This Saturday, I think it's this Saturday, isn't it? Sunday. But isn't today the 16th? And it's the 19th. Today is Wednesday. Today is Thursday. Anyway, Sunday. I thought it was Sunday, and the last time I figured it out, it seemed to be Saturday. On Sunday, there will be the Shuso Ceremony at 11 o'clock. Many of you have been to the Shuso Ceremony before. I don't, and quite a few of you have not ever been to a shisho ceremony. I want to talk a little about shisho ceremony. Now that the stream is so noisy, can you hear me in the back? You can? What? Okay.

[01:26]

The Kyosho Ceremony is a real opportunity to make our practice more articulate. The name of the ceremony is sometimes translated as Dharma Comeback. Sometimes this has been emphasized pretty strongly. When I was in the city recently, I was talking about this aspect of the CISO ceremony and saying that our idea of combat and the idea in Japan and China of combat is quite different And one of the people who was Shuso a few years ago got quite excited because just before his ceremony, a priest from Los Angeles came up here and gave a lecture about how to ask this person questions. And he repeated over and over again, I guess screaming, Cut his throat!

[03:15]

Cut his throat!" And this particular person, if anyone even hits him with a stick when he doesn't ask, he'll get up and walk out of his endo. So he was terrified. And I guess he repeated it over and over again, you know. I think the priest from Los Angeles didn't have much to say, so he kept repeating, cut his throat. Anyway, that's not... I think that's rather silly actually. We don't want to cut Red's throat. I think it's important to know that even from that point of view, I mean, I can't begin to explain what competition is in Japan, because it's just not what we mean by competition. It's 99% cooperation. But cooperation to them means confrontation, too. But it's not confrontation with the sense that we have of win or lose.

[04:43]

It's confrontation which enhances cooperation. Do you understand what I mean? So even in... In fact, there's one sect in Japan called... Well, the temple's called Shorinji. And they call it Esoteric Zen or something like that. Anyway, I know a number of people, rather intelligent young Japanese people, mathematicians, that kind of person who know English, who like Shorinji, and they come to my house in Japan and try to get me to join Shorinji. But it's mainly Aikido. You do about five minutes of Zazen, and then you spend the rest of the day sort of wrestling. And the idea is to It's very Japanese in that they feel that you can't... to meditate alone is too individualistic. You can't achieve anything without the help of another person. So the direct body help of another person is necessary. You actually get into a kind of wrestling with the other person of which the state that you get at some kind of...

[06:12]

which neither of you knows what your movements are, you know. But the cooperation comes out of the confrontation. Anyway, that Japanese idea of combat is much more like that, our idea. I think that probably more violence occurs in Japan out of a refusal to cooperate properly rather than out of confrontation or combat. Anyway, as you know, questions in Buddhism are How to ask questions, how to question your life is an essential part of our practice. So you don't want to ask questions like, should I get my teeth fixed? That's maybe an important question, but it doesn't have much to do with Buddhism. You should be able to solve that without reference to sutras.

[07:41]

You want to find a question which is wide, that covers everything, and at the same time is exactly specific. You want your question to have an opportunity to disturb you, not Rev. The idea isn't just to see if you can find out Reb's weak points. The idea is to find your own weak point and see if Reb can help you. Then if Reb can help you, you can be angry at him. That way you can cut his throat. Mm-hmm. So traditionally in Japan, they

[09:29]

Juso ceremony focuses on a particular koan, a particular story. But I don't think we know enough about koans. If we use one, it just becomes an introduction. None of us know enough how to actually ask a question about a koan. Certainly to how to respond. Koans have various variations. there's the koan, and then you can turn it around. And most of us don't know how to enter the koan in the first place, let alone turn it upside down, sideways, etc. So, I think we can do the same thing, but we should focus on some particular theme, maybe, of this practice group. I suppose what I've been talking about most is karma, suffering. I'll speak, I think, once more before the Shusho Ceremony on the 18th, and we can speak more specifically from the 18th.

[11:02]

on, you should be concentrated on your question. But now I'll just... you can... maybe today will serve as an introduction to finding a question. So, what you want to do is to find some thing that's of a fundamental importance to you. And then how do you ask... make that question bigger than just your personal question? Wider than just your personal question? How do you make it a Buddhist question? How do we share our practice in this way? And how does Reb answer in a Buddhist way? Or any way? By Buddhism, by answering in a Buddhist way, I mean wider than just, should I get my teeth fixed? If we have a theme of, say, karma, it includes

[12:37]

What, of course suffering, but it includes what your actual life situation is, what this life is. You might ask him, what are the limits of reality? Okay. But if you ask some question, you should have some feeling for it. How you arrive at, yes, okay, I want to get my teeth fixed, but what do I really mean? What is this reality? What is this karmic situation I'm in? Some such way of looking at your life. Practice is to stir up our life situation. So if you can stir it up into a kind of confrontation with yourself,

[14:06]

and join that confrontation with Rev and with all of us. That's what a shuso ceremony is. And Rev should answer from some wide standpoint. I'd like to go back to where I left off before I went to San Francisco and Green Grove. We were talking about how Buddhist thinking is situational and related to doing.

[15:15]

And I want to make clear how the vow works. A vow cuts through our ordinary way of thinking and ties down your... something you've come to. I think... Trying to understand what a vow is, is the best way to understand what Buddhist thinking is. A vow is just one kind of articulation of how we think in practice. But a vow means to be able to enter something to be able to enter this room, to be able to enter going to sleep, to be able to enter your breathing, to be able to enter your zazen. And this isn't, though we talked about will and willpower, it might be better to say willingness. You should have a willingness to go to sleep.

[16:56]

a willingness to enter this room. You can't have a willingness as long as you have lots of karmic entanglement. People, your practice works, those of you whose practice is actually settled on yourself. Almost always what you have at base is a willingness to practice. And although your accomplishment in entering your breathing may be slight or great, the willingness is the same. And so a beginner's practice, and a person who's been practicing many years, is fundamentally the same when that willingness is there. And that willingness makes all the difference in the world in your life. And as long as you believe something actually exists, you know, you can't have that willingness. As long as you think something counts, you know, Tassajara should be this way or that way, your life should be such and so, or you hope to get this or that, you know, you should forget everything. It doesn't make any difference how Tassajara is, or how your life is.

[18:19]

If you have such sort of fixed points, you know, you can't ever be willing. For example, if you're going to sleep, you know, in San Francisco, and there's an enormous cement mixer outside the building, and it's grinding away, you know, and you can't sleep, and you... if your reaction is, I'll go to the back room, you know, where I can't hear it, or to try to shut out the sound, That's not willingness. It's, of course, natural. It's too much to go somewhere else or to shut it out. But if it's possible, you should enter into the sound of the cement mixer. or truck or whatever there, somebody's trying to start maybe, and then it stalls, and then they lift up the hood, and it's two in the morning, and you hear them clanking. I mean, that clanking should be on your head, without resistance, just like you were inside the motor, you can hear the pistons. At the same time, you should be willing to go to sleep,

[19:49]

You know, mostly when we go to sleep, we want to continue the day. Even if we're tired and don't want to stay up, we want to think about what happened during the day. And in fact, our dreams are one aspect. Our dreams continue what happened during the day. But when you have this kind of willingness, you don't dream so much anymore, even. That what happens during the day is complete, you're just done. There's no carry over into your... saving up until to dream about it and make sense of it. And when you go to sleep, you just... Even if there's this truck, say, outside, you enter into your breathing and your sleep, you know, without reservation. This way you can sleep three or four or five hours and be completely rested. When you sleep, you just sleep. And this is related to the vow, not that you lie down in bed and say, now I vow I'm going to sleep. I don't mean that. Vow is just one expression of a mind that's clear enough, you know, to lie down and just go to sleep. To be willing to not be doing two things at once. And most of you aren't willing to do only one thing. You do those other things.

[21:20]

kind of worried about or want to keep track of or something that you didn't do, whatever. So if it's a day off, you have a day off. Even if you have to work during a day off, still, you're feeling it still should be a day off. If it feels like a work day, It's not... You just make your life too tight. And one of the most important areas to work with is the area where it's easiest to skip, you know, gazen. For instance, I think all of us, sometimes it's the period of gazen after study period, That's a period where we could easily get into the activity of the day. In fact, the people sewing do. But that's also, if you're sitting in the morning too, maybe the best time to do zazen. I don't mean that every time you want to, that something seems unnecessary, you should do it.

[22:50]

I mean, for example, we just, because it seemed unnecessary, you know, to have noon service on four and nine days, we stopped having service on four and nine days. So, sometimes we don't have service on four and nine days. So, I mean, I'm not trying to put you into that situation which people describe as everything that's bad is good practice. I don't mean that. When you enter this room, just be willing to enter this room. How big the space is. And when you look at this Buddha, just be willing to see this Buddha, two thousand years old. How many people have bowed in front of it, or sat in front of it? I don't know, in some cave, or some temple, or a house,

[24:08]

How many years was it buried in the dirt? There's no reality other than to be actually here with this Buddha now. So the secret of practice, you know, is to actually forget everything, forget who you are. Find out in your daily activity how you can forget about yourself. And I don't mean, you know, only act like you forget, or only act like you care.

[25:19]

It's better to not care, not forget if it's only acting. To really forget who you are, to really have no power. To give up explaining to yourself what you're doing, why you're doing it. This means no wisdom. The willingness to not know anything. The other side of practice is compassion or skill and means. And the secret there is not to abandon other people. There's an interesting story in one of the early, maybe the earliest form

[26:57]

Prajna Paramita literature about a man who has all these fantastic qualities, you know. Not just that he's brave and intelligent and skillful, but these are religious qualities, some spiritual qualities, not just ordinary mundane qualities. And everything he does helps other people. He or she. And so, in the story, Subhuti asks Buddha if what he does will benefit others. Buddha says yes. And then, I guess, I guess it's Subhuti who poses this question. If he took his family and his friends and other people on a journey into a wild forest. And soon he was beset by robbers and wild animals and ghosts and demons. Everything in the forest that could attack them came up. And he did his best to protect everybody. But finally it became too much for him. So then Sabuddhi says, would this wonderful guy at this time

[28:27]

abandon his family and friends and split and save his own skin. And Buddha of course says, no, he wouldn't, he would stay there. And if he's willing to stay there, then the skill necessary, the compassion necessary, the power necessary will come out of the forest itself. What kind of story is that viewpoint? It's fundamental to our practice. So what's wonderful about

[29:29]

Tassajara, and our life in the Sangha, anywhere, is how many people will enjoy it. How many people will turn Tassajara. If it were just for us to be here, this particular group of people, and this was our place, it would be a very boring place. It would just be like some rich man's estate. But what's interesting here is there have been so many people already who've been here. And how what we're doing here is, you know, making it possible for other people to come here. I think if you look at your feeling for Tassajara, you feel that way because now is your opportunity

[30:31]

to be here. And feeling that way, you can see how San Francisco and Green Gulp are part of this turning of zensen, turning of a sangha within our society. Yoshin-san has been here teaching us sewing. And while it's very difficult for Japanese people to understand

[32:50]

what we're doing here from the point of view of... from just being in Japan. For example, Hoichi-san, Suzuki-yoshi's son, no matter what Suzuki-yoshi said or how often Suzuki-yoshi went to Japan, Hoichi couldn't understand what his father was doing here. You know, in Japan, the Buddhist tradition is... You continue. There is very little... There's never anything that happens much. There are no big changes, usually. You just continue, and develop, and refine. And people in Japan forget that Buddhism had a beginning.

[33:51]

And when they come here, and they find so many students sitting, and sitting with no base, you know, you sit, actually, your practice is pretty good, because you don't have any idea of practice, you don't know why you're practicing. So to practice for that reason, which even if you do it because you're confused, is at the same time a very fundamental way of practicing, to not know. So there, they don't see our confusion, they see the fact that we don't know in our practicing. That moves them very deeply. And suddenly they see what is happening here and how it happened in Japan. So, Shoshin-san is very moved by what we're doing. I mean, we don't see it so much in the scale she sees it, because she sees it, not just what we're doing,

[35:21]

but she sees it in the scale of everything that happened in Japan and China. So we're just trying to take care of our practice, but she sees, yes, if you take care of your practice, 800 years from now, Tassajara will still be practicing, just as Eheiji is still a place to practice. 800 years is not so long. So she wants to help us in some way. And she's helping us, you know, by extending her stay longer than she'd intended, making arrangements in Japan to stay longer, a month longer. and working all the time with us and in San Francisco. But she also wanted to do something specific. So she has made this robe, you know, for me, but not actually for me, it's for all of us. Some big Buddhist robe to put around Zen Center.

[36:45]

And she wants to have a ceremony this morning after lecture. To give this robe to me, to all of us, to represent to protect, to protect Sen Center. She wants to, as she described it to me in the first time, she told me about it about two weeks ago. She said she wants to call on Kanzeon, Kannon, Avalokiteshvara, in all his, her forms, to Protect Zen Center through each of you and through Virginia, my wife, and through Sally, through Joshinson, through me. She named everybody. Then she started shaking my hand. I think she's always going around shaking Kanzeon's 1,000 hands. Anyway, she wants to

[38:19]

give us this robe in this way. But the robe should be given not by her, even though she made it. And I think Debbie made it. Debbie worked on it. Maybe Virginia, but mostly Debbie and Joshin-san, I think. But she wants it to be given from Suzuki Roshi. And from the lineage to us. to protect, she says, Green Gulch and San Francisco and Tassajara. And she said, the island in Canada. And I said, no, we don't have to protect the island. Some of you know the story of of how she came to sew robes, but most of you don't, so I'll tell you a little. In the previous generation, there were two great Roshis in Soto sect. One, there may have been more, but there's two that I know of and are well known. One is Hashimoto Roshi, and the other is Sawaki Kodo Roshi.

[39:48]

And almost every good teacher that I know in the Soto sect comes from this lineage, which goes back to a man named Sotan. And from Sotan also comes Kichizawa Roshi, Suzuki Roshi's teacher. So, both Suzuki Roshi's lineages, through Kichizawa Roshi and Gyokujun, and so on, and Hashimoto, and Suwake Kodo, go back into one main lineage and so forth. Uchiyama Roshi is Sawakikota Roshi's design. Katagiri Roshi worked with Hashimoto Roshi at Eheji, I believe, for some time. Anyway, Sawakikota Roshi and... and Hashimoto Roshi both wanted to have this spirit of going back to the original. And of course, there's no origin, you know, and there's no way to go back to the original. But it's an effort to cut through to something essential. Even as Dogen translated and interpreted and transposed words in his rendering of basic Buddhist texts,

[41:15]

from the Chinese version and often brought it back closer to the original Sanskrit version just through his own intuition. Anyway, they have this spirit and they... So Akikoto wanted to find out what Dogen actually said about robes, so he studied that. Maybe he studied in other ways, I don't know exactly. Anyway, he came to a conclusion about how the robes should be. Then somehow he found out about the person who was very good at sewing in Kyushu, which is the island in the southern part of Japan. So he went down there and this woman taught him how to sew in the way you're sewing. Then he went back to Honshu, Japan, you know, in main Japan, Kyoto area. And he taught, I think he taught Hashimoto Roshi the same way. Then Hashimoto Roshi taught Yoshida Roshi. And Sawaki Kodoroshi, then after teaching Hashimoto Roshi, taught Joshin-san. So Joshin-san has a strong feeling she's passing to us.

[42:45]

this sewing lineage of how you make your robe. So also, she has this feeling. This robe she's made is a very special robe. I think there are five Joe, but the pieces come in sections. And supposedly, as you know, made from scraps of cloth. partly because cloth was very valuable in India, and if you had a big piece of cloth uncut, it was liable to be stolen from you. And also because you made it just from scraps. Anyway, that's the tradition of why we take expensive silt and cut it up into little pieces, and sew it together. Anyway, there's... Five Joe is, I think, an informal okisa that you use for

[43:47]

just walking around or studying. And 7-jo, correct me if I'm wrong, anyone who knows, 7-jo I think is for zazen and ceremonies. And I believe 9-jo is a lined okesa. Instead of having just these parts, inside it has a lining. And it's for very special ceremonies. And then, I guess there are one or two steps with more Joe, which are very unusual. This one she's made has 25 Joe. Twenty-five? Twenty-five. So, I don't know when I can wear it. Perhaps as I'm dying I can put it on. But I can wear it in ordination ceremonies or some other special occasion. So during the lay ordination and priest ordination, probably I'll wear it. Anyway, it's this Otesa this morning she wants to give to us.

[45:05]

to protect Zen Center and to help us to continue in Suzuki Roshi's way. If I remember correctly, they told me once how the ceremony goes. I'll say it, and at least it'll give you an idea. I think we'll do it here in front of what now is our Founder's Hall, the Memorial Hall for Suzuki Roshi. And it'll be changed a little bit. And I think I come in and offer incense. And then... We bow three times, all of us, if you come. You don't have to come, but... We will follow this immediately. We bow three times. And then I think I... receive the okesa from Ryuho-san and Joshin-san and say, daisai, geida, kuru, the verse of the okesa that we say in the morning. I say it three times. And then I think that Ryuho-san and I and Joshin-san bow to each other. And then I think, I bow, we all bow to Suzuki Roshi three times.

[46:33]

And then I think I turn around, and with the Okesa, I stand and you bow to the Okesa as it represents Buddha. And then I think that's all. It shouldn't take more than... I mean, it's pretty short. There's no chanting. It's quite a short ceremony. She says five minutes, but it sounds to me like ten minutes or fifteen minutes. Let's try to protect Zen Center and all the sangha in this country.

[47:19]

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