Before I get into the book, I want to talk a little bit about Dogen's time, 13th century in Japan, and the climate of Buddhism. As many of you know, there was a rumor or an idea, and it appeared in various scriptures that there were the three periods of the Dharma, the period of the first 500 years from Shakyamuni Buddha to 500 years later was the true Dharma, where the Dharma of Buddha could actually penetrate and people could actually practice it. And then there was the period, second period, 500 years, which was like the shadow, sometimes called the counterfeit, where it looked like Buddhism was going on, but it really wasn't.

[01:26]

because it was so far removed from Buddhist time. And then the third period was called the period of degeneration, mapo, which was just about the 13th century in Japan. And this was called the Dharma Ending Age, where no matter how much you wanted to practice, nobody could ever achieve perfection in the Dharma, in practice. And at that time in Japan, there were all these civil wars going on, and futile battles, and everybody was chopping each other up, and people didn't know how to get out of this. and they were looking to religion, but it wasn't happening, even though Buddhism was there in Japan.

[02:31]

And as I said, I don't know if I said this last time, maybe I was talking to somebody else, but the Tendai school on Mount Hiei and the Shingon school on Mount Koya were the two principal places, centers of Buddhism. And the Shingon school had all these, they both had, were kind of esoteric in that the Tendai school combined all the practices of Buddhism and the Shingon school was the esoteric, mysterious school of Buddhism and also incorporated magic and practices which only the adepts could deal with and both of them were protectors of the country

[03:49]

So this was a big deal for Japan. In order for a religion to survive, they had to show that this spiritual practice was protecting the country. So they both gained favor with the powers, you know, the emperors, then the daimyos, and then the samurai and the feudal leaders. But in Dogen's time, these practices weren't helping and people were getting disillusioned because mainly the practices were based on prayers. you know, the priests would pray for the country, you know, and that was supposed to protect the country.

[04:54]

But it wasn't working, just like in the, at the end of the Second World War, the Japanese were very discouraged by Buddhism, because it didn't help them win. So, and then after the war, you know, Buddhism was at a low. and a lot of new religions sprang up. But given that, the development of Buddhism from Shakyamuni, in the beginning it was fairly simple. Shakyamuni was the teacher, and his disciples just practiced with him. They didn't need any scriptures. They didn't need any, you know, ideation. They simply practiced what he practiced. And just like at Zen Center, we just practiced what Suzuki Roshi practiced.

[05:59]

We never learned anything. I mean, we weren't really taught anything. We weren't taught much Buddhism. We just practiced what our teacher practiced, and it was great. But as the practice gets further and further from the teacher, there has to be some other kind of support, some other kind of vehicle for the teaching. So then the sutras start to appear. And when the sutras were written in India, they were written by you know, the Sambhogakaya Buddha, the spirit of Buddhism which through highly intelligent and highly learned and enlightened, hopefully, scholars or practitioners. So, when the sutras started coming into China, all these sutras are coming into China

[07:05]

And the Chinese believed that all the sutras were written by, the true word is spoken by Buddha. And then more and more sutras kept coming. And then the sutras started to contradict each other and come from different places and have different bases and so forth. And people realized at some point that As these sutras were developed in India, there was an idealism behind them. And there was the logic of the Madhyamaka, and the idealism of the Yogacara, and the Tendai schools, and the esoteric schools, and the doctrines and sutras kept getting more and more idealized. And then if you look at what the Mahayana developed, the ideal of the bodhisattva is so out of reach of any human being, like the ten bhumis, if you ever studied the ten bhumis, the ten stages of a bodhisattva, I mean the first stage is like way up there.

[08:28]

So by the time Mahayana reached Japan, it all looked unattainable. And it coincided with Mapo, the degenerate age, where nobody could practice any of that practice. So those people who depended on those scriptures and those schools It was all too inaccessible. And coinciding with Mapo, it was like nobody could possibly practice those practices. And this proved that it was the degenerate age. And nobody knew what to do. So then three teachers, four teachers in Japan took charge.

[09:33]

Shinran and Honan. Honan was the advocate of the Pure Land School, and Shinran was his successor. Shinran developed it, the Shin School, the school of chanting the name of Buddha, in order to be reborn in the Pure Land. So both Honan and Shinran said, and were convinced that in this degenerate age, since there was no way to practice these practices, that due to Amitabha's vow, if one chanted the name of Buddha, one could be reborn in the Pure Land. So, not only Was it not necessary to do any kind of practices? You shouldn't try to do any practices.

[10:40]

And this became the biggest school in Japan. This is called the easy way. The hard way was impossible. So, you know, let's do it the easy way. And there's a lot of sincerity in it. It's not like, you know, superficial. It was a very sincere practice. All you need to do is just simply one time chant the name of Buddha. But if you do it continuously or, you know, sincerely, you will definitely be reborn in the Pure Land, in the West. And then there was the Nichiren school, and Nichiren was a very aggressive teacher who advocated chanting the name of the Lotus Sutra, Nam-myoho-renge-kyo, and the influence of that comes down to today, you know, where you see this Nichiren Shoshu, the Soka Gakkai,

[11:59]

passing out leaflets on the corners. They used to do it more than they do now. And you can chant for good things, like an automobile, but that was not Nichiren's purpose. But he said, if you chant the name of the Lotus Sutra, contained the Bodhisattva way, for this age. And so if you chant the name of the Lotus Sutra, it's sort of like chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha, Amida Buddha. So these were both practices for the easy way. This made Buddhism accessible to everyone. Somebody told me yesterday that he has some problem with the difficulty of our practice, not for himself, but for other people. People come to practice here, and then because it seems like so austere or inaccessible or something, even though they want to practice, they can't do it because it's too Japanese or it's too this or that.

[13:17]

And I feel, wow, that's an interesting thing to think about. But I told him I wasn't going to change to accommodate people. People have to come up to the practice. We accommodate a lot. So, Dogen didn't believe in, although he accepted the fact of Mapao. He said, Even in Buddha's time, all this was happening. It was a degenerate age. There were bad monks, and stupid monks, and sick monks, and crazy monks, and wars, and so forth. It was the same in Buddha's time.

[14:18]

And so if people want to practice, they can practice. If they have the aspiration for practice, they can practice, whether it's mapo or any other age. Doesn't matter. So, Dogen just went straight ahead, without being bothered by this kind of attitude. And he said, people are just lazy, that's all. They're just lazy and need an excuse to not, you know, do anything. So, Zen school has always been small. Except when it became, except during the Meiji period, 1864, something like that, about the time of the Civil War, when the emperor, or the powers that be, changed the status of monks and said that they didn't have to be celibate.

[15:21]

could have families, and they were turned out of the monasteries and filled the temples. And then there began the temple system that exists today. So it's kind of like church. All the temples have zendos, but people rarely sit in them. It's just like church. It's a little different, but when I went to When I started practicing at Sokoji Temple, the temple on Bush Street, 1881 Bush Street, was a Japanese temple. Suzuki Roshi was there. And they had a Go Club, which was the most popular part of it. And people would go there for funerals. Weddings. Some weddings.

[16:25]

But there was no practice as we know it. They had festivals, of course. They had a good time. It was just like going to church. But nobody ever thought of sitting Zazen. Suzuki Ryoshi sat Zazen by himself. And then some people started sitting with him. People called him on the telephone. You know, because they'd look up Zan in the telephone book. They'd call him up and he'd say, well, I sit Zazen at 5.45 every morning. And if you want to, you can come sit with me. The temple had a big room with pews, like a church, because it was a synagogue and a stage and everything. and he used to sit in the pews and people would come and sit with him and little by little Zen Center started but it was just two different practices Japanese had their practice and we had our practice and they were just like night and day quite different and

[17:42]

So the practice of Zazen became very, in Japan after that time, became minimal, except for certain places, certain temples or training temples. And some priests were still carrying on Zazen, but much more rare. So when Suzuki Roshi introduced our practice, the unique thing about our practice was Zazen. And people wanted to go to church. Hey, you don't have to be Buddhist to go to church. You can go to a Christian church or go to the synagogue or whatever. But this was unique, that we actually were introduced to Zazen. and the style of practice which keeps Zazen pure. I think that the style of practice, which is Dogen's style pretty much modified over the years, of course, by years of

[19:09]

degeneracy and ascendancy of the practice back and forth. So, this kind of style and the practice itself has actually been handed to us because we're kind of naive. and new. Suzuki Goshi said, we don't have all that stuff to deal with, all the history to deal with. We can just start practicing without being weighted down by tradition, even though it looks like we have tradition. It's very simple. It's a style which is a vehicle for the practice. When people leave the zendo, they say, well, how do you practice?

[20:20]

The advantage of having the temple and the advantage of having the style is that when you walk in, you know, this is the practice. But when you walk out the door, what's the practice? So, if we didn't have this style and people just kind of came in and out and sat down and watched, pretty soon it would be just like... Who knows? We don't know, but... It would be pretty good. Some people think it would be really good. What did you say? No, I didn't say it. What did you say? What did he say? I don't know. He said it'd be great. Anyway, so this brings us up to Dogen.

[21:23]

And Dogen, nobody, so when Dogen starts talking, he's saying, nobody ever thought of this before in Japan. He visited these, when he was in China, The Tenzo's visited his temple and he met these Tenzo's and they showed him that there was something besides this inaccessibility of idealistic practice. They showed him that there was a real practice which is right in front of us. And it has to do with everything that we're doing. And so this is why he's so adamant about presenting this. That's what he's presenting. He's saying, there is this way to actually practice in the world. And he's presenting it to the Buddhists in Japan.

[22:26]

So even though it's mapo, this is the way to practice. to treat each thing, everything that you're doing, not just as practice, but as yourself, as the way. So, you know, sometimes we think, well, Dogen sounds very extreme in the way he, you know, criticizes and the way he presents things. But he's presenting something against this great tide, you know, that is critical of him. Also, at that time, the monks on Mount Hiei and the monks on Mount Koya had armies.

[23:38]

And the armies were competitive with each other. They had armies of monks. This is how degenerate things were in Japan at the time. And they would burn each other's temples. Dogen had to get out of Kyoto and go to Echizen to start his monastery. because they didn't like him there. So, you remember the stories about, I think, when I started, the stories about Guishan and the cow, remember that? So, he says, regarding the office of Tenzo, stories such as those I mentioned previously about Guishan and Dongshan have been passed down through the ages.

[24:48]

In addition to the monks from Mount Tiantong and Mount Ayuwang, those are the Tenzos he's talking about, that he met in China. I met and talked with monks who served as Tenzo from other monasteries. If we look closely into some of these stories, we will realize the meaning of characters and the nature of practice. Actually, just working as Tenzo is the incomparable practice of the Buddhas. Even one who accedes to the head of the community should have these same attitudes. In the Chanyuan-Kuing-Wi, Chanyuan-Kuing-Wi is the regulations for Zen monasteries. Pai Chong had his rules for monastic practice, and so everybody refers to Pai Chong's pure rules for the monastic community

[25:53]

But Pai Cheng's rules were lost. But they're still Pai Cheng's rules because this is where, whatever the rules are, they come from Pai Cheng's rules. They were very highly regarded because Pai Cheng really created the, put it all together. And everybody agreed that this was how the monastery should be run, through these rules. So, in the Chan-nyuang Quing-hui, we find, prepare each meal with meticulous care, making sure that there is enough. Do not be remiss in the four offerings of food, clothing, bedding, and medicine. Shakyamuni was to have lived to 100 years of age, but died at 80, leaving 20 years for his disciples and descendants.

[26:58]

I'm not sure what that means, but I kind of do. Could you share the kind of part? What? Could you share the kind of? For some reason, people had this idea that Shakyamuni was supposed to live to be 100, but he died at 80, so there's 20 years difference. He died at 80, leaving 20 years for his disciples and descendants. So I guess what that means is his disciples and descendants could ascend to finish what he left unfinished. But he left nothing unfinished. But what they did do was left his disciples and descendants to structure

[28:07]

the practice for the next generation. Mahakasyapa, well except that Mahakasyapa died before Buddha, but pretty sure, no I guess he didn't, it wasn't Mahakasyapa who died before Buddha, it was, I can't remember, but anyway, so you know, they reorganized the practice and set up the practice for the next generation. Alan? Well, I think that's maybe the operative word there is generation. That's actually customarily what we consider a generation. So it was a generation, maybe, of... That's right. And it's really easy to see how things slide, how a next generation will be different than the previous one, even though it's kind of handed down from one generation to the next.

[29:39]

And even Dogen's disciples were all different than Dogen, and each one did something different and changed things. So, the same with Buddha. But the generation that practiced with Buddha is what he's talking about. That's right. Who carry the direct knowledge of the teacher. So also, he said, don't be remiss in the four offerings of food, clothing, bedding, and medicine. This is what a monk requires. This is what anybody requires, right? Food. These are the four necessities. In order to practice, these are called the four necessities. You have to have food, you have to have clothing, you have to have bedding, and you have to have medicine. So these are the basic needs.

[30:42]

Also, he's talking about monks, but at the same time, you don't have to stick to monks. The essence is for anybody who's practicing, not just monks. And we shouldn't think it's them. We shouldn't think it's for them. It's for us. It's for, you know, this is practice, how we all practice, and how we take the teaching and use it, or how it informs all of our daily life, not just as a monk, but as a layperson. So, we today are living in the favor of this merit.

[31:44]

If we were to receive even one ray of light emitted from the Byakugoko, which is the little gem, you know, the ray of light from Buddha's forehead, between his eyebrows, we would be unable to exhaust its merit. The text goes on to say, You should think only about, he's talking about the Tenzo, you should think only about how to best serve the community, having no fear of poverty. As long as your mind is not limited, you will naturally receive unlimited fortune. The head of the community should generate this attitude towards serving the residents. So no fear of poverty is very important. actually. Of course, everybody needs to have a living, make a living, and so forth. And especially for lay people, everyone has to make their own living, and everyone has to have various essentials, and money, and so forth.

[33:01]

For a monk, the monk is supported through their practice. That's the monk's work. It's not like monks are not working. Their practice is their work. Traditionally, the symbiotic relationship between monks and laypeople is that the monks are practicing the practice which helps or encourages the lay people, and the lay people in return support the monks. That's the way it's always worked. We don't have that practice today. We sort of do, sort of do, but not entirely. Except for myself. The other priests have to work to support themselves. But through your generosity, I'm supported.

[34:09]

But I never ask for anything, and your generosity is wonderful. You always think about me, even though I don't ask for anything. So that's great trust I have, you know. Sometimes I think the whole thing could just disappear in a minute. I honestly think that. We just take for granted. I come to Zazen every day. Everybody's here. We practice. We do Zazen. It just goes on and on and on. But someday, it's just all gone in a moment. We talk about a generation gap. A generation gap, everything could disappear. But in a month, everything could disappear. That's possible. especially if I did something wrong. But it's all trust, totally trust.

[35:14]

And to think about the community is just generosity of spirit without expectations. That's really important. One who supports the community in various ways, through teaching or whatever, just does it in order to support the community. Because to support something that we feel is worthwhile. But there's no expectations. If you have expectations, then you have disappointments. And sometimes I have expectations. The expectations build up, you know.

[36:18]

But then I think, oh, careful, careful. My practice is just to sit zazen. They have expectations. Then everything works. If I have too much expectation, then I start getting critical, too critical of people, which is not so good. Why isn't this happening? That does come up. During practice period, we always have less people sitting zazen. Have you ever noticed that? I used to get uptight about it, but now I just think, well, so there's less people setting signs in. I just mind my own business. Anyway, what?

[37:22]

Naughty boy. So anyway, as long as your mind is not limited, you will naturally receive unlimited fortune. The head of the community should generate this attitude toward serving the residents. In preparing food for the community, it is crucial not to grumble about the quality of the ingredients. but rather to cultivate a temper which sees and respects them fully for what they are." Which doesn't mean that you shouldn't evaluate them in some way. It's not that... What he's saying here is that the ingredients come to the Tenzo as offerings. Therefore, you shouldn't complain or grumble. But when we have the opportunity to shop, that's a whole different thing.

[38:29]

When you're shopping, you pick out, you don't just blindly pick things, right? You say, oh, this is pretty good and that's pretty good. So it's different. It's a different attitude, a little different attitude, because we're choosing for the community. So we try to choose nice quality food Foods that don't have too much poison, food that's healthy, food that's fresh. You know, Suzuki Roshi, when he went to the store, either him or his father, I can't remember, or his teacher, teacher used to go and pick out the worst things. They were kind of rotting fruit and you could cut out parts of it, you know. So because those, you know, there's something, you didn't want to abandon them. Yeah.

[39:33]

And I thought about it. I said, well, what if everybody was like that? There'd just be a rotten mound of stuff, and all the good stuff that could walk out the door. I wondered why you were insane. That's only part of it. There are two kinds of people. I just watch both. I tend to be the examine of being kind, but not overly. But I see there are a lot of people who just grab them, you know? And I think that's great. I wish I were that way. But I think it all evens out.

[41:03]

But you know, Charlie didn't finish the story because this afternoon when I came home, he showed me a bag from the Berkeley Bowl. And so now, Charlie is just leaving the selection up to fate. You know, like it's a prepackaged bag. That's even better. It's not your fault. Your practice continues. Yes. Well, thank you for that, Charlie. Yeah, this is a good time. Take five. I don't know about him, but sometimes you can get really bad.

[42:34]

That's right. But the thing is... Thank you, y'all. So what was the politics in the Meiji Restoration?

[44:01]

Why did they push the monks out so they could get married? or just the dispersal out of the monastery was interesting. I heard today why, historically, why Catholic priests are celibate. And it is the opposite. Choir. was wealth, you know. He points out that the Eastern Church has always been, the priests have always been

[45:49]

Thank you. What's your name? My full name is Yoko Ueno. Yeah, really great. I don't know what your name is, but if we know that you were cast, we would want to know who you are. I guess I'm different people's second name. I don't know what your name is, but I guess I'm different people's second name. I guess I'm different people's second name. Okay. I'm just saying that we use for the second crucial.

[47:51]

We have to get like a few minutes to actually use for the second crucial. We need to get around for a few minutes [...] for the second crucial Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay, so I'll go over this again.

[50:06]

In preparing food for the community, it is crucial not to grumble about the quality of the ingredients, but rather to cultivate a temper which sees and respects them fully for what they are. Look at the story of the old woman who gained merit in future lives by offering to Shakyamuni the water she had just used to wash the rice. There's no story about this, so I don't know what she did, but, you know, it's like she didn't have anything, so that's what she gave him. You know, that's the story. And, or to reflect on the final deed of King Ashoka, who on his deathbed gladly offered half a date to a temple from off his table." There's no story about that either. But King Ashoka, you know, was the the Raja in India who popularized Buddhism.

[51:07]

And the stelae, you know, are pillars that in India that King Ashoka erected. Beautiful pillars. They're still there. From this it was foretold that the king would reach nirvana in his next life. Okay. The true bond established between ourselves and the Buddha is born of the smallest offering made with sincerity rather than of some grandiose donation made without it. This is our practice as human beings. You know, there's a story about Dogen, when he was building his tent at Heiji, and a monk solicited money from somebody, some merchant or some official for the temple.

[52:10]

And Dogen didn't feel right about this offering, because he felt that there was something behind it. It wasn't a pure offering. And he was really PO'd at the monk for accepting it. So he kicked out the monk, and he dug six feet under the monk's seat, dug a hole six feet under the monk's seat and threw away the... That's the story. I don't know what that is. Nobody knows if this is true or not. It's probably apocrypha. Well, it still is. Zendo is a dirt-packed floor, although it looks like You know, it looks like it's all shiny, but it's hard-packed dirt.

[53:17]

Is that ahege? Ahege, yeah. That's very common. China didn't have dirt floors. Nowadays it's not common, no, because they have more building materials. But that was a building material in those days. So a small offering made with sincerity rather than a grandiose donation. So these are examples of that, and this is our practice as human beings. And so then he says, a dish is not necessarily superior because you have prepared it with choice ingredients, nor is a soup inferior because you have made it with ordinary greens.

[54:19]

When handling and selecting greens, do so with a pure mind and without trying to evaluate their quality, in the same way in which you would prepare a splendid feast. The many rivers which flow into the ocean become the one taste of the ocean. When they flow into the pure ocean of the Dharma, there are no such distinctions as delicacies or plain food. There is just one taste and it is the Buddhadharma, the world itself as it is." So he's saying the Buddhadharma is the world itself as it is. That's a very important point he's making there. Suzuki Roshi, I remember talking about this. I'm sure this is what he's referring to, but he's saying it in his own way. He's saying, when we eat, we eat a strawberry, then we eat a cereal, and we eat things one by one.

[55:33]

But even though we eat things one by one, and taste their delicious taste, and then we chew it all up in our mouth, and then it goes down, and as it goes down, it all becomes something else. It all mixes up together, becomes something else. So, in this way, and then it becomes indistinguishable, one thing becomes indistinguishable from another. And that's the way things go. So in one sense it's all the same, in another sense each piece is different. So, in cultivating the germ of aspiration to live out the way as well as in practicing the Dharma, delicious and ordinary tastes are the same and not two.

[56:50]

There is an old saying, the mouth of a monk is like an oven. Remember this well. The mouth of a monk is like an oven. Actually, you know, our stomach cooks the food. When you eat cold food, it's actually cooked in our stomach. And our stomach makes a soup or a stew out of whatever is going down there. There's a story connected with this Mouth of the Monk, and I'll see if I can find it. This saying is found in the Soeshu, a text of the Tendai school of Buddhism, in which Dogen first studied.

[58:17]

In this text, Kaccayana Sonja, Kaccayana was a disciple of Buddha, one of the arhats, He accepted an invitation to eat with a certain king. However, the king, in addition to serving several fine delicacies, also offered a number of ordinary dishes. Kacchayana Sonja showed no special delight at the delicacies nor aversion toward the more common dishes. The king could finally take it no longer and asked Kacchayana why he behaved that way. Kacchayana replied, the mouth of a monk is like an oven. Just as an oven burns both sandalwood incense and cow dung for cooking, without distinction, our mouths should be the same. There should be no distinction between delicious food and food which is plain and simple. We should be satisfied with whatever we receive." Now, there's a problem here.

[59:24]

The problem is that Suzuki Roshi, if you read him carefully, especially in Branching Streams where he gave the Sandokai talks, he's talking about eating, and he said, we don't eat just to enjoy the food, although we do enjoy the food. We eat to practice, and eating is practice. So we just eat. We don't say, well, this has got so many calories and that. He said this. We don't add up the calories or the fat or the various qualities of the food. Just whatever comes, we eat. Of course, in Japan, they don't have much fat, so you didn't have to worry about that.

[60:28]

But we just eat whatever it is, and we don't worry about that. But the problem is that he got stomach cancer, or liver cancer, and died of it. And so he wasn't very healthy. And a lot of the monks in Japan are not healthy, because they eat a lot of white rice, and some vegetables, and you know, not all the monks, but it's very common. And so they're not so healthy. But then it's okay for them not to be healthy, because they say, well, if I'm not healthy, I'll die. That's okay. So that's not a bad attitude. But he also recognized that When he saw how we eat in America, he said, we should eat healthy food. So I was kind of torn, you know, like his background and seeing, discovering food in America.

[61:38]

And so he started eating brown rice because at Tassajara, you know, this was the melting pot of the great new age food generator. And so brown rice was the thing. And so he started eating brown rice. And we always said that brown rice is what killed him. But brown rice is great. They said you should chew your brown rice, the way you chew your practice. But don't chew it a hundred times. Don't count. Somebody said, well, should we chew our rice every bite a hundred times? He said, oh, if you do that, you won't be able to enjoy your food. But anyway, you know, so there's this two ways of thinking.

[62:47]

One way is just eat whatever comes, you know, and don't worry about it. And the other is, be careful about what you eat. And, you know, if we're careful about what we eat, given, you know, the whole food thing is so different today than it was 50 years ago, totally different, you know. They didn't have poisonous food so much in the old days. They weren't manufacturing food, it was more natural, so not such a problem. But we have to be, and if we just continue to eat what's given to us, that won't change. So we have to be able to be discerning And the less we eat of the stuff that's thrown at us, or that's pushed on us, and manufactured, and, you know, all the school children are becoming obese, blown up, then they'll continue to make this stuff as long as people eat it.

[64:09]

But if we don't eat it, It's a protest against, that would help curb that. So anyway. So is that line in the meal chant, we eat to support life added later? We eat to support life. And to practice the way of the Buddha. What do you mean later? Well, it sounds like what you're saying is, we practice the way of Buddha by eating, but also we eat to support life. Yeah, eat to support life is the life of this person. Yeah, we should eat healthy food, if we can. But, at the same time, we should be able to eat what we receive. When you have a choice, you can make a choice. When you don't have a choice, you should just accept what's there. And sometimes you have to accept things even if you don't want to.

[65:18]

So, you know, how you make choices can be difficult. You may not want to insult your host, so you eat what's given, rather than say, oh, well, I don't eat those things. So if you go to a dinner party, That's where things are served. You should say something to the host before the dinner about what you can and can't eat. That's very polite. Or just accept what they, or don't eat. Or take a little bite. Suzuki girls used to always take one drink at a party and that was it. Or you just eat a little bit, you know. if it's something that you don't like, but you eat some. You've been wanting to say something a long time. Oh, well, yeah.

[66:22]

There's a little disconnect for me because when we're tenzo or cook, I think we want to make things tasty. We don't, we what? We want to make things tasty. We want to make them delicious. Yes. But we don't want to go overboard, God forbid. So there's this, a little disconnect. We want to make it tasty and we want people to like it and to enjoy it, even have seconds. But the monks are just supposed to eat anything that they're given. So as a Tenzo, should we, you know, how do you get in the middle, get in the middle of making it tasty and healthy, but not going, not stimulating? Yeah, because it's so natural to want to make it really tasty and popular. I know, that's the wrong attitude. Well, that's what I think. So it's not a disconnect. But it's a very common attitude, don't you think? With some people.

[67:23]

Why don't you just make it tasty without having to worry about anything? Yeah, you bring out the quality of the food without having to add a lot of stuff to make it tasty. You know, put in a lot of sugar. They'll like it if I put in a lot of sugar because it's sweet. That's just an example. You don't have to do that. You just bring out the quality of the food without adding stuff to it to necessarily... I mean, you can add something, but... but not something that overpowers the food itself, or that takes the place of the natural taste of the food. When we serve food to the saga, we don't serve fancy food. We serve fancy food one time, and that's during the tea, a little cookie, you know. It's so nice, you know, that little fancy thing. It's only about this big. But the ordinary food is simply ordinary food. served, made in a way that brings out the flavor of the food.

[68:28]

What's wrong with that? So we really need to commune with the food. We have to commune with the food, yeah, instead of put our ideas into it. Yeah, let the food speak. Let the food speak. And the people will love you. They'll love you. Meet behind Alan. Sue. Oh, yeah, I can't see because the light's behind you. I was thinking about cooking when my children were little and bringing how the practice of being a tenzo in one's home or cooking for young children, where it's very difficult to fall into what I call the food game. And what do you recommend? Well, children like to eat simple food. That's my experience. They don't like mixed up things.

[69:30]

They don't like a lot of mixture. They like the simplest food, you know, and they like it mostly raw. They don't like cooked food very much. So, if you serve children raw food mostly, and simple food, one thing at a time, kind of like the way the Japanese eat, you know. We eat by combining things, and they eat by separating things. The Suzuki-Oshis talk about this too. They say, you, you know, in the West, you take all these ingredients and you mix them all up, you know, and then you eat them. In the East, we take things and lay them out one by one, and then we eat them, but they still become one in the tummy. As they go down, they become one in the tummy. Two different ways of eating. He didn't criticize one way or the other, but I think the Japanese eat more like children. They delight in a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and in China too, you know.

[70:34]

When they serve, there's a whole lot of things, but you don't eat it all. You eat some of this and some of this, then you put it away for the next day. And then you bring it out again and something new is added. And you eat some of that and some of the other stuff. But as far as children go, that's my experience. Let them eat with their hands. If you let them eat with their hands, they'll eat more, they'll eat better. And if you serve simple things that are not mixed up and raw things, they'll like it. I'm thinking about this notion of one taste, and I'm not hearing that as meaning that things get jumbled up in our tummies. I'm hearing it... No, that's different. That's a different aspect. What I'm thinking of... Well, when you gave me my Dharma name, we split it so that you gave me the first half, and it was Ocean of Reality.

[71:40]

Quang Roshi gave me the second half, and it was one taste. And reading the passage you just did, I realized that's where all that comes from. And when I got that name, I had a little illumination that felt like that all of this stuff you're talking about is not about, it's the same lesson you're giving us with every piece of our practice, which is not about Can we choose healthy things, or can we choose this, make choices? It's about attachments and being awake. So when I think about one taste, I'm really thinking, and sort of not having preferences and all of that, I'm just thinking it's just one more way of making us realize we can delight in food, we can choose healthy food, it's all like, you know, really love it, just don't get attached. That's right, just don't be attached. little separate things, or if you mix it all up and taste it, that each time you're taking a bite, you want to be fully awake to the taste of tasting.

[72:52]

And that that's like, that's tasting what is, whatever it is. And that that's what's one. That's right. Yeah. Well, I think that's right. That's what he's talking about. Everything's really the same. but as well as different. Everything is itself, and the itself-ness is what we're tasting. That's what's the same experience. Exactly. I have a couple of questions about menu preparation here. When I started to cook, I was told that there were certain foods that I should avoid because the abbot didn't like them. But on the one hand, I thought, well, of course I want to respect the abbot and cook foods that he likes. On the other hand, I thought it's odd to prepare foods to preference.

[73:55]

And our abbot's an example of not having preferences. So I haven't been sure how to think about it. Well, even though the abbot doesn't like it, you should serve it anyway. Will I hear about it later? Probably. What don't I like? Well, carrots, for one. Oh, I love carrots. I eat carrots all the time. That's an old rumor. Let me tell you how that started. When I was at Tassajara... What? When I was at Tassajara, we had a tenzo, and every meal had carrots in it. every dish at every meal was loaded with carrots. And I said, you don't have to put carrots in everything, you know, just we want to eat the other, the rest of the, you know, whatever else is, we want to eat the other ingredients, we want to taste the other ingredients besides the carrots, you know, so the one taste of carrots per dish.

[75:05]

So I got this reputation of not liking carrots, which is not true. I love carrots. As a matter of fact, they're the one things that has almost no points. And if you treated Joe's carrots, they're better than any other carrots. But, you know, if you have a preference. It's true. That's why I made that comment about brown rice, because... I love brown rice. No, I know, but when I was at Precious Berry, Oh, they had too much brown rice? Brown rice, sometimes twice a day. It was just an incredible day out. Yeah, it's great. But I like brown rice. That's good. The other question I have about menus here is that the current tens of Tassajara, there is one person who is in the practice period who has a weak allergy and can't eat gluten.

[76:10]

and there are just a handful of people who are vegan. And so the menus for the entire zendo were gluten-free and always vegan. And I thought that that was really kind to not exclude anyone in the zendo. Here, we cook what we cook, and people eat or they don't eat if they can. And I just wondered about that. Well, if people have special dietary things, we usually serve them what they can eat. So for example, on Saturday, the menu I have, the third bowl will have dairy. Could I have an alternative? We always do. I'm sorry? We always do. We mostly do. We came used to it. And was she practicing? She did not do. During the machine, they often have an alternative, like nuts instead of yogurt or something, or a non-oil salad or non-dairy. salad or something to go around.

[77:13]

But on a Saturday, we sometimes, most often not, it's like this is what serve, because we figure it's not sashimi when people are locked in and they're dependent on the temple for their meals, because they can go do their thing at lunch. And sometimes there's something served that I won't, I don't want to eat. I just don't eat it. I just eat the other things. But to have everybody not eat, I mean, to not serve something that everybody can eat except one person, seems a little punitive to the sangha. So... It made for a lot of rice. What? It made for a lot of rice. Well, not necessarily. It makes for a lot of soup. I don't see any reason for it. There's some dairy things. We have people who don't eat dairy, people who don't eat certain things.

[78:19]

But that doesn't mean everybody shouldn't eat those. So what happens is that we become, not victims, but under the control of people who eat a certain way. But those people are controlling the diet. And I don't think that that should happen, necessarily. So if there's some dairy and you don't eat dairy, you just don't eat that dish. It makes for a lot of rice, but there's another bowl as well, you know. Or you can eat less. You don't have to eat so much, you know, just to fill you up. The dairy dish isn't that filling anyway. So it's just a kind of accessory dish, for taste mostly. But we don't have to put dairy in a lot of the dishes. Not necessary. Also.

[79:21]

I never eat anything with dairy in it anyway. Usually. Except yogurt. It's the only dairy thing I eat. I already feel the heat rising here. Not particularly for me, but it comes back to what Dopey was teaching me. This is like the last vegetable of desire. You take everything else away. You take so much away at Tassajara, and what you got is the food. It's best preference. place, but there was a natural cycle of mutual offering, you know, of the moms and practitioners offering their practice.

[80:27]

And I know that there was, you know, they marked every season, they had a, unlike us, they had a holiday, or kind of ritual in every season. And so their practice was a little different in every season. And the birth was offering food different foods in different seasons. And so maybe we live in this degenerate meal mapo age. Well, also, in the old days, there wasn't so much variety. People just ate what came. They didn't go out to the Italian restaurant. Yeah, right. We live in the breadbasket of the world, so we have a different problem than people of old or in other places.

[81:36]

So it's almost time, right? Almost. Okay, so I want to get on with this, finish this section. Likewise, understand that a simple green has the power to become the practice of the Buddha, quite adequately nourishing the desire to live out the way. Never feel aversion toward plain ingredients. As a teacher of people and of heavenly beings, make the best use of whatever greens that you have. So this, you know, to be able to live this way I think is a high standard of living. We usually think of having whatever you want, having a lot of money, having a lot of prosperity is a high standard of living, but actually it's a pretty degenerate standard of living, because it just leads to one desire after another.

[82:41]

We keep upping the ante of our standard of living, which is based on acquisition. which means that we have to have more and more and more and more, and we're just draining the world's resources so that we can raise our so-called standard of living, which is totally degenerate. But a true standard of living is to live on this lean side of appreciating each thing that we have. I have to say, myself, I'm eating much less because of my diet. It's not a diet exactly, it's a way of eating. and losing weight and so forth. And I'm appreciating food so much more by measuring out everything I eat and balancing it. And it just gives me a whole different viewpoint for living.

[83:43]

And I don't make so much distinction between what I eat. It doesn't matter that much. It's very interesting. I really appreciate what he's saying here, much more than I ever did, even though I always appreciated it. So my note here to myself is, rather than feel like victims of society, we should be able to draw our authority from our dharma practice, dharma position, and make the best of each situation. Okay, I know it's time. Similarly, oh yeah, well I'll finish that later. I wouldn't want to talk about that.

[84:51]

Okay.

[84:52]

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