their teacher for a long, long time, whereas our teacher was only around for about 10 years. So we progressed in a different way. But both Zen centers during the 70s were really growing and expanding, and enthusiastic students, and LA Zen Center owned a whole block in LA. the whole block, every house on the block. And they were just expanding like crazy, like a rocket. And Zen Center in San Francisco was doing the same thing. Buying up property and getting Tassajara and getting Green Gulch. But then, both Zen Centers had this big crisis. where the teachers were indiscreet in many ways. And then there was a huge setback.

[01:06]

LA Zen Center lost most of their property. And San Francisco Zen Center stopped expanding. And it was the early 80s the mid 80s and all the way up to the late 80s was a time of introspection and reorganizing and regrouping and becoming very sober and being very conservative learning how to be democratic. This is a time of because the Japanese teachers were autocratic but in a kindly way.

[02:13]

They were not pushy but authority, but we didn't know how to handle it. They knew how to handle autocracy, but when we inherited autocracy, it was misused. So we had to develop, this is a time of developing democratic ways of practice and at this time really making a big effort to include, to work out how to include everyone, men and women equally in practice. how to develop teachers within practice and coming back to the most basic practices, ways of practice.

[03:35]

So during the 80s, there was this setback. Many of the students left Zen Center, and it really threw everybody back on their resources. And it took years, five years, you know, in Zen Center to stop the grieving and to actually reorganize and make it work, little by little. And then in the 90s, the Zen centers started to show a remarkable recovery and to expand again. And in the 90s, many more people started coming to practice and many young people.

[04:45]

There was a time when I said there was almost nobody below the age of about 40. And all the old people, I think all the old hippies who had never practiced, they suddenly decided they wanted to practice. I remember that time, but now In the 90s lots of young people are coming to practice and I think that's a good sign and very important. So what are some of the contributions or developments of Zen in America that are different than in Japan? One of the things that we developed was the health food movement.

[05:46]

I think that Zen Center, especially San Francisco Zen Center, Tassajara, was really a major contributor in developing healthy ways of eating for the country that have influenced, I don't think it's influenced the Midwest, but the West Coast and the East Coast have been heavily influenced by the efforts just to create a monastic diet where You know, when you have a place that's isolated for months at a time, the thing that everybody thinks about is food. And when it's no good, that's all anybody talks about. So we went through many food phases at Tassajar, and working out what would be the most satisfying

[06:58]

and healthy diet for this group of people. And Ed Brown published the bread book and the cookbook, and then Baker Roshi was very instrumental in promoting all this. I have to hand it to him, with his restaurant and so forth, and research, and really creating atmosphere for this to happen. But I think the most important thing that Zen practice has contributed to America is Zazen. Buddhism is very conscious in America of which is different, I think, than in Japan.

[07:59]

In Japan, the Buddhists tend to be more reticent, but in America, they're more outspoken, and social action has become a major movement in Buddhism in America, and rightly so, and I think is also influencing people in Japan a little bit, but I really believe that Zazen is the most important thing that we can contribute to people. It's very unique, you know, there are There are social institutions in America and all kinds of wonderful institutions that help people, but it's only Zen practice that contributes Zazen.

[09:10]

Other Buddhist practices also contribute Zazen or meditation, but the strong practice of Zazen is so fundamental to influencing, not influencing, but influencing people's behavior. And I think that the most important thing that we can do is to open that up to people. In Japan, Zazen has kind of died away. in America it's a kind of resurrection of the fundamental practice. I don't want to criticize Japanese. I think that there are low places and high places, low times and times of little practice and times of strong practice.

[10:21]

weak practice and strong practice. And Zen practice came to us at a time of weak practice in Japan. And it became very strong practice in America. And I think it's our task to maintain that, which also influences and goes back to Japan. So I'm very enthusiastic about having contact with Japan. A lot of people feel that since the practice is at such a low ebb in Japan that we should forget about Japan. But my feeling is that because it's a low practice, a low energy practice in Japan, we should have as much contact as possible to create enthusiasm going the other way. I also feel that since our teachers contributed so much, we should be giving something back.

[11:34]

So I'm very happy to be practicing with our Japanese counterparts and creating some kind of interaction, which they very much want. Some people do, not everyone. But there are many young monks who are very enthusiastic about practicing with Americans and seeing what kind of vitality can come out of the combination So when Suzuki Roshi and Maezumi Roshi and some of the other Zen teachers came to America, they introduced to us a practice, the same practice that they had.

[12:46]

They introduced to us what they knew and since the Meiji period, priests had families and were married and had wives and daughters and children. So this is the practice that we inherited. But what we inherited was a kind of quasi-monastic practice. And as Suzuki Roshi said, The practice that you have is somewhere between a layperson and a priest. It's not exactly a layperson and it's not exactly a priest. In Japan, the priests or the monks do the practice and the laypeople

[13:51]

Some individuals can practice a little bit here and there, but they mostly support the temples. In America, there's no supporters for the temples. everyone is a practitioner. Everyone who comes is a practitioner. And the reason we come is because we want to, not because we're born into it, but because of our desire to practice. So it's a very grassroots kind of activity that we have, which is very different than in most of Japan. And the many lay people practice as much as monks would in Japan, or maybe more. So we have a totally different situation in that way. And also, when the young men go to the monastery, they become ordained as monks.

[15:06]

and then go into the monastery to practice. In America, we practice for many years before we become ordained. So there, they become ordained and then go into the practice. And here, we go into the practice and later, mature practitioners become ordained. So it's kind of backwards practice. It doesn't follow in the same order of things. So these are significant differences. all of these significant differences have their problems.

[16:10]

And they're problems that are continually being worked out. In Japan, mostly they have, because of the thousand years of practice, 700 years since, or 800 years since Dogen, practice is somewhat fossilized. So everybody knows what it's about. But in America, it's continually developing, so there's nothing really fixed. Things may look fixed, or when you see them, when you come to practice, you say, oh, it's like this, and it's like this, but that's only now. Practice is always developing and always changing. there are problems that are always being addressed. The problem of priest and lay is always a problem that's being addressed.

[17:16]

It's not fixed at all. And the problem of family practice and individual practice has hardly even been addressed. And many other problems that need to be worked on and developed. So whenever something comes into question, we always have to look at that. and it becomes a subject for discussion and development. So we're in this, America, American Zen is, we have our roots, but at the same time, the tree, it's constantly budding out and developing, and we don't know what it will look like.

[18:28]

how the formality of our practice will change in the future, how the forms that we have will change. I noticed that as people, as teachers have their own small sanghas in distant places the practice becomes less and less formal. And they make up their own way of doing things. I've noticed that happening. And I can see that there is, unless someone decides how it's going to be, things will just change.

[19:35]

So that's good. It has a good side and a bad side. The good side is that the practice becomes a little more accommodated to the feeling of being in America. The downside is that when you lose formality, you sacrifice some kind of structure that holds things together. And it's also connected to a tradition. But there is a way to make this happen slowly. So I think that it's inevitable that our practice the form will change but there needs to be some resistance to that as well as some pull to do it and the resistance will keep it from things from just kind of sliding into arbitrariness and everybody's

[20:54]

idea about what it should be. As soon as it starts being everybody's idea about what it should be, you lose it. The one important thing about Zen practice is a certain kind of discipline and standards. If you lose your standards, then it's easy to lose your practice. But there's always a balance, you know, has to always be a balance between square and beat. So that we don't lose the vitality of the raw energy. And we don't lose the strictness of the practice as a standard. And I think that that's what we're always dealing with, maintaining that balance.

[22:05]

And maintaining that balance will allow the development to come about in a good way, slowly, slow progress. But I think that Zen practice, you know, Zen practice, people talk about Zen and it's very influential and powerful and when people think about it, you know, but there aren't actually so many Zen students

[23:27]

Zen practice is not an easy practice. It demands a lot of you and some of the more popular forms of Buddhism have many more students. But Zen is a little more demanding and difficult maybe not so tasteful to a lot of people. So I think that Zen is strong now, but not so big, but I think that's okay. It's okay that there are not so many students. maybe 10, 12 people come, and in a year, maybe 10 people or 12 people actually start practicing from all that.

[24:39]

Many people go through, but not so many stick. But that's okay, too. Not everybody's ready to practice. People need a taste, and that's good. And someday, that seed may sprout. So one of the things, one of the positive things about the 90s is that we're now beginning to develop more teachers and the teachers are beginning to go out and people are requesting them to come and teach.

[25:48]

and develop independent sanghas. So I think that that's, in the future, after 2000, that will be one of the developments, is the development of teachers who will go out and take on, develop their own sangha. their own sanghas. And one of the things that is important, I think, in that is that there will be many more teachers and many more sanghas. And in America, we like to be independent. And I think we should really try to maintain that independence of teachers. And at the same time, to have some organized way of making sure that everyone has some standard of teaching and that we have agreements among the teachers as to what our practices are because it can get pretty way out when people become independent

[27:17]

And then becomes... So I think we have to be careful that we certify people in a way that we feel satisfied that they're going to do a good job. So one of the things about Zen Center's practice is that we've made sure that our teachers have been around long enough so that we know what their practice is before they start teaching. And I think that's very important. So, thank you very much.

[28:28]

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