Morning. Well, in January I went to Tassajara to lead the practice period. and came back three months later, and now I just went to Tassajar again for one week to do a dharma transmission ceremony for two priests that we know very well, Grace Shearson and Mary Mohsin. So I want to talk about Dharma transmission and what that means in our tradition.

[01:08]

For a priest, in our tradition, we have a priest ordination. the two, well, priest ordination, and then the next kind of rite of passage is called shuso, which is the head monk at a practice period. And then after that, one priest is in a position to receive Dharma transmission at some point. So Dharma transmission basically means that a person is a full priest and that set up their own practice place or be invited to lead a practice and to be an independent teacher.

[02:31]

And then they receive a brown rope, which is the identification or mark of a transmitted priest. There's a lot of mystique around Dharma transmission. I think I want to kind of demystify that mystification. Ideally, we like to feel that when a priest receives Dharma transmission, that they're a fully enlightened person. That's the mystique part of it. But it's important for a person who has dormant transmission to have an enlightened understanding of practice and to put that understanding into practice.

[03:45]

But that doesn't necessarily mean that that person is perfect. or has no flaws or has nothing to work on. It means that, to me, that they've reached a certain point in practice where there's trust and capability and hope it doesn't mean that they're a fully enlightened person or that they don't have problems. When I asked Suzuki Roshi many years ago in the 60s, he was going to give Dharma transmission to the only person who was able to receive it at Zen Center at that time,

[04:49]

He said, I'm going to go to Japan and give this person dharma transmission. What do you think of that? He asked me my opinion. I said, well, do you think he's ready? And he said, well, sometimes we give it when a person is ready. Sometimes we give it and we hope. So there's the feeling of yes, this person is ready, and at the same time, Please be careful. Please be careful is most important. Because it puts you, it puts the person in the position of maybe feeling special, And when you feel special, it can do a lot of things to your head.

[05:55]

When we have this ceremony, the ceremony actually takes 21 days from beginning to end. But the ceremonial part is one week. And at the end, there are two ceremonies that take place at night, toward midnight. And one is recognizing that person and their Buddha nature. And the second ceremony is humbling the person. A humbling ceremony where actually they act like a baby. and their whole practice is renewed. And actually we call them a new person. And hopefully this is the basis of the rest of their life, is that they start out new from this place.

[07:02]

So the people that I've given Dharma transmission to actually 20 people so far. I think I hold the record for America. I don't brag about that, but you know, so many in America, in our practice at Zen Center, people have been practicing Grace has been practicing since 1967 when she showed up at the door on Delight Way. And we've had a stormy relationship, not a nice, easy, calm, sea relationship, very stormy. And I'm always at her, always giving her my stick. very intelligent, strong-willed person who needs control, self-control.

[08:14]

So this Dharma transmission is trust in self-control. But if you, sometimes people say, so did this and that to me, do something about it. So my response now is, you do something about it. If you feel that any of these people are stepping on your toes or belittling you or acting arrogant, tell them. They need your feedback. So in some sense, these people have basic practice and development. But on the other side, they need to be shaped by you. Their practice needs to be shaped by you.

[09:17]

The teacher's practice is shaped by the students. If the teacher's practice is not shaped by the students, there's something wrong. The students shape the teachers and the teachers shape the students. It's not one way. You may think, well, since you have Dharma transmission, you know everything and you tell us what to do. If you have a problem, you should say something. And if you see the teacher doing something that you feel is not correct, you should say something, not just let it go by. Sometimes a teacher is very powerful, so you don't want to say anything. But you should have some courage to say something. And if you bring up your courage to say something, that's developing you. But we shouldn't be just critical in order to get up our courage. So, we also call dharma transmission entrustment.

[10:30]

There are two names. One is dharma transmission, the other is entrustment. Dharma transmission means that there's actually nothing transmitted, but that the mind of the teacher and the mind of the student correspond. The teacher recognizes the understanding of the student. So, and the student understands the mind of the teacher, enough. Maybe not completely, but enough. So, the transmission has already happened. It's not like doing Dharma transmission, you transmit something. Because the Dharma has already been transmitted, you enact the ceremony, which verifies that. that the transmission has already happened. So, you seal the understanding, verify it.

[11:43]

Entrustment means that the person you trust that person to carry out the practice and the teaching and continue the lineage sincerely without backsliding and without deviating. It's very hard to keep our practice pure. Very hard because there's so many pulls this way and that way where it's easy to dilute the practice. We feel, well maybe there's something missing, maybe we should make our practice more interesting by introducing other things. Very hard to keep the practice very simple and unadorned. There's always a tendency to want to add something.

[12:49]

Maybe we can take a little from this practice, a little from that practice, and add it to our practice to make our practice more interesting. There's always that tendency. It's very hard to keep it really pure, meaning adding nothing and letting go of everything. Our practice is the practice of letting go. and then seeing what we have. Emptying our pockets and seeing what we have. Oh, nothing. Okay, we don't have to fill our pockets. So, we had actually a very wonderful occasion. When you do the Dharma transmission, it's very intense, a very intense week. And the transmitted people spend a lot of time creating, writing out their own documents, copying the documents of transmission.

[14:02]

And it takes all day and all night for three days to do that. So it's very tiring, but it's also very energizing. And then we have the ceremonies after that. So it's very intense and very hard work. But when it's finished, you feel that something has really happened. And my hope is that the power of that ceremony actually helps everyone to, as I said, be a new person. Be very careful. So I brought out some admonitions. I wrote out some admonitions for a person receiving Dharma transmission, but of course they apply to all of us.

[15:06]

So I just kind of wrote them hastily down as they appeared to me. One is to practice letting go of control, meaning you don't have to control everything. You know, Dogen says, the practice is to turn the Dharma and be turned by the Dharma. To turn the Dharma means that you're in the strong position and the Dharma is in the yielding position. And to be turned by Dharma means that Dharma is in the strong position and you're in the yielding position. So it's like creating a harmonious relationship with whatever you're confronted with. Sometimes you're being turned, sometimes you're turning. But if you're always simply turning, then that's dominance. So to let go of the need for dominance or control,

[16:19]

So someone who has a position has to practice this very carefully, not to always be in control or controlling everything. And then there's to let go of the need to always be the center of attention. to let go of that need to always bring a conversation around to where you're always the center of attention or to be in a situation where you're always drawing attention to yourself. And then there's the practice of letting go of the need to have the last word. The need to have the last word means that you want to let people know that you're right, or that you know more than they do, or that you know the real answer.

[17:29]

So sometimes we say, you should just let moss grow over your mouth. Or if you need to say something, let go of it at least twice before you say it. And then there's the practice of no excuses and or reasons. You know, there are reasons and there are excuses. The reason we went to Iraq, no. The excuse we used in order to go to Iraq. So that's the difference between a reason and an excuse. An excuse means you excuse yourself for doing something. that you know is not right. So, and it's also like apologetic. You know, oh, excuse me, oh, I'm so sorry.

[18:34]

This apologetic, you can get into an apologetic mode, which is kind of false humbling. It's not a true humbling, but it's a kind of false humbling which protects your ego. Because if you say, oh, I'm sorry, it's not, there's no need to say that. It's just, okay, I get you, I understand, that's all. You swallow something. Every time you make an excuse, it means you only swallow up to here, because the excuse stops it. But if you don't use the excuse, you swallow the whole ball. But that's good, because it feeds you. which ties into the practice of not being defensive. Defending ourself is to solidify ourself.

[19:41]

When we don't have any defenses to speak of, then we can let everything go through. So defensiveness is ego building. The more defensive we are, the more ego we build. This is what we find in Zazen. When you sit Zazen, if we don't know how to sit Zazen, or when we begin to sit Zazen, we defend ourselves against pain. But you can't defend yourself against pain. The only way you can deal with that pain is to accept it and let it transform it into just a feeling. And then the practice of stepping off the pole.

[20:49]

We say that there's a koan that one must step off the hundred. How do you step off the hundred foot pole? When you climb up the hundred foot pole, you're pretty high. So how do you take the step off the pole? Let go. So when someone has a position, they're climbing the pole. That's what it looks like. Well, you have Dharma transmission. You're climbing the pole of Zen. but you must step off the pole. If you cling to that pole, I am somebody, I have this, then you create a big problem for yourself and for others. So you're not walking around up on the top of that pole, but you're always stepping off the pole. Before you get too high, you should step off the pole, then it's not a problem. So the higher you go,

[21:51]

the harder you fall, and I've seen that happen. So we have to keep stepping off the pole all the time at the bottom before you get up there. So then there's the practice of not having to be first, or allowing yourself to be last, or in the middle. Good to allow yourself to be in the middle. the middle person. If you're last, that can also be a kind of first place, you know. So not to always have to be first, but to offer first place to somebody else. That's very good. You open the door for somebody else. You serve somebody else first. When something is served, you don't grab it. You offer it to somebody first. You know, in Japan, when people have beer, the monks drink beer or sake.

[23:00]

They always open the bottle and pour it for the other person, and then the other person pours it for them, so that you don't serve yourself. You're never serving yourself. You're always serving the other person, and the other person's always serving you. If you keep that in mind, you'll never have a problem socially. not just for beer or sake, but for everything. You put yourself, you always put the other person first. And when it comes to, well, who should do this ceremony or who should do this thing? Please do it, even though you want to do it. Actually, I'd really like to do that, but you ask the other person to do it first. So that keeps you always mindful of your place and always mindful of promoting other people. Then there's practicing the practice of letting go of resentments.

[24:13]

This is the hardest one because we're always full of resentment. someone does something, we don't like it. It hurts us for some reason. But if we hang on to resentment, it simply creates pain for ourself. So how do you transform resentment into something beneficial or something that is neutral or works? That's a koan. I won't tell you how to do it. But you have to think about that. Do I wanna just keep being resentful all the time? It does make you feel powerful. Resentment is a kind of power motivator. Because if you feel resentment, then you feel justified in doing something. And when you feel justified in doing something, it gives you a reason to be alive.

[25:18]

So some of us, sometimes we feel that since we don't have other motivations that keep us alive, resentment will do very well. Anger will do very well. So we get addicted to resentment and we get addicted to anger. What resentment is based on is self and other. So we're always looking at, you know, often we look out at what others are doing and we don't like it and we resent it, instead of just looking at ourselves. Why can't I just be happy with myself? Why do I have to always be thinking in terms of a relation to others or something outside of myself in order to feel something. So in a sense, it's letting others be who they are, even though you don't like it.

[26:29]

Because there'll always be people you don't like, there'll always be things that you don't like about what people do. And this is going on continuously. So, how can you be content within yourself? How can you take care of this person without having to take care of that person? Often we're taking care of that person without really taking care of ourselves. So, it's a big problem, of course, and it's the hardest thing. So, practicing humility Humility has various definitions, but it needs, from my point of view, I've defined it as, tentatively, as knowing exactly where your place is on each moment in relation to everything else so that you don't get beyond yourself or self-inflated or self-deflated.

[27:36]

Humility doesn't mean to crawl along on the ground you know, in a deflated way, it means to be right, know who you are, and know where you are, and know how to respond to every situation from that place, so that you're not bigger, you don't feel bigger than you are, or smaller than you are. Just right, just the right place. That's humility. It's a good quality. So then there's humility, actually, like always being in the calmness of your mind, always returning to calm mind, the mind that cannot be upset by anything.

[28:39]

So then there's the practice of being aware of when strong emotions arise not to use them to fuel or dominate your position. In other words, we have strong emotions and then that strong emotion is used as fuel for dominating and taking control. when strong emotions arise to be able to contain them instead of reacting to respond to a situation from the calmness of your mind. Then there's the practice of not letting your mind get ahead of your body. This is very important in Zen practice.

[29:45]

Zen teachers are kind of like parents. The relationship between parents and children, not that the students are children or that the teacher is a parent, but in relationship to parents and students, children watch what their parents do. It doesn't matter what the parents say. so much, but it's how they act in a real way. That's what children see. And people say, well, gee, my children are so unruly and blah, blah, blah, and I tell them all these wonderful things and they're still, you know, bad children. Well, it's because the children assess the parents. They see right into who the parents are rather than what they say. So, Zen teaches the same way.

[30:55]

No matter what you say as a Zen teacher, what people notice is how you act, how you hold yourself, how you behave, how you pick something up or put something down, how you are aware of your movements, aware of your surroundings. It's from here, not from here. although this is included. So sometimes people are very good at giving talks about Buddhism or ethics or whatever, but what we see and what we follow is the person's behavior, the way they hold themselves, and that's what we trust. So... When our head gets ahead of our body, that's not Zen practice. Zen practice is the mind and the body are integrated.

[31:58]

So when you open the door, you're aware of the door. You open the door and you close the door. That's one act. You open the door, you step outside, and you close the door. open the door, and you're already way over there, and you're closing the door like this. That's not Zen practice. It's you do one act, and you complete one act, and then you do one act, and you complete one act. Whole body and mind together. You're not thinking way ahead while your body's doing something else. This is very important. This is the basis, the essence of our practice. to do one thing at one time. Suzuki Roshi, I've told you this many times, he said, in America you have this saying, to kill two birds with one stone, but our practice is to kill one bird with one stone.

[33:02]

When my teacher, when we were young monks, you know, around the platform, around the temple, there's a platform and they have these screens which in the winter they close, they slide and it encloses the temple. And then they're all stored in the summer in a box at the end of the And so the monks were all, in this incident, the monks were taking all the screens and putting them into the box. And the teacher came along and said, uh-uh, one screen at a time in the box. And then you come back, get the next screen, put it in the box. It's not efficient in our modern way of thinking, in our modern way of thinking. Try to get as much as we can and carry it to some place to save time.

[34:08]

But here, we don't try to save time. We use time. We appreciate time. So if you take one thing at one time, you're really making use, you're using time instead of time using you. And then you're appreciating time. You're one with time. So he said to me, he said, don't be ahead of time or behind time. Always be right in time. So that's very important for a teacher, to not be in their head all the time, but to be in their body. This is a body practice. So the next thing I wrote here was, oh, don't treat people in a subservient manner. In other words, you're in a position, don't treat people like your servants or like lesser, they're lesser than you because you have some special position.

[35:19]

That's really important. That's one of the biggest complaints that I get, is this teacher, this person in high position, always treating us like subservient, putting us in a subservient position without realizing it. Without realizing it is the most difficult. So we always have to be very careful how we relate to people, and not put people in a subservient position, then they don't respect you. And the other one is, it is very difficult for someone over 50 to receive correction. But that's no excuse. Try hard. And then, take correction without excuses or backbiting.

[36:21]

Sometimes we think of correction as criticism. Correction is not criticism, necessarily. So we try to help to correct, but it's not criticism. You have to be very careful to know the difference between correction and criticism. But no matter how much you try to teach someone something, It's always criticism. A person always feels criticized. And then they start making excuses. Well, I did it because blah, blah, blah. And then don't make excuses like, I'm not very good at that. I've never been very good at doing that kind of thing. I've never been sewing the raksu, sewing a robe. Well, I'm not good at sewing. It doesn't matter whether you're good at sewing or not. Nobody asked you to be good at sewing. All we said was, sew.

[37:22]

Okay. Okay. I may not be good at it. I may be good at it. Doesn't make any difference. Just sew. In our practice with Suzuki Roshi, he never gave us a reason for doing anything. Traditionally, in practice, this is the way practice is communicated in Japan. You never get a reason for doing something. Just do. Do this. Okay. Do this. Okay. Do this. Okay. That's all. There's nothing in the middle. And then when you just do it, it doesn't matter. It's fine. But we only need these reasons, why should I do that? This is like hanging on to ourself, self-protection, self-clinging. Or we say, that's just the way I am, I've always been this way, which means I can never change.

[38:32]

So this is a big hindrance for both teachers and students. And then there's practice letting go, self-righteousness. Self-righteousness is clinging to the idea that my way is right, my idea is right, my understanding is right. It may be right, but if you cling to it and create a, you just create an ego statistical problem for yourself. the need to be right all the time. We all want to be right all the time, of course. But it's okay not to be. It's okay not to be. We don't always have to push our view on everybody. If you're right, you know,

[39:41]

it's okay to let everyone else be right. And then if you really are right, that rightness will eventually, everyone will eventually come around to seeing that it is right. So we have to have patience so that our rightness will be recognized at the right moment. And then there's, don't strut around like the cock of the walk. I've got something wonderful here. Embarrassing. And then renunciation, which means dropping self-centeredness. People think renunciation means I should take all my belongings and throw them in the river.

[40:43]

But if you throw them in the river, the river will say, hey man, why are you doing that to me? Renunciation, letting go of self-centeredness. It doesn't matter how many possessions you have. or how much money you have, or how many, that's not it. Renunciation means letting go of ego, letting go of self-centeredness. The need to do all these things that I've been talking about, that's renunciation. And moment after moment, you practice renunciation. So, moment by moment, letting go of self-centeredness and ego so that you can feel good about yourself and other people will feel good about you and you can feel good about everybody else.

[41:44]

So, One reason why, at this time, I gave the Dharma transmission to these two wonderful women is because they both have their own practice places which are developing, and they put a lot of effort and energy, and they're totally committed to doing this. And in order for them to be able to give their students lay ordination and so forth, and continue to develop, it's very helpful for them to have Dharma transmission. And I think they both deserve it. And like all of us, we have two sides. We have ordinary person side, which is all these problems that we create, and then we have Buddha side. So as long as Buddha is leading, and the other side is following,

[42:59]

everything will work out.

[43:02]

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