Today is the sixth day of our Rohatsu Sashin, which is seven days, and the seventh day will be tomorrow, which is the eighth of the month, and eighth is the day that we celebrate Shakyamuni Buddha's enlightenment. So we will have an enlightenment ceremony tomorrow in the morning. So this Sashin Rohatsu is at the end of the year and incorporates Buddha's enlightenment ceremony and has a feeling of celebrating enlightenment.

[02:12]

I've been talking about Suzuki Roshi's lectures, commenting on Suzuki Roshi's lectures during this time, But today I'm going to talk about this scroll that's hanging up on the wall, which was loaned to us by Grace Shearson. And this scroll is by Soyen Shaku, who was very well-known Zen master, Rinzai Zen master, in Japan around the turn of the century, and he lived in the 19th century and also in the 20th century, and his line of teachers comes to him through Hakuin, and then His descendants are, some of his descendants are D.T.

[03:24]

Suzuki and Niyogen Sensaki who were early pioneers in America of Zen. Soenshaku came to America in 1906 as a representative of Zen to the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, I think it was. They had a recent World Parliament of Religions meeting in Brazil a few years ago, which encompassed everything from the ridiculous to the sublime. A lot of fighting between various religious factions and egotistical grandstanding and all kinds of things going on there. I think it was a very different meeting than the one in 1906, but at that time there was very little understanding or exposure

[04:37]

of Zen to the world. And so this was kind of bringing out Sohyan Shaku, his presence was very significant at that meeting. And he gave some talks there, which there's a book about, which has some of those talks. So this was maybe the first time a significant Japanese Zen priest had come to America to do something. And he traveled around and spent some time here and met people and opened up a kind of interest. in Zen. And then from time to time, people would, especially certain women, would go to Japan to study with him and other Zen teachers.

[05:42]

So that created a kind of interest. So his disciples, D.T. Suzuki and Nyogen Sensaki, Both came to America after that, and D.T. Suzuki is so well known because as the scholar monk, he was a layperson actually, and he translated many texts and commented on many texts, and all of our interest in Zen really started with him. And his books are kind of buried now beneath all of the other books about Buddhism and Zen that have come out in the last 20, 30 years. But originally his books were the more or less original texts that got people interested in Zen in America.

[06:43]

And he also translated a lot of other texts as well. He was a very brilliant person, and we owe a lot to him. And the other person was Nyogin Sensaki, who was more the monk. And he came to America, and he was in San Francisco. and he used to go to the San Francisco Public Library, this is like in the 20s, go to the San Francisco Public Library and study, and he had what he called the floating zendo. And he would set his zendo up someplace, like on Sutter Street or Bush Street, San Francisco. There's a little storefront, actually, which was a couple of blocks down from the old Sokoji Temple, where we started practicing. And people would come and he had chairs. He thought Sitting cross-legged is not really so appropriate for Americans because it's too radically different from what... because they all sit in chairs, you know.

[07:54]

So he didn't have people sitting on the floor, he had them sitting in chairs. And so he would set up a place, and people would come, and he'd give talks, very good talks, and he would go someplace else. So he wandered around a lot, around America, especially around California. And I know people who knew him. And he died in the 50s, I think. So those are the two very prominent disciples of Soen Shaku. And Soen Shaku also had another disciple, Sokatsu. And Sokatsu came, one day he decided that he would come to America and do something. Start, you know, do something grassroots.

[08:55]

But he was not a grassroots person. So he got together a number of disciples among them Soke-yan Sasaki, who was a very prominent leader in the First Zen Institute in New York. And they got somebody to buy a farm in Hayward. They came and they lived in Berkeley for a while, and they lived at the University Hotel. This is in 1906 or something, right around the time in that early time, before the First World War. And they bought this strawberry farm, but the land was depleted, the cow was depleted, the buildings were depleted. They didn't know what the hell they were doing, but they wanted to start a farm.

[10:00]

They started this strawberry farm, and the neighbors laughed at them. I can read you a little description, because the description by Sogayan is very funny. Before I read you that description, I'm going to read you a description or a biographical sketch up to a certain point by Soyen Shaku, the man that did this. He says, this fellow was a son of Nobusuke Goemon, Ichinose of Takahama, the province of Wakasa. His nature was stupid and tough. When he was young, none of his relatives liked him. When he was 12 years old, he was ordained as a monk by Eke, abbot of Myoshinji Monastery.

[11:05]

Afterwards, he studied literature under Shungai of Kenin Monastery for three years and gained nothing. Then he went to Miidera and studied Tendai philosophy under Taiho for a summer and gained nothing. After this, he went to Bizen and studied Zen under the old teacher Gisan for one year and attained nothing. Then he went to the east, to Kamakura, and studied under the Zen master Kosen in Ingu Monastery for six years and added nothing to the aforesaid nothingness. He was in charge of a little temple, Butsunichi, one of the temples in Engaku Cathedral. For one year and from there he went to Tokyo to attend Keio College for one year and a half, making himself the worst student there, and forgot the nothingness that he had gained. Then he created for himself new delusions and came to Ceylon in the spring of 1887.

[12:12]

And now, under the Ceylon monk, he is studying the Pali language and Hinayana Buddhism. Such a wandering mendicant, he ought to repay the 20 years of debts to those who fed him in the name of Buddhism." He traveled to Ceylon and to Sri Lanka and studying Hinayana Buddhism, so-called, Theravada Buddhism, and there's a description of him on a ship going to Shanghai and he had his robes on and he met some very poor guy who was, you know, wanted something from him, begging, so he gave him his robe. And so he would, it was very hot in that area, so he would sit up on deck at night doing zazen and mosquitoes would come and sit on him. And the description is that in the morning they would find him sitting zazen with all these mosquitoes, like big red pins, you know, sticking in him.

[13:22]

Very dangerous, actually. So that's his autobiography. But Sokeyan gives his description. He says, so in the December of that year, 1906, that's when it was, Sokatsu Shaku sailed for the United States with six disciples, including myself. As several of his former disciples had become students in the University of California, we settled in Berkeley. We laughed heartily at Aroshi when, at the University Hotel in Berkeley, he used a knife and fork for the first time. We watched his face as a plate piled with corned beef and cabbage was placed before him. His expression was more serious than ever as he struggled to eat this food, which was certainly not the customary food for a monk. This was our first lesson in, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. I remember we invited some priests, monks from Japan, when they came over to Green's restaurant.

[14:35]

We like to do that. And they looked at the menu, they didn't know what to order, you know, totally unfamiliar. They ordered tofu burgers, and stuff like that. You know, they're used to eating this, little bit of this, little bit of that. And they looked at each other. So, Sokatsu Shaku had other plans for our future, however. One day he announced that he had bought 10 acres of land in Hayward, California, about two hours by trolley from Oakland. When our group reached there, we found a farmhouse, a barn, an emaciated cow, and 10 acres of worn-out land. Sokatsu's eldest disciple, Zuigan Goto, now president of Rinzai University in Kyoto, Japan, had seen in a newspaper an advertisement for the sale of the farm and had been sent by our teacher to purchase the property from the farmer, who certainly must have had no regrets in parting with it.

[15:41]

We had had confidence in Zui Yan because he was a graduate of the Department of Philosophy of the Imperial University. But the land which he had purchased was an absolutely exhausted land. The cow also was exhausted. Under such conditions, we began to live our lives as farmers. On clear days, we worked hard in the fields cultivating strawberries. On rainy days, we meditated. Our neighbors made fun of us. There was not a real farmer among us. All were monks, artists, or philosophers. The day finally arrived when Zui Gan drove to market the wagon, filled with crates of the strawberries we had grown. A market man picked out one of the smallest of our strawberries and cried in a derisive voice, What do you call this, schoolboys? It is a strawberry," we replied, showing us a strawberry almost the size of his fist. He said, this is what's called a strawberry.

[16:45]

You'd better send your produce to the piggery. I can hardly describe the conference we held with our teacher that night. Our Japanese farming neighbors had advised us that what the land needed was thorough fertilization and real farmers to cultivate it. We realized that the knowledge we had gained from our study of Zen records had not fitted us for such work. The disciple who protested against continuing this futile undertaking was myself. As a result, I was temporarily expelled from the group. So he went to the Art Institute of California. I mean, California School of Fine Art, as it was called then. So, that's kind of a little history of their making headway into America.

[17:46]

It's a sweet story. So about the scroll, this is Bodhidharma, and the calligraphy says something like, if you want to enter our practice, or if you want to enter the way, Cut yourself off from all outward objects and drop your emotional and thinking activity within. When you become like a brick or a stone or a stone wall, you will enter the way every day again. If you want to enter our practice or enter the way, cut yourself off from all outward objects and drop your emotional and thinking activity within.

[18:52]

When you become like a brick or stone wall, you will enter the way. So this statement, Bodhidharma's, looks like, looks like brick wall cutting off, looks like you're closing yourself off from everything, right? The real meaning is how you open yourself up to everything. And I'll explain why that is. If you want to enter the practice, or if you want to enter the way, cut yourself off from all outward objects and drop your emotional and thinking activity. So how do you cut yourself off from all outer objects? Can you cut yourself off from all outer objects? The only way to cut yourself from all outer objects is not to see them as outer objects. When Tozan was crossing the stream, he saw his reflection in the water.

[20:04]

And he had this realization. And so he made a poem. In the poem he said, don't see yourself as an object. You, which you see as an object, is not your real self. Every place I go, I meet myself. Whatever I see, wherever I see, I see myself. Whatever I meet with, I meet myself. There are no objects. What we call objects are aspects of ourself. Cut yourself off from all outer objects. Don't see objects as objects. So, you know, sotas in practice is how to be very careful with things.

[21:07]

And how we become very careful with things is to handle things as we handle our own head. when we eat with our bowls, our Buddhist bowls, the first bowl is called Buddha's head. So we handle the bowl as Buddha's head. In other words, as our own head. We handle it and become one with the bowl. We don't relate We do relate to the bowl, but we relate to the bowl. The bowl is asking me to do something, and I am asking the bowl to do something, and together we're doing something. I'm not just doing something with a bowl. When I drink a cup of tea, I'm not drinking tea out of an object called a bowl.

[22:11]

As soon as I engage with the bowl, the bowl and myself are one thing. The bowl is an aspect of myself. The teacup is an aspect of myself. The food that we eat is definitely an aspect of ourself. Food is not an object. Oatmeal is not an object. Oatmeal is a living organism. And when we eat the living organism, it becomes part of our body. Everything is a part of our true body. So we say the true body is the whole universe. This is how we let go of ego. You can't cut off ego. Try to cut something off. Ego is not a thing. It's just a delusion. So objects, things do have an objective reality, just a piece of paper.

[23:20]

I can throw it in the fire and burn it. But it also has information on it. So I have some respect for this information, and when I use the information, the information is a part of myself. And as for emotion and thought, he says, drop your emotional and thinking activity within. So cut off seeing things as objects without and drop your emotional and thinking activity within. It means, doesn't mean to be, to not think or have emotions. It means to pay attention to emotions, pay attention to feelings, without being captivated by anything, without being caught by emotions, without being caught by our illusory thinking mind.

[24:34]

have freedom from emotion within emotion and have freedom from thinking within thinking. We're usually so easily captivated by emotion and by thought. And then we become driven by thought and we become driven by our emotions. And then he says, when you become like a brick or a stone wall, you will enter the way. Suzuki Roshi says, a brick or a stone wall is just being itself. A brick is being a brick totally. A stone wall is being itself, totally.

[25:44]

When you are yourself, totally, then you will enter the way. Suzuki Roshi used to say, when you are you, Zen is Zen. So what does it mean for you to be you, totally? It means when you realize your true nature, when you realize that everything is yourself, then you know who you are, even though you don't know who you are. When you really know who you are, you will realize that you don't know who you are. Because you don't have some fixed idea about yourself. But on each moment, you are you.

[26:46]

So if someone says, who are you? This is who I am right now. I just want to talk a little bit about Soen Shaku, and he lived during the time of the Russo-Japanese War and the time of the Sino-Japanese War in Manchuria. He was totally against war.

[27:51]

In his writings, you can see how he deplores war, and how he thinks it's totally useless and depraved, and it goes on and on. And this kind of wonderful way of expressing himself On the other hand, he has to pay respect to his countrymen who started these wars, and so he's kind of caught in a vice. So nowadays, or recently, there's been a lot of criticism about the Japanese Zen priests who condoned the Second World War and supported the war effort.

[29:00]

And when I read Soya and Shaku, what comes to me, the way I understand, on the one hand, he's talking about how awful the war is, and the soldiers dying in the battlefield, and then, on the other hand, he has to say something to comfort the people, to comfort his countrymen. by even going so far as to say, in a just war, you have to kill people. And he has to say something to keep these people from falling into despair. So the very tricky line

[30:03]

And some people take that as him being a warmonger, or going along with the government. In Japan at that time, there was no room for dissent at all, or criticism. Like, our country is becoming that way. If you don't understand that, your head's in the sand. But if you look at the history, you can see that Japan became a totalitarian state where there was no room for dissent. So, I thought he did a pretty good job of expressing his true feelings on the one side and being able to speak to the tragedy of the country on the other side.

[31:07]

I see us coming to this place where we have to do something. Right now, we have an opportunity that he didn't have. We have an opportunity to protest are warmongering. Authorities are chomping at the bit, setting up bases all over the Middle East in order to grab control, compelling the public schools to give the military the names and information of all male school children over the age of 15. You know that? Yes. You got to read the papers, folks.

[32:14]

Otherwise, you're not going to know what's going on and you're going to be caught. I just want to give that little pitch. And I think that if you have any conscience at all, you should write to the authorities protesting that. I strongly urge you to protest. There are not a lot of people protesting. But on the other hand, there is a movement to do that. slow, too slow, but it's moving. And I urge you to, if you have any conscience, to do that. We don't want to get caught the way he got caught.

[33:21]

Having to rationalize being in a kind of position, a high position where he was looked on as an authority and having to rationalize what the government was doing, even though he didn't really believe in it. And I see us, or not us, but in this country, people having to rationalize the war, because if they don't, we may lose what we're locked into. We're locked into the society, which means we're locked into mortgage payments, car payments, jobs, school children, food,

[34:29]

All these things that we have to pay for and have a job for every day. And if we move out of that, what do we do? So, at the threat of losing security, it's very hard for people to protest what's going on. It's a real bind. And then we can see how slavery is not what it used to be. It still exists, but it's not what it used to be. It used to be they'd put you on a ship and take you to America in chains, but our chains are our debts. We voluntarily enslaved ourselves, or at least set up the conditions. It can go either way. It can be freedom or slavery, depending on which way it goes. What looks like our freedom to do things becomes our slavery to them.

[35:45]

So, if we want to maintain that freedom, we have to do something. Right now I think the thing to do is at least to protest. And when people see each other doing something, then it encourages people to do something. So there's some encouragement in numbers. And according to this message of Bodhidharma, the whole world is ourself. There's no reason to be antagonistic to anyone. When we save people around the world, we're also saving ourself. I think we have to assert the bodhisattva spirit in our lives and we've been given a challenge.

[36:59]

Do you have a question? The schools have to give the military the names and information on all school children, or boys, I think, over the age of 15. It was sneaked in with another bill. Not a draft. Yeah, that's right. Don't be amazed. This is called the freedom of, this is called the homeland security.

[38:01]

I think I think he did what he had to do right in order to Save himself my question though is in a current newsletter you quote Something about abandon hope I don't think he saved them from despair. You know, I think that It's very complicated.

[39:33]

It's not so simple. You know, for us to look back on something that looks really simple, why didn't you just... But, you know, you have to take into account the feelings of a person in... You know, as a Japanese person, you're very much a Japanese person. And it's like you belong to a tribe. It's like being Jewish, excuse me. It is, it's like you belong to a tribe and the main thing you are concerned about is your people. So, even if they do something wrong, you know, like you send a thousand troops in and it's the wrong thing to do and they all get killed, You're not going to go to their parents and say, they did the wrong thing.

[40:34]

You go to their parents and you say, they were doing the right thing, even if they weren't. You have to lie to tell the truth. I mean, you have to go against your own feelings in order to comfort people. It's not so simple. Not so simple. You can imagine the bind a person is in to be able to comfort people knowing that they did the wrong thing. They already know they did the wrong thing. You don't have to tell them. But the priest's job is to comfort, give them some kind of support. So it's not an easy thing.

[41:38]

You cannot always just be on the right side all the time, even though it's like bearing the unbearable. category where she used to say, Zen practice is bearing the unbearable. Yeah, I see.

[43:08]

Yes, I think it's important not to see them as objects. Hard, because we objectify and create a picture. As soon as you create a picture, then you objectify. So I think that's a really good koan. How do you get beyond your picture, which objectifies, and go right to the heart of things, and then come out of that, so that you're not creating your own war? That's the hard part, you know, because the reaction is to create our own war. That's really hard. But that helps to settle you and to deepen your understanding if you keep that in mind.

[44:15]

And then what you say will come out of a deeper place, or what you do can come out of a deeper place. So I think that's good advice. You mentioned No, I don't. I just think that to want to live in that way is natural and normal for people. But when you can't let go of it, then you're caught. So there's two sides. One is the side that gives you the freedom.

[45:17]

The other side is the side where you get caught, get stuck. when you get stuck, it means that you don't have the freedom to do the things that you want, to do the thing that you need to do because you're stuck with it. But on the other hand, it gives you the freedom to live a nice life. So there are two sides. I'm just saying that because When we want to have the freedom to do something else, we're caught there. those chains of debt, how they operate in poorer countries, where actually those people are chained to debt because of what we want.

[47:04]

That's right. So the difficult challenge in our practice, if we're looking at, I would suggest sometimes, really astonishing, our holding is completely multinational. And think of what is the salary of the head of the corporation that is selling you those clothes compared to the daily wage of the person in the country that's making those clothes. I only have time for one more. For example, the idea of exploiting third world countries by way of their cheap labor,

[48:31]

positive intent when they are trying to, when they're, say, even passing laws about homeland security and about making war on Iraq, there is, from what I hear, there is a pretty strong belief that Hussein is an evil despot, very harmful to his own country and his own people, and is a major threat. Okay, thank you. You spoke about not feeling detached from things around you. taxes that goes to military stuff.

[50:46]

And I buy clothes that may or may not be made by slave labor, by a company that may or may not continue to be there to promote the economy or just go somewhere else to find even cheaper labor and provide more and more people jobs just to make as much money as they possibly can. My question is, how do I not fall into just feeling this contributing to and being one with this harm that's being done? Well, I think the main thing is just to be aware. Because, you know, we're all kind of caught in the web of the paying taxes. When you go to some place you have to buy clothes somewhere, you know, and that's what there is, right? You can look for more local kinds of venues, you know, but I don't think we should be despairing because when you realize you can't help contributing.

[51:58]

I don't like the idea of paying taxes for the war, but paying taxes also contributes to other things as well, right? And even though I buy my clothes from, they come from some other place, some other country, and people are getting slave wages, but they are getting wages. So there's two sides. They're getting something, but of course the bosses are getting most of it. So it's difficult, you know. I think the way to not be despairing is to just keep working for overturning that. Making it somehow, you know, work for what you can.

[53:02]

Participate in what you can. The more people feel a problem, The problem can actually help you. Let the problem help you. Let the problem be a kind of motivator to help you find a way to deal with it. That's the end, folks. We have Sashin to continue. So, I know it's an interesting subject. Well, we'll talk about it again. Next week, we start maneuvers in the Middle East. You know, playing it more Good luck.

[54:02]

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