I love to taste the truth and love to talk to its worth. Saturday I gave the first talk on this Tenzo Kyokun. So I already introduced it, I think. Maybe everybody wasn't there. This kind of shingi, which is practice-oriented talks by Dogen, are considered actually more important for Zen practitioners than Dogen's Shobo Genzo, which is more oriented toward understanding.

[01:03]

But this kind of fascicle, this Tenzo Kyokun, is about how you, not just how you practice in the kitchen, but how you practice your life. So people say, well, how do you practice your daily life as practice? So this Tenzo Kyokun Dogen tells us how practice and daily life are one. So in the last, the previous section, Dogen talks about, talked about, partly about the day, the schedule, how the Tenzo schedules and

[02:46]

gets the food from, gets the officers together to talk about the menus and so forth. And so he goes on and he says, by the way, I'm going to read. and talk, but you can also ask questions. So anytime, not in the middle of a sentence, but anytime something comes up for you as a question, see already. Yes? Oh, well there's a class of works called the Ehei Shingi and Kaz and I translated part of that and Okamura and Taiken translated the whole thing and it's in a book called Pure Standards for the Zen Community

[04:10]

I think we sell it in the bookstore, don't we? Yeah, we should sell it in the bookstore. It should be a prime, one of those primers. on page 64. It's very interesting. Yeah, well, Ichiyama Roshi's comments are all very interesting. He really presents a lot of... I think these are some of his best commentaries. So I encourage you to read the book because every time you read it you get something new out of it. And so the commentary goes with the fascicle, and it gives you a lot of access into Dogen's thinking and into Soto Zen, into the practice of Soto Zen.

[05:30]

Dogen didn't create the Japanese Soto school. He simply brought his teaching from China and from, you know, he has had his own unique way of expressing Dharma and created a Heiji Monastery and a few other places and simply taught his monks and then he said Although I'm descended from the Soto school, and also the Rinzai school, he claims both lineages, and this is a sort of Soto Zen practice, the schools, Soto Zen, Rinzai Zen, although even Zen is not really, strictly speaking, something that we should be attached to.

[06:36]

This is Dogen's understanding. We shouldn't be attached to any schools or even to the various schools of Buddhism. So, the school was actually created by Keizan Zenji. The Soto school in Japan was really created by Keizan Zenji about three generations after Dogen. We don't study Keizan so much. If you go to Japan, Soji-ji is Keizan's monastery, Ehe-ji is Dogen's monastery, but the two are head temples of the Soto school, and they interact with each other, and there's rivalry between them, as you might suspect. You know, when our A.H.G., Dogen's school. And when Soji-ji monks come to Zen Center, they say, oh no, do it this way.

[07:47]

And then some monks who come from A.H.G., they see us doing the Soji-ji and they say, no, no, no, do it this way. People get very confused at Zen Center. They think that whenever a Japanese monk says, do it this way, that that's the way to do it. But they're learning. So Dogen says, when washing the rice, he's still talking about how the tenzo, or the cook, should handle the kitchen, handle the receptacles, the cooking receptacles, and the food and so forth.

[08:48]

So, he's talking about the rice now, and he says, when washing the rice, remove any sand you find. In doing so, do not lose even one grain of rice. When you look at the rice, see the sand at the same time. When you look at the sand, see also the rice. Examine both carefully. Then a meal containing the six flavors and the three qualities will come together naturally." It's very interesting. He's saying Well, there's a lot in here. He's saying, for one thing, he's talking at various levels, saying, for one thing, don't just look at the rice, also look at the sand. You should see them both equally. Usually, we look at the rice and we try to get rid of the sand or the whatever, you know, wash the dirt off, as if that's the bad part and the rice is the good part.

[09:54]

And he's saying, don't make a distinction between the good part and the bad part. But on another level, he's saying, don't make a distinction between what is pure and what is impure, even though something is pure and something else is impure. But purity is only purity from our point of view. And impurity is only impurity from our point of view. So we should be respectful of the sand as well as the rice. We should be respectful of the caterpillars in the broccoli and the snails that kind of crawl up the sink. Dogen is trying to express how we see everything equally even though everything is different.

[10:57]

So, when he talks about rice, rice is like enlightenment and sand is like delusion. That's another level. He's saying don't separate the enlightenment from the delusion. Don't create a dualistic outlook no matter what you're doing. Take everything into account as equal, even though within that equality is difference. So this is very fundamental. So he says, when you look at the sand, see also the rice. Examine both carefully. Then a meal containing the six flavors and the three qualities will come together naturally.

[12:00]

I explained what the six tastes and three qualities were Saturday. I'll read them again. Bitter, sour, sweet, salty, mild, and hot. Those are the six tastes. And the three virtuous qualities are light and flexible, clean and neat, conscientious and thorough. So the six flavors pertain to taste and the three qualities pertain to our attitude Then he quotes this story about Shui Feng. Shui Feng Yi Sun was once the Tenzo under Dong Shan Liang Che, that's Tozan.

[13:01]

One day, while Shui Feng was washing the rice, Dong Shan happened to pass by and asked, do you wash the sand and pick out the rice? I wash the rice and pick out the sand. I wash and throw away both the sand and the rice together." Shui Feng replied, Then what on earth do the residents here eat? Dong Shan pressed again. In reply, Shui Feng turned over the rice bucket. Dong Shan said, The day will come when you will practice under another master. This story has various meanings. There are different ways of interpreting turning over the rice bucket.

[14:09]

One way is to say that he put the cover on. The characters read in such a way that you can read it either he covered the rice with the cover, or he turned over the bucket, the rice bucket. But it also doesn't say there was rice in the bucket. It just says he turned over the rice bucket. But we presume that there was rice in the bucket, otherwise it wouldn't be a dramatic story, right? So, Shui Feng eventually went to Dushan and became a disciple of Dushan rather than a disciple of Tozan. So I think Tozan sent him to Dushan. That's the rest of the story. Dushan, you know, was very dramatic teacher.

[15:12]

Tozan was not a dramatic teacher, but Dashan was a dramatic teacher. And he's noted for his big stick, you know, 30 blows if you're right and 30 blows if you're wrong. Which is kind of like this story, you know, in a way. It's like getting, you know, right and wrong are mixed. Sand and and rice are mixed. So in the same way, the great teachers from earliest times who were settled in the way have carried out their work with their own hands. How are we, inexperienced practitioners of today, able to remain so negligent in our practice? Those who have come before us have said, the way-seeking mind of a Tenzo is actualized by rolling up your sleeves."

[16:13]

That's good. Nowadays, the Tenzo doesn't do that much work. The Tenzo orders the food, makes the menus, sees that everybody is, that the kitchen is run well. and sometimes works in the kitchen. But the assistant, the Fukuten, does most of the cooking with assistance. It's nice, though, if the Tenzo can do cooking, but if the Tenzo does the cooking, then the Tenzo doesn't have time to do all those other things. Things change, and it's okay. It's not that the tensor is not working, it's just that the work is more administrative. Yes?

[17:17]

Can you go back a second? To me, there was a sentence, a few sentences back that you read, that was his response to the story. In this way, the greatest teachers from earliest times, who were settled in the way, have carried out their work with their own hands. So who was he referring to? Well, there were these people who went around with spoons, like Shui Feng, was one he's referring to. He would go to various monasteries and because he was such an experienced Tenzo they would put him in the kitchen. So he was referring to Xue Feng? He was referring to Xue Feng and others as well. I can't remember everybody's name who was a famous Tenzo in China but he's also referring to the Tenzos that he met

[18:21]

There's something about the placement of that sentence in relation to that particular exchange. I'm not sure we're going to unpack it here. But there's a lot there somehow. There's a lot there. But it also refers to the fact that some of these advanced students were teachers. and their activity in the kitchen was teaching. So actually, you know, the kitchen is one of the best opportunities for practice because you have a group of people who are working around each other, interweaving with each other, putting out meals and they have emotions and thoughts and feelings and they're constantly bumping up against each other and moving around and with each other so there has to be a way of creating a harmonious movement and

[19:46]

If there's a good teacher in the zendo, in the kitchen, then through that example, the students learn how to do that, how to harmonize. So it's a closed circuit. Everything they do happens within this one room. And if you do this day after day, like in a monastery, or like Tassajara, you know, everybody's stuff comes up. It's like rats in a cage, you know, so to speak. Emotions flare up, people bump into each other. And little by little, everybody learns how to move with each other and find a rhythm with each other. And the rough edges get smoothed down.

[20:48]

And it's really wonderful practice. And if there's a good teacher, then they really benefit I think Jung called it the room of transformation. Who called it? Jung. Jung called the kitchen? The room of transformation. That's pretty good. That's where everything gets transformed. You know, the food looks like this. Yeah, that's right. The kitchen is a big oven for the students. That's where the students get cooked. When you think about it, supposing you were at home in your own kitchen, which is most people's kitchen. It's about the size of the kitchen we have here. And what you do is you invite

[21:50]

Sometimes not so easily. Okay. So, next, you should not carelessly throw away the water that remains after washing the rice. In old times, a cloth bag was used to filter out the water when it was thrown away. I don't think thrown away is a good, when it was disposed of in some way. You know, when we first started Tassajara, we used to take all the vegetables, you know, like when you cut vegetables, you cut away the kind of wilted parts and the ends and the undesirable parts of the vegetables.

[23:07]

And then we put them in the garbage, right? But what we used to do is we'd throw them, put them in and cook them and make, that was the broth. That was a, base, a soup base. We made a soup base out of that stuff. So nothing was really wasted. Everything was used as far as it could be used. And that kind of practice is really wonderful. So, you know, if you cook potatoes, you use potato water. Potato water makes a wonderful soup base. People used to cook vegetables in water. Probably some of you still do. But the way to cook vegetables is by steaming them. And then you don't lose anything. When you cook vegetables in water, all the nutrients go into the water, then you throw the water away, and then you eat the corpses of the vegetables.

[24:13]

So, all that can be used, because all the nutrients are really in the liquid. So, washing the water, I don't know, I've never washed rice. We don't need to wash rice because our rice is already washed. But, you know, in Japan, they used to put talc in the rice. I can't remember why, but they had to wash the talc out of the rice. Yeah. Also, we feed the hungry ghosts.

[25:20]

We collect the water. When we collect the water after the meal, we feed the plants or we feed something with that water. So that water is an offering. We drink half of the water. Not everybody does that, but you should. When the servers come and take the water, you put half the water in the bucket, and then bow, and then drink the rest of the water. So you share the water with hungry ghosts. But we usually put that on the plant, even though it has salt in it. Salt's not good for the plant. You can't win at everything. So it's an offering. We do use that water as an offering. Oh yeah. When you have finished washing the rice, put it into the cooking pot. Take special care lest a mouse accidentally falls into it.

[26:23]

bowl. Then she raised her hand and it took a long time for someone to come and get the bowl and then they announced there will be no second serving. They let everybody eat the first bowl of soup. Please don't shout and wave it about or the others will all want one too. Well, there are many stories, or some stories about that. There's the story, the famous snakehead story. You know that one? The cook accidentally chopped off the head of a... You know what gobo is? Burdock. Japanese like to use burdock. It's like long, skinny root. And it kind of looks snake-like. They chop it into pieces and then cook it.

[27:37]

It's really good. And so he was chopping up the burdock, the gobo, and there was a snake in with the gobo and he cut the snake's head off. And it just happened to get in there. He didn't even notice the difference. And then when the server served the abbot, the abbot said, what's this? And the cook looked at him and said, oh, thank you very much. Or something like that. That's called eating the blame. So, under no circumstances allow anyone who happens to be drifting through the kitchen to poke his fingers around or look into the pot. So you don't let people get curious about, what's cooking?

[28:42]

How's it doing? But people will do that. You know, you should just... We have this problem that our passageway goes through the kitchen into the community room. So ordinarily that wouldn't happen to have a passageway through the kitchen. So we have to be especially mindful when we walk through the kitchen to not look around, to just use that as a passageway if we have have to not get curious about what's going on in the kitchen. So then he says, prepare those vegetables that will be used in a side dish for the following morning's meal. Japanese monks have five bowls.

[29:45]

five nesting bowls. We have three bowls because we just put our, you know, a simple oreoki together. But they also have one bowl for maybe a side dish of some kind, pickles, and one bowl for gamasio. Japanese eat lots of pickles. They really know how to make pickles. They make pickles out of everything, and they eat them at all their meals, especially the monks, but it keeps them healthy. Pickles are an antidote to the acid in grains. They neutralize the acid in grains. So it's good to have those kinds of pickles. They don't eat cucumber pickles. Well, they do eat cucumber pickles, but not like ours. When we had Japanese teachers, we had pickles all the time. I kind of miss that. some real benefits to having Japanese teachers. Yes? You use the pickles to clean the bowls.

[30:49]

Well, that's one way, yeah. When you don't have a setsu, a setsu is the stick, you know, that you clean your bowls with, you sometimes use a pickle, a very thin slice of pickle, and clean the bowl using the pickle as a, with the chopsticks, using the pickle as a scrubber. And then you eat the pickle. So, it says, at the same time, clean up the rice and leftover soup from the noon meal. Conscientiously wash out the rice container and the soup pot, along with any other utensils that were used. Put those things that naturally go on a high place, onto a high place, and those things that would be most stable on a low place, onto a low place. Things that naturally belong in a high place settle best on a high place, while those which belong on a low place find their greatest stability there."

[31:53]

So, he's using the word here, stability. It's like you don't put heavy things up on top, or, you know, everything is geared toward, or oriented toward, stability. All Zen practice, everything you do in Zen practice is oriented towards stability. So this Zazen posture, the reason we have Zazen posture, one reason, is because it's the most stable posture. It's like a triangle with your knees and your behind on the cushion. It's the position that you can't be pushed over by. When you're sitting in other positions, it's easier to push you over. So this is the most stable position. When you're serving, and you serve the people on the floor, you should go down on both knees.

[33:02]

Some people's tendency is to just squat with your feet on the floor, but not to put your knees on the floor. And, you know, anything can push you over. That's the most unstable position. So when you serve on the floor, you should go down on at least one knee. Both knees is better, but at least one knee so that you're stabilizing yourself. So whatever you do, you're always looking for how to stabilize yourself. This is the most fundamental thing about practice. And in zazen, during zazen, we're always finding our stability. As Suzuki Roshi said, everything is continuously falling out of balance and finding its balance. So you can say everything changes. That's another way of saying that.

[34:04]

But a more intimate way of saying that is that everything is continually falling out of balance and finding its stability again. So we're always looking for that stability, always finding it. And if you look at the way a mature Zen master walks or sits or does something, it's always with stability. Never getting out of balance. Never putting yourself in a position to be pushed over by anything. And this is not just physical. The physical informs the mental and the emotional as well. You don't allow yourself, you're always finding your emotional stability. You're always finding your mental stability. This is what Suzuki Roshi meant when he said, wherever you are, you are the boss.

[35:16]

Nothing can push you over. That's what he meant. So we put the heavy things on the bottom and the lighter things go on top. So when we stack things, we take all this into account. There's some things that want to be on the bottom and there's some things that want to be higher and we have to know what those are and how they harmonize with each other. So the way the kitchen is arranged, the way pots and pans and dishes and so forth are arranged, creates a stable atmosphere. And when you walk into a stable atmosphere, you become stable naturally by blending with your surroundings or being influenced by your surroundings. That's why the atmosphere of the Zen Do creates an atmosphere for practice because everything in the Zen Do is oriented toward stability.

[36:24]

It's a bare room, you know, and there's nothing to lean on. You have to find your stability. This is what I experienced when I first sat Zazen. I realized there's nothing to lean on, there's nothing here, but just this me sitting Zazen, sitting in this position, and there's nothing to do but find my stability. I didn't understand that mentally, but I intuited, I mean, I understood intuitively. I couldn't explain that, but that's what we experience. You used the word Is that what you mean by... Grounding is part of stability. An aspect of stability. Being grounded. It's like, you know, water. Water is always looking for the lowest place. I mean, it doesn't look, but it seeks the lowest place.

[37:29]

And it conforms to gravity. But it ends up in the highest place. And then it comes down to the lowest place. It keeps circulating. So circulation, you know, stability, seeking the lowest place, you end up in the highest place, and you circulate. You have good circulation, which keeps you healthy. So then he says, clean the chopsticks, ladles, and other utensils, and handle them with equal care and awareness, putting everything back where it naturally belongs. And keep your mind on your work and don't throw things around carelessly. Well, you know, when we wash the pots and pans, often we just wash the pots and pans in order to get them washed.

[38:35]

so we can do the next thing. But when we wash the pots and pans, we should just wash the pots and pans as our life. We have so much life on this earth, so everything we do can be meaningful. And the way that washing pots and pans can be meaningful is to connect with the pots and pans when we're washing them. We don't wash the pots and pans so we can use them next. We wash the pots, even though that happens. The main purpose of washing, when we wash the pots and pans, is to simply engage in washing. Yeah. It brings to mind And sometimes the practice of mindfulness is seen as doing everything very slowly.

[39:42]

Oh yeah. Slowly, mindfully, just being aware of every step of what you're doing. And I'm just wondering, in washing the pots, what is the proper pace of action? Two things. One is slow, and one is mindful. They're not the same. necessarily. Mindful means, whether it's fast or slow, to be attentive. People sometimes think that mindfulness means to go very slowly, but then people around you become start feeling tedious, like you're creating a tedious situation by being so slow. It's like a self-indulgent in a way. Mindfulness simply means to do something wholeheartedly with attention.

[40:51]

But as far as whether it's fast or slow, It doesn't matter whether it's fast or slow. So if we're too slow, then we make everybody feel uncomfortable because it gets tedious. And if it's too fast, people get uncomfortable because it's disturbing the rhythm of things. So too much forcefulness. So to find the mean, to find just the right pace. What's the right pace? What's the right rhythm? That's what we should always be looking for. That's part of stability too, is finding the right rhythm. Ross? I think keeping with Alan's question, I think, I think where some of the people commented that they never saw Suzuki Roshi running. He always like was in time, in his environment.

[41:55]

And I wonder, of the world, I mean, how important is it to get there a half minute fast or a parking place and the various things that we all encounter where we find ourselves a little bit out of, not breath, but just out of that sort of rhythm and the life of the monastery where things are controlled and set up in such a way that you wake up moment by moment. You might not have that kind of pressure. How do we balance those two? There's a way, if you're a musician, and you have a very fast tempo, very fast rhythm, you have to learn how to relax within that fast rhythm.

[42:56]

Otherwise, you can't do it. It turns you. You have to be able to relax. And then, what you thought was real fast, was not so fast at all. It only seems fast when you're not at ease with it. So the point is not to, you know, we have to rush sometimes, we have to move fast, we have to run and whatever, you know. But how do we find our composure within that rhythm, within that tempo? That's the point. To find your composure, no matter whether it's fast or slow. So Suzuki Roshi had his environment. You have your environment, you know. What would he do in your environment? Well, you know, there's an old saying, the hurrier you are, the further behind you get or something.

[43:58]

So we're a little past halfway. Would you like to take a break? I don't know, but we will. Five minutes. So then Dogen says, after this work has been done, it is time to prepare for the following day's noon meal. First of all, check to see whether there are any insects, peas, rice bran, or tiny stones in the rice. And if so, carefully winnow them out. We always do that. When choosing the rice and vegetables to be used, those working under the tenzo should offer sutras to the spirit of the kamado, which is the stove. You know, in Japan, also in China, there are spirits everywhere.

[45:00]

You know, tree spirits and spirits of the walls and the hearth and the stove and the bathroom. So, you know, wherever you Whenever you engage in some activity, you always are aware of the spirit of that place, somewhat like American Indians. And also, there's a wonderful book in the library that talks a lot about, in China, the spirits. And if you go to a Chinese grocery store, like in Oakland Chinatown, You see all these little figures on the shelf. And those are all little representations to those spirits.

[46:11]

And the Chinese pay a lot of respect and they offer incense and whatever to the spirits. But it's kind of like making some connection with your surroundings. People think that it's like spirit worship or something like that, but it's making connection with your surroundings. So when you You know, like outside, at Zen Center, outside the bathrooms, there are these little shrines, you know, and little flowers, and there's no statue, but there's a little flame or something that has the name of the guardian of the bathroom. And then you bow when you come out of the bathroom.

[47:20]

So Dogen is saying, you should offer citrus to the spirit of the Kamada, the stove or the oven. When I was in Tassajara a couple of years ago, they got a new stove. And so I named the stove Red Dragon or something like that. And we had a I made a calligraphy and put it up there on the altar, and then the kitchen crew, we all offered incense and chanted sutra for the stove. It was a very sweet kind of thing, you know, because it really, it was wonderful to have this brand new shiny stove. and to accept it into the kitchen, you know, ceremoniously, and to connect with it, you know, as something that not only do we use the stove, but the stove creates us.

[48:27]

You know, whatever we're using actually creates us. We think that maybe we're some particular person, but we're only a product of the things that we use and the things that we engage with. So whatever we engage with is creating us. And this is why we have to be careful about attachments. Because when we have the wrong kinds of attachments, those attachments are creating us in a certain way that binds us. So paying attention and kind of humanizing the objects around us gives us a sense of connectedness. and intimacy. So, then begin preparing the ingredients for whatever side dish and soup there might be, cleaning everything thoroughly of any dirt or insects.

[49:45]

When the Tenzo receives the food from the Kusu, that is the officer, Kusu is the officer of affairs in his day, the Tenzo must never complain about its quality or quantity, but always handle everything with the greatest care and attention. Nothing can be worse than to complain about too much or too little of something or of inferior quality. This is a big problem. Yes and no. You know, you want, if you're the tenso, you want to feed everyone with the best food you can. So the tendency is naturally to have good ingredients. But I don't think you should give up that wish. In America, in Berkeley, especially Berkeley, you know, It's so easy to get the best quality food.

[50:49]

It's next door. So we don't have this kind of problem of too little. We have the problem of too much. That's a big problem for us, actually, because it makes it harder to make decisions. It makes it harder to simplify. There's so many cookbooks, so many ingredients. The Berkeley Bowl is like this cornucopia that's just overflowing with desirable things. It's very interesting because I'm in the process of narrowing my menu. And narrowing it to very few things, and which makes the contrast between my menu and all of the availability a very big contrast, it's in a big contrast.

[51:53]

But it's interesting because there's all this stuff and you just take a little bit of it enough to sustain you. But it also, you know, to be able to select When you're not eating so much, you can select wonderful things and relate to them. Whatever it is you eat, you relate to it in a different way than just eating mindlessly. You become much more intimate with what you eat. it also helps to, when Dogen talks about this, to become intimate with the ingredients so that you know how to make them, how to harmonize them. So, in a situation like with Dogen, in a monastery, a lot of the food is donated.

[53:01]

As a matter of fact, you know, the monks I don't know about Duggan's monastery or how they were fed, actually. But I think a lot of it was donation, because the monks didn't go out and work. And they may have tilled the fields. I'm not sure about that. But even if you till the fields, you don't get a lot of food from that, because mostly gardening or farming is for exchange. you can't possibly grow all the things you need. You grow a certain crop and then you exchange that with other people so you get a variety of things. And often the monks didn't have very much to eat. So whatever comes, they have to be really grateful for. And however it comes, And so that makes them, you know, the Tenzo should not worry about, you know, make distinction between what's good and what's not so good.

[54:15]

Just use everything. And when you can use everything, it becomes much more interesting, a very interesting way of life. There's a saying, I wrote down here something, oh yeah, there's nothing especially virtuous about poverty, but to live a life of the highest refinement within a position of poverty is true freedom. I think that says it. So, both day and night allow all things to come into and reside within your mind. Allow your mind, or yourself, and all things to function together as a whole. Before midnight, direct your attention to organizing the following day's work, and after midnight, begin preparations for the morning meal." I don't think he means at 11.30.

[55:17]

He means before midnight means today. After midnight means tomorrow. We're not saying exactly what time, I don't think you're saying what time, otherwise the tens will be up all night. But this is interesting to say, allow all things to come into and reside within your mind and allow your mind and all things to function together as a whole. So it's like you just allow this flow to happen without grasping without aversion is what it means. Without grasping something good and without averting something that is undesirable. But just let everything come in and out and flow freely. Then he says, After the morning meal, wash the pots, cook the rice, and soup for the noon meal.

[56:22]

When soaking the rice and measuring the water, the tenzo should be present at the sink. Keep your eyes open. Do not allow even one grain of rice to be lost. Wash the rice thoroughly, put it in the pot, light the fire, and cook it. There is an old saying that goes, see the pot as your own head, see the water as your lifeblood. We say that the pot is your own head. The eating bowl, our first bowl, is called Buddha's head. The Buddha bowl is called Buddha's head. So we treat it as Buddha's head. There's a saying about Soto Zen, Menmitsu no Kafu, which was introduced by Tatsugami Roshi Tazahara.

[57:25]

It means careful attention to whatever is in front of you, careful family feeling. It means family feeling, but familial feeling. with whatever it is with your surroundings, familial feeling with the objects that we use, familial feelings with whatever we encounter. There's a picture of Soen Roshi. Soen Roshi was a very famous Rinzai teacher in Japan who died around 70 something. And there's a picture of him sitting on the grass and he has his, he's running his fingers over the blade, over the grass like this, you know. It's like, there's just something so wonderful about just feeling the blades of grass that he, while he's sitting there.

[58:31]

Transfer the cooked rice into a bamboo basket in summer, or a wooden container in winter, and then sit it on the table. Cook the rice, soup, and any side dish all at the same time. In other words, make everything come out at the same time. And cook the tofu last. You know, when you make a dish with tofu, you don't put the tofu in with all the other ingredients. You wait till the very end. And then you put in the tofu. Because you don't want to cook the tofu. You only want to heat it up. If you cook it, some people like it chewy, you know. I can't complain about that. But... You can't? But I will. But you're not on your own. So, the Tenzo must be present, paying careful attention to the rice and soup while they're cooking.

[59:55]

This is true whether the Tenzo does the work by himself or has assistants helping, either with the cooking or the tending of the fires. Well, I'm glad he said that. It makes it sound like the Tenzo does all the work. Even though in the larger monasteries recently people have been placed in charge of cooking the soup or the rice, the Tenzo should not forget that these people are assistants working under him and cannot be held responsible for this work." In other words, whatever the work of the students is, the Tenzo is responsible for it. In olden times, the Tenzo was completely in charge, and there were no such assistants. But they couldn't have had a very big sangha. Well, maybe they just didn't eat much. Pilgrim's being very, very extreme here. He's trying to make a point, actually.

[60:59]

He's mainly trying to make a point. I don't think he means that the Tenzo should do all the work. Otherwise, no one would ever get trained. Anyway, when you prepare food, never view the ingredients from some commonly held perspective, nor think about them only with your emotions. Maintain an attitude that tries to build great temples from ordinary greens, that expounds the Buddhadharma through the most trivial activity. When making a soup with ordinary greens, do not be carried away by feelings of dislike toward them, nor regard them lightly. Neither jump for joy simply because you have been given ingredients of superior quality to make a special dish. By the same token that you do not indulge in a meal because of its particularly good taste, there is no reason to feel an aversion toward an ordinary one.

[62:06]

Do not be negligent and careless just because the materials seem plain and hesitate to work more diligently with materials of superior quality. Your attitude toward things should not be contingent upon their quality. A person who is influenced by the quality of a thing or who changes his speech or manner according to the appearance or position of the people he meets is not a person working in the way." It's the same with, you can use this analogy, between a student and a teacher. Teacher doesn't choose the students. Whoever the students are, that's who the teacher interacts with, deals with. Sometimes the teacher will say, gee, I wish I had some good students. or I wish I didn't have such difficult students.

[63:19]

But difficult students are sometimes the best students. So it's not like whether the teacher has good students or bad students. It's how does the teacher deal with whatever is there? How does the teacher help and create a good meal from a blade of grass. How do you see the potential in each person? And how do you bring out the quality, help bring out the quality in each person? It's exactly the same. You cook the meal in the same way. So that's why we should be very careful when we're cooking. And also, how do we bring out the best quality in each person in the kitchen when we're working in the kitchen together?

[64:27]

So many things going on. One is getting the meal out, you know, It has to be done on time. And the other is, how do you actually work with people because it's a practice situation? It's not just getting the meal out. It's like, how do you practice in this situation? And the practice has to be foremost, you can't forget yourself. You can't forget that that's what's the main thing and start yelling at people or complaining or creating a situation based on emotional intensity or losing your composure or getting angry at people. Can't do that. Can you give me any advice?

[66:08]

Well, this is the fine line where you have to decide which is the best. Sometimes one, sometimes the other. There are certain situations where you should just keep them apart. And there are certain situations where you can say, well, let's put them together and see what happens. Depends on the situation. Everything depends on the situation. So there's nothing fixed, although sometimes you should always keep somebody apart. I can think of a situation right now where I have to make that decision, which is a very critical decision. But unless you have a feeling that it could work to keep them apart, That's what I would say. You mentioned losing your composure, or you said you can't forget yourself?

[67:15]

Yeah. Forget yourself in the sense of? Yeah. Not forgetting yourself. Well, that too. But I remember this one. I learned how to make coffee in the kitchen. from Michael May, and he did this really careful thing, and I was thinking, my goodness, this is taking a really long time to make this coffee. And then, later on down the line, somebody said, let's just get the coffee out of the way, and we made it come really fast and put it out of the way, and now I notice that we're doing that. Let's get the coffee out of the way, and then we get to the meal, and I don't know, like a couple years ago, I thought, you know what? The coffee is really important too, so I just, do the coffee really well and do the meal really well rather than forget about the coffee. But it's interesting how one person can say something and it can really make a difference, so. That's true. Excuse me for getting the coffee out of the way for many years, but I'm back to taking care of the coffee.

[68:19]

I remember at Tassajara, when Tatsagami Roshi came and we were... He was teaching us how to do a monastic training, you know, and people were going into the... at night, sneaking into the food locker and taking little bits of this and that, you know, and people said, well, what should we do about that? And he said, oh, it's easy, put a lock on the door. You know, we should have personal responsibility, right? No, he said, oh no, it's simple, you just put a lock on the door. So anyway, there are different ways. Yeah, when we were down there, my daughter was working in the kitchen and she and none of them were locked, but they had a lock on the chocolate.

[69:35]

I'm wondering if you could speak to the notion that it's... You have to speak up a little. The Tenso has the overarching responsibility for the presentation. And yet, at the same time, the Tenso has the responsibility to nurture the individual. I'm wondering how to balance that. Well, you do one thing at a time. You don't think about, I'm busy. I have a lot of things to do. You just, whatever's there, you take care of. Some things don't get taken care of. That's how you have to learn how to delegate, so that you have just enough to take care of. So, you know, there's the supply side, and then there's the students side.

[70:46]

That's why it should be somebody who can do both of those things at once. And not say, oh, I'm too busy, or oh, my, you know, or it's just, what do you have to take care of? You just take care of. You don't complain about or worry about you're doing too much. It's amazing, you know, that you can do a lot if you don't You lose your composure. And it remains settled. When you're settled, you can do all those things. You can do a lot. But we start worrying about ourself. That's good.

[72:08]

That's right. That's called composing. Andrea? In order of priority, the most important things in kitchen practice are practice, harmony, and the food. And it has to be alright for the food to fail. Would it be all right to not have food show up on Saturday morning? No. No, it's not okay. But if it's necessary, do it. My experience though is And I was also making cornmeal polenta, which I had never made.

[73:36]

And so I was attending the souffle, and the cornmeal was like cement. And the servers were standing around just kind of, ugh. And it was just, you know, it was a wonderful experience. And nobody criticized me for it. The last sentence here, it's nine o'clock. A person who is influenced by the quality of a thing or who changes his speech or manner according to the appearance or position of the people he meets is not a person working in the way. In other words, don't be a chameleon, always be yourself. If you always are yourself and stand on your feet, then you can accept the good things and the bad things.

[74:45]

And you see everybody the same and you treat everybody the same. You don't treat some important person very special and some unimportant person not so special. I think that's what he's saying. And I sometimes see people, when the Dalai Lama comes, they're all groveling. Why are you doing this? Treat this person with great respect, just like you would treat anybody else with great respect. You should treat everybody the same.

[75:26]

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