I don't want to face the truth of life. Someone said to me recently that they felt that the virtue of the Zen Center here, Berkeley Zen Center, was that openness with which people can come and practice Zazen someone can, Joe Blow can walk in the door and sit Zazen on Tuesday afternoon and then come back two weeks later and sit Zazen and feel, feel that person, Joe Blow will feel that welcome and that they, practice is open to them.

[01:26]

that Susie Housewife, or John Mechanic, can walk in the door and practice at their convenience. And that is a virtue of the Percozendo. And when we started back in 1967, Our intention was, at least my intention, was to provide a place for laypeople to sit, zazen, and practice Buddhadharma. And as we've developed over the last 20 years, in the last few years, there's been a desire for people to become priests, to be ordained as priests, and to find out how to practice as a priest.

[02:43]

I'm sorry, I love the chickens. They should be doing this during Zazen. I really miss the rooster. The rooster is very auspicious, you know. in Zen, when the rooster crows, wake up. What about the chickens? Same thing. Same thing. So anyway, we have an opportunity out there, but I'll try to speak a little louder anyway. So, in the last few years, some people have been wanting to practice as priests, and I think that our practice is also attracting some people who would like to be priests and practice in this kind of style that we have at the Zendo.

[03:54]

And last night I was talking to Honin, and Bob Janicek, and Bob Paulson, who is going to be a, he was a priest who was ordained by Kato-san in Los Altos, and who's going to be a resident here. And there are several other people who have asked me to ordain them as priests, and so it brings up a question of how do people practice as priests? in this kind of situation. What does that mean? And one of the things that we came to in our conversation was that we sometimes associate priests with ritual and the priest's role as taking care of ceremonies and rituals and some kind of hierarchical and caretaking role.

[05:21]

But I think that we all felt that a real role of a priest is not necessarily taking care of ceremonies, but really dedicating yourself to practicing the dharma. And we felt that one of the things that we felt was that all of us lay people, older lay members and priests could equally share taking care of the service and the ceremonies and the sort of thing which usually is given to priests to do. And that the role and function of a priest would be to

[06:25]

really dedicate their lives to practice in a way that we expect people to practice. Which puts it more into the realm of, what's it really about? Is it about ceremonies? Is it about... Ceremonies are nice, and they have meaning. Ceremonies are very meaningful. To associate a life of a priest as ceremonious, that gets us off the track. There's always been a tension, ever since Buddhism started 2,500 years ago, between the priesthood and the laity. That tension has always existed, and it's not a bad tension. Tension itself is not bad, because it stimulates growth. But in the old days, in India, the Staviras, which were the elders of the priesthood, formed a very tight group of celibate monks and kind of took control of the saga.

[07:52]

But there are a lot of people who didn't like that. And so the people who didn't like that created another kind of sangha called the Mahayana, which was a broader way of practicing, which included both priests and laypeople. And opened up Buddhism so that it wasn't just a clique of priests. But it goes back and forth. As soon as priests get kind of powerful in some way, then they form a clique and a certain kind of group. And it's very natural to do. Very natural way, actually, to do. But it's also very natural for a reaction to set in. And the lay saga, or more liberal kind of priesthood, and lay Sangha revolts against that.

[08:58]

And all through the history of Buddhism it's gone back and forth. So you have the Hinayana and the Mahayana as distinct groups, which polarity. And you have groups of people who practice in various ways. I don't want to go through the whole history of how people have practiced within Buddhism, but my feeling about the priesthood is that it has many roles. One of its functions is to take care of lay people, to encourage lay people's practice, And to set an example, a priest is someone who takes a vow to dedicate their life to the Dharma, the triple treasure, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

[10:15]

So taking the vow to be a priest, you acknowledge your Buddhahood as Buddha. and you take a vow to understand the Dharma, immerse yourself in the Dharma, and to be at one with and take care of the Sangha. So there are two ways of studying. And one way is to learn as much as you can for yourself to really devote yourself in a way that you become educated and enlightened. And the other side of that is that that's the side where you turn inward to yourself.

[11:22]

And the other side is where you turn outward So that what you do for yourself is an offering to everyone. If you just do it for yourself, that's the core of the Hinayana practice. Just doing something for yourself is what we call Hinayana practice. It has nothing to do with Theravada or any kind of sect of Buddhism. Hinayana is a term that means just doing something for yourself. kind of self-centered practice, which is not priest's practice. Priest's practice is to, yes, to educate yourself and at the same time to turn over whatever merit or whatever you've done for yourself for the benefit of everyone else.

[12:25]

So priest, when you become a priest, you have no special thing in your life that you do for yourself. In other words, the meaning of your life changes. Because what you're doing is dedicating your life to help other people. So however you can do that is a valid way to practice. But the meaningful thing about being a priest is that you also turn yourself, practice to gain a good understanding for yourself. Because the better your own understanding is, the more you can help people. So there's always these two sides.

[13:30]

So for a priest, there should be some training. Some kind of training. Monastic training is one kind. And learning how to be with people and how to take care of people within the practice is another side. How to be in the world and take care of people in the world without getting caught by the things of the world is the great challenge. So sometimes a priest will wear a robe. Sometimes whatever the priest is wearing is a robe. And sometimes priests will take care of ceremonies.

[14:38]

We usually do that. And what happens is that the priesthood becomes kind of strong when it does take care of ceremonies. Because it lends a strong focus. And that's, you know, I'm not so sure that that's the best thing to do. It's like taking care of children in a way. In a way, of course, adults are not children, but a priest sees everyone as either their brother or their sister or children. That kind of relationship. So sometimes you take care of someone as your brother, sometimes as your sister, sometimes as your children.

[15:41]

I'm in the fortunate position of having a small child who teaches me a lot about how to take care of myself. Or how to take care of him. And I don't try to do something for him. I try to teach him how to do everything for himself. And if I take over his tasks, that's a disservice. And if people don't grow that way, don't grow if someone else does their work for them. So in some sense, a priest has to help people to do things, but also know when to step back, you know, so that people can actually grow and learn how to do something themselves.

[16:46]

In our American Sangha, you know, very different than Japanese Sangha or Sangha anyplace else, In Japan, the priests do all of the service for the lay people. It's a service for the lay people. In Japan, everybody has their job. A priest is a priest and does priest's work. And a housewife is a housewife and does housewife's work. And a child is a child and does children's work. I was very surprised when I went to Japan and when I was living with Hoitsu, my Suzuki Roshi son, in their temple. And his wife did all the work in the temple because that was her job. Didn't matter whether that there was a lot of other work to be done. There was so much work that she couldn't do it. But because it was her role, she was fulfilling her role.

[17:52]

And the children went to school. And in Japan, children go to school a lot more than we do. But they were not expected to do anything. Going to school was what children did, and that was their role. So they didn't cross roles. The children did not help the mother to do the dishes or get the dinner out or anything like that. It was very interesting. In Japan, they have very definite roles. Everybody has a role and it's very seldom that you cross roles. But in America, our particular Sangha is very different than Japanese Sangha. In our Sangha, people come for Zazen every day and very regularly, you know, and we all kind of share the same kind of practice. It's not a priest's practice. is distinct from a lay practice. So I think in our particular practice, lay people are actually in some way practicing the same as priests.

[19:02]

So we have a lot of crossover. Some place where there's a lay people and priests, but they cross over and there's that area where everybody's doing the same thing. And I think that we just let it flow together. Our practice is a little bit mixed up, but if we let it mix, it won't be so much a problem than if we try to make it too distinct. And in that mixing, we don't have to define our roles. lay people practice as priests in some way, and priests practice as lay people in some way. And that crossing over is also good, I think. So, that's the way I'm thinking, is that we actually acknowledge what is really happening and not try and make it into some way, some idea.

[20:11]

But still, it's wonderful to have people practice as priests and find out what that is. I remember when I was ordained by Suzuki Goshi, and there were almost no priests ordained at that time. It was very unusual for an American to be a Zen priest. And he'd asked me to be ordained. So I was happy to do it. And after I was ordained, I said, what shall I do? Now that I'm ordained, what shall I do? He said, I don't know. And that was my cue. My cue was, I have to find out what to do. What shall I do? And that's been my practice ever since. And pretty much I've stuck very close to watching my teacher, listening to my teacher, practicing like my teacher, and so forth, which has lent a lot of stability to my life and my practice and helped me to grow into being a priest.

[21:38]

But I've been very cautious Actually, my whole life before I was a priest, I was not very cautious. I was very loose. I didn't like conformity, and I didn't like doing something over and over. My life before I was a priest was that you should never repeat anything. The practice has helped me a lot to put some structure in my life. But I think that there's a lot of room for finding out what our own practice is. And I'm very much up for that and not holding on to some special structure or special idea about it.

[22:41]

I think that to ordain someone as a priest, the person who wants to be a priest should have a pretty clear idea that they want to devote their lives to the practice and not have some other thing going that is an alternative or is a strong pull in some other direction. If a person has something else that they want to do besides that, they should wait until they don't want to do it anymore. And then if they are ordained, they should try to live their life as finding out what that means. And it doesn't necessarily mean that their practice will be better than some lay person's practice. layperson may never get ordained, but be extremely wonderful and virtuous and actually have, you know, maybe more, a better understanding than a priest.

[24:11]

So, that's not the point, you know. The point is for the priest to just find out how to do it, what it means for them. And when a priest does that in a right way, people respect it very much. So a priest's life, actually, should be to help and inspire people to practice Help people to practice, inspire them to practice. And be a kind of servant. Take a low position. You know, we look like we have gorgeous robes as priests, but actually they're just, they're not. They just look that way. Anyway, I want to find out, you know, what you want from practice.

[25:41]

Because, as I mentioned in the beginning of my talk, On the one side, Joe Blow can come to Zazen once a month, and it's just fine. On the other hand, there are people who really want to practice in a very total way, at the same place, same time. And how do we allow all that to go together? How do we allow those two sides of practice? Practice itself, Zen practice, always implies some kind of discipline. Without discipline, practice is very weak. So, for someone to discipline themselves or to put themselves within the discipline, implies a certain kind of commitment.

[26:53]

So, how do we make our practice, give our practice vitality so that people will want to do that and support each other in a kind of disciplined practice in which we put our, a vehicle in which we can really put our energy People withhold their energy unless there's a good vehicle. If you want to take a ride, you want to make sure that the vehicle you're stepping into provides you a good ride. So, what kind of vehicle do we have? Do we have the right kind of vehicle that will inspire people and help people to contribute their energy and their effort? And if not, what do we need?

[28:01]

And at the same time, have the door open so people can walk in and out, come in and out, and practice in some way. And have it all one practice. I really want to say that the reason I wanted to come here, you know, practice here at the Berkeley Zen Center was because of that, the openness and the diversity and the strength of the practice that's here. And, you know, you can say that, you know, one of the things a priest does is help other people and take care of other people, but the members here at the Berkeley Zen Center take care of the practice in wonderful ways, you know, and I think the people who rush after work to come over here and clean the Zendo and take care of the altar and do the Doan, and everyday people are so faithful taking care of the practice.

[29:21]

So, I don't know how to say, you know, this is what a priest does and this is what a person who's not a priest does, I know that for myself, I really felt that coming and practicing with lay people who practice like this would be the best place for me to find out how it is to practice as a priest without getting hung up on the kind of thing like, well, who offers the incense? We all share that, and we all really share taking care of the practice. It just seems that for me, I want to practice in a way that I drop off a lot of other things in my life. And I don't have much left except practicing. And other people don't have that same kind of a drive or are not in that same kind of a position. But it's wonderful to practice here and to really feel that all I have to do is practice the best that I can and I'm really inspired and taken care of by

[30:31]

to all of the people who have been practicing here for so many years. This is an absolutely wonderful place to practice. Thank you. at least I thought I saw a tendency, everything we do is practice, so whether it be in the everyday world of work or as a priest, it's just a different type, right? It's still practice. So, is there a problem here? I mean, what's the... What's the problem? What's the problem? Is there a problem? I mean, are we heading off a problem? Is that what we're talking about? Well, I think that the problem You know, I think that what maybe what comes up for me is kind of waxing and waning of... One thing, we're going through changes.

[31:55]

There are changes taking place. And this is one of them. And also, I think that for a lot of people, there's some doubt as to what really is going on in our practice. Maybe some people come for zazen, but they can't touch something else. And this is another point. Part of the point is, people may come to sit zazen, but how many people feel like they're a zen student? I think that's one thing that I'm thinking about. People come, mostly, there aren't people who consider themselves Zen students, but there are a lot of people who just come to sit, you know, just kind of, but they don't participate very much, and there's this one thing they're interested in, and maybe it helps them in some way in their life.

[33:04]

But how many people actually feel that they're a Zen student? And that's what I'm interested in, in one way. I'm also open to people coming and sitting in, for whatever reason they have, but they should understand what our practice is. Because some people, it's easy to have a misconception. And I'm also interested in helping people to find their way as Zen students. I'm very much interested in that. It doesn't matter, priest, layperson, you know. That's not the point, but in your daily life, how do you handle yourself? So, one question that we have in front of us all the time, in any situation is, am I a Zen student now? You know, at the movies, or walking down the street, or driving your car, or at work, dealing with people,

[34:09]

you know, taking care of your grandmother. What does a Zen student do in this situation? What do I, as a Zen student, do in any situation? And if you keep referring to that, then you identify yourself as a Zen student, and you try to find out what it is that that is, that means. Say, I don't want to tell you what it is. I mean, just like the priest. you know, is ordained as a priest, and then go find out what it means to be a priest. In the same way, what does it mean to be a Zen student? So at some point in your practice, you have to hold that question. You have to deal with that question. Am I a Zen student? What does that mean? Personally, I don't see a problem.

[35:10]

I was glad that when you said that there can be an area where priests and lay people can just mingle. I think that what we've always done is provide a place, as you say, for everybody at a continuum of different levels. Personally, I'm not interested in being a good Zen student. I'm more interested in just I just feel much more comfortable with the idea, personally, of the invisible rope and people just sitting in front of us and that being the basis and that being the center of my focus and commitment. But there's certainly room for other long as we keep ourselves open, and I think in a certain sense it would be pretty hard not to, because we have a pretty strong tradition of being open, then I don't see a problem.

[36:24]

Well, I also have trouble with, I mean, so the characterization of, you know, being a Zen student everywhere you go, and that's a in some very abstract place. But I also think that there's something to it. And I think that that urge, following that path, is something that comes up from inside you, from your life, and part of the role of the priests and the teacher and the people who have been practicing for a long time is to encourage that. But what I think I'm hearing you ask is, does the looseness and openness of our practice, does that hinder the development of people, hinder their emotional on that path?

[37:35]

Frankly, I don't see it. I don't see that that's a hindrance. I feel like the hindrance sometimes is for the people who are already practicing, that they have some problems sometimes with people who come and go, or who are not committed and having to deal with them day to day. But I feel like, to me, years later, then, you know, if you have some attachment to the idea of them, you know, needing to be here every day, then you're going to have a problem. Yeah. That's a good point. To accept things the way they are, because that's the way we set them up. But the thing about asking yourself if you're a Zen student does not mean, by that I don't mean that I am a Zen student. That's not what I mean. We shouldn't have the stink of Zen, you know.

[38:39]

You shouldn't go around advertising yourself as a Zen student. But what Meili says, you know, who am I, is the same thing. But who am I is a kind of question about yourself, of identity. Who? Whereas, The other question is how. So who is identifying yourself? How is, how do I go about it? You know, how do I act? How do I, so you don't have to say necessarily, am I a good Zen student or something like that. Just say, how do I do things? How am I gonna, you know, how do I do this right in the right way? How do I do that in the right way? Of course, you know, if I'm my consent student, my consent student, of course not.

[39:48]

We're never a consent student. So I, you know, appreciate what you say. But my question, you know, is some people, well, it's okay not to identify yourself, but you may have an identity problem. And if you have an identity problem, you can get into the meaning of what you're doing by asking yourself, what is it? How am I doing it now? Am I lost? Am I forgetting? How do I practice in this situation? That's what I mean. How do I carry my practice wherever I go? I didn't see where you were coming from. Is the openness, is it a problem or isn't it?

[40:53]

Oh, the openness is not a problem. But I see, you mean, how do you have a disciplined practice when you have such an open practice? Well, that's the koan that we're always dealing with. And sometimes I feel it's a problem that the openness creates a kind of weakness in the discipline side. And so the responsibility is on each person to know what their own practice is so that they... Discipline yourself. Each person has to discipline themselves because I don't run after people disciplining them. You have to find your own discipline. And I encourage you to do it. So what I'm always doing is encouraging you to find your own discipline. And it's very difficult because in some ways, sometimes I want to just run around and say, I want you to do this and that.

[42:07]

But I don't do it. Sometimes I want to, but sometimes maybe I should. But you may run away. It's OK. Sometimes you do. Sometimes I ask you, will you do this? And you run away. It's OK. So anyway, this is what we're always dealing with. And it's an ongoing problem of our practice, life of practice. But I think we should all be aware of what we're doing. That's the main thing. And not lose ourself in unawareness. Because when we have a practice which is so open, it's very easy for it to just go whoosh one day and it's not there. I don't think that'll happen. What goes on in my mind is when, what I enjoy a lot is when we commit ourselves to each other in our practice.

[43:25]

And I don't just commit myself to myself, but I also commit myself to you. And I'm not saying that I'm doing something nice for you. I don't want to tell you that, but there's a kind of agreement, kind of an agreement or, you know, What makes me feel good is when I'm present and you're present and we keep our agreements with each other. And that's really the most encouraging thing to me. What do you make of that? Buddha.

[44:28]

This fellow is a bad guy. underlying basis of our practice. That's the foundation of our practice, both of you and me. So, we're all in that place. My teacher ordained me knowing how bad I was. I swear this is true.

[45:30]

So he had a lot of hope, you know. He really had a lot of, not hope, but something, you know, optimism. That's not right either. But maybe hope is it. Not hope in the sense that I hope that that happens, but my great patience. Faith. Faith. Faith in the Dharma. So I have the same thing for all of you. You're all wonderful. But y'all have problems. Me too. We're all in the same boat. We're all wonderful, and we all have big problems. And we're all on the way to something. And yet, we're all right here.

[46:38]

Sometimes I get discouraged. Sometimes I get discouraged, but I still have great faith and I continue to do so. I'd like you to feel free to tell me how you feel that we can improve our practice. I'd like you to think about how we can improve our practice and to tell me about it. SRI BALAJI MAHARISHI

[47:57]

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