It's my pleasure to introduce, some of you know, others have not met yet. Last time he was here, he spoke on a beautiful translation he had done of Pengxu. I don't pronounce it quite right. A Chinese chan master a few generations before Dogen's teacher, if I remember correctly, a few generations before. And that book called Cultivating the Empty Field, many of you have read, enjoyed, and you can get more copies for those of you that haven't enjoyed it. Now, Franklin has a new book out.

[01:03]

which is a translation of Eihe Xingyi, Dogen's Pure Standards for the Community, and is taking a look at practice from another side of Funga. Hi. Thank you, Susan. It's wonderful to be here again. Thank you. This is a wonderful, wonderful space. So the topic tonight is Sangha, the third jewel of the Buddhist teaching. So there's the Buddha, the awakening, which is everything, and the Dharma, which is the teaching about that and the reality of that. And the third jewel in Buddhism is Sangha, or community.

[02:06]

So, many of you have read some of Dogen's very poetic and beautiful philosophical writings about Zazen. This book that I translated in Japan with Shihaku Okamura-sensei is Dogen's writings about Sangha. And Sangha has a wide meaning. So I think in some South Asian countries, Sangha means the ordained monks and nuns. In Mahayana Buddhist countries, where the Bodhisattva ideal is followed, Sangha has a wider sense of just everybody we practice together with. But then beyond that, so we can see this is obviously a wonderful sangha, this room and the people in this room, all the people who sat in this room. But also, each one of us has a wider sangha. So sangha can be very specific and also very wide.

[03:10]

So actually, as we sat here this evening for this first period, each one of us is sitting here with our family, and our friends, and our parents, and children maybe, and not just those people, but I've been sitting with my pet cats this evening, and people you've passed on the street whose names you don't even know, and ancestors going back in various ways, your grandparents and great-grandparents, people you don't even know. All of them are right here in this room now. So this is also Sangha. So Sangha is very specific and Sangha is totally vast and open. So there's three aspects I want to talk about, about Dogen's teachings about Sangha, and then I want to read a few stories and a few passages.

[04:17]

then mostly I really want to have discussion with you about this and learn from you about Sangha. So one aspect of this book particularly and of Dogen's writings is kind of procedures, how we move around in the Zen Do. And most of the Zen tradition in Asia has been, has had as a core kind of monastic practice. So a lot of the, a lot of the aspect, a lot of the writings in here are about procedures for how to eat in the meditation hall and for monks in practicing in the traditional way how to sleep in the meditation hall and how to brush your teeth and how to wash your face. Part of this teaching is how do we use the tradition? One of the themes of Dogen's writing is how do we use this tradition? How do we use these forms in different cultures? So for us, practicing mostly in centers like this where we come to sit together and practice together in this way, we have to be very mature about learning how to use the tradition.

[05:31]

This is one of the main issues with Sangha, how to use the tradition. So a lot of the practice forms, particularly I've practiced this way and I've also practiced at Tassajara and at monasteries in Japan and semi-monastic residential communities in San Francisco and Green Gulch. But most of American Zen is more like this, where we come and sit together and then we go out and we live in the world. So how do we extend this space of Zazen into the world? This is what all of these forms are about, all of the monastic forms and then all of the forms that we take on. when we come into this room? How do we move around in this room? Which way do we turn when we get up from our cushion? Where do we talk and where do we not talk? There are many, many forms and this is all about making that conscious. So it's all about, Sangha is about extending the space of Zazen into all of our activity. How do you find ways to share

[06:36]

this space of Zazen with the people you work with who maybe don't even know, have never heard of Zazen, and that doesn't matter really. But this is very subtle. This is our life study. So all of the forms can seem in some of the writings, in some of Dogen's writings about these forms, which actually he quotes mostly from the Chinese sources, seem very fussy to a lot of us because our attitude about forms in America is that we don't want to be kind of bound by forms. We think of forms as regimentation, you know. Well, I don't want to sit this way. Why can't I, you know, why do I have to sit in a line like this? Why can't I pull my cushion out? Or whatever the form is, we have some feeling of wanting to, Ed Brown says in his foreword, you know, that Americans want to be free to being erotic and disordered and whereas the forms are about how to be free to be awake. So all of these are mindfulness tools.

[07:39]

So that's one aspect that I'm not going to go into so much tonight, but just how do we use the forms of practice and how do we extend them into our life. In America now, many teachers are talking about, and many sanghas talk about, how do we take practices into our everyday activity, just breathing. How do we remember to breathe? I've worked sometimes at Parallax Press, where they publish Thich Nhat Hanh in Berkeley. When the phone rings, you don't answer it until after the third ring. And every time the phone rings, it's like a mindfulness bell. So you stop. Everybody stops everything and takes a breath. And then after the third ring, you can pick up the phone. Hello? So, anyway, how to use, how to find ways to, and be creative, we had to find ways to use the space of Zazen in our everyday life. This is one aspect of it. Because, you know, we don't really, we can't say, none of us can say how wonderful Zazen is.

[08:45]

None of us can really understand how wonderful Zazen is. We all know it, or else we wouldn't be in this room. but it is so vast. So what Sangha is about, what spiritual community is about, is how do we bring Buddha's awakening into our ordinary, everyday activity. How do we bring it into history? How do we bring this space where we can walk out of the Zen Dome, and it could be 1996, or it could be any place, any time. We come out of Zazen, and if you sit a one-day sitting or a session, you feel this coming out into the world. How do we bring that out into the world? So Sangha has continued for 2,500 years in Asia. And now, all over the world, the spiritual community has continued as a way of sharing that, sharing that truth, of bringing it to all the people out there who are sick and old and suffering and confused and think that they have to amass great fortunes to be happy or whatever it is they think they have to get, you know, and that's us too.

[10:06]

So we have to bring this space of Zazen into the world around us and into our hearts. So this is spiritual community. So these teachings, to me, are kind of a guide. And there are many other teachings and many other sources. We don't belong to the culture. If we do the Japanese forms, all of the fussy forms that Dogen talks about, as exactly as we possibly can. Still, they're not going to be close to the way they do it in Japan. We can't be Japanese. And there's no reason to be. But how do we use the tradition to find our own way to bring the practice alive? That's the point. So Dogen talks about this, the way things change in different cultures. A few examples, he talks about how in Buddha's time, he ate with their fingers.

[11:10]

But in the monastic time, in Zen practice in Japan, they ate with chopsticks. Chopsticks and spoons. They didn't have chopsticks in India, and Dogen says, well, maybe we would like to eat with our fingers, but we don't know the form. We don't have anybody, we don't have teachers to tell us what is the proper way, what is the truly dignified, upright way to practice zazen while we're eating with our fingers. Another example which is kind of more serious in a way is that in India, monks were not supposed to engage in agriculture. So in India, the sanctity of life of animals and of all beings was foremost. So if you are plowing a field, you're going to cut earthworms and kill other little creatures. So the monks had this very kind of separate existence where they did not do any of those things.

[12:16]

But when Zen started in China, part of how Zen survived and came to Japan and now to us was that monks took on everyday activity in the world. They tried to develop self-sustaining communities and they farmed. So that became more important. How do we show, demonstrate this practice in our everyday activity? So it's interesting in one of the essays here, Dogen, quotes from the Indian Vinaya, the old Indian rules from Shakyamuni Buddha's time about monks not engaging in agriculture, a few pages after he's been praising the practice of the farm manager in the Chinese monasteries. So both of them are there and he doesn't make any judgments about it, just this is it. So we have to take the forms and the tradition and find our way of applying it to how we are in the world and our families and our friends and getting the kids to school and getting to work on time and being together with people who we work with who maybe you wouldn't be so sympathetic to sitting still for half an hour.

[13:29]

How do we share this? It's very challenging, but we also have this wonderful tool, this wonderful ally, this wonderful spiritual community. So we have to find ways to help each other. I want to mention one thing about the tradition, just to get into the text a little bit. A lot of the text he talks about the different positions in the monastic community So the head cook and the director, the head administrator of the temple and the work leader and the head of the meditation hall. And he talks about how important those positions are. So anytime when you have a spiritual community and people start taking on responsibilities, this is a sign of a mature Sangha. So if you have people who are hitting the bells and setting up the meditation hall and taking care of the community, these are very important positions. Like the teacher, really.

[14:37]

And that's what Dogen says. But actually it's all of us. So the very first line in this text, the beginning of the instructions for the head cook, which some of you may have seen before, that's the one essay in here that's been translated before. Dogen says, from the beginning in Buddha's family, there have been temple administrators. They are all Buddhist children and together they carry out Buddha's work. Among them, the chief cook has the job of taking care of preparing the food for the community. So this thing about Buddhist children, we are all Buddhist children. So once we take on this practice, once we hear about zazen or hear about enlightenment or hear about everyday practice, and our move to come and actually sit upright in the middle of our lives, we become Buddhist children. So this really applies to all of us, and we all have this responsibility, and we're all kind of working this out, stewing on our cushions. And we're doing it together, and we actually help each other in ways that we can't possibly understand or articulate.

[15:42]

So I started with the procedural aspect. I mentioned that there were three. The second one is the attitudes towards practicing together. And this is really the core of what he talks about. So even in the middle of talking about procedures and giving instructions for the different people in different positions in the community, he's always talking about the attitude for how do we practice together. So one of the key points he talks about, this is part of the instructions for the director, the head administrator for a temple. Whenever seeing the countenance of any monk from the 10 directions, the director thereupon inwardly dances with joy and is delighted.

[16:55]

The temple and abbot, administrators, department heads, all the monks should circulate the Buddhist instructions to live together and see each other as the world honored one. In the essential path of emancipation, nothing is more important than this. So to see each other as Buddha, to actually see that we are all carrying on Buddha, that we are all essentially Buddha, that we are all awake and working out the implications of that awakeness in each of our lives. This is the attitude that he recommends for how we practice together. Part of this, I was going to skip over it, but I don't think I will because it's important. There's this word keiko, which I learned in Japan. Keiko literally means to contemplate or regard, consider the ancient ones. It's very important in terms of how we see this tradition. It's also the common word now in Japan for practice.

[18:04]

All kinds of practice, martial arts practice, practicing the piano. It's a very commonly used word and it's about looking back at this tradition, looking back at the ancestors, looking back at the old masters, looking back at our teachers. One thing he says also to the director, you should know that even if there are 100, 1,000 or 10,000 monks without the mind of the way and without practice of contemplating the ancients, the assembly is inferior to toads and lower than earthworms. Even an assembly of seven, eight or nine monks who have the mind of the way and contemplate the ancients is superior to dragons and elephants and excels the wisdom of the sages. Furthermore, reflecting that inhalation does not wait for exhalation also is the mind of the way and is diligence. Contemplating the ancients enables the eye of the ancestor's essence to observe it intently and enables the ear of both past and present to listen vigilantly so that we accept our bodies as hollowed out caverns of the whole empty sky and just sit.

[19:20]

piercing through all the skulls under heaven, opening wide our fists and staying with our own nostrils. This is carrying the clear transparent sky to dye the white clouds and conveying the waters of autumn to wash the bright moon and is the fulfillment of the practice of contemplating the ancients. If such an assembly has seven or eight monks, it can be a great monastery. This is like being able to see all the Buddhas in the 10 directions when you see the single Buddha, Shakyamuni. Even if the assembly is not like this, even with a million monks, it is not a genuine monastery. It is not an assembly of the Buddha way. So this attitude of each one of us taking on this practice of the ancients. In the instructions for the head cook, he talks about how difficult it is when we see the ancients. So we may have this idea that the old Zen masters were these wonderful beings and we can't possibly measure up to that.

[20:22]

He has this passage where he talks about, in the instructions for the head cook, how Naturally we feel that way because the ancients are so wonderful, but you should have the attitude if you have three coins and the ancestors cooked a kind of coarse soup, you should be able to make a fine, rich soup with the same. You should be able to outdo the ancestors, and definitely this can be done. Definitely this can be done, he says very clearly. And if you don't think so, then your mind is just scampering around like monkeys in the forest. So this tradition is right here in this room. It's up to all each of us. This is the Buddha way. This is the Buddha way today in America and in the world and on each cushion here. So definitely we can do this. Even though it may seem very difficult, it may seem like your legs ache and your mind's racing around and when is the bell going to ring and all of that, all of the confusion that comes up and all of your anxieties that come up and all of that is where you are cooking, Buddha.

[21:42]

So there's another passage in the, there's an essay here for the regulations for the study hall. So in the traditional monasteries, there's the meditation hall where monks sit and eat and sleep. And then there's also the study hall where they study, which is right behind it. And they take breaks and have tea and study the sutras and the old writings. And this is these instructions for the decorum in the study hall. And he says, the whole purist assembly should abide in mindfulness that everyone in the study hall is each other's parent, sibling, relative, teacher, and good friend. With mutual affection, take care of each other sympathetically. And if you harbor some idea that it is very difficult to encounter each other like this, nevertheless, display an expression of harmony and accommodation. If there is errant speech, it should be admonished.

[22:51]

If you are given instruction, you should accept it. These are greatly beneficial experiences. Can't this be considered the great advantage of intimate relations? Gratefully, we associate with good spiritual friends, with abundant, wholesome qualities, and are fortunate to take refuge in the three treasures. Siblings in the Buddhist family should be closer to each other than even with their own selves. So this attitude about accepting the feedback that comes to us when we are practicing together in many ways, in subtle ways, not necessarily just explicitly, but how do we learn from each other? How do we learn from the ways in which we are uncomfortable with each other? So I would guess that of the people in this room, probably you might not necessarily all have anything to do with each other if you didn't come to this room. Some of you maybe would naturally be great friends.

[23:56]

Some of you may never meet each other if you weren't together in this room, and that's natural. But each of you is here because you have experienced how wonderful Zazen is. So when we practice together, we rub against each other, we see our jagged edges, we work together to help each of us be the most beautiful Buddha that we can, because we are. So this is very subtle and it's a challenge. So I'm going to read some stories. Oh, and the third is, the third is the stories, the koans, okay. Sorry, I should have said the three in the beginning. Yeah, please be comfortable. If you want to get up and sit on a chair, you know, don't.

[25:08]

Zazen is, Dogen says, the Dharma gate of repose and bliss. So it should not be excruciating. This is actually the way to settle into our true selves, settle into our deepest self. This is a way to find a way to settle comfortably into all of the amazing universe that's sitting on each of our cushions. Together. So the third aspect that he talks about, the first I mentioned is the procedures, the second is just the attitude. How do we practice together? What is our attitude towards being together, which I've talked about a little bit. And then the koans, the stories about the different, he puts them in context of the different positions in the temple, many of the stories. And he gives examples of head cooks and how they awaken while being head cook, for example. or demonstrated the way while being director or being work leader. So these are all stories or koans, teaching stories and teaching stories about community practice in one way or another.

[26:15]

And I'm just going to read two or three of them and then we can have some time to talk. There are many of them, but the first one I'll read is about the great Master Linji, Rinzai in Japanese. And this is a wonderful story. Here's an example of arduous study with frugal care, which is the practice even after retaining the way. Great teacher Linji was on Huangpu Mountain planting pine trees. This was when he was still a student, planting pine trees. When his teacher Huangpu asked, for what purpose do you plant so many pines deep in the remote mountains? Linji said, first, to make some scenery for the mountain gate, the monastery, temple. Second, to make a guidepost for later generations. As he finished speaking, he struck the ground once or twice with the head of his hoe. Huangbo, his teacher, said, although it is like this, you have received my 30 blows.

[27:20]

Linji again struck the head of the hoe on the ground twice and whispered, Wong Po said, when you take up our lineage, it will greatly flourish in the world. So this is a wonderful story. I love this story. This is about planting trees. This is about planting flowers. This is about planting the Dharma, even in the remote mountains, even behind the building where passersby won't see it necessarily. How do we make scenery for the mountain temple, for the mountain gate? Mountain gate is kind of slang for a temple in Zen. So he says, so when he's asked by his teacher, why are you doing this? And this is probably in some mountain monastery, more like Tassajara, where not so many people are going to see it. It's a remote place. He says, first, to make some scenery for the temple. Second, to make a guidepost for later generations. So this planting trees for later generations, this thinking of the future generations is very important to us.

[28:24]

And then Linzi hit the ground with his hoe. And Huang Po's teacher said, although it is like this, this is right, this is the way, you have received my 30 blows. So this is about tradition. You know this because you've studied with me. So 30 blows is kind of slang for teacher's discipline, teacher's instruction. And so Linzi says, shh, you don't have to say that. In Dogen's commentary, I love, Linji Rinzai was at Huangpu for 20 years doing nothing but strenuously studying and exerting the way. Sometimes he planted pines, sometimes he planted cedars. Is this not the intimate discussion and intimate practice of the single mountain scenery and the 10,000 ancient ones guidepost? In the world it is said that the wise and noble do not forget virtue, whereas petty people do not repay generosity. How much more must children in the house of the Buddha ancestors repay the deep kindness of the milk of the Dharma?

[29:33]

What we call repaying this blessing is to plant pines and cedars and to be satisfied with our gruel and rice, just to be satisfied with who you are, what is given to you in the Dharma. Even for the sake of those from extremely distant ages, we return to plant trees in the remote mountains. When our teaching reaches you, it will greatly flourish in the world. If you yearn to be a bridge to the Buddha way, you must become familiar with this time of Linji's." So this is, again, about how do we carry on this tradition. So, you know, you may come here thinking that you're practicing to get enlightened, or that you're practicing to relieve stress, or you're practicing to feel more vigorous or healthier. And all those things may happen. But really, what this Zazen is about is something that has been going for 2,500 years, and of course long, long before that. And it's something that's so fundamental that we can't see it unless we sit down and really get quiet enough to settle into that space.

[30:42]

And we just keep this tradition alive. We celebrate the fact that we're alive, the fact that Zazen is so wonderful. We come here and do this together. And we're doing it for Rinzai, and we're doing it for future generations too. And of course we're doing it for everybody we've ever met. So this attitude towards keeping alive the tradition of awakening, the tradition of realizing the self, the tradition of seeing that we're Buddha. So another story, and I want to read this story in honor of Susan because this is a story, one of the unfortunately rare stories in the Zen tradition about a woman teacher. And there were great women practitioners all through the history of Zen, you know, and there were women teachers. But, you know, about history and who writes the history and this was a patriarchal culture as was Europe in that time. This is a story about a student of Linji's, great teacher Rinzai, named Guangzhi.

[31:54]

And after he had attainment under Linji, Zen Master Guangzhi left him and traveled around. So going, this was the practice in China, you went around to different teachers at a certain point in your practice and studied with different teachers. And he traveled around until arriving at the nun Mo Shan's place. When he first arrived, he said to her, if we accord with each other, I will stay here. If not, then I will knock over your Zen seat. So this was kind of the style in the Rinzai tradition, and Dogen quotes it a lot here. They yelled and screamed and hit each other even, and we don't do that anymore, but still there's this, there's a kind of dynamism about Rinzai lineage. So he says, I'm gonna come in, if we meet each other, if we accord, I'll stay, otherwise I'll knock over your Zen seat. So we entered the hall, and she sent Ajisha, an attendant, to ask him whether he had come for amusement or for the sake of Buddha Dharma.

[32:58]

Guangji said, I came for the sake of Buddha Dharma. Moson climbed the seat in the Dharma hall to have public interviews with students. So I guess at that time, instead of private interviews, or in addition to private interviews, they had interviews. Like Shosan. Like Shosan, right, which we still do sometimes. Moshe asked, today where have you arrived from? And Gwangi, so the name is Jishan, so there's all these different names. Anyway, he said, I only came from the mouth of the road. Moshe said, why didn't you cover it before coming? So this is one of those Zen questions that, to me, my understanding of it implies, why didn't you take care of all of your training, all of your practice up until now? But also, why didn't you cover your mouth instead of being so rude? Guangxi could not respond. Only then did he first make a full prostration and then ask, how is Mo Shan?

[34:01]

Moshan means Mount Mo, and it's also the name of her name. So traditionally in China and sometimes in Japan, too, a teacher would be named after the place. So it would be Susan Rye Mountain or something like that. So he's asking, how is Moshan? How is Mount Mo? And Moshan said, not an exposed peak. implying he hasn't seen her yet. So Guanxi asked, how is the master of Moshan? That's her. And Moshan said, neither man nor woman. Guanxi yelled. He did that back then. and said, then why haven't you transformed? And this is a very interesting part of this. He says, why haven't you transformed? And he's implying, why haven't you transformed into a man? Because there was this old idea that some Buddhist monks had that even great nuns had to become monks before they had to become men before they could become Buddhists.

[35:10]

This is not Buddhadharma, by the way. But this was a kind of a prejudiced idea that was around because of the way the society was So anyway, he says, why haven't you transformed after he yelled to demonstrate his vigor or whatever. And she said, neither a god nor a demon, why should I make transformations? So there's this other teaching in Buddhism that human being is the wonderful opportunity to awaken to our true nature. So she says, I'm not a god and I'm not a demon, I don't need to transform. I'm a woman, that's fine. With that, Guangxi did a prostration and venerated her. Then he became manager of the gardens at Moshan for three years. Later, when he was abbot at a temple, he said to the assembly, I was at Father Linji's where I got a half a scoop and at Mother Moshan's where I got a half a scoop. Together they made one full ladle that I drank completely so that even until now I am satisfied through and through. So this student who received transmission from the great Master Rinzai also honored equally this Nanmoshan.

[36:21]

I was going to quote, there's a long section about the garden worker, which I'm tempted to quote, but I also want to have discussions. How are we doing time-wise? Okay, I'll just read it. The job of garden manager is most difficult and extremely troublesome. I'm going to read this because it's important in terms of how do we apply what we're doing here to going out and being a gardener. Now this particular passage is about being the head of the fields and gardens at a temple, but also we have to see how can we apply this to being a gardener or a nurse or a cab driver or a doctor or whatever it is you do, a teacher. The job of garden manager is most difficult and extremely troublesome. Only people who have the mind of the way have served in this job. People without the mind of the way cannot fill this position. The garden manager always must be at the vegetable garden to plant seeds in accord with the season.

[37:23]

With the face of Buddhas and ancestors, they must have horse and donkey legs like farm workers and field hands. without holding back their own life energy. Throughout the day they must carry spades and hoes, plow and till by themselves, and haul manure. They can only wait for the vegetables to ripen and then must not miss their time." So they don't wear their robes in the fields, but they only wear, of course, work clothes. However, when it is time for the whole community together to chant sutras or to go to the hall for the abbot's lectures or enter the room for interview or go to zazen, the garden manager must definitely go along with the assembly. They must not fail to practice. Morning and evening in the vegetable garden they must offer incense, do prostrations, chant and recite dedications to the spirit of the dragon spirit of the sky and the spirit of the land. Dogen had this attitude about venerating the spirits of sky and of earth. And this is part of the job of a garden manager, not just to produce flowers and vegetables, but to actually dedicate, make offerings to the spirits of the place.

[38:32]

And they must not ever become lazy or negligent. Anyway, truly people with a mind of the way and people of great renown have filled this position. Those of little ability in the crowd of mediocrities have never served in this job. Anyway, this is the way he talks about the various positions in the Temple. Anyway, there's lots more stories in there, but I want to hear your stories. So, questions or comments or anything? And even if you think it's not irrelevant, it is. So anything you want to ask about is fine. Yes? Well, in a way the forms aren't that important, but then what are you going to do?

[40:14]

Everything is a form. You can have a form of getting rid of all the forms. That's a form too. Right, I agree. So, rituals can become a crush, for example. So, these forms are not rules and regulations. That's the first thing. These forms are kind of guidelines or guideposts or tools, mindfulness tools. So, yeah, I think we hear about these forms and we think that we are being regimented. We think that we're being restricted. The forms are more like a lattice that you grow something on.

[41:19]

And a vine will grow up on the lattice and it'll move away from the cross sticks and then come back. And then it will move away and will come back. So the forms are not about doing it right or doing it wrong. You can't do the forms right and you can't do them wrong. So in the forms for eating, in Japan, they're very, very, the way of eating in the meditation hall, very fussy. And even if you get it down completely, there's so many refinements that you can never do it completely right. No, but the point is that you have, the point is that you align yourself with the forms. The forms themselves are the teaching. It's not that you do the forms right or wrong. It's that those are the tool to align or attune yourself to uprightness. All of the forms are about how to be upright in the middle of this cushion, in the middle of this life, in the middle of this crazy world.

[42:25]

How do we attune ourselves? How do we align ourselves with this deepest, deeper, Buddhaful way that is there already. It's not about becoming somebody else. It's not about learning something. It's not about going somewhere and doing some fancy, fussy practice. It's about how do we find our balance and then let ourselves get off balance again and come back to balance. It's about how do we find the way to align and attune ourselves to something much deeper. And these forms are tools, that's all. So they're not regulations, they're not rules. They're kind of, you know, it's like when you're sitting, you may follow your breath. Now is your breath a regulation or a rule? Your breath is how you live. Your breath is wonderful. So in the tradition that I'm in of Soto Zen, we just sit.

[43:27]

And there's actually no technique. And it's so simple that most people I talk to about Zazen, they want some technique. It's almost impossible to do something so simple. So we follow our breath or we remember that our posture return to uprightness or we remember to keep our eyes open or we remember the position of our hands against our belly. These aren't rules or regulations. These are, these are ways of coming back to center. Suzuki Roshi says, losing our balance against the background of perfect balance. That's our life. So the form is to show us the balance. Hi, Katie. That was a question that I really was sticking around. It seems that in the very beginning, your teacher, well, it's like creating a safe space.

[44:29]

The rules create, and the forms create, and Susan has talked about the container, that there's a safe place to do the cooking. Because we can't do it out in the world nearly as easily. And to come here and have a safe place is a great gift. And also, the forum, my question was, when do the forums start squeezing life out of us? When do we take it too far? Or is that just a balance that we You should know that the life cannot be squeezed out of you. You know, it's not that turning one way is right and the other way is wrong, but we do it together, we flow together, and this is a way in which we actually can help each other be Buddha, and see that we're all Buddha.

[45:55]

So to harmonize together, to flow together, all the forms help us to do that too. Yes, that's an important part of it. You know, I kind of answered off the cuff about can the life be squeezed out of us for a week or just settling into that. Life comes out. Out of a dead tree, blossoms appear. That's Zen, actually. So the forms are a way of us seeing, there's another phrase, the snake in bamboo. Have you heard that? That our practice is like a snake being caught in a bamboo tube. So we have all this wriggly energy, you know, and we're wheeling around and we may be sitting very still and inside, you know, our muscles are twitching and our mind is scampering around, you know, and just to take on this bamboo tube is a way of really seeing our life and vitality.

[47:08]

So you may think it's squeezing the life out of you, but it's actually showing you the life and it's, and it's showing you the source of, it's helping you find the way back to where is the source of imagination, creativity, energy, vitality, love, kindness, All of that comes out when we allow ourselves to work with a form. Yes? My name is John. Hi. I may have been reading your writing early on, but I thought you were, you had several different definitions of fondant. One was, what was the other word? there's a wider group of people or beings you encounter, and it can go as far as the world you live in as your sangha. And sometimes in the broader sangha, the forms that we encounter promote disharmony rather than harmony.

[48:16]

And so I guess my question would be to respond to that, and how do we, The first thing to say is there's no one answer. The world is very complicated. Kindness is about learning first to be kind to ourselves. So we come here and we learn to settle into ourselves and we learn and we connect with the spiritual community. Whether you ever say anything to anybody else who comes here or not, just coming in here and sitting, you're doing this. And we have to first give ourselves the space, this sanctuary of Zazen, the space of Zazen, to settle in and find how to be kind to ourself.

[49:21]

It's very hard. So we all know about all the problems of the world and the problems of the people in our lives. And I'm sure that all of you, because you're here, want to help. feel bad about the problems and wish you, you know, and some people can, some people who sit Zazen for a little period of time can go and go off. I know somebody who went off to Croatia and Bosnia to help people there. She had been in the Green Gulch a little while. Anyway, so some people, you know, because of their situation have the ability to do that kind of work in the world. For some of us, just to be a little kinder to our spouse or our children, is really Buddha's work. Just to see how in your life, just the way you're doing it now, without trying to go out and save the world, to save the world is really just to be kind to yourself, to give yourself a little more space, to recognize your frustration with whoever it is that upsets you, and to give yourself the space to be there with that,

[50:36]

and give them the space to be a source of frustration for you and just to see that, settle into it, to sit with it. So the answer is different for each of us and it's different on any given day. But it's all Buddha's work, it's all helping Just by allowing the space of Zazen to come into your everyday life, you're allowing that to work in the world in whatever way you do it. So it's not about going and doing something fancy necessarily at all. It's just in the life that you're doing right now. How do you allow breath in there? How do you share that? It's not that you have to figure anything out. Also, it's something very natural. Susan and I were talking about this wonderful story about compassion. Maybe you've heard it already, but the Bodhisattva of Compassion, one of the images of her is a thousand hands, and each hand has an eye in it.

[51:40]

And one monk asks the other, Why does the Bodhisattva of Compassion have so many hands? And the other monks said, it's like reaching back for your pillow in the middle of the night. So when there's a need, we use what's at hand. And if you trust, really learn to trust your Zazen, really learn to trust your deepest self, you will do what you can do. Yes. Hi. way of understanding Dogen, and I really appreciate the book and the footnotes, which there are a lot, by the way.

[52:42]

Which is wonderful, because there's a lot more than just letting him think, you know, the ten years ago. I guess that there aren't enough footnotes. Thanks for the great review. The next book I'm writing is no footnotes. I like writing footnotes, but no footnotes. But I like writing footnotes. Yeah, but I wanted to say something else, though, about reading Dogon or reading sutras or reading Zen texts in general. There are a lot of bad translations of Dōken, by the way, out there. There are some good ones, though. But the way to read this kind of material, and also sutras, too, very much, is not to read it trying to figure out what it means. That's besides the point. You read it like you were listening to a symphony, or like you were reading poetry, and just read it through.

[53:44]

The first time through, just read it. and kind of listen to the sounds of the birds or the cars going by or something. Just read it that way. Then you can go back and read it. It's not that it's kind of opaque to whatever intellectual looking into it that you want to do, but there is a logic to awakening. It's not irrational, it's not nonsense. But the most important thing is just to let it wash over you. like inhale and exhale. The book I'm working on now, Susan asked about, is about the different Bodhisattva figures. Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and Avalokiteshvara, Kanon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and Samantabhadra, the Bodhisattva of Practical Work in the World, and who else? Bhugen, yeah. I'm working, I'm writing the chapter on him now.

[54:47]

That's part of, that's part of, that's part of the archetype though. It's very hard to, there are detailed visualization exercises written about how to see Samantabhadra. It involves 21 days of solid chanting of incantations and stuff like that. But very hard to see Samantabhadra, except Samantabhadra's everywhere. So it's very easy to find examples of Samantabhadra in the world and very hard to see him himself riding on that big white elephant with six tusks and seven legs and myriad bodhisattvas floating around. It's very hard to see him directly. But I'm sure you've got, this is part of what Samantabhadra is except that I'm sure that Samantabhadra is in this room right now, actually many Samantabhadras. And let's see, Maitreya, the future Buddha, as Bodhisattva, and the Malakirti I'm going to throw in here too, and Jizo, of course.

[55:52]

Jizo, of course, the Bodhisattva of hell. So we all come back. Jizo is the Bodhisattva who vows to go to hell and every place else to help beings there. You had a question? I was told by a friend of mine, because I care that they advise me on things, and they drop something on the floor while they were washing the trash. I'll ask them to write me, please pick it up, and then they'll say, You're too serious about your environment, about your work. But I thought about it. I thought of other subtle ways to pick up the trash and to carry it.

[56:56]

And I can't just wash trash on the floor and not be able to collect it. Because, I mean, I've put, in my lifetime, redundant people in my house. And I didn't understand how to go about it. Right. We don't understand how to go about it differently. That's right. So that's the question. How do we go about picking up the trash? This is the basic question. How do we pick up the trash? It really is. This is Buddha's work. It's all there. And how to do it is telling somebody else that they should be picking up their trash. It's very easy to get serious and self-righteous and all of that. It's very easy. And when we know what's good, especially, then that's really dangerous. It's about caring about the future and it's about caring about this world.

[57:59]

And sometimes we have to see all the other worlds just to have the kind of space to know how to take care of this world. just keep sitting and just keep trying to pick up the trash and keep asking how to do it and keep finding ways to... What's that story that Tom Sawyer who got all of his friends to paint the fence? You know that? Yeah, that's a good one. That's what he said from practice. So how do you get other people to see how much fun it is to pick up the trash? This is very challenging. It's a very advanced practice. Any more comments or questions or offerings? Thank you.

[59:04]

It's wonderful to be here. This is a wonderful sangha.

[59:07]

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