Is today May 19th? I think May 19th is Suzuki Roshi's birthday. Is that right? I've been thinking about that, and I think that he was actually born in Japan on May 19th. which is May 18th in the US. Because right now it's May 20th in Japan. So I think maybe he was born on May 19th in Japan. But over here, if we knew it at the time, we would have thought it was May 18th. But I don't know. This is something to be looked at. We have this thing called Pearl Harbor Day that we talk about in the United States.

[01:12]

And the date of Pearl Harbor Day is December 7th, right? Americans? December 7th? But in Japan, it's December 8th. Japanese chose Buddha's Enlightenment Day to bomb Pearl Harbor. But they didn't take it because it was Buddha's Enlightenment Day. They chose it because eight is a very auspicious number for victory. But it was the seventh for us, so it wasn't victorious. So anyway, the Japanese airplanes came over on December 8th, and the Americans got bombed on December 7th. And not only is this either the day after or the day of Suzuki Roshi's Actually, I think it is the day after.

[02:15]

I think yesterday maybe was his birthday. And the 19th is what it is in Japan. The day after Suzuki Roshi's 100th birthday is today. I just came from a meeting with the two abbots of Zen Center and senior Dharma teacher and and Suzukuroshi's son, Hoitsu Suzukuroshi. So he's about 64 now, maybe 65. He's getting close to the age his father passed away. So it's very, for me, and I think for you too, it's very nice to see him because you're kind of seeing Suzuki Roshi when you see him because, after all, he has very similar genetic makeup.

[03:26]

One night we were doing a ceremony at Tassajara and it's around midnight, actually, is this what we call the Dharma Transmission Ceremony. And Hoitsu Roshi came to help do the ceremony. He was the instructor for the ceremony. And I went over to the ceremony hall, which is the founder's hall at Tassajara. And he's supposed to be there waiting when I come over there. So I went over there. And I looked and I thought it was Suzuki Roshi for an eternity. But then, oh no, it was his son. Tonight I wanted to bring up a couple, maybe three things if there's time, that I

[04:37]

that I heard from Suzuki Roshi. Two of them I know I heard in person, and the third I might have heard about indirectly, I'm not sure. But I'll be paraphrasing, I'll be giving my way of talking about it. I don't speak English the way Suzuki Roshi did, so it won't be exactly what he said. Actually, when I first moved to Zen Center, I noticed that, especially when people came back from Tassajara, this is like over on Bush Street, I noticed that people coming back from Tassajara talk in this very funny way. They talk like Suzuki Roshi in this kind of funny English. But we kind of got over that and started speaking English the normal way after a while.

[05:41]

But especially at the beginning of Tassajara, a lot of the most sincere students copied his speech patterns, his way of speaking English. But I won't be speaking the way Suzuki Roshi spoke English tonight. The first point I want to say is this is one of the first things that he said that surprised me. He said, of course, we may be informal with friends, acquaintances, guests, strangers. In other words, we may be informal with people we don't know very well. But for those with whom we wish to be intimate, for those with which we wish to realize intimacy, formality may be necessary.

[07:01]

Formality may be required to realize intimacy." And I would add, of course, that formality can be overdone. And watching Suzuki Roshi, I often saw him being quite informal with some people. Particularly I noticed on Sunday when the Japanese congregation came to our temple over on Bush Street, he seemed to be rather quite informal with particularly the older ladies. He seemed very friendly to them and quite informal. And in a way I was a little bit I wouldn't go so far as to say I was envious, but I kind of thought, well, it'd be nice if he was that way with me.

[08:13]

But he wasn't informal with me. He wasn't chummy with me. He wasn't very often jolly. But he was with these elderly Japanese ladies. One time he said, you may not be able to be friends with your teacher. But I think what he meant by friends is this kind of informal way that we sometimes are with acquaintances and guests, the way we treat guests. a massage therapist said to me just a week or so ago, she said, everybody that comes to see me I can love.

[09:53]

No matter who they are, no matter what their gender is, no matter what their race is, I can love every one of them. And I thought, I think she can do that because of the formality of being a massage therapist. Because it's clear, or because of the possibility of it being clear, that when she gives a massage to someone, when she touches someone, that this is going to be for a certain period of time, that's part of the form, that the person is going to pay And that perhaps at the end of that time, that's going to be the end of the massage. And there's not going to be any more massage beyond that time unless they make another appointment in time and space.

[10:57]

Without that formality, people might think that the massage meant something else. and they might do things which are not usually considered to be therapeutic massage. I talked about how being informal with friends, if you see a friend and you say, I'm going to go to Germany tomorrow," they very well might say, great, have a great time. Whereas if you said to your spouse that you're going to Germany tomorrow, that's the first they heard of it, they would say, what? What do you mean you're going to Germany tomorrow?

[12:06]

Some kind of a joke? Your spouse doesn't think you leave the country without giving them more than a day's notice. Or your children. Or even your parents. But somebody you're intimate with, you might actually not just tell them what you're going to do. and you have a form with them, perhaps, that you've established where you both agree and understand that you don't do things unilaterally, that you do things together because you wish to be intimate or you are intimate.

[13:11]

If you live in the same house or the same room with someone, you might not think that you'd have to make an appointment with them to have a talk. Because you see them every day. So you can talk to them whenever you want. You think. But actually, To have certain kind of talk with somebody who you live in the same room with, you may need to make an appointment with them to talk. Now, somebody who you don't live in the same room with, you don't think you can talk to them anytime you want. And if you want to talk to them and they're there, you might be able to. But you also know you might not be able to because maybe they're busy.

[14:44]

Maybe they have something else to do besides talk to you. Or if somebody you live with, you don't think that they might not want to talk to you. You might not, anyway. And you might think, I want to talk to them, I just try to talk to them. So you actually try to talk to them and you find out that they have something else to do. Or you're talking to them and you think they're listening, but they're not. And they're not listening to you because you talk to them all the time, so why should they listen to you? If you're saying something important, they can hear it later. And somebody you live with, you say, oh, I'm going to go do such and such at such and such a time. And you think they heard you, maybe, because you're so close.

[15:46]

But they didn't hear you. Maybe they didn't hear you. And not only didn't they hear you, but because they didn't hear you, they didn't tell you they didn't hear you, because they didn't hear you. And because you live so close to them, you think... But you don't have to check and ask them, did you hear me? Because of course they heard you because they're so intimate with you. But actually they didn't. Or somebody in the street or some acquaintance, you say something to them and you don't necessarily think they heard you because maybe they didn't. And you don't imagine that they did. So you check, did you hear me? And they say no. So you try again. But with something you live with and you say something to, you don't necessarily say, may I ask you a question? And they say, yes, did you hear me? And they say, no. Or, and then you say, well, could I say something now?

[16:52]

Can you hear me now? And they say, yes. Well, I'm thinking of going someplace on Saturday. They say, okay. And then Saturday comes and you just leave without telling them that you're going. because you think they remember because they're so intimate you think you can be informal and not say do you remember that I was going to go someplace today and they often say no I forgot whereas again with the guest you don't just walk out the door you say do you remember that I told you I was going someplace and they say no but thanks for reminding me you check with the guest because you're not intimate with them. But you don't check with somebody that you think you're intimate with. I shouldn't say you don't. You tend not to. That's why you need actually a formality. How inconvenient.

[17:55]

with somebody you live with, you know, if you are leaving the room, perhaps to go to another room, or to go out of the house, or to go to the toilet, well, since they're so close to you, you don't have to tell them where you're going, right? You don't have to say, I'm going to go to the bathroom now. You don't have to tell them, but if it was a guest, you might. But you might not tell a guest. But a guest might not be in the same room with you. So you don't tell this person, and they don't know where you're going, and you don't have intimacy, perhaps. And if you do tell them, you know, they might say, you don't have to tell me. Or they might say, actually, thank you. If you think you're intimate with somebody and you're eating with them, you might think that you can take their food.

[19:24]

You might think you can put your finger in their ear. Or you might think that you can wipe their nose if it's running without asking them if you can. But with a guest, you wouldn't perhaps try that. So you can love someone, you can adore someone and not be intimate with them. You can also not like somebody very well and actually find them to be quite repulsive and be intimate with them with the aid of formality. So I often use my grandson as an example who I adore him

[20:30]

I have to really be mindful to stay conscious because I tend to swoon in his presence. He's so enchanting. But you know, I'm not so intimate with him because I don't have much formality with him. Whereas his mother She adores him too, but she has formality with him. And so they're intimate. And again, if you look at your background, there was a time when you went to the toilet, you would tell somebody, you would say, I have to go to the toilet now, and somebody would go with you and help you do it. And it may be also that later in life, like some people wind up taking care of their parents who used to take care of them, who used to take them to the toilet, and sometimes their parents actually need help getting to the toilet and need help once they get to the toilet too.

[21:50]

But the parents may not be ready for that intimacy. With the child, they understand. You work it out. You develop the form. Please tell me when you have to go. Tell me when you have to go. Tell me when you have to go. When you have to go, tell me. Do you have to go? Do you have to go? No. Are you sure? No. Why don't you try? I don't want to. Over and over, hundreds of times, and then finally they start saying, I have to go. But if you wind up taking care of an adult, like your parents, it's been years, and they probably never did tell you and ask you to help them go. But now you may have to do that again. Not have to, but if you don't do it, it may be difficult. And by setting that up, it's possible to achieve intimacy with your parents or with the older person you're taking care of or with the younger people who are taking care of you with that form, with that understanding that you're going to tell them when you need to go.

[23:14]

And a lot of Zen disciples have wound up taking care of their teachers and have wound up helping their teacher go to the toilet. But they have to develop a form in order to do that practice together. Another thing he said, Suzuki Roshi said, was that He said, something like, when I see you in an informal situation, like a party, and I see you talking with each other and eating and eating just informally and dancing, I don't understand who you are.

[24:24]

You all look the same. You all look the same in the informal situation. And I don't know who you are. I can't see who you are. But when I see you sitting upright in zazen posture, in the zendo, You all look different. Each of you look different. And I can see who you are. Because of doing the same form, he could see how different we were. He could see who we were. And because he did the same form as us, we could see who he was. And another thing he said, which surprised me,

[25:41]

I was surprised by the first thing I said about how intimacy means formality. I was surprised by the second thing about how he couldn't see us in an informal situation, but he could see us. He did understand us within the forms that we agreed upon. The third thing that he said surprised me was at the first wedding I heard him do, And he said something like, well, these people love each other that are getting married today. And he says, of course, love is important and so on. But maybe what's more important than love in marriage is respect. Surprised me. Part of me, I guess, thought, at some level, I thought, well, when you get married, the main thing is love. Respect is not really that big of an issue.

[26:45]

But he said that maybe is more important. And that reminds me of something that Rilke said. And I think he said this in describing either an ideal marriage or a spiritual marriage. In a spiritual marriage, the two partners protect each other's solitude. They protect the other person's space to be separate from them. So that's another formality that you have the form of protecting and allowing them to have some space where they can be with themself. When you're around or nearby and you protect them from other people so that they can have that space, but more important, you protect them from you

[27:51]

Once you put various fruit and vegetables in perhaps some water and put them in a pot and start stirring them up, the vegetables and the water don't have a very formal relationship with each other. It's kind of informal. There's some formality in there, but hard to see. The formality is the pot. They're mingling with each other intimately. They're exuding their juices and absorbing the other's juices. But they're in a pot. Without the pot, They could bump into each other, but they won't be as intimate as when you put them in a pot with some water, not to mention some heat.

[30:01]

So once we are intimate, we can continue to be intimate informally. But I propose that we cannot be intimate in the first place without formality. And once we have formality, which allows us to be intimate informally, the formality is still there. It doesn't go away unless you violate it. So the massage therapist can or the client can violate the form which allowed them to be intimate which allowed the intimate touch that you can break the formality and then you break the formality and then you lose the intimacy and if there was some intimacy and then you break the formality then great harm can occur and then more harm perhaps than could occur

[31:21]

if there had never been any intimacy in the first place. Of course, harm can also occur between people who like each other, love each other, and don't have formality and don't have intimacy. You can still hurt each other without intimacy. But in a way, to get close and then, in addition to being close physically or emotionally, to actually use, with the aid of formality, to get intimate and then to betray or to abandon the intimacy, to go against it, to violate it. It can even be more harmful than what happened before. I heard a story of my psychotherapist who, I think she had her clients over to her house for dinners.

[32:30]

Doesn't sound so bad, does it? So these people who come to her office and tell her things that they don't tell anybody else, because of the formality of the profession. The formality which is, I'm telling you this and you won't tell anybody else except maybe your supervisor. But that's part of the form. You only will tell your supervisor and your supervisor won't tell anybody else. And you won't say my name. And I can tell people that you're my therapist, but you can't tell people that you're my therapist. There are limits which we respect. We have a container that we've created and we understand what it is. And if we don't understand what it is, we make it clear. We work until we understand. And in that container, I told you my deepest problems.

[33:38]

I told you my deepest fears. I told you my deepest aspirations. And also, I'm a little bit mentally unwell. That's why I'm seeing you. And you invite me over to dinner. But I'm not mentally well enough to notice that you've just violated our container. So I don't say, what? and I go over to dinner at your house. And lo and behold, not only are you there and are we now not in the container in which I've been living with you, but there's some other of your clients who are over for dinner too. This happened. Doesn't sound so bad, have people over for dinner. It's not a wicked thing to do. doesn't take care of... it violates the formality which allowed the intimacy.

[34:40]

Then this person did other things which aren't so bad, like these people took care of this person when the therapist got sick and the people took care of the therapist. And then everybody got really sick especially the therapist. The clients were then now taking care of the therapist. Just like you go to get a massage, in the middle of the massage you think, well, I'd like to give you a massage. Doesn't sound so bad, but it might be that that would actually be quite confusing to some people. to say the least. It might get worse than that. Of course you can be intimate with, you know, children, right?

[35:46]

Like a grandfather and a grandchild. But if you're intimate you have formality, which says that certain things are not appropriate. So I take baths with my grandson, but someday it may not be appropriate to take baths with him anymore. Just like I took baths with my daughter for several years from the time she was born until she was eight, and then I stopped. there was a formal ending to our bathing together and now this little girl who I saw her come out of her mother and I bathed her from the time she was born bathed with her now not only do I not bathe with her

[36:51]

but I don't even see her, you know, without clothes on. If she were taking a shower and I accidentally go into the shower area, it's like, the door, it's like, whoops. And even more so, like a mother who had this person in her abdomen, who had this person in her womb, who actually was completely intimate with this person, Now this person's, what, 10, 12, 14, 34, 40. And now they don't get naked anymore together. It's somehow different. Something changed. The form changed. And actually the mother, having the baby in the abdomen, in the womb, I think that is naturally a very intimate relationship, but it's highly formal.

[37:58]

It's highly defined. And if it isn't formal, and any of the formalities that are usually appropriate break down, we have great illness or death. And then when the baby comes out of the womb, the mother must now build new forms that aren't biologically automatic. and then those forms have to change. Otherwise, there's harm and or lack of intimacy. In a student-teacher relationship, in Zen or Buddhism, it's the same. With the aid of formal understandings and building a container together, we can be intimate. And then if we get intimate by using those forms, if we take care of those forms, we can continue to be intimate.

[39:04]

But if we get inattentive to the forms, again, great harm can occur. And these kind of surprising things, these things which were surprising to me, I think I kind of originally got them from the founder of Zen Center. And since then I've seen that he's not the only one who is aware of these things, but he kind of got me started looking at the necessity of formality. of formal understandings, of formal agreements, of formal vows, of formal commitments, and of being aware that they're not permanent.

[40:14]

that they have to be maintained because things change. And part of the formality is the formality of being aware that we have to check to see if the formality, if the other people or persons involved in a formal relationship, if their understanding or commitment has changed. Because we might assume that a person's vows, vows that they made for a lifetime, that in fact they still have them. You might assume that, which is fine, but did you have a formal understanding that you would continue to assume that they would always have these vows and you would never check with them to see if they still do have the vows? So at Zen Center and other situations, we sometimes reiterate our vows as a group or individually or one-on-one just to make sure.

[41:20]

And sometimes we also ask people if they still have the vows rather than assume they do. And oftentimes we find out that they do still have the vows and sometimes we find out they don't. And if we hadn't checked, we might have assumed that they were there and then there would be lack of intimacy. Even finding out that someone does not have a vow anymore is a form that could promote intimacy. And you could find out you don't have that vow anymore, but would you like to make a new one? And they might say, yes, I'd like to change it to this. And we start over with that one. And one thing which may not be obvious, so maybe I'll mention it, and that is that when we, when we, when Suzuki Roshi said that in marriage, perhaps respect is even more important than love,

[42:56]

I find it helpful to mention the etymology of the word respect, which means look again. Respectus. And look again has a kind of, there's an idiom called look again. Sometimes we say look again. It means take another look. In other words, I think you might have missed something there. So usually when we meet someone, usually we meet someone that appears to us. Otherwise it's hard to meet them. So mostly when we see someone, we see their appearance. We see how they appear to us. And respect means After you see them, look again.

[44:05]

What do you see when you look again? You see the appearance. What do you see when you look again? What do you see? Do you see more the second time you look? Maybe not. But maybe you see the person differently even while they appear the same. Maybe you realize that the way they appear is based on the way they are. But the way they appear is not what they are. And if you want to be close to somebody, If you want to be married to somebody, or as close as marriage, it might be helpful to respect them.

[45:16]

It might be helpful to constantly, or learn anyway, to constantly look again and remember that what's appearing to you is based on what the person is, but it's not what they are. And you can't really see what they are necessarily yet because their appearance is obscuring the way they are. But their appearance is not separate from the way they are because it's based on what they are. and with the aid of formality, it may be that we can actually come to be intimate with the actual person.

[46:20]

Intimate in the sense of not misled Not mistaking them for the way they appear. Not mistaking people for what you see. People are not what you see. People are not appearances except in your mind. Of course. Everybody knows that. But we're built to forget it. and to grasp the appearance as the person. Al Fatiha.

[47:31]

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