This is the first day of our weekend, today's study seshin. This study seshin is something that we haven't done before. It's a combination of study and zazen. I've done this before, other places, but not here. And in this study session, we're studying Dogen Zenji's Tenzo Kyokun. Can't hear? Turn it up. You hear better? I will tell you as soon as we get this. Okay, it sounds pretty loud to me.

[01:27]

So I don't know if you heard me in the back, but we're studying Dogen Zenji's Tenzo Kyokun, which is a teaching for the Tenzo, or the cook, head cook in the monastery. Dogen's teaching here is different than what we read in his Shobo Genzo, in his 95 fascicles of understanding what Buddhism is. Tenzo Kyokun belongs to the side of practice which is called Shingi.

[02:31]

Shingi means praxis, or the practical side of how you do something. So what's good about the Shinggi is that he uses examples of the old masters and how they actually did things, how they worked and what was their understanding of practice through their activity. So today, The first part, its introduction, is the public lecture, and then the rest of the time will be the class. So there are two things.

[03:39]

The most important aspect to understand throughout this whole piece is that what Dogen is talking about is what we call shikantaza, just doing. It's a little more than just doing. It's doing something, whatever we do, thoroughly. there's a word gujjan, which means something like profound, but it also means thorough. And thorough has the feeling of when you do something, no matter what it is, in a phenomenal world, it's also something in the world of emptiness. So that's thoroughness, the realm of form and the realm of emptiness, to not be one-sided.

[04:50]

So everything we do has a feeling of sacredness, as well as nothing special. So, it's about our everyday life and about, not just about cooking, cooking is a kind of metaphor for whatever we do. Sometimes it's called cooking your life. So, Dogen starts out by saying, From ancient times and communities practicing the Buddha's way, there have been six officers established to oversee the affairs of the community. Those holding each office are all disciples of the Buddha, and they all carry out the activities of a Buddha through their respective offices.

[06:05]

Among these offices is the Tenzo, who carries a responsibility for preparing the community's meals. The six officers in the monastery are the director, which we call, I call the coordinator in our sangha. Most sanghas call it the director, but I call You notice we don't have a director. I call him coordinator because director sounds like, can easily be construed as pushing people around. But coordinator means creating harmony in the community. And then there's the, usually assistant director, but we've eliminated that from our, And then there's the treasurer and the tenzo, the head cook, the work leader, and the shikha.

[07:11]

Shikha is like the person who, in a monastery, tends to the outside world, relationships with the outside world. But in our sangha, it's someone who helps people to orient them through our practice. So these are the six officers and in each one of these positions one, as he says, carries out the activity of a Buddha through their respective practices. So if you're the work leader, how do you carry out the work of a Buddha? in being, directing the work and helping people, setting things up. Not just, these positions are not called jobs.

[08:14]

I always make a differentiation between positions and jobs. A job is some, usually we think of a job as going to work every day, and you do something for a reward called money. That's your job. Job doesn't have to have that kind of connotation, but I think of it as positions. Your position within the community in relation to all the rest of the positions that each person has. So how do you create harmony from your position? How do you see the whole practice from your position? In this community, we based the design of this community as a kind of quasi-monastic community, taking the elements of a community, of a monasticism, and adapting them to a lay practice.

[09:22]

which is somewhat unique in the world. So our practice has these kind of formal aspects to it and positions. We rotate our positions and each one of us learns how to function with the community through that position. So it's not just a job. It's a practice position and a position in which you learn how to practice with the community. And each one is different, so you see the practice of the community from a different aspect according to your position. And then you develop a well-rounded practice because you understand how everything works. and you help the practice to work and the practice helps you to mature.

[10:26]

So Dogen is using the Tenzo, or the head cook, as an example. He also has written Ehe Shingi, within the Ehe Shingi, the examples for each one of these positions. And very interesting. So he says, it is written in the Chang Yuan Qing Hui, just to say, Chang Yuan Qing Hui is Pai Chang's monastic rules, which are long lost. but they're fragments that are still, in Dogen's time, were still extant. And so he bases a lot of his authority on the Chan-Yuan-Kung-Wi, and he refers to it a lot. So it is written in the Chan-Yuan-Kung-Wi that the function of the Tenzo is to manage meals for the community

[11:41]

This work has always been carried out by teachers settled in the way and by others who have aroused the bodhisattva spirit within themselves. Such a practice requires exhausting all your energies. If one entrusted with this work lacks such a spirit, then that one will only endure unnecessary hardships and suffering that will have no value in pursuit of the way. So I want to talk about that a little bit. If you see the work of the Tenzo or cooking as a job or something that you have to do, then you kind of have a miserable time. But if you see it as practice, as the enjoyment of feeding the Sangha in a selfless manner, what you do becomes joyful and you feel light rather than heavy.

[12:48]

You feel like what you're doing is neither hard nor easy, but it's not a burden. Often our job becomes a burden, but our position, our practice position should never be a burden. If it's a burden, it's some problem. there's in our attitude. So, Dogen is saying, we put ourself totally into what we're doing, totally become the position. And then there's, we let go of the problems that come up through self-centeredness or hang on to our ego. So he's quoting again from the Chanyuang Quingwi, and he says, put your awakened mind to work and make a constant effort to serve meals full of variety that are appropriate to the need and the occasion, and that will enable everyone to practice with their bodies and minds with the least hindrance.

[14:11]

A meal full of variety according to the occasion. This can be very misleading. And later on, Dogen talks about how we should be able to use the humblest ingredients to make the most wonderful meal. And this is actually the great challenge that makes practice of the Tenzo enjoyable. is, how do you take the most humble ingredients and make the tastiest, most nourishing and enjoyable meal? And he says, full of variety. That can be misleading. Usually, monastic meals are quite simple and undernourishing. In America, we've gone to great lengths to experiment with food and come up with certain kinds of food which satisfy most people.

[15:26]

Everyone has their exceptions, but Suzuki Roshi asked us to make a few simple things that we serve kind of in rotation, that we should not be too extravagant or try to please everybody in some way, but the meals should be nourishing and simple. And variety is important. But when we try to make things, it's easy to get fancy. And when we start getting fancy, we start losing our simplicity and our feeling of fundamental way of eating. Main thing, you know, is to bring out the quality of whichever ingredient we're working with, rather than covering it over with something to change its essence.

[16:33]

And this is exactly what we do with students. We don't want to change students into something that they're not. We want to bring out the quality that's inherent in each person. So our practice is to be ourself and within the practice to let emerge your true personality. and let go of ego and self-centeredness. So it's exactly the same thing when you're working with ingredients. How do you bring out the quality of a piece of lettuce or a piece of broccoli or a carrot? How do you let that stand by itself or use just the right amount of seasoning that brings it out without changing it? without turning it into something else or covering over its true nature.

[17:35]

So he says, down through the ages, many great teachers and ancestors, such as Guishan Lingyu and Dongshan Xuchu, have served as Tenzo, Although the work is just that of preparing meals, it is in spirit different from the work of an ordinary cook or kitchen helper. I remember that Suzuki Hiroshi would not let an experienced cook into the kitchen, or be the head of the kitchen, like a famous cook somewhere. Also, It's important, you know, for the spirit of practice to not be too competent. Or I mean, what I mean by that is an expert in some way of doing something.

[18:46]

We try to avoid letting us use our expertise to do something. but simply our unlearned mind. So that when we work with something, we have to use all of our intuition rather than our learning to make something work. We depend so much often on what we've learned which covers our intuition. So when we let go of that, we have to dig deeper so that our intuition comes forth. And instead of measuring everything, we know how much to use through our intuition. I remember when I was at the practice period at Tassajara a couple of years ago, leading the practice period,

[19:55]

Nobody knew how to make a salad dressing. You can't believe that, can you? I couldn't believe it. I said, they were just pouring oil in. They said, no, can't you make a salad dressing? Nobody knew how. So I said, I'll make you a salad dressing. So they gave me some people to watch, to watch me make the salad dressing. And I just took the ingredients and put a little of this, a little of that, and they stood around with their pencils and paper. And I said, put the pencils and paper away. You just, so much of this and so much of that. And your intuition tells you when you're used to eating a salad with good salad dressing, you know how much to put in. So, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and you feel it out. So then they started making salad dressings called Mel salad dressings.

[20:57]

When I was in China, I was talking about going to China, Dogen went to China when he was fairly young and he wanted to find out what Chinese Zen was. So when I was in China, I talked in my spare time with many older monks who had years of experience working in the various offices, and they taught me a little bit of what they had learned in their work. What they had to say must surely be the marrow of what has been handed down through the ages by previous Buddhas and ancestors settled in the way. We should thoroughly study the Chan-Yuan-Kung-Wi concerning the overall work of the Tenzo, and moreover, listen closely to what those who have done before this work have to tell regarding the details."

[22:12]

Then he talks about how to proceed from the noon meal. He says, I shall now take up the work of the Tenzo covering a period of one complete day And he says after the noon meal, the tenzo should go to the various officers and get the rice and vegetables and other ingredients for the following morning in the noon meals. And once he has these, to handle them carefully as if they were his own eyes. Ren Yong of Bao Neng said, use the property and possessions of the community as carefully as if they're your own eyes. the Tenzo should handle all food received with respect as if it were to be used in a meal for the emperor. Cooked and uncooked food must be handled in the same manner." So the feeling here is that the food demands our respect, whatever it is, the ingredients, they should not be handled carelessly or taken for granted.

[23:20]

In our meal chant, we say, may our virtue and practice deserve this meal. And some people sometimes say, well, I deserve this meal. Really? The feeling of privilege, you know, because we eat three meals a day and we take it for granted that the next one is coming. And we should have it, and blah, blah, blah. But actually, it's a great gift to have each meal. Life is very precarious. Someday you'll walk into the grocery store and there won't be anything there.

[24:22]

That will happen. So everything that we eat, we should treat with great respect. As a matter of fact, he's talking about not just food, he's talking about everything. The furniture, the building, each other, everything should be treated with great respect. In Soto school, there's all this bowing. We bow to the cushion, we bow to the incense, we bow to the seasoning, we bow, you know, bowing, bowing, bowing. What's that all about? It's about paying great respect to everything we meet. It's different than our usual way of just taking everything for granted. So eventually it kind of soaks in, hopefully.

[25:30]

So next he says, all the officers meet in the kitchen or pantry and decide what food is to be prepared for the following day. And for instance, the type of rice gruel, the vegetables, the seasoning. And he says, when deciding on the amount of food and the number of side dishes for the morning and new day meals, the Tenzo should consult with the other officers. And then he names all the officers. Well, that's idealistic. My experience as being the abbot of a monastery is that that is very idealistic and it doesn't work that way. But it's great, good idea. We should consult. We shouldn't just be doing something on our own. And the more people that can consult, the better. Tassajara, once every now and then, we would have a meeting with, all the officers would have a meeting with the Tenzo to talk about the quality of the food and how it was prepared and so forth.

[26:44]

And by the end of the meeting, the Tenzo would be broken down into tears. Everybody trying to be as nice as they could. Criticism is terrible for people. Anyway, the general feeling is that there should be consultation and there should be decisions not just made by one person. So then he talks about when this has been done, preparations for the next morning's meal can begin. and you must not leave the washing of rice or preparation of vegetables to others, but must carry out this work with your own hands." So what he's saying is that Tenzo takes responsibility for everything. In his day it was very different than it is in today, in our day, but the feeling is that other people do the work

[27:48]

that in Dogen's time, that Tenzo did. But the Tenzo more supervises and makes sure everything gets done. But the person is responsible for everyone. And whatever the workers do, the Tenzo takes the flak for. So, do not overlook one drop And he says, don't be absent-minded in your activities, nor so absorbed in one aspect of a matter that you fail to see its other aspects. This is important because it's easy to get focused and concentrated on one thing and forget what's around you. So one has to keep awareness of your surroundings as well as what we're doing. in all aspects of our life, not just in the kitchen.

[28:53]

And the interesting thing about the kitchen, the kitchen is a wonderful place to practice, because you have five or six people working together, and they're all doing different activities, and they're all moving around each other, and each person has to be aware of what that task is, and at the same time, to be aware of what everyone else is doing. So that, to create a harmony of activity, and then you have thoughts, feelings, and emotions. And you have thoughts, feelings, and emotions about different personalities, and you have criticism coming up, and you have mistakes being made, and all kinds of things going on, and you have to find your stability and your harmonious mind.

[30:04]

So it's the best practice there is, really. And that's why Dogen singles this out. you're concerned with what you're doing and you're concerned with how you're creating harmony where you are as well as feeding the community. So we're always working toward greater stability and greater, I wrote something down here, composure, composure and stability. So, he says, when washing the rice, oh I'm sorry,

[31:09]

He said, in the Tenzo, if the Tenzo offers a meal without a harmony of the six flavors and the three qualities, it cannot be said that he serves the community. So six flavors are bitter, sour, sweet, salty, mild, and hot. I don't see how you can cook a meal without any one of those. And then the three virtues are light and flexible, clean and neat, conscientious and thorough. So all these qualities should be present. How you balance, not just choosing things that you think are pleasant, but how all these dishes work together. To have something light balanced with something that's heavy. in dishes, that's not balanced.

[32:15]

If you have three wet dishes, that's not balanced. If you have three dry dishes, that's not balanced. So light and heavy, and something intermediate, wet and dry, and something that ties all that together. heavy and light, and so forth. So this is called refinement. That kind of sensibility is how we refine our own mind. So he says, when washing the rice, remove any sand you find. In doing so, do not lose even one grain of rice. When you look at the rice, see the sand at the same time. When you look at the sand, see also the rice. Examine both carefully.

[33:17]

Then a meal containing the six flavors and the three qualities will come together naturally." I don't know about that statement. I understand it intuitively, but I don't quite get it mentally. It talks about the sand and the rice, but sand and rice stand for something besides just sand and rice. It stands for duality. sand and rice. So when you look at all the qualities, take into consideration all the qualities, then your chances of coming out, of allowing the process to work itself out will be more propitious.

[34:20]

So rice is kind of like enlightenment, and sand is like delusion. I mean, I'll just leave that alone. Shui Feng was once the Tenzo under Dong Zhang, One day while Shui Feng was washing the rice, Dong Shan happened to pass by and he asked, do you wash the sand and pick out the rice or wash the rice and pick out the sand? I wash and throw away both the sand and the rice together. What's his answer? Shui Feng replied, then what on earth do the residents here eat?

[35:24]

Dong Shan pressed again, in reply, Shui Feng turned over the rice basket. Dong Shan said, that day will come when you will practice under another master. Turning over the rice basket, this is a very radical kind of, Dong Shan's, reply, you will someday practice under another master, meaning something like, there's no need to be so dramatic in your answer. But then, we don't know whether the rice basket was full of rice or not. You may have just turned over the basket, but it was dramatic, you turned over the rice. What does that mean? I throw them both out together, right? I wash and throw away both the sand and the rice together.

[36:30]

It really doesn't have to do with rice. It has to do with, he's talking about non-discrimination. So I don't discriminate. I discriminate, but my discrimination is based not on preference, it's based on what really works. So there's a whole discussion of, there's a koan which is more than we can go into here. But basically it's based on discrimination and non-discrimination. It's based on non-preference. You pick out the sand. If you wash the sand and pick out the rice, they wash the rice and pick out the sand.

[37:33]

and say, throw them both out together. No preference. So in this way, the great teachers from earliest times who were settled in the way have carried out their work with their own hands. How are we inexperienced practitioners of today, this is the 13th century, remain so negligent in our practice? Those who have come before us have said the way-seeking mind of a Tenzo is actualized by rolling up your sleeves. In order not to lose any of the rice when picking out the sand, do it carefully with your own hands. Again, in the Chan-Nuang Quing-Wi, we find, pay full attention to your work in preparing the meal. Attend to every aspect yourself so that it will naturally turn out well. Next, you should not carelessly throw away the water that remains after washing the rice.

[38:50]

Since olden times, a cloth bag has been used to filter out the water when it is thrown away. When you have finished washing the rice, put it into the cooking pot and take special care lest a mouse accidentally falls into it. under no circumstances allow anyone who happens to be drifting by through the kitchen to poke his fingers around or look into the pot. Do you know about the snake? Some people know about the snake. One day there was a teacher who was being served by his attendant in the zendo, I guess, and When they were chopping the vegetables, I guess maybe it was gobo they were chopping, which looks kind of like a snake. And he chopped off the head of a snake and it went into the pot.

[40:03]

So then he was serving the soup to the teacher, and the teacher said, what's this in my soup? And the attendant picked it up and said, oh wow, delicious. That's called eating the blame. Okay, so he talks about cleaning everything up and so forth. And then, he says, after the work has been done, it's time to prepare for the following day's meal. And so you should check to see whether there are any insects or peas or rice bran or tiny stones in the rice, and carefully winnow them out. Oh yeah, they said, when choosing the rice and vegetables to be used, those working under the tenzo should offer sutras to the spirit of the stove and then begin preparing the ingredients for whatever side dish and soup there might be, cleaning everything thoroughly of any dirt or insects.

[41:26]

And you should never complain about the quality or quantity when you're receiving the food, but always handle everything with the greatest care and attention. Nothing could be worse than to complain about too much or too little of something of an inferior quality. Well, you know, in the olden days, they always offered sutras to the spirits of the stove and so forth. And when we got a new stove at Tassajara, I remember, We named it, and I think I named it something like Red Dragon because it was a beautiful stove and it had a red lining or something on it. And then I made a calligraphy, and then the whole kitchen crew, you know, chanted sutras and kind of welcomed the stove into the kitchen.

[42:34]

And I thought, this is kind of superstitious, but how wonderful to be superstitious. But I think that it's meaningful and it imbues, you know, it recognizes these objects as part of ourself and it gives us a relationship to things. So he says, both day and night, allow all things to come into and reside within your mind. Allow your mind and all things to function together as a whole. Before midnight, direct your attention to organizing the following day's work. And after midnight, begin preparation for the morning meal. And my question is, when does the Tenzo sleep? But the day starts at midnight, in those old days, the day started at midnight.

[43:46]

Keep your eyes open. Do not allow even one grain of rice to be lost. Wash the rice thoroughly. Put it in the pot. Light the fire and cook it. There's an old saying that goes, see the pot as your own head. See the water as your lifeblood. So then he talks about how the tenzo should always be present and not depend on his assistants. And Tenzo must be present, paying careful attention to the rice and soup while they are cooking. And this is true whether the Tenzo does the work by himself or has assistants helping with the cooking or tending the fires. Even though the larger monasteries, recently people have been placed in charge of cooking the soup or the rice. And the Tenzo should not forget that these people are assistants working under him and cannot be held responsible for this work. So in the old times, the tenzo was completely in charge and there were no such assistants, but not anymore, unless it's a very small place.

[45:08]

I have some notes here that I'm looking at. And then he talks about when making a soup, he says, when you prepare food, never view the ingredients from some commonly held perspective. Think about them only with your emotions. Maintain an attitude that tries to build great temples from ordinary greens, that expounds the Buddha Dharma through the most trivial activity. When making a soup with ordinary greens, do not be carried away by feelings of dislike toward them, nor regard them lightly. Neither jump for joy simply because you have been given ingredients of superior quality to make a special dish. By the same token that you do not indulge in a meal because of its particularly good taste, there is no reason to feel an aversion toward an ordinary one.

[46:18]

You know, there's a story, there's a koan or a story in the, the Book of Serenity about Shakyamuni walking along with a retinue, which includes Indra, who was the chief of the gods in the Indian pantheon. And they're walking along and Indra says something like, They come to a place which seems really extraordinary and Indra says, wouldn't this be a great place to build a monastery or a practice place? And Shakyamuni takes a piece of grass and puts it in the ground and he says, the practice place has been built.

[47:23]

So, as soon as a single mote of dust arises, the whole earth is contained therein. This is a commentary on that koan. With a single horse and a single lance, the land is extended. What is this person? Who is this person who can be a master in any place and meet the source in everything? I think that's the whole thrust of this Dogen's talk, how do you meet the source in everything? How do you meet the source in every activity and with everything you encounter? So there's time for a little discussion.

[48:29]

I have a question, yeah. in our society for people to be able to slow down and actually be able to cook their food. And that's why there's something called the Slow Food Movement. Going back to the past. And then the other thought that I have is that this book is called How to Cook Your Life.

[49:35]

And I think that, I haven't read the whole book, but my idea about that is that this So, how do we apply, you know, that kind of gratitude to the ingredients of our life, and how do we, how do we cook our life? No, that's it, yeah. You know, and how do you extend your practice so that you can help people do that, if they want to? you know, because life becomes busier and busier, whether it's with family, you know, whether you have a family or not, those are excuses. It's actually possible to, you know, it depends on your orientation and how you think about things.

[50:42]

because our life becomes more complicated and then simplifications are introduced which actually make it more complicated. And it's possible to live very simply with that spirit even if you have a big family. That's not the problem. The problem is how we think about it. how you orient yourself and what you really want. If you want a lot of complications, then you go out and buy TV dinners because everything else is more important. Just get it over with. But you have to prioritize the things in your life according to what's important. Then you have to realize, well, what is important? Those decisions have to be made. What is important?

[51:45]

How do I want to live my life? How do I want my family to live our life? Donna Sue? What does he mean by an expert if he's using it? An expert what? An expert. Well, you know, in the expert's mind, the possibilities are limited, but in the non-experts' mind, the possibilities are limitless. Because you don't have a definite, it's not, your things are not defined. Barbara? Yeah, that's good.

[53:03]

I missed that. I went over that part, I didn't see it. But yes, those things, everything has a place that is most suitable for it to be. You know, like the heavy things go on the bottom, the lighter things go on the top, and so forth. So you have to discern, you know, how you balance everything and what you give weight to. And, you know, so, and to be aware, and that's a really important part of the whole thing, actually, that statement. So balance and coordination and how everything fits with everything else, and how the placement of one thing determines the placement of something else, and how you create space as well as form. The space around things is as important as the forms of the things themselves.

[54:08]

This is why I'm always fussing at the altar. I'm always looking at the space around each object so that it creates a harmony. I'm not just looking at the objects themselves, so the distance between things is important in order to create a sense of harmony and balance. So the altar should exude that kind of feeling. When you look at it, you get a feeling of balance and harmony. and space and objects working together. When you're a painter and you're making a landscape or a painting of the city or something, whatever, you're always thinking of the negative space as being just as important as the positive spaces, so to speak. Well then you start eating your companions.

[55:32]

There are extreme situations, right? So here we're talking about normal life and extreme situations have their own dynamic and it's interesting to see how far you can carry your ideals. into extreme situations. When it comes to torture, everyone can be broken down. So we're talking about actually a normal life situation, basically, non-discrimination. Basically what it's talking about is how you What do we really depend on? So the more we let go of our ego or our self-centeredness, the more we allow the universe to be our body.

[56:46]

So there's less separation. by not eating at all. And yourself eats itself and that's the end. But I know what you mean.

[57:24]

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