual or whatever you want to call it. I think that's the American way. Yes, I agree. I would say, you know, as a Zen scholar or whatever, that it's there in our tradition, the sense of integrating the universal and the particular, the ultimate with this particular phenomenal realm. But, you know, maybe in Japan, Zen kind of got dusty and complacent, and we have this wonderful chance now, from our American perspective, to really vitalize that in terms of exactly what you were saying, how we bring this into our world and into our everyday activity. So yeah, I agree with you. Thank you. Go ahead, yeah. And then it dawned on me that it never, it just, you know, it's like one step after another.

[51:59]

Take, just give it everything you have and then the next chapter will unveil as to what you're supposed to do next. But yeah, Zen is lifelong learning, and historically, culturally, too. How do we meet new situations? And as I said to those who had Zazen instruction this morning, but it can't be said enough, to do this regularly at home in your spare time, it won't hurt you. Even if it's 20 minutes, 15 minutes, to take some time every day, or several days a week at least, to find this rhythm of just sitting and being present. going deeper and just being present and looking at what is it to be this body right here. Yes, Bill. Thank you for that talk. Would there be any way to hear the original talk or will your talk be up on the website sometime soon?

[53:03]

Your voice, including everything I said this morning, will be on the website. I don't know how soon. That's up to Nathan. I don't think that there was a recording of Dale's talk or of the SCBA conference, so you have to take it through my recollection and notes. We've done sometimes like Saturday or Sunday afternoon seminars, so I'll take that under consideration. We could do that at my university, too, if you want to... Well, I'm welcome. If you want to come have me give a talk, I'd be happy to do that. But I'd like to do a seminar or something here, too. Sure. So, can I just make a couple... Please. Just a couple of points. When you got to the, I forget which number, That could also be a point that's embodied in some of the other strengths, which is the minimalism of it, which I think is a very subtle thing, because it hides us in itself, where it's doing nothing, but it's also doing something.

[54:28]

at least momentarily, in giving us an example of disrupting the buzzing, crazy commodity logic of our society. And that has actually many ramifications. And then I think it actually could be in the weaknesses as well, this point about music. I mean, I'm a musician myself, and I'm primarily a philosopher, but I take music very seriously. I practice every day. And I have thought about what is Sotos in music in particular. Last night, I went to a really great And of course, I thought all the way throughout that this could never be zen music.

[55:49]

On the other hand, there's something to just embracing great music wherever it comes from, whether it's John Coltrane or Beethoven or whatever. But on the other hand, I think the minimalism is a good thing to think about again. There's so many other great examples of aesthetic achievement. that from Japan and from, and including Japanese classical music. But you know, it's interesting, you could not imagine somebody sort of wailing on the, you know, shakuhachi the way Jonathan Coltrane wails on the, you know, the instrument just would not bear that. And there's something to learn from that, I think. So that's going to be a direction to think about in terms of And then just lastly, very quickly, I'm basically a political philosopher, and I think there's something on that second weakness about politics, or maybe it was the third, this relationship between ethics and politics.

[56:58]

Yes, in Aristotle, there's something to think about politics being ethics writ large, but there's also something about There's something to think about ethics being politics written small. Because there's sort of a problem where if you think about ethics and try to get to politics, you won't get there. Because there's not a more general thinking of the shape of the polis. Particularly. Maybe so. Yeah. Thank you for all your comments. Thank you. No problem. You're right. We should have a seminar just on this talk. We'll do it. Maybe not in the next couple of months, but I won't forget. Gosh, we're already running late, significantly. But I want to say one thing about the aesthetics part. And with all total respect to Zen minimalism,

[58:04]

And we have in our sangha various people who are John Cage from the John Cage School of Zen. But first of all, in terms of Zen music, we're going to have to develop an American Zen music. It will happen. And I think of Coltrane and jazz people as being great Bodhisattvas. But There are different sides to the aesthetic. So recently somebody complained about that we're starting to have too many things in the zendo, too many art objects in our temples. And I gave a talk, I'm not sure if it's up on the website yet, about all of the different objects in this zendo and on the altar as dharma, as teaching. So there's the minimalist aesthetic, which I really like. But if you go to Japanese and generally to East Asian Buddhist temples, and otherwise you can see, you know, very colorful displays of lots of visual stuff.

[59:14]

And so there's a kind of dance of the, so I just want to say there's a kind of dance visual dharma, and that includes a sense of minimalism and a sense of play and space. So it's a complex topic, but I appreciate your comments. We are running way over time, but if anybody else has something you want to say, let's do one more. Yes? I think I was struck, again, and I appreciated the entire talk. In particular, being newer to the path of Buddhism, for a gentle reminder that in the States, 50 years is not that long. For me in particular, personally, having left an ordination track in a Christian tradition, and having to gently remind myself that this is a long, ongoing process of learning, and that I'm not always going to get or understand everything so quickly.

[60:19]

Some of the beauty of having to, I know that I don't have to abandon from where I came, but still that integration that's happening for me, and just an appreciation of things unfolding in the time that they're meant to be. I sometimes feel like I'm pushing, I think, to understand where I'm at now, and there's just some things that I no longer stand on my own. and sort of the opportunity for growth in Buddhism in America. And like I said, leaving behind some of the, not leaving behind, but I'm very familiar with places within Presbyterian, for instance, from which I came in, and this is how this process works. We're knowing this person the best, and I don't know these things here. So, just an appreciation. Thank you very much for your comments. Yeah, part of what we're doing, trying to bring the Bodhisattva way and Zen tradition into our lives, individually and collectively, is that it's a long, it's an endless process, it's lifelong learning of how do we bring the practice alive, and it's not

[61:37]

Even though we shouldn't be anti-intellectual or be irrational about it, to understand it is possible and important, but there are different levels of understanding and what's very important is patience. This is a process that we're not practicing just for ourselves, we're practicing for people in Chicago 50 years from now, 250 years from now, really. And all of our Western traditions of which numbers are represented here in this room today strongly, there's a way to integrate that into this practice. Thank you very much.

[62:17]

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