Samu is work. I'm looking at the shusa. Good work. Speak, speak! Samu is work. Fushin means community, community work. Everybody works together, which is a very common thing for a Zen community. We used to do it more than we do now. And as a matter of fact, when we Nenju, every four, nine days, three and eight days, The afternoon would be devoted to cleaning up the grounds, pushing some.

[01:04]

And we used to, the whole afternoon work period would be raking and cleaning up. But we stopped doing that because there wasn't enough time to do everything and do that too. So we've kind of Everyone, we do have a little bit of Samu, you know, but not so much group, not so much community work together. So, I'm very happy to have this heavy dose of four days This is a little more than Fushin Samu. This is Sesshin Samu. Or Samu Sesshin. Work Sesshin.

[02:07]

Four days. So I feel that we need to give something back to this place. We take a lot. And we need to give back and also I would like to emphasize what it really means to do Samoan, to really be one with our activity together, doing some work that we all do together. So tonight, I just wanted to say that It doesn't matter that it's raining because we have plenty of inside work. So I wanted to find a text that would cover work and the

[03:23]

Eihei Shingi, the Chiji Shingi that we've been studying, doesn't lend itself to that so well. So I thought I would use the Tenzo Kyokun, the rules for the Tenzo, because that's also part of the Eihei Shingi, but a different part. And it's more Dogen, than the rest of it, than the Chiji Shingi. The Chiji Shingi is a lot of stories that are collected, you know, and then the second part is a lot of rules, and it's wonderful, but it's not so much Dogen himself speaking. He has very little commentary, actually. He just, oh, this is wonderful, you know, and that guy's wonderful for doing it, but he doesn't really elaborate on the stories so much.

[04:25]

So the Tenzo Kyokan, which I've talked about a lot, and probably most of you know it pretty well, nevertheless still has deep things, endless possibilities. So I want to use that tonight. And of course, I picked out a certain section which I want to talk about. So this is kind of not exactly the middle, but the beginning of the middle of the Tenzo Kyokun. Kyokun means teaching, so it's Dogen's teaching for the Tenzo, but it applies to every aspect of our work.

[05:31]

And we should see it that way. When Dogen says Tenzo, we should see it as work leader, ditch digger, cheeky doe, kitchen worker. Whatever you do, you can apply it to yourself. That's the spirit that we should see this in. So, I'll start here. He says, strengthen your resolve and devote your life spirit to surpassing the refinement of the ancient ancestors and being even more, I don't like to use the word meticulous, but being even more aware than those who came before you. How do we apply our life aspirations aspiration so that it will function for the way.

[06:36]

So Dogan is talking to someone who has a life aspiration for the way. And he says, how can we apply this? How can we turn ourselves to the way so that it will work for us and it will work for the way? If great teachers in the past were able to make a plain soup from greens for only a pittance, three coins, we must try to make a fine soup for the same amount. This is very difficult to do. Among other things, there are great differences between ages past and today. So even hoping to stand alongside the teachers of former times is no simple matter. Well, I think about that sometimes. Sometimes he will say, the ancestors of former times were just like you.

[07:44]

And they were. But there's something about people who initiate something, who stand out. And then the followers can be good, but they don't always have that same kind of initial spirit. It's true. But, at the same time, the ancestors were just like us. So, I think we should be careful when we compare. We tend to look up at the ancestors and the books that are written, you know, about them, and whoever writes the books makes it sound I'm very exalted. When they write books about you, 500 years from now, people say, ah, that was instant, just back there in Tassajara. Among other things, there are great differences between ages past and today.

[08:55]

So even hoping to stand alongside the teachers of former times is no simple matter. Being attentive, he uses the word scrupulous, but being attentive in our actions and pouring our energy into these actions, there is no reason why we cannot equal the ancient masters. Right. We must aspire to the highest of ideals without becoming arrogant in our manner. That's a really good point. Really good point. How do we do that? Inspire the highest ideals without becoming arrogant in our manner. You know, arrogant for a Zen student, you know, to become arrogant in their manner is to practice the art of Zen. You know, you strut around, kind of like taking on a certain air, you know.

[10:00]

and make people afraid of you or kind of cautious. You have to be very careful. So a good Zen student, I think, characteristic of a good Zen student is someone that you know you can trust. That's a very good characteristic, someone you feel at ease enough that you know you can trust them, and never talks about their accomplishments, and hides their accomplishments, and presents a... not only hides their accomplishments, but is open about their faults, You know, in the history of religion, all of the great saints call themselves the worst of sinners.

[11:22]

Well, they're not bragging. We hope. But there's something about that, because they really see that. They really see their faults. They're not so aware of their accomplishment. And this is what Suzuki Roshi, I think, always was talking about when he talked about beginner's mind. It's a beginner's mind. Always being forgetting your accomplishments and always being ready for the next thing and realizing your shortcomings and your faults and being open about it. These things are truly just a matter of course, yet we remain unclear about them because our minds go racing about like horses running wild in fields.

[12:38]

while our emotions remain unmanageable, like monkeys swinging in the trees. If only we could step back to carefully reflect on the horse and the monkey, our lives would naturally become one with our work." Very interesting. Uchiyama Roshi, talks about this guy who's riding this horse through town. And the horse is going so fast, everybody's standing back looking at it. And some guy says, hey man, where are you going? And he says, I don't know, ask the horse. And this is our civilization, I'm afraid. So, we remain unclear because our minds go racing about like horses running wild in the fields while our emotions remain unmanageable like monkeys swinging in the trees.

[13:58]

This is something that when we come to Tassajara, you know, Even though we practice in this very quiet way, our minds are still racing with ideas, and the least little thing sets off our emotions. And we get very tangled up with our emotions, and some little thing hurts us, and we'll spend a week, you know, down, you know, we're dealing with this thing. Very difficult. This is what most people are dealing with, most of us are dealing with, all the time. Some people more than others.

[14:59]

The thing about, you know, people wonder, How do I deal with that? How do I deal with my mind racing and my emotions boiling over, getting caught up? How do we deal with that? He says, take the backward step. He says, if only we would step back to carefully reflect on this horse mind and monkey emotions, our lives would naturally become one with our work. So what interferes with our mind becoming one with our work? We're always thinking about something else. Or we're always worrying about something. Thinking about something or worrying about something. So how do we become one with our work?

[16:09]

He says, doing so is the means whereby we turn things even while simultaneously we are being turned by them. Mostly, when we get caught up in our mind and emotions, we're being turned by things. We're being turned by our emotions. being turned by our thoughts. But that's not exactly what he means here. He means in the harmonious way of life, we allow ourselves to be turned. And in turn, we turn things. So we have the ability

[17:13]

to make things work in some way, and also to allow things to work. So there are two types of personalities, and we are a combination of both of these, but one type of personality is always being turned. This is the retiring kind, who allows allows ourselves to be turned, but we don't put something forth. The other kind is the kind that's always turning, always moving things, but doesn't allow themselves to be moved. So, to find the center, some pivot. Confucius talks about the unwavering pivot. The unwavering pivot. although everything is moving around it, it's always stable.

[18:17]

So, to allow ourselves to be moved without complaining, without having some idea about it, or some feeling about it, and knowing what to do by moving things. And both of these activities are harmonizing with each other. This is harmonious activity. You put yourself into the work and the work moves you. You move the work and the work moves you. You move me and I move you. So that there's this harmonious interaction between yourself and your activity. We say, I walk down the road. That's from the side of what I'm doing. That's from the side of me. But actually, the road walks me. The road is creating me as I walk. If there was no road, I wouldn't be doing that.

[19:24]

I wouldn't be the me that's walking down the road. So, it looks like I am walking and the road is standing still. But I'm standing still and the road is walking. That's also true. The old saying is, the river is standing still while the bridge flows. So, it's taking away the point of view of myself. Because we always see everything from the point of view of the I, we only have half a life.

[20:32]

When we know how to flow with things, when we know how to reciprocate with things, things and myself are not two. This is what Dogon is talking about. Doing so is the means whereby we turn things even while simultaneously we are being turned by them. it is vital that we clarify and harmonize our lives with our work and not lose sight of either the absolute or the practical, or the absolute side of our life or the active side of our life. Practical meaning comparative. Absolute means the side of our life which is incomparable.

[21:45]

It can't be compared to anything because there's only one thing. And the practical, which is the changing face of things that we're dealing with all the time. This is always where the koan lies. This is Genjo Koan. It lies right there. between the absolute value and the comparative value of things. Everything has absolute value. And when we see the absolute value of everything, then we see Buddha. And then we know how to deal with the relative side of things, because that's also Buddha. So that he says, handle even a single leaf of a green, a piece of lettuce or a piece of cabbage, in such a way that it manifests the body of the Buddha.

[23:16]

How do you handle a single leaf so that it manifests the body of Buddha? That's the Zen student's practice. Everyday, everyday practice. This in turn allows the Buddha to manifest through the leaf. Another way of saying it is it invites the Buddha to manifest through the leaf. we call forth Buddha nature by the way we act. When we offer incense in the zendo in the morning, it's inviting Buddha to come and practice with us. So through our activity,

[24:25]

Our activity day in and day out, we're always inviting Buddha to come and practice with us. We invite the ancestors to come and practice with us. We invite Prajnaparamita to fill the zendo and fill our lives and manifest through our activity. And this is how we build trust. You know, it's when we put ourselves fully into doing something without any thought of egotism or self-centeredness, this invites Buddha.

[25:32]

And it also, you can say it invites the universe. In Christianity, grace is something that's given. It's not something that you can get. It's not something that you can do, there's nothing you can do directly to induce that. But I think in Buddhism, without asking for that, when you act in that way, the universe meets you that way. When you act without intention, without self-centeredness, the universe meets you halfway. And you can feel that. And this is what builds your faith in Buddha nature.

[26:44]

You can't connive it and you can't get it some other way. Oh, he says, this is a power which you cannot grasp with your rational mind. It operates freely according to the situation in a most natural way. At the same time, This power functions in our lives to clarify and settle activities and is beneficial to all living beings. So, holding up this leaf, how do we treat this leaf?

[27:54]

How do we treat vegetables? How do we treat our tools? How do we take care of the shop? I have no complaint about the shop. Thank you. You're brave, Andrew. I have no complaint. But there's a way to do something that I would like us to start thinking about. You know, when we go out there and we do some work, you know, and then we turn off the saw and walk away, you know. But actually, you should take a brush and brush off the machine. Brush the dust off. And put everything in place, you know.

[28:55]

And when you use the table, after you use it, put all your tools away. brush it clean for the next person, just like in the kitchen. We should treat the shop in the same way that we treat the kitchen. I have a mechanic who I take my car to. You can eat off the floor of his garage. I've never seen a garage like that. Very rarely. You know? It looks like he's not doing any work. Rare, very rare. But, you know, a Zen monastery should have this kind of quality. You know, I know we work very hard and we don't have time to do everything. We really don't have time to do... We don't have time to do hardly any of the things that I want to do.

[29:57]

I don't have. And yet, Somehow, I don't expect us to have a floor that you can eat off of. But I think we should at least develop some good habits. And if we develop good habits, things will happen, even though you don't have time to do them. I used to think, Well, my stereo was stolen out of my car. Because one night I didn't take it out, and somebody else came and took it out. So I got another one. And this one you take the face off of.

[30:59]

So every time I get out of the car, I have to take the face off of it and put it in my pocket. And that's another thing I have to do. And I thought, I'm going to have to do this every time I get out of the car. This other act. It's not a very big act, but it's another thing you have to do. And thinking about all the things that you have to do to add another thing to the things you have to do. But yet I do it. And now, it's just, I just do it. I just always do it. And it only takes a second. But thinking about it, it feels like a burden to have to do another thing, another little thing. So, I know that we can develop habits of taking care of things that will keep things at a certain level that feels good even though it's not always perfect or always ideal.

[32:02]

I do think we I would like us to start thinking about doing that. Basically, there should be no part of the monastery that feels neglected. That's a big order, and I don't expect that. But I think that if we start thinking more in terms of cultivating good habits, that things will get taken care of in a pretty good way. So anyway, taking care of our tools, taking care of our tools is, you know, these are very complex, wonderful machines, you know, and they serve us. In Japan, recently, a couple of years ago.

[33:04]

You know, every once in a while, the Japanese will honor things that they use, old pots and pans, you know, matter of fact. They'll take the old pots and pans that they've used for 20 years and put them on the altar, make an altar and light incense and venerate them, you know, because they're venerable friends. And they will There was one man who had the celebration of brassieres. He collected thousands of bras and put them on a big altar and had a, because they, you know, they uphold something. Just going overboard there. But, you know, if you have a kitchen where you use the same pots and pans over and over and over for years, sometimes I look at the pots and pans, you know, and I think how venerable they are, you know, how much they've been used and scrubbed and

[34:26]

kind of the patina they have and the feeling they have, you know? And they're our friends, and they're not just objects. By handling them so much, we give them life, a certain kind of life, and they take on our life. They take on our characteristics, and they reflect us. And this is how we, you know, tune into life, actually. So he says, back to the kitchen, he says, after all the preparations for the meal are complete, clean up thoroughly, putting everything back where it ought to be. In another part of this he says, high things go in a high place, low things go in a low place. Everything has a kind of place for it. And when we put something down, how do we put it down?

[35:30]

And where do we put it? I really want us to think about this in our work system. When we put something down, where do we put it, and how do we put it down, and where do we put it next to? How do we relate all the things that we put down to each other? How do I know, when I take the top off my water, how do I know where to put it? There's this table and there's this thing and that. How do I choose where to put it? Can I put it down? I have to choose where to put it. And I choose to put it in relation to everything on this table. So I took it off, I put it there. I didn't think about it very much, but because I'm used to putting things down in relation to whatever is on the table. It felt good. It intuitively felt good to put it right there.

[36:32]

So, through practice we develop intuition. Intuition is not very highly regarded because science is so highly regarded and kind of takes the place of intuition. But scientists are also intuitive. So that's very true. First comes intuition, then comes practicality. Intuition is defined as directly knowing, or directly in contact, direct perception, without an intermediary, like language or thinking. And so our practice is a combination or a balance of intuition and rationale. Rational thinking and intuition. You have to have both. If you only have rational thinking, then whatever you do becomes just kind of rote, or doing by rote, or doing without imagination, or without contacting really.

[37:49]

You can be a good scholar, but unless you have touched something intuitively, you don't know what you're talking about. And if you're only intuitive, then you don't know how to put it into practicality. So we have intuitive people, you know, who touch things very deeply, but they don't know how to make it work. and have people that know how to make things work, but they haven't touched the depth. So, a combination of intuition and practical... And that's what Bilge is talking about too. How do we... What he's talking about is the intuitive side and the practical side, and how to make them work together. but I'll talk about that as we come to it.

[38:53]

He says, after all the preparations for the meal are complete, clean up thoroughly, that's where I stopped, putting everything back where it ought to be. When the drum sounds and the bell rings, both morning and evening, be sure not to miss Zazen, no matter what you're doing, nor going to see the master to receive his teaching. When you return to your room, Shut your eyes. He's talking to the Tenzo now. So this is kind of nice. He says, shut your eyes and count the number of people in the Soto. Don't forget the older priests and the retired monks, plus those living in single rooms. Include those in the infirmary or any other elderly people. In addition to these, any monks who are on leave and those who have just arrived but are not yet living fully within the community should also be taken into account. And finally, those living in any of the sub-temples within the complex must be added. So the thing about, count all the people. Don't leave anybody out when you're deciding who to feed.

[40:00]

If there are any doubts, check with the heads of the offices or those in charge of the various residences where people might be staying. When you know the exact number in the community, then calculate the amount of food to be cooked. For every grain of rice to be eaten, supply one grain. In dividing one grain, the result may be two half grains, or possibly three or four. On the other hand, one grain might equal a half grain, or perhaps two half grains. Then again, two half grains might be counted as one whole grain. You must be able to see clearly how much of a surplus will be created if you add one unit of rice, or whether there will be enough if you take away one unit. There's no need to calculate meticulously what he's saying here. What he's saying is, generally, be careful how you count things. Be careful who you take into account, and be careful how you make it all come out.

[41:06]

And make your calculations as precisely as possible. And don't overlook anything when you do that. If possible, you try to make the food cover everybody, and at the end, there's nothing left. That's Ikea, but it never happens. Can't happen. But you try and make it as closely as possible. And the more you do it, by calculating, the easier it becomes to do intuitively. It's like when you make recipes, you know? At first, you follow the recipe religiously, you know? So much of this, so much of that. But after you've done it, you don't look at the recipe anymore, and you know how it feels, and you know what the variations of the recipe are. You know how, you know, the recipe has one idea, but you know that really it's a little better this way, you know?

[42:10]

A little bit of this and a little less of that, and pretty soon you're just doing it, So you're doing it with your heart and your head. And you're doing it through intuition, because you directly know how to do it. And Suzuki Roshi used to talk about that, too. But the good cooks don't look at the recipes anymore. Sometimes. And you should never poo-poo the recipe. But after a while, you just know how to do something. And you do it out of intuition. And I was talking today about how I make a salad dressing. Tensa asked me, well, how do you make a salad dressing? And I said, well, I take a little bit of oil, I go like this, and I take a little bit of vinegar, I go like this, and I mix it up, and then I taste it.

[43:13]

And if it needs a little bit of this, I'll put some more in. Or I'll take some out if it's too much. But, you know... That's not so relevant to what we're talking about, but... Here comes the call. He says, when you eat a grain of looling rice, you may become the mountain Guishan. When you add a grain, you may become the cow. Actually, water buffalo. Sometimes the water buffalo eats Guishan. Sometimes Guishan pastures the water buffalo. Now, I have to explain what that means. There's a story it's referring to.

[44:15]

Here's the story. One day, Guishan said to the monks, a hundred years after my death, I will be reborn as a water buffalo to a parishioner on this mountain, Mount Isan. On the flank of this cow, it will be written, I am Guishan. If you say that the cow is me, you will be wrong because it is just a water buffalo. And if you say it is just a water buffalo, you will be wrong because it will be me. So, what should you call it? That's the koan. And so, Dogen says, when you eat a grain of luling rice, a grain of luling, there's a koan about it, you probably know. in the Book of Serenity, Sagan, Yoshi, a monk asked, what is the Buddhadharma?

[45:32]

And Sagan says, what is the price of rice and looling? Looling rice is kind of high quality rice from the district of Luling, China at that time. So he said, what is Buddhadharma? He said, what is the price of rice in Luling? That's koan. So there's a lot of koans here just all mixed up together. So he says, when you eat a grain of Luling rice, Luling rice is like, here we have the koan. of looling rice. What is the price of looling rice? If I have a grain of rice here, what is the price of that rice? What is it worth? How do you value it? What kind of value do you put on it? It's priceless.

[46:34]

There's no value you can put on it because it's just an absolute Buddha nature. It has absolutely no price. no way that you can compare it to anything. And yet, it goes for 65 cents a pound. And we're willing to buy it. I don't know how much rice is, but 45 cents a pound. Yeah, it depends on what kind of rice. Soybeans are 60 cents a pound. Imagine that. So, on the one hand, it's priceless and absolute. On the other hand, it's one among a million billion things and it's relative.

[47:43]

This is where all koans come from. How do you, how does that, how do the relative and absolute aspects meet? That's where our life is. That's why Daoguang calls it Genjo Koan, the koan of our daily life, moment after moment as it arises. We're faced with this koan of how we do something in a relative way that and realize the absolute quality of things. So even though something only cost me 10 cents, it's still very precious. And yet, I can just throw it away. And we do it all the time. But sometimes my Anja brings me these wonderful pieces of fruit.

[48:55]

I have a pear that he brought me, and I just look at that pear, and it's so wonderful. It's just this wonderful piece of life, living piece of life, sitting there on my bookcase. piece of rice is alive. Every little seed is alive. We're surrounded by all this life. You get a bag of, a huge sack of rice, it's just loaded with bursting life. And yet, we don't think about that so much. We think about what it, how it, you know, what it tastes like, or You know, when is dinner ready? Something like that. In a very utilitarian way. And that's good. We do use things. And as we use things, how do we appreciate what we use?

[50:03]

You know, he said, there's a prefix. I don't know anything about the Japanese language, but there is a prefix, O, that means honorable. And he said, before every piece of food, you should put the prefix, O, venerable, or honorable, or something like that. And that's why the kesa, kasaya, is the robe, right? But he said, we call it the okesa, because it's a respectful term. Kesa is a respectful term. The O is respectful. And in all vegetables and the things we use, he said we should use this term, O, before, so that we recognize or realize or think about how we honor Buddha nature

[51:16]

through this thing, through this whatever it is that we're dealing with. So when you eat a grain of lu-ling rice, you may become the monk Guishan. Guishan here stands for maybe emptiness or Buddha nature, or purity. And the water buffalo is like form, or mundane existence, or impurity. So when you add a grain, when you eat a grain, you may become the Mount Guishan. When you add a grain, you may become the cow, the water buffalo.

[52:20]

Sometimes the water buffalo eats Guishan. The water buffalo eat means, that's when we look at something just as its form, just in its comparative, according to the way we compare it to something else. sometimes Guishan pastures the cow. It means that he appreciates just the pure aspect of the thing as it for itself. But it also means cow eats Guishan is like stillness within activity.

[53:23]

And Guishan, pasturing the cow, is like activity within stillness, the dynamic activity. So there are various ways I think that you can think about this koan. Another way, you know, is stillness within activity is how we actually do something with a settled mind. And settled mind means that we're always, even though we're doing something which is discriminating, our activity is discriminating, we're still seated on a non-discriminating seat. So that in all of our activity, we don't leave our seat.

[54:30]

We're centered on stillness. And in Zendo, sitting still is filled with dynamic activity. So it's the two sides of practice. In the zendo we sit very still, but it's total dynamic activity. And when we're operating in the working world, it's within our activity is stillness. Something that... Who is the one who is not doing anything? That one. He's always there. So,

[55:43]

Uchiyama says, our self occurs at the juncture of what is fixed and what is not fixed. What is fixed is, fixed is maybe not the right word, but something which doesn't move. And this is like stillness, right? what moves is our activity. And right there at that juncture is where our life is. So he says, consider whether you have thoroughly understood these matters and are able to make these calculations.

[56:49]

Going back to the previous thing of calculating, counting the rice. Go back over everything again, and when you have understood these details, be prepared to explain them to others according to their capacity to understand. Use ingenuity in your practice. See the cow in Guishan as one. In this translation, he says, see the cow and Guishan as one, not as two, even though temporarily they appear that way. In other words, form and emptiness, or our absolute and relative side of things, the absolute value of things and the relative value of things. In your day-to-day life, do not forget this, even for a moment. Another translation says, see the cow and Guishan as one with the suchness of unity and the suchness of duality.

[57:59]

I like that. Rather than comparing the suchness of oneness with duality, he's saying the suchness of oneness and the suchness of duality. That means that you're not discriminating between suchness and duality, between oneness and duality. So... If someone comes to make a monetary... Now he's going off on a different track. If someone comes to make a monetary donation for the food, consult the other officers concerning how that money is to be used. This has been the custom in Buddhist communities down through the ages. As for other kinds of donations to the community, such as items which will be distributed among the residents, again, consult the other officers.

[59:01]

In other words, don't indulge on the authority of, infringe on the authority of other officers or make decisions outside the boundary of your responsibility. Good. You know, We always, in this kind of situation, we always consult with people. As soon as someone is overlooked, you have a problem. Whenever you make decisions, there's a way to make that the community makes decisions. And when someone takes it on themselves to make a decision, and maybe only consults a few people, those other people who should be consulted will make it very difficult for you. It's true. So, every time we make a mistake, you know, we should learn something about that.

[60:02]

But we still make those mistakes. Life is like that. Even though you try your best, you still make mistakes. Community is a democratic process. And Buddhist communities have traditionally been democratic process, have had democratic process. It was very traditional in Buddhist communities. Sometimes they don't. There have been times when they don't. And Zen Center at one time had a very autocratic leadership. And all the decisions were made, even though it looked like some other people were helping, but actually all the decisions were made by one person. And that made it very easy, because nobody else had to think about it. But now we have a very democratic process, and so we have to go through endless discussion.

[61:04]

So there's a kind of trade-off. When you have a democratic process, you go through endless discussion, but you end up with something very solid. but you spend your life in meetings. That's why it's maybe good to have small communities. I'm serious. Often autocrats spend their life in meetings, too. Yes, but they just love the meetings, yeah. It's true. Someone who is directing everything loves to have those meetings. because that's the way they get everything taken care of, if they want. So, anyway, there are problems, both ways. And there has to be some autocracy, otherwise nobody can make a decision. Someone has to have the final word, maybe.

[62:12]

In other words, don't infringe on the authority of other officers or make decisions outside the boundary of your responsibility. And sometimes, you know, if somebody doesn't do something, we'll do it, which is very bad. If someone is not doing their job, don't do it for them. Just let it fail. Then that person will take the consequences and learn something. Otherwise, if we protect somebody too much, then they don't have the opportunity to have feedback. Sometimes you do something when somebody else doesn't do it and they resent that.

[63:22]

So be very careful. Take care of what you have to take care of. And if somebody isn't covering their position, don't do it for them. Not a good idea. Always brings on problems. So then he goes back to the meals. After each meal has been carefully prepared, place it on the table. Put on your okesa and spread out your zagu facing the sodo where everyone does zazen. Offer incense and bow nine times. Afterwards, carry the meal into the sodo. He's saying to the tenzo, Afterwards, carry the meal into the soto. When we first started Tassajara, the zendo is over there where the student eating area is in the summer before it burned down.

[64:26]

And where the dish shack is, is where the, what was the kitchen. And the cooks used to bring out, cook the food and bring it out and serve it. I think that's somewhat traditional for the cooks to cook the meal, bring it out and serve it. And then we stopped doing that. We had servers do it because it was too much work for the cooks. But they used to do that. Kind of interesting. All day and all night, poor Tenzo. All day and all night the Tenzo has to make arrangements and prepare meals without wasting a moment. If she throws all his energy into whatever the situation truly calls for, then both the activity and the method by which it is carried out will naturally work to nurture the seeds of the Buddhadharma.

[65:34]

Just taking care of the function of the Tenzo enables all the residents in the community to carry on their practice in the most suitable way. Just substitute Tenzo for whatever it is that you're doing. Just taking care of the function of whatever it is that you're doing enables all the residents in the community to carry on their practice in the most stable way. That's really true. So he says, it has been several hundred years since the Buddha Dharma was introduced into Japan, yet no one has ever written about the preparation and serving of meals as an expression of Buddha Dharma. This is in 1237. Nor have any teachers taught concerning these matters. Now, when Buddhism came to Japan, it was a very different animal than what Dōgen brought back from China.

[66:38]

the aristocrats, religion. And nobody thought about what it meant to be a monk and work. Except that in China, of course, you know, in India, the monks did not work. They were not allowed, because as we all know, the monks were not allowed to work, and not allowed to dig in the earth, or grow crops, or carry money, or have anything like that. But when Buddhism came to China, Everything changed. And the Zen monks were the ones who started working in the practice of work, actually, and work as practice. And later here, Dogen talks about that, as you know, when he meets the Tenzins, who teach him how to practice Dharma as work. So much less has there been any mention of bowing nine times prior offering the meal to the residents.

[67:45]

Such a practice has never entered the minds of people in this country. Here, people think nothing of eating like animals, with no concern for the way they eat. What a pathetic state it is. It truly saddens me to see things this way. Why must it be like that? So I'm going to stop here, because the next part He's talking about meeting these monks, the old men who teach him about work practice. So tomorrow we have a lot of indoor work. It might stop raining, who knows? I don't know what... Yes? I wondered about that passage before, about people eating like animals.

[68:48]

In the context of that, in the context of that passage, I was wondering if that meant something like, without considering how the food came to them, without making offerings, without regarding the food as an offering, I think that's largely what it means, yes. Yeah, without, you know, just taking it for granted, as so many do. Yeah. I have a question about the materiality of the project. Okay. Actually, the first time she died, there was a... Been holding it all that time? I put myself by tendency as one of the people who is reflecting and doesn't support anything.

[69:53]

And I have trouble taking care of things. I have trouble making a fine soup. I'd like to know why we don't eat rice and soybeans and vegetables only. I mean, why do we take care to make that food especially tasty when it could be nutritious without being, you know, collectible? Is this something I really am missing? I'll explain it. Because taste is also a part of our unnecessary ingredient in our eating. Taste is very important. How things taste. There are the salt, sour, sweet, bitter, and so forth.

[70:56]

And all these tastes have to be taken into consideration. And the monks in Japan in the monasteries eat. They don't even eat as well as rice, soybeans, and vegetables. They eat pickles, rice, white rice, pickles. But they also eat better than that. And also lay people come and give them meals, which they take, right? But there are monasteries that are very poor or like to eat in a very poor way. And a lot of these monks don't last very long. frankly. They get sick. A lot of the mice from Japan have liver trouble or stomach trouble. So many of them have stomach trouble because of the way they eat, you know. And when we started eating at Tassajara, you know, we had people... Japan is a family. Japanese are a family. They all eat the same stuff, you know.

[71:58]

They all do the same thing, you know. But we have this great diverse group of people called Americans coming from various backgrounds, various countries, and they all have different, their bodies are created by what they eat. And there's all that tremendous variety. And to feed them all a Japanese meal every day doesn't work, doesn't work. Suzuki Roshi had to adapt. We all had to adapt. And at the time, you know, there were the people on food trips. Macrobiotics, mucusless, you know, this, that, and they were all kind of going at the same time, you know. And some of those things got incorporated, and some of them

[73:00]

You know, we tried everything. And the thing was, how do you feed a diverse group of people who have no access to any other food except town trip? You know, we used to have these one... Every week we had a personal town trip. And people would get all their candy bars, you know. Every week! Anyway, so, you know, we learned a lot of stuff over a long period of time. and we've refined it, you know, and it keeps being refined, and every Tenzo decides how it's going to be, sort of, you know, in consultation with the staff, but Tenzo has a lot to do with how it goes, you know, so each one is a little different, but generally we agree on a balanced diet, And it's good to have variety.

[74:01]

It's not good to eat the same thing every day. I mean, it's okay, but it's not as good as having variety, because variety is better for your body, actually. And we are in a position to do that. We're not poor. We don't have to, you know, eat the cheapest stuff. And we're isolated. And eating is one of the biggest things in our life. And when you go over the edge and you don't have something, that's all you think about. And the monks in Southeast Asia who only eat one meal a day, they think a lot about food. And in 1969, when we didn't have, we had wheat berries and rice, and we had to pick our vegetables out of the flats because they were snowed in. All we talked about was food. That was the subject of every conversation.

[75:02]

So there are a lot of things that go into why we eat the way we do. And it's all been worked out over a long period of time. And we should have memory. Otherwise, we're bound to repeat our history. And the menus, you know, we do have a big book of menus, right? And we should preserve that. Because it's all been worked out, you know? A lot of good stuff, yeah. Yeah, I was thinking when you were talking about taking care of things, how sometimes I think that certain things deserve more of my attention than other things. or what, you know, like a few certain clothes that I have. I'll take care of those, even if they're holy or whatever, like my parents once said, you know, they'll end up with a white coat, right?

[76:07]

Yeah. Because I should get rid of them. Trash to them, but to me, they will still function. Nonetheless, but in this taking care of things, you said, like, for example, the shop in any part of the monastery, I think that an excellent prototype is to keep in mind the zendo. Yeah, that's right. The zendo gets a lot of attention. Yeah, it's just that almost enshrined. That's right. It is enshrined. Yeah, it is enshrined. You're right. But I mean, I'm not putting it down, but I'm just saying that, you know, in the context. Right, the zendo gets that kind of attention, you know. And then the lesser buildings get, right? And so we have this, this is primo, and this is lesser, right? And we have to be careful about that because this, you know, is not lesser. The shop is not lesser than the Zen temple. And we have this wonderful Buddha in the shop, you know. It's not as good as the one at Gringo's shop. The one at the Gringo's shop has been smashed two or three times in the face and put back together.

[77:12]

I love that Buddha. It's a great Buddha. I remember going around offering incense at that altar, you know, and, God, a great Buddha, you know, been smashed, been all through this, and he's still sitting there, you know. Real practice. One thing that I can remember was, for example, after we had the big rains and the storms and so forth, and the tree fell down quite a bit. I was at least thinking, well, you know. But then it's just completely up to what I know. Yeah. But you can only do so much. But we have to be patient. We'll get to it. That's the... Yeah.

[78:13]

When I do work, my attention moves from attention to my work, and then attention to myself. The hara and my breathing. When I pay attention to my work, I use one. When I pay attention to the other, I use the other. What's a good way to merge? Think about your hara within your work. Think about your breath as your work, not two different things. You know, when you walk, that's a good time to be aware of your breath. How many steps do you take to a breath? Or how many breaths do you take? You know, not trying to control anything, but just be aware. How many, you know, what is the rhythm of your breath when you're walking? That's a good way to always contact, because you're not doing anything else except thinking. You're walking and you're thinking and you're breathing. So put your thought into your breath. Just like put your thought into your work.

[79:18]

Put your thought into your breath and work. And you can't always think about that. You can't think about it all the time, because you get involved in thinking about this. But the more you are aware of breathing, just like in zazen, you don't always think about your breath, because you're getting carried away. But it's one of the things that you think about. I mean, it's one of the things that you come back to, hopefully. And then you get lost, and then you come back, and you get lost. And it's the same thing with what you're daily activity. You get involved and then you come back. And the more you come back, the easier it is. Not only easier, but you do it automatically. Activities like walking is easier, but when you start making complications or when you're doing risky things like chopping and stuff, you pay more attention to the knife than to your... But you pay attention to the knife and you can also... How are you breathing?

[80:20]

Same time. And the breath and the knife are in sync. If they're not in sync, then you cut yourself. But it's like how you're in sync, how your activity is in sync with your breath. But don't force it. Don't force yourself to do that. But just relax into it. That's the thing, you know, is you should feel relaxed into your breath. So that way, when you're relaxed into your breath, then you're at ease. actually. And even though you're doing something quickly or, you know, complex, you're still doing it with ease because you're connected with your breath. And the breath, when you're wearing breath down here, then you're always doing something with ease. That's the settledness in which you do things. I think, over a period of time, meditating from here

[81:22]

If we turn it down here, the breathing, that we work, it should be automatic, it should be like an instinct. Yeah. We have to try to do it. That's right. It becomes instinctive. Yeah. Right. You know, you go through these sasheen, you know, and sometimes there are certain periods of sasheen where all you can do is pay attention to one breath after another. Right? Right. Yeah. And that, you know, that's such a vital experience, a strong experience of breath and how high breath works in your body. Then you just take that out, you know, and it becomes kind of automatic because it's the place where you settle. When you can't settle anyplace else, that's the one place that you can settle. And so it's the bottom line of settling.

[82:24]

It's the subtle internal breath. And it's the link between inside and outside, so to speak. There is no inside or outside in the absolute sense, but in the relative sense, there is. So in the absolute sense, the breath is just here. But in the relative sense, it comes and goes. I was thinking, When Carol asked her question, in Chinese medicine, there are different levels of nutrition. The purest level of nutrition, the highest level of nutrition, is in the flavor of the food. are a very subtle form of nutrition that is distributed immediately to the various organs, and depending on the flavors, nourishes the organs. Yes. And it's the coarser nutriments that are processed through the alimentary canal.

[83:28]

Well, would you say that maybe there's some sugars there? In the tastes? Some sugars in the tastes. Because they're processed immediately. Well, some sugars or many volatile elements, you know, salt, sweet, bitter, you know, all of those aspects of flavor that are pure nutriments that are, as I say, immediately and without having to go through elaborate assimilation processes, are transmitted to the organs as nourishment. I understand. That's a good point. Flavor is important. And it's one thing to only have certain flavorless foods and then you accept whatever it is. It's another thing to make it that way so that you don't feed anybody anything flavorful.

[84:34]

And that's kind of a deprivation because there are enough things that we either favor or don't favor, that we have to eat without choice. Can you say something about the relationship or maybe the difference between being burned by things, burning things, and harming this condition? I don't think they're the same thing. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, well, yeah. karmic disposition being our preference, or what drives us. What drives us, yeah. Yes, and how we let go, actually. How we let go. So, we all have karmic dispositions, you know, and we have resistances, and we have preferences, and we have emotions, and you know, all this stuff, you know,

[85:39]

hinder our movement, hinder our harmonious turning and being turned. But the thing about practice is, in a monastery, is that we're all following the same schedule, more or less. We're all doing the same thing, more or less. And as we rub up against each other, it's like, you know, this old analogy of rough stones being polished just by tumbling. So we do a lot of tumbling, and then eventually we do the turning. So we tumble out of tumbling into turning. So some of us just tumble, and some of us turn, and are turned. Some of us turn, some of us are turned, some of us tumble, and some of us turn and are turned. And we're all in all these states, you know.

[86:43]

Everyone's in a little different place, you know. One person has difficulty with this, another person doesn't, you know. And so we're all making this effort to do this. And it's never perfect. And we all have this agreement to do it together. And so it's one body, you know. And we appreciate everybody's effort And sometimes we put up with things, and sometimes it's difficult, but we love the One Body, and appreciate all the parts. Love all the parts. And that makes things work. Easy. Just easy. Can I speak with you a minute after? Sure. Yeah, it's time.

[87:51]

The thing about the different tastes made me think, I heard this lady on New Dimensions radio, the New Age kind of people, and she talked about tongues, and she's able to heal people with tongues, and apparently there's some people that won't say a certain note, flat or something, missing that. So she sometimes can analyze people and be able to machine and apply that tone in their life. It's called a tonic. That's very good. And I think the work is to try to add, try to expand over. Well, music will do that. Tones will do that. Sure. Everyone has a tone, you know, that kind of hum that each person has. And it's a kind of tone that's their tone, you know, that's kind of a constant.

[88:54]

Some have deep tones, some have... There is that tone. I think animals can hear it. They respond to it anyway, really. And we say it's a tune. Yes. That's what we're doing. Oh yeah, a tune. That's right. It's a musical. It's an orchestra that we have here. When we started chanting the wrong chant, it sounded like an orchestra. Then we attuned to each other. If everybody listens to everybody else, try to hear out of both ears as much as you can, then you'll find the right tone for the orchestra. I'll follow you.

[89:44]

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