Good morning. Well, it really is wonderful to be back home after this dharma entrustment, dharma transmission ceremony. I came back from Tassajara and was here for three days and then went up to Arcata and led a retreat there. and then came back and was home for a day and led a whole day retreat at the Federal Correction Facility in Dublin. And each time I've been, each retreat, very grateful to be home on the seat of practice. But then being here and just having the familiar orioke and the services just as I know them. The intimacy and the ease of coming home and the comfort is very nice.

[01:05]

In one of the commentaries on the shiho or the dharma transmission ceremony, it says to The realization of the Buddhas and Ancestors is to bring forth the Buddhas and Ancestors and to serve them. The realization of the Buddhas and Ancestors is to bring forth the Buddhas and Ancestors and to serve them. So, coming into the heart of the practice, taking the seat in the heart of the practice, I have given so many way-seeking mind talks over the years, I can't begin to count them, from this seat and from all sorts of groups, part of the wonderful weaving of stories that we do here.

[02:29]

But finding the most important thing or not missing the most important thing has always been in my mind. The fear. What grief it would be to have a light and to miss the most important thing. So I was born of parents who came from a long line of New England ancestors. many of whom were very devout, a few of whom were Millerites and sat on roofs dressed in white weightings. My parents were not interested in the superstitious aspects of religion or religion at all. So my sister and I, I think, took some pleasure in being interested in religion. and asking to go to Sunday schools.

[03:37]

And my sister, four years younger, used to play altar on a piano bench while I played doll's corner. And so we grew up and eventually moved into New York City where I was a teenager. and the adolescent years brought sufficient excitement so that I didn't think too much about religion, although I said, we both said the Lord's Prayer every night. But I did have this question. While I was doing everything I could do to do things right, I did have this question. What if Somehow, the most important thing is missing. And my sister had this question in spades and continued in the Episcopal Church as a teenager.

[04:50]

And when I was married, I got married the day after I graduated from college, as people in my generation or my friends all did. And during the wedding ceremony in an Episcopal church, my sister saw the face of Jesus in a window pane. She was 19, and within three years, she had found her place in an Anglican Benedictine convent in England, and closed. So that essentially, except for small businesses, she has remained there. contemplative enclosed convent in a very beautiful, it's the oldest monastic institution for women in England, built in the 11th century, with a somewhat ruined Norman Tower in the center. And for the last four or five years, she's been abbess there.

[05:56]

So her entering Her entering the convent left me with a big question, but I didn't know quite where to keep it, but went ahead with my life and had three children, moved out here, realized I needed to do something besides mothering and got a master's in social work. and in 1971 began to work for the county, Alameda County Mental Health, and went over to Page Street and got Zazen instruction from Rick, who's wearing shorts. I was very serious. There was something It was very serious, I could feel it was going on in the building. It was a couple of months before Suzuki Roshi died.

[07:01]

And as soon as I began to sit Zazen, I realized that this practice of being present, this practice of being in the present moment, again and again returning, was what I had been looking for. It was an expression of the most important thing that was completely available. And it was no big deal kind of experience, but I just knew in my marrow that I would always sit, because what else could I do? And so I did. Although the first sitting was very kind of secretive, In 1971, it was a pretty weird thing to do. And often short, because I was working full-time with three children. But I did sit every day.

[08:04]

And as time went by, I discovered the Berkeley Zen Center. And after a year or so, realized that there was a teacher there. And began, I tried to go once a week. and began to tune in to the Berkley Zen Center on Dwight Way. So as the years went by and my children got older and I had more time, the balance of my life tipped so that what had begun as a very small spot of practice and a very big life kind of tipped. so that the life became smaller and the practice became bigger. So you know how it is, you step in these gates and you have whatever initial reaction you have and it may well be that week by month by year you become, you get

[09:19]

to be seriously drawn in. When people come and say, oh, I went to this, new people come and say, you know, I came into the Zen Do and have some, often there's a very positive reaction, sometimes there's quite an aversive reaction, but either one, either reaction does recognize the power I was, when I was in Arcata, I was asked to give Zazen instruction to a class at Humboldt State University, a Buddhism class, and these were all undergraduates, and I said a few things, and we sat very well, very steadily for 20 minutes, and then I asked, what's your experience? And a woman's hand shot up. She said, I couldn't stand it. I got hot all over and I thought I was going to throw up. She understood something.

[10:21]

So that's what happens to us. And Mel asked, I don't know when the first Jukai was. It was in this Zen Do on a makeshift floor because the building wasn't completed. And Richard Baker officiated because Mel hadn't had Dharma transmission. And there were eight or so of us. And I was a little bit leery of it because why should some people have a robe and others not. But I could see how much Mel wanted it. And so I was willing. And then, of course, one experiences the gift of such a ceremony.

[11:21]

Begin to understand what the offering is. And I was very grateful. I think the Sangha found a new focus with a few people having Rakshasas and many others having participated in the ceremony. And then in either 88 or 89, Fran Tribe and I were given priest ordination. somewhat ambivalent about that too, and also profoundly grateful. These ceremonies that involve taking the precepts, all of our ceremonies involve taking the precepts, taking them again and again in different situations so that

[12:37]

They penetrate. In the ceremonies, in the Dharma transmission ceremonies, one of the questions, the precept is given, of course, and when one is about to receive the precepts, one says something to the effect of, this life is swift and impermanent and fleeting. please give me the precepts." Something like that. So, what else can one do in this very unstable, impermanent life other than receive the precepts and do one's best with them? So, then about four years ago Mel asked Alan and me if we would like to have Dharma transmission and so of course we said yes.

[13:44]

And we began to meet together also with Vicki Austin and Michael Wenger, the four of us. They practice in San Francisco Zen Center and we began to have classes. And I began to really wonder, well what is transmission. What is happening here? Our readings were mostly Dogen fascicles and then some other readings about the ceremonies themselves which are quite mysterious and can seem rather foreign. And there was a weekend when I went to Jikoji Copanchino's retreat center in the Los Altos Hills. And it's very nice and quiet.

[14:46]

And I was extreme, there was one day I was extremely sleepy. I just kept going to sleep, which is not a usual hindrance for me, going to sleep. And I wasn't short in sleep, and I couldn't understand it, but I just spent the day trying to notice sleep thoughts. awake thoughts turning into sleep thoughts and then I had a kind of a dream and I was told to strip down to the bone and I did that and as I sat in a lotus position stripped down to the bone somebody in a brown robe put a kind of ash brown robe over my shoulders and bowed. And then as I wore the robe, I saw a, there was a figure of seated Buddha that was just about my height, drawn in light, and that figure and I passed through one another.

[16:03]

very sleepy, and I said, what's going on? And I felt as if I'd been stamped. So then I realized I did kind of know what was going on, that I was ready, because I think one always has doubts. Am I ready? And I felt as if Mel had confidence in me and had waited a long time. He and I have known each other 28 years, and that I was ready, even though in many ways I don't feel ready. So the four years went by and we sewed and studied and kind of got used to it.

[17:20]

You know, at first it seemed like a big event and then like any big event you kind of get used to it and it's just part of your life that you're living with. And then I came up with a date and then the focus brightened So, the wonderful sewing process, months and months and months, years actually, because I did it slowly, of sewing this dream in. So, we went to Tassajara. And some things have already been said about the schedule. It was so nice being with Alan. I've never had a brother. and having a Dharma brother with whom I share the Tantos seat and share so much BPF work and with whom I share this One Mind practice.

[18:27]

I mean again and again some situation comes up and we look at it and we may see different sides of it, hopefully we do, but We see it in the same way, in the same point of view. And that extends to other practitioners in this family so much. Working now quite closely with Paul Haller on the prison outreach program and several other people who are quite senior practitioners and our discussions are just very well-centered in common understanding. So Ellen and I would greet each other at 4.15 in the morning. No, I guess 4.30. So that we had about an hour before the wake-up bell to do the first round of bows.

[19:32]

There were, I don't know, 12 or 15 altars up and down Tassajara. So Alan would bring incense and I had a big straw mat under my arm. And we would go to the altars and bow and say a mantra and light incense. And as we walked, we'd chant this wonderful, Om Mano Nidhi Shabu, da, [...] da. About a five-line mantra. with the light of the waning moon and Orion, different stars. And we were very fortunate because it was clement, gentle weather. People have done this in the rain and they've done it in the freezing cold. And we just had this beautiful beginning. And then the wake-up bell would come.

[20:33]

So we'd sit for an hour and sit service with everybody. and then have breakfast and Alan and Mel and I and two other people, Vicki Austin and Kokai had come to help. So we had, we always sat together at a little table and discussed everything, the affairs of the world, the affairs of Zen centers, everything. It was very cozy. And then Alan and I would go up to the Zendo for a round of bows to the 92 male ancestors and the 30-odd female ancestors, sounding the bell and offering incense to each name. So this bowing practice, it was wonderful to do the Bodhisattva ceremony today and bow and bow. Our days were so much bowing. how we join the ancestors, bringing forth the ancestors and bowing and serving them.

[21:42]

And then we would go into the scriptorium, the little cabin that's next to the Shuso cabin, which had been hung with old cases, with antique rocated cases, so it was quite beautiful. and we copied out the transmission documents, three long, three five-foot pieces of white silk and different arrangements of lineage of ancestors' names. If you've had Jukai, you receive a Kechinyaku, you receive your lineage papers where the line the life vein begins with Buddha and it goes all the way down to you. So these were different forms of finding one's position, expressing one's position in the Dharma, the ancestor's life vein.

[22:56]

And it was not easy. You traced somebody else's And then with a brush and with block ink that you mix with water, you painted the English names. And if the ink was too wet, it bled. And if it was too dry, it made a scratchy line. So it had to be just right. And some people are pretty good at this. and I am pretty bad at it. At one point, Alan stood up and looked at my offering and he said, struggle. First, shame arose. I really wanted to do it well. I really did. Mistake after mistake, and wobbly lines.

[24:02]

And then I began to be fond of it. Because no matter what it looked like, it actually was a lot of fun to do. You were completely focused. And it was such hard work. So it became all right with me. And when I got home and was thinking about all of this, I remembered a poem that I had copied out by Antonio Machada. And I hadn't noticed, I'd liked the poem when I read it, but I hadn't noticed that the name of it was Ceremony. Last night, as I was sleeping, I dreamt marvelous error, that I had a beehive here inside my heart and the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures.

[25:15]

Ceremony. Last night as I was sleeping, I dreamt, marvelous error, that I had a beehive here inside my heart and the golden bees were making white combs and sweet honey from my old failures." So, how we accept the mistakes and the failures. Which after all, our failures only we can fail in particular ways that we do. and it is our particularness that is the most valuable expression of Big Mind. Only this person can do it. Only that person can do it. So accepting and forgiving and also not being limited by the fear of failure.

[26:24]

Very very complicated practice and accepting that golden honey who we are. So here we were in the middle of this incredible Tassajara beehive across the road. roofing two cabins, hammers pounding, saws sawing, voices calling, and Alan and me sweating away in our silk drops of perspiration. It was about 100 degrees in our robes. And then part of it was looking over the ceremonies and memorizing them. These ceremonies are kind of, have

[27:28]

a lot of different levels. And in part, they're little plays. This happens, that happens. The teacher says this, I say that. So getting acquainted with them and memorizing them and letting the import sink in. And the Japanese are wonderful at having the ceremonies being both quite intricate and clear-edged and also very earthy and close and intimate. The important ceremonies, I think Mel said, took place in the Caesando, small room in the Caesando, small room that had been hung in red cloth. So at night we were in this small red room lit quite dimly and going through Very old rituals, probably this Dharma transmission in some way began around Dogen's time.

[28:37]

Well, I'm not going to go into that, but there have been variations and it's not done very completely in Japan. We probably are doing a more extended version than most people in Japan do. Well, and then it was over. The last ceremony was at night, and then we woke up the next morning and time to go home. I didn't say that each day, of course, we bathed in the baths. And the new baths have stepping stones down to the stream. And there was something about bathing in the hot baths and then going and sitting in the stream. There were many, many little fish that would come and just nibble. And it was the whole dimension of being at Tassajara with the stars and the hot days and cool nights and the stream.

[29:52]

It was timeless. and very smooth. So, then we came home and what happened? What went on? Finding out And all the time feeling so many people present at that ceremony, feeling so much this Sangha present, all the good wishes, all the generous effort, feeling the sustaining energy of the people at Tassajara. Our little group went around doing its little various occupations, everybody else working, feeling sustained by them.

[30:57]

And very much feeling the people in our CETA, where I will be going, the Sangha that I've been relating to in our CETA for eight years, going up every other month, feeling their encouragement and support. And also feeling taking with me the people in the jails that I go to, some of whom don't feel fresh air for one year to the next. Feeling them with me, with us. So this ceremony, so much belongs to all of us and gives us together a renewed way of being grateful for the teaching that has come from so far and so distant and is so present.

[32:11]

So, I think that's all I want to say. And there is time for questions, responses. was that pretty much due to that, that the dream, I'm trying to remember where that dream happened. It happened afterwards. There was hesitancy because I wondered if I really belonged. If, well just that, that as a priest

[33:25]

I'm not as involved or knowledgeable or as engaged in the forms of practice and the history of the forms of practice as many other priests. And I just wondered, is it my place? Mel has always supported me. I mean, he has, I think, sighed at my clumsiness and tolerated it. But he's always supported the part of my practice that is in the world. The word transmission and the word adjustment make me wonder a little bit about your relationship with Mel as your teacher.

[34:41]

And in particular, you chose to work with him over so many years. And I'm wondering, are there qualities in Mel as a teacher that attracted you, that you have tried to make your own? And what is that relationship like? You've had such a long relationship. Well, that's a good question. Right, 28 years of relating, you can imagine the ups and the downs. And many ups and downs. I mean, I can remember him as a new teacher. giving talks at Dwight Way, and I didn't have too much sense of old, new teacher, but I did go over often to hear Richard Baker and do seven-day sessions, so I began to have some sense of different teachers.

[35:47]

And what I did recognize early on as very important for me is Mel's plainness. and his groundedness and his lack of glitter and seductiveness in any way. I really appreciated that. Just, you know, when you go into the Dogasan room, just see it. Great mirror mind, just mirroring back. And sometimes you like it, and sometimes you don't. But there it is, just plain and reflecting. I think that that's, I've tried so hard to please others in my life and to do the right thing, that having that kind of plainness

[36:55]

It was very good for me. Yeah, so that, the long route and the persistence and the plainness. Over the years, those qualities grow. Helen? Well, it would be sitting in the ancestors life vein, sitting in the heart of the practice. Mel gives an account of asking Suzuki Roshi what the robe chant means.

[38:01]

What does it mean when you put the robe in your head? And Suzuki Roshi said, love. What would you say to a woman who has digestive problems? I said that I've had a similar happening. When I'd gone, I got myself really screwed up, and I was going to do a one-day sitting at Page Street, because we didn't do them at Berkeley, and I went early in the morning, and I sat, and by the end of the first period, I thought I was going to be sick. And I sort of staggered out, and I lay down in the corridor, and everything spun around me, and I thought, well, you know, A big flu has come upon me at Brockley, but as soon as I left the building, I was fine.

[39:03]

But I got something, you know, and it was just a little bit too much to stomach. I wondered, had you heard of Colin Sheehy when he was here that you met up with him? Yeah, yeah. Not well, but he was around. He was in Palo Alto. And he would give talks now and then. His children were, his now grown children, were very little. Did you say something about Nisanga in Arcata? Yes. Well, one of the former members, present members, Gaya, is here. It's very nice to see someone transferred. The Arcata Sitting Group has been going on for about 20 years. It began in somebody's garage and nobody quite knows the different places that it moved or the different people that were in it.

[40:07]

But it's now quite a lively group with a core of about 15 people. And they meet every Sunday in the Aikido room, a large room, on the square of town. and they sit a couple of periods and then read a book and just pass around the book and read and then have a discussion and that works very well. It's a group that was very leaderless. I was invited up by somebody who'd moved up there to give a talk. Occasionally they had people give talks and I went and I guess I went twice and gave what I imagine were pretty shaky little talks. But anyway, I asked if they would like to have a relationship with a regular teacher. And we agreed to try that for six months or a year or something, and so continued to do that.

[41:11]

And that was a useful focus, I think. And the group now has a practice committee and has It's incorporated. You know, it has a legal entity and has been looking for a home, practice place for a couple of years. And it's a very lively community. And I would say that most of the Arcada Zen group members are also very interested in more than just a practice place, I think, that we're looking for a focus place where social change action and zazen can happen together. So that's very attractive. On Hiroshima Day, August 9th, they had a one-day sitting in the last year or so.

[42:19]

They have a one-day sitting on the months that I don't go up And that took place in the town square with posters about Hiroshima Day. And that's the kind of direction that the effort there often takes. Probably about time to stop.

[42:46]

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