I vow to chase the truth of God until He tells me where it hurts. Good morning. Good morning. Yesterday I was talking about I tend to minimize talking about priest practice as something desirable.

[01:21]

If I talk about it as something desirable, then everyone will want to do it. A lot of people will think that's the thing to do. So I tend not to make it seem like something desirable. But I do want to acknowledge the practice of the priests and acknowledge their contribution tend to minimize or not talk it up as something special because I don't think it should be the focus for everyone. I think what's very important

[02:32]

So some of the best examples of lay practice have become priests, which is wonderful. But I don't think that when someone becomes a really good example for lay practice, they should automatically become a priest. Although Suzuki Roshi used to say, You can't be a good priest until you're a good layperson. You can't be a well-functioning priest until you know how to be a well-functioning layperson. So, the weight And sometimes we ordain someone as a priest for various reasons.

[03:53]

But it definitely should not be the goal of everyone's practice or the thing to do. Unless someone has a very strong So to maintain a balance in a small practice like this, it's very important that we do maintain a balance. And it can easily shift. You know, when Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, after Suzuki Roshi died, before Suzuki Roshi died, it was a wonderful lay practice. Mostly. Although he had ordained a dozen priests, but Cincinnati was quite a big place. And it took him a long time to do that.

[05:05]

But the feeling was of a very strong lay practice. And then after he died, Since then it became a very strong priest's practice and the lay practice got pushed out to the periphery and has never recovered really in the way that it was as far as recognizing, understanding what lay practice is. So I think that Berkeley, here, we have a very good understanding of lay practice and we promote it. And we set a good example for lay practice. And I really want that to continue. And it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have some priests practicing.

[06:16]

It should be a good reason for that, if we do have priests. So in the future, I'm sure that I will ordain some more priests and encourage their practice and honor their practice. Some people, some teachers, promote priest's practice. And some teachers promote lay practice. And I promote both. who say, well, in America, why do we need priests?

[07:28]

That question comes up for people. Why do we need priests? That's kind of ignoring a long tradition and ignoring some people's vocation. It's a little bit selfish idea. And then some people say, why do we need lay practice? That's true. As a matter of fact, there is a Chinese master who either he or his disciples printed a publication that said, only the priests are sangha. I think he must have gotten a lot of flack from that.

[08:29]

But he did say so. He said, only the priests are sangha. That's a very extreme position. And it balances out the other position of, why should there be priests? So we have both extreme positions here in America. And my position is right in the middle. We should have both. Some people should practice as laypeople, some people should practice as priests. And not all of the best practitioners should be priests. So a good lay practice encourages people to be good priests. And good priests encourage people to be good lay practitioners.

[09:33]

Our practice is not just for ourself. So, if a person has any tinge of leaning toward being ordained as in some gaining way to maybe have some position or to be looked upon as by people as being special or gain having some some advantage, then I would be very wary about ordaining that person. So, being ordained as a priest should minimize ego.

[10:50]

The purpose of being a priest is to minimize ego and to continue working for the rest of their life on minimizing ego. And if it promotes ego, it's doing just the opposite. But it can easily go the other way. So we have to be very careful and we have to know our own motives. So it always takes me a very long time after a person requests being a priest to decide to actually ordain them as a priest. So I'm even more weary because of some of my lack of success.

[11:59]

Now, I have a question. But it seems like the more you talk about this, the more confusing it gets to me. One thing that you say is that being a priest isn't special, isn't a special something. And yet, if only a few people could be priests, then by definition it becomes special. In other words, if anyone who wanted to be a priest could become a priest, it wouldn't be an ego or something to gain. And you talk about the balance between lay practitioners and priests, and I'm not sure what that means. Well, if only a few people become priests, then it makes it look special.

[13:20]

that special quality, right? So within that special quality, there's nothing special. The special quality does not, it's like Let's say it's like some people are specially qualified to disarm bombs, right? And that's a kind of special group of people.

[14:22]

But not everybody should do that. That's an extreme example. But in a way, you know, we are bombs, aren't we? But I'm still not through answering your question. So you would say, well, this is a special group of people, right? But you wouldn't necessarily want to be a part of that. Not everybody should do that. There are other jobs. Anyway, the example only goes so far.

[15:27]

It's special, but it's not something everybody should do, because people have other things to do. So, there are other ways of being peaceful, creating peaceful situations. So the other part of your question was what? The balance. You say it's important to have a balance. I'm not sure. A balance means if you have as many priests as lay people, then it's not a very good balance because people will feel that you have to be a priest in order to be a recognized member of the Sangha. That's what happened at Zen Center.

[16:29]

It's just inevitable. So a priest has a certain function. A priest does the service, leads the service. So there is a special quality. That's the function of a priest, is to take care of the practice for everyone. Not that other people don't take care of it, but that's their function. So it does make a priest kind of special. So the specialness exists. But if the specialness exists, then it's important to not promote the specialness. it exists without being promoted. And if you promote it, then it makes it very attractive.

[17:34]

But somehow I feel like part of the promotion of it is to make it a small amount. In other words, anything that's a small amount sometimes becomes Cesarical just because... That's right, just because it's different. Yeah, so by definition, if anybody could become a priest, only people who wanted to be that special kind of priest would become it. So it's by definition has some kind of tension. Well it seems to me I have a similar question to that but when you said that the function of a priest is what's maybe that's where the specialness resides is in the function and the sort of practice and not in the person the person's not special and in fact when the person becomes a priest they work harder to give up their own specialness and take on

[18:39]

the specialness of this sort of practice. And so it interests me when you say you've, like, made some misjudgment or had some failure around doing that. Does that mean the people might promote themselves, a person might promote themselves? And so then my question is, how do you assess when someone really wants to do it? You know, if they say the right things. I know, that's very hard. People say all the right things. And he thinks that that's what they mean. Some people are very convincing. They probably think that's what they mean. And they think that's what they mean. That's right. But then when they put on the robe, and you say, well, now will you do this? They say, what, me? I'm special. Yeah, I'm special. That's right. You don't recognize it. I'm so old and I've done all these things in my life and now you expect me to do this?

[19:44]

That's true. In order to become a priest, really, you have to give up all your conditioned responses. All of your past means nothing. You enter a new role in life. Your past is gone. You start out with a new role, even though that's not completely, literally so. That's ideal. Ideally so. You just start over again. And you allow yourself to be bossed. What shall I do? Well, I'm going to do this. What shall I do? You ask your teacher, what shall I do?

[20:46]

You put yourself under the control of your teacher. So if a person has a lot to do, it makes it very difficult to ask that person to be a priest or allow that person to be a priest. Becoming a priest means you start from zero. And it's not always happened like that. But the more it can happen like that, the better. Because as long as you still have something, then that something starts coming into conflict with being a priest. That's why in the past, you know, priests have always been celibate, no family, no ties.

[21:49]

That's why it's called leaving home. You just start over again. But we don't, that's, you know, we don't have that tradition in our country. And we ordain priests for various reasons. People have certain capabilities I have not been ordaining people for some time because I need to be very careful about that people understand what it is. Marie? My question in part, what is the function of a priest? I was going to ask. But now I'm thinking more about this.

[22:52]

And again, this is going to be the wrong thing to say, but it seems like very few people... I can't imagine ever saying, I'm giving up all my other goals, I now want to become a priest. That to me would feel like a cop-out of my path. And it seems to me there are a lot of priests, A lot of priests, and I don't quite understand how, where, there is also a virtue, and I know a lot of people are priests that are very much on their own path, and have not given up their faith, and haven't copped it out, and are continuing their path, and are also 100% priests. So I'm seeing a paradox here. Well, there's a little paradox, yes. But I wouldn't say they're not, I don't know what your percentages, where do your percentages come from? But you shouldn't do that. You should practice as a layperson. Yeah. I guess I'm wondering... I don't quite understand why... Why the virtue of being a priest.

[24:07]

Well, that's okay. I can't tell you what that virtue is. If you experience that virtue, then you see it. I can't tell you what it is. And I remembered that it is time. answer for themselves whether they want to be a priest or not.

[25:15]

At one time I had a very strong desire to do so, and I don't have that desire anymore. And for me it's been supplanted with a great desire to wake up, which is not, as I understand it, not dependent on the form of being a priest or being a layperson. He's up on the wall, he's quoted a lot, and he's kind of this model of our practice. But I think it's important to find out what's important from any given teacher to help our own practice. of what they're going to teach us.

[26:17]

And I can see in my few years of practicing how I've kind of gone the full spectrum depending on the people I have in the Bureau and what was being brought up as what to do. But the whole reality of waking up is, that's really for me, the real beauty of it because it transcends priesthood, national boundaries, gender boundaries, all that stuff. A kind of trick to hold it all together and allow for each thing to be without falling into one side or the other, which is a hard trick. I guess I'm wondering why are we...

[27:30]

So I got into, I wasn't going to talk about priest practice, actually. It just kind of went on and on. But I think we do have a very strong way of practice here. And I think it's both defined and undefined. And the definition is that people feel that no matter, you know, people living as residents and as residents feel that this is their practice and this is the place where they can practice freely and without restriction and that their practice is important and promoted no matter how little or So I think that's a fairly good definition, although there's more defined.

[29:46]

But basically, I think that that is an important part of the definition. And they don't even necessarily know that. Oh, you had your hand up first. Yeah, when you described what you consider a practical priest to be, that's what I thought the lay practitioner was.

[30:55]

So I'm, because otherwise it seems to me What happened to the creek is what? And you decide what your own practice is. The life practitioner decides to what extent they participate in Zazen and to what degree they take the practice seriously.

[32:05]

Whereas a priest, when you become a priest, you take the practice very seriously as the center of your life. Some people have a lot of leeway besides, you know, what, to what extent practice is the center of their life. I think they're very different. In this country we have the opportunity to play practitioners that operate in a monastic setting. Do you see that as happening in the practice? When we go to a place like Tassajara for a practice period, then everyone is a monk, whether you're a priest or a layperson. Then the practice is a monk. And that's the third kind of category.

[33:09]

And we still all practice the same way. The thing about a priest's practice is a priest's practice keeps the backbone, keeps the, maintains the practice so that people can come and go. This is a function of a priest. A lot of lay people do this too. The function of a priest is to really help maintain the practice. in how to do that. Listening to the talk this morning, the image arises for me of chess.

[34:13]

You know, I think about, if you know chess, like the way the bishops move. And I don't know, there may be, I don't know how many people have made any trips, but the bishops can move in a diagonal. And there are two on each side. I mean, there are a lot of conventions. It's very interesting to think of the bishops. It doesn't interfere with all the other pieces.

[35:28]

Yes, and they're all necessary. All the pieces are necessary. But also, they are different. I mean, the stature and the design and the connections as to their uniqueness, or even their material, you know. Okay. And we're practicing in such different ways than happened originally in Haiti.

[36:30]

You said not everybody should be a priest, and some people aren't, you know. It's just the way it happens. Is there anybody who's been through it either? Very particular. Many people are not ready. We're ready to do it. People who have jobs and families and are busy in a busy life take the time to go to school and have ordination.

[37:41]

It's really hard to fit that in and to spend all the time doing that and making that effort. That's one of the things that makes the whole aviation feel good. And it proves that we can have a good, solid practice, even in the midst of our busyness and the simplicity of our lives. In order to have a good practice, it's bringing together all these diverse lives and activities. Before I was a priest, I lived and saw a lot of suffering with people.

[39:12]

I lived with people and saw a lot of suffering with people. And I think I wanted to do something to I really have always wanted to promote race practice so that anybody could come and practice, to get something done so that anybody could come and practice. And I think it's important to do that. And at the same time, I very much admire my teachers. And also, he wanted, he thought that this would be a treat to take care of the gender.

[40:26]

So, I had both of these things going, and I wanted to promote the priesthood, and I also wanted to promote lay practice. for a boat. And uh, so it's my calling. I-I-I'll be back. And I need to work. You've got to be sure where you are.

[41:45]

And, uh... It won't be so easy. It's not so easy. Anyway, this is what we're dealing with, what I'm dealing with. And, um... I'm going to be talking about how you can read that report. And it is really pretty good. It really does talk to you.

[42:49]

It talks a lot to you. Another thing that I wanted to talk about is how you can read that report. I'm here to make a statement on this issue. This is a confirmation that when you're wearing a mask to protect the people, you are protecting the world. Get that off the way, baby.

[43:59]

I felt what he meant by that, but I never asked him. I think we need to look at it from the perspective of the United States and all of them, and see what we can do. We have to get both sides. We have to get both sides. uh... Peace.

[46:19]

you

[48:34]

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