So the first workshop I tried to give at Zen Center was called Not Zen. I thought, what could be more Zen than Not Zen? It was so Zen, nobody signed up for it. So Ekai Korematsu, who I think came here last month sometime, He also visited me, I'd known him for a long time. He actually practices in Australia and every summer he goes to Bogaio where he teaches something about Buddhism to the Indians. A long time ago, during one of these meetings, there was this college professor who invited him to come to America. to talk about Zen in America.

[01:01]

Of course, he hadn't been to America in many years. So he asked me, he asked me a question, what about Zen in America? I said, it's a big headache. It's a headache because people think they know what Zen is, and they also think they know what America is. Because we hate America and we love America at the same time. And the same thing about Zen, really. So the more we learn ourselves about these, the better that America will come together. And then last week I went to this conference of AZT, I don't know, it's one of those, SP or something. Anyhow, it's basically the Soto Shu in Japan's organization, which includes, in America, which includes a lot of Americans who are also part of this American S-B-Z-A, maybe. And so there's a lot of overlap.

[02:06]

And actually, I liked the people there very much. It was kind of very kind and very considerate. But it was pretty boring, actually, because people were saying the right things instead of saying what they felt so much. Maybe some people were saying what they felt, but not so much. It was more like, and there's this idea of creating this monastery up north in your Coulee County, which I think is a good idea, except the way they talked about it, it was dead. It's like a museum. But I may be exaggerating. I think there was, there's probably some very lively, good parts to it, but there was also this other aspect, which kind of make it into a museum and kind of dead. And so I found that interesting because people thought they knew what Zen was.

[03:09]

They also thought they knew what America was, and they knew what Japan was. These are all complex subjects. Japan may be very hierarchical, but in other ways it includes everybody. They try to include everybody in a way that we Americans don't. So, you know, I often think that Zen has to do with, has to do with being and doing. Being is a kind of, like Sugiyoshi said, each one of you is perfect the way you are. That's being. And you can use a little we need both. And usually we emphasize one rather than the other.

[04:12]

So I saw these two movies recently. One of them is called Whiplash, which I hated. There was this movie about this music teacher who really wanted to push his students to And there's a point to it because I think for many of us, knowing how lazy we are, we need to push ourselves. But there's a part of it which was too much, too much push and not enough acceptance. But for some people, that may be good. Then I saw this other movie right after that, which took the opposite tack, which was Still Alice. Alzheimer's, very premature Alzheimer's.

[05:18]

And she obviously pushed herself to be the sharpest whip in the deck. She was very sharp, but then all of a sudden those capabilities started to fade. And she had to learn who she was and to accept who she was, and it was quite beautiful. You'd think that the depressing movie would be the one about the Alzheimer's, but actually that was pretty good. The depressing movie was about whiplash. But there's a point to whiplash, of course, which is I think we need to push ourselves somewhat. We need to accept and then push. If we can't accept, then I don't think we can push either. We can't push through, we can't accept either, we have to do both. So what is America and what is Zen?

[06:28]

Beats me, but I think we need to ask the question and try to answer it, but with a lot of modesty about it. Okay. I've suffered from Parkinson's for a long time and I had this deep brain stimulation which made a tremendous difference. But sometimes my speaking is not as clear as it should be and I'm a little bit lower than I would like to be.

[07:34]

So I've been trying to work on it and there's this All my life, I've been trying to be big and loud. Well, instead of that, I'm trying to be big and loud. And not only that, after the DBA, I kept being, when I tried to be, because I had, during Parkinson's, I had to be bigger than I was, so I kept trying to create effort. So now sometimes when I move, I kind of move too much, too wild. So now I have to be big and wild, but not too wild. big and loud. So I wasn't sleeping very well before I had this operation, and I would sleep maybe a couple hours a night. But I learned a lot, because I really learned that when I went to sleep, I became everyone, I joined everyone again.

[08:43]

Then when I woke up, became this body again. It's very interesting. It's kind of like reincarnation, a little bit. And every day we're involved in a new life, enjoying everybody again in the evening. So do you have any questions or comments I wonder with the movie, I haven't seen it though so maybe I shouldn't be asking, I mean was it just a question of a really skilled teacher would find the line that was enough pushing but not too much and maybe over time would learn that better and better. So was the issue just that that person didn't run beyond the line consistently and is that

[09:47]

They wanted what he was giving, and they didn't mind that he was... Yeah. I think you may know teachers like this who only want the best students, so they keep pushing the best students to be best. Everybody else they ignore, or actually mean to get them out of the way. I don't know anybody like that. But yeah, there's something about that. But actually, for this one student, it was useful. For this one student, for everybody else. And maybe I'm not even sure it was that useful, you know, because sometimes you have students and they really want you to hit them. And I don't know if that's always so good. Because even if they learn from being hit, what happens when they're not being hit? There's no way to hit them except life. So what I learned from Mel a little bit was that just to hang out with them as they're going through what life is hitting them with, rather than pushing them so much by myself.

[11:03]

There are times when you can push, but mostly it's, it's not even that useful. It may be useful in a certain instance, but to do it all the time is like, First of all, who wants to do that? Abusive people. Abusive people, maybe. But I don't want to make him all bad, because there was an element in which he was doing what he thought was right, which was to try to make somebody—to do something exceptional, you have to be pushed a little bit. But there are lengths in which it doesn't make any sense to me. Is it okay if I explain a little bit about when you started, you talked about the ACTA, and you kind of stumbled over those a little.

[12:05]

Which I stumbled over them too. But I just want to explain a little bit about what you were talking about. The ACTA is the Association of Sodas and Buddhists. There's not good branding here. The SCBA is the American side. So anyway, I don't explain all this stuff to you. This could go on for 25, 30 years. The American organization actually was pretty much revived Well, for 25, 20 years or something, there's been this move to make a Japanese-style monastery in America.

[13:19]

And they involved me with it. And so they finally, Akiba Roshi, who was Yoshi's husband, finally managed to And it's all Japanese style. It's supposed to be the real thing. And that's what Michael was talking about. Well, thank you, Malcolm. I got to ask you a couple of questions. So there's this meeting of these Western practitioners and the Eastern practitioners. And they're all very nice people. I enjoyed being with them. It was kind of, even though we had to sit in a chair for four or five hours and talk, it wasn't too bad. But given who they were, it was more interesting than you would think.

[14:23]

But the Americans are not so much into hierarchy or into form so much. But the Japanese who have taken our form and want to transmit it don't want to be our formal teachers anymore. They do, but they don't. They'd like us to take over for the American accreditation and other stuff. And we, as Americans, don't want to be involved in accreditation because, first of all, we don't want to take the responsibility. But second of all, we've seen how easy it is to mess that up, to mess up the official way So in a way you need some kind of official doctrine, but not too much. You have to be very light with it. And so we as Americans, we see these kind of iron things that don't have to be iron, but look at them that way. So it's interesting because the Japanese

[15:28]

Some of them wanted to put this monastery up there, which is a good idea. I have nothing wrong with it. I don't need to say anything wrong with it, because as Mel says, you never know what's going to really come out of it when you try something. It may start off one way and turn out some other way. And there's some very good questions. Most of us are here because of some Japanese teacher or something, or our teachers who study under Japanese people. So it's not that so much. And so we're all culturally conditioned as Americans, as Japanese. That's why we have to go very deep in our practice to try to get underneath it somewhat, to get a little bit underneath it. And so, as you may know, many of the younger practitioners don't want to do this practice so much. At least they're not drawn to the rules and regulations. But we weren't really drawn to the rules and regulations either.

[16:31]

It was the people. They were the teachers that really inspired us. And either we're not so inspiring anymore, or something. Or there's some cultural thing happening too. Hi Michael. Zen in America. As you were saying that, I was thinking about where I see the term Zen. I see the word Zen around town or in our sort of modern lexicon. There's a perfume, or there's a cologne, or there's a restaurant, or there's a bar called Zen, or there's Zen in the art of this, Zen in the art of that. And I don't know, for me, I kind of feel offended by that. Or if I'm explaining to people that I'm a Zen Buddhist, and they say, they think it's something exotic or something special, or that they seem, it's sort of like, wow, what is that?

[17:45]

Is that really religion? That's not religion. That's philosophy. It's a way of life. It's a drink. So I don't know. I get a feeling of like, it feels insulting or offensive to me. Or is that just my hang-up? It's your hang-up. Get over it. I mean, it's true. I mean, but even with inside Zen, people want to brand Zen as something. That's the new buzzword. It's brand. You want a Zen brand. So as if, you've got to get over it. People are going to make, any time you use a word, you're going to try to make it into something. So zen has been meant to be a kind of a word which is just a placeholder for something you can't pin down. But now people want to pin down that as something. So if people want to call you, say zen, you say, well, OK, but you can look at it differently than that.

[18:47]

The first time I heard the Zen of Motorcycle Riding, remember? Everybody went, wow, wow! It's the most popular book ever published. You know, Zen in Japan means that they think of it as ancestor worship. In America, if you say Zen and they think of it as ancestor worship, nobody would understand what you've been thinking. Michael, can you help me situate where compassion lies between the being and the being that you're talking about? Is there a nexus between those two and compassion?

[19:51]

Well, to be compassionate to yourself, you have to accept yourself as you are. To be compassionate to other people, you have to become better than you are. Yeah. That helps. That's part of doing. Well, I thought it was fun. Being is kind of being. OK, I've said it already. Yes? How do you both cultivate compassion and be in this culture and get under this culture, learn it? I mean, those are things I heard you say. So it's just, that just makes me want to go back to bed. It seems impossible. Yes, it is impossible. OK. Don't do it. All right. That's not an alternative. Say that again.

[20:55]

Not doing it is not an alternative. Not doing it is not an alternative. Don't do it. What do I do? That's not what that is either. But then what is Zen Buddhism? America. America? Is it any different from that one? That one? The one you just yelled about. Okay, America is terrible and it's great.

[22:00]

all kinds of things. It's a kind of mixed up world that we live in. America is all of that. And so is Zen, because Zen has to deal with everything. It's about everything. So that's what it is. Sorry, I shouldn't have just yelled that out, but could I say what I would have really said with my hand up? What if I said no? If you said no? Say it anyhow. Try it. I'll see what I do. you know, this, what about Zen in America, the kind of questions you were asking, or whether, like, I just bought three bottles called the Zen of Zin, it's a Zinfandel. So that Kaz could take them to Tassajara and offer them to people. Anyway, so, I think maybe, like, the academic part of my mind, which I usually find also to be a big headache, might help in this case because actually history helps.

[23:11]

Judaism isn't a brand in the same way. Christianity isn't a brand in the same way, although there are some kinds that are. There's a history involved in Zen arriving in America. We wouldn't be asking this question 500 years from now or maybe even 100 years from now. So studying the history of how Zen existed in different places and what happened to make a sudden change of places, that will probably be a good ibuprofen for the headache. For some. Actually, thank you, because I thought of another thing I was going to say, which is the idea that they want a museum of Zen. It's not so bad really because in some ways we need museums because otherwise we completely make it up on our own, which I think is what's happening in religion today is that people either go back to a tradition that never was and make it up, or they don't have any faith in anything and so they're all stumbling around.

[24:29]

without giving up some kind of tradition and at the same time trying to learn really what the tradition was rather than our ideas about the tradition is very important. Do the Japanese ever mess up the official thing? We don't like to take on the official responsibilities because we know how easy it is to mess it up. I'm just wondering if it's different in Japan, if that's a difference in the culture of Japan and America, or? Well, yes and no. I think particularly those of, many of them who come to America also have some of the same feelings that we do. But also, it's a much more hierarchical society. So yes and no. It's a question really both for you and the soldiers.

[25:42]

I have to say I got a little insulted when the gentleman came here and kept, who's I guess moving and shaking on this Zen center. He kept saying we're going to make Zen the way, true Zen. Isn't that true, Zen? Where does Kasahara fit in as far as traditional Japanese training and keeping that alive that you spoke of, Michael, about not just making it up? Well... You know, I think as many different monasteries as there can be will be useful in Zen.

[26:46]

I think there may be an element that they think that theirs is going to be the best, but I don't want to say it will be the best. But sometimes, if it's coming from another culture, it may take some bending. I think they're going to find it harder than they think to keep that monastery going in the way they think it's going to be. So that'll be interesting. It'll be interesting to see how it changes. And you know, Tassajara is pretty good, so it'd be good to see how other people do it. Well, I've been dealing with this for 25 years. I have been dealing with this for 25 years. For years. You don't have to be that loud. That's been my question to them all that time. What about Hassan Haqq?

[27:49]

The thing is, we have much more flexible—as Americans, we're very flexible, basically. So all the rules can never be changed. culture of rules and regulations. In a culture, this is like an immovable object, or a unstoppable force meets an immovable object. And that's the body-mind. So we can't stop. I remember he and I went to Japan to speak to the senator of Japan.

[28:53]

And I was struck by many things. One of the main things I was struck with is that the Japanese have a couple of ideas going on at the same time, but we mostly have one as Americans. So on the one hand, I thought it was great because there's a certain kind of flexibility, but there's something a little dishonest about it sometimes. And so you have to see how, in some ways it was more subtle because there are at least a couple of stories about really what's going on. But for one person to skip from one to the other without telling you, it borders on that. So they understand that, but we don't understand it.

[29:58]

So we rail against them. How come we have to do all this pony stuff? That's just the way we do things. You just go around the world. But it's subtle. So getting down to the details, does this mean that the monastery in Clear Lake is going to be men only? Or are the men and women going to be segregated? Or is it priests only? Or how does that work? Well, this is a little unclear because there's going to be a core group in the monastery, which I think is going to be all priests. And I don't know if it's going to be all men or not. I think we don't know what it is. But, I will say what they say, with the condition, it's both men and women. It's not just men, it's both. They realize this is America.

[31:04]

I mean, you may know, but people who know what we've had to go through to actually have women elected. men and women, and even lay people, I mean lay people also, can practice it. I tell you my feeling about Zenokin, Michael. Sure. They're making an effort. This would be a Japanese style monastery and all that, but actually it's Or maybe become more international. There'll be American teachers actually doing most of the work there.

[32:05]

They'll become maybe more international, which is something. You know, the thing about Tassajara is it's very limited. Many people want to go to Tassajara and can't because of the crowding. It takes so many people. So I think it just makes sense that there'd be other monasteries. We'll see how they turn out. is to get a taste of the Japanese style, basically, from their side. And I think it's a good balance to those who just want to sit once or twice and then think that they've got it.

[33:22]

Not that sitting a thousand times makes it any better, but perhaps it does. I'm very much with how all of this connects to Charleston right now. And a lot of what I've seen emerging in movements of social justice, particularly around those issues, is who leads action or doing, so to speak? And this whole issue of what is it to really need another and be attuned to what actually is needed and that really witnessing and deep listening to make sure that the response is really about true partnership. And so, in a way, this dialogue about Japanese-American, I'm thinking about, you know, racism and things like that.

[34:28]

And I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that. Well, I think one-to-one is very good. But it's just like talking about Zen America and talking about racism. In certain ways, it's one of the basis of our country, and in other ways, it's the basis of our country to try to overcome it. And so I think both are true. I don't know. But I think what you said is the deepest thing, and one-to-one is very good when you can do If I had the answer to that one, it would be... You could brand it. You could brand it. Send in racism.

[35:32]

Hug. Judy, I take your point. For me, that really clarifies the question I had about compassion. And I feel like, you know, I try to monitor the Guardian of London. page of that, thankfully. And I think the question of racism is structural and it goes beyond America. But this is also a very exciting week. Underneath the headlines about South Carolina or about the Pope and his encyclical, and there's a certain universality to kind of connect the dots in terms of one-on-one in the particular and the universality issues of the other, whether it's race or environment. I thank you for raising the point. It's, for me, more fruitful thought. Okay, usually at this point I try to say, now what was I trying to say all this time?

[37:08]

I guess what I was trying to say is be kind to yourself and to others. Do the best you can. When you notice that you're falling short, get up and try harder. But not too hard. Sounds pretty boring, doesn't it? We actually just finished our six-week practice period, and I think that this is a nice continuation reminder that, you know, be and do. And that's what we all did for that time, so it's nice. So yeah, just keep being and keep doing. So thank you very much. You're welcome. Okay.

[38:09]

Thank you, Mel. Thank you.

[38:19]

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