So here's this accomplished monk doing this work as the miller. The miller has set off a little to the side of the monastery. But one day, someone made an accusation about him to Xu Dan, some envious person. It doesn't say exactly. So every day, here's the accusation. Every day, Fa Yuan drinks wine, eats meat, and entertains farmers and young women at the mill. So the entire temple was stirred up. Hearing this, Fa Yuan purposely bought meat and wine and hung them on the wall of the mill. He brought cosmetic powder and gave them to the farmers and young women and asked them to paint their faces. When the monks came to the mill, Fa Yuan took the young women's hands, teasing them and laughing without any sign of shyness. Xu Dan one day called him to the Abbott's room and asked him why he was doing it.

[01:06]

Fa Yuan said nothing but, yes, yes. Xu Dan slapped his face, but Fa Yuan did not flinch. He bowed and started to leave. Xu Dan yelled at him and said, get out, quick. Fa Yuan said, I need to settle my account and find someone to take over my position. Faiyuan told Xudan, I paid for the wine and meat that is hanging in the mill and put 300 plus 1,000 cen in the temple treasury. Xudan was greatly surprised and realized that the accusations came from the jealousy of petty minds. While at Xudan's monastery community, Zen master Huantong Fazu was Xuzhou. He accepted an offer to be abbot of Mount Simeon, so he asked Fa Yuan to be the shuso at his new place. The mill, or milling cottage, takes care of pounding rice and grinding flour.

[02:11]

It is located five or six cho from the temple building. The miller takes care of it by himself. This was Fa Yuan's position. In the past, people with way mind filled this position, and also those who were unsuited filled this position. But nowadays, It is hard to find those who have a way mind. Dogen is always complaining about this. Nowadays, it's so hard to find. So for the time being, people who have some capacity are used. Well, people who have some capacity are used. Sometimes there are such people, and sometimes there is not. The world is becoming more happens at every age. When we observe old Buddha Faluwan's practice, there is nothing that can compare with it, either in the past or in the present. It is like the colors of peach and plum, the purity of pine and cypress.

[03:16]

Winter does not break it. Frost and snow do not impinge on it. This is interesting. Like the purity of pine and cypress, winter wind does not break it, frost and snow do not and pinch on it. This is talking about flexibility. Phi 1, flexibility. The tree gets away to the snow and the wind, but just bend. Phi 1, he doesn't deny what's happening. He doesn't say, oh no, I'm not. He doesn't accuse anybody of anything. He simply lets the situation take care of itself. And he says, well, if this is the way I am, then I'll act this way. And you'll see, you know, by accentuating the positive and not denying anything, the whole thing turned around. That's very interesting. Usually when we're accused of something, we deny it, you know, indignantly.

[04:22]

This is reminiscent of Hakuin, the story of Hakuin and the baby, you know, the young woman had a boyfriend who helped her conceive. And she had the baby, but she didn't want to expose her boyfriend. So when her father said, who's baby is that? She said, it's Hockowin's, the old priest. The father took the baby and said, this is yours, take it. And Haakon said, is that so? And I took the baby. And cared for the baby for a while. And then at some point, the lady had second thoughts, you know, and she said, it was really my boyfriend. So she pursued the father and went to Haakon and said, that's not your baby.

[05:30]

So this is like great trust, you know, in something. I think it's great trust and that the truthful or non-egotistical action will have its own reward. Selfless action will have its own reward. So we can see how diligent his study of the way was. we can see how lofty his sincerity was.

[06:32]

Those who come later should not give up their determination for the practice of the Way, should not back off, even if faced with this kind of misfortune. Fa Yuan's practice was extraordinary. We should take a look at this and try to make an effort in this direction. The depths of the old Way-mind teachers can be realized through this kind of determination. The more we observe, the higher and more solid we know it is. This is what we should yearn for. So, we have to go to 30? Okay. So, just to make things a little different, give a contrast, I'm going to talked about the Kanyan, the chief administrator.

[07:36]

This part is longer, but I'm just going to, you know, be part of it, talk about part of it. The Kanyan are the chief administrator. In those days, Dogon had a small community, and one person did a lot of different things that are now divided up into different positions. So the Kanin was like the director and the Shikha. Shikha is the person who takes care of affairs that relates to the outside world and greets new people and takes care of them. and sometimes the work leader, and just doing all of the temple administration.

[08:42]

Big job. So now, the Kanyan is no longer a position. It's divided up between many different people, those positions. So he said, the position of Kanin is to supervise all the affairs of the monastery. These include responding to the government notifications and inquiries. See, in those days, in order for monks to be ordained, they had to have government permission. And the government was oversaw, was somehow involved with not running the monasteries, but kept tabs on the monasteries, and had certain responsibilities, or the monasteries had certain responsibilities to the government.

[09:50]

Because when Buddhism came into Japan, the reason that it was accepted was because it was for the protection of the country. So the Shingon and the Tendai schools, who were the schools that, the esoteric schools and the scholarly schools, which were into magic and, you know, like, creating incantations for the protection of the government and for the protection of the country. And this continued for quite some time. Zen was more independent, you know, but these schools, that was, when Buddhism came from India to China, the way it was

[11:00]

accepted in China as shamanistic, these monks who perform miracles and magic tricks. We're kind of growing out of that now. I keep thinking that Anyway, so the government has, you know, had some connection with, they had some connection with the government. So these include responding to the government notifications and inquiries, issuing letters of appreciation and congratulations, and making the community available to new monks. The Kannon takes charge of offering incense at various places in the temple and does the Jindo. The Kanin sees donors, takes care of celebrations, condolences, lending and borrowing, sending and receiving representatives, oversees the communal budget, makes sure that there is financial reserve and enough stock and grain, and is aware of the cash flow, and oversees the care of the annual purchase of rice and barley.

[12:13]

The Kanin supervises the making of soy sauce and vinegar, keeps track of the squeezing of oil, pounding of rice, and grinding of grain according to the season. So all these things were They didn't go to the store and buy sesame oil and stuff like that. So it was a self-sustaining community, pretty much. They did buy things, of course, but basically a lot of the things that we just take for granted as easily purchased were made by them. The soy sauce and the oil and all these things were made by them. And this is an enormous amount of work for this one person. So, nowadays, everything is delegated, which is a good idea. When you delegate things to people, then that's how you educate them. That's how people train.

[13:17]

When a person has a position, whether it's a large position or a small position, then from that position they relate to the whole practice place. They relate to everybody from that position. And that's why positions rotate. So one day you're in the kitchen, or for a year you're in the kitchen, and then for a year you're in zendo as a doan or something like that. And then you're the work leader, and then you're the ino or the bath person or the gardener, whatever. And whatever position you have, from that position, you relate to everyone. And then when you rotate it through all these positions, you gain some maturity and you understand how things work. And you relate to people very differently as the Tenzo than you do as the Ino, or the person who takes care of the practice of the Zendo.

[14:26]

It's a very different outlook. So, in a small community like this, you don't have the monastic opportunity, but you do have a structure. And it's important for everyone's maturity and growth in practice and the way to harmonize that everyone has something, all the members have something that they take care of to allow you to feel that this is your place and that through this position, you're relating to everyone else and contributing. Whenever I go to Tassajara to lead a practice period, the first talk I give is about how everyone has a position.

[15:32]

And through that position, they relate to the whole place. And when the person who is on general labor is totally one with their activity, not longing for something else, not being self-concerned about this low position, but simply doing it as if this was the highest position. Then it is the highest position. And that person is leading the whole practice. Everyone is leading the practice. When everyone is leading the practice, you don't have to worry about this guy having this high position, this person having this low position. Everybody's position makes it work. It's like, in hierarchy, works. You know, there's equality, and then there's hierarchy.

[16:38]

In equality, everyone's the same. In hierarchy, everyone has a different position. That's life. There's no way you can change that. People think, well, socialism means everybody's equal and there's no hierarchy. That's not true. Communism means everybody's equal. That's not true. Hierarchy is. Because the law of physics says everything is in a different place. No two things can occupy the same place. So that's called hierarchy. When you have a flower, there's the stem, the petals, and all those little things. And that's called the hierarchy of a plant. That's what it means. It means everything has a function, but everybody's function is different. And because everyone's function is different, when they're harmonized, it works for everybody.

[17:42]

So Sangha is like that. Everyone's treated the same way. We're all equal. But we all have a different place and different position according to where we are. And everybody's in a different place. And when we accept our place, and when we accept responsibility, then everything works really well. So, Dogen says, the khanen exercises excellent caretaking mind in supervising the monks, morning and midday meals. The khanen entertains visitors from all directions without lack of hospitality. If a con-in has the ability, she should take direct charge in preparing meals as ceremonial offerings to the monks on the occasions of winter solstice, New Year's, the beginning and end of summer Anga, or practice period, Buddha's birthday, fifth month festival, seventh month festival, ninth month festival, starting and closing down the charcoal brazier,

[19:01]

I think that probably the charcoal brazier was something that kept going all winter. They open it up at a certain date, and then they close it down at a certain date. The Rohatsu celebration, the Nirvana day, and if the candidate is unable to handle all this by himself, he should ask other officers to share the responsibility. Minor matters, as well as routine daily matters, should be taken care of by the khanin personally. In important matters and unprecedented occurrences, the khanin should discuss with the officers and those in charge, and then consult with the abbot prior to carrying them out. In case the abbot or the officers appear out of line with the regulations or guidelines of the monastery, or are not in accord with people's feelings regarding either major or minor matters, the khanin should quietly bring the matter to their attention. The khanin should neither keep silent nor use coarse or abusive language.

[20:04]

So that's interesting. If the abbot's out of line, the khanin should say something quietly and discreetly, not go around creating rumors or talking to other people about it. But you have to talk to other people about it. But not creating a big scene. I said gently reason with them about these mistakes. So all these holidays, you know, a lot of holidays that they have to take care of. You know, we tend to come from different backgrounds, and so the holidays that we observe, you know, are sometimes national or ethnic or whatever.

[21:15]

But here they're all, you know, everybody's the same. They come from the same tribe, and they have the same holidays, and observe things. This is a monastic life. The fifth day of the fifth month is called the Boys' Festival. The seventh day of the seventh month is the Weavers' Festival. The ninth day of the ninth month is the Chrysanthemum Festival. But I always thought that the fifth day of the fifth month was, that's a Cinco de Mayo. But I thought that was Bodhidharma's day. But Bodhidharma's day seems to be in the fall, but I'm confused about that.

[22:19]

That's just a little bit of what Duggan talks about, the work of a con, but it goes on and on.

[22:37]

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