Very intimidating. Thank you for asking me to come here today. It's really a joy to be with you again. I don't come very often. But I think it's very, very important for our sanghas to be together in various ways as much as possible, especially those groups from the same lineage. Berkeley and San Francisco and Mountain View or Sonoma, Green Gulch. It's quite important, especially in these early years of establishing our way, establishing this way in this country.

[01:38]

So I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be here. It's not my my intention to do something like a Dharma talk or something like that. You have a very fine teacher here who shows you the Dharma continually in words and deed. So, You don't need someone like myself from outside to come in and say some Dharma thing. You are with the Dharma all the time. A very fine teacher. Very fortunate, actually, to have such a... Shall I say...

[02:48]

Reflective kind Teacher to encourage this practice Dharma surrounds you constantly so But I have to say something So I like to talk about subject that I'm very familiar with, and I'm sure all of you are familiar with. Maybe it's our favorite subject. Confusion. That's one of my best friends, actually. My practice, my early involvement in this practice was filled with confusion.

[03:59]

Constantly, continually, relentlessly filled with confusion. I'll explain. I first started this practice in the Los Altos Zendo, 1966, coming from San Jose, where we were living, 20 miles to Los Altos Zendo. Wednesday night there would be Zazen and a lecture by one of the Japanese priests who was in San Francisco, either Suzuki Roshi or Katagiri-sensei, Yoshimura-sensei was there. So Wednesday night was very special. Got to listen to these fine teachers from Japan. And of course, I was very much

[05:02]

impressed with Suzuki Roshi, all of them actually, very impressed with their way. And immediately, first time sitting, immediately I felt a very strong instinct or urge whatever you want to say, very strong attachment to the sitting, even though it was quite difficult. First few times, always very difficult. Nonetheless, something was right. In addition, Saturday morning, they had practice. Early Zazen and Oryoki breakfast, work period, later Zazen. On Saturday, we didn't have a visiting priest come from San Francisco, but I felt a strong urge to participate.

[06:04]

Like all of you, this urge was there, but I didn't know why. Just, oh, this is right, or something like that. Oh, got to do it, got to do it. Hurts, but got to do it. So that was a little confusing because it wasn't clear why, but just had to go. It seemed to me at that time that all the people in Los Altos, they seemed to know what they were doing. People I met in San Francisco, Zen Center, they knew what they were doing. Tassajara people, they knew what they were doing. But all the ceremonies and chants and various ways, I didn't know what I was doing. I wondered when I would figure it out, so I was confused. But I knew something had to do this.

[07:09]

One day, a couple of years later, an alarm rang. It was one Saturday. I woke up at five o'clock, alarm rang, It was a beautiful spring morning, June or something. Beautiful day, much like today, a little bit warmer. And I woke up feeling a little bit sleepy and I said, well, I don't have to go today. And the thought came, oh, Marion is getting up making the rice now for breakfast. Get up. So I got up and I drove to Los Altos. And after the last period of zazen that morning, she said, I want to speak to you for a minute. And at that time, she asked me to consider moving into her house with my family to take care of the zendo, because she wanted to leave.

[08:13]

go to Tassajara, do other things. And I was very confused because I thought, I don't know what I'm doing. So many people know what they're doing. Why doesn't she ask someone from San Francisco or do this or something like that? I was very confused. So I talked it over with my wife. She said, well, if you want to, we will. And I talked it over with some other people. And one Nichiren priest that I knew said, Oh, what a great opportunity. And I didn't understand what he meant. I was very confused. I spoke to Marion and I said, Well, you know, if we do this, it means our house payments each month will double. My commute to work will double. And so those expenses will double. And so financially, she said, she said, don't worry, don't worry.

[09:16]

When you're here and sitting all the time here, you'll get so good that they'll give you all kinds of money at work. You'll get very rich, you know. And so I was confused, you know. Because what is she saying, you know? Is that the purpose of Zazen? To get better at your job? I didn't know what she meant. And she said, oh, someday you'll go to Japan. and what she's talking about. I was very confused. And my wife and I thought about it for a few weeks, and what it boiled down to was, I really feel strongly about this practice. In the meantime, Suzuki, Roshi, or any of them, none of them were involved in any of this, as far as I knew. You know, we weren't talking to them, and they're telling us what to do. None of that was happening. So I was wondering, wonder what they think. Very, very confused. I had to make some decision. And I realized that I felt very strongly about this practice.

[10:18]

And she, after all, did ask me, so maybe there's something. I should trust myself a little bit. So we said we would do it, and we did it. Then a couple of years later, San Francisco, Katagiri sensei said, don't you think it's time to have your own resident teacher here? Oh, is that so? Okay. And one thing led to another and we invited Kobinchino sensei to come and he came and he lived in our house with us. at the start and we the group decided we should give him a little bit of little bit of money you know and he didn't want to he wanted to live like a monk but we we gave him a hundred dollars a month it's not so much but he that's something and within a year he said he was getting married met a young woman at Tassajara and after several years relationship they want to get married so

[11:28]

We called a meeting of our group, and we didn't have any financial problems. We didn't have mortgage payments, or Zendo was already built, and we didn't have to pay Coburn a lot of money. We didn't have any financial problems, so whatever people wanted to contribute each month, that was fine. We were coasting along. But now, with Coburn getting married, we were going to have to do something. for him and his family to be. We had to increase this stipend. So we decided we have to do some fundraising amongst ourselves. And we did a little pledge drive. You're probably familiar with how that goes. One young man came to me and said, that's an awful thing to do. I was very confused. He didn't like being approached to make a pledge to take care of something.

[12:34]

All the group agreed, so it was not some kind of unilateral decision. All the group agreed, yes, we should do this for our new teacher. And he said, that's terrible, to do fundraising like that and make people sign pledge cards. I was very confused. I thought he'd be pleased to say, yes, I will contribute something each month to help with this. He was very angry at me. I thought I had done the right thing, you see. I thought, gee, I'm managing this very well, you know, bringing people together, consensus decision making, taking care of COVID. Gee, it's moving right along. I thought I was doing exactly the right thing. And he yelled at me, and you're terrible. I was very confused. So after, this is maybe after three or so years of practice, getting more and more involved I was full of confusion. I really didn't know the right thing to do each day, what's doing.

[13:37]

After Wednesday night lecture and tea in the Zendo, we always had to take cushions from a pile and put them in the middle of the floor to accommodate people. Afterwards everyone would go home. And so there was this huge pile of zabatons and zafus in the middle of the floor each Wednesday night. And it was up to me to straighten it out. And so one day at a meeting I said I would appreciate some help after Wednesday nights putting away the cushions. And some woman yelled at me and said, you're just a Dutch uncle. I was very confused because I thought Zen students should. Zen students naturally or should know how to take care of things, but it wasn't happening, and I was very confused by this. What's going on here? Each day seemed to bring some new disappointment of expectation or something, some twist.

[14:43]

But still, I felt very strongly about the practice. And despite how some people were, even though I struggled with that, I knew that this practice is right. This practice is right on. Fundamentally, this is the only way there is. And so I wanted to continue. The thought occurred to me about becoming ordained, ordained monk, and being a student of Suzuki Roshi. People in San Francisco were doing it, Mel and others, and I thought, I feel very strongly about this practice. Maybe I should do the same because I want to help with it.

[15:51]

I want to help make it available to others because it's been such a gift, a blessing for me. I'd like other people to experience the same thing. And when I would think about Becoming a student of Suzuki Roshi, I noticed that ego came up, and the thought of wearing robes and parading around in robes felt very exciting, you know, because it was clear that the people who wore robes, somehow automatically people gave them all kinds of respect, you see, and listened to their every word, you know. And I thought, And I realized, when this came up, I realized it'd come up. It says, you have ego. Don't do it if you feel that way. You mustn't become a monk if there's that kind of ego involved.

[16:59]

If you're doing it for prestige, status, or something like that, that's very bad. And so I was very aware of my own ego. But this awareness was not enough to make it go away, which confused me. I thought, having read some psychology years before, I always thought that once you become aware of the source of a problem, aha, you solve it, you see. But even though I was very much aware of my own desire, it didn't go away. That's confusing. At the same time, I felt that my motivation for wanting to do it was more than that ego, something more fundamental. But I couldn't sort it out. Am I doing it? Am I sincere or am I egotistical? I was very confused.

[17:59]

I didn't know myself. And so I did nothing, of course, but be confused. It didn't go away, this confusion, so I spoke to Chino Sensei about it. I said, I think I'd like to become a monk, a student of Suzuki Roshi, but I feel a lot of ego about it and that frightens me. I don't I don't want to do that if it's just... if I'm just doing a trip, you know. And please, can you help me?" What do you think? I thought he would either give me some advice or encourage me, or he would make it clear. I thought he'll make it clear. Here's this beautiful man, this trained monk, this wise person. He will clarify.

[18:59]

And he did nothing of the sort. He said, I'll speak to Suzuki Roshi about it. sort of, you know, I'm not going to help you off to the side. So I was confused, you know. So I made an appointment to see Suzuki Roshi about my desire, and I didn't know what kind of desire I had. And on the way to San Francisco to talk with him, I said to myself, I'm sure he's going to ask me, why do you want to become a monk? And just like these presidential debates, they spend a week before saying, now what are the questions you're going to be asked? Let's prepare for all these possible questions and let's think up the worst question that they're going to ask you and let's program you to answer that question. And that's what they're doing. So on the drive to San Francisco, I said, I know he's going to ask me that.

[20:03]

I'm going to come up with my answer. I'm going to program myself now so I can give him an unconfused answer. And I couldn't clarify it. In that hour's drive to San Francisco, I could not clarify why I wanted to become his student. I'm very, very confused. But I was doing it anyhow. I was going to see him anyhow. So I met with him and we sat down and he said, why do you want to become a priest? And I gave him an answer that was so full of confusion. In fact, I didn't even look him in the eye. I looked out the window. I remember, well, something came out. And he sat there and looked at me and he didn't say a word. He just stood up and he went in the other room. He came out with his wife. And he made me stand up and she took out her tape measure and they started measuring me for robes. And I was very confused.

[21:07]

But the thing that was not confusing was he, without saying a word, he was saying, yes, it's okay. So they took about 10 minutes and they measured me and they chattered away in Japanese and this and this. And after about 15 or so minutes of that, he said, the robes will arrive in about three or four months. It will cost about $200. Thank you for coming. Good night. Good night, Oksan. Good night. Goodbye. And so I left being very confused. He never asked me a question, except that one. I thought what he would do is test me in many ways. We didn't know each other so well because I was in Los Altos and he was in San Francisco, and we saw each other very rarely. He knew who I was because I was administratively in charge of that branch, Zendo, in Los Altos. So we knew each other a little bit, but we never really had much

[22:12]

much discussion, a few times doxxon, but not so much. He knew people in San Francisco quite well, of course, but the outlying Zendo people, not so much. So I thought he would try to find out about me, and he didn't. I was confused, because it was not what I expected. Little by little, I began to understand that this practice is not what you expect. In fact, expectations are the source of confusion. So I still had this — I felt I still had this ego, and I had to be very careful because if I were to put on robes and go around feeling I was something special, this would be very harmful for everyone, for me, for everyone, for people who were to see me.

[23:18]

If I were strutting around in robes, people would be very turned off by the practice. That's not a good thing to do because I admired this practice and wanted to help it in some way. And I walked around with the fear of myself, you know. I decided to go to Tassajara for a training period before being ordained, that it would have to be... I felt it necessary to make that gesture of sincerity. Give up my family, give up my job, give up all my comfortable surroundings and go off to a monastery for a training period. And so... I did that. And when I was there, the people who were there at that time in 1970, hippie-type people, you know, in those days, and I had the most difficult time.

[24:24]

They chastised me a lot for having a regular everyday job and having a comfortable home in a suburb and whatnot. They just said, you're a phony, you know. You're a phony. You're not a Zen student. You're just too comfortable. Get out of here." I was very confused. I didn't know Zen students treated other Zen students in such a way. Not everybody was like that, but there was enough that made me quite confused. My head was spinning, and Tassajara adjustment was difficult, so on top of that physical difficulty. There were all these people giving me a hard time. I was very confused. But the one thing that I was not confused about, the one thing that became very clear to me was that Suzuki Roshi and

[25:32]

Katagiri sensei and Yoshimura sensei, they didn't treat me as if I had confusion. They didn't treat me as if I had ego. They treated me with greatest respect. I was very doubtful and confused about the respect I had for myself. In their mind, there seemed to be no doubt. treated me like they treated everyone else. They didn't treat me particularly special. They treated me like everyone else. They treated everyone with great respect, including some people who I thought were just awful. Some people who just acted unaware and angry and belligerent. Zen students have put acting in very difficult ways.

[26:36]

They treated, those teachers treated those people with the greatest respect. And I thought, those people who act so difficult, it's just confusion, just like I have. Same thing. I'm no different from them. They're no different from me. It's just confusion. Let these teachers Look past the confusion. They look past the ego. They looked straight at true nature and Spoke directly to true nature. They spoke directly to whatever sincerity was there So I felt if I have some sincerity in me and it's a small Flame of it from a candle They were looking at that and were encouraging that. Even people who saw no small flame in themselves at all, these teachers looked right at it, in effect saying, maybe you don't see it, but I see it, and I encourage it.

[27:50]

And what I discovered was that If you have, when you have some sincerity, some small sincerity, you go ahead with, you take it and go ahead, you bring along your confusion. In the midst of confusion, you must go ahead, must carry your sincerity forward, dragging along your confusion. When we do that, then maybe we have a chance to evaporate or dissolve our confusion. And the thing that I discovered was that we mustn't let our confusion turn into fear and prevent us from moving ahead. We go ahead in the midst of confusion not giving confusion a chance to turn into this fear that prevents us from acting spontaneously and naturally, must go ahead without any expectation of what will happen.

[29:18]

And people always used to say, well, the more we sit, the better we'll become, and the more enlightened we'll become, and everything will get better, and so on. But I discovered that was an expectation. And when we have that in our practice, it won't happen. Just we sit without any idea of acquiring anything, sit in the midst of confusion and trust that sincerity is there. Because we want to sit, it means sincerity is there. And when confusion comes, confusion is there, but that's okay. So we sit with sincerity and confusion. And don't... No need to worry.

[30:20]

No need to worry. No need to put confusion on top of confusion. And I discovered that the way to put aside confusion is Not to be aware of it, but not to look at it so much, but to look out and to spend our life looking for ways to make a gesture. Always make a gesture. Your invitation to me today is gesture. When Suzuki Roshi, when I answered his question by looking out the window and he said nothing but made me stand up, it was his gesture. That gesture, these gestures are far more meaningful than if somebody were to come and explain in words, well, my feeling about you is such and such and such.

[31:35]

Just body and mind gesture. If we… I found out, I discovered that when our life is oriented towards making gesture at each moment, we're not confused. When you… Small things. When you take off your shoes and put them on the rack outside, do it neatly, without just throwing your shoes all over. You do it carefully and neatly and quietly. It's a gesture. It's a gesture of care for each other, care for taking care of things. It comes from our compassionate mind. When you walk in the garden, if you see a chewing gum wrapper, you pick it up.

[32:37]

When you walk in the street and you see some trash, pick it up. Gesture. Yesterday at work, we were having lunch. We all took our brown bag outside. We had lunch and I noticed there was some newspaper. Newspapers had blown into the bushes and people were walking by and nobody was doing anything about it. So after lunch, I asked another fellow to help me. Would you help me pick up these newspapers? Take them and put them in the trash bin. And one of the women said, what are you doing? Well, we're picking up these newspapers. Oh, but, you know, the maintenance people come around and do that later. Okay, but we do it now. That's what I mean by gesture.

[33:45]

We take care of little things that when they come into our awareness, anything that we feel needs to be taken care of, take care of it. The other day at Arzendo, after one day sashin, I found on the table outside a zafu with a note on it. This zafu is leaking kapok. Whoever put that note there doesn't understand about gesture. Gesture is take that cushion home and sew it. don't give somebody else a problem. In 15 minutes, he, she could sew it, bring it back, put it in the stack with the others. It's taken care of. Small things. But when we have that kind of attitude and we are willing

[34:49]

and happy and willing to take care of anything that comes our way, it's a very joyous life when we have that kind of attitude. Very joyous life. When our attitude is, how can I avoid doing this? Life is confused. Life is painful when we have that kind of feeling. Resisting doing things that help others, the smallest things. A couple of years ago, I went to visit someone in San Francisco. I got there a little bit early. And he was completing a meeting with some other people.

[35:52]

And I knew these people, so I just sat down and waited until they were finished. And afterwards, they all said, that was very nice tea you served us. That was terrific. Wonderful tea. Great. Thank you very much. And he took the can. He says, yes, this came from somewhere in Japan. It's very nice. And they all said, thank you. It was very generous of you to share that tea with us. So they left, and we sat down for our little chat. Then after a while, he says, well, would you like some tea? I said, yes, I'd like some tea. So he went in the other room and came back with some Lipton's in the tea bag. And he said, my wife says this is not very good tea, but I hope you don't mind. I was very disappointed. This is not how you make gesture. You know, this is an unaware mind. to not offer your best to your guest is not making a gesture.

[36:54]

When you have a guest, when you have friends, you offer your best. So I thought, well, he's a little confused, just like me. It's okay. It's okay for him to be confused. He has to go ahead with it. We all do, actually, we all do. We all go ahead in the midst of confusion, but we let our sincerity keep a sharp eye on ourselves, and we watch ourselves very carefully. And we struggle a lot with this practice. But because we want to practice, it means we're willing to go through that struggle and to constantly be confused and disappointed while we work things out, while we discover those things in this practice.

[38:05]

that make for a joyful life. This practice is a process of constant discovery, constant discovery, and only we can make those discoveries. No teacher can make discoveries for us. All we can do is encourage each other continually to make our own discoveries. When you come to the Zen Dojo in the early morning, you make the finest gesture to others. Help each other with your practice, the finest gesture you can do. Give your best to your friends and your fellow practicers. It's Buddha's gesture. Each thing we do should be fine gesture.

[39:10]

We take great joy in making the gesture just fine, like an artist, you know, ah. I think that's why something like tea ceremony is so well respected in Japan, because each move that the tea master does is a wonderful gesture. I don't study tea, but talking to people that do, They love to talk about, you know, how you hold your hand or how you turn the bowl and smallest little gestures become so meaningful. And we do that. We have opportunity to do that kind of tea ceremony in everyday life. When we're willing to make these gestures moment by moment, confusion doesn't have a chance to take a seat. confusion is driven out, and we're willing to make gesture after gesture after gesture.

[40:14]

There's no confusion. Even if confusion does appear in our life, we can say, oh, hello, you're here for a little visit? I know you won't stay long. So, So I hope you have lots of confusion, because that means we will have shared the same teacher, shared the same koan, actually, each of us providing our own answer, very universal koan, and each of us provides our own unique answer that we discover in our own unique practice. That's all.

[41:18]

Does anybody have any questions? Yes? No. No, but it was okay. I worried unnecessarily. I was trying to think of some excuse not to do it. It was fine. You know, I don't know if you want to get into this, but I'm curious how you found Suzuki Roshi as a teacher. I mean, you gave the example in the very beginning of gesture, and I'm just kind of curious what the next stage is.

[42:23]

Oh, what kind of teacher he was for me? I learned from being around him that teaching in this practice is not what we normally think of as teaching, because what I remember about him is not his words, his way, and his All the qualities that I want for myself, he had. Gentleness, humor, wisdom, patience, no apparent anger. He seemed to embody all these things that I admired and wanted to be myself.

[43:29]

He encouraged in small ways. He encouraged at every opportunity. and he always seemed to be, in a very quiet way, on the lookout for some way to make a gesture. Always, he wasn't running around doing things very actively, but he always seemed to be in a sort of a ready state. If some gesture needed to be made, either in word or action, he did it. Not an anecdote, but a real live moment Perhaps the most profound thing that I saw him do, profound thing for me, was as follows. This story maybe best describes how I found him as a teacher. On the day of my ordination ceremony in the Zendo in Los Altos, my mother was living in San Francisco at the time.

[44:35]

She's very upset by my practice. Probably some of you have the same experience. Both of my parents... So anyway, she was very nervous. But she agreed to come from San Francisco to the ceremony. The ceremony had started. She was late. So the ceremony had started. After about 10 minutes of the ceremony, my mother arrived and walked in, and you could tell by her face that she was very uncomfortable with this, very nervous, and she was wanting to be there for her son, but she just wasn't with it at all, very, very nervous, very frightened, very scared, and so she walked in, and everybody's looking at her, crowded Zen now, everybody's looking at her, and I'm kneeling in front of Suzuki Roshi, All during the ceremony, of course, he's either looking at some papers or looking at me.

[45:37]

My mother walks in the door and his, I notice his eyes go, just his, his face kept looking at me, but his eyes went to her. Like that. And I knew in an instant, he had picked up what was going on with her immediately. And she came in and somebody showed her a chair and he leaned over to her and he said, you came at exactly the right time. And a chill went up my spine at that moment. That's what he was. Always ready. Always ready to make a gesture. Always ready to adjust. Whatever was planned out makes no difference. Something needs to be taken care of, we'll take care of it. Small gesture, but it meant so much. It meant so much.

[46:39]

So that's the kind of person he was. Very inspiring in that way. Yes. Yes. Observe and be honest about our confusion. And go ahead. Don't stop. Yes. I was going to say that I read a book this summer, it's a toss-up horror, and I know what you're talking about, I've got to point you to it, because I had gone with the state until I became ordained, And I experienced three intense months of confusion for me.

[47:40]

And during the course of that time, I was reading a book by Trump and something he said in there I thought was very profound and I wrote it down. He said, without confusion, there would be no wisdom. Thank you. I think that's right. Yeah. Well, yes. I have experienced a lot of confusion lately, the same kind that you're talking about, of people having unexpected reactions to things. What I find so confusing about, what irritates me about confusion is that it's confusing. I mean, it would be OK, I don't know. When I think about making a gesture to these people, part of me, of this little, tiny, unknown part, wants to make the gesture of sincerity.

[48:57]

I want to make the gesture of sincerity, but this little, unknown part, barely unknown part, wants to do it somewhat strategically, so that I get things back to normal. I'm having a hard time phrasing this. Oh, oh, oh. Yes. Maybe your question is how to do that or something? Because you can't. All we can do is take care of the moment and not worry about if we change their behavior permanently.

[50:02]

Just if something happens this moment where there's some kind of conflict or something, We just respond to that moment in the best way we can with some gesture or word or action or something. Take care of that moment and don't worry about tomorrow or how they'll be later. Beyond control. If it comes up again tomorrow, then we take care of it again tomorrow. So, you make some gesture without worrying about control. You do it, I've done my best. Sometimes People are very stubborn. Sometimes we are very stubborn. So I just go ahead little by little Yes Yes, I know I used to worry about how it would be received because the work environment is more confrontational.

[51:21]

And I don't worry about it anymore. I just go ahead and do things the way I think I want to do things. And I just do it. generally it works okay. What I know is that because of this practice and because of that emphasis on that attitude, when I see something that needs to be taken care of, generally some kind of communication between people is the biggest problem in the everyday world. something, some communication is missing or some knowledge is not being passed around. When I sense it, I always go try to do something about it. Talk to someone, try to find out what's going on and bring people together, create something that will fill this gap, rather than just say, well, it's not my job.

[52:35]

I mean, there's a problem there, but I've got my own thing to do here. I always, when I think there's something amiss, I'll go out and check it out, and maybe try to help fix it, or get somebody else to fix it, or at least bring it to people's attention. So, it works. It works. How it's received, I don't know. I just know that's what I do. The other day, I went to the bank, to one of those ATM, ATM, I went to the bank, ATM, and as I approached it, I saw an apple on the ground, used apple, about two feet from the garbage pail.

[53:36]

Apparently, somebody had driven by in a car and threw it and missed And people were leaving the bank and everybody was walking by this apple, so I picked up the apple and put it in. I don't know how it was received, if you know what I mean, but don't leave the apple there, put it here. That's all. So I do the same thing at work because I can't help myself. Oh, something needs to be taken care of, I'll go see what I can do. And it's very joyful. See, it's very joyful. I find great satisfaction in that. very joyful thing. Oh, a problem. Good deal. Yeah. Oh, he doesn't know what she said. I'll go fix it. Then things will maybe be better. So I love it. I love that. See, I like it. I don't know if that attitude came before practice or as a result of practice. I'm confused, but I like that. Yes.

[54:37]

Oh, excuse me. It's fine, thank you.

[54:41]

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