That all changed. Chinese have a different way of looking at things. I remember when Bhikkhu Amaro, the Theravadan monk, came to Green Gulch, I was assigned to him, and we were walking through the fields. We looked at the growing vegetables and things. I asked him whether they had a garden back at their monastery. He said, oh no, we don't cultivate the earth. The Buddha said a monk is like a bee that lands on a flower and takes nectar. And a flower is no worse for it. But the bee is inert. And you know, those monks, they don't operate machinery or carry money. I asked him, well, how do you get around?

[01:00]

He was from England. And he said, well, somebody comes and gets me and takes me. I said, oh, of course. I hadn't seen him in many years. Now he's not Bhikkhu Amaro, but Ajahn Amaro. And he was in the Zen Dojo last year, and there he was. And when he came out, he said, oh, hi, Lee. How are you? I said, I'm fine. What are you doing? I said, well, I'm Tenzo, I'm the cook. He said, oh. And in order to keep the conversation going a little bit more, I said, well, have you ever cooked in your monastery? And he said, oh no, I come from a non-cooking tradition. That was great. They don't cook. They don't cultivate the field.

[02:05]

And this wonderful relationship of being completely dependent on the kindness of strangers. And they definitely don't hoard. They don't have anything. Things just happen around them. I remember they eat two meals, one breakfast and then just before lunch. They can't eat after lunch, so you have to offer them food. They won't eat if you don't offer them. So I like it. I said, this is great. But I did notice one thing, and that is when it was lunchtime, they were right there. Which was the polite thing, right? I mean, for a monk to be, because you get a certain amount of merit offering them food. Or if you want them to eat. But when Buddhism went to China, a lot of the monastic rules went along with them.

[03:11]

There was a gradual conversion to work practice. And the rakisu that we wear is a Chinese invention. Which allows you to wear your robe while you're working. If you wore an okisa, it would get all bollocksed up and dirty and everything. So the Chinese invented this really small robe that you could wear around your neck. You could always wear your robe. This is quite a commitment to work. They solved the problem of wearing a robe while working. They still lived, there were residues of the old Indian rules, which were not exactly egalitarian. And sorted people out by levels of accomplishment and so on.

[04:14]

When Pai Chang came around, he lived around the same time as our friend Joshu. He was noted for his sitting. But he devised the monastic rules that we basically live by today. He changed quite a few things. One thing he was was an innovator. You have a tendency to think, oh, this is the way it is. This is Zen or these are the rules. But actually, there was a tendency to adapt to situations. And believe it or not, even at Zen Center, there's adapting situations going on. Real slow, but there is adapting. You wouldn't want to move too fast. We joined something which has a consensus to it.

[05:21]

How do you sit? It tells you right there. If you read the Heihei Shingi on how to eat, how to bow, what ariyoki is, it's all there. So when we joined Zen, we joined a kind of consensus about how to act. But that doesn't mean it can't change. It's just that you need a consensus to change it. The whole system. Things kind of look the same all the time because you need a consensus to change anything. It's real hard to get everybody to agree to anything. So you're kind of stuck with what you've got. But only when the situation really becomes apparent to everyone, then there's a change. For things at Zen Center, let's try it as an experiment, and then see what happens.

[06:25]

Then it turns out it's not the end of the world. I think the chanting of the women ancestors is an experiment. Seems to be going along very nicely. The... I was... You know, the Okesa sewing one, and this is the old way. Okay. There is a new way. The old way. Yoshida Roshi wanted, I guess, to do the old way. Well, Yoshida Roshi recommended it, and he said, well, let's try it. Let's try it, okay. Well, he didn't... Well, how about that circular thing in the Rakusu? Well, that also is...

[07:28]

That came from China. Yeah. But... He said... Okay. I was talking to... When they had the Tokubetsu Sushi in here, I was talking to Ino... Soto Ino, the... The guy is... The priest from Kyoto at the headquarters of Soto... Soto headquarters. And his job was to basically go around and talk with and counsel with the different temples about forms, like the Inos, Ino. And they were different, slightly different, different places. And we were talking about the Okesa, and we were standing out over there, and we were discussing

[08:29]

the correct Okesa, the right, the true Okesa. And... And he said... You know, like there's been... Things have changed, and what's the real right one? Unchanged. And he said... He was uncomfortable with this... We thought we had the guy... You know, the horse's mouth right there, we were going to ask him. And he said, you know, he was really uncomfortable with this idea of the correct way. That he thought of it as the agreed upon way. The consensus. Don't make up standards on your own. Like, let's get together and talk about it and come to an agreement. And that's our practice. Relationships, coming to agreement, consensus,

[09:32]

taking each other into consideration, being public, it's a practice of awareness. Bringing things up. So that, let's say, you don't come to the Zendo, you can't come to the Zendo, you can't keep what's called the schedule, what do you do? Well, within you might have a justification. You might think, I'm sick, I'm not going to the Zendo, or whatever it is. And feel right about that, somehow that's right. For all sorts of good reasons. But what about, what about the Tenkin function? What about the Eno wondering, well, where is that person? Are they all right? Do they need help? So we make the effort to bring it up, just mention it, before we're asked.

[10:38]

This is the practice of awareness, at the social level. So while we have agreements, we have to tend to them. That affects people's minds, we don't. It affects our own. So, the Pai Chang changed the rules, and it was really the beginning of the Zen monastic system. He was that guy who, excuse me, I didn't refer to him as a guy, who worked every day. He got, he became really old, and every day he'd be out there working. And finally they hid his tools. Yeah, they were worried about him. And then he just stopped eating, until they gave his tools back. They asked him, why do you work so old?

[11:56]

And he said, well, there's someone who requires it. And they said, why don't you have them work? They require it. And he said, they don't have any tools. So you have to do your own life. To make wind, you've got to make your family. And Dogen, you know, Dogen lived about, what, 600 years later in Japan. He was sort of a noble family. Went to the monastery at 13, or really young.

[13:01]

He was brilliant. And studied with several people. It was something to deal with, in the sense of his inquiry into the Dharma. He had this question, well, if things are perfect, basically already, what's the reason to practice? No one could answer that. So he went to China. And... And he was a Tiandai monk. You know, learned the sutras. Brilliant thinker. Anyway, he went to China.

[14:03]

And... That's when he ran into Tai Chiang's wave, ripples in Tai Chiang. When he got there, he was in a ship moored at the port. They wouldn't let him off because there was some problem with his papers. He was ordained in Japan. And they didn't want to count his ordination dates, the Japanese ordination dates. They wanted him to get ordained again in China and start over again. He wouldn't go for it. He was very interested in ordination dates. Anyway, he appealed to the emperor who agreed with him. He ran into this Tenzo monk who was buying

[15:07]

some mushrooms for the temple. He was an older monk. And he had a conversation with him. The monk said, I've got to go back to the temple. And Dogen had come all this way. Here was someone he was really interested in talking to. He said, well, why don't you stay? I've got to go back. I've got to cook the meal. He said, you've got all sorts of helpers. A man of your age, 14 miles. Stay here and talk to me. He said, but it's my job. It's my duty. I didn't get permission. I was just a monk confused. They made me Tenzo. Now as an old man, this is my job. I need to do this. I can't leave it to someone else to do it. And Dogen pressed him further. And then the monk said, stranger from abroad,

[16:12]

you don't know the meaning of characters, meaning words, and you don't know what practice is. So here's Dogen. Here's this guy telling him, you don't understand the sutures. You don't know what practice is. And Dogen says, well, what are they? And he said, well, you think about it. I've got to go cook dinner. And he left. So here's Dogen, running into this kind of work ethic here. And a year later, by the way, the term of these monks' offices was one year. They would like rotate through them year by year. In the Soto temples anyway. And a year later, this monk came looking for Dogen and found him at another monastery,

[17:16]

and asked him how things were going. And he said, well, what is the meaning of the sutures and words? And what is practice? And the monk said, oh, the meaning of words is one, two, three, four. And the meaning of practice is nothing hidden. One, two, three, four. Five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Not long after, he was at another monastery and he ran into this old monk drying mushrooms in the hot sun. And went over to him. He was worried about him. He was sweating. And he said, gee, you know,

[18:18]

he was ten years old. He was bent over. He said, why don't you get somebody else to do it? An old man like you should be studying the sutures, chanting. And he said, well, who would do it if I didn't? And when would it be done if not now? And, well, these are two stories. And Dogen said that he began to sense some sort of meaning to, that he was, the underlying fundamental principle of the work of these people. And as you know, his question of

[19:25]

what is the relationship between being and doing, practice and enlightenment, was foremost in his mind. He kept on running into these people, advising them to stop doing what they were doing and study the sutures. And they thought he was, he didn't understand what practice was. It's ten o'clock, so I've got a I'm going to read you a little thing here.

[20:29]

Thinking about work practice. Sweeping. You know, as Suzuki Roshi used to listen to the monks sweeping outside, he used to think that the sweeping of the mind, that Huh? How about reading that in the next lecture? I shouldn't read this. All right. Thank you.

[21:16]

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