Okay. Okay. Okay. That'd be fine too. Yeah, whatever suits you. If you get, you know, it's also kind of wearying sometimes to go through all of this and you might want to take a break and do more later. But, so you spent about a month with Hoitsu preparing for the Darwin Transmission. The Darwin Transmission is like a three week He didn't teach me a lot of stuff because he spoke Japanese. He did speak English. We kind of resurrected his English, you know. And amazingly, he came to it. But he did the whole ceremony in Japanese.

[01:03]

I didn't know what that was. And it was only a month later when Rab and I started doing dharma transmission at Tassajara. And we said we'd come over and help us. And then we figured out what was going on, you know, in Senegal, and translated it into English. So you gave Rab dharma transmission, not... Yeah, that's what I thought. about writing stuff out, they can, you know, work for us.

[02:08]

So, my training, if you think about my training, my training is not like school. Right. It's not like, someone asked me about What's our curriculum? This place is like a one-room schoolhouse. The first grade and the twelfth grade, it's all in the same place. Everyone has to be attended to according to who they are. which makes for a lot of variety. And then, you know, sometimes, every once in a while, it comes up, it's incidental, what kind of, maybe we should have a curriculum, you know, like, after five years, it's this, after five years, ten years, it's this, you know, you go through these stages.

[03:26]

But that doesn't work for It works if you want to have a kind of Christian system. We have ministers and congregations and stuff like that. But if you want to turn out people, I don't want to say enlightened people, but if you want to concentrate on their true development, you can't legislate it that way. You can't fit it into some kind of a box. to the last day of their life, you know. They may not get anywhere. Right. So it's really working with people one at a time without any time constraint or position. I think, you know,

[04:27]

having undergone and still undergoing conventional Protestant seminary training, I do think that one of its deficiencies, one of the deficiencies that I can really clearly see as the only Buddhist on campus, is this, what in Christian terms is called spiritual formation. You know, people get a lot of very useful, I think very useful academic education But in terms of their formation, in terms of their capacity to hold still with discomfort, to really be present to other people, to tolerate silence, you know, it's not part of the program. Sure. Okay, so you talked about your training and your preparation at each stage really being about your kind of one-on-one work with teacher and involvement in the practice and sort of by osmosis absorbing things.

[05:31]

Absorbing. Do you want to say anything at all about any training or preparation you did for, as we say, or for Mountain Seat Ceremony? Well, yeah, I can say that. Thank you. All of the training had been compressed into... Like, for a mountain seat ceremony, Hoitsu would come over, you know, like a week before or something, and we'd go through the... the written ceremony. But, you know, we were always in the process of translating Japanese to English. And the Japanese do everything backwards from when we express themselves backwards from when we express ourselves.

[06:33]

So they explain everything with headings. And you think they're explaining it, but they're not. They're just kind of giving you some headings, and then they keep going through, and you say, well, wait a minute. We've already talked about that, you know. And so you can't, it's hard to figure out what comes first and what comes next. You know, so. Sort of a circular style. Circular style. Yeah. And so it's always very confusing, you know. Uh-huh. And, uh, but we always manage to get through the ceremony. but with this tediousness and so in the process of having done so many ceremonies I've tried to simplify it, make it very direct and realizing how much simpler the Dharma Transmission Ceremony is than when it keeps getting simpler and simpler

[07:51]

We keep understanding it more and eliminating a lot of the unnecessary repetitions and confusions. So my training for... I've given Dharma Transmission to 13 people. How many tokudos would you say you've done? I'm done. Maybe I need to talk about weight transfer. I hate weight. But my training in doing downward transfers, which is not something that one trains to do because usually somebody gives downward transfers to one person or two people. Uh-huh.

[08:55]

But I'd given dermatology to 13. I'm doing great work. And so I'm learning a little bit about it. Uh-huh. You know, like, I always learn by doing. Uh-huh. So, and then the same with organizations. Same with this. I've been to lots of bronchiectomies. Uh-huh. The last one, I helped, actually, I conducted. So I was glad that I had worked it all out in a simple way by that time. We didn't have to practice so much. We were endless practicing. Endless practicing. So the ceremonies themselves, I know that they're similar in that they are, you know, they all involve giving of precepts.

[09:57]

But how are the ceremonies similar or different at the various stages? Well, we're talking about tokudo and juso and dharma transmission are really the three main ones that are done here. Dharma transmission is two parts. One is precepts and the other is confirmation. So those are two different steps. and the ordination, the priest's ordination, have the same precepts. But the ceremonies are different because you're giving clothes to the person who has the priest and you're also shaving the head.

[11:05]

Those are the main differences. Shuso is also a precept ceremony. Well, you know, Shuso... I mean, at least the... I introduced the precepts. I guess the precepts. Not in the shuso ceremony. In the installation piece of it. Installing the shuso at Tassahara. I gave the precepts. I see. And so the shuso ceremony is primarily the mondo that happens at the end of it. That's what the end is. Okay. So this is the installation of the shuso. which is a ceremony. I didn't love the precepts. So is it, is it initially just the, you know, I'm not worthy, I'm not worthy, oh please, we really want you to do this. Yeah. But the reason I introduced the precepts was because a lot of the shisos that I did at Tessa Hart were not my students.

[12:16]

Oh. And for me to do the precept ceremony with somebody who wasn't my student would give us that relationship. I see. For the practice period. I see. OK. So we're talking about the differences in the ceremony. So Dharma Transmission has both precepts and confirmation, which is where you're giving them the three documents. Well, you give them their clothes. most of them, and they do some confirming vows and confirming acts. Whereas the Dengkai, Kai's precepts, Dengkai is a very elaborate precepts in life.

[13:20]

Well, you're also empowering them to give the precepts to other people, right? Yeah. It's an empowering ceremony. So there are two different ceremonies. So that's an empowering ceremony. And Zuisei, your installs? Zuisei is visiting bad temples and paying respects to the founder. And what it does, I mean, Zuisei originally started out as a kind of way for, in the history of Sojo Zen in Japan,

[14:25]

to a way of collecting revenue from man temples. And, of course, pay respect, too. But what it is, the way I see it, is we say it's like a confirmation from the school. After you've had Dharma transmission, to enact the abbot's duties by doing service. And they treat you in a nice way. So it's a confirmation from school.

[15:29]

Osho-san describes it as introducing yourself to the ancestors as one of them, recognizing them and being recognized by them. Thank you. And Mountain Seat Ceremony is in some ways similar to Shuso Ceremony in the sense of it's as a mondo, That's also in two parts. I guess I was at yours here and I was at Blanche's. I think those are the only two I've been to. Well, obviously there's two parts. The first part is where the amicus vided comes in and pays respects, offers a test of the Buddha. Oh, right. Lots of little packets of incense and little poems. Yeah, little poems.

[16:31]

And that's like confirming, accepting the invitation. Then it goes out, it comes back, and it's respected by people, ancestors, teachers, and all these people. And that is the mando. And that's his play, his teaching. Um, would you say that you felt well prepared at each stage? Through your sort of osmosis training, you felt they prepared you sufficiently? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, because my training was not academic. Uh-huh. It was, you know, what I was doing. Right. So, although I remember when I had my schizophrenia, I met him. I was very challenging.

[17:34]

Uh-huh. He said, well, are you scared? I said, no. He said, well, better be. I don't know. But, you know, I didn't feel ready or unready. I just felt this is the next thing to do. So, and I remember after the shoe-sell ceremony, I got to hear her and she said, well, she said, some of your answers were very good. Some of them were very bad. That's the way it is with all the shoe-sells. Yeah, right. You know? Right. That's shoe-sell ceremony. We're a mixed bag. It's a mixed bag. It's where You come up to a certain place, you know, in your training, in your development.

[18:35]

And you see the things that you know, and you see the things that you don't know. And then, from there, you go on knowing what's what. I've always trusted my not knowing. I never felt that I wished I didn't know what I was doing. I did just be sincere. You know, you can say I don't know. And that's a kind of knowing. So I've always depended on not knowing, personally. Has your understanding of ordination changed over time? I don't think so. So at this point, what does it mean to you then to wear an okesa? I don't know. I still don't know.

[19:42]

I'm still finding that out. I think that's wearing the okesa, putting on the okesa is means that you've now taken on the challenge of finding out what that means forever. You can say certain things about it, you know, that are basic, but it's like, some people think putting on the occasion means that you now can do services and rituals, which is true, but that's not what I think it is. I think that's fine, and that's a kind of duty. privilege or whatever you want to call it. But putting on your case for that, I think, means that you've taken the vow to work for the betterment of all beings.

[20:45]

As NCP, your own development and others. It's your purpose in life. Basically, that's what it means. And it's associated with Santo trading and, you know, and bells and chanting and stuff like that. But, uh, that's not the main purpose of being a priest. And, you know, putting it on your face, uh, uh, I think also sometimes not putting it on. whatever you're wearing, you know, and he said, okay, so. As a matter of fact, I remember when I was studying, this was before I was ordained, I used to have this sweater, and I wore it every day, you know. And one day he said to me, this is your robe, you know.

[21:48]

So, it really has to do with what you're doing internally. And, you know, It shows when you go through your external actions. So, to me, that's the main thing. How that internally comes through in your actions. Although I, you know, am very particular about how I would like people to chant and hit the bells. all that stuff. That's not my main thing. But since we do that, we should do it well. Priests, like, in our practice, you know, there's this thing, you know, not exactly a priest, not exactly a layperson.

[22:54]

So I think that's fine. I think we need to find out what that means. Because it's true. A layperson kind of segues into the priest's area, and the priest kind of segues into the layperson's area. But the priest is the priest, and the layperson is the layperson. And as long as we're not arguing about it, it works. But when you try to define it, you have a problem. Just don't try to make too much of a definition. Then you have some leeway for everybody to practice. And a priest has their practice, which is their vow. So they're following their vow as a priest. And a layperson has more

[23:59]

They also have the same vow, which is fine, if they choose to be lay persons. Some people aren't bathing priests, even though they may be. I've had students who say, well, I would like to have some recognition, but I don't want to be a priest. Right. I think it's mind-boggling to deal with that. But what I've been thinking about is that there could be some kind of a recognition ceremony for either a priest or layperson, which is the same recognition ceremony, not Dharma transmission, because I think Dharma transmission should be reserved for priests, but it's a recognition ceremony of a certain ability, right?

[25:16]

And you give it to priests, you give it to laypeople, and that way you don't make this thing like a slave person who's been practicing for 20 years, but not giving it to a priest who's been practicing 20 or 30 years, who only became a priest a few years ago. Right? And so because they became a priest a few years ago, you don't want to give them Dharma transmission. So it creates this strange kind of schism. Why reserve dharma transmission only for priests? I know in Rinzai tradition, Inca is given to lay people. Right, so Inca is not limited to dharma transmission. But in our schools, dharma transmission means that you can ordain people. I see. It's a priestly function. It's a priestly function. I see. That's my understanding of it.

[26:18]

Right. OK. So you said some people, you know, want to be priests and aren't ready and some people may be ready but don't want to be priests and that kind of thing. And I know that in terms of talking about qualifications, which I know is not your shtick, you know. Qualification is my shtick, but not It's not a defined qualification. Yeah. Well, I guess what I'm getting at is Zen Center, for example, has this document about you got to do five years of practice and you have to go to Tassajara for two on go and like that kind of thing. So aside from, and I don't know to what extent that those qualifications are operative here at Berkeley Zen Center, but are there some specific requirements? No. Okay. Because, but, see, I wouldn't hear it in Berkeley, so far. I haven't ordained anybody yet in the last 100 years.

[27:23]

So it's like, see, in Japan, well let me say this. In Japan, a novice becomes a priest right away. And they go and train. Here, we train for 20 years, then we become ordained. So it's like backwards. Right. We've already had all this training, you know. And then, we become a priest. So the priest has a little different status than they do in Japan. Right. You know, you know, that, uh, Mutsui in, [...] uh, in Japan is a young kid, you know, who's just getting ready. Right. But here, you know, people have had all this, lots and lots of training. more than we would in Japan. We've been practicing steadily for 20 years. So it's a different, a totally different thing.

[28:30]

What is their training as a priest? Well, they've already done that. You ordained one person who had not been practicing for 20 years, but who was very, very steady long-term and had been to Tassajara and all that kind of stuff. Andrea. Oh, well, that's right. That's true. But she was very diligent. She practiced here for, you know, 10 years or something like that. Right. And she always wanted to be ordained. I said, no. And then she went to Tassajara. And she came back, and she's a really, you know, diligent practitioner. Yeah, absolutely. And, but she started getting in trouble, you know, with her sex life. And, uh, and she totally, you know, over the top with her sex life. And, but, I said, look, if you really want to be a priest, you keep telling me this all day long.

[29:34]

It's okay, but I want you to be a priest. If that's what you really want to do, you should do it. So, against the wishes of everybody else. It wasn't against my wishes. I thought it was a great idea. I have great affection for her. I respect her. I just take a big leap. I feel that trusting you will help. Something's not coming out of that. So anyway, I did do that, but she still had a lot of problems. And I don't know what went wrong. Well, none of that is directly relevant to this study, and I'm not going to go into that in my thing. So what do you, although there are not specifically defined qualifications, what do you look for? Well, someone who is really dedicated to the practice over a long period of time. who's been through disillusionment and inspiration and has been a rolling coaster of practice.

[30:45]

And his whole, his really main thrust in life is to practice. And he's willing to maintain, help maintain the practice. who has some ability with people and who can have some ability to either teach or be an inspiration for people. Some people can't teach academically, but their life is an inspiration. Some of them have a real hard time because they're always working. So somebody has the heart for it. Sort of figure out their lives in light of a particular religious tradition. Would you agree with that? I would say that that is part of it.

[31:50]

It's complex. trying to figure out how to be a priest. And if they have the ability to teach, then they'll teach.

[32:51]

But mainly they teach by not teaching. In other words, they teach by their example. To me, that's the main thing. It's the one who's creating the example of the practices. Okay. So are there things that are important for a I mean, I guess the question is sort of a three-part. Are there things that somebody needs to know intellectually, be able to do? I think they should have a grasp of what Buddhism is about, and trying to understand what Buddhism is.

[33:53]

But they should have an intellectual grasp of the schools of Buddhism, the teachings of Buddhism. People do that mostly kind of on their own through self-study. and move it back and forth and express it. OK. And are there specific skills that they need to be able to do? Specific things they need to be competent in? Bell ringing or incense offering, any of that? No? OK. And what do they need to demonstrate in their person or character? Well, honesty.

[34:57]

straightforwardness, and sincerity, and friendliness, and the ability to harmonize, and to be themselves. And not to pretend they're something they're not. And to be able to recognize their own faults and shortcomings. And just to know who they are. And be able to say I'm wrong when I'm wrong. And know when they're right when they're right. There's the heart person and the horror person.

[36:02]

So some people come from the head, some people come from the heart, and some people come from the horror. Which are you? Well, a little bit of everything. We should all be a little bit of each. But I think I'm the horror person. I'm the horror person. But the horror person is, So there should be a balance between the straight. Are there differences between men and women, gay people and straight people? I mean, in terms of being qualified for ordination. Are there any conditions that would permanently bar somebody from being?

[37:06]

I think so. I'm going to worry about garage care offenses. You know, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But, well, you know, depending on what kind of problems people have, you know, problems with the, you know, attachments. wanting something. I think that an important thing for a priest, especially for a teacher, is not wanting anything. That's really important. Because when you want something, then you must share the motives with the person. So the person's doing the washing the behavior,

[38:07]

to take advice from other people. What's the priest's relationship to laity? Well, take care of people. Uh-huh. Here in Berkeley, you know, when we first started having priests, there was some like, well, I was dealing with priests, right? Right. And then I started meeting people, and then she was just, well, let me know if that'd be for us. You know, I'll let you know. And so I thought, A priest should not be put up on a pedestal. A priest is the servant of the people, of the laity, and should not try to stand out in some way. If people appreciate the priest and take care of the priest, it's because they appreciate the priest. And any kind of aid, any kind of

[39:09]

taking care of should be from their appreciation, not because that's what happened. Right. So there's just a root in respect. Uh-huh. Do they have particular privileges or responsibilities? Responsibilities, but I don't know if they have any privileges. Yeah, and Gyoku said that the priest is the last person to leave the party, always. Yeah, the clean-up person. Yeah. We have a lot of those, mostly women. It's an old function. Women have been performing in churches for a long time. That's right. Are priests in this community being trained in the same way that you were trained? Okay.

[40:10]

That's all I know. Uh-huh. Okay. So, I just, you know, relate to him the way he used to relate to me. Uh-huh. Except that I have my own, you know, idea that he was him. Right. So, I think it's pretty much the same. I think I've absorbed, you know, his style. the most places encouraging his disciples. And this is what I was trying to tell you, too. So I just sort of, you know, I bet it feels natural to me, this sort of natural feeling of affinity. How about, since we're over 90 minutes and I know you have to meet somebody, how about if we just do another couple of these questions about leadership and then save the last piece for another time.

[41:20]

Does that make sense? OK. So as a religious leader, to whom are you accountable? Well, I'm accountable to myself. I'm accountable to some. Mm-hmm. How does that work? I mean, what do you mean by that? How is your accountability manifested? Well, I allow the sangha to tell me what I'm supposed to do. The sangha, some of the leadership of the sangha will say, you know what, I think you're doing this. Great, you got me that one. Of course not. No. I don't think you should be doing that. So I listen to the counsel of my people around me. I feel that I'm responsible to the people around me.

[42:22]

And in a bigger sense, I'm responsible to the YMASAGA, because whatever I do has implications and repercussions, not just locally, I realized how people put their trust in you. And by putting their trust in you, Uh-huh. As soon as you're no longer believable, then the light goes out. Uh-huh. And so that affects so many people. Uh-huh. And so it's a kind of big responsibility.

[43:23]

Then you wonder, well, what do I believe myself? Uh-huh. So it's always supposed to be a self-examination. Whenever I give a talk, I may have something outlined to talk about. But I don't follow that outline. Because that's just doing something I wrote. It's like reading a book. There's no you in there. And so every time I do that, I have to come down to what do I really believe? line, where do I get my stuff? That has to come out of the talk. Otherwise, you can talk the talk, but there has to be something.

[44:30]

You have to be grounded in your own understanding and belief for it to really have any impact. So every time it's like Does it seem at all problematic? I honestly don't know the answer to this question, but if you're accountable to your sangha, But you're also their teacher. So you have an unequal power relationship to these people. Is that a... Well, it intimidates some. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Because I empower people. Uh-huh. They feel... At least the people that I've empowered, you know.

[45:35]

You mean formally, through Dharma Transmission? Through Dharma Transmission, and also as teachers. Uh-huh. The people who choose those. Uh-huh. You know, who now, you know, practice leaders here. People who've been here a long time. Right. And that group, I think they feel empowered, too. Because, you know, when we incorporated here, I stipulated that I would have to be installed every year. They would have to, the prosanga would have to vote me in, as I have been every year. And not just take for granted that I was the ongoing habit. So if they didn't like what I'm doing, they could, you know, and then here comes that Uh-huh.

[46:35]

That happens every year at the election. I see. Okay. I see. Okay. So that's one way that if you sort of stepped out of line that you could potentially be restrained. How do you mean? I'm not going to tell you. OK. All right. So it really has to do with your embeddedness in this particular community and your longstanding relationships with people. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if they don't trust me, you're not going to stand for me. Uh-huh. I mean, they have that confidence in me, the people that have been around here. but we also have an equal relationship. There's a vertical relationship, which is hierarchical, and then there's an even relationship, which is horizontal.

[47:45]

Both of those relationships exist, but it's only one way. It's only hierarchical. they're in the same plane. So because everyone's on the same plane, they're empowered to, you know, this is our familiarity level. We've been working with people every day for 20 years, 30 years. There's enough familiarity to be able to say what you want to. Right, right. So your experience has been that people have called you on things and have questioned things and that kind of thing. Okay. So, yeah, so the next question, maybe we've already covered this, the question was how is your performance evaluated?

[48:49]

The one way is this vote of confidence and it sounds like the other way is just sort of through this day-to-day interaction over the course of decades. Is that fair? Do you have a group of people or a particular... I mean, you don't have a living teacher, you know, that you're... I have a teacher. ...accountable to, right? Suzuki Roshi's not here. Hoetsu is in Japan. So do you have people that you go to or some mechanism for getting counsel or, you know, things that you're not sure about? Well, you know, like I have the Abbott's Council in San Francisco. That's current and former Abbott's? I'd say that was before and before I had it. And then I have our board of directors here. I have our practice committee here. We have our senior directors. I have our practice leader group, which is those people that you saw.

[49:58]

That's fine. And then if there is a problem, people see a problem. Usually, if one person sees a problem, they might come and say something to me. But if it's a big problem, they might consult some of the other I see. It's interesting. I was looking at, some time ago, I was looking at different cases in the late 80s and early 90s. There were a whole bunch of sexual misconduct cases. and I was looking at sort of what the characteristics, the common characteristics in each of those situations, and they had to do with patterns of secrecy and patterns of denial and people recreating their kind of family dynamics and that kind of thing.

[51:15]

So how have you, and some of that stuff happened at Zen Center when Richard Baker was the abbot. So how have you, my sense, my experience of Berkeley's Zen Center is that that's not I mean, it's basically a pretty healthy community. I see. I've always turned everything over to people. I don't really do anything. The more and more I turn over the responsibilities to everybody. I'm not dictatory. I don't say, we should do this, let's do that. Sometimes I do, but mostly everything And I always, when I want to do something, I just turn it over to people. I don't say, we should do this, we should do that. If I do, I mean, when I want to do something, it's always, I don't know, agreed upon.

[52:17]

into the system of checks and balances. And that wasn't the case with Richard Baker. He was much more. He felt he was dictatorial. And when he left, it totally changed that sentiment, because everybody started having to consult with each other. And it slowed down the process with endless debates about what to do about it. Yeah. I remember some of them. Yeah. But out of that came the democratic way of thinking. But it was all the tutorial from Dick. I mean, absolutely the tutorial. There was no, I mean. Right. So what do you think are the most important qualities of a person in a position of religious leadership? Well, the same is with the priest. OK. But of course, there are more. I read it.

[53:27]

I read it. Those are qualities. I see. OK. Yeah, I remember that you said if one has the eye, one can see when someone is ripe. Yes. It's like a farmer with his crops. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It's not a school, right? It's more like a farm. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. So you work with these people, and because you know what the dharma is, and you know it, more people slip into it, slip out of it. And you can see somebody, and just see the way they walk, or do something, that something's shifted, right?

[54:28]

So, because you practice day to day, you know, you feel that you just, well now it's soft, right? I see. It's clearer when you explain it that way than it was in the article, I think. So it's helpful to hear you sort of elaborate on that. Okay. All right. And the last question in this section is that you're supported financially. You still receive a salary. Is that right, from the Cents Center? Yes, I receive a salary from the Cents Center. I have never asked for anything. And the song has always sensed when I was right. And they said, we think you need some more money. We think you need a raise. We'd be happy to see that. You have a wife, now you have a child. And they've always been very wonderful about taking care of me that way.

[55:32]

And I never asked for a raise. When I went to Zen Center to be added, they wanted to keep giving me raises. And I said, well, I'm sharing my time between you and Zen Center. It's paying me as well. And so until no longer it's incendiary. I didn't want you to be racist. So they started doing that retirement fund. Oh, yeah. They take care of me. In a way, it's like my monk's life. I do my service, and then whatever they give me, they're always very generous. And I don't even refuse. After coming back, it's kind of like my home to worry about.

[56:34]

But they always seem to, you know. So they're very generous. They've got a retirement plan and all this stuff. Okay, so maybe we can talk about the last question.

[56:58]

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