One thing that we've done in this group the way we began was to go around the room and everybody gave a kind of brief life story with the focus on practice and how practice began and the role of practice in that and that's the way we've done that now a couple of times maybe even more than that as new people come and that's given us all a way of getting to know each other and I don't know what you're thinking of talking about but it would be interesting to me at least to hear a kind of plot of your life in relation to then. And then I was a little bit sorry that you just seemed to move off away from Berkeley and into San Francisco and Tassajara. But it's been nice to see you there. And then Blanche is Chief Sewer, is that right?

[01:03]

Amongst other things. And so when we filled our offices, she was supervisor of that, and that was very nice. And there's going to be more sewing at the Berkley Center. Blanche will be in charge of that. So it seems as if Blanche is returning in a certain sense. Well, this is very much returning home for me. I had Zaza instruction on July 3rd, 1969 at the Dwight Way Center. It's interesting to me when I speak to people how they often remember the first time they ever saw God.

[02:03]

For me, it marked a very crucial change in my life, but it also followed a very a complete turnaround in my life, and I'd like to talk about that just a little bit, how I got here. Because I found that to be one of the really interesting things, is to find out from other people, how did you get here? This is a very new development in American life, and what turns people from the sort of mainstream into this which means so much to me and I want to know how does this make you feel?

[03:05]

But for myself, I guess I've been a feminist since I can remember. I was never willing to do stereotypically women's or girls' things. From the very beginning, I never played the doll. I never learned to sew. I insisted on taking woodshop at 30s when it was rather a scandal and required a tremendous battle with the school authorities to be given permission to take woodshop And finally, they decided, well, we can't just have one girl in there with all those boys. If you can find another girl who wants to take it, then you can take it.

[04:06]

And they figured, well, that's the end of that. It took me about five minutes. And so then they had to go through with it. Regretfully, since I'm currently Secretary of Zen Center, I'm never allowed to go. I said, nobody's ever going to get me stuck in a women's job. I'm not going to be the secretary of state. My father was very active in civil rights activities in the south in the 1930s. He was a civil rights activist in Alabama in the 1930s. Rather unusual. And, you know, I think I had crossed him in the yard. He was taken out and beaten up and left to die.

[05:08]

I made a large impression on my father. He didn't die, but he suffered some injuries that caused the burial. But he was a person who was passionately considered a justice. And although he considered himself an atheist, he was, I think, a very religious person. And his attitude towards and the fundamental way in which he lived and related to people. And my mother was a very independent woman at the time. She went back to school when I was young in Devereux, Massachusetts. We had taught at the University of Alabama. I remember I used to think when I was reading sutras and stuff when they talked about sons and daughters of good family, what did that mean?

[06:17]

These people who come to practice are always referred to as sons and daughters of good family. And I decided when I thought about it that It must be that I was a daughter of a good family, because here I was. And that must be what's new. To have been raised with values that led me to look for a way in which I could live without harming people, which is what I think we as practitioners want, is to find a way to live. So I'm very grateful for the upbringing that I had, but I had no idea where it would lead me. It led me at first into very intense political activity for the 25 years of my life. Left-wing politics, the Peace Movement, the Civil Rights Movement.

[07:25]

Until the 60s, the politics was rather confrontative and When my son was a student at San Francisco State in 1969, there was a strike there, a black student strike in which he was participating, which became quite violent. That is, the students were pivoting and the police attacked the students and called them off to jail, including my son, and many others. So there was an appeal to the citizens of the Bay Area to please come to San Francisco State and interpose themselves between the fields and students on the second day of the strike to prevent further violence.

[08:29]

So I rallied for the cause and I put on, I was at that time, I'm a chemist and statistician for the state health department. I'm a most convincing professional I've ever studied. I'm a powder glue characteristic. And I wanted to interpose myself with students. And while I was waiting for this thing to build up to its climax at noon rally, in the morning, I was just walking around campus getting some sense of what the strike was like. And I noticed a few violent incidents between the striking students and the students who were opposing the strike. And it was really hard to tell in the park. They were both being very violent.

[09:29]

And I was thinking, what side am I on here? I mean, I was really out there to support the strike, but I noticed a little uneasiness. I couldn't register it until later, but I... You know, people were kind of pushing people around, and then somebody wanted to take a photograph, and then some strikers would come over and take the camera and smash it on the ground, and they'd beat the crap out of each other. You know, it was really quite not what I was expecting. and not the kind of politics I really could understand. Anyhow, the rally began, which was, you know, sort of the climax. Black leaders of the community got up to speak and it was declared an illegal rally and then here came the police and their full riot gear. to sweep the students off the campus, and they were shoulder to shoulder, and they had masks and billy clubs, and they told the people.

[10:36]

It was rather impressive. A line, you know, clear across campus. And so, they were coming this way, and we were backing up, and I said, oh, I'm here to interpose myself between police and students. And it stuck, so I would be between police and students. And I found myself face to face with the police, And, um, he put me on some stretch pad, put it on my arm, and said, man, take it. You know, he was backing up. I said, don't panic. Take it easy. He was backing up. And, um, I can't. There was this person. Although he wasn't a pig, he was a person. And I just had this sudden, total recognition of identity between me and this person.

[11:45]

And it was just like, un-incontrovertible. And much more real than any experience I've had before. It was just a very powerful experience that found me listening of identity and it was completely counter to any ideas I've ever had and I was dumbfounded. After 25 years of intense political activity having myself identified completely with this policeman in complete riot gear with a billy club in his hand, you know, at a time, if you remember, in the late 60s, when beliefs were the pigs, you know, when the slogans were all off the pigs and all this stuff, you know. Anyhow, just the...

[12:48]

Momentum of my life carried me on to be elected that night to chair one of the parents' committees to support the strike and to have a television press conference the next day in support of the strike. But in fact, my political career evaporated at that point. It just carried on with a bit of momentum. Everything that I understood up to that point was kind of in a shambles. Oh, what do you want from me? Well, that experience was really overpowering and somebody must understand that. There must be somebody I can come to understand about that identity, that boundarylessness that I experienced at that time. And I started looking around and I bumped into a friend of mine He was staying at 50 Pembroke, Colorisco.

[13:56]

His mother was an old left-wing political friend of mine. And Mel was down at Casa Parra. Yes, because Colorisco was 50 Pembroke. It was right after I was born. And so he told me about this... I knew he'd been down to this funny place called Casa Juan, doing this strange Zen thing. And at that time, actually, I was kind of searching for a way to take care of my life, and I was doing some strange yoga thing. And, as a matter of fact, I was on an all raw vegetables diet at the moment. His mother's a wonderful cook. And she'd fix cookies on the show. And my husband, he was on this diet with me because he kind of got on a lot of stuff with me when I was going through my trips. And Paul said, don't worry Lou, I'll eat yours.

[14:57]

I don't know if you know Paul. Paul's not 6'3". I don't know why. But he told me about this Zen-don version. And a friend of mine had given me a book about Zen, which was called Zen Teaching the Wong Po. And it impressed me greatly. But this was in May, and I didn't actually go to Zen-do until July 3rd. I thought about it a long time, but I didn't get to it. I thought about it too hard, Mom. But from the time I went to those other instructions, you know, I thought it was closed for a holiday. I went off on camping trips and spent $10,000 a day.

[16:00]

And from the time I first went there, within a week, I think, I was sitting every day. It was just like pain. It was just... The old right-wing vendors... And I thought the service was a little weird. So I was going to sneak downstairs quickly to see a service. But I couldn't, you know. I'm a very gregarious person. And nobody talked about me. After service and after breakfast. So then I had to stay through service and breakfast before I could talk to anybody. The second week I was there, somebody asked me to be breakfast cook.

[17:00]

So I remember the first breakfast because it was such a happy evening. It was kind of dark with all this brown stuff that filled this oatmeal and all this brown stuff. And I dumped it all over the oatmeal because I thought it was brown sugar. And it turned out that you can watch it. I somehow managed to get through this oatmeal full of sauce. Anyhow, I still think of the birth of Zendo as my hometown. I have a very, very strong feeling of the birth of Zendo. Suzuki Roshi used to come over sometimes on Mondays to lecture, and Katagiri Roshi, and Yoshino Sensei was here. We used to go over to San Francisco on Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings. And I was feeling kind of in a mess.

[18:06]

My whole life was kind of a mess at that time. It wasn't just this total collapse of my former political life and the experience that happened at the census of the state, but also We've been married 22 years. I was discovering my own self-image was coming apart at the seams instead of being this. My self-image, anyhow, had been one of a very strong, independent, a person with a lot of dependent people that I took care of and everybody conspired with me and myself and each other and it was great. And then I happened to work with a therapist who said, did you ever notice that your tendency to make people dependent on you is really just a way of, just your way of expressing your dependence because they won't leave you if they're dependent on you.

[19:12]

It was so completely accurate that there's no way to escape, there's no way around it. And so I didn't really have much left that I was familiar with between that and my personal, the way I saw myself personally. and the whole political scene that I had been in. I was kind of lost, and not feeling very good about it. But when I saw that, I thought, boy, what a trip I've been making on various people who were dependent on me, about what weak folks they were. And I thought, I don't know. I was feeling pretty awful. And I went to the Peer Pacific University lecture, and he was lecturing about You're perfect just as you are.

[20:20]

Just as you are. You're perfect just as you are. Life ain't nothing. My first take on that was that she doesn't know me. I knew her. But, seriously, I mean that was You know, I'm sitting there, and one person told me how he says this, and I'm, you know, I'm not, you know... Still, I'm not proud of that, the way I'm feeling, and, but the thing about superficial is that you said it, He kept saying it, and it was clear that he didn't mean me, that he meant everybody, and that it wasn't an idea he had. It was something he knew. It was something he was quite clearly knew for a fact and not for an idea.

[21:23]

And it really puzzled me. It was sort of my first thought. What did he mean? What do you mean? As imperfect as I was feeling, and yet he was quite... He had no questions. What did that mean? I mean, I had to say, well, okay, there's some way that I'm perfect, even though I don't understand it. in some way that each of us is perfect, you know what I'm saying. But he was the kind of person who could give you a lot of confidence that what he was saying was not out of here. And he was the product of 50 years of this practice. And he was a magnificently compassionate person.

[22:33]

So when he said, when he met the next doctor, when he was cured, somehow he got to be the way he was through his practice. and working off a lot of uncomfortableness. It was very uncomfortable. I think I sat for at least three years through many Monday sitting sessions before I ever sat through a court case period without moving. And I just hate myself for moving. And I was monophobic. But even so, He said you shouldn't, you know, he said we should sit and we should not move, even so, even though I moved. Anyhow, it was clear to me when I met him that

[23:47]

Here was someone who did understand what happened with me essentially. What was that experience that I had? You know what I'm saying. You knew something that would help me understand. So I think... I think I have to say that The complete feeling at home in the window, plus the kind of person that's in each of those two rooms, are the two things that made me just throw all my aches and sorrows. I didn't know I'd thrown all my aches and sorrows, and I'm still working full-time, and saying, wow, this is a very good job, and I can't wait to go home.

[24:49]

But in 1972, from all three of my older children left home, two of them did a lot of trips to Japan, and one of them got married, and went off to find a farm in West Virginia. And that left only one at home, and she wanted to go live with friends. I thought, she remembers this, that I wanted to go to Tassajara, so she found a place to go. I remembered she wanted to go stay with these friends, and so I could go to Tassajara. In any event, the first year, I started to sit in July and in August I went to Casa Jara to be a guest student and I fell in love with Casa Jara. And I applied to go for a practice period in the winter and I was accepted. My husband was a little bit upset about me leaving home and I thought it was a little shaky and so I didn't go and I thought it was a good call.

[25:58]

And the next year I applied and I was accepted and I had arranged for a leave of absence and then when it got almost time to go my boss was getting nervous about me going and I didn't go and I thought it was a good call. And at some point it dawned on me that I thought it was a really great idea to go to Tanzania But I wasn't ready to go, and that's why I wasn't going. So I decided to relax, and when I was ready to go, I would go. And sure enough, another year went by, and the kids left home. And I had to leave the bed since then. My body started to back out, and I decided, oh, well, actually, I don't want to leave the bed just because I have to come back and do something. Of course, I mean, it felt totally right. The words came out of my mouth and I was astonished. I thought that he was astonished.

[27:00]

Both were quite taken. But it was completely right. And then I was driving home and I said, I don't know why I haven't talked about this, but he's been a saint. You know, I was the only one who wasn't. He's been blessed, actually. And I went home and I said, Well, I told Nan I was going to quit for the time I could. So, we just packed up and went to California. I thought I was going to Tremont. Maybe... In fact... We went to... At the end of that year, we went to live in Jamesburg, and this came down here. I don't know how many of you know Tassajara, but there's a house there at the end of the paved road, the beginning of the dirt road to Tassajara.

[28:09]

And it became available, and it was very convenient for us to have a place to put the chains on truck which we went over the road at one time, stop and have a cup of coffee on the way in, sort of a halfway house between Carmel Valley and Tassajara, a place with an actual regular telephone, instead of a hand crank from Tassajara which went out for those reasons. Anyhow, we, this house became available and, and Rush granted it and then he was looking for somebody to live in it and, We ended up living in a prison care room, and Missy came to live with us there, and went to school to climb mountains. And after a year, she wanted to come back to work with I, and so we went to live at Wingo. And I realized that I didn't want to do anything else, to be a friend, and be attractive. I had no intention of going back to Europe.

[29:12]

And I'm thinking of the first thing that happens, and he says, well, it looks like you're not going anywhere. It might seem to be something to do with the state of sex and nostalgia and the variety of children. And eventually, both Lou and I became our dreams. But along the way, a number of interesting things have happened. For instance, as I mentioned, I've been a feminist for a long time. And I had never done typical women's things. I was head of the shop at Tatsuhara. I was auto mechanic at Tatsuhara and then I was head of the shop. But then... Actually, before I left Tatsuhara, a woman teacher was coming over named Yoshida. And I was very excited about a woman teacher, a woman Roshi.

[30:18]

So I took my vacation, I went over there to spend time with her, and she was teaching sewing. She was teaching sewing, called Niohori, according to the Genma, making food with rope. Well, someone said if she'd been teaching television repair, I'd be taking television repairs. It turns out she was teaching sewing, so I took sewing. She was very enthusiastic about working with me and teaching me things, even rather radical things. And so I hung out with her, and I showed her how to make an octopus while she was here. And then a couple of years later, another woman teacher named Josie came over. And by that time, I'd been swimming long enough to make an octopus, so I showed her an octopus. And she didn't speak a word of English, and I didn't speak a word of Japanese, but we had a long conversation.

[31:19]

And when I finished my Iroquois study, she said that she wanted me to get my Iroquois studies in the Comicon, and she went to Russia. She filled up with stuff in Japanese, and showed them the Iroquois studies that we had. And when I came out of there, I was her assistant. And what she recognized was not any skill in the poems, but an enthusiasm for support which I had, and enthusiasm for hanging out with her, and some realization that I would take on the responsibility to continue her teaching when she left. And that's what she wanted. She wanted to teach somebody who would continue the practice when she left. So, as a direct result of my feminism, I am now the head song teacher in a traditional women's role, which for me has been the most marvelous irony in my life.

[32:27]

And my life is full of those things. I'm, as I say, Secretary of Defense. I can't talk. But being Secretary of Defense, I know it's a wonderful job. It's the first person that new people talk to about being in the Army. It's most, for me, at least as it functions for me, it's mostly a job of being available to people and talking to people. And that's what I like to do. There's also stuff like taking minutes, I mean, of me, which is a great deal of labor, and keeping records of memories, and being responsible for my office, and answering correspondence and so forth.

[33:32]

But mostly, you know, everything I have done at Penn Center has been all one thing. It's all making the practice available to people. And it's really all I want to do is to make this practice available to people. Because it's necessary. Because having this practice available to me has been so important in my life that that I can't think of anything else that I can do than to continue making it available to people. I have found, in this realm of feminism, at some point I've found that

[34:33]

To identify myself as a woman in the way that I had been doing, that is, to identify myself as a woman that is over and opposed to men, was limiting myself to less than my whole self. We're setting up boundaries that didn't exist and that didn't need to exist. In the same way that I discovered that actually the way we really exist is actually boundaryless. Boundaryless. And that that The experience of boundarylessness was very, very real.

[35:44]

And in that experience I felt more real than in any other way I have been in my life. That I no longer wanted to set up any boundaries Separate them from the experience of more than a week. So that the kind of radical feminist attitudes that I had had up to that point were no longer certain in my life, and I had to drop them. They just dropped, just the way my reflexes would drop. That doesn't leave me without a concern for how women perceive this. How do we approach this?

[36:49]

But it's a very, very different way of looking at myself than I have in my parents. And then I feel often I discovered, for example, that in the way I was going about living my life, I was doing a lot of competing with men to show that I could do whatever it was, as well as other things. But I was developing a lot of my masculine qualities, and that is not one of the feminine qualities that I felt so admirable. That is what was in my mind in the process. And that actually was the right thing to do.

[37:58]

I noticed that in... that someone else, that a man who had been really super macho, when he first came to Penn Center, was developing all of these rather strong perceptive qualities through the intensity of his practice that I greatly admired. And what I really admired about him was that he was developing these rather strong perceptive qualities. I don't know if that's enough to sort of introduce myself before the discussion. I think it's a good place to come in and have a discussion, if that's all right with you. Well, I'm very curious about the residue that remains of your feminism, which isn't so concerned with boundaries, and wonder if you could say something about your sense of the need and value of women teachers.

[39:33]

If you think that is a pressing need, and why you think that. I think it is a need because I think that all of us like to have role models. And that's what I found so attractive about Joshin-san and Yoshida-roshi, although the cultural differences between Japanese women and American women are immense. And to that degree, it's not really possible for them to be role models for me, because there's no way that I can There's no way yet, anyhow, that I can be as self-effacing as Joseph was.

[40:43]

I'm not sure I was. I mean, Georgetown's completely a product of her culture. I think it is important to have women teachers. I think it's an enormous responsibility for women who have some... who have been practicing for some time to really make an effort to understand this practice and develop themselves to become able to be teachers.

[41:51]

I know there was a session in which Baker Oshii was lecturing and saying, someone of you here has to understand physiological meaning. And I remember my own response was, well, not you. I mean, I'm too old. And I'll just make a nice back plate so that somebody else who's younger than me can understand physiological meaning. And as the session went on, I realized that's a cop-out. I have to make my best efforts to do it. I cannot do otherwise, even though I may never attempt to do it. But I think, you know, I realized in that session that there's no alternative. I have to try. We all have to try. And because I have confidence in this practice, because I've seen its effect on people who've been able to stay with it for years, I want to be able to continue this lineage so that it can be here for people to practice.

[43:19]

I don't have any big preference for administrative responsibility. But I feel that at this stage in the history of Zen centers, if we're going to maintain some of it, make the home for the diversity of women. I don't have any choice. There have to be senior women who are administrating responsibility. Because women at some point cannot trust the leadership in this country. I don't mean by that that I feel that necessarily that the male leadership is untrustworthy.

[44:33]

I have a lot of confidence in many of the senior men at Penn State. But women are happy with some of it. And they can't trust the leadership to make it easier for them. And so some women have to take on those responsibilities in order to make, in order to continue the vitality of the song while we develop this practice in our sport to just develop it. Five or ten years doesn't involve the teacher. Ten years is for the student. Twenty years to get rid of the teacher. Non-specific. And we have to maintain this boundary which says while we are co-operating in the government.

[45:37]

And to do that, we have to have women in leadership where they're not really interested in being administrated. You know, I was happy to send an e-mail at Crimson's Watch. I'm not sending an e-mail at Crimson's Watch. You have to sit down and say, It's crazy. I love those responsibilities, but we all have to take time to develop them. I don't understand what you mean by trust.

[46:41]

We can't trust it. Well, I just feel that the atmosphere at San Francisco Men's Center at this time is such that the women in the song don't want women in the leadership. And I think, you know, perfectly natural in the way that they do, and I think that's fine. I don't think that was an issue when Hezekiah was the teacher. And I don't think it will be an issue when we have teachers who have been practicing for 40 years. because they will be fully developed people who will have both their fully developed masculine and feminine aspects and won't have any war between them in themselves.

[47:42]

But I think that men who are products of this society very rarely are like that. And I think that until we've had time to practice one, we have to have those debates. If we're going to have a Sangha that keeps both men and women, then we have to have beautiful women. That their role models are beautiful. In order to have some confidence that women can practice, that understand the meaning of practice, that see women's differences, For whatever reason, many of us come to practice this.

[48:47]

Yes, there have been many teachers in this tradition, and if the Buddha was a man, then most assuredly, at some point, some man has given down the transmission to someone. But there have been women teachers. There are, right now, contemporary women teachers who have been translated by contemporary men teachers. We do have... I'm sorry, I will draw at this point on it. I've got my question answered. I mean, for myself, I do not feel qualified to give an answer to whether or not a man was offensive. I personally know myself well enough that I am not ready for the future in the sense of being a dharma, of being a dharma transmission. I know myself that now. And yet, you know, with all my heart, I would like to be adequately prepared to receive dharma transmission because I think it would be encouraging

[49:56]

That's different than saying that it's just a compliment. No, you have to... Yeah. In all fields, it seems to me that some people can do and some people can't do. And it always isn't the same thing. And I was wondering if you think in in being a Zen teacher, is it all a question of personality of some people just that they would naturally, more naturally develop into teachers or is it a question of time and never understanding?

[51:30]

I guess my feeling is, ultimately, that a really good teacher, a really good hand teacher, is someone who can do what he does by the hand. Suzuki Roshi taught me by being the way you are, more than ever, And that's what made me do it. It's the feeling of receiving, the feeling of receiving, of receiving. That, you know, one can... I feel that I have a function, I have a teaching function.

[52:59]

In the way that I work with teaching the soul, in the way that I work with people who have leadership, I'm able to talk to them about everything. in the way that I am. You know, it's been gone. It works just so it comes out. But that, that one being, I see it. That possibility is there, but the solution is not there.

[54:01]

There are two main points that I would like to make. But, right now, there is only one person who has received a translation. Now, there is no person who has received most of the translation. At some point, There may be a few other old Berkeleyites coming over here.

[55:29]

I think it's important for the people who It's through that that you can feel that you have permission to live. Okay.

[56:32]

And what's going on in my life is that I've been a feminist for many years and I felt the need for that to evolve. maintenance, but not wholehearted effort in that direction because it seems like I have to take care of a lot of other things that need some kind of fulfillment out in the world. So actually when I look at my life, I see that seems to make a lot of sense to me.

[58:28]

Well, 20 years from now, you know, maybe then I'll be at that stage. But as a feminist, I feel it's very important for me to gain some skills or recognition for myself. It seems an integral part of my life. And for other women, it might be raising a family, relationship or something, but it seems that, you know, we always say practice and life is one thing. You know, and then I said, Dad, my daughter and I, I'm running a gardening business now. It's just thoughts and thoughts about my gardening business. And, you know, I just think, wait a minute, if I wasn't doing this gardening business, and I remember being a guest student at Venn Center, and all day long I just did

[59:35]

something that someone told me. I know when I was sitting there I'd be not so much figuring out estimates in my head. So I feel like I'm even making my practice very difficult. Somehow I'm not doing my practice as thoroughly because I'm engaged Or as a feminist or a student, what do you have to say? I think that each of us does what's important to us. I mean, everything we do in our life, every moment is a choice. And I think there isn't a value judgment saying that this choice is better than that choice. The value judgment happens in your stomach, doesn't happen in my head.

[60:38]

You do what feels right to you in your life. And if you're paying attention to your body and mind, if you're doing whatever you're doing, including your gardening and your essence and whatever else, with mindful awareness, That's practice. And if you're being really moderately aware of your body and mind, you'll know what to do. Now, if you find yourself like this to do something about it, and you really know that's going to be quite satisfying, do it. But I find sometimes that happens. How do you turn it off? It's okay, I need to be the essence and I'm being the essence. Warm. [...] But you'll only keep going back to your breath if it's not really satisfying to do the essence during docking.

[62:06]

If it's satisfying to do the essence during docking, do the essence during docking. But if it's not satisfying to do the essence during docking, then see if you can let your gut take it. But to do your everyday work with mindful awareness is practice. It's not something else other than That's helpful. Um, to try to do the best you can to really have this good garden. And to run a business and have the confidence in yourself to do that. To take care of yourself. That's fine. If you find that the way you're doing it puts you in a state of mind that's uncomfortable beautiful and elevated and contentious. You might want to look at the way you're doing it and say, well, you really have to do it to feel that.

[63:11]

Back to your body. This is what you have to do. This is what you have to do. Here. Find out this way. Don't find it out there. Find out what it is you want to be doing. We need to find a way to do things with people and not against them. To find out a way. And this is what I'm talking about, a different way of thinking, of trying to find a way of being a woman with men and not as opposed to men. Not some boundary between, well, this is where I'm stopping and this is where they begin. where I get sort of before yourself, but not in some way that sort of... But I used to think, you know, my daughter started to say at the time, I'd be a good teacher.

[64:38]

But I see young people like yourself as having to take comfort in learning And they still have this sort of non-dissatisfaction that seems to be why most of these kinds of practices are actually sort of in a condition of vague dissatisfaction. And so while practice is not satisfying, Why did it turn so bad? I had a political career, I had a professional career, I had four kids, you know, I had an academic career, and I made quite a lot of money, and I had been a homemaker, and so I knew that that really wasn't where my dissatisfaction was coming from.

[65:57]

I didn't have to go out there and look and see if I could satisfy myself. I think that's very important. So I thought, well, after all, it's actually a great blessing that I've tried all these things before I come to practice. I don't have to go out trying. But that's me. It sounds like I'm doing it. the best of all possible worlds, but actually just this, just this is perfect, just the way it is, just exactly, this is it and this is fine, there isn't something else over there, this is it, so your life, just as it is, that's it. And so that if you live your life just as it is, then you let yourself, your stomach, your own feelings be your guide.

[67:05]

This choice, this choice, this choice. Every instant is a choice. And if you allow your own self to be your guide on making those choices, you'll be okay. That's practical. Is to really pay attention to how you feel. And you say you don't see it in somebody who's asking about karma in a way that they're like, if I do something wrong, it's somewhere in heaven. And you say, no, the result of doing something, no, it may just be that you should be there. That may be the consequence of doing something, that they should be there. I don't know if it's something to prevent it, or if it's something to prevent it, or if it's something to prevent it. I don't know. I'm not sure what's happening.

[68:32]

I'm not sure what's happening. Yeah. I don't know how to put this into words, but it's just a question of my mind. And it's, I don't know, well, I had a mind-reader a few weeks ago that a sister of hers, she had said that even after enlightenment, sometimes there's a mind-reader left. And so my brother, whenever I talk with him on the East Coast, where I'm connected with have come to realize that apparently there's no guarantee.

[69:35]

There might be some instances where it is possible, but there isn't really any guarantee that spiritual advancement automatically means no sexism. Or, you know, as you mentioned, these women who just came to the pantheon are still culturally, you know, conditioned, you can put your life in that and still have your, you know, the limitations of your culture. And that sort of makes me wonder, because in the Daniel Korn, you know, it's emphasized that we should not emphasize the suicide of the moon, you know, that it's reality, the light and the darkness, and there is life in enlightenment, but there's also, you know, there are both sides to it, to me. And I just wonder if not the life in light in the matter of fact, or in the life in ordinary consciousness, or in other ways, if that is very real too, and very much has an effect on all of us,

[70:56]

And I'm just wondering how... Do you understand this? My question is about how... How can you recognize very much these very real, big problems that are not exactly in your environment, but still, the means are out to help things out, you know, problems. Well, this is something of what we're working on at the San Francisco Film Center. I have no doubt about the authenticity of the dharma understanding of Vaishnavism.

[72:09]

Apparently, neither has Mel. He's accepting transmissions from him as soon as he finishes preparations. However, he is a product of his culture. And we began with a much more thoroughly developed And he had unlimited confidence. And his attitude was that he did not know if he could be the teacher to another, because he didn't know if he understood all of them.

[73:17]

But this was a trial. This was his incompletion to figure out. He just didn't know. He never had an understanding. He didn't know. He had tried at first to send women who were serious students to study with him, but that didn't work because of the tremendous pressure. But then he died. And we all wanted somebody just to take over and be just thoroughly reliable. We allowed the relationship to

[74:22]

become isolated from his peers. Because he wanted somebody to do it for him. And he tells what to do. And we put him in that position a lot. There were, there were some people Anyhow, I certainly have to completely accept the responsibility of my own wanting him to just be what I wanted him to be, which was to be my teacher, and not really paying attention to or noticing

[75:30]

So for the morning sign, put your hand here, put your palm here. Now we are going to continue to take some time to fully reflect on our study and meditation. I have for the first time in this period of time been very attentive to him and I feel that I have met him much more often than I have before. That's not to say that I haven't learned a great deal from him, but at this point, I'm willing to meet him And I want to study together with you.

[76:36]

I want us to study together all these questions. And I feel the confidence to do it. And I've been able to meet him in a totally different way. And I think that's the way we have to take care of problems of sexist who understands the dharma and doesn't understand, they are blocked. We have to teach them where is God, etc. and others. Having seen the dangers of serving the mantle of teacher before one is ready.

[77:41]

The younger teachers are not likely to assume what they're not ready for and the rest of the community is not likely to allow them to live with their blind spots now. So that I think that we've had a very strong lesson in this very question. This is what I meant about the difference between understanding the Dharma, and developing into a teacher, a thoroughly trained teacher who understands how to help people in this country.

[78:47]

In order to understand how to help women, students in their practice, a teacher like Begaroshi has to come to understand women better. And we have to help him. He has to be willing We have to see what this period of reflection produces. Well, if I must, can I just add a little? What I was wondering too is, if you say that women have to help with this, what I'm wondering is if there might be some special

[80:05]

and mindfulness, mindfulness can be put there anywhere, in how they are in situations where women are, you know, a certain slight emphasis for men, slight emphasis on a certain type of practice for men, would that be a way to help illuminate some of the I don't know. And might there be some such preferences for women in the way they are with men. Sexism is not... It primarily stems from, I think, from each of us not recognizing that we are complete in ourselves. so that we don't recognize ourselves in each other.

[81:15]

We see the other as other rather than the identity. We see the otherness rather than the identity. So if a man sees a woman as other, he doesn't recognize himself I think that to understand the teachings of the Dharma means that even if you don't see them, there's that necessity, that essentialness of finding them out. So that's a question I have about... which is related to Adam's question about teachers who are supposedly well-developed teachers and yet have blind spots that they're not seeing

[82:31]

very bad as situations develop with that and the Sangha and... That's how we practice with the Sangha. And the Sangha has to help each of us see our limits first, to teach us also. That's the problem that many of us don't realize, that we also have to stop teaching I think that's a mistake that we've made, because we all... I don't think that's a mistake that's necessarily from this position, I think that's a mistake in this country as well. We want somebody, somebody that doesn't care at all, and we don't want to worry about it. Oh, thank you very much.

[83:57]

Thank you. Do we want to say anything about the wedding evening? We never wanted to talk about this. The question of teachers. Why did I think it was Hannah in front of Jefferson?

[85:05]

Well, it's so God-given that you're going to be interviewing me. That's a nice tie-up of the configuration of the topic. For me, I don't know if it's Monday nights for me either.

[86:21]

Monday nights are a little bit difficult for me because that's the weekly science lecture. So I don't like to miss them either. It would be great if you could come back sometime. If you have a Monday and there's not a sunset, I mean, doesn't that happen occasionally? Occasionally, we kind of never know when it's going to happen. Like today, it was sort of, oh, come on, it's a holiday. You know, everybody thought it was a holiday we should be doing. But that just happened on Saturday, Friday. It could be another day.

[87:23]

It could be another day. It's open for everybody. No, Sunday night is the meeting we always do. Well, we could just plan that. I'm going to be hanging out. Could you write down what we're saying now? What we had in mind is like a sunny day. If we come over there with all seven shows cut out, we thought we could also get it. In one day? Well, each of the panels, you know, the four scenes in each of the seven panels, we thought we could get it all done in one day. I don't know what day you think. Well, you know, I don't know.

[88:23]

I thought if we could have that... You're asking me? How many people do you think went like a woman? Does Mel have any feeling about... Anyone doing it? Everyone doing it? People should practice X month? I mean, I don't know. Well, I think anyone, anyone who's already sotiroxed could start right off, but then, uh, I've got to go, [...] I've got I mean, what I find is a lot of women have done a lot of hand sewing already, broken or something, and you need to cut right on there, and that is really important.

[89:26]

Can you stand in it for men? I mean, for women? No, no, no, no. I think men should. Oh, sure, sure. I'm just mentioning it here, but it would be nice. Everyone who was on there was on their own. But in the case of the transmission, I thought he was not going to be able to perform the sickness. He lost out a certain amount of his own soul. He used to pass through. He had a carotid. He used to pass. I would have said I do not like to sell. I'd like to say that it was really great having you here.

[90:39]

I appreciate you coming. I found just a few times having a little priest come from Zen Center. I felt it was very important to me. It just brings up in me like this great and serious story. I just want to mention, you know, the practice at Berkeley is very much a lay practice. Being ordained is just one way of practice. It's not more valid or anything than lay practice. I want to make that very clear. It is one way to practice.

[91:41]

It's a way that gives me an opportunity to kind of completely immerse myself in practice in a way. But it's almost like it's an easier way to practice. There's fewer distractions. Some people who are not so adept need a little help and the organization is one way. I just want to thank you for hearing that I said that I don't have a real home before this evening. I'm so grateful for who I am. I'm humbled for what I'm doing. I'm more experienced than I used to be. I've always felt that, but the thing that came up in my mind tonight is many, [...] many

[93:10]

Assistant Tonto, and she's also a vice president. She's the first layperson who has been one of the exit practices. But then Leslie and Lynn Ruth Cutts is also... Also assistant practice. Leslie and Lynn Ruth are both... Yeah. The San Francisco sound is quite large. Yeah. And Lynn's more... keeps me comfortable, more practice-focused. So the four practice leaders at Set Center right now are Rev and Lou and Linda-Ruth and Leslie. Linda-Ruth and Leslie, because they have children, are neither one as full-time as Rev and Lou. They are rather young children. I think it would be wonderful for you to write a letter and send it to your friend and tell her that she's well met.

[94:22]

Linda, but I don't think you know nothing about her. She's great. She's wonderful. She's a very, very good heart. Well, thank you. So, Kenora will read off... The last minute. Yeah, it's the last minute. And we need a house. Thank you. Did you have to pick anything? Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm going to step off.

[95:14]

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