A few people asked me if I had some plan in mind about topics of study, things I'd like to teach this practice period. Am I speaking out loud enough for you to hear me? There are many things I'd like to study with you that I'm not yet sure about your recent background. So, some of you are here last practice period, some of you are coming from Green Gulch, some from San Francisco, some from Berkeley, some from Oregon, some from Canada, so we have

[01:09]

lots of different kinds of backgrounds. I'd like to spend some time assessing your states, and once I have a feel for, and once you have a feel for, the Sangha and where it sits, it will be clear where we should go in our study. To that end, I'd like you to think, and review in your mind, particularly those who were here last practice period, what you learned, and what questions or problems you were left

[02:11]

with at the end of the practice period that you bring now to this practice period. Tomorrow morning, we'll have a morning greeting, at that time, it may be possible for some of you to speak about this kind of thing, for all of us to hear where we're at. And, I led two practice periods last fall, one in San Francisco, one in Green Gulch, and there were some themes there, which I would like to bring up again and review here

[03:11]

again, for the residents of Tassajara. I, myself, continue to want to commit myself to the lineage of the founder of this temple, and of course that includes Dogen Zenji. So, another way to say it is, I find it useful and lovely to commit my life to the practice of sitting, devotion to sitting still.

[04:15]

And, it looks to me like we have 33 people here, and most of you seem to be willing to devote your life, at least this time of your life, to sitting. And, as I said a moment ago, I would like to bring up some of the background and the support that you may or may not be aware of, that makes sitting real, and protects us from just dreaming that we're sitting still. As part of that, I'd like to make the point that Dogen Zenji teaches, that the sitting

[05:41]

that we're doing is itself enlightenment. However, if you practice sitting with self-cleaning, it's not enlightenment. Dogen Zenji's way is total devotion to the sitting practice, but also self-surrender. Total selfless devotion, not selfish devotion. Some people are very devoted to certain activities which will promote themselves, like certain

[06:48]

business people are very devoted to their work, and they will make personal sacrifices, great personal sacrifices, in order to promote their business success. They will also sacrifice other people's lives to their success. But our sitting, if we can devote ourselves to it selflessly, then it works really well. So at the beginning of sitting, our first thoughts are for the welfare of others, and here in this small valley, in order to lay the ground for our sitting, in order to sustain

[07:57]

our sitting, I'd like to first mention that I think we should work on developing, on promoting peace and harmony among ourselves, between us. True sitting leads to peace and harmony, but also peace and harmony is a prerequisite for true sitting, so they are simultaneous. The practice of friendliness is done throughout Buddhist life, but it's also a kind of prerequisite or preliminary practice to actual Buddhist meditation.

[08:58]

On the bulletin board at Greenbelt, there's a small clipping from a newspaper or a newsletter that points out that this person who wrote the article interviewed lots of, in this case, Theravadin Buddhist teachers, Theravadin in the sense of being people who lived in Thailand and Burma, and they discussed the difficulties that some Western people have in doing the actual formal insight meditation. And the reasons they point out for this difficulty in actually being able to do the meditation is that the people have not done enough of what they call the moral training, prerequisite

[10:15]

for formal, actual meditation. This moral training side, which supports the sitting, was part of what I was emphasizing this fall in Greenbelt and Toscan in San Francisco, and promoting, working for each of us to work to promote peace and harmony here at Tassajara, this time, is another way to say moral training. Moral training means to train ourselves to study how to have good relationships with other living beings, human and non-human.

[11:15]

In one sense, I say that promoting and even establishing peace and harmony among us is a prerequisite for us to be able to really sit. On the other side, once it's established, it's almost exactly the same as sitting. It's almost exactly the same as enlightenment. Again, as Dogen Zenji says, when things advance forward and confirm themselves, this is enlightenment. To witness and act on the advent of all things is awakening.

[12:41]

To witness and act upon the advent of all things is the way to promote peace and harmony here. To practice and confirm all things while carrying a self is delusion. To practice and confirm all things while carrying a self tends to disrupt peace and harmony in Sangha. To bring your personal self and your personal idea of what practice is into a discussion of what practice is tends to disturb the discussion.

[13:44]

Of course, each of us has some idea about what practice is, but to hold on to it in the face of innumerable other versions of what practice is tends to cause strife. Even if no one else is around and you're sitting by yourself, if you bring an idea of practice or self to your sitting, if you hold on to that idea, revelation as to what sitting really is is obstructed by your holding on to what you already think it is. By various means, I hope we can meet with each other one-to-one in our small groups,

[15:05]

our small work groups. I hope this team of staff can meet with itself, and as a whole group, as a whole Sangha, I hope we can meet and come together, not bringing our own version of practice with us and holding on to it, but bringing our sense of practice with us as a possible resource, which we can throw onto the table. Other people can look at it and turn it around and examine it if they wish. Maybe they can even throw it in the garbage can. Maybe we'll let them do that. Maybe we'll let them say, your idea of practice is really strange, narrow, unenlightened. Please excuse me for saying so, but that's what I think. And if you're not holding on to it, maybe they can say that to you in the spirit of

[16:11]

trying to find out what's going on. If they say it with kindness. But we can't control what other people will say about our practice, because sometimes people even come up to us and say, your practice is really good. But if we're holding on to a sense of what our practice is, even if they say our practice is good, we may be insulted, because our practice may be... We may think our practice is better than good. We may think our practice is truly excellent, and good is really kind of a put-down. Or we may think various things about what they really mean, and if we're holding on to some self, we can be irritated, and so on, by what people say. So we can't control what people say, but we can do something about our own attachments

[17:16]

to our own views of what life is supposed to be. Throughout the day, and there are often many opportunities, opportunities to do something good. And I see some of you taking advantage of these opportunities already. I've seen you do it, it's great. Ah, I took Oksan out to lunch the other day.

[18:37]

Does everybody know who Oksan is? Do you know who Oksan is? Oksan means Suzuki Roshi's wife. I took her out to lunch, and now when I tell the story it sounds like she was bragging, but anyway, she told me this story. She said she went to a banquet in honor of two Japanese men who had made a big contribution to the Japanese community in San Francisco, and they were receiving, this was just before the emperor died, receiving these medals, imperial medals of honor. So Japanese people were there in San Francisco to applaud their honor.

[19:41]

And Oksan was sitting in the audience, and she thought, well, we're applauding these men, but people, they don't, they didn't do this by themselves. They had a lot of support from their family. Their wives, for example, putting up with them all those years and supporting them, and who knows what they did. Maybe they sometimes had an affair or something, and maybe their wife stuck with them anyway and gave them some helpful feedback. It was a joke. And, or maybe they didn't have any affairs because they had such a good relationship with their wives. Maybe their kids also encouraged them by many, many kindnesses.

[20:49]

Anyway, Oksan said to me one time, when a person succeeds at something and gets some honor, we always recognize the family too. And also, if somebody gets in trouble, we hold the family responsible also. It isn't like the man embezzles and the family is innocent. And vice versa, it isn't like the man discovers something in physics or something and the family is innocent, didn't have anything to do with it. Now, in Japan, they feel the whole family helps. So, anyway, they recognized this man, but they didn't say anything about the family. So, Oksan turned to the lady to her left. She said, now this lady is 88. Oksan is 73 or 74.

[21:54]

She said, this lady next to me was 88. And she's very particular about the little details of etiquette. So she thought she'd check with her. And she checked with her. And now they said, well, yes, of course, they definitely should recognize the family. So she checked with the conservative, formal, ancient one. And yes, she confirmed that. Then she checked with the person on the right. Now, this person was quite a different type of person, this woman on the right. She's a woman much more relaxed about these kinds of things. And often, Oksan said, she has a way of often being flexible and adjusting to the circumstances about how to apply etiquette and protocol. So she checked with this lady. And this lady also said, well, yes, I think. And that we should usually, we should do that.

[22:56]

So then, checking with these two extreme positions, and with her own sense, she stood up in the assembly and said, excuse me, is the family of Mr. So-and-so here? And the master of ceremonies said, oh, yes, they are. And he said, can we see the family of Mr. So-and-so? And then this whole table stood up, six or seven people. And everybody clapped for them, too. And then she says, is the family of the other man here? Yes, another table stood up. This is a small, small thing, but a good thing. And then Oksan said something a little bit later. She said, when you see a good thing, do it right away. When you see a chance to do something good like that, do it immediately.

[24:03]

No need to wait. Bad things, you should wait until they're gone. And don't do them ever. But good things, as opposed to bad things, good things, you shouldn't wait on. If Oksan had waited, the program could have moved on to something else, or she would have left the auditorium, or missed her chance. So, this was a New Year's luncheon, and so for the New Year's, and for the beginning of the practice period, I want to make that simple, common sense point. Namely, if you have something good to do, do it now. And particularly, good things among us, between us. You're already doing this, I just want to encourage you to continue.

[25:12]

And another thing about doing good things is sometimes, not always are good things little, like that one, where you can do the thing now, and complete the act. Sometimes, you can only just barely start to do some good things. For example, well, anyway, without giving examples, sometimes the good thing you think of doing is a little bit too big to finish in one sitting. Like writing a letter, sometimes you can't do all at once. But, you can make a note to yourself and say, write a letter to so and so. You can start writing a letter, you can say, Dear Bill. And even that little start, that practical beginning,

[26:27]

even a tiny little one, those are also really great. Of course, then we should finish, but... That's another thing I want to emphasize, is make little beginnings. Plant tiny seeds. If you can plant big trees, all of a sudden, fine. But also, let's plant little seeds with each other. Between us, and also in our own practice. Everybody in this practice period has a position.

[27:36]

And some of the positions are simpler than others. But they all depend on everybody else. So I've just crossed my mind that Brian is the attendant to the first seat. You know, Xu Shou means first seat. This is the first seat, seat number one, number two, and so on. Start counting from here, so you're sitting in the first seat. In the Soto Zen tradition, you number the seats from here. This is the most senior seat right here. Abbot is not sitting in that. Abbot is sitting in a chair next to the tong. So by seniority, you start here and go around this way. So the most junior person would be sitting like where Kosho is sitting.

[28:43]

And in that seat would be usually where the Tanto sits. The Tanto is not in the seniority system. He's a teacher to the monks. But the most junior monk sits next to the Tanto. And you go increasing seniority back here to the number one seat. So Xu Shou would usually be the senior among the regular monks. And on the other side, I think something like that too. I don't know exactly how it works. So anyway, Brian is attendant to the first seat. And part of his job is doing recycling and compost and things like that. So certainly everybody's supporting him, right? You're giving him stuff to work on all the time. And then the way you give it to him has something to do with the way you support him. And then he also supports you maybe. At some point he may make an announcement at work meeting about something or other.

[29:47]

So even a job like that where he works pretty much by himself on the recycling. Still, there's a connection. Now a position like Tenzo or the head cook or the director. Now there, they definitely have crews and staffs. And there the mutual support may be easier to see. But it also may not be so easy to see. And I would say, let's right away deal with this. If you have a position and you're not clear, if you're supported to do the position, let's politely or kindly mention that you don't feel supported. And let's find out what kind of support you need. And if you're on a crew and you're having trouble supporting others,

[30:51]

why don't you say so? And we can find out why. What the problem is. Now you may not be able to tell the person who you can't support directly, but then I would suggest that you don't go and tell other people the problem you have with them. But you could talk to other people about the fact that you have a problem with someone and you can't tell them. They could help you figure out how to tell them. As a general policy, and I suppose there's many exceptions, but as a general policy I would like to suggest to you that if you have a problem with somebody and it's a problem that you need to open your mouth about, I would suggest that the first person you open your mouth to

[31:54]

to be the person him or herself. Not tell somebody else about the problem first. If you think it's not good to tell them, then don't tell them. But if you're going to tell anybody, tell them first. I would suggest that. And if someone else is telling you a problem they have with somebody else, please ask them before they say too much. Have you told this other person that yet? And if they say no, I'd like to ask you to ask them to go tell that person first. I don't think you should tell everybody every problem you have with them, but if you're going to talk about it to somebody, they should be first. They don't have to be last, but they should be first. Often times, that's all that needs to be done.

[32:56]

If there's further recourse necessary, you can get someone else to help talk to them. Of course, this takes a lot of courage and care, and I don't think you should go tell the person when you're angry, but it really causes disturbance if you're talking about other people to other people. Third party type of conversations, really disturb the peace. This kind of work, I'd like to emphasize at the beginning, and see if we can develop a feeling here among all of us, that each of us feel that our position is supported by everyone,

[34:01]

and of course in particular by the people who are closest to us. So, I'd like the director to feel supported by all of us, and by the whole staff. I'd like the tensor to feel supported by the kitchen crew, and feel supported by all the rest of us, and feel supported by the rest of the staff. I'd like the treasurer to feel supported by the rest of the staff, and by all of us, and so on. And if there are any problems around these things now, I'd like to deal with them right away, and settle down. And if problems come up later, I'd like to bring them up, and take care of them. If we keep working on this, I think it may be possible for us to, truly, just sit. As a matter of fact, the situation may already have occurred,

[35:04]

we may already have perfect harmony, I don't know. So far I haven't, so far everyone's been very nice to everyone else that I can see. But maybe there's some things I don't know about. So, I may not, I don't know. But if some of you know, if there's some problem, please, please let's deal with it right away. No sense to harbor it. I think we can handle the problems here. Let's see what happens. With the spirit of witnessing, and acting, on the advent of all things. Not carrying self, into our life situations.

[36:05]

But really, witnessing what's coming up, and acting from what's coming. Moment by moment. And when I can see what's going on with all of this, and you can see, then I think we can chart a course of study, and see where we should be pushing, what part of the Buddha body we should be emphasizing, for this practice period. I have lots of fun ideas. If I tell you, I'm sure many of you will say, well let's do that, and [...] let's do that. I'm sure. There's no problem of having wonderful things to study and practice.

[37:08]

I just want to try to understand who we are first, and then go from there. So tomorrow morning we'll have a tea, and so I'll call upon you to express what you learned last practice period, here at Tassajara, but also from Gregoire to San Francisco. I'd like to hear what you people, where you are in terms of your practice. If you can say something tomorrow, I'd appreciate it.

[37:44]

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