I vowed in taste and truth to Doug it is worth. Good morning. A whole new lecture has just been presented to me. How do we keep our center when we screw up?

[01:02]

That's maybe nothing more needs to be said. Just, you know, to return to your breath, to discern whether there's been any harm done or not. If there's some harm or hurt that's been created, try to set that right. If not, enjoy your error. There's no sin attached to it. nothing was actually harmed. I didn't even break the lovely cup. But if I had, that would be okay too. This is really, it's really important for us to understand that and just to return to our breath and center and not be thrown off center by that.

[02:15]

I'm trying and now I have to hope that I can read the other notes that I took. If I was really a good teacher, I would leave right now. And let you all enjoy this day, which looks quite beautiful. But thank you for coming. I have, this may be a kind of a hodgepodge lecture for which I will apologize in advance, and maybe not. I'm not quite sure where it's going, but it begins with a few announcements, I think. First of all, Sojin Roshi is still in Japan. He's returning on Thursday, I think, and he's been there for a I think the 33rd anniversary of Suzuki Roshi, our founder's passing. And so he's been at Suzuki Roshi's temple, Rinso-in, which is in a certain way our home away from home.

[03:27]

It's a really wonderful place. And it's great if any of you have had the opportunity to be with Sojin there. It's like, oh, who's this person? This is a different person than we see here. You know, completely relaxed and really at ease and enjoying himself. It's wonderful to see, particularly around Hoitsu Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi's son, my Dharma grandfather, Mel's father. Honshi, the person who gave him Dharma transmission. So he's there, he'll be back. I think he's lecturing next Saturday because we wanted him to have an opportunity to talk about what his experience was. Tomorrow, and I think this is part of what enabled me to hold the center, tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the

[04:31]

the passing of our Dharma sister, Dali Gatosi, Ketsumon Tokuden. And when I went to offer incense, I just saw her smiling at me. And, you know, it actually touches me very deeply. I miss her. And I believe that There's just, where there was Dali, there's just peace. And we'll have a simple memorial for tomorrow morning as we do service in Sishin. But if people would like to come for that service, just to pay your respects, that'll be at 6.30 in the morning. And you're welcome to come even if you're not in Sishin. We remember her every day, often.

[05:32]

But tomorrow is a one-year anniversary, which is an important date. Today happens to be my daughter Sylvie's 13th birthday, which is pretty amazing. I remember the labor. Laurie was in, we spent several days, I remember walking around in the park the day before and having at various points, labor was very prolonged, having to grab trees and hold them. It was pretty intense. But we're very happy, I mean this is like official, you know, chronological entry into teenage-dom, which has already begun, as many of you know. It just gives me joy.

[06:34]

She's grown up here in this community. Sometimes I think Well, who invited this other woman to live in our house? But she's a great person to live with. It's really, it's a good day. I was also asked to say that next, is it Friday, Sagaki? Next Friday, we observe our annual Sagaki ceremony, which is the feeding of the hungry ghosts. This is usually a ceremony that takes place in July. Right, Agnes? Obon? Obon is kind of this short period in Japanese culture where you remember those who have passed. For us, we sort of transferred it to

[07:35]

the time of Halloween, which seems to make a lot of sense to us in the West. So we'll have a ceremony and then a party and the place will be really kind of wildly decorated in sort of mostly Halloween style, but the ceremony is quite wonderful. We call the names of people who have passed away in the last year and you're invited to bring forth anyone that you want to remember and we feed them with sweet water and tea and fruit and cakes and that they may be liberated from whatever suffering they may be in, in whatever realm they're in. And we invite you to come and bring your kids and people come to the Zendo in costume. which is also a pretty extraordinary thing. You look around the tans and you see, wow, look at this.

[08:41]

And actually, there's almost always people who you can't figure out who they are. Particularly, there's a gorilla, and I haven't figured it out yet. And I think this has been about 10 years. And don't tell me, because I'm trying to work it out from body language and stuff. So that's Friday evening at 7.30. And please come. It's both fun and it's also a deep way to connect with those who have gone to another world, another plane, another rebirth. We don't know. Since we're on this one, we can't see whatever else there is. but we just acknowledge them. And finally, my last in the line of announcements is that a sort of precious resource in this area is no longer going to be available to us.

[09:50]

Shambhala books which has been a real fixture on Telegraph Avenue for 35 years, and Philip Berry has been doing it for 35 years, they're closing their doors. The whole retail book trade is way off, but what's happened, he's a victim of the success, in a way, of spirituality moving into our world. So where 35, 30, 25 years ago there were no other places to get some of the books that you can now get at Shambhala, now even Barnes and Nobles and Borders have extensive sections You know, every bookstore has it because this, you know, on the one hand it's spirituality, on the other hand it's self-help books really sell.

[10:51]

And that's really hurt his business. So has internet sales on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. And Philip kept it going as long as he could. He can't do it anymore. And this is a real loss to our community. And what I want to encourage you to do is go down and buy up books. If you're thinking of getting stuff for your own library or for your own study, do it there now. If you want to get Christmas presents, do it there now. Philip's plan is it's going to be, the doors are going to be closed by Thanksgiving. It's very firm. I talked to them the other day. So I just wanted to say that and we'll have to find some way also of appreciating and recognizing him afterwards, but now the best way is actually just buy your books there if you can.

[11:58]

So we're about to begin here tomorrow what we call Aspects of Practice, which is an intensification of our practice. It's also a way to open the practice to newer people and for older people to dig in a bit more, to learn about the forms, to learn about zazen. We'll begin with a seshin, and I think we've been talking about it a little bit. So we begin tomorrow and Aspects of Practice is being ably coordinated by Baika and Raul, who's not here right now, and you can direct any questions to them. For this time, what we're going to be doing is studying and focusing on and chanting in our Saturday liturgy, Zen Master Dogen's fascicle, Fukan Zazengi, which is a basic Zazen instruction and more.

[13:20]

It gives you the context for practice. And Raul, sort of gave each one of us a suggested kind of lecture topic, and I'm doing the lead-in to aspects of practice. It comes from this passage, which I think I can read for you. It's in the middle of the essay. In addition, The bringing about of enlightenment by the opportunity provided by a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and the effecting of realization with the aid of a hosu, hosu is a whisk, a staff, or a shout, cannot fully be understood by discriminative thinking. Indeed, it cannot be fully known

[14:21]

by the practicing or realizing of supernatural powers either. It must be deportment beyond hearing and seeing. Is it not a principle that is prior to knowledge and perception?" So beyond, I thought I would talk about this a bit. And Raul gave each one of us the suggested topic of one of these ritual items, a finger, a banner, a whisk. Mine was a mallet. Because I'm kind of a blunt instrument. What deportment beyond hearing and seeing means to me is, that means beyond karma, which is zazen.

[15:25]

You know, if karma is, karma is often misunderstood. It simply means action, or actually it means volitional action. It doesn't mean any action. There are other modes of causation in the world besides karma. There's weather, for instance. bacteria. These are not karma. Then things happen. If a brick falls off of a construction site and lands on your head, that's probably not karma, at least not yours. What? Yeah, well, it's more the person who's carelessly left it there to be toppled off. When we do Zazen, we talk about it as it's Zazen doing Zazen.

[16:34]

You know, of course, we have to sit ourselves down and cross our legs and establish our posture and our breath. But as we settle, as we settle the self on the self, then there is no self. There's no volition. and there's no karma. So when Zazen is fully engaged, then we're beyond hearing and seeing. We're just allowing Zazen to come forth. So this ritual object, the mallet that Raul assigned me, it features in a case in the Book of Serenity, the first case, actually, in the Book of Serenity, which reads like this.

[17:39]

One day, the World Honored One, which is the Buddha, ascended the seat. Manjushri, Manjusri is, is that closest to me? Yeah, Manjusri is the Bodhisattva of wisdom, who's often depicted wielding a sword, the sword that cuts through illusion. And Manjusri is, If we had a separate zendo and buddha hall, then in the zendo, Manjushri is the figure who's on the altar. He's cutting through our delusions. So as one day the World Honored One ascended the seat, Manjushri struck the mallet and said, clearly observe the dharma of the king of dharma. The dharma of the king of dharma is thus.

[18:46]

The world honored one, then got down from his seat. Now, when I spilled that cup, Claire could have said, Maybe she could have said, Curly observed the dharma of the clown prince of dharma. The dharma of the clown prince of dharma is thus. And then I should have got down and walked off. But Manjushri makes this announcement. And it's a kind of mysterious action. He hits the mallet, and the Buddha gets up on the seat. He says as the Buddha gets down. There's a wonderful verse in this case. There's often verses that have been assembled or created by the compilers of the case.

[19:49]

And the verse is, the unique breeze of reality, do you see? Continuously, creation runs her loom and shuttle, weaving the ancient brocade incorporating the forms of spring. But nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. So it's this quite beautiful verse about, it's about Zazen doing Zazen. It's about the working of the complete dynamic working of the universe, the unique breeze of reality, continuously creation runs her loom and shuttle.

[20:57]

And it's interesting, there's a feminine quality that's denoted. It's a feminine quality because the spirit that's being conveyed is one of complete receptivity and inclusiveness and action together. It's personified here but really it has no person. There's no person or being that's running this loom and shuttle. In other religions there would be. They see it as God, Allah, whatever. Here it's just alluded to the kind of quality, but it's really not pointing to a person. But it's a beautiful image. Creation runs her loom and shuttle weaving the ancient brocade. That brocade is the whole

[22:00]

warp and woof of existence that exists in time and place and goes on incorporating the forms of spring. Forms of spring. Spring is just arising. Spring is a time when life comes forth. The poet might have added also incorporating the forms of winter. when things pass away. So this is just, this is also beyond hearing and seeing. This is beyond karma. This is just, this is beyond our power. And then there's this last line. But nothing can be done about Manjushri's leaking. Now where was the leaking? Leaking.

[23:04]

Leaking means letting his self show. Not being selfless, but having a preference or an expression or just letting that self show in some way. And my sense here is that, you know, and Manjushri in other stories leaks. I mean, I think about the Vimalakirti Sutra where the Buddha sends him to go, sends all the bodhisattvas to go and meet with the great lay practitioner Vimalakirti who's realized beyond realization. And Manjushri says, no, boss, please don't send me, because the last time I saw him, he really nailed me. So what's wonderful, I think, here is that even though we're talking about going beyond karma, in fact, you've got to be really careful, because you can't go beyond karma.

[24:19]

when an ancient abbot was asked if a fully realized being is subject to the laws of karma. No, a student said, is a fully realized being subject to the laws of karma? The abbot said, no, and thereby was born as a fox for several thousand generations. No one is exempt from karma. And so I think that the karmic act, the leaking, which is the creation of karma, was that Manjushri decided he would strike the mallet. It's like he had to say, hey, check this out. Here's the guy that's really got it. And he's sitting down and you should pay attention. Maybe that wasn't necessary. Or maybe it was just Manjusri allowing himself to enter the realm of karma.

[25:37]

Allowing himself to make, like this whole talk, a mistake on purpose. And receiving the karma because beings did need to know to pay attention to the Buddha. But still, it's leaking. So this is maybe a challenge for us as we enter this aspect of practice. How do we experience our sitting as just sitting? and how do we accept whatever our shortcomings are, fold that back into, fold those threads of our mistakes or ideas, feed them to the one who is creating the ancient brocade and just see it.

[26:41]

This brocade, on the one hand, is perfect, but I bet if one could see it, It would have all kinds of little tangled places and maybe there'd be holes here. It wouldn't be like, what are those tapestries in New York at the Cloisters? Yeah, they have a name though. So it wouldn't be perfect, artistic. clear expression, there would be glitches and errors and tangles. I remember going to the Jewish Museum when I was a kid and they said that in Jewish religious depiction, the painters always painted in a mistake on purpose so that they wouldn't be arrogantly

[27:45]

emulating the perfection of God. So, as we're sitting in this aspect of practice, for some of us, it's really, and I really am glad that there are newer people who are doing it, newer people who are doing Sesshin. I can look around this room and see a number of people whose point of entry in the last couple of years was aspect of practice. That's where they really grounded their daily sitting practice. and found their way on the path. But we're looking at our practice as a kind of pure activity and we're accepting, we're also working with each other and accepting the impurities of that, the places that are missing, the places that we can't do ourselves.

[28:47]

In Japanese Buddhism, there is a kind of rough delineation of two approaches to Dharma. The Zen school, our school, is seen as the self-power school. Self-power, the word is jiriki. And that's true. We got to get ourselves, you know, you all got yourselves here today. You got to get yourself in your car or in the bar and get down here and get yourself on the cushion and cross your legs and get yourself in the proper posture and keep reminding yourself to follow your breath. This is all seems like self power. We have to do this. The other school, or the other delineation in Japanese Buddhism is the Pure Land and some related schools, which are the other power schools, the Tariki, where it's just give up, [...] let the Buddhas hold you.

[30:09]

To my mind, when we do this aspects of practice, or when we do our practice period, you can't say what's self power and what's other power. It's a dualistic formulation. But how did you get here? How did I get here? who brought you to this place, this zendo? Some of you probably were born in a Buddhist family. A lot of us were not. A lot of us were born in other circumstances and our stream of ancestors doesn't run anywhere near Japan. or China. Some of you, they do. But even those people had to bring themselves here, and even those people had to identify an affinity.

[31:20]

And these affinities are very curious. It's like, me? I had this conversation when when I was in Japan for the first time, I also play American traditional music, and I met these Japanese musicians who played bluegrass and old-time music, and they were completely flummoxed by the fact, and actually they came to Rinzowin, and we had this great party, and we played music there, and they loved it. They were completely flummoxed by the fact, like, why are you doing Zen? And I just sort of threw it back at them. I said, you think Zen is weird? You know, what are you doing? You're playing American bluegrass? You know, it's like these two traditions, neither one is any farther from where each of us was born. It couldn't be any farther.

[32:24]

And that was, they really enjoyed thinking about that. We have these affinities and we have these resonances. We come here so we can really dig in and discover them. We come so that we can actually begin to see corners and pieces of the ancient brocade and actually lend a hand. you know, provide a tool or, you know, oil the loom or whatever. We come to discover that and that's the purpose of doing this aspect of practice. And I think we have to pay attention to it. And Manjushri's mallet was just a way to get our attention.

[33:26]

My spilling the water, however unintentional, got your attention, right? Got my attention. So we pay attention. We can see our affinities. We can see what's calling to us. We can see what we want to keep at a distance. As I said, Vaika and Raul and the other practice leaders will be sort of holding the container of practice for this month. The last couple of years I've been the coordinator of aspects of practice, but actually I'm not going to be here because of karmic affinities. It was difficult for me to just feel, well, the brocade is gonna be woven.

[34:37]

I don't have to do anything. I just have to, but I have to let go. And that was really helpful. It took me, I had to work with my resistances to letting go or my feeling, well, this might not work or this might not work and also feeling guilty for not being here. let go of that. Let go again and again and again. So where I'm going to be for I'll be here tomorrow and I'll be here next week. And on the 2nd, I'm going to Japan and for five or six weeks I'm going to be doing what I've been invited by Sotoshu, which is the Zen headquarters of our sect, to participate in what they call a tokubetsu sesshin, which is basically a training sesshin. you know, I'm honored to be invited.

[35:39]

I'm a little surprised, or more than a little surprised, and I also understand why. Mel really supported me in doing this, and he said, you know, we were sitting down and sort of unbidden, he said, well, I think that some of the Japanese that we work with just sort of sense your affinity. And so that's why they asked you to do this, because they see that they have a connection that needs to be developed. And so they wanted to provide us, provide me with the tools, which can then be helpful to other people. So what this is is, well, This is part of a long process. After Suzuki Roshi died, for maybe 20 years, there was virtually no contact with, no official contact with Japan.

[36:40]

And then a few people started making links from the Japanese side towards the Westerners and from the Westerners towards the Japanese. And Sojin has been actually a really key player in this. And it's not because we think that the real practice is in Japan, or that the real understanding is in Japan, although it exists there. It's more his way of honoring, and our way of honoring, his way of honoring his teacher. And we're remembering again and again how people struggled to bring this practice to us. It's just interesting, four of our main Japanese teachers died untimely deaths. Think about Suzuki Roshi and Maezumi Roshi and Kobinchino Roshi.

[37:50]

and Katagiri Roshi, really close to our family. And it always seemed to me that they kind of burned themselves up for our sake. And we owe them kind of a boundless debt of thanks. And part of that is to do this work of connecting, whether we understand it or not, which I don't. I don't understand the connection, I'll know more when I come back, whether it's convenient or not, which, frankly, going away for six weeks, leaving the aspects of practice, leaving what's going on at Buddhist Peace Fellowship where I work, leaving my family, this is not convenient. I also know that once I get there, I'll have a great time. And I'll think of you all, but probably not much. I'll think of my family a lot.

[38:52]

No. But it's a way of honoring the people who brought us to practice. And it will sort of culminate in two ceremonies, ceremonies called haito, where you're sort of symbolically Abbott for the day, as a group. There's a group of, there'll be eight of us, four Americans and four Europeans. And we'll, each of us in the group will be sort of symbolically Abbott for the day at AHE, and Soji-jiju, which are the main Soto training temples. And it's like, again, when I think back, it's as bizarre an outcome in my life, or it's as bizarre to me in a way as it was to those Japanese bluegrass musicians. And I wonder what it would be to you know, kind of my Russian Jewish ancestors.

[39:54]

But I see our lives, we have these amazing karmic affinities that actually don't have to do quite with where we come from. They just have to do with where we resonate. And we have to listen and pay attention for the resonances and see where we're vibrating. So This is my karma, and I don't know if there's anything I've done that's created it, but I seem to have to work it through. So I'm going, and I will think of you, actually. And I also know that any of us, we all go away. Dali went away. Meili, Fran, Mel is on a journey, I'll be on a journey, any of us will go away.

[40:59]

And even our going away is an activity that runs the loom, creating that ancient brocade. And that the practice, to trust that the practice will be held which I fully believe, you know, I mean, there were a lot of people here for Zazen this morning, a lot of people here this morning, a lot of people signed up for Sesshin tomorrow. This means that there is life in the practice. And it's a life that's, you know, beyond hearing and seeing. It's a life that is just, flowering even in the autumn. Of course we live in California where the seasons are all screwed up.

[42:00]

It's constantly flowering at the spring. Actually, there's a title of one of the first Zen books that I got when I began to practice is Timeless Spring, a wonderful collection of Soto stuff by Tom Cleary. And that's where we exist. We exist in timeless spring where the practice is just emerging by itself. And we have to find how to both flow with it and also move it on. How to allow ourselves to be carried and supported by so-called other power, by invoking our self-power. So I think I'm going to stop there. I'd like to take a few minutes of questions before we end. So thank you. Micah?

[43:03]

I was at a meeting the other day and somebody said, why do we chant in Japanese? Why do we? Yeah. And I was thinking, well, it's said. It's from Japan. We chant in Japanese. To me, it's mostly about that. But also, it's again, a question of resonances and affinities. I actually love to chant in Japanese. It's more rhythmic. I can sort of put my energy more into it as just pure sound in a way than, it's easier in a way than the English. But I think it's fundamentally about

[44:05]

maintaining the connection and not, our practice changes. It's going to change. Maybe in 100 or 200 years, we'll have something that's really Western practice, but I'm not in a rush. It changes slowly and steadily, and I hope that 100 or 200 or 500 years from now, we also will not have forgotten where it comes from. It's really important. I think it's particularly important for us here in America because we have a kind of unconscious arrogance that leads us just unconsciously to think, well, you know, I'm doing this and to forget where things come from. We constantly remind ourselves where things come from. So I think it's a reminder of that. Yeah.

[45:15]

Part of what I'll be doing in Japan, you know, when you become a priest, what Mel said, well, the first first year is just learning how to wear your robes. And he told a story of how he was shortly ordained and then he found himself running someplace in Tassajar and caught his robe and tore the whole sleeve off. I may be a slower horse, so here's 13 or 14 years. caught that with my robe sleeve. So, you know, part of the training that we're going to be doing is like informs how you do things, how you wear your robes, you know, how you take care of everything, how you take care of the bowing mat as part of yourself, actually, and how you take care of the spilled water as part of yourself.

[46:36]

They're not different. different dipper full of water out of this practice. Mine has always been, or has been for some time, actually learn how to make mistakes, not how to do things right. It seemed to me that the practice was actually set up to point this out to me. To each of us, yeah. No, that's everybody's cup. you know, you got it, it's yours, you know, and it's mine, you know, and it's Dean's and it's Peter's and it's Greg's, you know, and so we'd go around the room. You know, how do we take care of, how do we take care of our mistakes or our so-called messes and see that they're not, they're just, it's just part of the brocade. Maybe one more. Yeah.

[47:37]

I just have a question from some exposure to different communities in Berkeley. People are talking about some astrological influences that are coming about, and there's a particular date on November 8th that's this sextile, these trines in a certain alignment. I'm just curious to ask how the Zen tradition, and this in particular, connects or relates to cosmic influences or not. I don't know. It's not something I've... you hear very little about it in Zen, I think, although I'm willing to be stand corrected. Actually, Buddhism adapted to different cultures everywhere it went. There's a lot of astrology and divination in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, actually in Theravada Buddhist tradition or Thai Buddhist tradition.

[48:48]

I don't hear it so much in Zen, but I'll bet it's there in other forms of Japanese Buddhism. I don't know, it's interesting, it's not a place where I've ever had a resonance, but then I meet other people that I really respect and they resonate that way. So, the short answer is, I don't know. Does anyone know any more about it? Well, let's stop here, enjoy the day, have some tea. I'll see a bunch of you tomorrow. Thank you.

[49:30]

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