When we chant the verses for arousing the vow, which we just chanted by the ancestor Heihei, could we say in the place of save, liberate in the future? Is that clear? It says save, but we'll say liberate. It often is brought up to me when I discuss the practice of enlightenment. I don't necessarily mention some personal practices. For example, a personal practice of training your mind in tranquility.

[01:08]

So some human beings train their attention to give up discursive thinking and that training comes to fruit as a state of tranquility, a state of shamatha. And some people at Zen Center have spent many years practicing that and continue to practice training the mind to support the state of tranquility. But I haven't been talking about that much lately. Some people when they hear about practicing For example, making offerings to all Buddhas or praising all Buddhas or paying homage to all Buddhas.

[02:16]

Sometimes I feel like that's too busy, it's too active for me. I need to calm down. And then some people say, and when I do calm down, then I feel more open and I feel open to make offerings to all Buddhas. So it is a wholesome activity to train the mind into tranquility and, of course, that's a welcome and beneficial practice. And again, if you are in a state of tranquility, you may feel Like, okay, I feel fine about going for refuge in the Triple Treasure now. Now I feel calm and that won't be agitating for me to think about going for refuge in Buddha. I was going to mention something to you that is in the writings of Ehe Dogen, and I don't mean to tell you that Dogen said this so you should do this, but just to let you know that this person named Dogen did say certain things which

[03:56]

Some people are a little bit, I don't know, either surprised to hear or not very interested to hear. And particularly towards the end of his life, he was emphasizing a kind of practice which is more what I've been talking to you about lately. A way of practice that doesn't sound very Zen. It sounds maybe Buddhist or it sounds like other kinds of teachers of the Buddha way, not so much Zen people. And for example, two fascicles which were actually published after he died, so he probably started them or wrote them and they weren't quite ready until after he died and his disciple Eijo finished editing them. And one of the fascicles is Going for Refuge in Buddha, or just Refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

[05:08]

And the other one is Making Offerings to All Buddhas. Both of these were published according to the information I have, in 1255, two years after Dogen died. So at the end of his teaching career, he's teaching in some sense the most basic Buddhist practice, going for refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. I would guess that most people who come to Zen centers in America do not come with the karmic function in their mind being, I wish to go to Zen centers to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. They mostly come, I think, actually to practice Zen. And they don't necessarily think that Zen is going for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha.

[06:11]

They come to practice sitting meditation, mostly, and often they come to practice tranquility, to practice settling down, calming down, finding peace in their heart. They also come to learn to be like a Zen master, some of them. But I think a lot of them don't think Zen masters are spending their time, moment by moment, going for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So I just thought I'd maybe stop there for a second. Do you think that's true? That's kind of a demographic survey I'm proposing. Do you think most Zen students do not think that Zen masters walk around thinking about going for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha? It depends how long the students have been there. Maybe it depends how long the students have been there. Yeah. When you first came to Zen Center, did you think Zen masters were doing that?

[07:15]

It didn't occur to me. It didn't occur to you, yeah. I would say most people in the West that go to Zen Center, they come to Zen Center without having gone for refuge themselves. Whereas in Asia, they kind of understand that going to the temple is going for refuge. And most people, in almost all The practitioners in monasteries have already gone for refuge. They don't go into a monastic training program usually if they haven't gone for refuge first. Whereas here we practice a number of years before we formally go for refuge. Matter of fact, if a person wants to go for refuge right away, it would be kind of a special and unusual thing for them to go for refuge the day they arrive at Zen Center. And also, we didn't do that chanting until after I was abbot. Before I was abbot, we didn't do that chant on a daily basis, the chanting of the refuges and the confession and repentance.

[08:22]

It is done, again, it's done in Zen temples in Japan, but it's done in Japanese, so when Westerners go there, they don't necessarily know that they're chanting it. And I think that was taking refuge. I just didn't know it at the time. Exactly. But English was a refuge for me. So that's why I came there with them. Yes. Actually, the past couple of days, I've been struggling with the interpretation of words that may be passed down, and people hear words differently. So my immediate thought was that in Asia, perhaps the refuge was more of a, not asylum, but when you go into a church you ask for sanctuary, they were getting away from oppression, physical oppression by invaders, then perhaps we don't have that outlook to start with.

[09:28]

A lot of Zen students actually come to Zen centers to seek asylum or sanctuary from religion. They come to seek shelter where they won't have to deal with religion because religion is really bothering them. And they see Zen and they say, oh, there's a nice place where they sit quietly and they don't have religion. And they're very kind and compassionate without religion. And all the stories that attracted me to Zen, I didn't see any sign of religion. Like the story I often tell of Hakuin being unjustly accused of being the father of a child and being insulted and attacked by the grandparents of the child and him just sort of saying, And then when they found out that he wasn't the father and that he had taken care of the child for two years very kindly, they went back and they praised him and said, oh, okay.

[10:38]

And I thought, that's Zen, huh? I like that. I didn't think that that was going for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Buddha was not mentioned. Sangha was not mentioned. Dharma wasn't mentioned. No rituals were mentioned. You just had this person this wonderful person. How do you get to be like that? Are you saying religion is? What are you saying religion is? I can't hear you. What are you saying religion is when you're taking vows? I don't know what religion is, but I just think a lot of people are afraid of it. Some people have some idea of it and they're afraid of it. They want to avoid it. You can ask them what they think it is. But I think they come to Zen Center to get away from what they think religion is. They think maybe it's a good life free of the problems of religion. And also maybe a good communal life that's free of, a good communal, organized communal life that's free of organized religion.

[11:43]

I think a lot of people think that, they'll find that here. I didn't come to find an organized religion. and never did find one. So, and I myself, when I heard about the way Dogen died, I was surprised that what he did when he was, you know, I read you a couple days ago about him going to Kyoto for medical attention. So I think in Kyoto he was staying in there and he was in a room that had a pillar in it and he wrote out, he wrote out Buddha, Dharma and Sangha or he wrote out Refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha on a paper and hung it on the pillar and then he walked around the pillar. I don't know how close to his death he was still able to walk, but in the last days of his life he was circumambulating, chanting, namo kye butsu, namo kye ho, namo kye so.

[12:58]

He was chanting, homage to the Buddha, homage to the Dharma, or homage and I go for refuge, homage and refuge, homage and refuge, homage and refuge. That's the practice. which he did with his body, speech, and mind. The old, whatever, the old Dogen did that. And I thought, this is like a basic practice of any Buddhist can do from the day one. Children can do this. And here's this great, brilliant philosopher, meditation teacher, founder of a school in Japan. And he's doing this very basic teaching. And it doesn't sound, to me, it didn't sound very Zen. Zen is like, you know, well, it was like that story I just told about how to handle being attacked and praised. Well, there was tranquility, but there was also being unperturbed by praise and blame.

[14:04]

And there was also kindness. He didn't just say, when they were attacking him, he didn't just say, uh-huh, you can take the baby and you know what to do with it. He received the baby and cared for the baby. So Zen for me is compassion. Zen for me is being really, you know, kind of like super cool. And devoted to beings. Caring for beings, but not too much. And also it's being able to, like, when people come running at you with swords, to be able to interact with them in a way that makes them very happy. And when people, you know, stab you, it's being able to yell really loud.

[15:05]

And it's when people come to your house, to steal your stuff, you feel like, oh, my darling children are coming. I can give them all my clothes and I can give them, I'd like to give them the full moon too, but maybe I, well, actually, yes, I'm going to give them the full moon too. I'll even give them what they haven't come to steal. This feeling of love and generosity and fearlessness and humor and that's what I thought Zen was when I came. I didn't think it was going for refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. But now... It does sound like having taken refuge. It does, yeah. But it didn't sound to me like formally, literally going for refuge. And Dogen didn't talk like that in his early writings. He talked like, when all dharmas are Buddha dharmas, then there's enlightenment and delusion, birth and death, Buddhas and sentient beings and practice.

[16:18]

When all things are without an abiding self, then there's no Buddhas and sentient beings, no enlightenment, delusion, no birth and death. You know, that kind of thing. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things. And to be enlightened by all things is for body and mind to drop away of themselves. This is the way he talked when he was young, which is so beautiful, isn't it? So beautiful. Nothing about Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Nobody ever said that before. Nobody talked like that before. This is like his creative... flowering, his beautiful creative flowering in his early days, which of course we're very grateful for and we love these teachings. Enlightenment is like the moon and the water, you know, this kind of talk. But in the end of his life, he's talking like like this. In the Zen on Shingi, which is a Chinese monastic text published in 1103, it says, do you respectfully venerate Buddha, Dharma, Sangha?

[17:36]

Unquote. And then Dogen says, this clearly shows that veneration respectful veneration of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, that veneration of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is the essence of authentic transmission of Buddha ancestors. So in his last works he's saying that what's being transmitted is veneration and respect for Buddhas, for the Dharma and the Sangha. That's what's being transmitted, the respect for these And then he also says that the merit of this respect, of this veneration of Buddhadharma and Sangha, the merit of going for refuge is realized in this khano doko, in the crossing or the meeting of inquiry and response, that this communion, the communion between sentient beings and Buddhas, in that intimacy is where the merit of this veneration is realized.

[18:54]

This is the way he talks at the end of his life. Doesn't sound like Genjo Koan. but literally speaking that way. And in our chapter, just before that chapter, is a chapter called Making Offerings to All Buddhas. And he says in there, Buddhas have become Buddhas by making offerings to Buddhas. By making offerings to all Buddhas, you become Buddha. Again, I didn't think, when I heard about Zen, Most of the Zen stories I heard did attract me. I loved them. I thought they were lovely. And the images of Zen that attracted me were not images and stories about practitioners making offerings to Buddhas. I didn't hear anything about it. And again, When I got to Zen Center and I saw the teacher of Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi, making offerings, I didn't think, oh, making offerings is how you become Buddha.

[20:06]

Making offerings is how we manifest Buddha. I didn't think that. But I watched him. I watched him make the offerings. he was making offerings, and I didn't think, oh, he's making offerings and that's Zen. I didn't think that, but I was watching this person, the Zen priest, or you could so-called, I should say, so-called Zen priest, I was watching the so-called Zen priest make these offerings, take this little food tray and bring it up in the altar and offer it to Buddha. I watched him. And then one day, he gestured to me, I don't remember how he gestured, maybe he just took his hand and sort of beckoned me with his hand. And I came up to him and he said, you make the offering. So that day I made the offering to the altar. And afterwards, my fellow students said, how did you know how to do the offering? And I said, because I watched him.

[21:07]

And he knew I was watching him. That's why he asked me to come up and make the offering. Because I was there day after day watching him. That was the part that I thought was Zen. That was my idea of Zen. The watching the teacher. The being with the teacher and watching the teacher. That was the part I thought was Zen. In the stories of Zen that attracted me, It was stories of Zen people doing stuff in relationship to beings, but also Zen students hanging around with teachers and watching the teacher. And I thought that was, that attracted me. So I came to Zen Center to watch a teacher to learn to practice the practice to become like the ancestors. Watch the teacher. But Suzuki Roshi did not say, I take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha out loud very often by himself that I saw.

[22:12]

He didn't walk around a pole when he was dying, chanting the refuges. I didn't see that. Now, Rayburn might say, well, he was taking refuge. Yeah, but he didn't say so. But here Dogen is saying that what is being transmitted, the essence of the transmission of the Buddhas is reverence for the Buddhas. The essence of the transmission of the Buddhas is making offerings to Buddhas. That's how you do it. And you do it with your thinking, with your body posture, and with your voice. Children in Buddhist countries would know that. They wouldn't necessarily practice it, though. And then there's an ocean of other practices, too, but sometimes the most basic, the most essential, we maybe think, and again, people may think, well, of course I take revision of Buddhadharma and Sangha.

[23:27]

No problem. But do you actually do it with your body, speech, and mind every moment? Or is your consciousness thinking of some other practice? And it can think of some other practice. Your mind can be doing something else. It can be thinking, for example, of practicing tranquility. Your mind can be in the shape of attending to non-discursive thought and thereby calming down. But once again, that activity can be rendered unto all Buddhas. That activity of practicing tranquility can be as an offering to Buddha. That activity of practicing concentration can be given over to the practice of immediate complete enlightenment.

[24:33]

So you can, over on this side of the carved dragon of what you can recognize, you can do anything practically wholesome and make that an offering to all Buddhas. make that a going for refuge, make that a meeting with the teachers. Like you can watch the teachers do something and you can be in a state of tranquility. But you're not just in a state of tranquility, you're watching the teacher. You're always watching the teacher. The ancestors I propose to you are the ones The Buddhas and the ancestors are the ones that finally got to the kind of practice where they were always watching the teacher. They were always watching the Buddha. They were always watching all Buddhas. And in the early texts, Buddha says, in the early texts, Buddha said, and also in the Mahayana texts, it says, when, the Buddha says, when you see Dharma, you see me.

[25:48]

When you see me, you see the Dharma. And he also said, when you see dependent core arising, you see the Dharma. And when you see the Dharma, you see me. To always be watching Buddha means always watching dependent core arising. To always watch Buddha means always watching the teaching. And the teachings are dependent core arising. And everything is dependent core arising. So to look at everything as dependent core arising, to look at everything as the Dharma, means you look at everything as Buddha. You don't look at anybody, you don't talk to anybody and missed the chance to see you're talking to Buddha. It doesn't mean that everybody's fully realized. It just means you are always seeing the Buddha in everybody's face.

[26:51]

You're looking for that. You're looking for the truth all the time. This means I'm going for refuge in Buddha now while I'm talking to you. I'm going for refuge in Buddha now while I'm listening to you. I'm going for refuge in Buddha now while I'm interacting with you, whoever you are. This is what the ancestors get to. So that's just really basic, and now I invite you to come up and do your thing. What you just said sounds like early Dogon. So you were making a contrast between early Dogen and the Dogen that speaks about taking refuge, but your unraveling of taking refuge sounds like early Dogen. Interesting, huh?

[27:52]

Thank you. Did you hear what she said? Now, somebody could feel complimented by that. So going for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, when you do it wholeheartedly, it bursts forth into the five petals of Zen. Yes? Oh, yeah, there's Max. I told a story about Max one time, which if you want, I'll tell you again sometime. Yes, Max? Well, I just had a thought about Dogen going around the pole. Yeah. And also, I guess when Rumi's teacher died, Isn't that what he did, too? He sort of went around a pole. That's why the Sufi dancers spin. Yeah, right. So I was thinking about therapeutic that. Yeah, right. Whirling, whirling, refuge-taking. Maybe we could try that in the Zen. Yeah. We used to have poles, we used to have pillars in the Zen, but we took them out, sorry.

[28:56]

So I just wanted to say that one time... Somebody asked Max, somebody here at Zen Center asked Max, what's your practice? And Max said something like, worshipping Buddhas, is what you say? Worshipping the deity. He said, worshipping deities. And the person said, you're in the wrong school. So I'm here to save Max from, what do you call it, heresy. Are you still worshiping deities? Or did you go on to that guy's school? Yeah, I have a green Tara in my room. That's not traditional Zen. Do you worship her? I do. Any feedback on this situation? Yes. I have a confession.

[30:12]

A couple years ago when I came back to Greenville, you talked a little bit about doing what the person you wanted to be like does. I think what you said to me is somebody had said to you, you know, I don't really know if you know anything or not because you don't do what I do. And so I moved to Green Gulch. I moved back to Green Gulch. And I had the thought, well, you know, Reb tells a story about assigning himself the room next to Suzuki Roshi and then he could do what Suzuki Roshi did. And that's not possible anymore. And then... Not until you're director. LAUGHTER But just kind of like the confession is I thought it was not possible to follow you around. And I noticed that actually I just didn't. Like all the opportunities to do what you do, I don't do them. That's your confession? That's my confession. Well, that's a great confession. Thank you. Yeah, Zen Center used to be not so big.

[31:15]

It was easier. And also, I got to be director quite quickly. So I could assign myself a room next to his. Not only next to it, but he had to walk by it to get to the kitchen. So, yeah. And also... I could put myself in his way more easily than maybe it is now to put yourself in somebody's way here. We have such a big campus now. But yeah, I think that part of Bodhi Mind is to look at the ancestors and copy them. you know, look at the ancient stories, but also find somebody that you consider an ancestor now and kind of copy them in your way, of course. And one time I said to Suzuki Roshi, I'm afraid I'm getting to be too Japanese, you know.

[32:20]

And he said, don't worry. You're still an American. Well, a lot of times the question I have when I'm watching you, which I do quite a lot, I wonder how it feels for you to be sort of so scrutinized in some way. But the question I have is something like, how do I do what you do? Not exactly that I have the mechanics, I think there's mechanics to it, but kind of, sometimes I go, wow, how does anybody do that or say that? And then I go, how is he doing that? I don't know if that's too much. Yeah. I wouldn't say it's too much, but I think it'd be okay if he didn't do that for a while. Just copy. I didn't, because again, I didn't sort of say, how does he do that? How does he, you know, but it's easier with him too in a way, because how does somebody who doesn't speak English speak English like that?

[33:23]

I didn't think that. But, you know, you could wonder that. How can he speak English so well? But I didn't. I just listened to how well he spoke English. I also didn't think, how come he doesn't speak English well? Which he didn't. And actually, when I first came to Zen Center in San Francisco, it was right after Tatsuhara opened, and the people coming back from Tatsuhara were talking like Suzuki Roshi. It was very cute. The strange way of talking, you know, they copied it. we stopped doing that after a while. But there was a phase like that. And I think that's good at that literal copying without trying to figure out how did he learn to speak English but just copy it and see what that's like. And of course it won't be a copy but you'll feel something there and then you'll get over that. And still keep copying, but not be recognizably like the person anymore.

[34:29]

But the same dharma. I have another question that's kind of been rolling around for a couple of weeks, so I don't know how it fits with this copying or not. When you ordain priests, do you ask them to practice celibacy? No. I don't ask them to. They all volunteer? No, I just say... I just say that during the first five years, don't start a new relationship, a new relationship that has some special intimacy to it. And so what is it you're asking for? Concentration on intimacy with me. And I just know that, particularly with people that I'm intimate with, when they start to form a relationship with somebody else, I see somewhere between half and 100% less involvement with me.

[35:32]

Sometimes they just completely, they're gone when they start this new relationship. And if they're training with me for five years and they're 100% gone, I say, well, I'm not training you. You're doing that. and you're not inviting me into the bedroom with that person, and I really don't want to come. So that's where you're spending your time, and that's the way new relationships are with a lot of people. Some people it's 100% gone, some people it's 50% gone, but it's almost never less than 50%. So then I think I'm not training with them anymore because they're not copying me. or you're not copying me, but they're not there face-to-facing me anymore to the same extent. It's just there's not time to have two relationships like that, at least for those five years. Now, if they form the relationship with the person and it stabilizes, then they seem to have more time for me. As a matter of fact, they want to not spend any time with that person anymore. And they want to be with me all the time and get advice about how to deal with that person with the little bit of time they're spending with them.

[36:40]

But they don't ask that person how to deal with me, usually. I'm just kidding. I know you do. So anyway, that's the main thing. It's a concentration for a certain period of time on... who do you talk to about your practice? And if you're with this person a lot, you're talking to them about your practice, not me. But again, after the relationship is settled, then people often have time to to re-engage again. So if someone's already got a relationship and it's not celibate, it's a sexual relationship, and they want to enter in priest training and it's stabilized, I accept them. I just say, don't start one during this time. Now, it's okay for people to talk to me about their wish to start one, but talk to me about their wish to start one, not the person you're wishing to start one with.

[37:42]

during that training period. They can talk to me about, you know, I really want to get intimate with this person. We can talk about that. But they're talking to me, not them. Rather than them, not me. And them can be like a huge conversation, right? And I'm not participating in it. It's taking a lot of energy. And by the way, they're not only not talking to me, but they're not in the zendo either, probably. So I just don't see them at all. I shouldn't say not at all, but way less. After five years, if they wish to start a relationship, then they can talk to me about that. And we actually could start one together with me still, because they're still in training. But now they maybe don't have to spend so much time with me. Because those five years, we kind of got the hang of it. They kind of know what it's like to think of doing things without being with Buddha.

[38:49]

They know what that's like and they know what it's like to think of doing things while you're with Buddha. So you think of doing something, but Buddha's with you when you think of it. And you practice that way by thinking of your teacher being with you when you do something. So when you're in the toilet, when you're brushing your teeth, when you're shopping, when you're looking at the door of a bar, you think of your teacher. And if you were at the door of a bar and somebody saw you from Green Gulch and you were about to go in, they said, did you talk to your teacher about this? They would think, did did you talk to your teacher about this? And the person might say, uh, yeah, I did. And they say, okay. Then they come back and ask the teacher, did so-and-so talk to you about going to the bar? And they say, yeah, I did. They talked to me about, they said they wanted to go to the bar because a friend of theirs was inside and they wanted to go help them. And I said, okay. But they don't, in the training thing, they learn not to go into bars or restaurants or coffee shops or car repair places or car sales places or travel agencies.

[39:57]

They learn to not do those things without talking to the person they're training with. They learn to think of that relationship all the time for five years. And then afterwards, they keep thinking about it even though they might move away and not actually talk to me about it every time they go to the grocery store. But now when they're here, they do. They kind of do talk to me about going to the grocery store. And if they start a sexual relationship, they start less and less talking to me about going to the grocery store. So in fact, they're not watching me, I'm not watching them. We don't have much of a relationship. And one more example is, a very sincere student, came out to Green Gulch, got ordained, and totally no problem living here, practicing here, totally available and practicing together with me. And then the person moved to the city and I didn't see the person anymore.

[40:59]

So I had to say, you know, I'm not training you anymore because I don't see you. You're a great person, but This is not training. I'm not training you the way I trained you when you were here. It's like day and night. And I want to say that so you're not training with me anymore. So she made arrangements in the city and now she has a training relationship there. And it's like that. It's just I was there watching him do that stuff. And he was aware that I was watching him. So he knew I was there. And I knew he was there, and that was our relationship. And I learned that. And we never really said so exactly, but sort of did. But I learned that from him. Well, it's a deep subject, which we've discussed before.

[42:22]

And I completely understand about the entering into new relationship. I think that makes sense. But I was listening to you very carefully about the details of the training of these five years. And I... I still struggle with this side of, is it... I'm going to just use the word infantile because I can't find a better one, but there's probably a better one you can help me with. It's hard. I keep trying to open up a little bit about this since the profile of people that seem to be ordaining you, not totally, but seem to be a little bit older and mature... So when I hear about the grocery store or the coffee shop or something, I notice I kind of clench. So I'd like a little help. Thank you for disclosing that. So the first thing that comes to my mind is that you might or you might not talk to your husband if you're going to the grocery store.

[43:32]

Okay, I'm listening. Would you? Or would you just go to a grocery store without talking to him? No, I would say I was going, but I didn't hear it that I would just, I wouldn't be asking permission. It's not permission, but you're sharing it. Sharing it? Okay. Now, are you really saying this is a sharing experience and not a permission? I'm not saying it. Okay. I'm listening. It's not feedback. I would say it's not permission. I'll say it's not permission, but I would say it's sharing, and it's also asking for feedback. Okay. I'm thinking of going to the grocery store. What do you think of that? How do you feel about that? Would you do that with your husband? Yes. Yeah. And your husband might say... Why do you have to go? Yeah. It's my thing. Or I'd rather have you not go. And you might say... Well, I've heard that, yes.

[44:36]

You might say, I really think it's better for me to go. And you say, well, I really don't agree. And you say, okay, well, I hear you, and I'll see you later. And you go. But when you go, it's a grocery store, and you're walking around the aisles, you're thinking of your husband. He did not want me to come here. Only if something went wrong. Okay. No, no, that's not true. You're just kidding. A little bit, but not totally. Now, you would think of him, if you asked him before you went, and he said, I don't want you to come, you probably would remember that when you're walking the aisles. But maybe you wouldn't. I don't know. A lot of people would anyway. In some ways, if you talk to your teacher about doing something, and then your teacher doesn't agree, and then you go ahead and do it, I would think, for some people anyway... you'd be more remembering that your teacher said not to do it when you're doing it than you would remember your teacher if they said okay. Well, I might make a lot of stories up about it and have a lot of internal dialogue about it.

[45:40]

That's true. But it could be in a negative way instead of a positive. I didn't say positive or negative. I just said you're thinking of, in this case, your husband. Now, in the other case, we're talking about thinking about your teacher. So when you bring up what you're doing with your teacher, whether your teacher agrees or not, the point is you brought it up. And that when you go away from your teacher to do something not with your teacher, your teacher is still with you. If you talk to Buddha about what you're doing and Buddha doesn't agree with you and you go do it, something about you is imprinted with the conversation you had with Buddha about this activity. If Buddha agrees with you, that's there too. But it's because of the conversation, the karmic conversation, the karmic ceremony of talking to Buddha about what you're doing or talking with the teacher about what you're doing, it has an impact on your consciousness that you're not practicing by yourself. You don't think about doing things by yourself when you do this training. I shouldn't say you don't, but more and more you do not think about doing things by yourself or you could say more and more you do think about doing things with your teacher even if your teacher doesn't agree with what you're doing.

[46:52]

Now if you do things without talking to your teacher that you think your teacher wouldn't agree to, you also might think about that too. And sometimes people do not come talk to me about things they think I won't agree with because They don't necessarily want to hear that I don't agree with them because they come from sometimes family situations where they, if they went to talk to their father maybe about something and their father disagreed and they went ahead and did it, their father would kick them out of the house. But in this case, you don't get kicked out of the training relationship when you don't do When you do the thing the teacher didn't agree with. The training relationship is that you're doing things together and not that you're doing things in perfect agreement. It's together. And it's also this King Lear thing, right? The daughter, the real loving daughter was the one who didn't go along with what he asked.

[47:58]

In this case, the teacher or the father, the king was wrong. He wanted his daughter to praise him at the beginning of the play, right? To say how much she loved him. And she just wouldn't go along with this program because she loved him so much. And the ones who loved him less went along with it. They weren't honest with him. And he didn't do well with the one who really gave who she really was. So when people don't agree with me, sometimes it hurts. If they practice things differently, it hurts a little bit. But... I at that time feel like it hurts, but this is the life of the relationship. The people who don't agree with me in some ways, those are the ones that, that's where the, it's even more alive there in a way. Because they're really bringing themselves, who they are to me, to meet me, not who they think I want them to be. Oh, I like that. Thank you. You like that? I just want to say one more thing about infantile.

[49:02]

There's two sides of the infantile thing. One side is that this relationship must have, there must be an element of being an infant in this relationship. Otherwise you cannot become Buddha. I propose that to you. You must be able to be like an infant. But that isn't the same as being infantile. And also, if you have any tendencies towards being infantile, this relationship is one of the places where you can get it out in the open and work with it. And if you avoid sharing your decisions with people because you're afraid of becoming infantile, it just stays in the closet. So this kind of relationship is one of the ways to bring out infantile karma patterns and study them and become free of them. We want to become free of being infantile and we want to become like an infant so that we can be a Buddha.

[50:10]

And the teacher also has to be in on this being like infant thing. You know, the teacher has to be like an infant too. So may I ask you another? Yeah. So how do you work with the transference and the counter-transference that's just going to often maybe arise? How can you work with that and keep as clean as possible? The basic way to work with it and keep clean, the basic way is to be gracious. Work with transference. What does that mean? Huh? What do you mean transference? Well, transference, like in what you call the psychotherapist-patient relationship, the transference is the thing that the patient has to the therapist, that they're relating to the therapist, for example, as their father. That's transference. The therapist isn't their father, but they're kind of acting towards the therapist, like they're acting towards the father.

[51:16]

They think the therapist is their father on some infantile level. Not like infant level, but infantile. And the therapist maybe feel something on his or her side, and that's the countertransference. That they also feel like, well, this is my little girl, you know, or whatever. Yeah. And they feel like, why am I feeling like this? Why am I feeling like this is my little girl? Maybe she thinks I'm her dad. So you can find it in yourself. And then how do you work with that? And because my spouse is in Jungian training, I've learned that part of their training is that the trainee brings to the training board and supervisors and teachers in the process. They bring how they work with their patients to the person.

[52:20]

But a big part of what they bring which they don't have to bring to become a psychotherapist is they bring how they work with themselves. in working with their patients. They tell the board about how they work with themselves. And so they disclose the way they work with their countertransference. And Arlene said also, what about lover, that the student may think the teacher is their lover, and the teacher may feel that countertransference. So working with that, the basic way is be gracious, you know. quickly make it a gift. Quickly be kind and generous towards this phenomena and then you won't lean into it or lean away from it. You can hurt people by leaning away from the transference. And you can hurt people by leaning into the transference. You have to be upright and being generous and upright with the transference and the counter-transference.

[53:30]

You have to be aware of it and then be upright with it, aware of it and upright with it. Not aware, not aware, oh, counter-transference, get it out of here. No. Thank you very much. I have no complaint whatsoever to these feelings I'm having. I'm not going to lean into them. I'm not going to lean away from them. But I have something to say, you know, maybe. Like, from this upright position, I can still speak and say, I don't think that would be appropriate. Or whatever. I remember one time somebody said to me, she said, I'm afraid to go into the dining room when so-and-so is in the dining room. And I was about to say, well, I'll go with you. But I don't think she wanted me to go in the dining room with her so she'd be safe. But I felt that she wanted me to go with her into the dining room. I felt like she was asking Daddy to protect her from this person. But I just felt that and let it go.

[54:33]

And then she quickly said, you know, and I don't want you to protect me from this person. Good job. Thank you very much. Really, I do appreciate. Thank you for really going into the detail. You're welcome. Thank you for bringing out, bringing the stuff out of the closet. Thank you, Grandma. I feel very fortunate that the day that I first arrived at Sun Center, I didn't have an opinion about it because someone brought me here. I found out yesterday because she thought I needed to be here. Sitting right over there, Deirdre. So I feel very fortunate that every step of the way I've met the forms of this practice without an opinion and without resistance to them.

[55:49]

And the day I asked... Without resistance? Yeah, without... I would say. Too much resistance? I don't know. Pardon? Without too much resistance, did you say? Let me qualify this. Let me say this. You're just so, like, on it every second. That's why you're such a good teacher. I feel the trap door underneath me. All through. I'm sure there are many points. Today I asked my teacher, Norman Fisher, if he would agree to be my teacher. It was during a session, and he had started giving talks on the Blue Cliff record. And I believe that he was on case two of all the hundred

[56:53]

cases and Suzuki Roshi's commentary on that case had to do with the teacher-student relationship. And I remember sitting there as my legs were just screaming, my knees were so sore. And at this point in time, they had a tape machine that when it was about 45 minutes and that you knew when you heard the little click that it was time to change your position if you were really having a hard time. And I remember it was at that point that he started reading Suzuki Roshi's commentary on the case. And what it was was that whether you're physically in the same place with your teacher or not, your teacher is always with you. And I remember that moment, and I just forgot about my legs, and the tears were just falling down my face. And I thought of this when you were talking about your priest training, but I think that when you accept the teacher into your heart,

[58:03]

it's almost like you can ask the question even when he's not in the room, that you can share your feelings with him when he's not even really there and give that as a way of thinking that I'm thinking about what he's taught me, not that I'm trying to second-guess what he would think about what I'm doing, but that he's with me. And I'm taking that every step of the way as the wheel is turning through the Dharma gates. That's what I wanted to share with you, Grandma. Thank you. I just wanted to ask you a clarification.

[59:09]

You said when Dogen was dying, he was circumambulating the post, asking for refuge in the Buddha Sangha, in the Buddha Dharma Sangha. And I just wondered, my question is, what does that really mean? Refuge. What does refuge mean? Yes. It means going back home. Or it means finding your place right where you are. And at home, everybody's with you, all the Buddhas are with you.

[60:14]

Go back to that place where all the Buddhas are with you. Maybe we get distracted from that sometimes. So I'm going to go back there. And that's the place that I return to and that's the place I depend on. the place where I'm in this communion with the universe, with all the Buddhas. Well, it's just universe, not plus one. Right. You mentioned in the beginning of your talk today about how you haven't spoken much on training the mind towards tranquility, away from discursive thinking.

[61:18]

And I'd like to hear a little bit more about that. It's not away from discursive thinking. It's more like being upright with discursive thinking. So the upright posture is that when discursive thinking comes, we don't lean into it. actually leaning into it is a little bit of a discourse, and leaning away from it is a bit of discourse. So we're actually still. So even if discursive thinking is going on, we're not running around with it. We're training our mind to be still with all the mind's activities. And we're also being gracious and just letting it be. You know, like sitting in a zendo and hearing the sound of birds. We don't necessarily start wondering what they're saying and whether they like us or not. We hear the sound, though. And so we start treating discursive thought like that.

[62:24]

We don't really get into it. We're just upright with it. And being gracious means letting it be, letting it go, letting it be, letting it go, relaxing with it, but also being upright and alert. Not closing our eyes to it. And so there's, you know, some people find it easier to calm down when they close their eyes. but then you might start going to sleep and start getting involved in discursive thought in your sleep. So to keep your eyes open and not get involved, keep your eyes open and not get involved with discursive thought is letting it go. And then you're actually concentrating on a mind that's there every moment, which is a mind which contains discursive thought but doesn't get involved

[63:27]

just basic awareness. And that's not tranquility, that's the way of training. And then that gradually comes to fruit as a state where actually your body and mind are soft, flexible, alert, and undisturbed. And then at that point you can actually start participating and playing a little bit with discursive thought again because you're calm. And that state of tranquility is something that arises naturally and spontaneously without it being something to attain or a goal necessarily? Yeah, like for example, one of my friends is a carpenter, Paul Disco, right? So he went to Japan many years ago to train, and he sent me a letter about his training in Japan, Japanese carpentry.

[64:31]

And he had this traditional training where, I think, maybe six months, he just sharpened tools. And then he had a job where he planed wood. His job was just planing. And he told me about this time when he's planing the wood and these little curlicues come off and you... And he's planing away, and these curlicues are piling up, these clouds of curlicues are all around him, and he's just... And so he... You know, you get into non-discursive thought. He wasn't trying to get into non-discursive thought, he was just trying to plane. Plane, plane, [...] plane. Pretty soon he's just planing. And then you're not trying to get into a state of tranquility, but you enter into it. So piano players, cello players, dancers, carpenters, cooks, they get into doing these things.

[65:40]

They're not trying to get tranquility, but tranquility emerges from them just doing these things without getting involved. These things are their uprightness. or they don't get into thinking about their girlfriends or boyfriends, or whether people like them or not, or when the work's going to be over, they're just there. So this is going back to the just doing it thing. But they're not trying to get... concentrated, they're trying to just do the job with their whole heart. So that wholeheartedness with the activity, the discursive mind drops away or we just aren't involved in it. And then this wonderful calm mind bubbles up. And again, trying to get it is a slight distraction into discursive thought again. So that's why if you have an agitated mind and you're generous and relaxed with it, you calm down. If you have an agitated mind and you're trying to get rid of it, you get more agitated.

[66:44]

If you have a calm mind and you try to hold on to it, you get agitated. A little bit. So relaxing in a relationship with your experience, you calm down. I thought maybe after Andrea, I didn't have anything to say. But then what I have been hearing is, in the relationship to the teacher, I need to keep presenting my eyebrows so that our eyebrows meet. And that I have to come and say, my mind is wandering now because I'm nervous.

[67:46]

But the only gift I could give you is my complete presence, if I can learn to do that for one moment now. That's not the only gift you can give. Okay. It may not be. Whatever I bring, I give. Right. Okay. And I very much want you to be my teacher. My life is in Watsonville, and I'm thinking so often who's doing the service? Is it Red? Is it Red? And then I'm thinking, it's whoever's doing it. It doesn't matter. It matters, but it doesn't matter. And it's whoever's doing the service is doing the service. It's just doing the service. There isn't any extra whoever. This is something I have to keep bringing my mind back to.

[68:53]

There's no me standing up here. Whenever I feel nervous, that's an extra thing that I think that I'm separate from when I'm standing here trying to say something. So as you can tell, I need a lot of teaching. But I also know that I get it from whoever I'm with. If I'm not seeing you, I'm seeing the same stillness in someone else's feet. I'm seeing it in whoever the head of the server is today. The way her feet hit, they don't hit. The way her feet meet the floor. I see, I remember, if I'm not looking, I remember that your actions, when you sat down next to me at the dinner table, of course, and I didn't, gosh, I frequently forget to do, and then I looked and saw who it was, so I had forgotten to gosh, and said you were so still, so silent.

[69:59]

And I thought later it occurred to me that you're not being silent. Your silence, it doesn't arise and it doesn't cease. It's just a result of your practice. I don't know how to say that. But I see in your movements no beginning and no end. And I feel sometimes in the bowing that it's all bowing. I'm bowing, getting up. We hold our hands in the standing position. We leave. It's all... There's no separation anywhere in there. There's no edge end to the bowing and beginning to something else. And if I can keep saying, stop, or keep saying, now the Buddha is realized in this life, maybe I can keep with whatever this... Yes. I don't know that I will... Dropping myself is not something I can do.

[71:07]

Right. But it's happening, though, and you can open to it. And we're always having to make an offering of what we don't have, or to to drop, to let go of what we think we have. But we're really giving away something. I mean, we don't have, there's no having. But we're still giving away. And then there's no separation. There's always no separation. But then you realize it. When you join the giving you realize it. Sometimes I know there's no difference between giver, receiver, and gift. It's just giving. Thank you. Please be my teacher. I'm so far away, I will just have to remember there's no beginning and no end.

[72:09]

Thank you. I've been sitting back there next to Quan Yin. Yeah. It's a nice place to sit. But I was sitting back there feeling like, actually, for a little while, if it's all right with you, I wanted to come stand next to you. Would it be all right if I just stood here for a little while? Mm-hmm. Thank you. May I adjust something? Yes. Thank you. I valued hearing you talk about being a teacher and being a student today.

[73:34]

And I feel like I haven't really accepted you fully as a teacher. And I think I'm afraid of the consequences of that. And it's not clear how else to be a student of yours except to really be here. because I don't see how to have an intimate relationship otherwise. It feels like interacting with everything in general, there's a lot of, I was saying to a small group yesterday, stickiness. It's uncomfortable. And... And then when it's sticky and uncomfortable, there is this possibility of really being there, really being here.

[74:39]

Here in Zen Center? Here in the stickiness. Right. It does make it easier to actually be paying attention. And then you're really here in the stickiness, then you're remembering the teacher and your relationship. So I believe there's no right place to be at some level, and I guess I think there's better places to be at another level. And I don't really trust that even moving here would be a right place, because there's always not enough in that state of mind. It's always painful in that state of mind. And I feel like everywhere I go it's going to be the wrong place if I try and go somewhere. Yeah. Think if you try to go somewhere.

[75:43]

So we're trying to find stillness, right? We're trying to find unconstructedness and stillness, try to realize that. So of course it must be right where we are. We must find our place right where we are. And that sounds like Zen, right? But that's also going for refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And that's also making offerings to Buddhas, because that's what Buddhas are like. Buddhas are not going anyplace. They're finding their place where they are, and the practice is realized. Finding their place where they are, and the practice is realized. The practice of all beings is realized in stillness. And then everything changes, and we realize it. It's realized in stillness again. And when we realize stillness, all the teachers flood in and flood out of that place, of the finding of that place, which happens to be where you are.

[77:09]

Thank you for being my teacher. Any other feedback that you care to offer? So you talk about when you find that stillness in the place, all of the teachers flood in, all of them flood out. When you're interested in finding a teacher, the teacher that's right for you, that speaks to you, and to work with them, where is, I struggle a little bit with the issue of freedom.

[78:21]

Because if you're creating this intimate relationship with another individual, is there not some... And let's say you go against their wishes and you choose to do something else. Do they not have some power over you? to somehow influence you in what you do? And how do you get out of such a relationship? How do you rid yourself? Which you can't, because... Is that not the point? Because the teacher relationship is a reminder that you cannot escape from this relationship with everything. But I would say that the disciple of Buddha wishes to help you become free of their influence on you. The teacher has an influence.

[79:27]

The teacher in the Buddha Dharma lineage wants you to become free of their influence. We do influence each other, but how can we find freedom with this mutual influence? We're looking for that. And if this is a situation which is devoted to finding freedom in the midst of being dependent on each other, to open to that mutual influence, to open to that mutual influence, to open to that mutual, mutual, mutual, it's not just from the teachers influencing you, you're influencing the teacher. So you go and you go to say something to the teacher, like, I want to do something. I'm thinking about doing something. What do you say? When you say that to the teacher, you influence the teacher. The teacher can feel that. The teacher wants to show you that you do influence the teacher. Now, the way you influence them, they might come back with, I disagree with what you want to do, and that influences you.

[80:33]

But when you tell the teacher what you want to do, as soon as you tell the teacher what you want to do, the teacher influences you just by listening to you. The way they listen to you influences you. Their body influences you when you're talking to them. They're always influencing you and you're influencing them. The teacher and the student are not two. So we're trying to realize that. with what comes up. And what's coming up in you is you want to do something, so now you have an opportunity by expressing what you want to do, your karma, showing the teacher your karma, you get a chance to realize the non-duality of student and teacher, of Buddha and sentient being, of the two sides and the influence, mutual influence, that thing. The second part to the question.

[81:38]

Most people here, I imagine, have a teacher. They've been coming here for a long, long time. Some people don't. I don't. How do you go about finding a person that is right for you? Because there's many teachers out there. What would be some suggestions? The first thing that comes to mind is the most important thing. is that you actually would like to find a teacher. If you have that feeling in your heart that you want to find a teacher, you want to have a relationship with somebody to realize intimacy, not to make intimacy, but to realize that the fact that you want a relationship to do that with or in, so that you can realize intimacy with all beings, then I would say you're looking for a bodhisattva teacher, a teacher in the bodhisattva way, because bodhisattvas... are those who vow to realize intimacy with all beings. So if you want a bodhisattva teacher, that's the most important thing is that you want that.

[82:43]

And then I would say just go visit various teaching opportunities, see how you feel, and watch the person. I think it's good to watch the person for about three years. to see how they teach, to see how their students are doing, to see if they're... are they still studying Dharma? Do they practice the precepts? Do they understand emptiness? Do they practice tranquility? Are the students happy? Are they patient with their students? And also do you feel good about and joyful in practicing with them? And then if you do, keep it up for a while and after about three years you might think, well maybe I could consider making commitments here. Any other feedback on the

[83:51]

on this retreat, on this intensive. I brought my gloves with me. You brought your gloves? Yeah. To slap me? I don't know. I just had a question. It was occurring to me when you were talking about Dogen. Why would it be that late in his life this would come out, do you think? I thought you felt there was a meaning to that, that this was what came out late. Well, Dogen scholars are struggling with this question because there is a tendency for him to become more conservative in his last years and his last texts are not, in some ways, as brilliant and philosophically interesting as the earlier ones.

[85:00]

So some people feel like his philosophical genius kind of weakened towards the end of his life. That's one possible theory. They don't doubt They don't think that somebody else made this stuff up and attributed it to him, but they just think that he degenerated, some people feel. Some other people feel that he actually got back on track at the end of his life. He wanted to make more clear what the Buddha Dharma is. Because maybe with all this brilliant... blossoming of his teaching in his early years, people sort of lost track of the basics in practice and he just wanted to say, oh, by the way, yeah, we're here to serve Buddhas, all Buddhas. We're here to manifest the Buddha way through action, not through just being clever. So I think his, it seems like towards the end he wanted to really emphasize

[86:02]

It's in action. But he has a huge reservoir of teachings which are, you know, not so action-oriented, the early teachings. They're brilliant and wonderful and inspiring, but at the end he sort of says, and let's put all this into action of body, speech, and thought. Make your thinking, don't just hear these teachings, make your thinking about these teachings. Think about, you know, memorize the ganjo koan. Memorize, you know, the whole works. Memorize birth and death. Memorize flowers of emptiness. Memorize them and think that way and talk that way and make your posture that way. So at the end, in short, make your body, speech, and mind a meeting with Buddhas. So that's what he seems to be doing. Some people think there was a great return to the source and grounding the practice at the end.

[87:08]

And he didn't, and apparently he didn't have quite enough time to do it because he couldn't finish some of the stuff he wanted to transmit. So Eijo finished it for him. But it seemed like he was trying to make settling the practice down at the end into action. First there are mountains, then there are no mountains, and then again there are mountains. Is that something? Maybe like that, yeah. And maybe when some of your cleverness, his cleverness was falling away, but then he had the core. Yeah. And I... my spouse told me that she was hearing this Oliver Sacks on the radio, you know, and he's very much into the wonder of music. And, you know, some people who are in these neurological conditions where they can't move, you know, they're like frozen, if you turn music on, they start going like this.

[88:13]

You know, they start moving, they turn the music off and they stop. And some people who train musicians who have Alzheimer's, if somehow they can start playing their instrument again, they can play it as well as they did before they had Alzheimer's, and they can even sing as well as they could many years before. And then as soon as the music stops, they're back in this the condition we call Alzheimer's. So I think that that part of... Yes? Excuse me, wasn't that maybe it's a different case that the Alzheimer's was someone who had amnesia? I think this is... I think also... I think amnesia also... Certainly you had some amnesia by using musicians who could play things that you knew. They couldn't remember anything but could play the music.

[89:18]

Yeah, but I think that's also that. that music is functioning at a level, at a deep level in us. Another example is this guy who had this thing called mammillary glands in the brain. Mammillary. They have to do with memory. And this person was an alcoholic and he, as a result of alcoholism, these mammillary glands cells were damaged and he couldn't remember anything that happened more than maybe ten seconds before. Like if you say to him, hi, my name is Reb, he could say, oh, nice to meet you, Reb. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Hello, who are you? After that time, he wouldn't remember.

[90:22]

But if I said, Hi, my name's Reb. And he'd say, How do you do? And he'd say, What's my name? And he'd say, Your name's Reb. But if I say, My name's Reb. He'd say, How do you do? Do you know my name? No, I don't. Have you ever met me before? No. And he was cared for by nuns in a Catholic convent. And he could type short sentences. He could remember the beginning of a short sentence, so he could type if the sentences weren't too long. If they were too long, he would forget the beginning of the sentence and couldn't type anymore. But they said in the ritual, in the Eucharist, he was just the same as them. So that's part of my hope about our practice is that if we get to the level of where it's like music, we can live there.

[91:24]

Because that's a place that's not happening at the level of where we come and go and where we're smart and not smart. So maybe it's Dogen and me are getting on the verge of senility, so we're going back to a more basic practice of just simple remembering Buddha every moment and making all your karma of body, speech, and mind relating to Buddha. Make all your karma of body, speech, and mind Praising the virtues of others. Make all your karma a body, speech, and mind. Serving others. Make all your karma a body, speech, and mind. Practicing like the Buddhist. Make all your karma a body, speech, and mind. Asking the Buddhist to teach. Make everything you do the Bodhisattva vows.

[92:28]

And train that into you. like a musician learns these things, so that you can do them even if you take away your cerebral cortex or, anyway, big parts of it? I will consider it seriously. Thank you for doing your homework. Thank you. Talking of student-teacher relationship, my teacher, Shihako Okamura, his practice is extremely simple with almost no chanting. And that is depth of understanding of Dogen is enormous.

[93:37]

But it also transcends the words. So to sit with him in his teaching of Dogen is to sit within Dogen for me. And that's really, really important. So that the forms... are not there. And for me, it has to have the two. So to come here and to enter the forms is really important. And so somehow, I've got to figure out how to work the two without leaving either. Is that all for today?

[94:39]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_87.69