Good morning. Can you give me a thumbs up if I am clearly hearable? Okay, great. Wonderful. Well, it's a pleasure to be here, wherever here happens to be here at Berkeley. Zen Center, but actually, if I look out the window, it's the hills of Green Gulch Farm that I see, but nevertheless, here at Berkeley Zen Center with you all. And when I discovered a few days ago that Tom Painter was the Saturday director who'd be introducing me, I was delighted. And thinking back more than 30 years ago, I think, 30 years or so, when we both worked together.

[01:03]

So thank you, Tom, wherever you are in these little rectangles. So today, I'm going to speak about the Mountain Seat Ceremony that will be taking place tomorrow on campus, as it were. At 1933 Russell at Berkeley Zen Center. Just a little chronological context for my speaking about it and the ceremony itself. Some months ago, oh, maybe five or six months ago, the leadership at Berkeley Zen Center asked me to participate in a team that was going to be responsible for, put on, as it were,

[02:07]

two ceremonies that were the leadership transition ceremonies for Berkeley Zen Center. And this particular leadership transition ceremony, this would be the first time for Berkeley Zen Center. There are two parts. One was that the former abbot, Sojin Mel Weitzman, would have a stepping down ceremony. And then the new person to become abbot, to be the abbot, Hozon Ellen Sanaki, would have a Mountain Seat Ceremony. And the original plan was to have the stepping down ceremony

[03:10]

in late October, and we did that on October 26th. And the original plan was also to have the Mountain Seat Ceremony two months later at the end of December. Many of you know this. But as I'm sure you all also know, Mel's health was steadily declining following from the diagnosis of cancer that he had received. We had the stepping down ceremony on October 26th, and Mel Sojin Roshi was, it's hard not to call him Mel. He's, I think, known by most of us as Mel. He was still quite himself, chipper, strong spirit,

[04:21]

as any of you seeing the ceremony can attest. But physically, he was already in decline, and I remember one particular moment. I was participating in the ceremony, and he was going to sit on his seat and receive comments and respond to comments from various people. Once he was on his seat, he was okay, but he was having trouble getting up there. And I remember Kika on one side and me on the other, kind of hoisting him up there so that he could get on his zafu in order to cross his legs. His health continued to decline such that in early December,

[05:26]

we rescheduled the mountain seat ceremony for tomorrow. And as you all know, to say it most formally, Hakurei Sojin, White Dragon, Essence of Purity, Mel Weitzman Orochi, died on January 7th. So now, tomorrow, January 31st, Hozan Kuushiki, Dorma Mountain, Formless Form,

[06:29]

Alan Sanaki will ascend the mountain seat. So what has come to me in thinking about the ceremony is to speak about some things in a more general way. What I think of as some of the, maybe less obvious, but deep currents that run through the ceremony that the ceremony represents. Deep currents like in a river, there's stuff going on on top or in the ocean, but then there are currents deep below that. So I want to speak about that, and then also more specifically about the different portions of the ceremony

[07:31]

and what is being enacted and so on. So I'll begin with the name of the ceremony. We call it, in English, the mountain seat ceremony, or ascending the mountain seat. Alan is ascending the mountain and taking the seat, the abbot seat that is in the center of the practice mandala of Berkeley Zen Center. So if we were to say it in a plain way, more prosaically, we could just say this is, more factually, so to speak, this is the abbot installation ceremony, installing Alan as the new abbot of Berkeley Zen Center.

[08:38]

And indeed, that's what's going on. But I think mountain seat ceremony is more imagistic and more metaphoric and carries with it a sense of the ceremony. It's a reference to our tradition, Soto Zen tradition. This is what happens in Soto Zen. And specifically, it's a reference to about 1,200, 1,300 years ago in China. That's called, that period is called the golden age of Zen. And just as a sidebar, it's called the golden age of Zen,

[09:43]

but actually, the golden age of Zen is right now. The golden age of Zen is in your practice, in my practice. But in another sense, the golden age of Zen, as Zen developed in China over some hundreds of years as it came into its own, it took up residence in the mountains of China. Chan took up residence in the mountains of China. I believe, I'm not so good with geography, but I believe it's the southern part of China. Also conveying at a distance from the hustle and bustle of the capital.

[10:45]

That's where Zen flourished. And the great monasteries and the smaller temples associated with those monasteries, what I think today we would call, today in the United States, we would call practice centers, such as Berkeley Zen Center, San Francisco Zen Center, Dharma Rain Zen Center, et cetera, et cetera. They located themselves on a mountain. That was where such things were built. And this was so much so the case that teachers, well-known teachers from that period were sometimes referred to by the mountain, the name they were given was the name of the mountain that they were on.

[11:48]

So, you know, like that would be like nowadays, if there were somebody in the East Bay, they might be called Diablo Roshi. Or if they were down in Los Padres in Monterrey or in the mountains near Monterrey, they might be called Tassajara teacher. So there's something, there's some feeling about that. Now, Berkeley Zen Center, as you know, is not on a mountain. You know, in Berkeley, there are the Berkeley Hills, but the hills are not mountains. And besides that, Berkeley Zen Center

[12:56]

is not in the Berkeley Hills either. So literally there's no mountain there, but figuratively, metaphorically, there's a mountain hidden at 1933 Russell Street. Maybe we could say, you know, Dogen says, we see as far as the eye of practice can reach. Maybe the eye of practice can reach and see the mountain that's there. Oh, and Berkeley Zen Center also actually has a mountain name, which I didn't know until recently, but Dogen had named Berkeley Zen Center Old Plum Mountain, Old Plum Mountain Temple.

[13:56]

I think I asked around a little bit. I think the plum part was because there was one or two plum trees on the property that have since gone away. So tomorrow, Hozon is going to ascend Old Plum Mountain and take the Dharma seat in the center of it. And again, the metaphoric sense of ascend going back to its origins was that I think it might have been literally true 1200 years ago that the new leader, the new person, the person to become the new abbot would have to hike and trek through the mountains, through the deep mountains for days or weeks or longer

[15:01]

just to get to the base and then ascend. Again, literally, that's not happening tomorrow. Literally, as you know, Alan lives about 20 or 30 yards away from the Zendo, so he won't have to hike for days or weeks or months to get there. But I think part of the feeling is, I don't know how to say it exactly, inner, the inner journey as it were, the development and maturation of Hozon over indeed not just days and weeks and months but years and years and decades. That's his ascending the seat.

[16:11]

He's ready to do that. And being ready to do it is not a small thing. It's a big, long project. So that's the inner development. I like to talk with my hands, but you can't see them so well on Zoom. That's the inner development. And then there's also outer development. There's also the development of the inner development. Of the circumstances of the causes and conditions that make it proper or right fit for that to happen. In Zen, there's a metaphor of the little baby chicken.

[17:22]

Is that what you call a baby chicken? Chick inside the egg. And when the baby chick is ready to come out, the chick starts pecking from the inside. And the mom, mother chicken starts pecking from the outside. Both are necessary for this to occur. For birth to occur. So on the one hand is Hozon Allen's development. And on the other hand are the circumstances that make it possible for him to do this. The ceremony marks that what's called chipping in

[18:25]

and chipping out. The ceremony marks that. This is the right time for this to happen. So this is also connected with another aspect of it. So in the instructions for the ceremony, it's a complicated ceremony. There are pages and pages of instructions. The name of the position that Hozon has during the ceremony is shinmei. The process of the ceremony is that the shinmei becomes the abbot. Or abbess, but in this case, abbot.

[19:26]

Shinmei, oh, so in the ceremony, it says the shinmei offers fragrance here and the shinmei, the zendo manager meets the shinmei and they bow to each other and so on like that. Shinmei, shinmei, shinmei, shinmei. Shinmei means, excuse me. Shinmei means new order or even better, new life. So if the instructions were written completely in English, it would say the zendo manager meets new life and shows new life, his seat in the zendo. Or at a later point in the ceremony, new life exchanges remarks with the president and they both sign documents of mutual commitment. So I think this is really wonderful, new life.

[20:36]

In that sense, it is a ceremony of birth. New life is being born. Just as in, I don't know how to say it, regular new life, that is, you know, when you have children or all of us are children of someone and some of us have children or grandchildren, you know, there's a looking back to the previous generation and to many, [...] many generations. So it's not at all unusual to say, she looks just like her father. Oh, he acts just like his mother acts in the same situation. You all know this, right? This happens all the time. I say to my son, who's now about 35,

[21:45]

I compliment him. You're a handsome guy. You get all of your good looks from your mother. So in this sense, Hosan, as shinme, as new life, is being born from, is looking back toward, is orienting, coming from an orientation of his Dharma father, Sojin Roshi, and of his Dharma father, Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi, and of his Dharma father, Shinryu Suzuki Roshi, and back [...]

[22:50]

to Dogen in the first half of the 13th century and back [...] to Nagarjuna in the fifth century and back [...] to Shakyamuni Buddha. That's the feeling of it. It may not be literally so, and unfortunately it has an extremely severe male bias. But I'll say something a little bit more about that later. At any rate, so the shinme is looking back, but also as with children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-great-great-grandchildren. It's the same, but it's new. There's a new flavor. There's a new quality. There's something new going on. New life is happening. And it's like, in some fundamental ways,

[23:55]

like the life that it came from, but it's different. And in that way, Hosan will express the lineage from Sojin, from Suzuki Roshi, from Dogen, but he will express it in his own particular way. That's all carried in this term, shinme. One more kind of general comment. And no one's told me this, but I feel this is so, which is that, and it's connected to what I've been talking about, to this notion of new life and to this notion of something new, but also connected. My sleeve has gotten confused here.

[24:59]

Let's see. There we go. So, it's very clear to me, and I offer to you to notice that the ceremony is about relationship. Relationship. Particularly, specifically about trust and support. Trust and support, very, very close, trust and support. Deep relationship. So, the trust and support goes

[26:07]

in numerous different directions. There's the trust and support between Hosan and Zen, between Hosan and the lineage, between Hosan and the teaching. Trusting the teaching, trusting the lineage of teachers, who have shown the way in words and action, and being supported by that, being supported from them. And vice versa, the lineage has entrusted Hosan and his expression of Dharma as a support.

[27:13]

And another direction of trust and support is with the Sangha. As you all know, Hosan's Sangha is very, very wide. And it goes way out there to Southeast Asia and other parts of the world. And very wide, not just to places, but more importantly, to people all over. And he is becoming the abbot. He is the new life being birthed in Berkeley Zen Center, this particular Sangha. And there are numerous places in the ceremony

[28:19]

where there are mutual expressions of trust and support. And the Sangha is saying, we trust you. We trust you to lead us. Of course, that doesn't mean there, it's not like there eliminates disagreements or something like that. There's always disagreements among human beings. There's always disagreements as part of the deal. But the disagreements are within that context of trust and of support. We trust you, we support you. And vice versa, of course. Hosan supports the Sangha.

[29:22]

I could say with his teaching, but it's much wider than that, with devotion. And of course, trusts the practitioners here at Berkeley Zen Center. Just recently, I heard a story, a Suzuki Roshi story that I hadn't heard before. I've heard a lot of them, but I hadn't heard this one. So this story I heard from David Chadwick, who some of you know, he's a real old timer. He lives in Bali now, and he was on a Zoom call. So we were, we were talking to him. You know, he was like next door, even though he was in Bali. And we were talking about Mel, about Sojin Roshi. And he told a story that Sojin Roshi told him

[30:28]

about Suzuki Roshi, which was in the early days at Sokoji in San Francisco, or at 300 Page Street in San Francisco, or in the early days of Tassajara, morning service would be, you know, bowing, and then everyone would recite, would chant the Maka Hanya Shingyo, the Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra. Ganji zaibou satsugyojin hanyaramita. I'm sure you all know it. Anyway, that was morning service. We were chanted three times. One of the little rectangles here that I see is Peter Overton, who I'm sure remembers chanting, chanting the Shingyo three times. That was it.

[31:28]

So one time Suzuki, no, Sojin Roshi, at that time, Mel, then he was definitely Mel. You know, he went to Suzuki Roshi and he said, you know, we're chanting this thing. Nobody understands what it means. It's just a bunch of nonsense syllables and people keep complaining to me. Why are we doing this thing? It's, you know, they don't get it. And Suzuki Roshi said, tell them it's about love. Love. Now there's a leap into 21st, 20th century American culture if I ever heard one from Suzuki Roshi and from the tradition. Again, deep current. The deep current of the Shingyo is love. Love. Which I think is a good summary

[32:33]

of the meaning of the ceremony tomorrow. It's an expression of our love, an expression of otherwise known as wisdom and compassion. That's what's happening. I thought that was really great. Tell them it's about love. They'll know what that means. Okay. So let's see here. I want to leave some time for some discussion,

[33:35]

but I also want to talk more specifically about the ceremony. Let me see if there's anything else I was going to say more generally, more widely. Oh yes, one more thing. Here we are, COVID-19. So the ceremony has been seriously adjusted for COVID considerations. At one point, there's an exchange of documents, people sign things and so on. And you'll see that we have our trustee, what's it called? What do you call the thing that you, you know, wipe your hands with? It's a- Hand sanitizer. Yes. Can someone tell me? Hand sanitizer. Thank you. Thank you very much. Trustee hand sanitizer that everyone uses

[34:39]

before exchanging documents and pens and things like that. Also in the ceremony, the group of people who welcome and participate in the ceremony, they're called the Ryoban. I don't know what that means in English, but in Japanese, it's the Ryoban. The Ryoban is in a big monastic situation. The Ryoban is the main representatives of the entire Sangha, of the practice side of the Sangha and the administrative side of the Sangha. So for example, at San Francisco Zen Center, the last Mountain Seat Ceremony a few years ago, there were 14 members of the Ryoban, seven people who were the practice leaders and seven people who were the administrative leaders. You know, the president, treasurer, secretary, so on like that. The directors of the different places, et cetera.

[35:43]

So in this ceremony, the Ryoban is two people, just two people because we wanted to, you know, there has to be at least six or eight feet between everybody so you can't have too many people. So the administrative side is being represented by one person, Mary Duryea as the president. And the practice side is being represented by one person, Carol, Paul, the Zendo manager. So these are all these various COVID considerations and there are other ones. But anyway, that's been very intentionally part of what the planning and conception and execution of the ceremony is based on. Okay, so a few other things, more specifics.

[36:44]

One is, so my feeling here is that I want to familiarize you with the flow of it. Because I remember the first few that I went to, it was like, it just seemed like one thing after another and you're like, well, why is that happening? And then this thing and then that thing and so on and so forth. But the ceremony is actually, has three main parts to it. In the first part, the Ryoban, in this case, two people, show the shinmei, show the new life, show the person becoming the abbot, show them different parts of the temple and welcome them to different parts of the temple. Again, this is what the image that this person is coming from far away. And perhaps has never even been there before. Very different than the specific circumstances of Berkeley Zen Center. But that's what's enacted.

[37:48]

Then there's a middle portion that's shorter than the other two, in which formal statements of, as it were, contractual statements are spoken and a contract is signed. But it's, I mean, it's a contract, but it's not a contract that a lawyer would be very involved with. It doesn't, it's not that sort of a thing. You know, it's a statement of commitment, mutual commitment. And Hozon signs it and the president signs it. And then he stamps it. He stamps it with the temple seal. Berkeley Zen Center, Old Plum Mountain has a temple seal and he seals it with his own personal seal to seal the deal.

[38:54]

And then the third section of the ceremony is primarily teaching. Primarily by, first, mondo, question and answer. And there are, I think, eight people that we've asked to speak at that time. You'll know who they are. And they'll be spotlighted, as I am today. And then Alan also makes certain teaching statements. That's kind of the overall shape of it. It makes sense. Somebody new, you show them around. You sign the contract and then you hear the teaching.

[39:55]

Pretty simple in that way. The very first section of the ceremony, it's called angasho, which means rest. We had to eliminate that altogether. The image, again, is somebody coming from far away. And before they do the rest of the ceremony, they rest someplace. And informally, people come to visit, they say hello, they extend their good wishes and so on. But due to COVID, we eliminated that altogether. So the ceremony begins with a procession lined up on the street outside of 1933. The first person in the procession is a flower scatterer who scatters flowers along the path that the shinmei goes on to get to the gate. And we could say, well, why that?

[41:00]

It seems incidental. But it's flowers, it's in a sense, the equivalent of the red carpet. The red carpet is being rolled out for this new person coming. And we are so excited and so delighted that we're gonna just throw flowers all over the place. It's so great. That's the very first thing, procession. And then they arrive at the gate, which is the Berkeley Zen Center gate. If this were some thousand-person monastery in the mountains of China, the gate might be some huge thing, multiple stories high. But in Sojin's modest way, in Berkeley Zen Center's modest way, and in Hozon's modest way, it's just a plain old little gate that he goes through.

[42:01]

So he stops at the gate and offers a fragrance, used to be incense, but now fragrance, and says something, or their order is different. He says something first and then offers fragrance and bows. He does this at many places. He then enters, and the first place he goes to, appropriate for a Zen ceremony, is the Zendo. And indeed, the Zendo manager welcomes him and they go in the Zendo. And I wanted to point out that one of the things that happens, and some of you know what this is, it's called Jundo. Jundo is where a person bows and then staying bowed like this, can you see me? Staying, bows, and then staying bowed like this, walks. And I'm explaining it in detail like that

[43:06]

because when I first came upon it myself, long, long time ago, it seemed very odd to me, but that's what it is. The Zendo manager takes the shinmei around the entire perimeter of the Zendo, the inside perimeter of the Zendo, in that circuit with Jundo. The feeling is, again, this is relationship, this is connection. The feeling is that the new abbot, the shinmei, is saying hello, basically, to every seat in the Zendo. Hello, hello, [...] hello. Trust and support, trust [...] and support. Like that. If Berkeley Zen Center had multiple buildings,

[44:10]

after that, they would then go, the shinmei would then go to the Buddha Hall, which is a different building at, say, Eheiji. It's a different building, but there isn't such a thing. It's all one place for BCC. So then the shinmei offers fragrance and statements to various, I don't know how to say it, big figures. Shakyamuni Buddha, and then off to the right to Daigenshuri Bodhisattva, who is the Dharma protector Bodhisattva, and then Bodhidharma. And then, now this is something new that was added to this ceremony by Hosan and the planning group, which is the next person or figure

[45:12]

is Mahapajapati, who, as you know, was Shakyamuni Buddha's aunt and stepmother, and the first woman to receive ordination, considered, you know? We don't know about the historical veracity of these things. So there's a very deliberate, as referring back to what I was saying earlier, there's a very deliberate recognition and acknowledgement and expression of appreciation for, as we say, the women ancestors known and unknown in our lineage, mostly unknown, I guess, I'm guessing. And I would add not just the women ancestors, but to the feminine principle in our practice, the feminine principle that is so important

[46:13]

for our practice. There's an acknowledgement of that. Next, what has been called Suzuki Roshi's altar. I'm assuming that you, all who sit at Berkeley Zen Center frequently know what I mean. So that is the founder's altar. And now, since you haven't been there recently, I can let you know it's changed. It's no longer Suzuki Roshi's altar. It's the founder's altar. So the photo, you may remember, there was a photo of Suzuki Roshi at that place. And that was very appropriate for Mel to do that. But now there's another framed, another framed item, and there's Suzuki Roshi and Sojin Roshi.

[47:14]

Because of course, both of them are co-founders of Berkeley Zen Center. Just have a little bit of time left. Let me, I had numerous things to say, but I think I won't try, I won't try to do that. Let's see. Oh yeah. Let me just mention one other, one other thing. So then they go outside and do this document event, including bows and formal statements. Mary, as president, makes a number of statements. They go back in for the third part of the ceremony and ascend the mountain. The Shinmei ascends the mountain, which is the highest mountain in the world. Is a platform. It's not by the altar. It's a platform usually built in another place

[48:20]

in the practice hall. And in this case, it's at the other end of the zendo. Oh, before the Shinmei goes up onto the mountain, once he's up on the mountain, and then there's the question and answer and teaching statements. Before he goes up on the mountain, he's seated. No, even before that, excuse me. Before that, he receives a new okesa, you know, an okesa, the outer robe, sewn by the sangha. Again, this is relationship. This is support. This is, we're behind you. You can do this. And then he sits down, having taken off his old okesa,

[49:20]

put on his new okesa. He sits down and he is facing the mountain. It doesn't, what I'm about to say is not in the directions, but one can imagine that facing the mountain, one might be feeling, what have I gotten myself into? Oh my God, how am I gonna do this? I don't know if, I haven't talked with Hozan about this. He may not have those feelings whatsoever, but one can imagine it. At any rate, what happens then is that three people speak in very consciously supporting statements. One is Gengo Akibarashi, representing Soto Zen and the lineage and the Soto school in Japan. Second is Mary Duryei, again, representing the sangha, a statement of support.

[50:25]

And then third is someone who speaks for the group of Alan's friends. Not necessarily Berkeley Zen Center, he has friends at Berkeley Zen Center, but not limited to that. And the person who will be doing that is Joanna Macy will speak as Alan's friend, all giving him support. So the feeling is, I got the robe, all these people think I can do it, I guess I gotta go do it. Then he gets up on the mountain and talks. Okay. Maybe I'll stop there. I see that we have just about 10 minutes or so. I was told that we have a hard stop at 1115. So I'll stop talking and see if anyone

[51:26]

has any comments or questions. And Tom, wherever you are among these rectangles, if you would moderate that and call on whoever seems good to call on. Hey, thank you, Steve. You're welcome. And just to remind everybody, you can raise your hand by clicking on the reactions icon at the bottom of your screen, or you can also enter a question in the chat and say question. So I'll pass that along to Steve. As usual, if you don't usually ask a question, please do. And it looks like Ellen Webb has her hand up. So Ellen, please unmute yourself. Hi, I have a quick question and one that I didn't know I had, but I wondered, did Mel have a mountain seat ceremony at Berkeley Zen Center? That is a wonderful question, Ellen.

[52:28]

And I don't know the answer. I do. Yeah, I thought you might. What is the answer, Ozan? He had a ceremony. That was just after I had arrived. It was in the, it was, I think, in the fall of 94 and- 84. 84, 84, right. After, just after he had gotten Dharma transmission. And yeah, it was here and it was a big deal. And I remember it like what was going on there. So yes, and Oitsu Roshi came and directed it. It was quite wonderful. Thank you, Ozan. Yeah, so he had that mountain seat ceremony with Oitsu Suzuki Roshi. And I remember also, shortly after I came to Zen Center in 19,

[53:29]

in the fall of 1968, I heard that this fellow Mel, who was a taxicab driver, was going to be ordained by Suzuki Roshi, which was as unusual then as mountain seat ceremonies are now. Very, very unusual. And I went to Berkeley, where I had never been before, up to the attic in Dwight Way and saw Suzuki Roshi shave Mel's head. Yes. Thank you, Ellen. Okay, Dean, you're next. Thank you. Thank you very much, Steve. I really appreciate a lot of what you said and have a gazillion thoughts going on. But the thing I'd really like to say is, I really liked hearing you in the beginning

[54:30]

when you called him Mel and you said, oh, it's hard to get used to that. Because I think about that every time I call him Mel, but there's this part of me that loves that his name is just M-E-L. It's really simple. And it's really sweet. And I just love the simplicity he offered to me. And I tried to often take him up on that offer. So I really appreciate you saying that. Thank you so very much. Well, you're very welcome, Dean. And you betcha. That was such a core part of what you said. His teaching and his way. And even in the most formal, the most elaborated of ceremonies or actions or whatever we do, we can still remember.

[55:31]

And I think that will be there tomorrow also. That no matter how complicated it looks, it can be done with a feeling of simplicity. We're simply doing this. And then we're simply doing that. That's important. Yeah, you're welcome. Okay, Heiko, I see you have your hand raised. Please unmute yourself. Thank you, Steve. I just want to express the feeling I have in my body right now of joy. And the word certainty doesn't apply, but uncertainty is absent after your description. And it makes me happy to hear and feel and realize in this moment how relational it really is and how much we are called on to engage and support and to open up the net between us

[56:35]

such that it goes both ways and to experiment and experience that. And so anticipation in my case is gone and now I'm looking forward to that experience. I thank you so much. Oh, you're very welcome. And thank you, Heiko. This sense, I could say, I'm not making this up. What I mean by that is I'm specifically thinking of what you brought to mind, actually, is a passage in Dogen. I'm not sure where it is. It may be Yuyibutsu, Yoyobutsu, it may be somewhere else where he says, and I'm not even sure of the quote exactly. It's something like practice arises, dharma arises like cotton. That's what he says, like cotton.

[57:36]

And I, what does he want? Dogen is known for being hard to understand sometimes and it was like, what does he mean, cotton? What has it got to do with cotton? And fortunately, I studied that work of Dogen with Shouhaku Okamura, who was doing a, what's called a Genzo-e-Sashin, where he was explicating a fascicle, a chapter of the Shobo Genzo, and he explained it. And then it was like, oh. And what he explained is cotton, if you look at the thread, I don't know, it's before thread. If you look at what cotton is, it's all this twined up, like twining vines. It's all this stuff that's intricately and intimately connected to each other.

[58:39]

It's there that dharma arises, not individual, not, oh, I accomplished something, I gained enlightenment. Enlightenment is this complicated, intimate, relational event. That needs to continue to be instigated, not instigated, but continue to be brought forth, as it were. And I see that we have to stop, Tom, I know. Just one more thing, in the ceremony itself, when there is this question and answer, what Hoichiro-shi says in Japanese, before the question and answer begins is, dragons and elephants, let us call forth the dharma.

[59:41]

Dragons and elephants means you, means us, means the folks, means the assembly. Let us call forth the dharma. We call forth the dharma in question and response, in relationship. So, thank you.

[60:01]

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