Now I want to say something about, change something as I hinted the other day or hinted to myself about wearing robes. Yeah. It doesn't pertain to most of you at all, but I still think it's an example of the process I feel we're going through in developing a successional Sangha in the West. You know, in Tassajara it can get quite hot where we started the first Zen monastery in the West. And, yeah, of course, it's California dry heat.

[01:18]

It's not like here, or definitely not like Japan, which is very muggy, mushy-atsui. Steamy hot is mushy-atsui. Das ist die kalifornische trockene Hitze, also nicht so wie hier und ganz bestimmt nicht wie in Japan, wo es so dämpfend heiß ist. I think on the night of my ordination, I think it was 48 degrees Celsius. I think that's 118 degrees Fahrenheit. And I remember as I was on my robe, there was a white cloth over my new okesa, which was a style that we don't do anymore. And I felt like I was some sort of ornament in a fountain shooting water out from all directions.

[02:32]

I did it though. And Suzuki Roshi, I never saw him not wearing koromo and an okeso or a But in Japan, your role is not an identity, it's your role. And it's a role that you learn and express. So still, farmers dress like farmers and priests dress like priests. And Suzuki Rishi, the Soto's school, when they sent him to America,

[03:35]

gave him money to buy western clothes and I don't know what he did with the money but he didn't buy western clothes and I never saw him in western clothes I mean once or twice I saw him in a kimono on the way to the bath In those days I slept in the Zendo in the early Sashins in the 60s. And there really wasn't a town like this, a sleeping area, but I found some place to sleep. And there was only one bath in the basement of this former... What's the word for a temple in Judaism?

[04:52]

Synagogue? A synagogue. I don't know why I couldn't think of it. Getting old. Anyway, in the basement of this former synagogue was one bathtub. And Graham Petsche was the only person who joined me in sleeping in the Zendo. And we would go down and take a bath, thinking we should get out of the way of Suzuki Roshi as soon as possible. But I didn't know in Japan the senior person takes the first bath. And normally nobody else was in the synagogue except him and his wife.

[06:08]

So he came down to take a bath and he found Graham and I sharing the bath. There must have been two tubs because I don't think we took a bath together. I remember he knocked on the door And came back in about 20 minutes and knocked again. He was a little annoyed. I think in more than a decade of seeing him regularly, I only saw him annoyed twice. Twice. This was one of the times. Anyway, we were new at doing sashins.

[07:11]

And in this heat of Tassajara, I remember I asked him, I said... Would it be okay to just wear a rock suit? Because, I mean, like right now I have one, two, three, four, five, six, and then the overlaps, two, seven, seven or eight layers that close up. So I asked him, could we maybe just wear a raksu and not an okesa? He said, well, there is a tradition that after evening meal and service, you can put on a raksu. So even though he gave us permission, I began to wear a raksu, he still wore his okesa.

[08:30]

But now we do all wear raksus in the evening after service, isn't that right? I feel like a fool saying this, but so now I'm going to suggest a radical change. Radical for nobody but me. Is that after noon service we can wear ruxus. You know, I'm very slow about these things.

[09:32]

And, you know, I was a person who, in my college, a dress code was required, a tie and things like that. And so I'm someone who in my school time or in my university time, student time, was the formal dress, slippers and so on, that was necessary. But I refused to wear a tie. So the dining room wouldn't feed me. And I was there on a scholarship and I had about 10 cents a week for a cup of coffee. But I did my best to eat outside and finally they let me come into the dining room with a scarf. So it was a huge change a few years later for me to wear this big tie. But I remember I said to Suzuki Roshi in the early 60s, or I rather said to a whole bunch of Roshis, a group of Roshis who came to visit Suzuki Roshi from Japan.

[10:51]

And I said, Sukhiroshi asked me to say something to the group. So I said, if we bring a Japanese redwood tree to California, If we cut off its branches and take off its bark, it's not going to survive. I said a Japanese redwood has to adjust to California as the California redwoods have. So this has been my view. If this has been a tradition for many centuries, I don't feel I'm smart enough to make changes. And the changes I've developed in teaching have come out of trying to speak effectively within Western paradigms.

[12:20]

But in general, I've tried to, if they've done it for hundreds of years, there must be some reason, who am I to change it? Aber ich habe immer das Gefühl, also wenn die das jetzt schon jahrhundertelang so machen, dann muss es dafür einen Grund geben, wer bin ich, dass ich das ändern könnte. So, I mean, again, we could do the whole sashin in Hawaiian shirts. Also nochmal, wir könnten das ganze Sashin in hawaiianischen Hemden machen. But what does it make a difference if I do the three bows? In what case? I don't know. I mean, I do know and I don't know. That's why in the winter branches it's more like sashin in the morning and more like a seminar in the afternoon. No, I'm experimenting. Then you do, to some degree, learn to adjust your body heat.

[14:02]

Now I'd like to say something about Dokusan or Sanzen as well. We're experimenting also with what is the teacher-disciple or teacher-practitioner relationship. And the experiment takes the forms it takes. Yeah, I've never I've never said the way Teachers should be treated or anything, or very, very little. But what we do is fairly similar to what they do in Japan, which is not a guru relationship, but a kind of respected friend relationship.

[15:15]

We could say the role of the teacher is to be willing to, in other words, start again, it's very difficult to understand yourself. Virtually actually impossible. We can have a lot of information and general understanding but it's difficult to have any perspective but our own. So the teacher is the person who you try to see if you can accept his or her perspective on your Dharma practice. Yeah, and part of that is dokusan.

[16:21]

But dokusan, the word dokusan means singular or to go alone. And to go alone means Something like, to go alone as if you were speaking to yourself. And you hear the teacher as if the teacher was speaking, as if you were speaking to yourself. Yeah. Now, of course, in a mixed Sangha like we have, not everyone is ordained, not everyone is specifically practicing with me, and so forth.

[17:32]

And there is a tradition, certainly, of practicing with other sanghas. So, according to the situation, Dokusan is different. But there's also something called, I think, taiwa, which means practice instruction. And sometimes a teacher gives practice instruction, and sometimes a senior practitioner will give practice instruction. Now, I'm telling you these things, which are traditional. And I'm exploring them as traditional, but I don't absolutely accept anything.

[18:43]

I'm always experimenting. Yeah. So one of the conditions of... So one of the dynamics of Dokusan or conditions of Dokusan is it's entirely within the context of the dual relationship. It's part of the experiment to see

[19:47]

What happens? So you can speak to the person, the teacher, in a way that is singular. You know that you can only speak to yourself that way. No, I'm talking about the ideal kernel of Doksang practice. And I'm not trying to make Doksan sound difficult or impossible so that you come nervously trembling to Doksan. Or angry and furious. It's exploring a relationship like if you do therapy with a therapist, it's exploring a relationship. One of the strong conditions of Dzogchen is you absolutely never discuss it with anyone.

[21:17]

Aber eine der wirklich starken Bedingungen für Dokusan ist, dass du das absolut niemals mit irgendjemandem besprichst oder diskutierst. You might with another teacher who is also that person's teacher or something like that. Du könntest es mit einem anderen Lehrer besprechen, der vielleicht auch der Lehrer von dieser Person ist oder so. But I've never discussed any Dokusan with my wife or any other human being. If Suzuki Roshi during Dokusan said, I want you to go to Japan next week, I might tell my wife that. He told me to go to Japan. You better know that because we better pack. He did do that. He told somebody else actually first and then he told me. I mean, it's so strong that if you were in a small temple, five or six monks, and you discussed Dokusan with another monk, you would leave the next day.

[22:30]

If it was a bigger practice center, like 10, 12 monks or something like that, then you'd just be sidelined. You wouldn't be taken seriously. It's a really strong rule because it's a dynamic that allows you to relate to this other person in a way that's just not possible in the world, usually. And it worked when no one else when this is so singular that only the two of you are part of the content of what happened, it works in you differently.

[24:12]

it doesn't even have discussable forms. So, anyway, so much for a definition of dokusan. Okay. Yeah, that's enough to say at least. Dogen said that, when I said that I thought of Kobonjino, though she is now unfortunately dead. I've told some of you this before. When he first came to San Francisco and Tassajara he didn't know English.

[25:22]

But Suki Roshi still required him to give lectures in English. I'm glad you don't require me to give lectures in German. And he, particularly in this heat of Tassajara, he would be sweating, sitting there, not knowing what to say. And he would say, it started out always, Dogen says. And then he would fall asleep. And he would sit there. And pretty soon it was so hot, everyone would be falling asleep. And then every 10 or 15 minutes he sort of... Dogen says... But he eventually learned.

[26:42]

Okay. So Dogen says... The study of the way is... to study the way with the body. And this is what I've been speaking about in the bodyfulness of phenomenality. And the body which studies the way is the true human body. So the body that you develop through studying the way with the body is the true human body. So we're trying to find ways to study with the body our

[27:45]

our lived experience. And in the recent Cottage Gasse talk in Vienna, I said, a river is always flowing. But the banks don't flow. The banks stay still. And the river goes to the sea, but the banks stay where they are. And that image for me is something like Sashim. You become the banks of your river. And a lot of you keeps flowing.

[29:00]

And the more and more you feel the presence of the banks and you let the flow happen. And eventually somehow the water of the river starts to fill the banks. And right where you are becomes a kind of ocean. And everything is all at once in this immediate experience. The banks in the ocean become one, something like that, some image like that.

[30:05]

And I often use the word context, but maybe I should use the word constellation. Because a context, we tend to think of a context, in English at least, as staying in place. But a constellation is always at each moment shaping itself. And one of the images in Zen practice is the momentary constellation of the ten thousand things. Yeah. Eines der Bilder in der Zen-Praxis ist die momentane Konstellation der 10.000 Dinge.

[31:08]

And so there's the image, the wanderers, practitioner, the wanderer in the momentary constellation of the 10.000 things. And so whether you're wearing robes or not wearing robes, we're all wanderers in the momentary constellation of the 10,000 things. Thank you very much.

[31:40]

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