to introduce our very good old friend Vicki Austin. She's a priest at San Francisco Zen Center and began practicing in 1971 and met Sojin Mao, our teacher here over in San Francisco, and then came to practice at Brooklyn Zen Center when it was still on Dwight Way. And she was ordained by Richard Baker Roshi, in 1982, and in 1987 was the head student and or shuso at Kasahara Monastery. She's also a yoga teacher, teaching the Iyengar Method, and just happens to be staying a bit after Dave to teach a yoga workshop here in the Zendo in the Kas And besides that, I just wanted to say that Vicky has contributed a great deal to Zen Center, and especially to Sojourn Weissman.

[01:14]

She's assisted him in a lot of different ways, and we're really grateful to her. Thank you very much. Do you want to keep giving the lecture? I gave a talk last year. How is it to be a new priest? It's really nice. Anyway, good morning. So, this morning as we were doing the full moon ceremony, I was feeling Sojourn Roshi's presence in this zendo and feeling the in my heart some opening from all the people who have practiced here for so many years in this place.

[02:18]

And it's palpable. It really strikes me when I enter this room and listen to your chanting and see the way you sit and the way you are. It doesn't hurt that I also know some of you in other ways. So, even from San Francisco Zen Center and other places. Actually, when I first came to Berkeley Zen Center, to the place on Dwight Way, it wasn't really to practice so much as to eat. Mel invited me to dinner to a potluck and I don't know if you still do this but there used to be these potlucks and we'd all bring something and eat and I came over to eat fairly often after that and sat a few times too and then when

[03:27]

Mel was kind enough to offer to train me as head monk at Tassajara. It was really the opportunity of my life. One of the littlest things then stands out as one of the biggest things now. That cloth, as you know, is called a zagu. It's a bowing cloth. The first day that I was head monk at Tassajara, Mel said, you're doing that wrong. But I used to be a lefty, and then I switched to being right-handed by force when my first grade teacher made me sit on my left hand until I learned how to use my right hand. So this left-right stuff and doing things with my hands always confused me.

[04:35]

And the practice period at Tassajara lasts for 90 days. And 89 times Mel said, you're doing this wrong. And on the last day I got it right. I don't know whether I got it right or whether he just gave up. And then also the last week of that practice period my marriage ended and Mel was the one who scraped the pieces of what had been a human being together and drove me back to Tassajara and got me into kind of a meditation shape And I finished the practice period with his help. And then assisting him. When first I came on as assistant, he didn't really want an assistant or know how to use an assistant.

[05:38]

He wanted to do everything himself and he used to have piles of paper. Don't tell him I said this, okay? Oh well, I'm committed. So I used to have these piles of paper everywhere and try to go through them piece by piece. So instead of just handing me a piece of paper and saying, answer these letters, he would pick up each piece of paper and study it. And I would feel like I was going mad. And then eventually we did learn how to work together and he could say, okay, here's a stack of letters. Say this person can come, say this person can't come. give this person my regrets and so on, and I'd write a rough draft and give them to him.

[06:44]

And we learned how to work together and have been studying, I've been studying with him since then. And what used to drive me mad eventually started to impress me as a real sense of craft of being with each object and each person finding the shape of the object or the shape of the person through picking it up and handling it and getting to know it in here instead of here. So I deeply appreciate that quality and it's been very inspiring to me. Because what it means for me is that as a teacher He will stand in the background until something happens and then at just the right moment do this with one finger or one word.

[07:49]

And I think that's a very rare quality. For the past three years, I've been the director of San Francisco's Zen Center, so I had the great opportunity of experiencing what it is to do too much or too little all the time, moment after moment, and to experience firsthand what can happen and how messed up things can get if a leader does too much or too little. And so, this quality of doing exactly The one thing in the situation that's to the point and makes a difference without interfering is, I think, that's the quality that I'll remember as Mel's greatest teaching for my whole life. And I remember it did drive me mad at the beginning, so both are true.

[08:54]

This is kind of a long introduction to a topic that's simple but not easy. And that is, how do we work together and live together as a Sangha? And particularly, what are our agreements as a Sangha? How do we work with each other, with those agreements, when we live in different houses and have different lives? Someone, a little bird told me that you've been studying this. Have you? The Ethical Principles and Procedures for Grievance and Reconciliation of San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page Street, starts, American Precepts Have Two Sides. It's a booklet of It started out as a grievance policy for San Francisco Zen Center, but then as we started writing it and working with it, we started understanding that we couldn't just have a grievance policy.

[10:13]

We had to have agreements before we could have ways to resolve breaking them. So the board The poor committee of the board who was charged with making the document, Peter Overton was one of the victims, and Hilary Parsons from this sangha, and people who just practiced at San Francisco too. started out by making a document that they, after three years of work, they presented to the Sangha and were roundly razzed and booed out of existence. And then Gil, Freinstahl, suggested that we have a set of agreements based on the precepts and that we write our community agreements referring to the precepts that we all share and that we say every month.

[11:21]

And everybody said, what a simple, good idea. And so the committee bravely hammered out a whole other document that was this time accepted by the Sangha and accepted by the board. And then we printed it up nicely and give it to everyone who works for Zen Center. And it's available to everyone who works for San Francisco Zen Center or who lives there or who practices as part of the Sangha. And so what it does is translate the precepts in terms of simple everyday things a community of practitioners can agree to do together or ways to use language together. that actually enacts the precepts. So, I like this document very much.

[12:24]

So, is there anyone here who has never heard any of this document? Okay, so I'll read a little. Is it okay if I read a little bit of it to you, so you get the flavor of it? So, this is... I also have some comments. I wrote down some comments that Mel made one day when we were talking about it together. So, the community introduction. The community life of Zen Center is an integral part of our practice and is based on the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts. In order to help create a supportive, harmonious and safe environment within our Sangha for everyone's practice we have here outlined the significant ways in which these precepts guide and inform our community life. So then there's a a little introduction about the precepts. And then it goes straight into the precepts. So the first we recited, remember the part of the Bodhisattva Ceremony that goes, I take refuge in Buddha.

[13:39]

That part? Okay, so that's the three refuges. And those are the first three the first three of the sixteen bodhisattva precepts. So first one, we take refuge in Buddha. In taking refuge in Buddha, we acknowledge the Buddha nature of all beings. While there are different levels of religious and administrative authority within Zen center, the Sangha recognizes that fundamentally everyone is equally the expression of Buddha nature. Okay, so can you see how that might end up working as a good community agreement to actually make the precept real in our life. So it means that, for instance, if something that I say feels like disrespect to somebody else and doesn't feel like I'm treating them as Buddha I'm accountable to that person

[14:43]

to the other priests and to the whole community for that. So, for instance, if I have a conflict with someone and I say, you lowly excuse for a worm, and I mean it. I don't have to listen to you. I don't have to take seriously what you say because because you're stupid and hopeless and there's just no reason why I should have to take what you say seriously. You know, so if I say something like that, you can say, that doesn't sound like you took me as, that you recognized that I was equally the expression of Buddha nature to you. And my correct response at that point would be, oh, it didn't?

[15:48]

I'm sorry. You know, or something like that. And then if I said, no, actually I really meant it. I don't have to listen to you because you're basically stupid and hopeless and not awake and never will be. And I really don't have to listen to you. Then you could go to my teacher or to the other priests and say, I really think there's something wrong here. Help!" And they would do it. OK? So, you know, we might assume that any Buddhist community would be this way, but I actually feel that an overt agreement is necessary to make people feel safe enough in an interaction to actually come forward to something like that. Suppose the person who had a complaint about me had been in the community for a week and I were the priest who was in charge of teaching a class.

[16:55]

So you can see how, maybe you can see how they might need to know that there would be an agreement like that before they come forward to challenge somebody who was wearing ropes. Anyway, you've heard the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts, so all of them are outlined like that in this document. And I don't mean to just concentrate on this particular document, but to say that we need some sort of community attention, intention, and some way, we need to have thought about what might make that community intention real and then actually agree to do it before we start criticizing each other or before we can really get into the territory with each other.

[17:59]

So I don't know if Berkeley Zen Center has agreements like that. Actually, I suspect that you do, because I've talked with people about them. But aren't there some basic, there's a basic guideline, and there's basic accountability for practice leaders, for instance. Yeah, okay, so like if Rebecca does something really bad, you can say something to Mel, and he'll listen. Not that that will happen, but in case it does. Or when it does. When it does. You know, or... And it's not just a matter of tattling. It's not just a matter of using some part of the Sangha against some other part of the Sangha. It's a matter of actually bringing up in everyday life what are these very deep guidelines that we have taken on together?

[19:01]

And it goes deep. And there are people in this room who have questioned me in this way and it's become a part of my everyday koan and entered my practice and become part of how I am a priest. So, my name means, my name is Sho San Gi Gen, my dharma name. Sho means light and san means mountain, so it means sunlight mountain. And the second half, Gi Gen, Gi means to honor, or it means the precepts, or virtue, or uprightness, that kind of thing, and gen means the inconceivable, the shadow, the unseen, the profound.

[20:07]

So, light and dark are part of my name. And something that I've noticed about following the precepts with other people is that when we have an agreement or an intention or something that we really want to do together its opposite comes up very, very easily. So, for instance, about two years ago the City Center staff and I came up with an agreement to be more honest with each other in daily life. So yesterday I had what I hope is my last fight with the City Center staff about this. And I realized as I was fighting that what I was trying to do is to get to deeper places of honesty in my own speech.

[21:15]

So, immediately, when we made the agreement to be honest with each other, people started avoiding the meetings. You know, and the people who were most invested in the agreement started blaming the other people who were avoiding the meetings and kind of putting them down and saying, you know, you are avoiding the meeting and I found out only yesterday that one of the people who was avoiding the meetings was doing that because the judgments of the other people were disgusting to her. So, this is the kind of thing that happens when we start making an intention to do something that's in the light, the dark starts coming up. And I brought today a paper by a friend of mine.

[22:27]

His name is Carl Mack, and he's the superintendent of the Del Paso Heights Elementary School District in Sacramento. And his paper is on, it's called Leadership and Improving Student Performance in a Multi-Ethnic, Cultural, and Linguistic Public School District. Anyway, that's the name of the paper. But what the paper is really about is that it was a multi-ethnic school district in which the teachers were all being paid. They were accepting money. And the student performance was really, really low. And so Carl, as a school superintendent, said, What if we have a group intention to improve student performance in Del Paso Heights School District? So this paper is all about what happened when all the teachers agreed to do that.

[23:32]

And it seemed like the same thing happened to them. And actually what Carl and I talked about this paper and After our conversation, it's our opinion that whenever we put something bright out there, like, I vow not to kill, or I vow not to slander, or I vow to be more honest, or that kind of thing, that immediately all the ways in which we're not that, all our resistances, all our history, all our humanity begins to come up. And that the joy, and for me I would say that the joy of practice or the joy of following the precepts or having my heart opened by the precepts is that then when I have to confront all my resistances or everything that's getting in the way and deal with those things one by one my practice becomes deeper and my heart and mind open.

[24:42]

And I begin to see other people and myself as more one and less two. So it really takes the struggle. You know there's three ways of following the precepts. The first way is the literal way. The second way is the absolute way. And the third way is the skillful way. So, you've probably heard this in lectures many times. The literal way is that if someone says, I undertake to not kill, that they actually will not kill. So for instance, if there's a mosquito that goes... They will not go... Okay? Or... You know, if somebody, if a person who has taken the precept of not killing draws a line in the sand and someone steps over it, they will not then go, whack, whack, whack, whack.

[25:58]

You know, they won't do that. That's the literal understanding of not killing. And you can practice literal understanding from now on for the rest of your life without ever getting to the end of it. That in itself is enough of a practice to keep us fully occupied for the rest of our lives, just to learn how to do that. And actually in yoga practice, the very first thing that one has to learn how to do is to take in and obey the instruction literally. And just a little aside here, can you put your hand over the mic? Is this an advertisement? No, it's not an advertisement, but if any teacher or anybody like that ever says, I'm beyond that, Don't believe it.

[27:00]

Okay? Do not believe it. Use your own common sense. Like if some teacher or some authority figure says, I know that the precept says, I vow not to kill, but really what it means is that life is not killed. Don't believe it. Because the person has to be responsible for the literal interpretation of the precept. The person has to be able to acknowledge the difference between literally not killing, or not slandering, or not disrespecting someone, and what he or she is doing. And that's the area of the person's accountability, by having made that agreement. Okay? Now the second way, the absolute way, is another incredibly profound marvelous and limitless way of understanding the precepts. I vow not to kill.

[28:01]

Life is not killed. Let the Buddha tree seed grow and transmit the life of Buddha not being killed. You know, life is not killed, that kind of understanding. Life is not killed. Really, if I kill an ant, what has killed What has killed what, really? The total amount of life in the world does not increase or decrease. And this is the absolute understanding of the precepts. And we could, our hearts would be endlessly opened even if we only even if we only sat zazen to understand that life was not killed. So the absolute understanding is completely limitless, completely profound, and could be a lifetime of practice in and of itself.

[29:04]

But the area that I'm talking about now is the skillful following of the precepts, where one acknowledges the precept, and acknowledges the difference between literally following the precept and what I'm doing. and acknowledges the absolute. understanding of the precepts and acknowledges the difference between the absolute understanding and who I am as a limited human being. And also acknowledges that everything I do as a limited human being springs forth as a momentary flash from that absolute understanding or absolute nature of existence. So that's called the skillful way of working with the precepts.

[30:06]

So the way in which you say to me, well, what exactly do you mean by, when you say life is not killed, what do you mean? And I say, I don't know. When you say life is not killed, what do you mean? And then we say, well, suppose I'm in the kitchen tomorrow with my can of roach proof. What do I do? You know, suppose there's rats in the Zen Center kitchen, and we have kids there, and the rats are dangerous to the kids. What are we going to do? Suppose there are insects chewing up the greens. that we need as food. What are we going to do? And we actually apply it step by step and are responsible to each other for how we do that. So that's the skillful understanding with each other.

[31:10]

And we have tools for how we do that. And the first tool is mindfulness. The first tool is to be aware of what we're doing, to know what we're doing. Or... So the first tool is to be aware. I mean, even if we do this, we can do it in an aware way. We can be aware as we're doing it. What that is, and what the result is. We could notice that every time we do this, it's easier the next time, for instance. And we could ask ourselves, we could question in our hearts whether that is a price that we need to pay. And we could, mindfulness also helps us recognize as a community or as a group

[32:16]

some of the habitual ways that we are with each other. For instance have you ever been in a group of people in this sangha or just in a family or a group and realized that unconsciously you were all depending on someone to lead you and that you felt kind of powerless? Have you ever been in that situation, like thinking, Dad will get us out of this? Or maybe some strong teacher will emerge in this group? Like, for instance, in a class or a lecture, think about a class or a lecture in which the person just is not making sense. or a discussion in which it's just not making sense and one is sitting there not even consciously thinking but just hoping that some strong leader will emerge from the mess and take charge.

[33:26]

So that's one of the basic ways that people respond to the challenge of actually having something put out as an agreement. So, for instance, in Carl's school district, the group of people decided to improve student performance and then everybody hung back, thinking that someone else was going to start. So, and didn't acknowledge it. Do you need to... Switch your legs and do something else. You can take a leg break. Okay, and another way that people might respond to the challenge, and this is totally human, is by two people pairing in some way. I mean, have you ever noticed if you were in a class or a group in which the

[34:27]

The group has some agreement about the task. one of the people in the group is really getting into it and just following what the leader says very, very carefully and well, and then eventually the two of them are off someplace doing something that only they understand, and the rest of the group is sitting there like this. That's another habitual way that groups work. And this, indeed, this happened in that school district, and it happens at Zen Center, where we live together, and I'm sure it has happened here. And there's other ways that people mess up together as a group. So, I don't really want to give a

[35:31]

prescription or anything like that. But what I do want to say is that the power of the precepts is much greater if a group of people decides to follow them together and then actually takes responsibility. And I think in Zen in the Zen context, in the Zen temples We have good ways to do that as individuals but I think that we're weaker in general, the Sanghas that I know of are weaker at agreeing to do things in groups and then understanding how to be with each other around that. So in almost every discussion that I've had about the precepts Either it's some theoretical discussion where somebody is talking at me about the precepts or the discussion seems to veer off somehow and not really help me in daily life, eventually, after a while.

[36:48]

I'm not saying that all the discussions I've ever had about the precepts are useless. On the contrary, they've been very useful in helping me understand how to work as an individual with the precepts. What I'm saying is that in discussions where groups of people got together we very quickly got off the task into someone's individual issue or into some fighting or avoiding the situation or waiting for a teacher to help us or that kind of thing. And very rarely have I ever been in a group of people where everyone was taking an equal amount of responsibility, actually listening to each other about the precepts, actually understanding the ways in which the individual situation is a mirror for the group situation, and so on. So, it's been a rare experience that that kind of clarity in the group would come up.

[37:58]

So I think this is our real challenge as Buddhist practitioners, is how to support each other. How to take the yogic individual responsibility for understanding the literal precept and then how to test it out together as a group or as a community. So I don't want to ramble, natter on and on and on about this. I just put it out as a question. without a prescription and wonder how we can find our own way, how we can find our way as a community and as a community of communities. So, I'm particularly interested in this because in two weeks I'm going to stop being director at City Center, then I'm going to take a vacation, but then I'm going to go be head of practice at Tassakari, at the monastery And there's a lot of incredibly sincere younger practitioners there.

[39:06]

And I have to tell you that I'm afraid to go there and be a teacher figure for a lot of young and very sincere people. And my fear is that there'll be some dependency, that we wouldn't find the way to approach each other as equals as well as having a teacher-student relationship. I feel like that approaching each other as equals is really necessary when we begin to talk about what are we experiencing here in relation to following the precepts. And for us all to have the ability to enter into the conversation together and make it fruitful. So, that's my fear. And this is a more mature group of practitioners.

[40:09]

Everyone here has much more life experience. And you all have developed your lives separately as well as together, so you probably won't fall into the cult trap here at Berkeley Zen Center. But I think you probably have other things, other possible, at least one or two possible pitfalls in working together. Shall I stop now and maybe we could discuss this? Yikes. Okay, one, two, three. Thank you for your talk. I enjoyed it a lot. I'm interested in the issue that you raised about people in a group not waiting for a leader to arise and how problematic that can be when everyone's not taking responsibility.

[41:17]

But it's not clear to me how that relates to a particular precept or the precept in general, I know that it's a really important thing, but I'd be interested to hear which precept it relates to. That's a great question. I take refuge in Buddha. I vow to refrain from. I vow to do. I vow not to. I vow to refrain. I vow not to sell the wine of delusion. Do you understand? No? Who vows? So who has the responsibility? That's what it is. And that's as much as any of us can do.

[42:22]

The more ego they have to defend, and I'm talking even in a sangha like this, a little bit always wants to try where it's at. And I think that when people get together trying to go a certain direction, there are always people that are trying to be born already. Right, well that's what a teacher is supposed to be.

[44:21]

Ideally a Buddhist teacher is someone who says, like the Buddha, this is my teaching, you know, life is, everything is impermanent, nothing is permanent, wake up, don't waste time. don't believe what I say, be a lamp unto yourself, bye bye, I'm going, clunk. You know, that's the ideal Buddhist teacher who gives you the teaching and then gets out of the way. That's right, and yeah, and comes back to mirror at crucial times. But the fact is that we're all that for each other as well. Teachers need teachers, too. Respect and love for your fellow man. Try to keep that in mind.

[45:22]

That's right. Be humble. And the more joy you have, the easier it is for you to humble yourself. That's right. Yeah. One, two. I'm hearing... Oh, you, please. Yeah, you. I'm hearing... from the individual to the group. And it's the tension between the sense of effort, which can be right effort, that lies in the words, I vow, I intend, I want to try. And that effort I associate with just enormous sincerity. I love that word for the young people that you are known to be working with. And that is such a near enemy or a near friend or something of judgmentalness. That's right.

[46:27]

So it's like having the effort and then yielding, and having the effort and then yielding. you know, all of this. And all I have is not anything perfect that I can make happen, but it's just... Well, that's what fear is. The fear is the content of the actual... The fear is the beginning of the content of the actual experience. The fear is what's actually happening as I take the first step into the experience. Fear is not the whole experience.

[47:55]

It's just the content of this moment, of the beginning, of opening the gate of the experience. And your question, who is valid? And who is fearing? And the other side of this, that, you know, I must take responsibility because it's nobody. It's nothing. And that's it. We can accept whatever happens, but the near enemy of acceptance at Zen centers, and particularly in my experience, is dishonesty, secrecy, avoidance of actual things that are coming up. And that's the near enemy. So acceptance can be beautiful acceptance or acceptance can be something comes up that you wouldn't accept and you accept it anyway.

[48:56]

Yeah, so that's... Yeah, so it's like this, right? Yeah. I'm sorry. Someone is ahead of you, and here she is. I found what you were saying about not believing someone, saying that they're beyond a precept or beyond something, as maybe an excuse to do it, very important and very beneficial. So I was wondering why you wanted to I found what you said about not believing anyone who said that they were beyond the precept very beneficial. So I wonder how come you said, put your hand over the mic. OK?

[50:00]

Good question. Good question. I can't remember. Does anyone have a fantasy about what it might have been? What was coming up for me is that I have seen teachers misuse that and harm being done because of that. And sometimes we protect the people that are harming. Sometimes when we speak a truth, it's scary. It just seemed important and true. I was wondering about it. Yeah, yeah, that was good. That was good. I think here we're coming up to my own humanity and my own limitations and trying to follow the precept of telling the truth and of not slandering.

[51:10]

Telling the truth is scary, just like you said. Something could happen. Someone could be hurt. And also there's no perfect way to do it. There's no way to do it that includes everyone's needs. So maybe that's what I was trying to... I mean, there were good things and there were bad things about why I said that. your teacher giving you the impetus to be Buddha yourself. At the same time, by doing that, it seems to me that you are

[52:15]

What is your relationship with teachers in general? I have a relationship with teachers that... Like, for instance, my relationship with Mel. That's a good one. We're equal as human beings. And we're both Buddha. And we share that mind. That's one side of it. The other side of it is that he's my teacher. What does that mean? It means that if Mel says, would you be director of the San Francisco Zen Center so that Blanche can be abbess? And would you be director and support Blanche? That even though I don't want to do it, I do it. and learn something from it and relate to him every week or two about it, the whole time. Rebecca and then you.

[53:30]

I found when you were talking about honesty, when I assumed that you were talking about this being honest about unpleasant things, and recently in our Dharma group, was people who could not say to others, including their parents, I love you. I love you, right. And for them, this was really difficult. And it was quite an interesting discussion. Even, like, thank you, my friend, you know, things of that level. Yeah, let's do it. I mean, that, because that's the, that kind of recognition is the, it's the ground from which we feel recognized,

[54:48]

we understand that we're actually part of someone's life. Like the moment when somebody actually says, I love you and I will wait for you. And you say, oh no, don't wait for me, I have to blah blah blah blah blah. And they say, no, it's you I love. No, I'll wait for you, it's you I love. That's a dangerous thing. Or where somebody even says something like, you know, the way you... I have to tell you something. Is it okay if I tell you something? And then you say yes, and they say, the way you... the way you picked up that baby just reminded me of everything that is good about my life. And you go, oh... Because it's embarrassing.

[55:53]

It's embarrassing not just to give but to receive, isn't it? Especially for people who kind of hate themselves or don't feel so secure. It's embarrassing but that's part of telling the truth too. I vow not to kill but to cherish all life. How do we cherish life in each other? Thank you very much for your talk.

[56:23]

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