And when you talk about our recent visit to Japan, people are curious about what happened in our 10-day excursion. The reason for going to Japan, well, let's see, Walter and Doug and I and Steve Spooky Fumio went to Japan together to attend the 750th anniversary of Dogen's, Zen Master Dogen's passing into nirvana. This ceremony is held every 50 years So, most people only experience it once.

[01:12]

So, ceremony is very important to the Soto school in Japan and it's a kind of a big deal. This time, because of our relationship to the Soto school, they invited the foreign sanghas to participate. You know, the Japanese Soto school has always been somewhat connected but very aloof from the foreign sanghas. although they have missionaries and foreign office, there's not a lot of interaction.

[02:20]

But in the last 15 years or so, some of us have been working together with the Soto School. And the shumucho is the representation of the representatives or the, what do you call it, kind of headquarters of the Soto school, yeah. And nobody likes them particularly because they don't represent practice, they represent management. Even in Japan, they don't like them. They're not kindly to them. But anyway, but within the Shambhuksa, there are also people who practice. But anyway, presented a kind of very hard line to the foreign sanghas with some ease, a little ease.

[03:34]

But anyway, so we've been working together for the last 15 years or so to bridge the gap. But my conclusion is the gap will never be bridged by the authorities the gap will be bridged by individuals, by individual teachers and monks in Japan who are interested in relating to the foreign sanghas. So I don't worry about it, but I just keep my own interest going, and participation. But some were invited to come, and people from all over the country, about 200 people from all over the country who went to the ceremony. And there was also a tour connected with the ceremony, which was to go to the various important

[04:40]

temples that Dogen practiced at, or that were associated with Dogen. So, there are three parts to our journey. I say the three parts. The first part was arriving, we went to Suzuki Roshi's temple to begin with. Whenever I go to Japan, I always go to Suzuki Roshi's temple and to his son, who is the abbot. And it's a wonderful temple in Yaizu. Yaizu is in the prefecture of Shizuoka. And Shizuoka is kind of in the middle of Japan on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. and they have a lot of tea plantations. It's the place where some of the best tea in Japan comes from.

[05:45]

And at the temple, which is up against the mountain in Yaizu, it's surrounded by tea plantations, cemeteries and tea plantations. So if you walk up the mountain behind the temple, which is very steep, steep little trail that goes up to the top of the mountain, which we did, there's this wonderful tea plantation on top of the mountain, and it's very quiet and still and enormous. You know, the tea plantations, they just go on and on. And up at the top of the mountain, maybe you see one person or two people working in the tea plants. And it's just very serene up there. It's just a wonderful feeling to be up there in that kind of serenity of these well-taken-care-of plants.

[06:48]

When I think about tea now, I think about drinking in that serenity. which is infused from that place. So we spent a couple of nights there. Rob Anderson was there with a lot of his students from Green Gulch, and they were just staying there. So we didn't stay too long, and we went to Kyoto, to our hotel. Then we went to Eheji and visited some temples on the way. One of the most interesting temples was Hokyo-ji. Hokyo-ji was a temple that was founded by Jokowin.

[07:53]

Jokowin was a Chinese monk who followed Dogen back from China when Dogen went to China. Dogen went to China and studied with Ruijing, his teacher, and then when he came back, Jokowin followed him back later. and he was very young and served as a Jisha to a Dogan and then later founded his own temple and this temple is just everybody just felt that this temple was the high point of their stay there, because there's something about it up in the mountains and up on a hillside. And Jacoan was a very simple monk, you know, he was a good teacher and a simple monk.

[08:57]

And he begged, he did takahatsu, begging in the town, which is quite a distance from the mountain. until he was about 90, with a dog and an ox. So he'd go through the town with his dog and his ox, and the people would feed the dog, and they'd feed the ox, and they'd put something in his bowl. So this was a kind of trademark of Jacoan. And I had met the abbot there, who had actually come through and visited here on his way to the East Coast some years ago. And I had a good contact with him. And so when we visited that place, we remembered each other. People said, if I ever go back to Japan, this is the place I want to practice at.

[10:02]

And it's probably possible. if you ever want to do that. But it's strict practice. They don't have a lot of monks practicing in those temples. Temples are quite large, and maybe eight or ten monks practice at a place like that. But they have a strict practice, and they keep the place going. So when we got to Eheji, Eheji is a huge place. It's the head temple of the, there are two head temples of the Soto school. One is Eheji, the other is Sojiji. And Eheji was founded by Dogen, and Sojiji was founded by Keizan. And Keizan is the fourth generation from Dogen. Dogen brought the teaching of the Cao Dong, or Soto school, to Japan.

[11:04]

And Kaizan created the Soto school. The kind of formality and the chanting that we do and all of that was created mostly by Kaizan. Zen doesn't have any formality. In Zen there are no Zen chants or although it looks like it because we do these, the Heart Sutra and all these chants, but these are all kind of borrowed from other schools of Zen, and Keizan borrowed, used the esoteric school's chanting and formalities, a lot of the forms, and incorporated them into the Soto school. And then he sent out a lot of, he had a lot of disciples who went to various parts of Japan and spread the Soto school and created a lot of temples.

[12:12]

So really the Soto school starts from Keizan. And Suzuki Roshi, when he brought our teaching to America, he didn't pay any attention to Keizan. He talked a lot about Dogen and presented Dogen's teaching, but he didn't really present Keizan's teaching. He said, Keizan is not so relevant to us. And, you know, we have a scroll that we hang up and we have the founder ceremony that Suzuki Roshi gave to me. And the three names on it are Shakyamuni, Dogen and Bodhidharma, but in Japan those three would be Shakyamuni, Dogen and Keizan. There was a lot of stuff that Suzuki-goshi didn't bring with him to pass on to us.

[13:27]

He kind of cut it off at a certain point so that our practice would not be influenced so much by a lot of things in Japan. and would be more pure, in a way. So, you know, when we first started, when we practiced the Suzuki Roshi, we chanted the Heart Sutra three times in Japanese. That was our service. And we didn't have all the other chants. Those were introduced later on, with his permission. He was not so interested in giving us a lot of baggage from Japan. Now, and by this connection with the Soto school, comes a lot of this stuff that Sasaki Yoshi didn't introduce. So, I have a little mixed feelings about that, but it's okay.

[14:32]

We have to make some decisions on what we accept and what we use and what we don't. But anyway, it's good to know what all those things are that we missed. But when we went to Eheji, Eheji is a huge place. Eheji is Dogen's place. Soljiji is Kezon's head temple. And these two head temples are quite large places, monasteries. And they have a kind of competition with each other, but they also have an exchange with each other. And so we went to AAG, and I was given a nice room by myself, and they even brought me my own, my meals.

[15:43]

So I was kind of an honored guest in a way, you know. They tried to treat us very nicely. They're running it out of their way to treat us nicely. I have to say. But you know, AHE is a very busy place. Very busy. Some months ago, because they needed financial aid, which, you know, was lacking at the time, they decided that they would build a guest house, a huge guest house, so that people could stay, guests could stay. And so, the result of that is that they have these great groups of people, large groups of people, that are continuously touring the place. So sometimes you walk down the hall and then there's just this river of people trying to get upstream, you know. If you're running away, if it's really worth it to go against the traffic.

[16:49]

Anyway, so the place is very busy and part of the monk's practice there is crowd control. management, you know, making sure that everybody gets through okay. And so in a way, there was a kind of hastiness and a busyness to our program. because the monks are so used to doing it. And so the people who went, there were about 200 people on this tour, felt a little bit pushed around. But still, they were being very kind and trying not to do that. But it's hard to avoid that. But anyway, I myself felt very well taken care of. I had known some of the people, some of the monks there, who had been back and forth to America, and I knew them over a period of time, and some of them were taking care of me, and it felt very good.

[17:56]

One of them always called me Tofu Roshi. It was when Sun Tzu Moon was doing Tofu Roshi. And when he came to America he said, you know, I have a sneaking suspicion you're Tofu Roshi. So I had that kind of connection. So I had a role. My role was called the san-doshi. And I was an integral part of the monks' practice, the monks' service. And they chose four Americans to, American teachers, to do four ceremonies representing kind of four parts of the country. And so Reb was representing Green Gulch and Zen Center.

[18:59]

But it said Green Gulch. I was surprised that they didn't say Zen Center. But I think Green Gulch takes itself a little bit apart from Zen Center. So I was a little dismayed by that. But so Reb was one of the presenters, and the presenters would make a short talk to Dogen, about Dogen, in a very elaborate or formal ceremony. So each one of those people would have a very formal ceremony, and as the Sendoshi, I would lead each one into the Hato, the place where they do the ceremony, and then I would participate with the monks, then I would lead them out. So that was my job. And so we had these four ceremonies in one day. and then that the way they divided it up was the Japanese had their ceremony by themselves and then the Europeans had their ceremonies the day before us and then we had our ceremonies the day after the Europeans and then the evening of our talk of our ceremonies we had a

[20:17]

kind of get together where some people gave presentations or little lectures and I gave one of the talks about the state of Zen in America. They always ask me to talk about the state of Zen in America. But I was very, people were very disappointed because what I would have expected and what other people would have expected was that the Europeans and Americans have a chance to get together and talk to each other, you know, and have some It's a meeting, but the Europeans were not kind of like this, rather than like this. And the Europeans left, you know, the next day and then we went on our tour. So that was kind of disappointing that this kind of lack of interaction and communication, you know, the kind of formality takes over. This is a characteristic of Japan. is that the formality takes over and there's a certain kind of groping for something more that isn't there.

[21:30]

So that was very disappointing. I felt that it was an opportunity missed through the need to function. The need to function takes over from the need to interact. So that's going to be one of my complaints when I talk to them. We haven't had a review yet. So then we did a lot of bus riding, coming from one temple to another. The temples are all wonderful, you know, and it's really nice to go. And so when we visited these various temples, The priests would line up and then one of us would do a service at the temple. And then we'd have some tea or something like that. So that was nice, but it was tiring, a little tiring doing all that bus riding.

[22:41]

After that, all that was over, then Walter and I and Steve went to Kyoto and stayed in a nice ryokan, old-fashioned ryokan, and walked around town. And we were invited by the abbot of Myoshinji, Mishinji is a Rinzai temple. The abbot, his name is Noritake. I met Noritake years ago, in the 70s, when he and Yamada Roshi, who was the head of the Rinzai school, came to visit Tassajara. And I remember Noritake was His Jisha.

[23:45]

Momonroshi was this wonderful little man, very short, typical Japanese, about five feet tall. And he had this wonderful white beard and a wonderful demeanor, very kind. And they participated with us in the Zen Do to see what our practice was like. And I remember showing him Oryoki. because the Bunzai school doesn't use orioke in the way we do. They use what's called jihatsu. It's a bowl and they eat with their fingers in Indian style. So I showed him that and then when I went to Myoshinji, he invited the five of us to come and I remembered him, and he remembered me, and he served us this wonderful lunch. There's a Zen cooking called kaiseki, which is vegetarian, and it's very special

[24:59]

little dishes. Each dish is unique and surprising and tasty. It's an incredible world to eat. There's actually a place up here on Shattuck that serves a kind of kaiseki. It's a little hole in the wall, but it's very busy. It's called Chaya. They have a kind of kaiseki And so this is about 10 or 12 courses. The monks would come out and serve course after course to us. So that was a kind of highlight of our trip, one of the highlights. One of the temples we were supposed to visit but didn't because we were too busy was Keninji. Keninji was just a couple of blocks away from our ryokan, so I went and visited it myself.

[26:06]

And I had been there before. That's where Myozen's ashes are. Togen brought Myozen's ashes back and buried them at Keninji. And Keninji is where Eisai was the abbot when Dogen started to practice Zen. It's a Rinzai temple. Dogen studied on Mount Hiei, which was the center of the Ten Daisect. That's what most monks practiced, who were serious about practicing. The Tendai and the Shingon were the two major schools of Buddhism in Japan, in Dogen's time, in the 13th century. And so Bergen studied on Mount Hiei, too.

[27:08]

And we actually visited his ordination place, which is on a hillside, sort of his place. They couldn't locate it exactly, but they built a nice monument there. But Dogen was not quite satisfied with his training on Mount Hiei. He knew there was something more, so he visited Eisai at Keninji in Kyoto. And Eisai had gone to China and brought back the Rinzai teaching. And he tried to institute the Zen school in Japan. And Douyin visited him and really got inspired by Eisai and wanted to practice Zen. And the reason he went to China was to find a teacher who could really teach him Zen.

[28:14]

Now, Esai made a big effort to introduce a Zen school into Japan, but the problem was that the other schools resented that because all the schools felt, we include Zen practice in our teaching. There is no Zen school. Zen school is just a part of the teaching of our schools. So the Tendai school is a kind of eclectic school. All of the teachings of Buddhism are included in Tendai teaching. So they practice the various meditation practices and they study the various doctrines of Buddhism in an eclectic way. So, and the Shingon school is a kind of esoteric school, like the Tibetans. And they feel, both of those schools felt, we have Zen incorporated into our schools.

[29:29]

There's no need for a separate Zen school. So, Eisai was kind of stymied. He wanted to have a separate Zen school, but politically he couldn't do it. So his teaching was also diluted by the teachings of the other schools, which were mostly ceremonial schools and academic schools. Pure Zen was not much Zen. So when Dongen went to China, he wasn't hampered by that when he came back. He didn't feel that he had to pay service to the other schools. He was actually quite radical. And so he said, you know, at first he came back and he couldn't do much in the beginning. He said that in Bendoa.

[30:31]

I couldn't do much in the beginning, so I just waited for the opportunity to do something. And little by little, he began his own school. So at Koshoji, which burned down, doesn't really exist anymore, We did visit that, and then later he went to—he inaugurated his teaching at AHAG, which he founded. Dogen was rather radical in introducing the Zen school because he had a lot of opposition and people were quite angry at him and you know in those days they had this, the Tendai school, the Shingon school had soldier monks and they had these armies and they burned down each other's temples it was not easy

[31:44]

to start your own school in Japan at that time. And the government was always part of all that too. And government control is very tight and has always been tight in Japan. So it's not until the Meiji era and after that that there was some loosening up of and some freedom of the schools. So the monks all had to register with the government. So anyway, we had a good time in Kyoto, did a little shopping. I bought this nice little bell. I don't know whether it really fits here or not, but maybe we'll see. But it has a nice, very nice sound. I wanted to buy a bell, a small bell, when I went to Japan. When I went there last time, I found this Buddhist store that sells stuff like that, and outside they had a bell like that on display.

[33:00]

You know, the bells are, the old bells are handmade, and the newer bells are cast. But the handmade bells are made out of one piece of bronze, and then They pound it, and as they pound it, they lift up the sides, so it has all these little pounding marks on it. And it's a handmade bell, and the sound is much superior to a cast bell. It has all these wonderful overtones. So I wanted to get a bell like that. So anyway, I went to this place, and when I saw the bell the first time, I didn't buy it. I'm kind of a cheapskate, you know. But I've given up being a cheapskate. And when I see something I want to buy, I buy it. Mostly. Not always. Are you getting a new car?

[34:05]

I have a new car. It was made in 1985. I was just letting them know. So this time, I went, and there was this bell in exactly the same place, a different bell, but just as good. And I bought it right away. What did it cost? Not so much. With the beater and the pad, it was 30,000 yen, which is about $2.50. The yen now is $1.20. Now it's $1.25. Then it was $1.20. Now it's $1.25. It's really going down. So this is a good time to shop in Japan. We have an expert here.

[35:11]

A little harder. It just keeps going on and on. It has a lot of different sounds, depending on how you get a lot of different sounds out of it. So that was, I'm glad I did that. So maybe you have some questions. Yeah, Paul. Thank you. What language was spoken? What language was spoken? Well, I spoke my own language. Everybody speaks their own language, and then you just understand it.

[36:15]

We were fortunate to have Fumio with us. Fumio, she practices here from time to time, and she's a physicist. She and Doug know each other as physicists for the last 30 years, and she practiced with Suzuki Roshi. And so I've known her for a long time. And she had us at the airport when we landed and traveled with us. And so she did a lot of grunt work for us, you know, translating and getting tickets and stuff like that, you know. So that was helpful. But we didn't have any problem with language. Most languages, you know, most communication with me, and I never had any problem really, it's just body language.

[37:20]

You know, you say, you know, and then a few words here and there that work, and it all works. It all works. I remember when I was shuso at Tassajara, Tatsugami was his first practice period with us at Tassajara. That was 1970. And he didn't speak any English, I didn't speak any Japanese, and we understood each other really well. We did have some interpreters, but Most of the interpreters didn't speak very much Japanese until Kyle Geary got there. But we just communicated through body language, you know, and it all worked. And he even talked to me in Japanese. He'd just say something, and I would understand what he said, even though I don't know any Japanese. I understood from his intention, you know.

[38:25]

And I may have missed a few things. Basically they all work so that works In Japan when the priests and monks are performing ceremonies, what did the what did the lay people do? They just they sit in Seiza a lot of Seiza and their kind of audience and I was participating with the monks in the ceremony, the only gaijin, which is unusual. It's unusual to have somebody that isn't a Japanese monk perform with them. And then it was also unusual, this was the first time that anybody spoke in the ceremony as an officiant in a language that wasn't Japanese in 750 years. So they're kind of milestones, you know.

[39:32]

So that was significant. Some breaking down, you know. There's a lot of resistance to foreign influence, a lot of resistance. I mean, even though, you know, you feel, oh, they're backing up, you know, and they're making space. the wall comes up again. And then they back out and make some space. So it's one step forward and two steps back. One step forward and two steps back. It's for the last 15 years that I've been working with them. You think, oh, now it's really going to open up. And then, so they have a revolving door. And you think the door is going to bang. Yes. That was fun hearing about that. At first when you said they're, you know, at the one place that they're really busy and I thought, what are they really busy doing?

[40:38]

And then you started talking about all these people coming through and I thought, well, yeah, it'd be pretty busy. But I'm curious about, were there very many women that were at the temples or did they, women play a role or anything? They really did play a role. We've lobbied for women taking roles, you know, and we've kind of forced them, in a way, to recognize women. We meaning Westerns? Yeah, us. And this woman, Diane Benage, studied in Japan, you know, as a as a nun for 20 years, and speaks Japanese fluently. Now she's in Pennsylvania, and so they always invite her. They trust her. So she did a lot of the ceremonies, and so they have a lot of respect for her. And they also have a lot of respect for other women.

[41:39]

Branch Hartman, who is the abbess of Zen Center, is my deshi, disciple. And so getting her registered as a dendokyoshi, I won't explain that, was really difficult. But they finally did that, you know. And they just put up all these barriers. But we just kept working to get through the barriers. And now it's still this problem. It's still a problem. But they treat women a lot better than they used to. And whenever we have you know, women, when we have some ceremonies, I mean, we always say, you know, we want, you know, you have to accept women doing these things.

[42:48]

And they do, they do that. So, little by little, you know, we're imposing our values on them. That's true. Yes? Well, you kind of explained it, a little bit there, but I'm sort of wondering why it sounds so deadeningly bureaucratic and time-consuming. And I'm sort of wondering why. Why what? Why bother? Why bother? Yes. I think the argument for bringing, you know, some women into practice is important. So that I can understand. Why bother with women at all, right? Yeah. Because I feel it's better to bother with them than to ignore them. In other words, this is like, there's this whole country, you know, where our practice came from.

[43:51]

And, you know, it's like the seat of the practice. So, I remember Suzuki Roshi said, you know, when they need reform, And the reform comes from us. It's not going to come from them. I'm not saying that I'm their reformer. But I really feel an obligation to help them. And there are a lot of people that appreciate that in Japan. There are a lot of people who don't. But to actually contact the people who who want to do that and to make some connection, to make some flow going back and forth, I think is important. So I'm never offended by all that. It's like I want to go to the heart of the thing and not get tossed around on the sea of all this resistance.

[44:54]

So it doesn't bother me really. I don't get bothered by it. I'm so used to it and I kind of understand it. And so I just keep working to make connections. So you're a missionary? Yeah, I'm a missionary. I'm a missionary to Japan. Besides you and Reb, who are the other two Americans? There are three. Well, Reb did one of the presentations, and Diane Bonnage gave one, and Dido gave one. And the fourth one was, oh, I'll remember. I'm trying to remember. That was four. That's your name. You were seven. No, it was three. I didn't do a presentation.

[45:56]

I don't know the name of that question. What did we lose out on, and what are we gaining now here in America through Khezan's teachings? We're not really studying so much Khezan's teaching. We could study Khezan's teaching, which is fine. It's good teaching. Say something about ceremonies. Are the ceremonies that we do now kind of reflect his influence? Well, the ceremonies we do now, actually, are ancient ceremonies. You know, Kaizen's teaching permeated the whole sort of school.

[47:02]

It's not just his side.

[47:04]

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