Good morning everyone. So many of us are sitting all day today and most of those sitting all day are a part of this practice commitment period we're in the middle of. studying this old text from the 9th century, attributed to the founder of the Zaozhuang or Soto branch of Zen we follow, his name is Dongshan, the Jewel Mirror Samadhi. So I want to refer to part of that text today. What I want to talk about today is following and serving in Zen. So there's the line, ministers serve their lords, children follow or obey their parents, not following is not filial, failure to serve is no help.

[01:11]

So I want to talk about what is it we should follow and what is it we want to serve. And I want to talk about this a little bit in the context of the background and history of the Chan is the Chinese name or Zen is the Japanese name, this tradition, and how actually it is, we could say the Chan or Zen is Confucian Buddhism and its origins from a feudal society. So I want to talk about the kind of historical and social context of what we do here, or the background of it. But first, just to say that all of this is about the practice and teaching and reality of satsangas. So the Precious Mara Samadhi begins, the dharma of satsangas is intimately transmitted by Buddhas and ancestors.

[02:17]

We have it. Preserve it well. Now you have it. Preserve it well. So our practice is about studying how it is for each of us to engage in suchness, in being with just this reality as we sit and face the wall, as we sit and face ourselves. How is it to express the reality of this life, of this body-mind on our chair or cushion here now, today, this morning. So this is what this is about, but we do it in a particular time and place, in a particular season and culture and context. We have this wonderful tradition with all these teachings and practices and we're all here because we value this tradition and because somehow something about this has been found meaningful in our own lives.

[03:42]

We have to kind of translate this. Zen in America has only been here about 50 years. And Zen in America is a mess. It just is. And Zen in America is wonderful, of course. It's wonderful that we have this mess and that we're trying to figure out what we're doing. So I want to talk about where it comes from and why it's a mess and what we can do about it. So part of what we're doing here Chicago in 2013 is trying to find a way to make it work in our lives, in this Sangha, in this context. But we have to look at where it came from. So, again, Chan, as it's called in China, and Zen, as it developed in Japan, is Confucian Buddhism. Which is to say that when Buddhism moved from India to China, it took form in the context of Chinese culture.

[04:50]

So when I'm talking about Confucianism, I'm talking in a kind of wide general context. In all Asian cultures, religions were, you know, they weren't in conflict in the same way that we think of in Western religions that are very exclusive. It's not so usual to be both a Baptist and a Catholic and a Jew. I don't know if there's anybody who would claim to be all three of those. But for Chinese people, of course, they're Confucian and they're Daoist and they're Buddhist. That's just what I'm saying. So when I say Confucianism, that includes Daoism, that includes Anyway, these things are part of a cultural mix. And then part of what we do here is not Confucianism from China. It's Japanese Confucianism. So the forms that we use, these robes and so forth, in some ways are the Japanese version of Confucianism.

[05:54]

So it's complicated. But generally, when Buddhism came from India to China, Chinese culture emphasizes history, and ancestry in a way that's just not part of Indian culture. So Chan developed as Chinese Buddhism, and it developed lineage and an emphasis on lineage. And it also developed Dharma transmission. as a response to Confucianism. So both the Zen lineage and Dharma transmission are Chinese Buddhist Chan inventions. There was no Dharma transmission in India. There was no emphasis on lineage in India. That may sound heretical, but sorry, that's the way it is. And, you know, to me, I'm very happy to be, you know, I think lineage and dharma transmission are very important.

[07:04]

So, of course, there's the story, many of you have heard of Buddha holding up a flower at Vulture Peak, and Mahakasyapa, Jerry over there, smiled, and Mahakasyapa became the first ancestor of Zen. It's a wonderful story. There's no record of that before, like, around 1100 in China. So, you know, this is a Chinese story. It's a wonderful story. So we have this lineage that we chant sometimes, not so often here actually, just because of the way our forms are arranged. But we have this wonderful lineage that goes back to Shakyamuni with all these Indian ancestors and their names up to Bodhidharma. And, you know, I'm very happy to chant those names and I chant them at home. To me, there's no problem with that. We know these were very important Indian Buddhist figures. And we know some of them, historical scholarship, we know that some of them never could have met each other.

[08:08]

But somebody was keeping alive this practice and this tradition generation after generation in India. Somebody brought it to China. We have Bodhidharma's statue on our altar. And we think there was somebody named Bodhidharma. There's lots and lots of stories about him, and those don't have much to do with history. But whoever it was, I'm happy to say Bodhidharma. I visited the temple where he supposedly taught in China, and great. The point is that in China, it was very important. History was very important in China. They didn't care about history in India. And lineage and ancestry is very important in China. Now, it's not that they didn't care about family in India. They talked about all of us being children of Buddha, sons and daughters of good family. So there was Buddha's family as part of the idea of Sangha in India.

[09:11]

But anyway, this idea of dharma transmission and this idea of lineage which is so important in Chan and Zen. And that's a Chinese invention. And that's great. And I think it's very valuable. When it's not misunderstood. And it has been misunderstood. So that, you know, and I think that traditionally, and I think Dogen a great founder in Japan. And we do have, you know, the lineage in China, pretty much there's historical evidence. There's some glitches in there. Some of the scholars question some of the Chinese lineage. But pretty much that's historical. And Japan, we don't know so much about the ancestors between, you know, several generations after Keizan up until Suzuki Roshi, but that's pretty historically reliable. But that's not the point. But at any rate, this is not, you know, Dogen thought this was some mind-to-mind transmission from Shakyamuni to him to, you know, Suzuki Roshi to me, okay?

[10:26]

I have a brown robe and I carry a stick, okay? But that's not the point. Dharma transmission is very important. It's a kind of authorization. It's not a guarantee of anybody being some perfect master. So, you know, this Confucian tradition, this feudal, coming from a feudal society in Japan and China, which, you know, in Europe, Fetal society ended, I don't know, there's probably some people who know history, European history better than me, but I don't know when. Well, maybe it ended with the Renaissance in Italy, you know. But fetal society stayed, it was part of Asia and East Asia up until, I don't know, 19th century anyway. So this tradition of a Confucian, generally Confucian feudal tradition that was hierarchical and patriarchal, that continued until pretty recently in East Asia, and then it came to America.

[11:55]

in the 60s and there's some problems here. And I should say that, you know, so part of what happened in East Asia is that Buddhism, when it went from India to China, didn't really need to invent some new kind of social ethic. Confucianism kind of worked. as an ethic in East Asia for centuries in that feudal society. It didn't work perfectly, but it basically worked in that feudal context. But it doesn't work here. Part of why it doesn't work is that we have particular problems in our Western society. So I want to come back to this question of what is it that we should be following?

[13:04]

What is it we want to serve? And I still think that this Jewel Mary Samadhi is important, and these lines from the Jewel Mary Samadhi. So I want to come back to that. part of our Western cultural context. What's the first of the Ten Commandments? Does anyone remember that? Any good? Who is it? Yeah, yeah. There's one God, but no other gods. So the first commandment in the Western context has to do with idols and don't worship idols and just worship me, the one great whatever. So the reason that's the first commandment is because somehow in Western culture, or at least some part of Western culture, there's this deep tendency to worship idols.

[14:14]

So you have this Confucian tradition of hierarchy and masters and disciples and then you have that coming to the West and, you know, Westerners want some perfect master to idolize. And then there's also this, you know, have any of you heard this horrible word, enlightenment? So Westerners want to idolize some great experience called enlightenment. You might become some perfect master. You might get enlightened. Somebody told me this morning they hadn't gotten enlightened yet. Yeah, but if you have your coffee, then you're OK. But anyway, so this is a big problem in these medium cultures.

[15:23]

So probably many of you know that American Zen has had various scandals and sexual scandals and power scandals. And this has to do with, well, there's these two cases of Asian, Japanese, happened to be Rinzai masters who've for decades been involved in just horrible predatory activity with abusing women in their sanghas. And their whole sanghas have left. And anyway, it's gone on for decades, literally, and now it's gotten some publicity, but there have been other much less horrible abuses of sex and power. This has to do, and I'm not blaming the victims here at all, but this has to do with this kind of cultural issue.

[16:27]

So again, you know, in some sense, this, well, patriarchy is a problem all over, you know, in cultures all over the world. Most developed cultures for the last few millennium. But this hierarchical, feudal culture that has this great spiritual tradition, which is very valuable in lots of ways, comes over to this culture where we just, we want, you know, we don't have community, we don't have these, you know, We don't have perfect masters, and we want them. And so, you know, anyway. And, you know, a lot of the Chan or Zen metaphors that some of them in this Jewel Mary Samadhi Lord and Vassal or Host and Guest, you know, are used as metaphors for teacher and student, and sometimes for the universal and the particular, or the ultimate and the phenomenal, which are, you know, our practice and what the Jalmeri Samadhi is about, and I'm going to be talking about this more in a couple of weeks, this interaction between ultimate truth and the particulars of this

[17:41]

morning in this situation, and the person sitting on your cushion or chair, and how each of us is a particular expression of the universal truth. This is what this teaching poem is about, ultimately, or particularly. But anyway, because it comes out of this feudal context, John then uses these hierarchical metaphors. And, you know, some of them still work for us, maybe. And, you know, in some ways, I don't mean to say that Confucian ethics totally worked in In East Asia, there were problems that led to militarism in some cases, and samurai, cases of samurai zen. But basically, they had an ethical, they had a societal context where they kind of knew how to deal with problems when they came up.

[18:47]

was part of the social context. And anybody who tried to abuse it to the extent that we've seen abuse in this country, they knew what to do with those people, pretty much. So this is maybe an oversimplification. Every situation is particular. But this is part of what we're dealing with, in American sense. So, you know, Confucian, this Confucian feudal context, you know, we're adapting the wonderful practices and the wonderful teachings of this tradition, of this Buddhist tradition, that developed in its own way in East Asia, to, you know, what is it, how do we use this? How do we use these resources in our lives?

[19:50]

And maybe it's going to take 100 years or two to figure out what works in America. But we're part of that. And it's not just up to me to say what works. This is something we're doing together. So this is really kind of an exciting time in Buddhist history. And, you know, it's not even just like all American Zen, you know. What works in California and, you know, in San Francisco Zen Center with those huge residential, wonderful places, you know, is different from what works here in Chicago and, you know, the storefront, you know, little non-residential samples. So, you know, we have to be patient and, respectful to each other in this process. But the point is, how does this practice and tradition help each of us together to find a way to find our seat, to settle, to be present, to be upright, to meet our life, to work together, to be present and respond to the difficulties of our lives and of the world.

[21:08]

So again, Chan was, in Confucian fetal society, was kind of clan-based. They had this societal web context, as opposed to our society, which, well, at least as I was growing up, was based on this kind of nuclear family model. And what's happening now is, of course, that's breaking down. Our whole society is breaking down, not just in terms of the number of single-parent families, but just the massive corruption of our social institutions, how much they're becoming perverted, and what's happening in our society and in our world, and climate change. nuclear radiation from Fukushima built by General Electric. And the breakdown of our economic systems and our justice systems and energy systems and media and our government are all obviously broken, serving only interests of, you know, parasitic megacorporations for the most part.

[22:24]

So maybe we're turning people around the world and here into serfs, and so maybe we'll develop a new corporate feudalism, and that'll take its own forms. So one of the problems that I think of in America's end is that it's not recognizing those realities, and we do need somehow to respond to all of that as same people. But I don't want to talk about that today. I want to talk about how do we re-envision Americans then, whatever that is, in new forms. and a new heart for our modern context. What is post-Confucian feudal Zen? So, we're not going to answer these questions today or this year.

[23:28]

These are questions that we each have to sit with and together. And these kinds of questions impact each of us in terms of how we respond to our own lives. But they come up in terms of this, this has come up before here, this line about not obeying is not filial. Well, filial is, what is that? That doesn't mean anything in our society. And again, the version of the chant that we do, which we'll do in our midday services, not obeying, that character also means not following. So again, my question is, what is it that we should follow? Or what is it that we want to follow? And what is it that we want to serve? So, maybe we don't want to serve some emperor or feudal lord.

[24:36]

Maybe we don't want to serve corporate overlords either. And please don't serve or follow Zen teachers as perfect masters. Zen teachers have to earn their respect. I know that just because I have a brown robe, you know, that doesn't... I need to earn your respect. That's my job as teacher here. your job as students is to find your own space to look at what are the questions of your life and then we talk together. We do need a positive, wholesome view of service and serving. It's not about just serving yourself.

[25:37]

It's not about self-grasping. You all know that or else you wouldn't be here in this room now. We've gone beyond, you know, just trying to get more stuff for myself, for yourself. We know that we care about the world and we care about other beings and just, you know, Feeding this ego on your cushion or chair is not the point. What is it that's worth serving? Well, there are a few things that we can say. Serving Sangha. Sangha means community. Sangha means the commons. Serving the common good. May all beings be happy. serving healthy environment, sustainable environment, the wider Sangha. So I think we have resources, you know, in the Buddhist tradition, and maybe in our own cultural traditions, we have resources.

[26:46]

And, you know, the Bodhisattva way. Bodhisattva values and precepts. Relieving suffering. Leading beings to awakening, including leading all the beings on your cushion or chair. How do we wake up? How do we help others to wake up? What is it we want to wake up to? What is it we want to awaken from? How do we see this life and this world in a way that is encouraging and inspiring for others and for ourselves? Not following is not helpful. And then the last line of the Juna Mara Samadhi, I think, is very helpful.

[27:53]

So, you know, again, how do we find harmony in this world where there's so much, you know, obviously so much violence and corruption and confusion and we're all part of that, you know, it's not that somebody out there is, you know, is, you know, those are the bad guys and the violent ones, you know, we're connected to that, there's a continuum. We have to look at the, you know, we all have aggressive tendencies and impulses ourselves. It's possible. How do we find our own peace? How do we find how to share that with others? So the last line, just to do this continuously, is called the host within the host. Again, that's, in some ways, I don't know if that's a Confucian metaphor exactly, but host and guest. It's, you know, how do we, this is the inner truth, to do this continuously. And that doesn't mean that we have to kind of, you know, be little perfect masters ourselves and never, you know, pause.

[29:01]

It's just, how do we sustain a kind of ongoing attention to what's most important. What do we care about? That includes, you know, taking a break, going for a walk, going to the movies, or whatever it is that gives us refreshment and recreation. But how do we continue sustainable attention to what is worth serving, what is worth being helpful to us? How do we follow something worthwhile. So, you know, looking at it this way, I think we have the chance to help develop something very worthwhile in American society. And, you know, so there are problems. There are problems everywhere. So I didn't know if I'd get through this in time to have any discussion.

[30:10]

For most of us, we're here for the whole day, and there'll be a time for discussion a little later. But if anybody has any comments or responses, I appreciate there's some people here just for the morning. We have time for one or two responses. Amen. I wanted to thank you. That's the part of the Jewel Mary Somali that I think I have the strongest. aversion to, even though there are other parts of the Jewel Mirror Samadhi that I don't quite understand. I think that my understanding of that part always bothers me. And as an anthropologist and as someone who works for a Catholic institution, although I'm not Catholic, I've thought a lot about this question of the abuse of authority.

[31:13]

And it seems to me that part of it is that we live in a society that has this fiction of individual equality, even though we have all of these forms of inequality that have to do with social class and race and gender and sexuality. But because we have this fiction, when we encounter a context where we have to submit to someone in a higher authority, we tend to endow that person with all these special qualities. And I think in societies where hierarchy is more accepted, there's an understanding that that relationship is a reciprocal one. It's a hierarchical relationship, but it's a reciprocal relationship where the person who has power over you also has to look out for you. And I think that the surrounding society tends to monitor that and watch that more carefully. And I think part of what's happened in our society is that those relationships are are no longer reciprocal. And then when the power is abused, instead often it's seen as sort of the fault of the person who gave themselves over to the person with positional authority.

[32:21]

But thanks for talking about that part of the dual mera samadhi. I think it's, as a Westerner, it's something that I really struggle with. Yeah, so in the feudal Confucian context, it was clear that the Lord, the person above, had a tremendous obligation and responsibility to take care of those under. And there was a very strong sense in the society that that was important. Now we have this class warfare where the people in power, you know, don't feel any obligation to take care of anyone. It's just very blatant, self-serving and destruction of not just the middle class, but everything in our society. with absolute rights.

[33:32]

And I don't think that that's a very viable way to organize any society at all. Yeah, yeah, so part of the issue is that, and part of what are, I think, the appeal of Buddhist tradition is, you know, one thing I didn't say is that I talked about Chan developing this lineage and Dharma transmission and so forth, and actually all the rest of East Asian Buddhism also developed lineage and, you know, so not just Chan and Zen, but this sense of community. is so missing in our society because of that sense of individualism and dog-eat-dog and do unto others before they do unto you and that helps allow those above and a lot of the people in corporate power to just act parasitically. We have this wonderful sangha here, it's just amazing.

[34:38]

all the wonderful people in this room now. And the sense of community is so important. And I think that's got to be an important part of what we develop. Yes? I just wanted to add to what you were saying behind that. I mean, I think there's a real, of course there's a lack of trust in our society. It's pretty pervasive now. But people really, in my experience, it's very hard come together as a group, hash out a position, and then everyone would stick to it. You wouldn't be obligated. And as two examples, one is the Occupy Wall Street movement. There was all that great energy. And there was never the idea of doing a collective activity and having positions that they would really advance. It was simply just, I guess, didn't occur or wasn't possible. And another example is the decline of the labor movement in this country, which has been pretty much destroyed. Unions were successful when people all united behind a common position.

[35:44]

And they were not, nobody was doing sort of independent freelancing. And so I just think that that's another piece of things that makes it so difficult for us here in this country at this time. Yeah. And there's a lot to say. So I want to, stop at this point. And for those of us staying for the day, we'll have time to talk later.

[36:08]

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