So this is really terrific. One of the things that happens after you get Dharma Transmission, once you get it, is that you can talk to people and have this to play with too. I always watched teachers, what they did with it. Some kind of stuck it over to the side. Some sort of did this. Is that cool or what? Thank you very much for coming. That's all I have to say. But I did want to say something about Dharma Transmission. You know, what is it? How do I get it?

[01:04]

Is it for sale on the Internet? Rick? Tell the people. Yes, it is. It is. The guy, the kid. There's an essay on the Internet, and the title of the essay is Dharma Transmission, $49.95 a pop. Use your PayPal account. Thank you. Yes. But I don't think it's, it's probably not the best way to go. Oh, somebody asked me, the day after the ceremony, the last ceremony, is at, what is it, 11 o'clock or so at night? And it goes until ice cream early the next morning.

[02:08]

Ice cream. Chocolate. It was good. That was a joke. Why didn't anybody laugh? It's true. It's true, though, too. And so the next morning I came down for orange juice because I didn't want to eat anything because I had to do my 186,000 bows to Blanche shortly after orange juice. And so I came downstairs and somebody asked me, so anything any different? And I said, but it was. Everything was different. Everything was different. Thankfully, I talked to Darlene after the next day, and she said, so is anything different? And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[03:11]

She said, what? I said, everything. And she said, I know. She said, I know it's been over a year and a half for me, and it still is. It still is different. It was like, when I came downstairs for orange juice, it was like the world had been this way up until then, and now it's this way. And it's like everything has shifted. Everything has shifted. But what I really feel like is a big, gigantic daffodil. That's the only thing that really kind of suits how I feel. You know, a big one, a real big, fragrant, bright yellow daffodil. And I hope that never goes away. But of course, having ... well, we know what happens to things that bloom. They die. But at least not for a year and a half more, according to Darlene.

[04:15]

So, I've listened to a couple of after-ceremony talks, and some have maybe not mentioned dharma transmission, some said it was too private to talk about. And so I didn't know really what to do. But I did want to say what was most important to me about it, because I think it's an important part of our school, of our endeavor. Let's see. Some of you know that I've had a background in the Christian church, and my experience there was one of not so much about kindness or love. It was more about being right as opposed to being wrong, being in charge as opposed to being pushed around, more about power and control. So that was my early training. And going through the chairs, we called it going through the chairs.

[05:26]

You'd be a vicar here, then a rector there, then, if you were lucky, a dean there, then a bishop there, and then you get up to the top, and of course there's nothing there at the top, so you fall off, or retire hopefully before that happens. So, I wasn't too interested in that kind of approach to dharma transmission, and I think that's probably what I... the impression I got was that that means you've sort of made it, you have gotten as far as you're going to go, kind of. I don't have any idea where I got that impression, because it doesn't make any sense now. But, so I wasn't really interested in that. And when we taught, and, let's see, oh, do I want to back up? Yeah. But what I want to say about what began to strike me as heart-opening about dharma transmission was in reading about Dogen and his teacher, Ru Xing.

[06:33]

Dogen had shopped around in China for a teacher for quite a while, and he stumbled on this Chinese, new Chinese abbot, new old Chinese abbot, and apparently it was love at first sight. And that's my impression, that's what I read between the lines, of kind of mechanical, you know, the way koan are written, they're kind of, to me, kind of clunky, they're not very, to me, not very beautifully written, or the feeling sometimes, I don't quite get it. But with Dogen and Ru Xing, apparently it was love at first sight. In fact, they, Dogen knew he'd found his true teacher, and Ru Xing knew he had found his true student, apparently right off the bat. And Ru Xing said that, look, fella, anytime you want to come talk to me, you come right ahead. It doesn't even matter if you're dressed like that, because Dogen was dressed inappropriately

[07:40]

at the time. So Ru Xing really put himself out completely, and apparently was totally devoted to his student, as was Dogen totally devoted to his master. And four months later, Dogen woke up, he realized the great matter, and went home to start this, what we're doing now. And so that kind of tenderness touched me, that kind of, that spoke of that kind of a relationship between a teacher and a student. And also, as I got further on into it with my teacher, we did some time reading the, something called the Denkodoku, the Transmission of the Lamp, the Transmission of the Lamp, by one of our ancestors, one of our more elegant and florid ancestors, Keizan, joking, who

[08:45]

wrote that, he wrote that. In fact, he's the one that gave us all of our ceremonies. Apparently Dogen wanted none of it, the ceremonial stuff, because he knew there was something more important to do. But Keizan said, yeah, whatever, that's not going to sell to the folks. So Keizan had all kinds of ceremonies for the edification of the common folks, so to speak. At least that's my take on it. And so at any rate, so he wrote this Transmission of the Lamp, in which he went through all the ancestors, up through, I think, Ejo, isn't it? Ejo, wasn't it? Koen Ejo? Yeah, that's what it is. Then, oh, so the point I'm trying to make is that, you know, there are stories of where, you know, the master comes up to the disciple, and the disciple asks something stupid. The master takes his nose and twists it, causing pain for weeks and weeks.

[09:51]

And enlightenment as well, apparently. And other cases of, you know, brutality. Those don't touch me too well. That kind of crashing, it's not subtle enough, I think, for me. And pain is not something that works too well with me. But the things that touched me were the really gentle give and take between disciple and master, where the master could tell. I mean, you can almost, in reading it, you can tell that they knew the student was this close. Just really, really close. All they needed was just a little gentle shove. And you could also, and there are other ones too, where the student, let's see, where the student could tell that they were just this close, and so they approached the master from that point of view to get a push.

[10:54]

There's, in two of them, let's see, one was, one was where one of the students came up to the master, and you can almost hear in his voice that kind of, that sort of strong yet vulnerable questioning, where he came up to the teacher and said, Did you get anything else with that robe and bowl? Did you get anything else? In other words, he's asking, you know, Are we ready to break through to the nature of reality? And the master says, Oh, yes, yes. And that was the beginning. The student breaks open. And my other favorite is where the student,

[11:58]

the monk comes up to the master and says, points to the master's robe and says, What's underneath that robe? That's a rather intimate question, don't you think? In fact, it goes on to say that unless you can actually ask that question of somebody else, you're wasting your time. In other words, what's beneath all this frou-frou? What's beneath your mask? What's beneath what appears? And sure enough, the master said, Intimacy. Intimacy is beneath this robe. Our hearts, in fact, our hearts' innermost request is beneath this robe. So hearing these stories, the idea of dharma transmission became, Okay, yeah, let's look at that. So it was 16 years ago,

[13:02]

just 16 years ago today, not today, but in January, last January, that I arrived at Green Gulch Farm at night, late at night, in the back of a van with no windows, carrying Dakota's van. And there were a couple of other people there too, but I didn't know them. And after the ride was done, I didn't want to know them. I was very carsick. Have you ever been to Green Gulch? It's a horrible, horrible, horrible road. And in the back of a van. So I got there, and I was disoriented and dizzy and nauseous, and I don't think they were expecting me. But I got there, and it was dark and all, and so we banged around, and this person came out and said, Can I help you?

[14:03]

And I think I sputtered something about, Well, yeah, I'm coming here for the practice period. And she asked, Do you have a sleeping bag? I said, A sleeping bag? I've never owned a sleeping bag. Why would anybody want a sleeping bag? So she gave me one. And it was Blanche. It was Blanche. This woman, just, yeah. She was very nice, and then she disappeared. And I thought, Hmm. That's interesting. And so eight years later, in a very... Eight years later, at Tassajara, in a very vulnerable state, mine, I went to that same person and said, Would you ordain me? Thinking that that was probably the most outrageous thing she probably ever heard. And maybe the most outrageous thing I ever asked for.

[15:07]

And she said, Sure. Just like that. The reason I smile is, that doesn't happen often. Being that clear and direct about such a weighty matter. The answer, I mean. So that began, I think, a very... a just right teacher-student relationship. And any of you who don't have one, gee, why don't you think about getting one? There's really nothing like it, really. It's a very beautiful, dangerous, dangerous, exciting thing, that relationship. It's an odd thing that happens.

[16:09]

With any student-teacher, I think the same thing happens. Like, for example, the teacher has to deal with your mother and father sooner or later, because they become either your mother or your father, the transference. Blanche became my mother. In fact, I considered her a mommy cocktail. She was more than my mother. Worse than my mother. But thankfully, she knew she wasn't my mother. And so, was able to help me work through that stuff. In fact, work through so well that I could then go home at the time when my mother was dying, and I was able to tell her the things that she'd always needed to hear from me, because I'd worked through some stuff with my teacher. So for that, I'm very grateful, and always will be. And the other thing that happens is...

[17:14]

Well, one other teacher described it like this. It's not as if, in transmission, something is passed over, although you do get some really, really, really cool presents at the end of it. This only one of them. Other than that, nothing really passes back and forth. But he said that it's like a teacher. A good teacher is like a magnet. And you know how a magnet is. It's a piece of iron whose molecules are all aligned. They're all aligned. And the student is like a piece of iron, just an ordinary piece of iron, that comes close to the magnet. And sooner or later, that piece of iron, the molecules start lining up. So has something passed? I don't think so. But there is a Buddha field, I think, that's created. And one reason I think

[18:19]

that that might be the case is that we would, towards the... Towards the... Let's see. After... Well, in the last year of my training with Blanche, I would go to her cabin, and we would go over the Dogan fascicles, the pieces that he wrote on Dharma transmission, which... It's awful. They're very difficult. Well, any of you who have read Dogan probably know the pain of which I allude. The tragic part is, you know, you read it, and you say, what the hell does this mean? But on a deeper level, you know whatever it is, it's the truth. I mean, it's so frustrating. And so we would be going over these things, and Blanche had some notes from her teacher and all, and we'd look at some things. Some things she'd say,

[19:19]

oh, this is thus, thus, and such. Oh, wow. And then other things. I'd say, what's that? And she'd say, I have no idea. But the interesting thing to me was that I would leave the room, leave the cabin, and, let's see, the only word that describes the feeling is a very inarticulate word, but it's the only thing that seems to do it. It's a whoa, whoa, where it's a kind of focused expansion. You know what I mean? You feel big, and yet focused at the same time. So apparently, it was contagious. I think... Let's see, do I want to... I want to maybe say something about... I think...

[20:27]

I think... I went for a walk today with somebody, and they were talking about that they had trouble with thinking of Buddhism as a religion. And I was thinking, yeah, me too. And this evening I was thinking that, let's see, calling Buddhism... Well, I was never very good with math, but here's a ratio anyway. Like, religion is to Buddhism as my small toe on my left foot is to the human race. Does that make sense? Is that an interesting ratio? And also philosophy. Buddhism is a philosophy. Like, philosophy is to Buddhism as my other little toe is to the human race, what it is to be human. So I think those things are certainly part of Buddhism, but I don't think it's a whole lot of Buddhism, religion or philosophy. I think Buddhism is something else. Buddhism is like getting on

[21:28]

a train. An expensive train. You pay a lot for the ticket, and you have no idea where it's going. You have a hunch. You have a story. You have a wish. An expectation. Demand. But it doesn't make any difference. It doesn't make any difference. And every now and then you can jump off. You can jump off that train and you can go away for a long time. And then when you come back, it's waiting for you. And it also left as well. But it waits. And I think I was talking to our astronomer here. He's not back yet. Our astronomer. And I said, I wanted to find out what we still thought about

[22:29]

the universe. So the universe is expanding. that's fine. But the thing is it's not expanding into anything. It's not like it's moving through something. Or beyond the edge of the universe is something else. There's not even nothing. There is no counterpart to the universe. That to me is what Buddhism is. It's coming to a point where that makes sense. Where all we have is reality. And that's enough. Can you imagine? Can you imagine the relief that reality is enough? Well, maybe not. The way I've always practiced is I know what I'm looking for and what I'm sure of is

[23:29]

this isn't it. Which meant that if it wasn't here, then it was over there. It was like over there, that over there was real. That over there was more difficult. That was the real thing, the real test. We can chase that for a long, long time. And that's a way of escape actually. So I think Buddhism is realizing that not only that the universe is one, that it is your body. This body is Buddha. Dogen says that many times. We're not fooling around here folks. This very body, your very body is the Buddha, is reality. Complete reality. And there's nothing missing. How could there be? Really, think about it. How could there be anything missing? Does that make sense? There's nothing missing. And the last thing I want to say

[24:42]

is I don't know why but it seems that that very reality once you know it and you begin to see it not as an it of course, it's not an it, but as a reality once you realize it, know that you are it, then what happens is kindness and compassion. I'm not so... I don't understand why it should be those but apparently it is. I remember as a Christian priest saying Mass and thinking that what's really happening here is that I am just falling back into the loving arms of God. How can that be?

[25:43]

At Tassajara, sitting outside at night, you see billions of stars, maybe billions, I don't know but lots of them and I know that it goes up a long way. Like Tassajara you're very closed in on the sides all around actually but if you go up, it goes for a long very long way. In fact, you go so far that you end up back where you start. Right? We know that, right? Because the nature of space is curved. How can that be? And yet, I think the human experience of that kind of understanding is tenderness. It opens your heart. It doesn't make you a machine oddly. I should think space is very cold and empty and nasty and hostile but understanding the nature of it doesn't produce cold, nasty, hostile feeling. So that's all

[26:49]

I have to say. Any questions or comments? Ah. Rich. So you've got this earth-colored thing slung over your shoulder and to us it definitely means something. How do you keep from feeling special? How do I keep from feeling special? Oh, I don't. How about you? Oh, I don't. Cool. Now, why should you think you're not special? Each of us is special. Each of us is unique. So, since there's no basis for comparison and no competition, special is fine. Don't you think? Just don't think you're special.

[27:54]

Hmm. What happens next? Ah, three bows and then I go to bed. You knew that, though, didn't you? How about a little partner-up? Ah, the wake-up bell, maybe? Nah, I know. I mean, I know what you're asking, but it doesn't make any difference. I have no idea. No idea. Who cares? I'm happy. Vince? Vince? What got me where I am now? Oh.

[28:59]

Well, you know, I mean, you know there's an answer to that, right? Good. I'm not going to say it. I was talking with my teacher about this and how compassion compassion only comes from suffering, from either empathy or your own particular suffering. It doesn't come through, I think, a good time or doing something right or luck. It's an actual encounter with suffering. And the worse the suffering, apparently, the greater the compassion. So but in my case, what got me here? I think luck. What about it?

[30:02]

I do? Oh. Yeah. Wendy Johnson was the gardener or maybe still the gardener at Green Gulch. But she said she said I saw her, I don't see her much at all but I was at Green Gulch for something and I was talking about something about something that really touched my heart and she said, well, you know, you're all heart. And she gave me a big hug and I thought, oh, what a sweet thing to do. I mean, you know, just out of the blue to give that kind of a present to somebody. I commend it. To say that to somebody, you know, you're all heart. Because it's really true. But how often do we hear that? Yeah. The kindness of strangers, I think. And a lot of love. My first teacher, especially,

[31:06]

who turned out to be my bishop, he put up with me for 30 years. Utterly, he was the first kind person I ever met, I think. The red, red? Oh, it's pretty, isn't it? A red rope? Oh, red rope. Orange gold, I think. Yeah, what are you curious about? I don't look new to you. I haven't seen that before. Yours isn't especially bright, maybe? Well, it's new. It doesn't have much grease on it yet. Yeah. It does. It does. There's even a hole here that you poke it through

[32:08]

so that it won't fall off. Is this symbolic of anything? Of being special. No, I think... Huh? Does it say Made in Japan? Nowhere does it say Made Japan. Nowhere. Right inside, though. But it is Made Japan, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just decorative, isn't it? Just pretty, yeah. Yes, I see. I was wondering if any of this gives you any insight into your time as a Tenzo, a Sahara. I remember it was very difficult for you to express that it was difficult for you at times because it seemed very counter to your nature. What do you mean? For the job for which I had no skill?

[33:11]

Yes, at Tassajara. Particularly enjoyable. Don't you think having a job that's going to last for two years that you can't do? Oh, God. Well, yeah. You know, again, that was part of my compassion recipe. For compassion. Part of the recipe was be Eno at the city for two years and then be Tenzo at Tassajara for two years. Yeah, that produced a lot of compassion. Eventually. Would you do it again? Would I do it again? Yes, I would. Thank you. Do you still practice Catholicism? Oh, certainly not. No, I was in the Episcopal church. Which we, you know, depending on which side of the bed you woke up on,

[34:12]

you'd say is either Catholic or Protestant. Or neither. Or both. So, I don't know. I've got a friend who is a priest in the Catholic church. And we were talking about it, to how once you really, I don't know how to say, but once you really get into the mystery of it all, those kind of distinctions don't really have much weight. Do you know? No. In fact, one of the things I've come to see is that just living this life is completely satisfying. Yeah, completely. I lack for absolutely nothing in terms of spiritual nourishment. It's quite a mystery to me. Would you, for example, even try

[35:17]

to become where you are today? Do you ever believe in that? There's a straight line. Let's see. The question, you know, the words don't match the process. Does that make sense? Like, believing, you know, like believe... Oh, I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know. You know, having had troubles with my own personal father, I mean, real big troubles, the idea of Father God didn't sit too well, although I did have to talk about that. I had to talk about Father God and all. It's more... My mother asked me that, you know, before she died. She asked me, it was on the phone,

[36:18]

she said, Do you still believe in God? Like, she was really kind of frightened. It was kind of a sweet, innocent question. Do you still believe in God? And I said, Oh, well, you know, what we're doing is to become kind, really, really kind. And she said, Oh, okay, well, are you happy? And I said, Yeah, I really am. And she said, Oh, okay. And that was it. So, I don't know. I think one of the things that attracted me to Zen Buddhism was when I read somewhere where it said it's really cool not to believe anything. That kind of open, maybe skeptical, you know, just openness, open heart, open mind. I said, Cool, that's what I want. So, it wasn't really dropping anything. It was just more of a change. It was like the daffodil comes out of a bulb, grows. Anything else?

[37:32]

I enjoy this. I can stay here all night. You're on. I'm wondering, a lot of people have a lot of curiosity, a lot of curiosity. Don't you think one of the times we need a direct transmission service to get it? No, no, no. Direct transmission comes after. It comes after. I think. I don't know. What do I know about it? You don't get compassion.

[38:35]

You are compassion, for God's sake. Really. Anything else is just window dressing and fantasy. Lou, am I getting a signal there? Thank you. Thank you all very much.

[39:10]

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