Well, as many of you may be aware, next week, next Sunday on the 5th, we're going to have a big ceremony full of pomp and circumstance and many visitors from foreign countries and so forth. And this will be the first changing of the guard at Zen Center, which didn't involve death and confusion, or too much death and confusion. And I will be installed as an abbot of Zen Center. So you can imagine, I've been spending the last period of time contemplating this dire situation. And I've been giving some talks over at the city center with my

[01:13]

thoughts about this. And last Saturday, I gave a talk over there. I don't know if anybody was there, but if you are, I apologize in advance because I'm going to say the same thing today that I said over there last Saturday. I discovered last Saturday that what I have to say takes a little longer than usual. So relax. Enjoy yourself. And if you start tuning out about halfway or three-quarters of the way through, don't worry, just follow your breath. Enjoy your sitting and don't feel that you have to pay attention to the words. It probably will be more valuable, actually, at that point, to pay attention to your breathing.

[02:20]

You will have been sitting there for a while already and lost track of your usual self, and it could be very profound to pay attention to your breathing at that point. That's what I used to do during most Dharma talks. You listen about halfway through, and then you can't listen anymore. So, one of the, probably the most ancient practice in Buddhism, the most ancient formula that we repeat is the taking of the triple refuge or the refuge in the triple treasure, taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

[03:27]

And I've been thinking about this, of course, for many, many years as we repeat over and over again, I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha. And the more I think about it and the more that my path in Dharma goes on through my life, the deeper it gets, the deeper this idea of taking refuge in the triple treasure gets for me, to the point where now I'm convinced that this is the only thing that there is in the practice, is taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, that our practice over a lifetime is a journey of deepening this taking refuge in the triple treasure. So, this is the topic for many, many lectures, actually. What is the meaning of taking refuge? How is it that everything in our

[04:38]

practice and everything in our living relates to and reinforces this taking refuge? And what is it that we take refuge in? What is the Buddha, actually? What is the Dharma, actually? And what is the Sangha, actually? You could see where this could take a while to discuss. But don't worry, because I don't intend to discuss all of this today. I would just like to think out loud with you this morning just about the third treasure, the third jewel in the triple treasure, the jewel of Sangha or community. And I want to talk about Sangha, not according to the tradition, according to the scriptures, but inspired by the scriptures, I hope, to speak a little bit more

[05:46]

widely and from my own experience in my years practicing in a community, to speak about what community is and what I believe is the nature and function of our particular community here at Zen Center. So I think to begin with, talking about anything like this, first we have to think, what is the point of it? What is the purpose of it? What is the real purpose of our Zen community? If you start a business or a non-profit corporation, you have to have a mission statement. You need to be clear about what you're trying to do. In the same way, we need to be clear about the purpose,

[06:49]

the point of our community. The sutras say that the purpose of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is to promote awakening for ourselves and for all beings. And if you ask a good Buddhist, that's what they will say automatically. But what does this really mean? I think it means that we are trying to understand our life and our world immediately and accurately. And we are trying to live our lives fully so that our lives can be well spent and straightforward and happy. And I think that as we go along practicing with this purpose in mind, in all seriousness, after a while, and maybe you,

[07:54]

many of you, know what I'm talking about here, after a while there's a feeling of gratitude and appreciation for our life, whatever our life might be. And at the same time, there's a feeling of gratitude and appreciation for the Dharma itself, because the Dharma has helped us to see our life in this way and to appreciate our life in this way. So we feel very naturally gratitude for the Dharma. And so, feeling this way, feeling this gratitude, we begin to want to practice not only for our own happiness and fullness of our own living, but for the sake of the Dharma, so that we can preserve the Dharma, so that other people can enjoy these benefits,

[08:54]

so that the people who come after us, the people who aren't born yet, can appreciate what we're appreciating. So now we have two purposes to our practice, to practice for our own lives and to practice to further the Dharma. And we go along in this way, and as our practice deepens still more, I think it becomes clearer and clearer to us that it actually is not possible for us to practice for our own lives alone, or even for our own lives and the Dharma itself. We come to see that our own happiness and fullness of living depends on our connection to the world around us, that we can't actually have any kind of accuracy in our living, or any kind of real happiness or real fullness in our living, if we don't take

[10:00]

everything around us into consideration. Because it's beginning to dawn on us that our life doesn't end with the boundary of our skin, that our life doesn't end with the boundary of our lifespan, that our real life goes beyond these boundaries, and that the Dharma is not a separate school or a separate religion. The Dharma is a truth that includes the whole wide world. And so this funny vow that we take at the end of lecture, ah, sentient beings are numberless, I vow to save them, becomes something that we actually really feel on a personal, on a visceral level. And then we see that all of this together is the purpose of Sangha, of our community.

[11:02]

To live for our own development and happiness, to preserve the Dharma out of love for the Dharma and gratitude for the Dharma, and to live for and with the wide world. And these three things are really sides of one and the same thing. And I believe that everyone, whether they practice Dharma or not, has this feeling that they would like to live, to develop as a human being, to preserve what's wonderful in our lives and institutions for the future, and to be concerned for the benefit of others. I think all communities, all people, have this desire deep down. A lot of people that I know have been in a bad mood since early November.

[12:12]

They're beginning to get over it, but it's slow and there's a residue of bad mood underneath it all. And it was because of the elections. They were upset by the results of the elections, which seemed to indicate to them, seemed to them to indicate that people in America are less inclined now than they ever have been maybe, at least in our lifetime, to want to develop themselves and preserve things for the future and be concerned for others. Now, I'm definitely not an expert on politics. I'm not too well informed. But it certainly seems to me that the mood of many people in America

[13:16]

and also around the world, actually, seems to be toward being more rather than less selfish. Now, as I said a minute ago, I really believe that everyone really does want to benefit others. And yet it seems very natural when you reflect on this that when the world gets complicated and difficult, when there is so much confusing and unsettling news and so many confusing developments and changes in politics and science, so many people wandering around the world suffering and dislocated, homeless, that when we contemplate a situation like this, it seems pretty overwhelming. And we have a lot of suffering inside.

[14:23]

And with this feeling, often we don't think or act as we would wish to deep down. It's easy to fall into despair. It's easy to try to seek some kind of escape. And it seems to me very natural that people would become frightened, upset, try to find an easy explanation, try to blame someone else, become very defensive and very self-protective, almost in direct resistance to their deepest feeling, almost as if they want to defend themselves against their own deepest wish because it's too much. So maybe this explains why people vote the way they do. I don't know.

[15:30]

I would like to think that it's that way. And for the rest of the people who don't vote that way, we can be very discouraged at what we see around us. But I think that we have to do aikido with this situation. We need to not resist and be in perpetual reaction and resistance, but rather to move with it, to use its own energy, to turn it around. Of course, I think it may be very well, may be necessary to resist some policies and some programs that seem wrong or harsh, and even to resist some politicians who seem particularly confused and aren't doing what it seems necessary to do.

[16:37]

So we may have to do that, but generally that we don't get caught in being reactive, but rather try to use this energy of the present political moment. I think this is better for us, better for our health and our sense of happiness. And maybe there's something that we can learn from this. Maybe for a long time people thought that if you vote and pay your taxes, somebody is going to take care of everything. Maybe it's a good thing for each one of us to realize that it's up to us, personally, to take care of the world, to vote and pay our taxes, and beyond that, to personally feel responsible to take care of the world. So in this situation, I feel like our Zen community and the wisdom and help that it

[17:46]

can provide for the world is more important now than it ever was. As a person who has been fortunate to be hanging around the Zen Center for many years, I feel that I have been supported for many, many years by the world. And maybe now it's time for us to support the world, to guide the world. And so I feel a greater sense of urgency and a clearer sense of purpose now, at the end of this century and this millennium, in thinking about Sangha, in thinking about and working on our own community and it as an offering. So this is all about the purpose of our community.

[18:47]

Now, how do we take care of it? How do we work with it? What kind of underlying attitude do we need if we're going to carry this forward into the world? Now, one thing I do quite a bit is housekeeping. Maybe you do too. Usually in the morning after Zazen, after my family has left for school, I spend a little bit of time puttering around the house picking things up and straightening things out. Certain things like washing the breakfast dishes and picking up my son's stuff have to be done every day. And then there are other things that I do once in a while, not every day, like emptying the compost bucket or mopping the floor.

[19:54]

This is something that happens once in a while, not every day. And I find that unless I do this every day, I'm not able to go on with my tasks for the rest of the day. I don't feel settled. And I feel much more settled when I putter like this a little bit. It's quite fun, just moving from room to room without much rhyme or reason. Pick up this, go over here, put that away, you know. Very pleasant. And when it's done, to some extent anyway, I feel better. And calmer. And I feel more a sense of well-being and security. It feels good to actually inhabit the place where I spend time, because my office is in my house, so I'm there a lot. It feels good to take that space that I'm in so much and put a little bit of calmness and a little bit of love into it. And I know that this process of puttering and housekeeping is not going to end.

[21:02]

That it's a continuous process. Sometimes you get it really nice and then somebody messes it up and, you know, you think, but then you realize, well, of course, you know, how long is it going to stay? It just keeps going. Maintenance is a never-ending process. Keeping the house is going to keep going as long as I'm alive. And then after I'm gone, someone else is going to have to do it. So there's no kind of goal to it or sense of endpoint. It's just continuous. And this is very comforting because, you know, you just sort of keep puttering and you don't have to feel pressure or anxiety about results. You just do it every day. And one of the best things about it is that it's not something that you're doing just for yourself.

[22:06]

Because I live with others and my family will appreciate it. I know when they come in and they see that the disaster that they left in the morning is now transformed into some calmer, neater space, they feel happy. And I'm glad to think that they'll feel happy when they come in. Now, I'm making the sound as if I'm the only one who does this. But of course, I'm not the only one who cleans the house. We do it together. Certain things my wife does when she comes home and has the time. Certain things my sons do. Some things we plan out and agree to. Other things people just do spontaneously. And with the participation of all of us, little by little, the place, you know, feels like you can live in it. And it's not perfect. And there are days when none of this happens and you come home at the end and it's pretty messy.

[23:11]

But on the whole, it works out pretty well and we feel like we have a home. I'm bringing this up because this is, I feel, how we need to take care of our Sangha. This is the attitude we need to take care of our Sangha. We need to see our Sangha, our community, our various communities, and our world at large, as a home, as a family. We need to realize that the process of taking care of it is endless. That it will always be slightly out of control, but that we'll get control and lose control. And that there's a sense of calmness and well-being and joy in just doing it endlessly, little things and big things, as long as we're alive. And then when we're gone, passing the task on to someone else.

[24:15]

No goal, no conclusion, and none of us is doing it alone. The world at large actually is our house. And everyone we meet really is a member of our Dharma family. And I'm convinced we absolutely have to have an attitude like this. We need to feel at home enough to clean up wherever we are. And we need to feel warmth and concern for whoever we're facing. To me, this is the only way we can survive this. And I think it's an attitude that comes up in us gradually and naturally as we practice sitting. As we practice clean as endo and all the things that we do

[25:20]

to sustain our practice in our communities. So I think we need to see that we're all working on this kind of attitude little by little. Sweeping out our minds as we sweep our floors. Calming ourselves down, little by little, being able to put down our feelings of paranoia and separation and our need to accomplish things to justify our life. Actually, the word ecology means earth household. That the earth isn't a thing or a collection of things. But rather, it's a family of closely related and mutually influencing patterns. And this idea of interconnection and non-thingness

[26:24]

is one of the most fundamental ideas in Buddhism. The Heart Sutra talks about it the other day. The Avatamsaka Sutra talks about it. Many sutras speak of it. But our culture at large, especially in the last couple of hundred years, has completely lost track of this way of being, way of looking at things. And so we have not formed communities that live in harmony with themselves or with each other. For a long time, we've had a short-sighted idea about the way things are. Seeing things as parts instead of wholes, as fixed objects instead of relationships, as conflictual hierarchies instead of interconnecting networks, as means and ends instead of processes and cycles. And this kind of thinking, as we all know,

[27:29]

is beginning to change as science is becoming more sophisticated and beginning to show us that analysis has its limits. In other words, that human beings can't see anything if they stand outside the world looking at it, but that we have to be inside it as loving participants. And so we all know that this revolutionary change in human thinking is going on. And the truth is, most of us are sort of in between this former way of thinking and this new way of thinking. And it's going to take us a while to really be able to live in this way and to really be able to make our communities and our families and our lives sustainable. And I think our practice helps us to make this transition,

[28:36]

even though our Buddha Sangha is in the middle of that same transition. And over a number of years, I've seen lots of things happen in our community in that process of transition. And I want to reflect with you on a few of these things that I think are important to mention. The first thing I want to mention is that I think we are beginning to have a better understanding of what an individual is and how an individual relates to the community as a whole. Most of my contemporaries who came to Zen Center in the late 60s and 70s, I think we came with an ideology that was a new and improved version of romantic individualism. In other words, we wanted to get enlightened as the ultimate ego trip.

[29:41]

So with this kind of romantic idea, you know, we showed up and then we met these Japanese guys who were the mirror opposite of romantic individualism, attuned to a way of harmonizing within a group and within a world of being quiet, very self-effacing, and very self-centered. So we were very sincere and we saw that and we tried to just really get rid of all that American individualism, unbridled individualism, and we became excellent Japanese Zen students. Letting go of our wishes and our wild feelings, and working hard for the benefit of others, trying to let go of what we felt like doing so that we could do what we were supposed to do. Which doesn't sound bad in a way, sounds kind of nice, and it was kind of nice.

[30:51]

And I'm sure we learned a lot from it. But actually, you can't just get rid of something that easily. And maybe we went too far in that direction and there was lots of repression going on in our own hearts. We weren't paying attention enough to our own thoughts and desires, and actually many of us were doing violence to ourselves, quietly. So when we realized this, this was painful. One felt very foolish, and stupid, and cheated. So we tried to find some balance in this without going back to the kind of selfishness that is so attractive, and so natural for people, and so American,

[31:57]

and probably explains a lot of what we see in our political landscape today. And I think we're still trying to find some balance with this. And we're beginning to understand, I feel, that the individual, if we really understand what an individual is, must be in the center of our Sangha. If the community is a mandala, we need to see that it's not a fixed mandala. It looks like maybe the leaders are in the center and everything constellates around that. But actually, depending on where you stand and where you look at it, each individual is in the center of the mandala. So the purpose of the mandala, the purpose of the community, is to enlighten one person, you, just one person. And maybe the purpose of our whole world is to enlighten one person.

[33:08]

Or maybe the whole world was just created so that one person could be enlightened. One person could live and die. Or maybe one fox, one of these foxes that you see running by, maybe the whole world was created so one of these foxes could live and die. Or a frog in a pond. Or maybe one bacteria. And this is true for each and every creature. Each and every creature is the one creature that must be awakened. So we see that each individual in our Sangha is absolutely precious, more precious than anything else in the world. And I'm convinced that if our community operates with this in mind, never placing community

[34:13]

over any single individual, then the community will be sustainable. And individuals will feel good, will feel okay. Because if you see the preciousness of each individual and communicate that and really hold it in your heart, then that individual will be sustained and nurtured and will be able to surpass himself or herself. And that individual will take care of the whole community and do what it takes to support the community. And it doesn't have to be any coercion or pressure or manipulation. And I believe that if you recognize this ultimate preciousness of each individual, then you'll really have to look at that individual deeper than the surface noise.

[35:20]

And when you really look at that individual, you'll see. After hearing the lecture or during the lecture, or we can talk about other things as well. And everybody should feel permission to ask questions, but also if you have comments to make or your own impressions, reacting to someone's question, or discussing whatever seems important to discuss this morning. So please, who wants to raise something first? Um, I almost felt like getting up and sharing your talk, but I restrained myself. Maybe I should run for office. If you would like to be specific about some ways that you envision Zen Center being more open? Well, let's see. Mostly I'm talking about a spirit and an attitude,

[36:28]

but there are some specific things that I have in mind. I hesitate to mention them in a way because my attitude about anything that I'm doing is, I'm just poking around and, you know, seeing what can be done and ready to let go of anything when it doesn't seem like it's working, or it seems like it's not appropriate to do, or somebody else is already doing it or whatever. So I hate to come on like these are the programs and so on, but I'll tell you about some of the ideas that I, just a few of the ideas that I have in mind that I'm kind of quietly exploring. One is, and the one that I think is the most important for us, it seems like, is we have a little group and we're working on a, making a kind of little course in meditation, like stress reduction meditation or whatever you want to call it, that's non-Zen, you know, that doesn't have

[37:29]

altars and you don't show up in robes and doesn't have Buddhist teachings explicitly as part of it, although it'll be completely Buddhist. So that, because the thing is that it's dawning on us that we have this treasure here, you know, that we have all these people who have been trained for many, many years and been sitting for a long, long time, and we have this treasure of the tradition that we've inherited that is very helpful for people's lives. And then we have this cockamamie confused world, you know, that really needs to have the benefit of that. And only a few people actually get to hear about Green Gulch or Spirit Rock or these kind of centers and show up here. I mean, there's only some people who feel comfortable with that. Other people who really would like to have the benefit of it just don't feel comfortable or don't have, aren't in a position to hear about it or whatever. So we need to find ways of going where they are and presenting the to them more in terms that they can hear it in. And that's the job for us to do, to make that

[38:32]

translation. So we're working on that, and we hope to come up with a way of doing it and to train our experienced people so that we can answer calls when they come up and go here and go there. And there's a need for this. We're not the only ones who are doing this. Many other Buddhist groups are doing this, and I think it's very, very important. What I found in doing workshops where I combine Zen practice and Zen meditation with some other issue, and I've done, like, I'm connected with the hospice, so we've done grief work for people who are dying or ill or taking care of dying people, and then I've done writing work. I find that something really powerful happens when you just sit together. It doesn't have to be a Zen, though, just in a room. When you sit together and then you just put out certain key feelings or aspects of the teaching, you create a very powerful sense of calm, and people can see more clearly. And then, the interesting thing is, they relate to each other in the group of people who are sitting together,

[39:34]

and then something starts happening. And so to be able to offer that here and there, I think, would really be a powerful thing. It would help us, and we would expand our own understanding and our own horizons, and hopefully it would help other people. So we're working on that, and we're not going to, you know, we were talking about it the other day, that we're going to be careful not to go fast and feel like we're developing a program and we're going to go out and, but just, we're just going to do it little by little at our own pace in a way that seems right and comfortable for us, and then when we're ready, start exploring it. Suffering is not going to go away that fast that we, you know, won't have a chance to do it. So that's one thing. And then, the other thing that I'm interested in doing is making, somehow, making a road between here and the African American community in Marin City, so there can be some travel back and forth on that road, and we can learn from the people there who are incredibly strong and smart

[40:38]

and resilient and have a way of understanding life that we are lacking, and by the same token, hopefully we could help them in some way too, half as much as they could help us. That would be great. And so I'm trying to do various things in that way, school programs or maybe even some way getting involved in the new development that's going on in Marin City. There's a big, huge thing going on. I don't know if you realize this. Oh, you don't know about this? This is an amazing thing going on there. I was talking to the other day to the guy who's developing this, and I was really impressed. The largest non-profit corporation in America is called Bridge. You've heard of Bridge? And apparently, I mean, I just know from this one conversation with the man who's the president of it, and I could be wrong, so correct me anybody who knows more about it than I do, but apparently Bridge is a development company that buys up land in inner

[41:43]

cities, and it sets up entities in those inner city places where Bridge owns half the land. I mean, the land is owned half by Bridge and half by a municipal organization of the community. So here in Marin City, there's this big piece of land there. It's owned in common by Bridge and a Marin City Community Services Development Corporation. So in connection with each other, they're landlord of this place. And Bridge builds housing units of various income levels, and then subcontracts to commercial developers to build commercial developments. So this project in Marin City is a $100 million project where they're going to build, I forget how many hundreds of housing units, plus a big commercial development that has like, I don't know, lawns or Safeway or big places like that, and then smaller places for individual, smaller businesses. It has a library, a church, open space for gardens and so on.

[42:47]

And apparently, there's enough control and real benefit to the Marin City Community. There's covenants to hire local labor, and Bridge itself has a training program where they're actually actively now training people to take some of the jobs that are going to be offered there. And it's going to be like another shopping center kind of scene that'll be not just for Marin City shoppers, but for other people in Marin to patronize. And he was telling me, it's been going on for 10 years, they've been trying to do it for 10 years, and they're supposed to start construction in the spring. And he told me this amazing story. He said that the first thing they had to do when they were developing this, and they've done other projects like this, they have a big project in Richmond and all over the country, they work all over the country and all over the world. And this guy who's the president of it, Don Turner, has been related to Zen Center. He's come to our events, and we know him a little bit. And he is an extraordinary guy, just the most admirable person. He was second in line to be Secretary of Housing in the Clinton

[43:49]

administration, but he didn't get it, and he decided to keep doing what he was doing instead of taking the second position. Anyway, he said that when they first began the process, the first thing they had to do was an environmental impact study. So they did the study, and they found out that it would be a bad situation for traffic, that the Sausalito freeway exchange was not sufficient for the additional traffic, and that it would have to be substantially remodeled. So they went to Caltrans, and they said, you know, what about this? And Caltrans says, don't worry, we have a plan to redo that exchange, and we have it scheduled for the year 2043. And so they said, however, if you would like to pay for it yourself, you're welcome to go ahead and do it now, providing that we approve all your plans and give you

[44:56]

feedback so it's done according to our standards. Unfortunately, you are going to have to pay for the services of our engineers who are going to do this for you. So, you know, I mean, if I heard that, I'd like fall down on the floor and say, well, I guess we can't do this, but not him. You know, he said, okay. And he went out and raised another how many million dollars. It's a non-profit corporation, so he's got to come up with all this money, you know. So he raised another so many million dollars, and that freeway thing that you see when you drive by is being built by Bridge, and they hire, I think he said 20% of the workers on the project are people from Marine City that they've hired and trained to do that work. And he told me that it cost them, I don't know if this is confidential information or something, don't tell me, $785,000 to pay for the Caltrans engineer to approve their plans. And so just the

[45:56]

freeway exchange part of the budget is $3 million over budget. But he's chugging away, and it's some of the other things he said were just astounding, you know, like the papers that they had to fill out, because there's tax credits involved and so on. He said that they have to rent a truck to bring the papers to Washington, because there's so many things to fill out, and they have to hire all kinds of temporary workers when it's time for the things are due, which is a whole new world for me, my jaw was dropping to hear him talk about this. But anyway, it's going to make a big difference to Marine City, you know, and I have some friends over there who, I mean, obviously, nothing is without controversy. So not everybody in Marine City loves it. But, and I was trying to find out from talking to him, you know what? So this is a fairly unsatisfactory and boring situation. Many meetings and all kinds of things are going

[46:59]

on, but nothing whatsoever is happening. And no one is feeling satisfied. In my opinion, there have to be leaders. But the leaders would be foolish to imagine that they are going to mandate or control anything. In a community like ours, the leaders have to be people who are known and respected by the community, and people who understand clearly the purposes and the vision of the community. And they have to work to facilitate and develop and guide change. But there's no way they can control it. They have to do Aikido. We've had a lot of issues where we say, let's take this issue to the community and let's find out what the community thinks about it, and then we'll decide. And of course, when you do that, you find out the most obvious thing in the world. The community thinks everything about it. They think it's good, they think it's bad,

[48:04]

they think it's medium, they think it's not good, not bad, not medium. So you still have to do that. You still have to find out and listen and consider it seriously and intelligently in the light of what it is we're trying to do in our Sangha. But then the leaders have to just decide what to do. And then you need to have an agreed upon and worked out system or mechanism for decision making and even how to kick the leader out when they screw up. Or better yet, as we're doing now, just have a system where you change leaders. Oddly enough, I think if you have such a thing, it makes the leaders more courageous. You can take a courageous stand and make a courageous decision when you know, well,

[49:07]

if it's wrong, they'll get rid of me. If this is going to be terrible, then they'll kick me out and they'll get somebody else, they'll do a better job. So I don't have to be that uptight about it. Why didn't I do what I think is really right? Not just as a principle, you know what I mean? I think it's right, but my sense of where we're going and what we're doing, this is what I really think. And if it's wrong, it's wrong. So all of this that I'm saying, I think, is true in any community, I would say, any organization. And maybe you recognize it from your own experiences in the organizations that you've worked with. But it's actually even more complicated in a Zen community, because then leaders are not only empowered leaders, but also Zen teachers often, and everybody is there to study Zen.

[50:11]

And the truth is that there needs to be, I think, some sense of surrender, some real giving over and confidence in the teacher if there's going to be any real transformation in the process of our practice. I think that has to be part of it. And since the practice involves our whole lives, and we live together, we may have various kinds of relationships with our teachers. So it's really complicated. I actually think that it's a lot easier if you have a community with no residential practice, where people are just coming voluntarily for practice, and they're leaving, and if they don't like it anymore, they don't come anymore. And they have their independent lives. That may be easier. In residential centers like the one we have, where we have residents and non-residents, there's a great benefit to being a resident for a time, but there are also many problems.

[51:17]

And we have to be really careful about how we manage things. It calls for everyone to be very wise. Teachers have to be teachers, and students have to be students. And if teachers give advice and counsel, they have to be listened to. But every person has to feel responsible. And the teacher has to be a big enough person to know that being a teacher is a momentary situation. One is not always the teacher. I think Zen, finally, makes each one of us responsible for the whole world. And in the end, I think every student has to be the teacher's teacher.

[52:27]

Every student and every teacher has to stretch into this. And the more that this happens, and really happens, the more powerful and the more true our communities will be. So at the risk of going on too long, I want to make one final point, because I think it is an important point. Any community, obviously, is in a state of change all the time. And change, on the one hand, goes round and round, and on the other hand, it goes up and down. In other words, things never change at all. They keep coming back to the same point over and over again. But they also develop. They either get better or they get worse. And this is true of any one of us, or any community, or any system.

[53:32]

And I think it's a natural human concern that we want our community to develop positively, to get better, more harmonious, more beautiful, instead of to decay and get worse. And I think the key to guiding successful development of a community is to keep the community open. To me, this is the most important thing. Any community that closes down is eventually going to go downhill and get worse, and eventually disappear. And if you study history, whether it's the history of a nation or culture, a country, a business, or a family, you'll see that this is true. Remaining open is difficult, because to remain open is to be challenged all the time, to have your basic purposes shaken.

[54:35]

So it's not easy, and the desire to close down will always be there. So I believe that our Zen community absolutely has to remain open. It's always been open, but it needs to work on being open and increase its openness to increase its strength. It has to be open to the world at large, to what's happening in the world at large. And on the basis of that information, reinterpreting and re-envisioning, the teaching of the Buddha, and restructuring and reworking the community based on those teachings. And it has to be open all the time to new students who will come, and by virtue of their enthusiasm and the preconceptions that they bring from their own background and understanding, those preconceptions, although we all have to drop our preconceptions,

[55:43]

those preconceptions will change the community and enrich it and push it in different directions. An open community is a community that's getting feedback. A closed community is a community that doesn't get feedback. And it may look like it's getting deeper, because it's closed and it's not getting deeper. It's not having to contend with all these other forces. And it may feel deeper for a while, but in the end, the lack of feedback will pull the community down. Anyway, I apologize for rattling on this way, but I was thinking about all this, and I wanted to share my thoughts with you. And I thought that it was important for us to have a different kind of talk today,

[56:47]

and think about our community out loud together. Perhaps some of what I have said will activate your thoughts, and because of this activation of thoughts, we will all be a little wiser. In our communities tomorrow, the human world is full of tremendous numbers of thoughts. And none of those thoughts actually describe what's going on, or explain what's going on. But it seems that human beings have to take care of their body, of their house, of the people around them, of their community, of their world, and of their thinking.

[57:52]

So, thank you for helping me to exercise my thinking this morning.

[58:05]

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