This evening we have evaluations which I'm going to pass out. Maybe I should pass them out now while we're just getting settled. And actually it says put them in Alan's box, but you can just fold them and give them to Ross before you go. That's your exit pass out of the class. I also We're going to take time somewhere in the middle of the class to fill them out so that we're sure that we get them because they're kind of a nuisance at the end and people just want to leave. One of the things I asked last week was whether people could say something, their koan that they live with or something about their practice. Did people prepare that? Please raise your hand if you have something to say. Well, during that time when you're filling out your evaluation, I hope you'll say something and you can write on the back of your evaluation and then we'll have some time to do that before the end of the class.

[01:09]

Just in case you didn't finish your homework, we'll give you a little study period. So we'll probably take five to ten minutes in the middle of the class. First of all, I wanted to ask if there were any specific questions, but we'll have another chance for questions after I summarize the last class. But are there any questions on the readings or anything else? I wanted to make some clarifications or point some things out. I should speak for myself, but I think it's true for most everybody. Anytime you say something, the other side comes up in sort of a glaring way, what you didn't say. One of the things I talked about last time when I was talking about Ikkyu and his experience in the monastery was that there was a lot of homosexual love going on in the monastery. And the idea is that there's nothing wrong with there being homosexuality, except that they were supposed to be celibate.

[02:13]

And I didn't talk about the other side, which were the cleaning ladies that they had, which is what they called their women, who would serve them in various ways, capacities, and often have their children. But that was also a part of that culture. But it's also important to point out and differentiate between homosexuality and the sexual harassment of the abbots and the novices that came in. So there was that aspect of it too. It wasn't just that it was homosexual love, it was the fact that there was sexual harassment And also, there was certainly, I would think, what we call child molestation, because these boys were very young when they came in. So I wanted to make sure that I talked about it a little more. The other thing I wanted to mention, and I've been thinking about it since we started, when talking about how did we get from these lovely Buddhist sutras into these very concise Zen dialogues, was that

[03:23]

Buddha envisioned his religion or his way for everyone. One didn't need to meditate, one could chant, or one could just believe in the precepts, and it was a very inclusive philosophy and religion. But Zen is really for people who want to meditate, so that's an important difference. Also, I mentioned, and I don't think I mentioned it for Hakuin, maybe I did, for IQ, a little bit of clinical diagnosis. And I did that not for the purpose of categorizing, I guess it was the obsessions that Hakuin had, but more for thinking about the way things look to us today and the way people worked them out then. You know, he had these terrible obsessions, fears, anxieties, and we didn't have any medications, and there weren't very many psychiatrists who had licenses at that time.

[04:29]

So he found this very intense way to practice with these difficulties. Also, people seemed interested a little bit in when the women had gone to Japan, and I wanted to mention that Blanches trying to plan another trip, this time a trip for men and women. And so if you're interested in making that kind of trip, having that kind of practice period in Japan, Blanche, in San Francisco Zen Center, you can ask me about it and I'll put you in touch with her. And we have another class coming up. Do we have somewhere we have the schedule of when that starts? I think on the 26th or 23rd of March. Yeah, Prajnaparamita class is coming up for Alan. So that'll be five classes. And Alan and Lori are teaching that. And that's Thursday, March 24th. That one starts, just in case you wanted to know and didn't get the newsletter.

[05:33]

And you're also teaching a class that's something related to this topic. When will that be? Do you know? Maybe next year. I don't know. The anti-words is striking now. But there will be a history of Zen, of course, at some point. Can I just say one little thing about these classes? The more that happened not on Thursday, I'd be so grateful. I don't work on Thursday nights, and I hope I never lose that job. Yes. Well, just mention it in the evaluation in terms of preferred times if people want to put that down. Okay, what else? Where was I? Then, you asked me about the Absolute, didn't you? You asked me about the Absolute. And the easiest way to describe it is the Christian term, which is God.

[06:38]

We don't say that so much in Buddhism, It's kind of the same thing, same concept. We kind of have an allergy to the idea of God. Although there's a very interesting book, if you're interested, by D.T. Suzuki on mysticism, Christian and Buddhist, which talks about the connection between the concept of absolute and God. Okay, any questions on any of these various spin-offs? The question of celibacy, or there was supposed to be celibate in the monastery and all this stuff was going on, it reminds me of the other precepts that are Not dismissing the exploitation of young flesh.

[07:51]

Yes, well that was just one part of the hypocrisy that IQ was so upset about. The glorifying oneself and putting down others was big. That's breaking the precepts of slandering. The fact that we mentioned the fact that during these wars, you know, the priests were surviving very nicely and people were really hungry. So there was a kind of a stealing in that way. He said, they're yakuza.

[09:20]

They're mafia. You know, it's interesting that they have adopted that style, though, because it goes back to the samurai days. So the yakuza look like the Zen priest. But you do see the Zen priest in the pleasure quarters, and you kind of wonder, well, what are you doing here, you know, walking around the geisha places? But that monk that we saw in the train station was quite a disgrace, and people were kind of looking the other way as they saw him talking to us because here we were guiding, you know, really observing this disgraceful behavior and thinking that this is the way monks... Well, you probably got him drunk. That's another story, Charlie. Actually, I wonder about that, you know, within the within the establishment, so to speak, of the monastery, let's say you have someone who's an alcoholic or or something that is too much and it's out of line.

[10:21]

What happens if somebody's thrown out? I mean, obviously this changes historically, but say like today, let's say there was someone who was... Yeah, I think they don't get thrown out unless they really, really do something disgraceful. I mean, isn't that your sense, Peter? Yeah. And I think that alcoholism is pretty common. not only in the monastery, but throughout Japan, and it's not being treated in the same way we respond to it here. And I think it's really, from my experiences, I think that it's not that uncommon. So, is moderate drinking, or even light drinking, considered okay for a Zen? Yes. Well, it is over here. I mean, we have the precept that we're not going to misuse, don't we? That's sexuality. Well, at my marriage, when my wife and I were talking to Mel about drinking champagne, and whether we should be wearing our ruckus suits or not, he suggested we take our ruckus suits off.

[11:30]

While we're drinking? In case you spilled. We almost never serve. alcohol here, but there's something in it that's, The Little Hedges is like, it doesn't quite say you should never. Right. You should refrain. Don't sell the wine delusion. Don't misuse intoxicants. Mel typically talks about the media that can be intoxicating and other things, not necessarily But that's different for people who have problems with it, right? The thing about precepts is you don't want them to be so rigid that they can't, so inflexible.

[12:36]

But you don't want them to be so flexible that you can just rationalize yourself into doing anything, too. It's kind of a balance. Yeah, I think that's right. There's a real dynamic tension between repressing yourself completely and imitating what you think is the idea of being holy and living your life in a way that you're somewhat natural, you know, and paying attention. I think that's a good thing about seeking for balance is that you can't fall back on precepts to live your life for you. Right. It's as if that you have to chew them up and swallow them and then become part of you and then you live your life from that way of handling. Exactly. It's not like you keep the list around to refer to. I don't anyway. I have another question, sort of, which came up just now when you were talking about the last time.

[13:41]

And also, when Alan talked about his trip to Thailand, just that I want to know, where are the women? Where are the women when we're talking about ancestors? Yes. When we're talking about monasteries. Yes. Like he was talking about the women's role nowadays. Yeah. I was just shocked. Yeah. I hadn't... Of course it was... It's really deteriorated. Actually there were more nuns during the time of the Buddha and since in the last couple centuries. It's really deteriorated. And in the women's practice period we made a point of stopping in one of the last nunneries that Asoto practiced places for women in Nagoya. And there were men teachers there. They were sitting in class with men teachers.

[14:43]

And the Buddha... They're the cleaning men. Touche. I kept the squirt gun in case you're cold. Got two-pointed. In any case, the precepts are different that the women took. From the time of the Buddha, there was sexual discrimination. So, he said that even the highest ranking nun was below the lowest male monk. And there were all kinds of different rules for becoming part of the women's sangha. And there's a lot that's been written on it, and we're trying to figure it out now. And there are some women who have put together chants of women ancestors. And I do have at least one to talk about. But, you know, it's something that's interesting to me today, because if we look at the women who are very powerful teachers, who are known publicly, Tony Packer, and Joko Bax, they've both left the tradition in that they have a really hard time finding their voice in working in that hierarchy that's been passed on.

[15:57]

So maybe that women get lost in the historical counting because they're outside of what's being tracked, they're outside of the hierarchy. I also think for myself that it's something like I tend to go for male teachers. Well, we really tend to idealize it. We've all been trained that way. That sort of comes out of this role. Yeah. Heavy tradition. Yeah. Yeah. So there are no, sorry, so there are no known women teachers, sort of in the mainstream tradition? Not in the Zen tradition. If you read, and I just got a book out sort of scouring it, the Terigata, which is the elder women's verses from very early Buddhism.

[17:01]

They refer to, by name, the women who were teachers of the time that collected a large group of women around them but none of them are known to us and I don't know of any in the Zen tradition other than the references to the tea ladies and Satsu who I'll talk about tonight just a tiny bit but I have looked for them and that was something sometime again I think after a woman sitting or sometime we'll show the women's practice period video in which we sort of struggle with that as part of what we went there for. But there are contemporary women teachers who have been given the seal of approval from teachers. That's right. And the teachers they received transmission from were not male Zen centers. They were Zen centers that had men and women, and the women happened to be the ones who had the attainment and are carrying on the lineage.

[18:03]

very good book or two out. So, as Mel has said at lectures, that true, the history is male-dominated, and looking around at Berkley's and Centerford, certainly there's lots of women in very prominent positions, and the thing that we can hope for is as the generations go by, there'll be more and more transmitted or just prominent in the practice. Yeah, it's certainly in process, and it's not something we ever talk about either. Okay. Great. I was curious about something you said last time. I can't quite remember all of it, but it had to do with, I don't know if it was Ikkyu or it was some figure who was said to have paid respect to women's genitals. Yes, as a source of everything. Yes, and I wondered what you were trying to tell us when you brought that up.

[19:12]

Well, he was a womanizer. But he also had a deep respect for women, so I was trying to present both sides of that. It seems to me, from what he said, that he had a deep respect for women's genitals. Well, what he said was, what was said to him, what the story was about, was not that. It was about that he walked by a woman bathing, and he just, he saw her bathing, and rather than stop and look, he just bowed and went on. And someone said to him, you know, that was an unusual thing for you to do, to bow to that woman who was naked. What was that about? Most men would have ogled her. And he said, I was bowing to her genitals as a source of all Buddhas and all life. It's fortunate that we've progressed to where it's possible to think of bowing to the woman as another person, rather than as a source of life. A lot of these stories, just this time when you told the story again, I suddenly realized there's a painting done over and over again in Western culture of Susanna and the Elders, where the old men are obling Susanna, taking a bath.

[20:41]

And it's this whole sin thing, woman in sin. And she is so pretty, you can't, you know, she's always painted problem in the mind of the viewer is to, you know, what's the sin here? But it's interesting that the culture brings through the story on the one hand of the ikkyu bowing and that's enough of it and there's not a big deal made out of that. So I'm struck with how a lot of these stories aren't used as big, they're used as instruction or as a kind of note but not as a huge literature or being moralized. Yeah, they're just little tidbits. And different ones strike people differently, so you kind of have a choice of what you relate to. But it's certainly very interesting in that culture, in Japanese culture, that there isn't this concept of sin. They had to learn that from the Christians who came in.

[21:44]

And they don't have the same shame about the body. So last week we talked about the embodiment of the way that teachers manifest and how their own life circumstances would quite naturally affect the subject of their teaching and the way they taught and discuss the lives of Dogen Zenji and Ikkyu. And I began the discussion of Hakuin Zenji's life and ended with Hakuin riddled with anxiety. But I'm going to go back over just read very quickly what I said last week about Hakuin so we can sort of start with him again. That his family ran an inn and that he was a child prodigy and he had memorized everything, all the nursery rhymes, everything he heard by the age of three. Although he didn't start talking or walking until he was two and then all of a sudden he burst forth with all of this.

[22:45]

And they felt that he was a religious prodigy very early on because of his first sight of the seashore and the sight of the endlessly rolling waves brought him to tears. He was just three or four. And he accompanied his mother to many, she was, I think, a Pure Land Buddhist, and he accompanied her to these sermons and then he would come back and amaze his family by repeating verbatim the sermons that he had heard. But he did say that He became very fearful and by age 10, he had, after hearing these sermons about hell and damnation, you know, in the Pure Land School, he, just at the sound or the sight of a fire, he would become so anxiety ridden that he could not be calmed. And then his mother taught him about using prayers to calm himself. And that's when I said, you know, it started to look like he had an anxiety disorder at about that time.

[23:47]

And he was so terrified of hell. And she told him that his guardian deity was this tension, something to do with the hour of the ox that he was born. So he would get up every morning as a child, he would get up every morning in the middle of the night at two o'clock to offer his respects because that was the hour of the ox. and do his prayers and his bowing to prevent himself from falling into hell and damnation. And then he brought in, he decided that he also needed to bring in a cannon as well. And he continued to be fearful and anxious about being damned and ending up in hell. And so he decided the only thing that would save him from this was to have a religious life, completely religious life, and devote himself to this. And by the time he was 11 or 12, he was climbing up into the mountains and staying there and praying all day. And by the time he was 13, he got both of his parents to agree that he could be ordained.

[24:50]

And he was sent to the local monastery, Shoenji, which was the one that I showed when I was reading Hakuen Zenji's poem in that video that we saw. And it was restored by his great-uncle, and that's why it was very close to his home, and he was sent there to be ordained, and it was later the temple that he taught at as well. So he was sent to Shoenji for ordination, and after his ordination ceremony, very shortly after the abbot fell ill, fell ill, so he was sent to another temple to continue his training, where he studied sutras mainly. And because of his disappointment in the second temple, he decided to move on and strike out on his own, kind of the Zen hobo, you know, they go on their pilgrimage and wander all around. At this time he was about 19 years old, and he set off to find his true teacher, and he was very strong. I mean, that's what the literature reflects, very physically, very hardy.

[25:54]

And while he was traveling, he came across much literature, Zen literature. And one of the stories that really affected him, like these early sermons, was the story of Ganto. And Ganto was a very well-known Chinese monk who was attacked by bandits. And in his moment of death, he shouted so loudly that he could be heard for miles around when these bandits were killing him. And when Haakon heard this story, it's funny, it's sort of like the glass half empty or half full, his reaction again was to be anxiety stricken, because that was his tendency towards anxiety, that a man as holy as Ganto would be fearful at the moment of death. He said, what can this practice mean if he was fearful? When I hear that story, I think about the power of Ganto's shout and how his practice was concentrated in this. death shout that he released at this moment. But anyway, when Haakon heard it, he became even more fearful again, and he decided that he really needed to get on with it.

[27:03]

But it was so terrifying that the practice didn't support Ganto. He actually left the practice at that time, and he began studying poetry. But he still became fearful. The fear wouldn't leave him. So he realized that the poetry was not going to hold up and prevent him from going to hell. So he used his belief in the spirits to guide him. And he was a very superstitious man. So he was in his poetry teacher's library and he reached out and asked the spirits to guide him. And he pulled a book out and it was a Zen book. And so he opened it up to a certain page and it's amazing the page completely matched his kind of lunacy which was about these Chinese monks facing each other. This one Chinese monk who practiced so ferociously that he would keep a sharp stick to poke in his thigh if he fell asleep. And so now Hakuin's practice began to coalesce.

[28:07]

The intensity of it. He was very tough physically And he had these fears, and he was becoming a little bit of a fanatic. So he now began, as if he hadn't been... Mild fanatic. Mild fanatic. So he continued this pilgrimage to many temples. When he heard a lecture on realization, he was so taken by it that he burned all his calligraphy and his art and his poetry and didn't actually paint again for 40 years. He was a very extreme man. I would say his intense energy and his terrible fear made him unbalanced at this time in his life. So he immersed himself in this Koan Mu, which he came across in his practice, and he began a fast that was part of a day and night meditation vigil. For seven days he vowed to not eat or probably not to drink water either, knowing him, and then he was just going to sit for seven days straight without sleeping.

[29:14]

And about halfway during this retreat, it was reported that he felt his body and mind drop away. And his response was to yell, Ganto is right here. He was sitting in a little part of the monastery when he let out this tremendous yell, Ganto is right here. And of course, probably knowing Hakuin and the story, the monks knew the story of Ganto, they thought he was being murdered. So it caused quite a big uproar. And he became very inflated with this enlightenment experience and went around to various teachers and they told him this was just a little one. But he thought, you know, in all of heaven and earth, this was the biggie. Well, we always say that. Yeah. Well, that's what Aiken Roshi said when he came here. Not enough, not yet, not yet enough. That's what a good teacher says to you. Well, he continued Following the teaching and at a Zen lecture, he met a very wild and unkempt monk named Kaku, and when he heard Kaku speak, he realized this man was on to something, and this man introduced Hakuin to his root teacher, Shouju.

[30:24]

And the first meeting that Hakuin had with Shouju is very much like the story of Lehmann Pong and Hermit Kuyen, and I will tell you how it went. Hakuin gave Shōjū a well-composed poem of his enlightenment, which was a tradition in these monasteries. When you had had an enlightenment experience in your meeting with your teacher and your dokusan, you would offer some beautiful piece of calligraphy. And Shōjū took it with his left hand and crumpled it up without reading it and moved his right hand towards him as if he was going to slug him. and said, putting aside book learning, what have you seen? And Hakun replied, if I'd seen anything to report, I'd spit it out, and then proceeded to make a noise, you know, gagging on Shoju's hand as if he was going to vomit on him. And then Shoju said, all right, how about Mu? And Hakuen very arrogantly said, no hand or foot can touch it.

[31:26]

And Shouju immediately grabbed Hakuen's nose and gave it a sharp twist. And he laughed and said, I've found a place to put my hands and feet. So Hakuen at this point conceded defeat and became Shouju's disciple. So, again, he continued his extreme approach to realization, not eating, not sleeping. He pushed himself past even his own considerable endurance, because he was very strong. And one day he was totally exhausted and he was out for a round of begging. And he was so out of it, and he was so engrossed in his whole process, that he didn't notice that the people at the house he was at were telling him to get the hell out of there. So he just was sort of standing there with his bowl out. And someone came out and beat him quite soundly with a broom on the head and knocked him unconscious. And this is the story. And when he awoke, When he regained consciousness, he had a very deep enlightenment experience and began laughing and clapping in the streets.

[32:29]

And all the villagers cleared a path for him, saying he'd surely gone mad. But he did return to shoju and did have this enlightenment validated. But the teacher said, it's time for you to return to your health and sent him to a healer up in the mountains who was reportedly 200 years old, and this was just perfect for Hocklin, who had all of these superstitions. And I'm going to describe this course of treatment that he had as well as his symptoms. Here are the description of Hakuin's symptoms, which he calls Zen sickness. And actually, at his Shoenji, there's about 70 graves of the monks who came to practice with Hakuin who died of Zen sickness because of the intensity of the practice that he advocated. Burning fevers and splitting headaches, a lower back that feels as if it was wrapped in ice, watery eyes ringing in the ears, dread of nature when in sunlight, deep depression when in the dark, troubled thoughts during the day, bad dreams at night, listlessness, exhaustion, poor digestion, and terrible chills.

[33:41]

What new bandwidth? He skipped one system, right? I'm sure we qualify him here for somatoform disease and manic depression and everything else. But anyway, the healer taught on something called Nikon, and this is a kind of meditative self-hypnosis cure, which I don't know, it'd probably be worth trying nowadays. He concentrated his energy on the hara spot two inches below the navel. When this spot became warm and radiated energy, he also was to visualize an exquisitely colored, fragrant lump melting on the top of his head and filtering down through his entire body, purifying and healing him. And it took him a year or two to get his health back. And after a couple of years, he was healed of his zen sickness. And, of course, he began his intense training again, only to repeat the cycle of sickness followed by the Nikon cure, which he had to take several times, I'm sure, during his life, because he just was a maniac.

[34:44]

At the age of about 31, he was called home for his father's death, and he discovered that Shoenji had fallen into ruin. And he actually installed himself as the abbot of Shoinji, the temple that you saw in the video. And the roof was gone, there really weren't any more floors, and it was pouring rain, and he conducted his own ordination ceremony as abbot, and took over and put the place back together. And it was at this time that he took the name of Hakuin, which had something to do with his proximity to Mount Fuji. It means concealed in white. hidden in the clouds and snows. And at this time he was beginning to have a reputation as a teacher and he was in fact offered, well he became shuso at a temple in Kyoto, but he left all that to go back to Shoenji and have that be a home and community temple. So when he returned to Shoinji, he began to gather disciples, including many lay people, both men and women, monks and nuns.

[35:52]

And his reputation was greatly enhanced by the story of the girl and the baby, which was that a young girl got herself into trouble in the village. And rather than tell her father she had a boyfriend, she said, Hakuin did it. And so a father came storming in with daughter and baby, and they She said, you know, he did it, and he said, is that so? And they handed him the baby, and he took the baby. And he took that baby with him for two years, and she finally recanted and said, it wasn't him, it was my boyfriend. And they came back and said, this isn't your baby. And they took the baby back and said, is that so? And this whole episode, while he was very reviled during the time that they thought the baby was his, and he just went around, took the baby on his begging rounds, and took the baby with him everywhere he went. And so after this girl confessed that he was not the father, this really enhanced his reputation.

[36:55]

But unlike Ikkyu, according to all accounts, he had no sexual partners, and remained celibate throughout his life. But he did teach that sexual activity with consciousness was a form of meditation in action. And he often assigned the koan about the old woman and the monk. And I'm not sure if I've mentioned that one in here, which is that there was an old woman who supported a monk for 20 years. He had a hut. And at the end of the 20 years, she kind of wanted to test him. So she got the prettiest girl she could, young woman there, and sent her in there to let the monk know that she was very interested in having an encounter with him. And he said something like, alas, this tree has withered and has no life in it. And so the girl went back and told the old woman this. And she went after him with a broom and beat him out of the hut and burnt the hut down and told him to get out, that his practice had absolutely no meaning. And she never wanted to see him again. And he was just a sham.

[37:56]

So that's a koan that he would assign, which is, how do we understand that? What is it that we practice with? If we're not practicing with our human feelings, what is it that we're practicing with? So that koan was passed on for the monks and the laypeople alike. Are you saying that the monk should have had an encounter with this woman? That's an interesting koan, but I don't think that's what it necessarily means. It was about how he handled it. It wasn't a problem for him. He had no passion. It wasn't like he was working with something. And in the way he spoke to her, he didn't have enough regard for her. So there was something really almost inhuman about the way he dealt with the situation. And I think that was the problem. Not that she... I think if he had lusted after her and chased her around the hut, That might have been a problem for the old woman too, but he did not pass her test. So, unlike Ikkyu, who never gave a certificate of enlightenment to anyone, Haku and Zenji gave more of these Inka to laymen and women, monks and nuns, than any other Zen teacher in Japanese history.

[39:11]

And while the first half of his life had been devoted to this obsession with his own salvation, the second half of his life was devoted completely to nurturing others. His intense spirit continued, and evidenced by all these graves around the Zendo. who fell ill while they were practicing with him. But his do-or-die achieve realization Zen became moderated by his view that Zen training must include fits of ecstatic, blissful, and side-splitting laughter. One of his more documented disciples was Satsu, a 16-year-old girl. And Satsu's father first came to Hakuin because he was most concerned about her. She didn't have any suitors, I guess. She was a bit of a wise-ass and no one wanted to marry her. And he told Hakuin the story of how Satsu had taken a sutra book and sat on it.

[40:14]

And when her father said, what are you doing with the holy sutra book? It was a little bit like Ikkyu's answer, which is, well, why is this holier than I am? You know, Hakuin, that great teacher, you know, says that everything has Buddha nature, so what's the problem with my sitting on the sutra book? So Satsu's father told Hakuin this, and he said, yeah, well, your daughter sounds pretty sharp, and you should send her to study with me. So he sent her a poem. And she came in for her interview, one of her interviews, And he asked her, have you grasped all of space? She drew a circle with her hand in the air. And he said, that's only half of it. She said, you're too slow. I'm finished. And the other thing she did was she asked him to explain some complicated sutra or something to her. And he started it to talk. And he got about halfway through his sentence. And she walked out of the interview. And he said, oh, you've made a fool of me again.

[41:17]

He did have a good sense of humor. And the other incident that's documented about Satsu was a monk testing her and coming up to her and saying, within a rubbish heap, a white rock is smashed. What is the principle? And she looked at him, and he was holding a tea bowl. And she took it, and she broke it. sent the guy running out. So she was really up for any confrontation. And she did want to become a nun and stay with Haakon as a disciple. But he encouraged her to get married. And according with, his idea was according with the male-female principle, that she would have a wonderful life. And she did get married, eventually. And I guess she calmed down, and now she had some suitors. And she had many children, and many grandchildren. And there's another story about her as a grandmother.

[42:17]

And one of her grandchildren has died, and she's crying, weeping, and her neighbor says, how can you be weeping? You know, you have a Certificate of Enlightenment for Haakon Senshi. She goes, you know, you stupid ass! You know, I'm not just crying for my grandchild, I'm crying for all the suffering, and all the suffering children. So she continued in her same spirit throughout her life. And another one of his female disciples was a little old lady who lived in his town, a lay woman, who came to him for teaching and went home and had an amazing enlightenment experience. And came back to him and said, Amita, the Buddha, has engulfed my body. The whole universe radiates. And he looked at her, testing her, and said, does it shine up your asshole? And she said, she looked at him, she says, you don't know anything about enlightenment and just gave him a big poke at which point he broke out laughing and certified her enlightenment. So he was very popular with people, with the lay people and country people because of his rude humor.

[43:28]

And had a wide appeal to the serious Zen students as well. So, his three essential principles were the great ball of doubt, which was sitting with this koan, the great root of faith, which was not moving, certainly believing that this awakening was possible, and the fierce tenacity of purpose, which he clearly demonstrated. And his motto was, meditation in the midst of activity is a billion times better than meditation in stillness. And his own teacher, Shoju, once told him, if you can maintain your presence of mind in a city street teeming with violent activity, in a cremation ground amidst death and destruction, and in a theater surrounded by noise and distraction, then and only then are you a true practitioner of Zen. So I think those are really good words for us in that we come and think sometimes that our practice is in this very quiet and protected zendo.

[44:33]

Now, it was interesting for me, I was reading about a number of root teachers, and the one I was most attracted to, out of, you know, maybe 10 or 15, was Bunan, who actually was the root teacher of shoju, who was therefore Hakuin's grandfather in a sense, in terms of his teacher. And he said, it is easy to keep things at a distance, It is hard to be naturally beyond them. And I think that's what we're saying about the precepts. You know, it's easy to have these rigid rules that you follow, where you try to make your practice very holy. And so what he's saying, it's easier to keep things at a distance than it is to be among them, and to be natural with them, and be naturally beyond them. He said, fire is something that burns, water is something that wets, a Buddha is someone who practices compassion. It's very simple. All of the rules and all of the ancient sutras and everything else doesn't matter.

[45:37]

If you just practice compassion, that's enough. Grace, you mentioned back a little bit about him taking the child. and the misunderstanding around that. Like, would you say that it's alright to allow that kind of thing, but take the child, because it doesn't matter what someone thinks, because you go to the greater good, where you take the person and love them in it. You don't care about your reputation. That's right. Exactly. I mean, that's my interpretation of what's going on, is that he did what was right for the situation. But do you think that it's possible in that same vein to perhaps say something, and of course you can't control what the other person's going to think,

[46:39]

But at least you can come from your own center and say, you know, I didn't, I didn't, not in a defensive way, but just say, I didn't do this. And if they choose not to believe, that's fine. But at least you have the integrity of knowing that you attempted to, you know, communicate that kind of information. Well, the one thing about these stories is you can't imitate them. You can't imitate them. You need to do what's right in any situation. And this is what he did, and actually turned out okay. I mean, if the woman hadn't recanted, I wonder, you know, what the history of Hakkoen might have been. Yeah, I think it's beautiful. Yeah. Is that your arm just... No, I just... Okay, yeah. So... When Ikkyu started this use of calligraphy and drawing as Zen teaching, Hakuin brought it to its peak. And in a sense, Hakuin's work is said to be anti-art, just as Zen is anti-words.

[47:45]

Mistakes and omissions were not corrected. The work was not supposed to be art or beautiful. There could be cat tracks or ink spots on the page, and he would often outline whatever he was going to draw before he drew it. And so there would be sort of a three-dimensional effect in his work, but he wouldn't erase. In the last three years of his life, and he kind of grumbled in his own grumpy way, some doctor, he can't see them in three days, I'll be gone, which was, you know, the usual thing with Zen teachers, that they could predict and control the time of their leaving. And it was true, he was gone in three days, and he died in his sleep with a big yell. Hakuin was an intense teacher, at first perhaps too much so, but he matured into a teacher for the community. And as I said, the lower classes loved his rude humor, and he stood up in many circumstances to the ruling class and visiting samurai. And he offered his teaching to both men and women, whether they'd chosen the monastic life or not.

[48:49]

And although he had some connection to the Zen community, he was recognized and he could go off and give lectures. And he was very famous during his time. He stayed in his home temple and continued his work within his community. And actually turned his temple into a storehouse for times of drought and hunger. So maybe we could just take a look at, if you still have, the song of meditation that he wrote. One of the things I like about this song of Zazen or Song of Meditation is how concise it is. It's got the whole story on one page. It starts, all beings are from the very beginning Buddhas. It is like water and ice. Apart from water, no ice. Outside living beings, no Buddhas. And here is that familiar theme which you'll see throughout Zen literature about water and ice and the reference to Buddha nature. And not knowing it is near, they seek it afar.

[49:53]

What a pity! It is like the one in the water who cries out for thirst. It is like a child of a rich house who is strayed away among the poor. This is the theme that I talked to you of. It's sort of an essential theme for me in Zen practice, which is, it's right here. Right here, right in this moment. I was smuggling donkeys. Yeah, the donkeys were right there. What are you looking for? So then he goes into sort of the Buddhist theology, the cause of the circling through the six worlds, is that we're on the dark path of ignorance. And he's talking about the precepts here, giving immorality and other perfections, taking the name, repentance, discipline, and the many other right actions, all come back to the practice of meditation, which is what I was saying last week about Zen being, and again this week, Zen being really rooted in doing the meditation. And then this wonderful idea of merit, which we know there really isn't any, but by the merit of a single sitting, he destroys innumerable accumulated sins.

[51:05]

Later on in the line, how much more he who turns within and confirms directly his own nature is a lot like Uchiyama Roshi's self settling upon itself in the reading I gave you on that. Thus his own nature is no nature, such has transcended vain words." This is beyond, again, the theme, this is beyond intellectual or analytical description. There's one wonderful line in here, straight runs the way, not two, not three. And I've asked so many people, you know, what is this not two, not three? What does that mean? We often hear not one, not two. But finally, I found something that I hope explains that line, not two, not three, which is there are three things, cause, effect, and conditions. And this is to say, it isn't cause, effect, and conditions that makes karma, it's all one. the cause and the effect and the conditions are all manifesting as one. So that line is about coming from emptiness and not the differentiated cause and effect.

[52:13]

So I hope you'll enjoy having the song of meditation. It's not something I've seen much here, which is why I wanted to include it. Any questions or thoughts about it? Well, now we go to a very different teacher. But before I do, it's probably a good time to stop and let you fill out the evaluations and write your little koan, or poem, or whatever you're going to say as we have a chance to do this at the end of the class. So we'll take about 10 minutes to fill out an evaluation. And the pencils are behind me. quite a human maniac, and passed on a lot of wonderful drawings and helped a lot of people along the way, but you could see the so-called flaws very clearly.

[53:15]

Okay. Ryokan lived from 1758 to 1831, so he was quite as old, maybe about in his 70s when he died. And he was born in one of the northern provinces, and his father was the head of a village, and he was to inherit that position. His father was a Shinto priest, which he also would have moved right into, and his father was also a poet. His mother, by report, was a gentle and loving person. And Ryokan himself was a very studious and quiet boy, whose idea of fun was to sneak away from the village festivities, which he was supposed to participate in because of their position, to read Confucius under a tree. That was fun for him. But supposedly as a child, he never told lies and he never argued.

[54:19]

And after a quiet and mostly uneventful childhood, he had a brief period where he was a carousing party animal. And it was said in his village that if you had a daughter, you better hide her when he was around. And there's some story about a very raucous night with the Geshe and how there was something about that night that, like the Buddha, where he finally decided to walk away from it all. So when he was about, this happened when he was about 17, he decided to leave home to become a Buddhist priest. And partly because he felt terribly unsuited to the job of becoming the headman of the village, and he had seen an execution there, or some punishment, and he just hated having any kind of confrontation argument, knew he just was not up to it. As it turned out, the position went to his brother, who was even more unsuited, and lost all the family's money. a wreck anyway, but Ryokan just couldn't do it. He trained at a local temple for several years, and I think it was more Confucian or Sutra reading anyway, but he met his teacher Kokusen when Kokusen was visiting the local temple and formally asked to become his disciple.

[55:37]

And he moved from this northern province to what is now Okayama province. And like Ikkyu's teacher, Kaso, and Hakuin's teacher, Shujo, Kokusen was the real thing. He was sincere and down-to-earth, insisting that his style of Zen meant piling up stones and hauling dirt. The practice of Zen was to be realized amidst one's daily life. At the time that he was studying with Kokusen, Ryokan became enamored of the writings of Dogen Zenji. and especially to Dogen's four great virtues, charity, kind words, good works, and empathy. And at the age of 32, Ryokan was presented with his Certificate of Enlightenment, with his Inca, and was made head monk at the monastery, and was in fact the Dharma heir of Cuxin. But the following year, Kokusen died, and Ryokan began his wanderings, which really continued all of his life.

[56:44]

Mostly he stayed out of the cities except for one time, that's reported anyway, when he went to Daitoku-ji, as we talked about Daitoku-ji and Ikkyu's relationship to that big temple complex, where he was thrown out. He went to see one teacher there, and the teacher, they said, was retired, and they threw him out, managed to sneak in finally and meet with his teacher. And while he was on his wanderings, his mother died and his father committed suicide. And this was something that really affected him throughout his life. His father committed suicide in Kyoto, had gone there and thrown himself in the river. But even though he was this dharma heir of a fairly famous teacher, Kokusen, who was highly regarded, he didn't wish to become the abbot of any temple. He liked to just wander, and besides, there was so much conflict at that time between the parts of Soto Zen, the Sojiji and Eheji factions, that he knew he would be drawn into this conflict and he couldn't deal with it, so he never took over a temple.

[57:53]

He just didn't want to be drawn in and he did not have the temperament for it. And so, he said, I have returned to my former village, and falling ill, I rest at a local inn. I listen to the sound of the rain. One row, one bowl, are all I have. Becoming a little stronger, I lift my weak body, burn incense, and sit in meditation. All night, rain falls sadly, as I dream of my lost pilgrimage of past years. Long ago, I renounced the world to seek a true master. Returning to my native village after 20 years, my only possession is one robe, one bowl. I ask after my old friends. Most have become names on moss-covered tombstones. I have the other poems that you might want to turn to that I actually passed out. These are some extras in the sheets I gave you. And these are about his practice in the mountains, these poems.

[58:56]

I sit in formal meditation. In the stillness by the empty window, I sit in formal meditation wearing my monk's surplice. Navel and nose in alignment, ears parallel with shoulders, moonlight floods the room. The rain stops, but the eaves drip and drip. Perfect, this moment. In the vast emptiness, my understanding deepens. Another one, these are just disconnected ones about his practice in the mountains. At night, deep in the mountains, I sit in meditation. The affairs of men never reach here. Everything is quiet and empty. All the incense has been swallowed up by the endless night. My robe has become a garment of dew. Unable to sleep, I walk out into the woods. Suddenly, above the highest peak, the full moon appears. My life is poor, but my mind is so clear as I pass day after day in this grass hut. Like the little stream making its way through the mossy crevices, I too, quietly, turn clear and transparent.

[60:04]

So he had this very powerful practice by himself as a hermit, which is a little bit unusual. I know when I went to Daitoku-ji and we met with Matsunami Roshi, who actually practiced here with us in Berkeley and now is at a temple in Daitoku-ji, one of the visitors, like us, who was there, asked him about the tradition of hermits in Zen practice. like the traditions of the Indians, Indian hermits, East Indian hermits. And Matsunami said, we don't have hermits in Zen. We always practice together. But there is always the exception too. One of the things he's really remembered for, even though he was a hermit, was that he really loved people. And having him visit, everyone always felt better. But especially he was remembered for the way that he loved children. And one of his favorite games was playing dead.

[61:09]

And because he had studied in Zen temple so long, he really knew how to control his breathing. And the kids would cover him up with leaves and he would play dead. And every now and then he would, you know, go into one of his meditative trances where he would almost stop breathing and they would all become so frightened and yell, oh, Ryokan has died. He just loved doing that. And really getting into the play with the kids. And he did really get into the play with the kids. There was this wonderful story of him playing hide and seek and going off into a hut and spending the night there thinking the children were still looking for them and they were playing a trick on him and he'd gone in the hut and they decided they weren't going to look for him at all. So he spent the night in the hut and the next morning a woman came in to get something out of her shed and saw him crouch there and he said, shh, don't tell the children. And then there's the other story about a persimmon tree and how there was a little boy who couldn't reach the persimmons in the tree and how he climbed up and began to eat the persimmons and say, well, I have to make sure I get you a sweet one because it can be very tart, and lost himself eating persimmons.

[62:18]

And the child had to call up, don't forget to throw me down a persimmon. And then there's this wonderful poem that he wrote after the smallpox epidemic. When spring arrives, from every tip flowers will bloom, but those children who fell with last autumn's leaves will never return. So he had this wonderful love of nature as well, which he celebrated in his poems. When all thoughts are exhausted, I slip into the woods and gather a pile of shepherd's purse. If your hermitage is deep in the mountains, surely the moon, flowers, and crimson leaves will become your friends. And this is one of my favorites. The thief left it behind, the moon at the window. And now it's returning to its,

[63:19]

and someone had stolen his quilt or something, and he didn't have anything, and all that they had left him was the moon. And he had some wonderful relationships with families where he would come and go on his route, just stopping to do some work or some healing, and there are poems about that too. Torn and tattered, torn and tattered, torn and tattered in this life, food, wild vegetables from the roadside, the shrubs and bushes advance toward my hut. Often the moon and I sit together all night, and more than once I have lost myself among the wildflowers, forgetting to return home. No wonder I left the community life. How could such a crazy monk live in a temple? And it is not that I do not wish to mix with others, but living alone in freedom is a better path for me. I watch people in the world throw away their lives lusting after things, never able to satisfy their desires, falling into deep despair and torturing themselves.

[64:30]

Even if they get what they want, how long will they be able to enjoy it? For one heavenly pleasure, they suffer ten torments of hell. Binding themselves more firmly to the grindstone, such people are like monkeys frantically grasping for the moon in the water. and then falling into a whirlpool. How endlessly those caught up in the floating world suffer. Despite myself, I fret over them all night and cannot staunch my flow of tears. When I think about the misery of those in this world, their sadness becomes mine. Oh, that my monk's robe was wide enough to gather up the suffering people in this floating world. The other thing he would do for great fun was, he would, because he was a monk, he wasn't supposed to go to the festivities and the dances. So he would dress himself up as a woman. And he'd go down and dance and celebrate with the villagers.

[65:36]

And of course they would know who he was. And they would tease him, and he was very gullible, and say, oh, who is that lovely woman? She dances so well. And he would really throw himself into his, dancing. But, despite his great compassion and composure, he could also act out with the best of them. You know I chose him for that. I wasn't going to get somebody who was totally well behaved. There's a story of him invited to a fancy tea. I don't know if any of you have had or how many of you have had that powdered Japanese tea, the real thing that they serve over there. Yes, yes. Here, here. Some people develop a taste for it. I have not yet. But invited to a fancy tea, he spat it out, saying how awful it was, which is, you know, in these tea ceremonies, I mean, it would be like someone spitting in Zando, you know. Anyway, he spat it out. And then he picked his nose and tried to wipe it on the person next to him. So he was really quite a natural type.

[66:40]

Even though he was very peaceful and didn't fight like some of the other ones I spoke of. As he grew older, his calligraphy became quite famous. And people devised many schemes to get him to produce the calligraphy. And there's this wonderful story of a merchant who invited him over for tea and told him that a very famous artist was coming, and that's why all this paper and ink had been set out. And Rio Kahn couldn't resist all this fresh, clean paper and the ink and the brushes, so he brushed all this really beautiful calligraphy, which was just what the man wanted. But then people would begin to trick him, to try to trick him to get this calligraphy as it became very valuable. And so there's a story of his barber shaving only half of his face and his head, and telling him he wouldn't cut the other half until he produced some calligraphy. So he did produce the calligraphy, but then he left out some very important characters.

[67:43]

Barbara found out later and said, why did you do that? He said, well, you shortchanged me, so I shortchanged you. And he loved to play Go, but he was not a very good Go player. But he was very intense and he hated to lose. You know Go, it's a game, a Japanese game like chess. So he got into a big Go match and lost, and he was forced to write many poems. And he reproduced over and over again, because he was forced and he hated his defeat, this poem. Picking persimmons, my testicles are frozen by the autumn wind. He wrote it over and over again. He would like to do the calligraphy, but not when somebody was trying to make him do it. And then there was the other time when he got a ride on a pack horse up a mountain, and he was told it was 16 yen or whatever the money was at the time. And he didn't have any money, so he said, well, you can hit me 16 times on the head.

[68:50]

This was going to be some payment to the man whose pack horse it was. But he instead asked him for, yes, it was very simple in certain ways, and asked him for 16, I guess, 16 characters of calligraphy. That's the payment. But when he got older, even though he loved living in the mountains, he had to move closer to people. And he missed his little haunt in the mountains and was very sad about that. But because of this move in closer to a certain family that took care of him, the 70-year-old monk met and fell in love with a beautiful young Buddhist nun named Taishin. And she is the one actually who documented his life and why we know so much about Ryokan. Their relationship evidently was platonic, but it inspired much poetry between them, and she wrote about him. And this is some of their poetry. She wrote, was it really you I saw, or is this joy I feel only a dream?

[69:53]

And he answered, in this dream world we doze and talk of dreams. Dream on as much as you wish. And she wrote, here with you I could remain for countless days and years, silent as the bright moon we gazed at together. And he answered, if your heart remains unchanged, we will be bound as tightly as an endless vine for ages and ages. And at his deathbed, she wrote, we monastics are said to overcome the realm of life and death, yet I cannot bear the sorrow of our parting. And he answered, everywhere you look, The crimson leaves scatter one by one, front and back. And this is his death poem, which is traditional for Zen teachers to have a death poem. What will remain as my legacy? Flowers in the spring, the cuckoo in summer, and the crimson leaves of autumn. So he lived without the compativeness or the intensity or even the leadership in a certain way, and yet he did manifest his essential Zen through his open heart, his disdain for fame, and his devotion to living a natural life.

[71:05]

So that is pretty much all I had, and I thought maybe you could share some of your thoughts in Zen ways, or if you had other questions, we could do that now. One of the things that I like about this class and having done this is beginning to have some sense of the lineage. And I was remembering back at Rohatsu Sesshin, there was a memorial service for Suzuki Roshi person-to-person.

[72:14]

That it is person-to-person, generation-to-generation, and that it goes back thousands of years. I mean, hundreds of years. A couple thousand, anyway. It was quite overwhelming. It's interesting, you know, the sort of discrepancy between the anti-hierarchy and yet this connection, even so, to the ancestors. It's very personal. there's something that's transmitted that kind of goes beyond the countries of origin, these teachers of India, China, and Japan. And gender, I remember riding in the back seat of a car with Maureen Stewart, who was a woman Zen teacher, and she was driving, and I was in the back seat, and she was talking to me and looking in the rearview mirror, and I was like making this contact with her as she was driving.

[73:22]

It was a very... And it wasn't driving, or a woman, or... I didn't end up inside of any agency. I was practicing pseudo-style. But none of that mattered? No, none of it mattered. It was quite intimate. I like the many stories that you brought, Grace, and the references. I thought after the story also about the donkeys, I thought of one story that actually in just that week, I've been thinking about it, and it has brought up a lot.

[74:29]

It's not a Zen story, but it's a story that could be. It's about a man who thought he was a chicken. He was convinced that he was a chicken, and he was also very fearful, so he had to live in a hospital, in a mental institution. But he did work with a psychiatrist to try to get some relief, and actually what happened was he finally realized that he wasn't a chicken. The doctor was overjoyed, so he suggested, you know, why don't you leave? And so the man was okay with that, back to get his things and as he walked across the courtyard past the chickens that were picking their way across the yard there, the doctor was watching him and he just panicked and he ran. So when he came back to the doctor, the doctor said, so what happened? Do you think you're a chicken? The guy says, no, I'm absolutely relieved that I'm not a chicken.

[75:32]

I know this now. And he says, well, what happened? And he said, well, he was very terrified. He said, look, I know that I'm not a chicken, but does the rooster know this? It's hard to prove whether there's a cousin or not. The story, you know, it's an amazing story. It's a funny story. It's something to do with your colon. Yeah. What does it mean to you? It means a whole lot. I wish to hell people knew I wasn't a chicken. Because half the time I'm walking around going, I know I'm not a chicken. But that hang-up of identity or who you are, how you represent yourself, and then somebody thinks this or that. Other people's projections on you or something. Projections are just misunderstanding. I mean, you can kind of get caught up in this whole thing.

[76:34]

So, it's an interesting story to bring up. Yeah, we all have those favorites. So, I hope that other people have some of the things that they struggle with in their practice during the time that they're not sitting on their cushion. And I hope I hear some of them. When the Certificates of Enlightenment were given out, was there the idea, does the Certificate of Enlightenment supposedly mean that this person, the bearer of this certificate, was enlightened once and for all, for good, or simply that they just had enlightened experience? I think that in some way, my idea of it is, it was like a credential, that the Enlightenment had been significant enough to enable them to be a teacher, for example, or that they validated their experience, that they had the real thing.

[77:36]

So it was a teaching certificate. It was a teaching certificate. I think so, but I think not everybody who had them gathered disciples, but I think it could potentially be that. Just like people have teaching certificates now, don't necessarily teach. I think that that was a function. We have that now. We still have that, not in the form of the certificates, but of the way the male, for example, allows me to teach a class or ordains people as priests or people who get Dharma transmission and so on. There's a whole habit. So you have a certificate? No, I don't. I don't, but I have permission in a certain way. And that's what I said is sort of the contradiction between this idea of democracy And this hierarchy where the teacher makes his choice whether you agree or don't agree. The teacher says, these are the people who will teach. And that's the same... Universities, I mean... In a university, it's merit.

[78:37]

It's measurable, it's quantifiable in general. Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. This is more subjective. But there are transmission papers for the each holder. Yes, there are. Today, contemporary. Yeah. You mentioned in the beginning about something about people being thrown out if they didn't measure up in terms of, I guess, keeping your precepts. It would seem to me that... I said that I thought that happened very little. Yeah, I mean, it's like making mistakes and being less than perfect or less than holy would be would be the means to enlighten them, in a sense. Well, I sure think so. I mean, I'm betting on it. Yeah. I mean, I think if one thinks that they're too perfect, you know, or like that, you know, there's the other side to that.

[79:45]

Oh, yeah. And I think what I said and should clarify is I think it takes a hell of a lot to get kicked out of the practice nowadays. I mean, I think you'd have to be pretty outrageous to think people would more walk out than get kicked out. Yes, and it's like you could be in any stage of, I don't know about your practice, I don't know a thing about that, but you could be in any stage of so-called enlightenment and, you know, who's to know who's at a high stage or who's at the very lowest. The very lowest may be the most enlightened in fact. Well, but the teacher says he knows. The teacher does say he knows. The shadow knows. The teacher knows. I'm skeptical. Well, that's good. You have to work that out in your practice. What teacher do you accept and how much? There is a koan about that where one monk is asked, you know, do you accept everything that your teacher says?

[80:51]

He says half I do and half I don't. Yeah. It's like the story. It's not a river. It's better to question your teacher. Yeah?

[82:03]

Well, I had a koan that I thought of while I was working on this class, so I'll share that with you and maybe some more will come forth. Leaving home at 5 a.m., returning home at 9.30 this evening. Before resting, feeding the dogs. What is it now? Dog shit in the grooves of my Byram soles. Protesting an unjust reward for such merit. I search the yard and home for sticks to scrape it off. and sacrifice my kitchen sponge. My experience and where I am in my practice is about, God, I did all this good work and then I go home and my reward is that I get dog shit in my shoe and have to hunt around for some way to scrape it off and realizing that this practice is just about this practice and that there's no reward in looking for it. So, that's what I work with. That's a nice thought.

[83:08]

Well, I thought, you know, if we passed it on historically, it would hold up well, because there would be all these scholarly searching for what is a vibram soul? Yeah, what is a vibram soul? As we try to make some sense out of them that are passed on to us in the translation from the Chinese. I think straw sandals, at the most, will probably catch his attention. Yeah, right. I think that that was a good idea, the straw sandals. On my day for afternoons us and the meeting runs late my clients won't stop talking my partner needs In the zendo, I think about how I can't wait to get up because my legs hurt so much.

[84:33]

And when I'm in a meeting, I think how I can't wait to get to the zendo so I can do my practice. What did I ask you? I did my homework. Good. And I thought you said haiku, so I've hit it 575. That's fine. That's good. I said some poems or koans, so however you like. A leaf flutters down, I bow to it silently. Since it's there, I'm here. For me, I'm sort of an old hat and a beginner in the sense that I've been meditating for a long time. I got Zen mind, beginner's mind, as I was graduating from high school. But I've always done it alone. I go on backpacking trips alone, and my biggest A hermit. A hermit. My biggest enlightenment experiences, you know, or whatever, have been alone, you know, all by myself. I go to places no one has ever heard of when I backpack, so I know I'm hundreds of miles from the nearest human being and then, you know, just take my clothes off and dive into the river or look at the moon and there's the moon.

[85:40]

And so this month, just about a month ago, I started doing it with people at this Zen Dove. And I signed up for this class to see kind of the struggle was, well, maybe I shouldn't do it alone. Maybe I should do it with people. It's kind of inspired by my son. He's six years old and was interested in my meditating and sometimes come and try to imitate me. the story of Old Path, White Clouds. It's a biography of Buddha. You can read one chapter before he goes to sleep every night. And so he said, why don't you do it with people? So he's kind of been the nudge for me. I said, OK, I'll do it with people. It's been really interesting doing it with people. The first time I went there, I didn't know what I was doing, so I just kind of followed whatever the person did. Oh, you're supposed to fluff the pillow now. That kind of thing. So I sat in meditation, I went like this, and I realized about half an hour in, I can sit like this pretty easily, but this leg fell asleep.

[86:48]

And meditating by myself, it's never a problem, I just go like that. But everybody was so silent. I thought, what are the rules here? No one was making any noise. Maybe it's illegal, you know. Dharma police. Yeah, Dharma police. And so finally the woman next to me swallowed. I wasted about 10 minutes in my head going, well, should I move my leg or should I not move my leg? I don't know. I don't know where I am about meditating with people or not right now. I've always been a loner and a rebel, you know, I don't like... A renegade. A renegade, and I don't know if I like to... I'm not looking... My life is so overly social right now, from my point of view, with work and home and kids. I don't know if I want to join another community, particularly with politics and committees, you know what I mean?

[87:49]

So I'm not really in the market for more people in my life, particularly. On the other hand, it's kind of powerful, everybody in a room, meditating at the same time, too. It's different, I mean it's powerful when you're all by yourself in the middle of the woods too. Yeah, fortunately you don't have to choose either or. Yeah. You could do both if you liked. Yeah. There's a lot of people that come and sit here and they leave and nobody knows their name or they don't talk and there's no pressure to engage. So I can appreciate your wanting to like, want to cool off from all the various stimuli of family and work and all that. Yeah, I hope. Will you read that poem again, too? It was awfully fast. I haven't heard it. I don't know if it was very good. It was quick. 575. I remember in high school somebody telling me that's how haikus are supposed to go. That's new math. I'm a math teacher. Maybe that helps.

[88:51]

A leaf flutters down. I bow to it silently. Since it's there, I'm here. It's very nice. Thank you. You're the only one that's going to get an A in the classroom, Peter, because you did your homework. Well, I, too, did my homework. Oh, OK. See, here they come. Now we get the ones from Greece. I didn't write anything. I did find, however, a paragraph in the Berkeley Zen Center booklet, which I really liked, and I wanted to share it. It's very short. When Suzuki Roshi's wife, Oksan, came to visit us many years after his death, she saw his photograph on her way to our old zendo. She made a small bow and said, hi, I know you. And that seemed to be a very touching paragraph. Very sweet, thanks. You have something? Yeah. This poem won't make sense unless I put it into some kind of context.

[89:54]

I'm taking a class in transpersonal psych which I thought I really would enjoy and I found that it's really been kind of disconcerting and I leave feeling less grounded. Just for example, one day she was fluffing someone's aura. And things like that. And I've also gone through this, I won't call it a dark night of the soul, but just this period of lack of faith in urban Zen. That it's very easy for these poets and masters to gain serenity and have these peak experiences in the mountains and the remote valleys of Japan and China. But here, between Ashby and Shattuck, it's a whole other situation. And so I've come to really question, is this real?

[91:01]

Is what I'm doing real? And this class has helped. So anyway, for the transpersonal I happen to do a project and I've been searching frantically for this book, which I haven't had time to order because the project is soon due. So I've been going to used bookstores and I found a book today and it's Beyond Ego by Ken Wilber. And then I found this other book, Embracing Your Inner Critic. And then I found this other book, Buddhism Meets Science, which is a fairly new book, and I lost track of time. And I had dinner or late lunch before this, but I went by this eclair shop and I was determined to have an eclair and coffee before I came to Lausanne. Stuffing a chocolate-covered custard eclair into my mouth, gulping cappuccino, I wonder, is this Zen?

[92:09]

Pissing in the Safeway parking lot, I imagine, would a Zen master do this? Nodding off while sitting, I think, non-thinking, this is shoddy Za-Zen. Walking quietly from Zendo, I see a black cat. I contemplate, maybe this is Zen. Anybody else? It's not something I wrote. It's something I read. Something I read pretty often, actually. The sage keeps to the deed that consists in taking no action, and practices the teaching that uses no words. When his task is accomplished and his work done, the people all say, it happened to us naturally. I take no action, and the people are transformed of themselves. I prefer stillness, and the people are rectified of themselves.

[93:13]

I am not Madison, and the people prosper of themselves. I am free from desire, and the people of themselves become simple, like the uncarved block. One who excels in employing others humbles himself before them. This is known as the virtue of non-contention. This is known as making use of the efforts of others. Very nice. Which translation of the Taoism? C.D. Lau, Penguin, 1969. It's very nice translation. It's really the mother of our practice, isn't it? The influence of Taoism on The teaching of the Buddha as it came through time. Anything else? It coaxed a little bit out. I wrote this in another class. It was a Zen class and I dragged it out.

[94:14]

Well, you won't get credit for that. Turn inward to the heart's silent stream, a current in the vast surging sea. I think it made it sort of an idealization. What was it meaning to you at the time? Well, just parallels between the one and the whole. Being part of the whole. Your experience of it. Anybody else? I don't know how long you liked it. but I'm very new to this practice and I think this is just a little bit of an explanation of why I've come to it. Well, welcome. It's called When Death Comes. When death comes like a hungry bear in autumn, when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me and snaps the purse shut, when death comes like the measle pox,

[95:28]

when death comes like an iceberg between the shoulder blades. I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering, what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

[95:41]

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