Good morning. I'm here this morning to talk about a book which I translated in Japan. It's called Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community. It's a translation of Eihei Shingi, which is a book by Eihei Dogen Zenji. who was one of the great people in our lineage who we look back to. So I'm going to talk about some of the background of this book that is in the introduction I wrote for the book, and then I will do some readings from parts of the text. And then in the discussion period afterwards in the Wheelwright Center, if anyone's interested, there will be copies of the book available. So Dogen lived from 1200 to 1253.

[01:04]

He was a Japanese monk. And he brought the lineage and tradition that we practice here at Green Golden at San Francisco Zen Center from China to Japan. Can you hear me okay back there? So, He was a Japanese monk who went to China because he was dissatisfied with the teachings he heard in Japan and wanted to go back and hear about the original Zen teachings. And he came and brought them back, and he left quite a large body of writings, which are generally considered great pinnacles of world spiritual literature, very poetic, very philosophical. He also founded a temple, Eiheiji, his first name is Eihei, and that's still the headquarters temple of the Japanese branch of Soto Zen, which we're affiliated with or which Suzuki Roshi, who founded San Francisco Zen Center, was part of and where he trained.

[02:13]

So many of Dogen's writings, some of them have been translated before, many of them are very philosophical in a certain way. They're all about spiritual practice. So one of my students, who's a Japanese monk, says Dogen was not a philosopher, he was a Zen monk. But philosophers appreciate his philosophical writings and his very poetic writings. This book particularly, though, was written in the second phase of his career, later on in his life after he had set up this, or as he was setting up this monastic community. So the writings in this book are about Sangha, or spiritual community. So we say that there are three jewels in Buddhism. The Buddha, who is the awakened one, and the possibility and the actuality of awakening in all of us, and in all things, is Buddha. That's the first jewel. The second is Dharma, the teaching and also the reality, the truth of spiritual awakening and the path to that.

[03:21]

So that's the second jewel. And then the third is Sangha. And that's us. That's spiritual community. Sometimes Sangha refers just to, in some Asian countries, just to the order of monks, but we can understand it as all the people who we practice with together, who we share our spiritual intention with, who we sit with or, in some way, are connected with in that way, but also we can understand Sangha as all the beings in the world, because all of them are right here with us. So, each one of us has known many people, one has family and friends, and all of those people are right here with us in this room. So in that sense, Sangha extends outward. Sangha is vast. But Sangha is also very particular. So there's six different essays in this book. The first of them has been translated before. Maybe some of you have seen it, Tenzo Kyokan, or Instructions for the Tenzo, or the Head Cook of the Monastery, which is a very important position in Zen temples.

[04:29]

And then some of the other essays are about the procedures for moving around in the monk's hall, in the meditation hall. So in Japanese monasteries, a meditation hall like this, it's a little bit different. In addition to sitting and taking meals here, monks in training also sleep at their place in the meditation hall. So this is the very traditional way of doing that kind of training. And so he talks about the procedures. In all of these essays, though, we could say there are three aspects. There's kind of the procedures, how to move around in the meditation hall, how to, he talks about how to brush your teeth in the morning and how to wash your face. And actually, he introduced teeth brushing and face washing to Japanese culture in this. So there's this procedural element and some people reading these things, it's very picky and detailed and some people say, oh, Dogen was just, anal retentive or obsessive compulsive. So how to understand these forms is one question about this writing of Dogen's.

[05:37]

And actually, the procedural parts of the book, many of them are quoted verbatim from his Chinese sources and even go back to the writings from the historical Buddha in India, the Vinaya writings 2,500 years ago. The second aspect, though, is the attitude towards practicing together, and I feel like this is what Dogen is emphasizing. He talks about what is our attitude for practicing together, what is the most wholesome, most upright, most beneficial attitude for how we live and work and practice and share spiritual life together. So he talks about that directly. And then the third aspect are what we call koans in Zen, teaching stories. So the last, longest essay, almost half of it, is a collection of koans or old teaching stories about the different people, the different positions in the monastery, the important positions in the training temple.

[06:46]

So I want to talk about all three of those aspects, at least somewhat, and then read some things to you. One thing about the practice forms, you may see when you come to a place like this, we wear these funny robes and bow and move around in a particular way. And those of you who've been to one-day sittings or longer, seven-day sittings sessions here, know that we eat sitting at these places. And there's a very particular way to eat with eating bowls piled together and wrapped up. And it's very formal, very high culture in a way. And so this is one of the essays in here is just about the forms for eating with oryoki, with these eating bowls. And it's much more refined even than the way we do it here. So compared to Japan, the forms here at Zen Center are very kind of loose in a sense. I don't mean that they're not tools to be mindful, but they're not quite as rigorous as a place like Eheiji.

[07:56]

So I think for most of us Westerners when we hear about these practice forms, eating in this particular way and moving around in this particular way and how you get off the cushion and which way you turn when you move around in the meditation hall, it sounds like rules and we think of rules as regimentation and we think we don't want to get involved in that. We want to be free. But actually, they're mindfulness tools. They're tools for us to be present in our body, in our mind, in all of our activity. So the real emphasis in this book is how do we carry out the space of meditation into our everyday activity, into all of the things we do, into brushing our teeth, washing our face, eating our food, working in the kitchen, sweeping the walk. And all of these forms are tools with which to see ourselves more clearly as we're doing those things, and just in the way that this upright sitting posture is a tool to settle on ourself and to understand and see ourself more fully and clearly.

[09:03]

So in the foreword to the book, Ed Brown says that Westerners like to be free to be neurotic and disordered. And this teaching is about being free to be awake. So we use a structure, we use forms as a way of seeing what it is to be this person in this life, in this body, and how we think, and how we move, and how we talk, and to really see ourselves more fully. So I want to say a little bit about how I came to translate this book, my experience of that. I was living for a little more than two years in Kyoto, Japan, the ancient capital, and was working with a, did the translation in collaboration with a Japanese Zen priest, Shohaku Okamura, who is now the head of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center, which we're affiliated with, connected with in many ways.

[10:07]

And I lived near the eastern hills of Kyoto, between two very old temples, in the middle of two old cemeteries. And twice a week, and I supported myself teaching English, and twice a week would take a two-hour bus and train ride out to this little temple on the mountains west of Kyoto, where Shohaku was living then. And we would work on this, work on translation all day. And then other times I went and did sashin, or intensive sitting with him. So one of the themes of this book, which I'll talk about more as I'm reading, is about keeping alive the traditions, keeping alive the tradition of spiritual community, keeping alive the teaching of spiritual life and spiritual practice and spiritual awakening. So many of you knew Jerry Fuller, who was also living in Japan at that time, in Kyoto. He was the Ino here, head of this meditation hall until this year.

[11:10]

and passed away last Monday. We had a funeral ceremony for him yesterday afternoon in this room. So he was studying tea, which also comes out of this tradition. The way of tea or tea ceremony is another way using, actually developed from some of the forms for eating that are talked about here by Dogen in the meditation hall. It's a way of bringing our experience of, our sense of this openness that we sometimes feel in meditation, bringing that into just something as simple as making a bowl of tea and serving it to someone. So Jerry lived near a temple in the southeast of Kyoto where he was studying the Urasenke tea school was in north central Kyoto, so he would ride on his motorcycle up to the T school and sometimes come by and some friends of ours lived near me and we'd go out.

[12:17]

It was a wonderful place to live. The cemeteries and the temples I was living between were a thousand years old and there was a tomb of a of an emperor around the corner from where I lived. It was from the 11th century, and right around the corner from that, one from the 10th century. So moving around in these temples where people have been doing this kind of Buddhist practice for a thousand years, there's some quality, some energy. I don't know what to say about it, but it's real palpable. So just imagine coming back to Green Gulch in 200 years, or 500 years, or a thousand years, after people have been coming every Sunday, hearing Zen talks and coming and sitting session and you might get some sense of what that was like. So one of the things I got to do there was to go to practice in this very, very traditional way that's described in this book.

[13:24]

There was another temple west of Kyoto that I went that had a very traditional sodo or monks hall where people slept on their place in the meditation hall. I just went out there for short stays or for sashins. And it's a very powerful practice. You sit and eat and sleep in the same place. And I also went to a training temple for a practice period for two and a half months in the southern island of Kyushu. that was a temple called Shogoji that was established in part by Kategiri Roshi, who was the late head of the Minnesota Zen Meditation Center and is a former abbot of this temple also. And that was set up by Kategiri Roshi particularly for American practitioners and Japanese monks to practice together. So it was very interesting and difficult because it was so clear how different our orientations were. We were always asking questions. Why do we do this? Why do we move this way? What does this mean? What is the meaning of that?

[14:25]

All these new details, all these new fussy forms about how to do all this stuff. And we wanted to understand. And to the other Japanese monks there, they were shocked. This was very disrespectful. So I know from teaching Japanese college students too, they don't ask questions. They're trained to listen to the teacher and memorize things. So the monks were kind of a little shocked that we were so disrespectful to ask all these questions. The teachers were very happy. The other side of it, though, that we were shocked at was their way of training is when somebody is in a ceremony and somebody's hitting the bell, and they hit it at the wrong time. Everything stops, and the head priest will go over and tell them how to hit it. Or if you're standing in the wrong place, they'll come and move you physically. And this would seem very disrespectful to us. But to the Japanese monks, this was what they were there for. This was their way of training.

[15:28]

This was their way of practice. So they were there to embody the teaching, to really do the dance to take on these forms. And these forms were their way of connecting with this tradition and connecting with this way of being aware and awake. So it's like tea ceremony, which is this very detailed little dance about just making a cup of tea and drinking it. And these forms can be very wonderful, but for us, oh, well, that's interesting, and we wanted to know why we do it this way instead of that way, whereas the Japanese monks were there to actually learn how to do it in their bodies. So they were concerned with embodying this teaching, these forms. And the teacher I, other teacher I went to sit with in west of Kyoto, Shinkai Roshi, he's now the Tanto, one of the

[16:28]

had people at AHAG last time I saw him, he said, you know, understanding is not important. Understanding is easy. The point is just to continue. So what Green Gulch is about, what this practice is about, is just to give us a way to continue connecting with this spiritual tradition to really take on how do we bring this into our everyday activity? How do we find a way to open up the space of awareness and awakening in everything we do in our everyday life with our family and friends and at work. And that's what all these fussy little forms are about. They're tools to help us with that. And one of the big issues is how do we make that work? here, because even if we try to be exactly, follow all of the rules, all of the forms in the Eihei Shingi, do everything the way they did at these temples in Japan, it'll be very different. We cannot be Japanese.

[17:29]

So that's one of the issues, and it's one of the things that Dogen talks about in the book, too. So maybe before I go into that, just to take a step back, the understanding of Sangha, of spiritual community, that in Mahayana Buddhism, in this tradition that Dogen is speaking from, is that the purpose of spiritual community is to bring this awakening, this experience of Buddha and of Buddhas into our everyday realm, into history, into the ordinary world. these kinds of monasteries and other practice places have existed in Asia for 2,500 years. And they've existed as a kind of counterculture, a kind of alternative to the ordinary way things are. So in some sense, Green Gulch, Zen Center, Zen sitting groups in the United States give us an opportunity to see our lives in a different way and to extend

[18:42]

this experience that actually everything is just the way it is. The birds are singing. The sun is shining. We could all be at the beach, but here we are sitting in this room. And it's all right. And we can open up to that. And we can open up to the wholeness of our lives, including the sadness, including the confusion, including anger. We can open up to that and be with that. But then how do we extend that to everyone? Because we all know about all the cruelty in the world and all the suffering. How do we share that? So I would say that's what this spiritual community is about, to see this world as a Buddha field and to help extend that for others. So then how do we use this tradition that Dogen has written about and talked about for us?

[19:50]

Already it's been modified, so the way we do these forms, so we do this oyoki form of eating. in this hall when we're doing sessions. And it's a little bit modified from the way that Dogen wrote about it. Not quite as much detail. And that's, I think, fine. So Dogen himself talked about this. He said in Shakyamuni Buddha's time in India 2,500 years ago, people ate with their fingers. They didn't use chopsticks. But in China and Japan and Korea, people use chopsticks. And he says, he doesn't say that one is better than the other. He says, Well, maybe we would want to use our fingers, but we don't really know the proper form. We don't have teachers to tell us how to use our fingers in the proper way, even though that was the proper way of eating in India. So he had this acceptance that things change. So maybe someday in America, people will do this formal eating practice with spoons and forks. Well, we already use spoons, forks, and Western utensils.

[20:54]

We don't know yet. Another example of how things change, a much more significant issue, has to do with farming. So this is Green Gulch Farm, and we have wonderful fields and garden. If some of you are here for the first time, please enjoy them. Walk down this way after. And in China and in Japan, there are monks also farmed and gardened and tried to be self-sufficient. But in India, monks were not allowed to farm. It was against the rules. It was a very strict rule against it, because in India, the value of the sanctity of life was held as very important. So if when we're digging the ground here, we may cut some earthworms. We may kill some insects. In China, though, the priorities switched to how do we make this something that's available for people

[21:55]

in the world, an ordinary activity, and also how do we be self-sufficient as a community? So the Chinese Zen school survived partly because they were farmers, because they made their own food. They didn't depend on the government to support them. So Dogen quotes the rule against farming a few pages after he gives a long passage, which I'll read a little later, about how wonderful the practice of the farm manager is. took all those forms together and didn't make judgments about them. So I want to get to the actual text. As I said, a lot of the writing has to do with the particular positions in the Zen temple or Zen community, the director, who is the head administrator at the Eno, who's the head of the meditation hall, the Tenzo, the head cook, and even some of the smaller positions he talks about and tells stories about.

[22:59]

So he talks about how important each of these positions are and how it's necessary to be a very dedicated practitioner. But we have to also understand that it applies to all of us. So in the beginning, the very beginning of the whole book, the very beginning of the instructions for the head cook, he says, from the beginning in Buddha's family there have been these temple administrators. They are all Buddhist children and together they carry out Buddha's work. So in this way of talking, we are all Buddhist children. When we take on Buddhist practice, even when we come to here, a Buddhist talk, we are in some way connected to this tradition and we are all Buddhist children. So all of these stories actually apply to all of us. That's my feeling. So this question of how do we connect with this tradition, one of the things I discovered doing this translation is this Japanese word keiko.

[24:08]

and it means to contemplate the ancients, or to contemplate the ancient ways, to consider and reflect on the ancient masters. So, in the instructions for the director, Dogen says, you should know that even if there are 100, 1,000, or 10,000 monks, without the mind of the way and without practice of contemplating the ancients, the assembly is inferior to toads and lower than earthworms. Even an assembly of seven, eight, or nine monks who have the mind of the way and contemplate the ancients is superior to dragons and elephants and excels the wisdom of the sages. So this word keiko is used today in Japan, not just in Zen context, but it's the ordinary word for practice, practicing the piano or practicing martial arts. This tradition in Asia of looking back to the ancients, considering the ancients, considering the tradition, to read further.

[25:13]

Furthermore, reflecting that inhalation does not wait for exhalation, also is the mind of the way and is diligence. Contemplating the ancients enables the eyes of the ancestor's essence to observe intently and enables the ear of both past and present to listen vigilantly so that we accept our bodies as hollowed out caverns of the whole empty sky. and just sit, piercing through all the skulls under heaven, opening wide our fists and staying with our own nostrils. This is carrying the clear transparent sky to dye the white clouds and conveying the waters of autumn to wash the bright moon and is the fulfillment of the practice of contemplating the ancients. So, right in the middle of these instructions for the director, this kind of poetic language kind of pops out. He can't help himself, it feels like.

[26:15]

There's also this practice of, that's part of this contemplating the ancients, of seeing each other as Buddha. The temple, abbot, administrators, department heads, and all the monks should circulate the Buddha's instructions to live together and see each other as the world honored one. in the essential path of emancipation. Nothing is more important than this. So when we practice together, we see each other as Buddha. We see this reality and possibility of Buddha in each of us. We see each person as having something wonderful that can flower in spiritual life and practice, in ordinary life and practice. But this attitude that he's talking about, about how to practice together, I think is very important and goes beyond any of these forms. and maybe even beyond Zen or Buddhism, just to see each other as whole and awakened. Try it. I think you'll find it very helpful. So in the instructions for the head cook, he talks about this, one of the problems of this contemplating the ancients.

[27:28]

He's talking about not being caught by the quality of the food. So a lot of times in Zen training temples, the food becomes very important and we all look forward to the next meal and what will it be and we really get excited when there's a really tasty meal because it's the main entertainment of the day. So this is the instruction to the head cook. Choose and take care of the ingredients for the soup greens. Do not comment on the quantity or make judgments about the quality of the ingredients you obtain from the director. Just sincerely prepare them. Definitely avoid emotional disputes about the quantity of the ingredients. All day and all night, things come to mind and the mind attends to them. At one with them all, diligently carry on the way. So that's a good suggestion for anything.

[28:30]

All day and all night, things come to mind and the mind attends to them. I, one with them all, diligently carry on the way. So that's our life and our practice in this way. Then he goes on to talk about some of the procedures for when you start preparing a lunch. Then he says, when you take care of things, do not see with your common eye, do not think with your common sentiments. Pick a single blade of grass and erect a sanctuary for the jewel king, for the Buddha. Enter a single atom and turn the great wheel of the teaching. So even when you are making a broth of coarse greens, do not arouse an attitude of distaste or dismissal. Even when you are making a high-quality cream soup, do not arouse an attitude of rapture or dancing for joy. Although you may encounter inferior ingredients, do not be at all negligent. Although you may come across delicacies, be all the more diligent. Oh, then this thing about talking about the ancients.

[29:36]

If you are resolute in your intention and are most sincere, you will vow to be more pure-hearted than the ancients and surpass even the elders in attentiveness. The appropriate manner of putting the mind of the way to work on this is to decide that even if the old masters got three coins and made a broth of coarse greens, now with the same three coins you will make a high-quality cream soup. This is difficult to do. Why is that? The difference between the ancients and people of today is as remote as that between heaven and earth. How could we ever stand even with them? So in all of Asian culture, there's this idea that the ancient ones were these great masters and we can never live up to them. And we might feel that about Dogen or some of the old Zen masters that we read about in the stories. But Dogen says, however, when we attentively undertake this job, we can definitely surpass the old masters. This principle is a certainty that you still do not yet clearly understand. only because your thinking scatters like wild birds and your emotions scamper around like monkeys in a forest.

[30:40]

If those monkeys and birds once took the backward step of inner illumination, naturally you would become integrated. So that is one of the main instructions for our meditation, to take this backward step and look within. So he is saying that actually we can take on this practice, the same as the ancient ones. So partly contemplating the ancients, contemplating the tradition is to see how we can sit zazen, and we can mindfully prepare meals, and we can mindfully and with beauty prepare a cup of tea, to see how we can do this too, to connect ourselves to this tradition. In a similar vein, a little bit later in the instructions for the head cook, cooking so-called rich, creamy food is not necessarily superior.

[31:44]

Cooking plain vegetable soup is not necessarily inferior. When you are given plain vegetables to prepare, you must treat them the same as rich, creamy food, with straightforward mind, sincere mind and pure mind. The reason is that when they converge in the pure, great ocean assembly of Buddhadharma, You recognize neither rich, creamy tastes nor the taste of plain vegetables, but only the flavor of the one great ocean. Furthermore, in developing the buds of the way and nurturing the womb of sages, rich cream and simple vegetables are the same, not different. There is an old saying that a monk's mouth is like an oven. We should understand this. So any of you who have sat Sashin or sat one-day sittings, I encourage you to reflect on this monk's mouth. It's like an oven. One also should not see the assembled monks as good or bad or consider them as elder or younger. Even the self does not know where the self will settle down. How could others determine where others will settle down?

[32:44]

How could it not be a mistake to find others' faults with our own faults? Although there is a difference between the senior and junior and the wise and stupid, as members of Sangha, they are the same. So this is an important point, how we see each other, to see each other as Buddha, not to get caught in our judgments, in our ordinary. human distinctions and judgments. In a later essay on the regulations and practices for the study hall, which was traditionally right next to the monks hall, Dogen says, the whole pure assembly should abide in mindfulness that everyone in the study hall is each other's parent, sibling, relative, teacher, and good friend. with mutual affection, take care of each other sympathetically. And if you harbor some idea that it is very difficult to encounter each other like this, nevertheless display an expression of harmony and accommodation.

[33:48]

If there is errant speech, it should be admonished. If you are given instruction, you should accept it. These are greatly beneficial experiences. Can't this be considered the great advantage of intimate relations? Gratefully, we associate with good friends with abundant, wholesome qualities, and we are fortunate to take refuge in the three treasures. Isn't this also a great joy?" And then he says, even worldly siblings are not as close as those of people from other families. They're closer, not matched by those from other families. Siblings in Buddhist families should be closer to each other than with their own selves. So this attitude towards how we practice together, to see each other as Buddha, and also to see each other as brothers and sisters. And in some way, when we sit together, when we work together, we start to feel this intimacy, this closeness, which is deeper than what we can understand in our usual way of thinking. So I want to close by reading a few stories or some stories from some of the koans from the last section, the standards for the temple administrators.

[34:59]

So he talks about each of the different positions and gives stories from the old masters about people in that position and how they awakened and how they were examples of being a good tenzo or a good head cook or a good director or a good ino. And one of the things that's interesting is that a lot of his examples don't match our conventional way of looking at what we would usually think of as an example. So there's one story about a Tenzo who was thrown out of the temple and expelled from the temple for stealing food to feed the monks when the quality of food was not so good. And he's held up as an example. by Dogen, and it's actually very, very important in our lineage. So a lot of these stories have to do with the dedication of people. I want to read, particularly for Green Gulch, a couple of stories that seem very relevant. One is about Linji, or Rinzai, the founder of the other main branch of Zen.

[36:06]

Great teacher Linji was on Huangpu Mountain planting pine trees when Huangpu, his teacher, asked, For what purpose do you plant so many pines deep in the remote mountains? Linji said, first, to make some scenery for the mountain gate. That's the temple or monastery. Second, to make a guidepost for later generations. As he finished speaking, he struck the ground once or twice with the head of his hoe. His teacher, Huangpo, said, although it is like this, you have received my 30 blows. Linji again struck the head of the hoe on the ground twice and whispered, shh. Huangpo said, when you take up our lineage, it will greatly flourish in the world. So many of you know that we plant trees here too. Many of the trees around this valley have been planted. On Arbor Day, we have a day each year of planting trees here. So great teacher Linji planted trees in the remote mountains. Maybe it's like planting trees at Tassajaramor, and maybe nobody would ever see those trees.

[37:14]

And his teacher said, why are you planting trees in the remote mountains? And he said, it's for scenery for the temple, but also a guidepost for later generations. And Huang Po agreed and said, it is like this, but you have received my 30 blows. So my understanding of that is, that Huang Po is saying, yes, you can do this. You know how to make a guidepost for later generations. You know how to carry on this tradition. But it's only because you've met a teacher, because you've met a tradition, because you also have trained in this. Dogen says about this story, Linji was at Huang Po's for 20 years, doing nothing but strenuously studying and exerting the way. Sometimes he planted pines, sometimes he planted cedars. Is this not the intimate discussion and intimate practice of the single mountain scenery and the 10,000 ancient ones guideposts? In the world, it is said that the wise and noble do not forget virtue, whereas petty people do not repay generosity.

[38:20]

How much more must children in the house of the Buddha ancestors repay the deep kindness of the milk of the Dharma? What we call repaying this blessing is to plant pines and cedars. And to be satisfied with our gruel and rice, just to be satisfied with our conditions, our situation, not to think that we need so much more, but to really take on our life as it is, is this being satisfied with our gruel and rice. Even for the sake of those from extremely distant ages, we return to plant trees in the remote mountains. If you yearn to be a bridge to the Buddha way, you must become familiar with this time of Linji's. There's another passage about the garden manager I mentioned before. So this is also very relevant to Green Gulch. And this is more the practice and form of the garden and field manager in Dogen's time.

[39:24]

But the spirit is the same. The job of garden manager is most difficult and extremely troublesome. Only people who have the mind of the way have served in this job. People without the mind of the way cannot fill this position. The garden and field manager always must be at the vegetable garden to plant seeds in accord with the season. With a face of Buddhism ancestors, they must have horse and donkey legs, like farm workers and field hands. Without holding back their own life energy, throughout the day they must carry spades and hoes, plow and till by themselves, and haul manure. They can only wait for the vegetables to ripen and then must not miss their time. When they plow the ground and sow seeds, they do not wear their two-piece, their formal robes or their okhasa. They only wear coarse work clothes. However, when it is time for the whole community together to chant sutras or to go up in the hall for the abbot's lectures or enter the room for interview with a teacher, the garden manager must definitely go along with the assembly.

[40:30]

They must not fail to practice. Morning and evening in the vegetable garden, they must offer incense, do prostrations, chant, and recite dedications to Ryuten and Doji without ever becoming lazy or negligent. So this is an interesting point. We sometimes in America think of Dogen as only being concerned with kind of clinical meditation practice, but here he's talking about reciting dedications to Ryuten, who is the dragon spirit of sky and of weather. So the person in charge of the farms chants dedications to that spirit, and also to Doji, who is the spirit of the land. Dogen lived at a time when people appreciated the spirits of the land, the spirits of the sky. And if we walk out in the green gulch fields, maybe we can also appreciate those spirits here. Even at night, they sleep at a hut near the vegetable garden.

[41:33]

Workers provided for the garden are sometimes rotated according to the supervision of the work leader and must be trained by the garden manager. Truly, people with a mind of the way and people of great renown have filled this position. Persons of little ability and the crowd of mediocrities have never served in this job." So that's about the field manager. So there are many other stories in here. I'll read one short one about a kitchen worker. This is not even the... the head cook, but just the rice manager. Here it is. Zen master Shishuang became rice manager at Guishan's Dharma Assembly. One day, Shishuang was in the rice storehouse sifting rice.

[42:37]

Guishan, his teacher, said, food from donors should not be scattered around. Xishuang said, it's not scattered around. Guishan picked up one grain from the floor and said, you say it's not scattered around, but where does this come from? Xishuang did not reply. Guishan again said, do not disdain even this single grain. 100,000 grains can be born from this single grain. Xishuang said, 100,000 grains can be born from this single grain, but it's not yet clear where did this single grain come from? Guishan laughed loudly and returned to the abbot's quarters. Later in the evening, he went up to a lecture in the hall and said, oh, great assembly, there is a worm in the rice. So I want to close, and maybe we can read some more of these stories in the discussion period, but I want to close with a description of the Eno, the head of the meditation hall. I'll read this in honor of Jerry, who was the Eno here last year.

[43:45]

And I think you can see how the person who invites us into the meditation hall is very much like a tea master, whether it's offering a bowl of tea or offering this chance to sit on a cushion. The Eno job is called the delight of the assembly in China. Although this position of Eno is the remains of venerable Maudgalyayana, who was a disciple of Shakyamuni Buddha, who did that function. It is just like the majestic dignity of all the Buddhas. So this is called the Enos regarding with love all who arrive and compassionately nourishing monks, so that the assembly's heart becomes the Eno's own heart, and the mindfulness of the way becomes the Eno's own mindfulness. Therefore, this attitude can make parents into nurturing parents, and can make children into loving children. In that case, the Eno is just like the rudder of a boat crossing the great river, or a long rainy spell after a great drought.

[44:46]

So, thank you very much. kind of dance of just totally taking on this form. The form is not so important, you know. It's not that... I mean, I think there's the Japanese attitude that these very forms are the Buddha way. But the point is, in this particular branch of Japanese, in any way, that just to do these forms, just to take on with your body being in that situation. But it's a way of seeing yourself. So it's not a matter of is it a good form or a bad form. I mean, that's not the point. I mean, I guess there are bad forms in the world. But it's a way of... I think it's a lot like a dancer or a musician or an artist learning a form. So for the arts in East Asian tradition, they don't...

[45:59]

place a great deal of emphasis on originality, or on doing something new or wonderful. You learn by copying the old pictures, or by just doing the same thing. By writing calligraphy, you write the same character over and over and over again. And it's in the virtuosity of just doing this particular form beautifully that they feel theirs are. So it's a little bit like that. It's kind of an aesthetic thing. But it's also a way of training, a way of aligning oneself with something that has to do with our deeper self. Sure. In fact, probably there will be coffee ceremony. So yeah, I mean, one can get really precious about doing rituals and it's easier to do it with people. I'm not very good at doing my own rituals, actually, but to do them together with a group is a way of... and to be given a... paying attention to the traffic and so forth, but in everyday activities, to find ways to express appreciation, to express wholeness.

[47:18]

That's kind of the implication of this for us. Answering the following... Right, so at... Yeah, well I did that here answering the phone in the office to be aware of answering the phone with consideration and care. I've worked occasionally at Parallax Press that publishes Thich Nhat Hanh's books and they have a practice there of not answering the phone until the third ring and when the phone rings to take that as a mindfulness bell and stop and take a breath and the third ring So I can read more stories if people want, or else we could, you know, if people have things to say, that's okay, too. I just want to thank you for the talk. It was really, really interesting, inspiring, and I think you should take the low turnout of question and answer as a reflection. It's just too beautiful a day. I know. Why is anybody here? I wanted everybody to be here.

[48:21]

I hear the questions are going to be good. Yeah. You started to talk, or you did speak, and then I've been thinking about, when you're talking about you know, like in the other, just could you say more about that, like relation to the ancestors, and this is like before they were enlightened they were just like us. Well the point is that, the point is not, you know, to say some of this, to look at this great person in the past, By the way, for people who came in late, there are copies of the book available for sale in the back corner there, if anyone's interested. If anybody wants me to sign it, I will. Yeah, I think in Asian culture, maybe more than in our culture, there's this idea of, you know, this idea in China of the ancient emperors who were supposedly, like, there's one emperor, legendary emperor, who created writing and fire and mathematics and music and, you know, I mean, there's

[49:29]

There are, this is kind of... They found out how to use fire. So there's this kind of attitude in their culture of the ancient masters and looking back at them in this kind of venerating way. And in our culture, we have that too to some extent. We have the founding fathers and there are these great figures, but then we also have this idea of progress and that things are getting better. You know make our technology good enough. We can solve all the problems and everything So we have this other attitude as well. I Think it's a matter of appreciation The ancestors are the trees and the birds too so when you connect with some spiritual tradition that is nurturing naturally, I think we feel some appreciation for those who've continued it, and for the examples, both examples are teachers today, we're still walking around it, but for those who showed us how to see it or whatever.

[50:35]

And also for the old masters and the stories. So the koans, the old teaching stories, are used in different ways. We study them more by reading the story and talking about it, thinking about them in some branches of Zen. Some of you know they're used as meditation objects, try and give some response to the koan with the teacher. And that's actually, there's a misunderstanding of that, that people think that you try and pass the koan, solve the koan. It's not about that. It's about incorporating the teaching, the real inner teachings and the inner logic of the story into your practice and then expressing that for yourself. But you don't kind of pass the koan and then get rid of it. be staying with the teachings, staying with the stories, and continuing to use them as resources.

[51:37]

Yes? No, not Americans and Japanese. There are different branches of Zen. So this temple is connected with the Soto Zen branch of Japan, which is a branch that Dogen founded in Japan and goes back to China. There's another branch, the Rinzai or Linji branch, which goes back to the fellow I was telling the story about who planted trees. And in the Japanese version of that, in America today also, there's a way of studying stories where you sit in meditation, in a meditation hall, and focus on the story, and then try and go to the teacher in an intensive meditation context, maybe two or three times a day, and say something, or do something, or express something about the story. So that's a more kind of programmatic way of studying it. But in all branches of Zen, these stories are studied. So maybe the thing to do is just to go to another story. So, oh, this was good. This is about a work leader. So here's an example of a person of the way he served as work leader. Zen master Baofu Benchuan was a Dharma heir of Huitang.

[52:45]

Once when Huitang just raised his fist, then Chuan was struck through and actualized the source. He was eloquent and sharp-witted. One day, one-time government official, Xiangku Wang, when he first entered practice, when he first had some awakening, some opening, he asked Huitang, which persons here are worthy of having discussions with? Which of the other people in the temple and monastery is worthy of talking to, having discussions? And the teacher said, Benchuan now is supervising workers in constructing rice fields. Xiangku went there together with Huitang and said to Benchuan, work leader, tell me, do you know that a freestanding pillar gives birth to a child? So this is a poet's essay. Benchuan answered, is it a boy or a girl? Xiangku hesitated. Benchuan shook him. Huitang said, do not be rude. Benchuan, the work leader, said, if I do not hit this wooden dummy, when will he ever get it?

[53:49]

Shonku, the government official, laughed loudly. So there's this old, there are very many old sayings that are kind of like this, a freestanding pillar gives birth to a child. It's talking about energy and vitality and our life coming out of just sitting still, just giving up everything that we think is our life, just returning to this fundamental. And so this government official said, asked the work leader if he knew that. And Ben Chuan came and said, is it a boy or a girl? He wanted to know if the government official really knew it. And then he shook it after he hesitated. Dogen's comment on this, temple administrators and department heads should not simply give priority to purity. Definitely only those who embody the way should be selected to fill these jobs. So. Some of these stories are rather long.

[54:50]

Some are shorter. And a lot of them are stories about people having some opening experience. If that were creativity, that's it. Yeah. So this is talking about creativity, kind of the source of creativity. Where does our vitality come from? opening up to seeing our life on the deepest level possible. Here's a story about a Senzo in our lineage, Zen Master Furong Daokai. was thoroughly enlightened in meeting with Tozu. When Daokai was serving as Tenzo, Tozu, his teacher, asked, isn't it difficult to carry out the strenuous duties of the kitchen?

[55:58]

Daokai said, it's not so bad. Tozu asked, what about cooking the gruel and steaming the rice? Daokai said, workers clean the rice and make the fire. Attendants cook the gruel and steam the rice. And his teacher said, what is it that you do? And Daokai said, have peace, Tozu. Kindly let me be. Those are deeply agreed. So I have a very long footnote about that. So one way to read that is that he said, and I won't read the whole footnote or go into it so much, but one other version of the story talks about This could be read as, please leave me alone, I know what I'm doing. Another way to read the same line is, thanks to you, teacher, you have let me be able to just be here doing this work, to just take care of each thing as it comes up. So both of those are implied in that answer. A lot of this Koan language is about different levels of meaning. So I'll read you that story about the fellow who became a garden manager.

[57:15]

So this student is named Guangzhi Zhang. Sorry for these funny Chinese names. Anyway, he had been a student, thank you, with under Linji. Under Linji. Oh, thank you. So after he had attainment under Linji, who was one of the great Zen masters of all time, Zen master Guan Zhe Zhichang left Linji and traveled around. So this was something that the old monks in China and the old days in Japan, they would have some, reach some level of opening or awareness or fairness of practice and then go around and visit different teachers and test themselves and the teachers. So he traveled around until arriving at the nun, Mo Shan Laoran's place. When he first arrived, he said to her, if we accord with each other, I will stay here. If not, then I will knock over your Zhensi. So these guys had this kind of, particularly Linji had taught with yelling and screaming and hitting students even.

[58:25]

It was, this was before they had ideas of bringing suits for abuse of behavior and things like that. Anyway, they were kind of wild characters. He said, if I don't agree with you, then I'll knock over your Zen seat. Then he entered into the hall, and the nun, Moshan, sent a Jisha, sent an attendant to ask him whether he had come for amusement or for the sake of Buddha Dharma. Jishan said, I came for the sake of Buddha Dharma. Moshan climbed the seat in the Dharma hall to have public interviews with students. So at this time, apparently, they had interviews. We do a ceremony like that here called Shosan. Japanese tradition, but it's like private, it's like a personal interview, one-to-one interview with a teacher, but in front of the whole assembly. So Moxuan climbed the seat, and then Zhishan, this monk from Linji, came up for a dialogue. Moxuan asked, today, where have you arrived from? Zhishan said, I only came from the mouth of the road. Moxuan said, why didn't you cover it before coming?

[59:26]

So I take that question as meaning, Why didn't you thoroughly take care of the mouth of the road? Why didn't you complete your practice before coming? But also, why didn't you cover your mouth instead of being so rude? So I feel like both meanings are there. Zhishan could not respond. Only then did he first make a full prostration. And then he asked, how is Moshan? So that was her name. Moshan means Mount Mo. And it's also the name of the temple and the name of the place. So that's how usually the teachers were named after the name of the place where they taught. So how is Mount Mo? And Mo Shan said, not an exposed peak. Zhishan asked, which is to say, you don't get it, you don't see me yet. Zhishan asked, how is the master of Mo Shan? Mo Shan said, neither a man nor a woman. Zhishan yelled, ka! Which is one thing that these guys did. And he said, then why haven't you transformed?

[60:29]

implying, why haven't you transformed into a man? Because in the old days, in early Buddhism, there was this idea, which doesn't have anything to do with Buddhism, but it has to do with the culture that women, before they could become Buddhists, had to become men first. So this is dealing with this, with these problems in the culture. So, Shishun asked her, why haven't you transformed into a man? Mushan said, neither a god nor a demon, why should I make transformations? So there's another teaching in Buddhism that only humans can really be Buddhas, that if you're a demon, you have to work off that bad karma. If you're a god, you're too blissed out to really be a Buddha, to really take care of saving all beings. So when she says, why should I make transformations? It's as if to say, what's the difference if I'm a man or a woman? I'm a human being. With that, Zhishan did a prostration and venerated her. Then he became manager of the gardens at her temple for three years. Later, when Jishan was abbot at a temple, he said to the assembly, I was at Father Linji's where I got half a scoop, and at Mother Moshan's where I got half a scoop.

[61:36]

Together, they made one full ladle that I drank completely, so that even until now, I am satisfied through and through." So this is an all too unusual, unfortunately, example in our tradition of a woman's teaching being appreciated. So there were women teachers and practitioners all along, of course, the history. hasn't always recorded them because of the nature of Chinese society and so forth. Anyway, then it goes on to that description I read in the Zen Do about the Java garden manager, which this fellow then did at her temple. With this Buddha face and donkey legs. I think it's cool, it's supposed to have universal implications, but Yeah, all of these stories... No, all of these stories, a real koan is about you. Not about someone else.

[62:40]

Do you think you need to transform into someone else? Into a man or a god before you can be a Buddha? No. So it's about you? I don't have this problem in my life. Well, the other thing is that there are all kinds of koans. And some stories may grab you more personally at a given time. So that's why they have collections of stories. And if there's one that really upsets you, that's the one you should study. And if this one's real straightforward for you, and you don't see any problems here, then fine. You don't need to look at this one right now. Well, I don't think they're real straightforward. I'm trying to find a way that I can go home and think about this. OK, let me see if I can find a column for you. Here's a short one. Some of these are real long. Maybe I'll get into reading them.

[63:43]

Well, OK, I'll read the short one first. Venerable Wuzhou was Tenzo, head cook on Mount Wutai. So Mount Wutai, I have to explain, is one of the holy mountains of China, in the north of China, and that's where Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, tends to hang out. So he's the Bodhisattva that's in the center of the Zendo over here, that big statue on the main altar. He's the Bodhisattva of Wisdom. And this mountain in northern China is said to be where he lives, and people who go there sometimes have encounters with beggars and such like who turns out later were Manjushri and people have seen Manjushri himself and so forth. And Manjushri is this kind of cosmic enlightening being or Bodhisattva saving all beings who embodies wisdom and insight. And so this guy was the cook at a temple on this mountain and Manjushri appeared above the rice pot. And he kept reappearing. And Wuzho finally hit him and said, even if old man Shakyamuni came, I would also hit him.

[64:51]

That's the story. So there's lots of ways to talk about that story. And I don't want to say so much that you don't feel any problem with that story. But here's this monk hitting the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, this cook. So that's partly about just attending to the everyday, ordinary activities of feeding the monks, right? feeding a family, whatever. Not getting caught by visions of great bodhisattvas or one's own great insights. Maybe this bodhisattva, this vision of Manjushri was actually from this monk. Maybe he wanted to be in the meditation hall sitting. So usually Manjushri's in the meditation hall. Another story, Zen master Zhan Wang Zhongxing was a Tenzo, also another head cook in the assembly of Dao One day, he accompanied his teacher, Dao, on a condolence visit to a deceased supporter's house. As they were leaving, Zhuang Xing slapped the coffin with his hand.

[65:56]

Alive or dead? Dao said, I do not say alive, I do not say dead. Zhuang Xing said, why don't you say? Dao said, I won't say, I won't say. After the visit, as they were returning, Zhuang Xing said, High Priest, you must tell me. If you still will not say it, I'll beat you up. Daowu said, strike me if you'd like, but I won't stay alive. I won't stay dead. Zhongxing finally hit Daowu with a number of punches. So Daowu returned to the temple, but he made Zhongxing, the head cook, leave, saying, you had better go for a little while, because after the director finds out about this, he will attack you. Zhongxing then bowed and left. And later on, he went to visit Xishuang, who was another great teacher who was a Dharma brother of Daowu. Then he brought up the matter of the previous conversation, which ended up with his hitting Daowu. Then Zhang Xing said, the student said, now I ask you to tell me. Xishuang said, don't you see that Dawu said, I do not stay alive, I do not stay dead? At that, Zhang Xing was greatly awakened, and he offered a memorial meal in attendance to his former teacher.

[67:03]

That's interesting. After the funeral yesterday, or during the funeral, it didn't seem like people were really referring to Jerry as if he was gone. I'd like to talk a little bit about what could appear to be violence or abuse, which kind of permeates the stories and I guess the Zen tradition. I'm not sure if I did. I know, I know. I guess I'll talk about myself. I'm having difficulty in how to look at it so that I can feel okay about it because, for example, if I go to a teacher and he says or does something that I feel is inappropriate, I could take it in a certain way, but yet then I walk away saying, I'm not sure about my perception here.

[68:10]

And I even have that same feeling, I don't know if this is clear, but I have that same feeling when you read the stories. I think, boy, this guy's hitting this guy, and I don't agree with this. And how do you accept, I can tell that you accept that, like it's okay with you, where it's kind of like not okay with me. And I'm trying to understand. Yeah, this is a big issue in terms of American Zen, and how do we translate this tradition and at the same time take care of boundaries and proprieties that we understand in our own psychological context and social context. So there have been problems with teachers, you know, in some sense, abusing or misusing their powers. So I think, you know, if you feel that something like that is happening, you should say something. But then the other side of it, as a different thing, really, it's not the same thing. If you, once you say to a teacher that you want to really study with them, they may ask you to do something that is difficult, or they may call you names, or they may not talk to you, or not smile at you for a year, or something like that, and you might feel bad, and that's actually an opportunity to see something about yourself, and to open up something in yourself.

[69:27]

And that doesn't happen unless you actually make it very clear to a teacher that you're up for that. But there's a particular style in these stories that's definitely in the Linji, in the Rinzai tradition, not the Soto tradition, of this kind of yelling and shouting and hitting. And that's for a particular period in history, in the 9th century in China. And Rinzai himself, when he was about to die, said to his disciples, which one of you can carry on this teaching? And one of his main disciples shouted. And as I said, to think that my teaching would be destroyed by this blind ass, who did become one of his successors. But the point is that to follow some particular teaching technique, as if that was the point, is just another kind of abusive ritual. So I don't know. I guess there are teachers these days who shout and stuff like that. Or there are students who go and shout at teachers. And that maybe is more helpful.

[70:29]

You know, to take on any of these forms without the spirit behind them is not the point. I don't know if that responds to you. Yeah, thank you. Other comments or questions, or should I just read more stories? I can read parts of this that are a little less inscrutable. I guess I had a question that went back to earlier when we were talking about maturity. What about kind of feeling the opposite way? I mean, you started to say something about that. Not just becoming attached to the forms, but really having an attraction to ritual. And is there a danger in that? Or would that be in any way harmful? Only if you use it as a way of kind of ignoring what you're doing. If you use a ritual like the set of television, then it's not really... The point of these rituals is that they're expressing something very deep.

[71:40]

So when we chant the Bodhisattva Vows, or when we chant the Kamsayam Blessing to the Bodhisattva of Compassion, or when we chant the Heart Sutra, sometimes they don't have particular, kind of didactic meaning. Sometimes they're just sound, but still, there's some teaching is being expressed there and there's some appreciation that's being expressed there. And when we have some sense of that, even if we don't have this complete cognitive kind of study of it, but just to have some sense of chanting as, for example, as an extension of the space of meditation and the openness of meditation into our voice. To see walking meditation as an extension of that space of sitting into a little more active mode. cutting carrots in the kitchen is a way of expressing our complete appreciation for and fulfillment of ourselves, our deepest self. It's to see, to see that space, that openness in all of our activities.

[72:47]

So the focus and training of working in the kitchen or working in the fields is about seeing in more active modes. It's not just sitting meditation. sitting meditation is where we start, but a lot of Zen training is much more focused on what do you do outside of the meditation hall. So actually rituals are just like that. And they don't have to become this, we can appreciate kind of the awareness that we have when we're chanting, or when we're bowing, or when we're, we do a bowing before we look in the kitchen here, for example, or before you go to work in the fields, or what he was talking about, about the guard manager also chanting to the spirit of the earth and to the spirit of the weather and the sky. So there's an appreciation for this world as alive. So all of the rituals, all of the ceremony, and our Shazen itself is another ritual in a way, are ways of expressing that appreciation and of deepening that and connecting with that. Jack, what do you think?

[74:07]

Is a monk's mouth like an oven? You've got to cook the food. At Tassajara, sometimes they eat very fast. And people who've been doing a lot of sitting practice and working very hard, you know, it's like, just... But, I don't know. I mean, I don't know what to say about that, except that I think it's very useful to reflect on. So there's an old saying that the entire universe is the eye of a monk. The eye of a practitioner. Or swallow the Pacific Ocean in one gulp. So to do any one thing, to say any one word, to cut one carrot with total intention, not in some kind of artificial way, but with complete awareness, complete intensity, complete wholehearted attention to just chanting, just listening, burns everything out.

[75:29]

I remember a story that I heard from a priest in the Jodo Shinshu tradition, the Pure Land tradition, where they do a lot of chanting. They don't do zazen or meditation in the same way we do. And he was a priest who was trained in that tradition. And his father had been a priest in that tradition, too. And when he was a little boy, he said that he was chanting and being trained by his father. And he kind of stopped a syllable or two. His father hit him and said, each syllable is ascension being, and you just killed one. And he felt very upset. He was a little boy. And at the time, he felt his father was being very strict. But then he started to chant that way. And he said, when I heard the story as an old man, that he was very, very grateful to his father for saying that. So to see each syllable as ascension being, is that his way of chanting? I don't know about the word violence in there.

[76:54]

I mean, the first precept is not to harm. But in the course of how do we align ourselves with, how do we meet the tradition? That's the point. How do we meet the ancestors? So we do it by coming and listening to a talk. We do it by sitting meditation. We do it by mindfully chopping carrots or walking to the beach. But also, at some point if you enter into some relationship with a teacher, then you are kind of more rigorously aligning yourself or testing yourself. And so to become a disciple means to accept discipline. So there are various levels of practice. I don't want to say one is better than the other. The point is not that that somebody who's living in Tassajara is better than somebody who's working in downtown San Francisco. Their practice is better. The point is, in whatever mode you're in, how do you align yourself with this way of opening?

[78:00]

So we all come to that with our particular situations in our particular lives, with our particular experience. But yes, there is that kind of training too, where one accepts supervision. Yes? This is completely off the track we've been on so far, but it's something that comes up to me, and I thought you might have an answer for it. We use the terms monk and nun a lot around here. And I'm just wondering, I know that monk in English refers to solitary, I think, traditionally. But I wonder how the term is used in the Japanese language, and if there's any etymological relationship. No, see, this is a problem of translation.

[79:03]

So we're using English, so I'm very painfully aware of this in terms of how to translate such material. We, in this community, use words like priest and monk. We don't say none so often. Monk or priest can be male or female. And it's complicated in terms of the history, so we use the word monk and we use the word priest, but those are actually words from Roman Catholic tradition, right? And actually, in terms of how we live, it would be more of those of us who are, quote, priest, unquote, in this tradition are much more like Protestant ministers. We don't take vows of celibacy. And in the Japanese, that is a tradition, too. Temples are inherited. Our children are priests, often. So to use these words, how do we use English words? And we don't really have the English words. It's kind of funny to go around using a lot of Japanese words. And actually, since I was born Jewish, I sometimes refer to myself as a Zen rabbi.

[80:06]

So it's important, actually, when we're in translating, but also in reading translations, and in talking about all this stuff, to say, well, what is the meaning of this? So we can get caught by these words. So even words like faith, truth, or reality, or awakening, or, you know, especially those kinds of words. You know, what is meant? You know, and we have to actually, you know, we have to understand that we're using English words, or enlightenment, or delusion. Those are English words. And, of course, the same problem happens for Dogen, who was translating Chinese Zen to Japanese, to Japanese people. And even more so when Buddhism went from India to China. So one of the things that we chant in the morning sometimes says, the meaning is not in the words, yet it responds to the inquiring impulse. We have to look at what do we actually mean by these words and not get caught by the words. So that's actually a big, it's a good question.

[81:10]

It's a big question to understand the meaning and not get caught by particularly Western associations to the words we use. So one way is to avoid all words that have associations here, Let me see. So faith, for example, I think in Western religions, there's a very different meaning than faith in Buddhism. In Buddhism, in Dogen's writings, for example, faith is very important. But it's not belief in some teaching, or belief in some writing, or belief in some particular being or person or something. It's more like just how one functions. Faith is taking the next step. Faith is just meeting the next person, meeting the next man. So when we, we have to really look at meanings. Yes?

[82:10]

There was a quotation earlier, I came in late, so I'm sorry. Quotation in your talk. not argue with them, but accept them because they can be a great teaching. Oh, right. So it doesn't mean just the administrators. It means, yeah, that's an interesting passage. It means it happens a lot, actually, in this kind of residential community, which is actually fairly unusual and more the model of practice is more people just coming to sit together. In a context where people are living together or practicing together intensely for some period, one of the metaphors that's used is kind of rocks being tumbled together, smoothing out the edges.

[83:18]

So the people who live here at Green Gulch are not necessarily all people who might have anything to do with each other in some other outside context. They all come here because they want to do this practice, and so they're all different kinds of people. Sometimes they rub each other in the wrong way. So just between different people working together, this level of difficulty and challenge to who am I and how we see ourselves and what I'm not going to put up with, you know, as opposed to hearing actually that there might be some feedback that actually can help you. So this is talking about not just the teachers but at every level in the temple kind of organization or hierarchy. So that's a whole other Issue the hierarchy and how that's actually a kind of more equitable than what we sometimes think of it as Just to read that passage again. If there is errant speech, it should be admonished.

[84:19]

So this is talking about you How to how to live together how to practice together in the study hall if you are given instruction, you should accept it These are greatly beneficial experiences Can't this be considered the great advantage of intimate relations? Gratefully we associate with good friends with abundant wholesome qualities and unfortunate to have refuge and take refuge in the three treasures. So to be willing to accept feedback is a very advanced practice, but that's what it's about, to be willing to see the way in which you're not fully expressing yourself because there's some idea you have about who you are and who somebody else is, or be willing to hear. So that's a lot of what goes on in a place like this, actually. instructions. I'm not sure what the distinction is that you're making. Well, for example, administrators like to give instructions.

[85:20]

Yes. In that case, if one should accept those that are given, then it might be difficult to tell the difference between a good Buddhist and a good Church. Oh, right. Sure. So it's not a matter of just following orders. It's a matter of First of all, there's the assumption in this kind of spiritual community that everyone is there fundamentally for the intention of opening up to their inner self. So that's the spirit in which a Japanese monk comes and wants to fully embody the forms. It's because they have some faith that that is their way of opening up to a deeper self. It's not about taking orders to go harm someone. So, of course, one follows the precepts. So it's not about taking orders, it's more like being one to hear, which is really the practice of compassion in Buddhism.

[86:26]

The Bodhisattva of Compassion, Kamsayana, is the one who hears, who listens to the sounds of the world and to what's requested and responds. The other thing is that someone who Sometimes in Zen writings they say, somebody who flatters us is a thief. Somebody who gives us a hard time is our true friend. So to really appreciate one's enemies, who one thinks are one's enemies. In the Vimalakirti Sutra it says, only a bodhisattva can hassle another bodhisattva. So to really, in this kind of practice that he's talking about in spiritual community, and I think you can apply this to people you practice with in your family, in your, you know, however you define your Sangha, to really hear, it doesn't mean that you just, that you just kind of take, follow orders. It means that you really hear what is, what is implied in criticism, for example, and see that as a teaching for you.

[87:27]

How you take that and how you process that and integrate that is up to you. Yes. We're speaking about Buddhist communities here. We're not speaking about like out of control city officials. Right. We're not talking about politics. No, we're not talking about, I mean, in the ordinary sense. So, but that's the problem. You know, if one is living in the world, you know, if one's working in downtown San Francisco or whatever, you might see the people around you as your Sangha, in a sense. But then also it's not the same thing because they don't necessarily have the same intention. So that's actually very advanced practice. And so, in a sense, we're trying to, as American Buddhists, we're trying to adopt this tradition to something that's a very advanced level. I mean, it's going to take us a while to really understand how it is that we as householders and laypeople and family people and working people can

[88:30]

use the tradition that wasn't exclusively from a monastic community, but the model of it is the monastic community. So we have places like Green Gulch in Tassajara as kind of points of reference, but then how do we take that out? How do we go to a talk or come to a session or go to a practice period or whatever, sit for 30 minutes in the morning in one's own home? How then do you take that out work with that in the world and in some cases where there are people who are not, have not realized their deepest intention. Paraphrase Zuki Roshi, have not realized that we're basically all totally interconnected. And so there are people in the world who think that their life is about getting more for themselves and doing unto others before someone does unto them or whatever, you know, and that's a delusion, that's ignorance. And that's how that's defined in Buddhism. So if we're living and practicing with those people, there is a way in which our spiritual practice can have some impact.

[89:37]

But it's slow and gradual, and you have to be very patient. So we're trying to do very advanced practice here, and so we have to be very patient with ourselves, and very patient with the situation. And it's difficult. So I salute all of us for trying to do this. Well, if there's no more comments or questions, go out and enjoy the gardens and the beach and the sunshine. Thank you very much.

[90:19]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ