and seems to be recording. The red lights on, the wheels are turning. The wheels on the bus go round, round. Is that how it goes? Round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round. So a basic suggestion I make to you is that we enter into these forms in order to realize the ultimate truth. Another way to say the same thing is we enter into the forms to realize emptiness and in particular to realize the emptiness of the form. And the emptiness of the forms doesn't mean they're useless, it means that they're empty the forms are empty of some existence separate from us when you first start practicing the forms it seems like there's you in the forms but it's possible to continuously entering into the forms to realize that the forms are not separate from you that there's

[01:28]

In that way, the forms are empty of some existence on their own. Another way to say it is the forms are opportunities to realize intimacy, intimacy with the forms. but also intimacy with everything, to realize the insubstantiality of separation between you and anything. It could mean just that you enter it a little bit, but what I mean by enter the form is enter the form completely.

[02:42]

We probably will not realize our intimacy with the forms unless we enter them all the way to the end. In other words, enter them completely. The same principle I proposed to you. By entering completely into bondage, we can realize, guess what? Liberation. By entering completely into bondage, we can realize liberation. Or, another way to put it is, emptiness of bondage. By entering completely, thoroughly into samsara, we can realize nirvana.

[03:55]

By entering thoroughly into the illusion of separation, we can realize intimacy or the emptiness of separation. That's one of the basic practice principles that's involved in practicing with forms, according to my understanding of Zen forms, the practice of Zen forms. the next three nights, the next three meetings, not the next three nights because we're probably not going to meet tomorrow night, but the next three Tuesday nights, we can talk about what it means to enter completely into a form.

[05:05]

But I just say, for starters, enter completely means that you care about the form, but not too much, that you care about the form, you're wholehearted about the form but not excessive about it. But, of course, it's a great art to be wholehearted about something, period, rather than wholehearted and then overdo it or be excessive. Usually people are not wholehearted. I should say, usually people are not wholehearted. In other words, it's rare to find wholeheartedness. And usually people don't care enough about some things, or usually they care too much about some other things. So those are some kind of principles for the practice.

[06:14]

And then here's another kind of, this is kind of a principle, it's also kind of a scenario, which some of you have heard before. And I think it has six parts, or six, yeah, six parts to this scenario. First part is called, Now I'm calling it, before I called it trust, now I call it entrust or commit. First step is commit. So vis-a-vis forms, first step is commit. Actually, maybe I should take a step before. The step before committing is you're not ready to commit. So I guess the first step in the process is not committing to the form. Entering it, just kind of like sticking your toe in a little bit, kind of hot or cold.

[07:19]

Many people come to me and say, I've been circling around Zen Center for quite a few years. Really appreciate that you stayed here all this time because I'm finally getting ready to enter. Some people are quite wise in the sense that they sense wise, and maybe the word wise isn't quite right, but a little bit wise and quite sophisticated, you might say, because they know once they commit to the form there might be some trouble. Some people are stupid, like me, and just drove across the country and entered Zen Center Never knew what I was getting into. Got ordained before I realized actually what I was getting into. But most people are kind of like, get ordained? Hmm.

[08:21]

Some difficulties might follow. So anyway, they're interested in Zen. They're interested in Zen Center. They're interested in meditating a lot. They heard about it. They heard about meditating all the time. Sounds kind of nice, but they hesitate to commit to meditating all the time. Can you imagine that? So in some sense, the first step in the process of entering the forms completely is being afraid to enter the forms, at all, or only being willing to enter them a tiny bit just to see how they are. So that's one of the nice things about Zen Center is we have at Green Gulch a beautiful organic garden and farm. So you can go out to Green Gulch and go past them, though, down to the garden and go through these little arbors, which have gorgeous antique roses and smell great.

[09:25]

You can kind of get into Zen Center in a very kind of like easy way and you can get out too. Go ahead and smell the roses and split and nobody's going to give you any problems. Plus you yourself will not feel bad. You won't feel like, well, I went to Green Gulch and I smelled the roses and I left and I feel terrible because I didn't like, you know, go into Zen-do and sit. But you never said you were going to, so no problem. So in the first phase is not committing, but after a certain number of years, sometimes people finally say, okay, well, I'm going to commit to some aspect. I'm going to commit to some of the forms or one of the forms that they practice in Zen. The first step, commit. Well, one of the main things to commit to first is to commit to compassion, commit to practice compassion.

[10:34]

And compassion has different dimensions. One of the dimensions is being generous, practicing generosity. Another dimension is practice ethical discipline. commit to not killing, not taking what's not given, only receiving what's given, not lying, not missing sexuality, not intoxicating yourself or others, not slandering people, learning how to talk if people have limitations or shortcomings, learning how to talk about those in such a way that the person doesn't get slandered, but actually people want to help the person, learning how to speak of your own successes without putting anybody down, learning how not to be possessive, committing to these kinds of practices, disciplining yourself in these ethical exercises.

[11:46]

That's part of compassion. Another part of compassion is being patient with your pain and hardship learning how to be present with the difficulties of life giving up worrying about how long it's been going on how long it's going to go on just learning how to experience the present difficulty this is part of compassion for yourself because that's the most comfortable way. Being patient with pain is the most comfortable way to be with the pain and also is kind to other people because if you practice patience and you get good at it then when you're in pain you won't lash out at others in your pain. And then practicing diligence and then practicing tranquility. compassion practices which you might see if you want to enter into a form it's good to commit to compassion so that when you enter into the form you're already practicing kindness and compassion.

[13:05]

And then as part of committing to the form one of the precepts which I didn't mention is the precept. One of the practices of compassion is to practice the precept of forms and ceremonies. That's one of the great ethical disciplines. So in this class we're not so much emphasizing entering into the practices, committing. I suggest that in order to enter into actually a subset of the commitment to compassion. So in the big picture of compassion you have giving, ethical discipline, patience, diligence, and concentration or tranquility. Okay? And we're going into focusing on a actually quite specific aspect of that whole range, which is the precept that ethical discipline

[14:15]

of practicing forms and ceremonies, which is one of the precepts under ethical discipline. But that one precept is a tremendous opportunity for realizing intimacy. Practicing giving, practicing patience are also helpful to realize intimacy, but we're focusing on the forms and ceremonies. Does that make sense? Did you get the picture there? So again, you commit generally to compassion in all of its aspects, and then we're coming down to specifically commit to practicing forms and ceremonies. Okay? That's the first step. Does that make sense? It's a huge step. we could talk about that for the rest of our lives and probably will. And I also, in practical terms, I recommend to you and I recommend to other people that if you wish to commit, if you wish to use these forms and ceremonies to realize liberation, if you wish to use, if you wish to

[15:42]

commit to and enter these forms and ceremonies in order to realize intimacy, same thing. Realizing intimacy is the same as realizing liberation. When you realize intimacy, you're free from the suffering that comes from feeling non-intimate with the world. If you wish, if you want to use the forms and ceremonies, or one form and ceremony, then I suggest you commit specifically to particular forms and ceremonies. Because it's not gen... Well, first there's a general commitment to forms and ceremonies, but when it comes down to it, as they say, when the tire hits the road or grips the road, it's actually specific forms. And there's a whole bunch of them, and each one deserves a special attention to, I commit to this one.

[16:52]

I commit to all of them, okay, but now I commit to this one. And that's it. Or I commit to these two, but that's it. Or I commit to these three. Or I commit to this one, this one, this one, and this one. I'm not ready for that one, so I do this one. I'm going to commit to these practices." And now I'd commit to them, specifically to these practices, but also even commit to them for a limited period of time. Do a time commitment, too, and a place commitment. I'm going to do this type of practice at this time of day, at this place, for this many weeks or months. And I'm not yet committing to those practices over there. So I'm going to mention a lot of practice. I think I may mention to you a number of forms. And you may then look at each one as something that you would separately commit to each one.

[17:55]

When I first got married, I said to my wife, I didn't do the death do us part thing until death do us part. I said 50 years. already got 30. But as things became more and more challenging, we decided to make sub-commitments like, you want to do another year? At our anniversary, we had a little meeting in front of the Buddha and we looked each other in the face and we said, do you want to do another year of this? And I think at those times I actually more deeply considered, in some sense more deeply considered, than the first, than the actual wedding ceremony. The wedding ceremony was like, so much was going on, so many forces were like coming together to make this thing happen, it kind of like, you know.

[19:04]

But then after you get into the, cauldron and the temperature got turned up. Do you want to do another year? Yes. Yes. Another year. And then after a while there was a little kid there watching the ceremony. Want to do another year? Yes. Yes. Do it. Do it. Do it. So I would suggest that when you hear about these forms, if you want to enter them, think about each one committing to each one you want to do. First of all, do you want to? First of all, do you want to? Second of all, then, are you ready to commit? Once again, the commitment part's a huge issue.

[20:16]

People come to me again quite frequently and they say, I want to practice the precepts. I want to commit to the precepts, all the precepts of our tradition, not just the one about forms and ceremonies. They want to commit to the precepts. Excuse me. They want to practice the precepts. And they say, I am practicing the precepts and I'm getting... and i'm enjoying practice the precepts i the more i practice the precepts the more ethical discipline better my life becomes it's really going well some people say and i say great they say but i'm not yet ready to commit in other words you can practice the precepts wholeheartedly without commitment in a way you can But then with commitment, it's a whole other thing. And they sense that and they hesitate to take that step. Because once you commit, if you don't follow through, it's much more painful than if you don't follow through and you haven't committed.

[21:27]

Does that make sense? And people hesitate to do that. And they often either slide into or burst into tears at that point of they really value the precepts, they do practice, they are practicing them, they are devoted to them, but they're afraid to take that step of commitment, especially to take the commitment in front of the community. So it's a big deal, okay? And I'm just saying that because I want to move on to another step in the process. I don't want to be disrespectful to that huge step. but I want to give you an overview of the process of working with the forms. Once the commitments occur, the next step is to relax with the form. But if you relax with the form before you commit, it doesn't really, you know, necessarily, it's like, again, it's like a truck driving in midair.

[22:37]

It can't really move forward unless it settles down on the earth and the wheels start turning on the earth. Does that make sense? The commitment engages gravity. Gravitas. It brings it down to . Okay, now, now that you're engaged, now relax. now that you've committed to the precept sincerely committed and also uh... formally sincerely committed now relax now that you've committed to not killing now relax with the precept of not killing now that you've committed to the forms that we'll discuss then you relax with them And that's another big step which we'll talk about.

[23:42]

Then, if you can relax or if relaxation is given to you to this form that you're committed to, the next thing that's possible is to play with the form. And if you can be playful then the next step is that you can be creative or enter into creation with the form. You and the form together enter into creation. Once that's realized, you understand the form. In other words, you understand intimacy. You understand that the form is not one thing and you're another. understand that the form you're practicing and you are inseparable and not identical you're not it it actually is you you understand this and when you understand this then you're liberated from the form with the form to the form on the form you're just liberated

[25:04]

by means of this practice with the form. That's the scenario of the process of entering the form and attaining liberation. So some of the forms I thought I would talk with you about. One is wearing robes. Another one is the way we eat, in the way we formally eat. Another one is joining the palms and bowing. Another one is full prostrations. Another one is the sitting, the form of the sitting posture.

[26:09]

Another one is doksan, or interview with the teacher. Another one is ringing bells and responding to bells. Another one is being in a liturgical orchestra. Another one is in connection with committing to the precepts in general, but committing to this precept in particular, this one. If you commit to this precept of forms and ceremonies, then there is a practice that goes with it called another practice, another form and ceremony that goes with the form and ceremony, which is confession of not practicing the forms and ceremonies, and repentance for not practicing the forms and ceremonies which you're committed to. And various communal activities like walking together, coming to meet together.

[27:15]

Another form is a form of a schedule which you can commit to. And so those are some of the opportunities for realizing intimacy, which I thought I'd bring up. Years ago, before I came to Zen Center, I read about the ceremony of going to see the teacher, and I had this picture in my mind of the teacher in a room and the students being in a hallway or another room some distance from the teacher.

[28:31]

And I think I had the picture of the students actually being sitting on the floor of tatami mats like they have in Japan and also in other places around the world. Students sitting on tatami mats, or in particular me, picturing me sitting on tatami mats and having a bell near me, a little bell with a striker. hearing the teacher hit, strike a bell in another room, ding, and then me striking the bell in a hallway or something, ding, and then going in and meeting the teacher. When I heard about that form, I thought, myself, I thought how lovely to go, ding, ding, and then go talk to somebody. So anyway, actually we do that form and sense, and we have teachers sitting in rooms.

[29:37]

My room's quite a small room, actually. It's not grand, it's small. There's not much room for anything but me and the person that comes to see me. And people usually sit outside, and I ring a bell, and they ring a bell. I go, ding, ding, and I go, ding, ding. I mean, sometimes they go ding, ding. Sometimes they go ding, ding, and nothing happens. I mean, nothing happens means something does happen, and what happens is silence. And then I sit there and I go, ding, ding. And then I go, ding, which means calls the attendant to come in. Ding. Ding. what's happening and sometimes the tenant doesn't come so I go outside and look around but usually I go ding ding and then it goes ding ding and then somebody opens the door and comes in and in the formal way does prostration and then sits down in formal posture facing me and we interact

[30:57]

And the word we use is dokusan for that. And dokusan, doku means solitary or alone, and san means meeting. So one meaning of it is a solitary meeting means that there's only one person in the room. Another meaning is that it's It's private. It's just two people. But it really means meeting alone. Meeting alone. Doksan. Literally. Also, actually san also means practice. It also means three and multiplicity. And usually I have it translated as solitary meeting or meeting alone. Two people meeting alone. or even one person meeting alone or two people meeting as one person these kinds of plays you can make on the words so people, you know, people, I do not some Zen teachers call people to this meeting, I don't do that I don't criticize those who do call them but given my

[32:22]

life and personality, I find that calling people is a bit much. So I only, I offer to meet people and then if they wish, if they want to come, then they get to commit. And committing means at least they commit to go through the door. Actually, ringing the bell is there too, but In addition to ringing the bell, they ring the bell and then they enter the room. And when they get in the room and sit down, the most common thing they say is that they're afraid or that their heart's beating very loudly, partly because they did the prostration. But their heart's beating. They often go with their hand like this. The point of the form, the ritual, the ceremony of doing this is to realize intimacy, is to realize the emptiness of the separation between the two people.

[33:43]

And in particular, the emptiness of the separation between the so-called teacher and the so-called student. which is then a metaphor for the separation between Buddha and living beings. So the student and teacher act out this difference between the previous generation and the following generation. which is involved in the transmission of the practice through history. They enact that for the purpose of realizing the intimacy through which the Dharma is realized and transmitted and through which we realize freedom. They voluntarily go in the room, but when they get in the room

[34:46]

They often experience, surprisingly, that they feel very separate. When they're outside, sometimes they feel separate too. When they're waiting, they feel separate. And lots of times people tell me when they're waiting, they're trying to think of a good question. Sometimes they're afraid outside too. But sometimes they're not so afraid outside, but when they come in, and sometimes the reason why they're not afraid is because they're asleep. But anyway, when they're outside, they feel one way, and when they come in the room and sit down and they actually look and meet, they often feel quite separate and therefore afraid. And they... And they voluntarily came in. As a matter of fact, sometimes they make a big effort. Not only did they make a big effort to come to the meeting, they really wanted to come to the meeting.

[35:49]

And I myself made a big effort to move from Minnesota to San Francisco to study with the teacher. And because I was a diligent student, I got to spend time with the teacher. And he let me be with him, and he invited me to be with him. And sometimes when he was most generous with me and we were most together, just the two of us, I often felt like, well, probably it'd be good if I left. Or, I don't want to take any more of your time, Roshi. I'll go now. And he would say, no, it's okay, you can stay. No, it's okay, I can go. No, it's okay, you can stay. And this is the person I most rearranged my life to be with. I really wanted to be with him in the very circumstance I was trying to get away from. We do want to be intimate with some people. And in the big picture of committing to compassion, we want to be compassionate and intimate with all people eventually.

[37:00]

We want to learn to do that. and then we get a chance to practice the form of meeting the teacher and we enter the room and part of us wants to get out of the room. And sometimes one feels that way for years and years and keeps being surprised that how vivid the sense of separation is when you formally come to be intimate with someone. So part of what is involved in becoming intimate is to become more and more aware of the various subtle manifestations of feeling separate, which you don't notice

[38:02]

until you commit to a form like that and then actually enter it. That's why the next step after committing or entering in the room, the door's shut. You shut it yourself. The attendant doesn't shut it and lock it. You close it yourself. It's a voluntary closing of the door. Sometimes they leave the door open and I actually say, did you want to leave the door open? They almost never say yes, but maybe once in a while they say, yes, I have my bodyguards out there. And nobody ever said that. But sometimes people do forget. But the reason why I forget is not because they want to leave the door open, but because they're already feeling the separation. Sometimes people come in and sit down right in front of me and then try to hide. But they don't usually hide by, like, putting up a little fan or something.

[39:09]

That would be cute. They don't put up, like, something in their way. They try to hide, you know, without actually putting something in the way of their face. And it really doesn't work. And so I sometimes say, if you want to hide, you'll be more successful if you go outside. If I see people on the street of Berkeley or San Francisco or wherever, I see them hiding. And they're hiding from, in particular, they're hiding from me. I mean, they're hiding from other people too, but I get to see them like hiding from me. And I don't say to them, why are you hiding from me? You know? Do you understand? You made a gesture, Fran, like you didn't get that. No, I'm speaking literally.

[40:14]

I do not go up to people on the street and say, why are you hiding from me? I do feel that way. Why not what? I think it's too frightening. I think maybe I told this story here. My mother died recently, but a couple of years ago when I went home, she asked me to take her to... shopping to some places she likes to go to buy food, which my brother won't take her. My brother's the one who mostly took care of her because he lived near her in Minnesota. So when I go back, I would be like the sugar son, the one who takes her on all these excursions that the one who's taken care of all the time doesn't have time for. So I took her to some of these places she'd been wanting to go to. So we went into this place and she wanted to get one of these little carts that you can ride in, you know, because she can't walk very far. So I went into the grocery store, and grocery store, not really a grocery store, it's one of these places that has groceries, but has everything else in the world too, right?

[41:28]

Anyway, I went into this place that has lots of stuff. And some of the stuff it has, it has these little cars inside. So I went inside, and I went over where the cars were, and I asked this woman if I could drive this car out to my mother. And she said, yeah, that's what they're for. So then I walked over to the cars, and the cars were by the vegetable area, and there was a guy there in the vegetable area. And when I went up to the car, he looked kind of scared. And I said, is it okay if I... if I take this car?" And he was so scared of me. He couldn't understand what... He seemed to be so scared he didn't understand what I said. So I said it again. He said, yeah, go ahead, take the car. So I drove out in the car and picked up my mother and then she got in the car and we drove back in. And then we drove into the vegetable area again. Same guy was there. So now it's me

[42:31]

plus my mother driving this car. It's a little bit more of an event now. And she says to him, you have a beautiful display here. And again, he can't hear what she says, you know, and he gets really frightened because she's kind of yelling at him. And I said, she said you have a beautiful display. And he says, oh, okay. But he was really afraid of me. Really worried? No, but I, you know, I'm just like this, more or less, with my shaved head. And then with this interesting lady in this cart, you know. One time I went back to Minnesota, and a friend of mine does yard work and tree work, and I went to one of the houses with him. where he took care of these people's trees.

[43:35]

And I stood outside the house, and he went inside the house to talk to them. And when he went into the house, he heard them, the husband and the wife, talking. And the wife said to the husband, looking out the window at me, she said to her husband, what's that? And her husband said, I think it's a monk. And she said, I didn't know we had any around here. So anyway, and you take this strange thing and you put it in a little room and then you voluntarily go in there and close the door and you sit down and you suddenly feel separate. very vivid, then the next thing comes is you relax with that. You don't feel relaxed.

[44:38]

You feel tense. You feel a sense of self and other. You feel a separation between self and other. And it's a tense feeling. The separation between self and other is not the same as feeling relaxed. it's feeling a boundary or a border so the next step after you get yourself in such a situation after you commit to such a setup is you open your body and mind to the possibility of relaxing with the situation it doesn't mean that relaxing is the same as completely getting over it it's just the beginning of getting over it that you can relax with somebody who you still think is separate from you and if you can relax then the next thing that can happen is you can start being playful not just playing with the person because some people play in a not playful way it means to be playful so it isn't like

[45:58]

okay, now we're going to play patty kick. It's more like, would you like to play patty kick? And the other person says, I don't know how. You say, would you like to learn how? And they say, no. You say, okay. It isn't like, we're going to be playful now. You understand? And when you start playing, you don't try to win at patty kick. Like my grandson, my grandson wants to play with me But he always wanted to win. My grandson is not... Sometimes he's relaxed with me and playful with me. It's called always winning. He's a little kid, but he's actually not too playful and certain, with me anyway, a lot of the time. So he really doesn't want to play a game. He wants to control a game. It's called control a game. It's called controlling all games. so that one person will win and the other one will lose no matter what happens.

[47:02]

So far I've never won any games with him. He didn't say, let's try it a different way. This time let's let granddaddy win. No, never happened that way. But still, I'm committed to him and I'm trying to relax with this little guy. So in that meeting, there is possibility then of relaxing and being playful and then together being relaxing, relaxing and being playful and together realizing creation and together understanding. And so on. So that's one form. In Zen it's a very important one. And that's a formal way of doing it. So that's a form, one of the forms that's available in Zen to bring out your sense of separation, bring out your sense of not being intimate with a particular person,

[48:17]

But of course you have that feeling with other people too. But this situation is just to bring the sense of non-intimacy out there so that you can get over it. It isn't just to jump into intimacy because you got the belief in non-intimacy in you. You got to get it out there and play with the non-intimacy, I think, in order to prepare yourself for the intimacy. To jump from believing that you're separate from people immediately into intimacy is too big a jump. Just recoil. Like me, I wanted to be intimate with Suzuki Roshi, but when he let me come and be with him and was giving me totally, being totally generous with me, it was just too much for me at that time. But by repeated visitations you can more and more, by dealing with the difficulty of the meeting, and the tensions and so on, you get more and more able to deal with the relaxation and the playfulness and so on.

[49:27]

People are a lot of times, in my case with him, I think I was afraid of making mistakes. People are a lot of times afraid of making mistakes, afraid of being judged. Come to see the teacher, afraid the teacher's going to judge you unfavorably. One time he asked me to go to Tatsahara to learn how to chant from the visiting teacher and I learned how to chant from the visiting teacher and he came down to Tatsahara and asked me to show him what I learned. He wanted me to perform what I learned and I was shy, afraid to show him what I learned. And he actually didn't exactly correct me but he did sort of start wanting to interact with me in what I learned to change what I learned somewhat. So in particular what I learned was I learned a way of chanting dedications, chanting solo dedications in the middle of our service.

[50:39]

We dedicate the merit of the activity to various Buddhas and other beings. And I learned it from this Japanese chanting expert and I pretty much learned almost exactly the way he did it. But Suzuki Roshi said that when that person does it, it's fine because he's an old Japanese man and there's various things in his voice that he did which makes sense if you're an old Japanese man. But for me, to chant like an old Japanese man actually is not appropriate. Those various little ornamentations in his voice that I copied. I listened. I could still hear pretty well, you know. I was 24. I could hear. And I learned it really well. But Suzuki Oshii then went and sort of ironed out those little ornamentations. So here he was having me chant and then him chanting it without the ornamentation and then asking me to try to do it the way he did it.

[51:43]

very intimate, but I also felt very vulnerable because now he's going to see that he showed me this way to do it and he's going to see whether I can hear it and do it. And if I can't do it, then will I look stupid or inattentive or unmindful? You know, all that. So wonderful, right? But it's also so vulnerable and so easy to see you. All the better to hear you. My dear. Of course he's not the big bad wolf, but in a way he's more frightening than the big bad wolf because his judgment probably meant more to me than almost anyone else's judgment. So he could hurt me more than the big bad wolf in a way by potentially by thinking something, who knows what, about his student.

[52:48]

But that's what I came to Zen Center for, that very type of meeting and that very type of possibility of intimacy through the form of, in this case, the form of me and the teacher plus the form of learning a form of chanting, which he sent me to learn, in which I practiced and practiced and practiced for three months with this other teacher and learned pretty well. And then because I made that effort, then I could have this meeting with him and we could work on this form together. And to this day, people at Zen Center, Suzuki, which is not around anymore, and I don't usually train people, but people still are learning these chants. Now they do them mostly in English.

[53:55]

At that time, we were doing it mostly in Japanese, which, and then, so then we do it in Japanese and English, and now we mostly do it in English. But still people are learning these chants. They're singing in English, you know, like, may all awakened beings extend retro compassion their luminous mirror wisdom this kind of thing they chant all by themselves in front of the group and then sometimes the old teacher is there in the room listening too and they get They get scared, just like of old. And they practice and practice, and then when they get pretty confident, then they do it in front of the whole group. But still, there's a sense of maybe a little bit of separation between them and the other people. And therefore, There it is.

[54:57]

There's the sense of non-intimacy with their friends, some of whom, even though they really are intimate, are thinking, boy, this person is really nervous, or this person is really a lousy chatterer. Some of them are thinking that. Of course, the old teacher doesn't think that. The old teacher thinks, oh, how cute. They're trying to learn this, and they're nervous. Matter of fact, they can barely talk. They're so nervous. But they do it over and over until they can relax. And that's enough for me, for starters. Anything you want to bring up about this process? Yes? Read? Yes? It seems like a lot of ceremonies and practices have here to a schedule or a time or a calling.

[55:58]

They call us, they present themselves, and we can choose to answer them and follow through with them depending on our commitment. The song is a ceremony that's a little bit different because it's dependent on us, us. having a desire or a need or even a specific question. That's one way it is. That's the way it is with me. But with some other teachers, doksan is not optional. It's in the schedule. In some Zen temples, if you enter the temple, they have doksan at a certain time of day, and you just go. And sometimes they... drag the monks to doksan because the monks are so afraid to go see the teacher. They drag them there. And some teachers, after they're dragged into the room, then they justify the monks' fear by beating them.

[57:04]

I just want you to know there is that other way of doing it. Also at Zen Center, Because some of the old teachers can't see everybody, some of the younger teachers are assigned people, so people are required to go see somebody. But no people aren't required to see me, but they're required to check in with somebody so somebody knows about their practice, and that person they have to go to. You can't be a resident at Zen Center. But in my case, I find that if people are required to come to see me, it's just too much. Even the ones who want to come have a hard time. So to require people, with my personality, it doesn't work. But in some cases, people do. It's just part of the schedule to go to Doksan. Good question. As I said earlier,

[58:05]

Each form is something that you can look at and see whether you want to commit to it. So if you want to commit to Doksan, then what commitment do you want to make? Do you want to commit to go to Doksan every day? If that was the case, you'd probably have to move to Zen Center. you want to commit to doksan once a week, once a month, once a year, you can decide your commitment on your side. Then, once you decide what you'd like to commit to, then you, in this case, you would go and tell, for example, me, you would tell me that you would like to commit to this form at these times for this length of time. You would do that. And I would say, okay fine i agree and i meet that commitment i'll commit to that too so we're both committed to that so this is a form which you have not yet actually made sounds like and that's my understanding of you too as far as i know you have not made a clear commitment to this practice you do practice you do this practice sometimes but you don't you don't have a clear commitment to this practice and i know and i say this to a lot of people

[59:52]

the same like this class. You people came to this class in a sense we can talk about whether you committed to this class. You might say, well, I signed up, but I didn't say I was going to come. You know? Right? When you signed up, the don said, are you committing to come? You didn't ask to get that question, right? So, I just want to put that aside for a second So when I give talks at Green Gulch or something, there's people in the room, a couple hundred people sitting there. Some of them I haven't seen for a while. Nice to see them. I'm happy to see them. And then when I don't see them again for a year, and I see them again, it's wonderful to see them. They decide to go to Green Gulch and hear the talk that day. They have no commitment to come.

[60:55]

When they come, it's nice to see them. When they're not there, I maybe miss them, but I don't feel funny because they didn't say they were going to come. That's one kind of relationship. It's not committed. Right? Like some people sleep with people with no commitment. And maybe they have a nice time, and they don't see each other, and maybe that's okay, maybe not, I don't know. Other people commit. They get married. And then if they don't show up, it's a big deal. So, some people come to Doug's and they call up and they say, can I meet you? And I say, okay. And they come and we have a talk and they go away. It's nice. And I don't see them for a year. You know? I may miss them or I maybe feel like, well, it makes my life easier that they haven't been around for a year. It doesn't take long to arrange that. You know? Never is easy to schedule and all that. So it's a question of what do you want to do and then do you want to make a commitment to it?

[62:02]

And then if you make a commitment to it, then if you don't show up, then I feel funny. Then I start, maybe start looking for you. People start calling you and say, well, I thought, do we, was there a misunderstanding? Did you, you know, I haven't, you said you were, you know. It's different. So it's up to you, this particular form. And the same with all these forms. Do you want to practice it? Do you want to commit to it? And then once you commit, then it's a different world. Then you're entering into the process of initiation into reality. And if you can touch reality without this kind of committed initiation process, wonderful but most people need to like commit to go to the transformations that are necessary because it requires that you change a lot in some fundamental ways and without commitment you might say yeah this is getting a little uncomfortable i'm getting out of here or i'm not going back there but with commitment

[63:12]

you can do some amazing but you and the commitment and the people who you do the commitment with all together great things can be accomplished but i think it's important that you realize that it's something you wanted and that you committed to that it isn't like somebody got me into this and i'm going to get out so then with practice periods at palzahara particularly they go you know they go into that valley and If you go to Tapsahara, like, you know, in September, it's really quite nice. It's gorgeous, you know, with trees turning colors and the temperature not too hot. There's some bugs, but even they start to taper off a little bit. It's very quiet. It's gorgeous. The food's good and blah, blah. It's nice. But if you aren't aware that you wanted to go there and that you wanted to commit to stay for the whole three months, and after a while it gets colder and darker and you have better things to do than be in that valley.

[64:21]

And if you thought that somebody forced you in there in the first place, If they forced you into a nice place, well, that's nice. But if they forced you into some situation and now you're having difficulty, as a matter of fact, even though you're in this gorgeous place, you may feel like, this just happens to be hell and I want to get out of here. But if you said you wanted to be there and you committed to it, it's possible to learn a lot from that, going through that. I think it's very important for people to realize that they're responsible for the situation. Not that the other people aren't responsible, too, because they, when you said you wanted to do it, they said, okay, we welcome you. If you want to be here and you want to commit, we commit to you. We'll do this together. Both sides are responsible. But it isn't just that the establishment's responsible and you're this irresponsible kid. who wound up in the training situation.

[65:27]

Not that way. Never is. We have to articulate that. I am responsibly saying I want to do this, and I'm committing to it. I'm responsible. And now, will you share this responsibility? Yes. We're both responsible for this practice together. So that's voksana, that's practice period, that's each of these forms you could do that with. Okay? Kara? I was wondering if you would share the chant that you learned. Share the chant? Well, you know, there's a whole bunch of them, but one of them goes something like, the dish exhale. Yeah. Aoi koi negawaku wa shinjibu shite shokan wo taritamae Jorae maka hanyahara mita shin yo bujutsu Atsumu umoru tokoro no shukun wa

[66:48]

Daiyang kyo shu hon shi shakyamuni buddha SHINDAN SHOSO BODHAIDARUMA DAIYOSHO NIKIKI SHOSO EHE DOGEN DAIYOSHO TAISHO MONJUJI BOSATSU Kamijanimokuenkoto That's one of them. So that was like, we just chanted the Heart Sutra. So we call all the great beings, you know, to help us and we respectfully offer the merit to Shakyamuni Buddha, Bodhidharma, Dogen Zenji, Manjushri Bodhisattva, we offer the merit to them.

[67:57]

And then other chants we dedicate to other beings. For the long service, we have several chants we do, and then we give the merit of each chant to different categories of creatures. Yes? My understanding is that dokusan occurs when you commit to a teacher. Is that correct? Although I have had meetings with a teacher, but I haven't committed. I haven't had a... Some teachers do it that way. They won't have dokusan with you unless you commit. And you have to have a meeting where you formally go and give them a gift of money or incense or something, and you formally ask, may I enter into a doksan relationship with you?

[69:03]

So you actually sign up for that type of meeting with the person. But Suzuki Roshi didn't do that. He didn't require people to commit to doksan to have doksan. It was enough to go and commit yourself by entering the room was enough. But some teachers, they won't let people come in and do the ceremony unless they request formally and then are accepted. It makes sense in a way because it shows whether the person is willing to do the form when they ask to do the form. Otherwise, some teachers maybe feel worried that the person's going to come to Doksan and they won't do the form. Maybe some teachers experience meeting with Westerners and Westerners come in and are ambivalent about doing the form. So anyway, we don't do it that way at Zen Center, that you have to commit to do Doksan, but there is a commitment just by entering the room.

[70:07]

But still, even though it is possible then to not just enter the room but have a commitment to enter the room, an understood commitment. So it can be there or not, I would say. In some cases it's required, in other cases it's optional, and in some cases it's optional and the person does not exercise the option to commit, or they exercise the option not to commit. They don't commit to come to heaven and go to heaven. They just have it when they want to. And some teachers might say, I don't want to have that kind of relationship where you just come whenever you want to. Just like some people do not like to sleep with somebody who just comes whenever they want to. They want a commitment in order to be that intimate. Okay? So, it depends on the teacher and the student how it works out. Does that include the realm of committing to taking the precepts from a teacher, or is that something else?

[71:19]

Receiving the precepts from a teacher, again, that will vary. Some people feel that when they ask someone to give them the precepts, that that's also not only are they receiving the precepts, but they are asking that person to be their teacher. But some other people feel like that they're asking that person to act on behalf of the lineage to transmit the precepts to them, but they don't feel that they're committing to further teacher-student relationship with that person beyond that ceremonial process. So there would be different understandings among different people. And some people wouldn't necessarily think that they were asking the person who's given the precepts to be their teacher, but sometimes in the ceremony they suddenly feel like, oh my gosh, I think this person's my teacher.

[72:23]

Because sometimes it happens because of the the event of the ceremony somehow just makes that seem to be the case. But it's not, particularly for what we call lay initiation, it's not required by a lot of people, or a lot of people don't require it for lay initiation. But when I ordain priests, I do require that they are entering into training. I feel they have to they have to commit to some training program beyond just receiving and making a commitment to the precepts. Now, just in the remaining few minutes, I offer you this thing, which I think actually I just offer this question to you, is that when you signed up for this class, did you commit to come to the class? And if you didn't, do you wish to? That's my question to you.

[73:25]

And that can be easy. You can think about that. But I also say to you, which I said before, is that I committed to come here. I didn't just say, okay, I'll do the class, and maybe I'll come, maybe I won't. I committed to it. That's my ability to be here every week on time and stay the whole time. That's my commitment to you, and I do not require that of you. I do not require that you committed to come to all three classes and be on time. However, some people do ask me if they can come late and I have always said yes. And also some people ask me if they ask me or consult with me or even inform me that because of such and such a situation they will not be able to attend a class they tell me beforehand. And actually, I request that you tell me beforehand that you're not going to attend the class, because if you don't come to the class and you haven't told me beforehand, I don't worry.

[74:32]

I do not worry. I wonder what our relationship is. I wonder, because if you don't come, it is feedback to me, but I don't know what it is. Is it that you're sick? Is it that you're angry? Is it that the teaching is going badly? Is it that some tragedy happened in your family? I would like you to tell me. Even if it is, I really don't like the class. I would like to hear that rather than just not show up. I'd rather have you communicate. I request you to communicate if you're not going to come to class. And that's what I've been saying. And I think that is very much apropos of this kind of thing of using this particular form. I'm suggesting a form which I invite you to commit to. I'm not asking you to commit to come to all the classes, but I'm asking you to commit to tell me if you're going to miss either before or after.

[75:39]

I would know how to do that. I mean, I don't know how to do it. Well, like you could tell me after class tonight if you're going to miss next week. Yeah, but what if I don't? That's it. You could call Donald or me. And people like, I hear, I get things on the answering machine, or Donald calls me and tells me. That's that. Or email me. Like sometimes some people email me, call me, call Donald, email Donald. He tells me. Yeah? Yeah. What's your email address? It's RevAssistant at ZenCenter.org. Z-C-S-F-Z-C.org. SanFranciscoZenCenter.org. And it's RevAssistant. RevAssistant, yeah. Can you clarify the start time? What? Can you clarify the start time? This class starts at 7.15 and goes till 9.15, I think.

[76:40]

Is that right? It's 15 minutes earlier than the last one. And the last one, does it have, was there a class for pregnant women beforehand? And I see there's a pregnant woman. Did you come to the... Okay, well, this is just an example of a form which I'm inviting you to join me in of not committing to come to all the classes. I'm committing to come to all the classes. I don't suggest that you necessarily commit to that unless you want to. But if you can't do that, please commit to tell me if you're going to miss. Okay? I request that as a form of practice. which we also practice at Zen Center, too. If people are in a class or some kind of training, if they're going to not be there, we ask them to let us know. Or if they're thinking of not being there, we ask them to discuss it with us.

[77:43]

It's part of the enactment of practicing together. Thank you very much.

[77:51]

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