Anyway, we have these various forms like walking and sitting and bowing and putting on clothes and taking off clothes and then leading services and things like that. These are these forms. They're not really training. The training is the way they're given to you and the way you receive them and the way you take care of them, and the way you get and receive feedback on the way you're taking care of them. So more training, meaning that you get more forms, but that you get more intimate with the forms in the relationship with the teacher. That's kind of what I was emphasizing. And just talking to someone recently about this person that she was making some progress in her practice, in her priest training.

[01:05]

And I said, I agree. I agree. It's just that you don't get to keep the progress. You've got to give the progress away. And so beginners in some ways are easier to train because they haven't made any progress yet. So they have nothing to lose. But after someone makes some progress, and then it's time to give the progress away, they experience the progress being given away as a loss. Yeah? Can you say what the progress looks like and what giving it away looks like? Well, like, you might feel, for example, you might feel less afraid of the teacher than you used to feel. progress and feeling more courage and more forthcoming with the teacher. And then you feel that way and then that changes and you feel differently.

[02:12]

And what you used to feel is gone and now you feel something new. And you might see that as a loss to keep that feeling of making progress with the person. So you miss, again, this opportunity of like, oh, I made some progress, things changed, and I gave that away rather than I made some progress, things changed, and I lost that. Backwards in my practice, I'm sliding backwards. And also, I don't see it as the teacher's going to take away, you know, if you make some progress, the teacher takes it away. So the teacher takes away anything you're holding on in the practice, like you learn how to do something, the teacher takes it away. Kind of, sort of teach that way. Like she'd teach some form of tea and then just as you're about to get it, she wouldn't exactly take it away, she just would stop doing that form. Somehow she sensed when you were just getting it and then she'd move on to some other form.

[03:17]

Maybe go back to an earlier form. And then again, you'd just about get that one. And when you just about get that one, it would be around the same time you pretty much forgot the other one that you had almost gotten. And then go back to the other one. So just about getting a form, I felt like just a couple more times and I would really get it. And that would be just right around the time she would just somehow move on to something else. Sometimes more advanced, but I often go back. And there's something in a relationship, say a living relationship, where the relationship takes away your sense that you can keep your progress. So it's training, I think it's really training in that. rather than training and getting more and more skills and forms.

[04:25]

But the forms are kind of the bathwater, and we need them because we have to have something to work on. And it's hard to take forms away from a person, or it's hard for a person in a relationship to learn unless there was somebody who kind of was there when they got the form. So the teacher kind of gives the forms, so the teacher seems to be able to take them away, but it's not really the teacher that's taking them away, it's the relationship that allows the teacher to say, give me back that form. Give it back. And you kind of go, okay, because you did give it to me, didn't you? So I guess you could take it back. But it's not really the teacher taking it back. It's the relationship of the teacher feeling that it should be taken back because there's some attachment to it or something like that. A personal example, yes, Ezekiel says to me,

[05:26]

I think I'd like you to go to Japan, maybe in not more than a month." So I say, okay. And I go over to the Japanese embassy and get the sponsorship forms, you know, so you can stay longer than the student visa, tourist visa, and bring them back to him. And I go to him and I say, here's the applications for the blah, blah. And he says, what's that? And he, this blah blah, and he took them. He said, okay. He took them and that was it. Never heard about that again. Yeah. I guess I have some questions I'd like to, when I hear you say this, I think of, and you give that example, I think of that 25, 27 year old young man. And there's a whole lot of difference on time than When you say taking away a form, I think, gee, it might have taken half of the Marines over 60 and three are in their 40s and three are in their 50s.

[06:37]

And there's another world than in the 20s and 30s. Somehow, I mean, I'm not trying to stay stuck there, but I notice I keep going there in that thought process when you say these things about the training. You think when a person gets older, that makes things different? I think I have some feeling of that. I'm not sure what it is, but there's a sense of what I am. There is, and I'm not sure what it is. Okay, well, maybe we could find out what it is. What is it? Anybody know what she's talking about? This thing about the older people and the young? Something's different when you're 60 than when you're 27? Are more long-standing I guess I view my age as long-term training and loss.

[07:49]

Well, that's what I'm saying. I can't say it absolutely, because I completely agree with you on there. But then there's another thing of when you're coming out of a different space at 15. I mean, I'm coming out of a different space from 15, and now at 61, there's another universe that's arisen. I guess for me, in my 50s, I feel like I'm still coming out of some space of in the first decade of life. No matter how old I get. Maybe it's a little rougher on me. I have heard this story in the Korean Zen tradition that I think people over, I think, can't get ordained. And the story that I heard, it's something like, because it's like too late to change. It's like they've had too much life to get into what they're into.

[08:56]

And it's like, it's something. Yeah. The fifth ancestor, right? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. Don't we have some ancestors who actually entered old and vividly? It's quite late. Yeah, that's that story. But aren't there other stories where there are? Jiaojiao? No, not Jiaojiao. Somebody. In the... I guess his teacher died when he was 60, and then he went on pilgrimage to kind of... But he had been studying since he was a kid. Right. But almost like when a new kind of training began, in a way. Well, he's an old person who can't learn anything. He's like, at 60, after training for many years, then he goes and studies with everybody. From 60 to 90... He was visiting teachers.

[09:56]

After 30 years with his teacher, his teacher died. Then he goes and studies 30 more years with almost everybody in China. So he's like the total counterexample of old people can't learn. I don't think she was saying old people can't learn. I think she was talking about how hard it is. No, I'm not talking about Arlene's side. Oh, I see. which all brought out. But I remember, what is it, Don Juan said, one of the, you know, these various, what were the things that the oppositions, I remember the opposition or the demon or whatever of old age. Remember those three things he said in the first book? And I can find it, but the last one was old age, what the thing was, is you think, you know, give me a break.

[10:58]

I'm an old guy. You know, it's kind of like that, you know. Not so much I can't change, but a little bit like that, like, you know, this is too hard for me, you know. I'm too old, that thing. That's the demon that old age people, the kids don't say that. They don't say they're too old. They don't say give me a break, I'm just a kid. But I just want to say from my perspective, I find the old people not more rigid than the young people. I find them quite similar. I find them quite rigid. And scared and stuff like that. And young people are like that too. I find a lot of continuity myself. And when I myself get into the student position, I feel like a kid again. I don't feel like, well, I feel that I felt before.

[12:03]

And I'm waiting for Carolyn to come back to give another example of holding on to something. But I think that It's not that when we're old we don't have to do it, it's just that when we're older we can sort of avoid it. And when you're a kid and you try to avoid education programs, you know you're taking a big risk because you see what happens to the other people who are going to school and learning stuff. and you know you're at a time of learning. There is this thing about old people, where I'm too old to learn. Young people don't say, I'm too young to learn, or I'm too old to learn. They may be bums and don't learn, but it's different. But when we're old, we have to think, okay, now I'm a teacher. I can just teach. I don't have to go to school anymore.

[13:03]

But where can you go and be a student again when you're 60 or 70? And so 60 or 70-year-olds don't sometimes put themselves in situations where they're a student. And if they don't, something's not growing. But my experience is that when you guys do put yourself in that position, then you're growing. You're growing just like you did when you were younger, like young people are. So you are still putting yourself in that position. But some old people do not put themselves in the position, and they need... But my experience is that when senior people do put themselves in the position, they correspond to the pattern pretty much like young people. They're a little bit, maybe a little bit more fragile than some of the young people. Yeah, a little bit, not quite as, what's the word, pliable or resilient or supple.

[14:15]

That's part of getting older is you get a little harder. When you break in the training process, you may be going to a little bit more pieces than the younger person. I've seen that, but I haven't seen the lack of, what do you call it, shock in the dynamic. I thought of another example of Suzuki Roshi. He sent me to Tatsuhara to learn Doan forms from Tatsugami Roshi, and I did learn them. And then Suzuki Roshi came down and asked me to show him what Tatsugami Roshi So he taught me these forms, so I had these forms, which my teacher wanted me to show him the forms. You can imagine, Suzuki Roshi asking you to teach him something, right? So I showed him the stuff that Tatsugami Roshi taught, and then he gently took them away, or, you know, modified them.

[15:22]

And, I mean, what could be more wonderful than to have Suzuki Roshi teach you know, massaging and transforming the forms that you receive from another teacher. So I was both informing him about what we learned and also giving him a chance to work on me in these forms. And I had trouble being present for that. That was so intimate with him. And to have him sort of like take away this thing I had learned, sort of take it away. I also felt like him ironing it, ironing the way I was chanting, kind of ironing it. I could feel my chanting being modified by his feedback on it. So in one sense he was taking away what I had learned because I had to give up what I had learned in a way which he felt was more appropriate.

[16:24]

Yeah, but in another way, and I needed to give up what I had learned right with him watching me. It wasn't like he said, give it up, see you later. He said, give it up and now see if you can do it. But I told you to give up. So specifically what I did was I almost learned to chant exactly like Tosugami Roshi. Almost exactly. And Suzuki Roshi said, that way of chanting is beautiful, Tatsugami Roshi, but he's an old... For you, it's kind of funny. It's like Richard Baker said one time that the Japanese, when they copy the Beatles, you know, perfectly. They copy the Beatles perfectly. They even copy their coughs and sneezes. You know? Exactly. So I copied all the little nuances of his voice, and then Srigarishi came and ironed out all those little places where I really shouldn't be putting in those little decorations on the chanting.

[17:36]

But to have your... You're like ironing out your voice, and you're chanting for him, and he's listening to you, and it's... you know, difficult. So I had to give up. At the same time, I also thought, what a great opportunity this is. You even feel it's such a great opportunity that you'd like to give the teacher a break. This is such a great opportunity. I know you're busy. See you later. This is such a great opportunity. I don't want to bother you. See you later. Or even, this is such a great opportunity. I hate you. I never got to that point. Probably would get to that point eventually, but he died. It was another opportunity. Yeah, it was another opportunity, right. But does that give you some feeling, Carolyn? Yes. topic, and I don't know how it will be received, but I've had this idea for a while since you were trained directly by Suzuki Roshi.

[18:43]

If you would be open, or other people might have interest in actually having some kind of videotape of you doing the various forms, Kokyo would go on, just for future generations to help. That's on this one. Would I be willing to do that? to receive your asking me that. I don't know if it would be good to me to do that. I'll think about it. But again, Suzuki Roshi trained me, yes, that's true, but also he trained me. Tatsugami Roshi really wanted to train me at those forms, and then he modified them from the level of training that Tatsugami Roshi took, and then he made them perfect. Huh? No, for everyone. But then I had to give them up. So now I don't know if they should videotape what I really should give up. Another thing I want to say is that Nakamura sensei used to say, which I never heard Suzuki Roshi say this, but that's sort of the way I practice with him, is in Japan, 80% of teaching is just watching, and 20% is instruction.

[19:59]

And so mostly we just watch Suzuki Roshi, but he did occasionally give instruction, like he specifically trained me and Silas Holdley how to do morning service, and he never trained Richard Baker how to do morning service. So then I trained Richard Baker how to do morning service. Richard Baker accepted Tsuigurashi making me his jisha and have me teach him how to do Zen Center forms. So I was his teacher. But in a complimentary way I would say, you know, I was given this set of four horses to train and I lost control of them. See you later. But he did accept some training for a while there because he didn't really know Zen. He didn't really train in Japan in Soto Zen. He mostly hung around at Daito. And he only stayed at Eiji for a month.

[21:03]

And he did not have a good time. And he was never Doshi. So I actually trained him how to be Doshi and things like that because Suzuki Roshi asked his Jisha to teach him. which is actually not so unusual for a jisha to go someplace in a jisha temple to train you if you're not at that temple. But, you know, now I mostly, to some, I don't know mostly, but now I kind of like see my training as how I relate to priests who are trying to get some education the training you're receiving? It seems like the main training I'm offering is the training of some priests who are trying to get some training and to notice how they're trying to get some training and then kind of go, hmmm. Did you notice you're trying to get some training there? Yes?

[22:11]

Meg's example of having a videotape made of you being Doshi is the opposite of what I would say I was inquiring about in terms of Doshi training, which to me seemed more like what you're talking about when you talk about the teacher ironing out the instruction and the practice that you have already received and are now practicing. So in the example of doshi training, you did instruct Kathy Earley and Jane and me. And we had varying degrees of time to practice. And then since then, we've all been doshis. But we, as far as I know, not received any feedback since that training time a year and a half ago. So it seems sort of like part of training matches part of instruction. to be interacting with the teacher and receiving feedback, which is what I was inquiring about. And that seems quite different from having a record of the way that Suzuki Roshi taught Reb to do it in 19-whatever.

[23:25]

Yeah, I think it is different. even to have one set of, like, instruction with you and then just sort of go from there. Things like, someday the other shoe's going to fall and some response will come other than one's own response. Someday the other shoe will fall? Well, you know, like the rest of the instruction will come. Or maybe it won't. Well, it might not be just one shoe. The whole wardrobe might be a Melvin Marcos shoe. So one example of the next shoe was that when you raised the issue of getting another session, you got a response. Right, which was, we don't want you to get something. Yeah, right. Big shoe.

[24:26]

That was kind of a big shoe, but you know, didn't we have little... Big shoe. It was kind of a big shoe, yeah. So in calling one's attention to this wish to get something, you're not just calling attention to the wish to have your forms perfected in an instructional way. but you're also calling attention to a wish to have the interaction around the instruction. Yes, and you're also noticing a wish to be intimate. Exactly. Which isn't necessarily a wish to get something. No, it's not necessarily. And then we can find out which kind it is by our response. Thank you. See you later.

[25:27]

What was that? That was, that was Suzuki Roshi accepting my applications to go to Japan and going off. He, he's the one who said he wanted me to go to Japan, right? Right, exactly. He's the one who said, I wouldn't have gone, I wouldn't have gone to the thing if he hadn't suggested it. I was just following his instructions. So I did, and he said, thank you very much, and that was the end of that. Got it. Are you still upset by it? Upset by it? Actually, I wasn't upset by it at the time. I just thought, oh. Oh. We wait for the teacher to tell us, go to Japantown and get the application or whatever. I'd like to make you a body block. Student, I want you to blah-de-blah. Okay, let's do it. What? See you later. It isn't exactly that he was, you know, it isn't exactly that he was fishing.

[26:32]

You know, will he go for this one? Will he go for this? It isn't exactly that, but when he does go for it, you go, oh. Oh, I didn't think you would do that. But I wasn't just trying to catch you, but I did. So I just realized that when people offer you stuff, you just say, you don't grab it. Or you don't grab it. Or you don't grab it. Now maybe that's the Japanese way, and the American way is, when they offer you, grab it. And they say, go for it, boy. But his way was like, be very generous and give us gifts, and then don't take any of them. Just wait until he shoves it down your throat. You might not do. Whoops. So I thought that was, and that worked pretty well for me not to take anything from then on, pretty much.

[27:32]

And I was just, you know, thinking, this is a big topic, but I, I, never asked for anything at Zen Center. And Zen Center always gave me more than I expected, was more generous with me. But I never asked for any position or anything all the time I was at Zen Center. And I didn't really have any problem with Zen Center until I was abbot. And since then I've had some problems with Zen Center. But up until that point I felt like I never asked for a position, And I never said no to a position. Well, that's amazingly easy karma. I guess it was. But it had something to do with that training too of, you know, don't try to get something from your teacher and don't try to get something from Zen Center. And it offers you this stuff, whatever, you know, it just keeps offering you stuff.

[28:44]

So that was kind of an interesting teaching for me, when he just took it and walked out of the room. It was like in his doksan room, and he just took it and walked into his kitchen. He didn't say goodbye or anything, he just took it and walked off. I don't know what he did with it. Maybe he was going to send in the application. Maybe he sent the application in and my visa is waiting for me. But he wanted me to study with one of his friends, Noiri Roshi. He saw himself with Noiri Roshi and Niwa Roshi as the inheritors. of the mantle of Kishizawa Iyan. So he wanted me to study with him. And so I thought he was going to like take that application and send it off to some sponsor me over there. So maybe he did do it and just didn't tell me. But I thought it was like just, I think that's maybe what happened, but who knows.

[29:50]

Maybe whenever you ask for training, I go off and give the training and you just don't work there. Maybe. I'm there teaching you, but you don't know it. I'm giving you the instruction that you asked for, but in such a way that you don't have to worry about having anything to hold on to. So is that why you took up tango lessons? Yeah, that's why I took up tango. Those were one of the reasons. The other reason was something else. I thought I went to classes without her sometimes, and I always felt, and I still feel, I really am a student there, and I'm surrounded by people who know more, and I experience the awkwardness of the situation, and I really feel bad about that, and I feel good about me not knowing what it is.

[31:10]

You stopped, haven't you? No, I haven't stopped. I just haven't gone for a really long time. But I have not stopped. It's still happening. Like right now, it's happening. You may not want to go here, but since we're recording and it's one of the questions that Donald asked to this. Thank you. I don't think it's been addressed directly, but he's interested in possibly some bridge or discussion of the relationship of the way priest training happens here and with you or in the West relative to what's traditional or what's presently happens in Japan. How it's being transformed in coming to the West.

[32:29]

I would say in general, my impression is, generally, that partly because Japan is a genius culture, that in some sense the way that the teachers train the students is a little bit more like the teacher tells the student what to do and the student does what the teacher says. It's a little bit more like that. Would you say that, Maya? It's more like that. In their culture, I don't think it's quite that hard. I would say that my feeling is Japan is actually a feminine culture. And it may be what you call patriarchal, but it's feminine. And they can be strict with each other in certain ways that don't mean the same thing there than what is meant here.

[33:30]

So I think that the Zen centers, some Zen centers are a little bit more like Japan than America, I would say. Tell the student what to do. both in Rinzai and Soto, I get the impression from the hearing about what is called Zen Mountain Center in the East Coast, that they more like tell the students what to do. And the lay people wear a different color of robes. They wear kind of like white or something, and the priests wear black. Is that right? Yes. Well, it looks like it. If you look at the pictures, it's like the room's full of these white-robed people and then the priests are black. But they separate the two more, and like teacher says what to do, and this is the way you do things, and this is the way we do things here, and you do them the way we do them here. There's a little bit more of that feeling there, which I think people associate also with this Zen Center, but I think it's not quite as...

[34:34]

stark here. And I think that this Zen center might be a little bit more stark than some other ones. I don't know what the whole lay of the land is. But I think Americans, and partly because of this diversity thing, like to get to line up with these forms, I think it will seem more challenging. Don't you think it's a function of having so many different teachers? You sit in a room with people who have been trained by different people and they all give zazen instruction differently. There's that too. That's part of it too, yes. But Suzuki Roshi was a pretty, you could say, gentle dash not-so-much-do-what-I-say kind of thing. And Tatsugami Roshi was not that way.

[35:39]

Tatsugami Roshi didn't do it this way. And the first Do-on-ryo, which I was on, some of the students considered us, really hated us and thought we were Nazis. They called us Nazis. because we did these forms in this kind of way. And then when I left Tassajara and went to the city center to be director and Eno, the word Nazi would continue to be used towards the way I was fulfilling my tasks on certain people's part. When I first went to the city center, They asked me to go there because they wanted somebody who they thought would be able to, for example, ask someone to leave the building who was punching the tenzo. Or people would just walk in off the streets and hang out in Zen Center at that time.

[36:45]

We didn't really have a residence before that. We had apartments across the street from Zen Center. And the people lived in the apartments. But people didn't walk into the apartments. And there was no place to hang out. It's so cozy. People would try. But now we had this big building and people could just walk in and be there. Suzuki Ryoichi was now in a position to ask people to leave. Didn't want him to do that. But no one seemed to be able to do that. They thought maybe this 27-year-old or this 26-year-old would be able to do that. So they asked this 27-year-old to be director. And sure enough, I walked in and when people who didn't live there were living there, I said, you don't live here, would you please leave? And they left. And then also I had a meeting with the residents of the building and I noticed that there wasn't actually an understanding that people would go to Zazen on a daily basis. There wasn't an understanding that all the people in the building would go to all the Zazens.

[37:52]

There wasn't an understanding that all the people would go to Zazen every day. one period. I noticed some people just didn't go to the Zendo for a while, because that was the Eno, too. So I asked Hizikura Ishii, how about that we actually have an understanding that people go to Zazen at least once a day? And he said, So then I had this meeting. He wasn't at the meeting. Or maybe he was to me, I don't remember. But anyway, I think maybe he wasn't at the meeting. It was called a house meeting, and we had the meeting. And I said, how about having an agreement that everybody goes to Zazen once a day? And there was this big uproar. And... Let's see. And... And... people moved out. A lot of people moved out and some people just stayed and hated me.

[38:53]

But then the Zen Center gradually became a place where we do kind of agree to participate in the thing. And we've developed, and then the discourse has gone through various changes of strictness and so on, and various experiments have occurred, and we're still... But I feel like we're... In Japan also, in most temples, maybe this is changing, but in most temples, you don't have very many people sitting in the zendo with the monks sitting in chairs. It doesn't happen much. And we're allowing that more. So I think we're allowing more variation in posture and things like that. I think in Japan you might have a really old teacher who can't bow anymore, who still might be leading service, but that doesn't happen very often. So the variation in the form, I think we're at this point in our evolution allowing more variation in form

[40:11]

partly because of having different teachers, but also part of even most of our teachers within the also I think maybe generally speaking allow more variation of the form than most Japanese do. The Chinese I'm not familiar with, but also the Chinese do not seem to be as formal as the Japanese. Chinese Buddhist monks, they don't seem to be as formal oriented. They don't seem to make such an effort on posture and walking or sitting. They don't seem to make as much effort to form of how they wear their clothes. But Japanese Zen priests are, especially Soto Zen priests, have lots of forms that they can work on. And they do a little bit more, they want it to be done in a certain way. And when I went to Eheiji, they trained me to do Doshi in a certain way, and I learned that way.

[41:16]

and uh... they were happy with my performance their way and there were some specific little things that they want to make sure I did them that way rather than some other way that was the AAG way and I did it and there's not a video, maybe there is a video but there's pictures of me doing it and uh... Yeah, and they did want it done that way, and I think we're, especially for lay people, we're less emphasizing that. So I think that would be one way I would characterize the difference between it. And maybe, Mea, would you like to say something about the difference between the way we train priests here and what you've seen in Japan, in Soto Zen? The situation that I was in was a very different situation because, you know, I was at that month training at Tsuyoshi.

[42:28]

It was, I think, an assumption on behalf of the Japanese that we were there to learn the form, so they had no compunction or hesitation about adjusting in excruciating detail. and not stopping until they were satisfied exactly how the clothes were worn, how the hands were, and so forth. Whereas here, I think we don't, in my experience, some people want that kind of training and some people don't. Excuse me, do you think the microphone's picking up what she's saying? No. It's not? No. Maybe you could pass this down to me, yeah? So anyway, you saw that the training went to, they went into more, they were more thorough in making sure things were done in a certain way than you've ever experienced here in the United States.

[43:34]

Right. They wanted things done. They wanted to show us, for example, exactly you hold your hands. And their assumption, it wasn't like, would you like me to show you this? I think that was the main difference. It wasn't like, shall I show you this? It was like, this is how it's done. And And it was very clear, you know, I'm the trainer. I'm showing you how it's going to be done. Whereas here, some people want that and some people don't. So, excuse me, I think we're often, you know, we can't assume that the person wants that kind of information. Now, that's a really important point. Another way to put it is that even for priests, I do not assume that the person wants, at a given point in history, at a given moment of time, I do not assume that they want to receive feedback.

[44:39]

And I don't think that's a question. My impression is that that's not a question that the Japanese would even consider, even occur to them. Yeah. Because, but also, the monks have entered, I think the monks have entered the monastery in order to train for, namely, doing rituals as a monk. So it would be like, if you go to medical school, your professor doesn't ask you every day, oh, do you want to learn how to hold the scalpel? Or, you know, would you like me to show you? You know, it's an assumption. Like, you're here to learn how to do this, and I'm here to show you. at some point you're going to graduate and you're going to be, there'll be exams about whether you're learning it. It's kind of like that. They're going to, the monks are there, they're in a training school, and then they're going to leave and they're going to be doing these rituals so that they're there to learn it, whereas the Zen Center for, I think, very different reasons.

[45:43]

Yeah, that's very good. they're going to leave the monastery and they're going to perform these forms, which they've learned, and they're going to perform these forms mostly for lay people. Whereas we are not, we are going to perform these forms, we're going to perform these forms to perform these forms. I think we have a more playful attitude towards them. Like when Suzuki Roshi, I remember one time I was at Tassajara and at a tea break in the afternoon he came up to me and said, I'd like to teach you how to do how to carry the stick, how to carry the kyusaku. And he showed me a way of walking for carrying the kyusaku, which I'd never seen before. And I didn't feel like he was correcting me. I just felt like, oh, good, I'm getting special instruction from him. But I also didn't feel like now I know the right way. He taught me, and I never taught anybody else that way, and nobody does it that way. But I just felt like it was this game I was going to play with my teacher, or with my grandfather, right?

[46:52]

It was like, this is what he wants to do with me? Fine. I didn't feel like, oh, now I'm going to get the right thing, and I'm going to transmit this and do this for laypeople. So I think it's really different. I do not assume even that priests want instruction. And I tell lay people sometimes who want instruction, I say, if a lay person is wearing their clothes this way or that way, I don't think that unless they would specifically ask me. And even priests who beg me for feedback on various things, still I check with them when the time comes because I don't, it's not just that they're learning the profession. it's that they're learning spiritual reality. And spiritual reality includes how you feel right now and whether you're up for a spiritual lesson, not whether you're up for another lesson in school, which you've already agreed on. Because you're also talking about, I think, in the American situation, you're talking about

[47:54]

autonomy, whether you're just going to submit to the hierarchy. Some people in medical school say, okay, I'll submit to the hierarchy, but in my daily life am I going to do that and am I going to do that with other people? It's much more dynamic and ambiguous in America, the training. Some people feel, Amen. And Suzuki Roshi did teach this in America. He taught that, and this is in the Buddhist canon too, that the student and teacher teach each other. He taught that. And there is an example in the Pali where the Buddha is saying, if the teacher teaches something to the student and the student disagrees, you know, and the student tells the teacher how it actually is, and the student is right, the teacher should listen to the student. And he gave an example of that.

[48:57]

Does anybody remember that example? An example where the teacher said, blah, blah, and the student said, excuse me, sir, but I think it's this way, and the student was right, and the Buddha said the teacher should listen to the student. So... Like the prince. Yeah, yeah, like the example, the acrobat example too. But that one, it wasn't so much student-teacher. What he's pointing out there is that, you know, you should practice, you know, foundations of mindfulness on yourself. But this other case, he's saying that the teacher should learn from the student in some cases. But Suzuki Rishi, I felt, really emphasized the mutuality of the student-teacher relationship. He does too. And in the Ketchumyaku it says that transmitting the precepts is transmission elder to elder, from past to present and from present to past. And also in the Menju it talks about transmitting backwards and forwards.

[49:59]

So there is a mutuality in the spiritual quality of the trisha tradition. But in Japan, that spiritual quality of mutuality is less emphasized. But it may partly be because the culture has embodied that mutuality. You know, that there's this mutuality in the background that allows a kind of like, you might say, efficiency and terseness in the foreground. Whereas we in our culture do not have that mutuality in the background that we can come from, so we need to enact it in the foreground more. When it's more in the foreground, then it spreads into the background, and then when it's in the background, then you could have somebody being kind of terse and everybody would feel good about it. That's why sometimes in the koan classes, when I'm interacting with a senior student, it can be kind of almost rough.

[51:03]

And new students maybe get somewhat frightened because they say, wow, I wouldn't want that to happen to me. But it's with somebody who has been with me for 25 years, and they can take care of themselves. And they understand, and I understand what they're doing. They could also be rough with me. And then the student goes, wow, what happened? And hopefully they tell somebody. They say, well, they're very close. That's like a family, not exactly feud, but it's a family dynamic. They're OK. You can go ask them if they're both OK. And they'll say, yeah, that was normal for us. We do that. It's called consenting adults. And it's a little rough, but it's in. So I think that's good about getting that on the open, that that may be part of it, once again, to say that the background assumptions of family are there in Japan so that they can be very terse and simple in the present instruction.

[52:16]

But we don't have that background, so we have to make sure that we're family, that we're doing this together, that we love each other. Another thing I would say about Japan is that, and I'll just say about Japan first, is that when I was there at Suzuki Roshi's temple, seeing Oichi Suzuki Roshi and his daughter-in-law, Chitose, take care of their kids, I felt like, well, this looks like Buddhism to me, the way they take care of their kids. They're very compassionate to their kids. And I think their kids have grown up to be wonderful young adults. but I was really impressed with how kind they were to their kids. And when the kids would come home from school, the mother wouldn't ask them to do chores, that she would...

[53:18]

I could just feel her sympathy and empathy for them of having done a hard day's work at Japanese school. They get up early in the morning and they come home like at 5.30 from school, you know, and they're really tired and the mother just feels like, let them rest, you know. She... That was her feeling for them, rather than, here comes the bums and now they're going to hang out, you know, get them to work. I didn't see that. And I just, I really felt, and also see the way Japanese people take care of their children. You see the mothers, particularly the mothers, but you see the mothers with the children and the They're always touching them and they carry them around on the street. The children are almost never out of hand's reach, I felt. And people think of Japanese as rather formal, but when you see them with their little babies, they're very, I think, very touchy and very physically in contact with the kids.

[54:26]

And my general impression, of course, I was in nice neighborhoods. but I think most of the neighborhoods are nice in Japan as far as I can tell. My general impression from watching up close and at some distance the parents' relationship is that if I was a Japanese kid, I would really want to do what my parents said when I grew up. I would really feel indebted and grateful to my parents. And I think that's part of why they can have still some traditional culture there, is that I would just think... ...a little bit nicer to the boys, or not nicer, but they're a little bit more indulgent of the boys than the girls because I think they want the boys to carry on the family tradition. And a lot of boys don't want to carry on the family tradition, I guess, but they do anyway because they love their parents so much. Yeah. I think that the idealized view of... Japanese family life and upbringing and so forth.

[55:28]

I mean, I'm sure that what you say is true, but I think there's other sides also. And, you know, I also hear kind of horror stories about what's happening nowadays in Japanese society in terms of like, you know, kids locking themselves into their rooms and not coming out for weeks and months and so forth. And, you know, what? Yeah, heavy suicide rate. tensions and pressures, and I mean, I think, anyway, I think what you're saying is one side, but I think there's a lot of other things happening there also, which are quite... Yeah, some parents are, when the kids come home from school, some parents are telling the kids to keep studying more, and saying, you better the kids, then don't get good grades and commit suicide. There's that side too. So thank you for balancing that somewhat. that Japanese high school is very high pressure because you can't get into college unless you're .

[56:39]

Whereas in America, even if you do poorly in high school, you can get into junior college. And then if you study in junior college, you can get into a regular college. And if you do well in regular college, you can go to Harvard or Stanford graduate school. Whereas in Japan, if you don't do well in high school, you can't even get into college. About America, is that different? Is that there's a little bit more play in the system? For some people. Whereas for Japanese, even the rich people, maybe there's not much play. And just in general, here's a... But when I'm in Japan, I feel like... Of course, I'm speaking a language I'm not good at, so when I come back to America, I feel this tremendous ease in speaking. But just generally, I feel in Japan that it's just things are tighter and closer, and America is very expansive. Yeah.

[57:42]

Well, in Japan, also Japan is, what do you call it, 80% mountains. So Japan's about the size of Montana. Montana has a population of about 800,000, a population of about 130 million, and it's more mountainous. So it's a much more intense social situation there. And so all that, I think, makes the way that they practice Japan different. Yes. These conversations have led me to reflect on the various training opportunities that I've had when I moved at Sun Center.

[58:44]

And some of them were quite difficult. But the ones that really stand out in my mind are the ones that were playful. With Dagon, Luke, Sonia Garden Shorts, Tass Hara. They were being very particular about the forms. Oh, and Galen. They were being very particular about the forms, but I always had the sense that, well, they're doing it this way, but then when we do it, it'll... Whatever way it happens. And there was kind of a playfulness and I felt, well, this is fun.

[59:49]

We can try really hard to make it happen this way, but then however it happens, it'll be that way and it's okay. And Galen, when I was newly a priest, Galen showed me how to do orioke. And I forget what the name is for the little board that you put down under your bowls, the little wrapping. Hatan. Hatan. She said, okay. She went, okay. It took me years to figure out that she was joking. It was just, okay. I know you're going to tell me it's not a joke. It's not a joke. She taught me, too. There's two ways you wipe it. One time you do it three, and the other time you do it a Z. Right? That's how I learned. Yeah. I learned from Alice.

[60:49]

I learned from Galen, though. I need to learn these forms. I don't know them. Yeah. But she just said it kind of obviously, you know, but I took it very seriously. And I was just like, okay, every time I do this, I do the C-Wipe. And one day I was doing that in the sender where I thought, well... Maybe she was just joking. You can do it this way. You can do it anyway, you know. Maybe you have to have a way, you know. What made you think she was joking after all those years? Because I realized I could do it any way that I wanted to do it. And nobody was going to come up and wipe their finger at me and say, you're not doing it anyway. But just as in all other forms in Orioki, it's good to have a way to do it and practice that way. And hope for the best.

[61:53]

Hope you don't knock your ball on a floor or do other things. There was a time at Tassajara when one of the students said, I wish the senior people at Zen Center would agree on some forms. I think this room has said that at some time. Because it's hard for us to learn a form and then have it change the next So there was, partly in response to that, I had a meeting with Paul when he became abbot and Linda Ruth to try to agree on some of the forms which I noticed had a tendency to shift from practice period to practice period. I noticed when I'd come down certain forms kept slipping. So when I arrived, they were different. And I feel like, I feel it's okay for the person who's leading the practice period to change some forms, but the understanding would be this is the Tassajara form, and they've changed the form, and it goes back to the Tassajara form after they change it.

[63:06]

But we agree that this is the form, right? And at that time we agreed. And I think I went down again after that to do a practice period, and I didn't find that they shifted as much. When there wasn't understanding what the Tassajara form was, and then the Ino would know that, and then they would see, oh, then this person changed it. And at the end of the practice period, the carriage turns back into a pumpkin. It is a pumpkin. It's temporarily this wonderful, splendid thing, and now it shifts back to being a pumpkin. And we agreed, the three of us agreed on what the pumpkin was. So there's that. But then, once we agree on the pumpkin, to some extent, there is how do we work with people around that. And that's, I think there's a difference between the way we work with them and the way Japanese work with them.

[64:10]

And in Japan, there is no one way. Different Soto Zen monasteries do things differently. Eheji has different forms from Sojiji, and other temples have different forms from them. But at the same time, as you know, we look through some examples of ceremonies from Gyoji-kihan, which is not the Eheji way, but is actually kind of somewhere in between them. And when we looked at the ceremony, it was pretty similar to what we do. We didn't find much difference for the shuso ceremony, for the entering ceremony, for the shuso question and answer ceremony, and for the ordination ceremony, we didn't find that much difference. So there is some agreement, but the main thing about the training is how do you work with whatever form you're working on? And I think in America, there is more of a thing of students' rights than in Japan, that the student can question more than in Japan.

[65:26]

Another difference that I've heard from Japan is that when a Japanese teacher gives a talk, a Japanese Zen teacher, and when a Japanese physicist teacher or a Japanese psychology teacher or a Japanese history teacher, the students don't ask questions. The Japanese priests had come here and observed the teachers giving talks and the students asking questions, and they would oftentimes express surprise at the questioning that the students offer the teachers. That's the difference between the Japanese way of doing it. The Chinese way, if you look at the Chinese way, it doesn't, it looks more like the students would ask the teacher's question. I don't know what the situation there is. We haven't had Chinese, we had very few Chinese monk coming here and saying, but the Japanese were generally speaking surprised by the level of interaction between teacher and student. Another, and there's another difference too,

[66:31]

this is kind of a point that's kind of surprising, is that in the Japanese, in the training center, there's less of a thing of one teacher than the rest being students. There's more of a thing of a teacher, senior people, and students. Whereas the setup in America is often a teacher and a group of students. I've heard that from the Japanese perspective. With the senior people... The Japanese person at Tassajara, when I was leading a practice period, felt it was more like teacher and students rather than where other training temples were built, where there's teachers, senior monks, and students. Now maybe things have changed, but that's an ongoing question of that thing. whether we've arrived at that place where it's teachers, senior students, and major assembly, whether we've got to that point or not, I don't know.

[67:37]

But he didn't feel that that's the way it was in Japan. Temple, in a small temple, which is not a place to train priests, then you have a teacher, the priest, and the laity. And generally speaking, you may have one or zero, but not usually five or ten monks training with the teacher. That would be an unusual situation, dash training temple. Training temples also have have lay supporters. Like Hoshinji has lay supporters, right? Bukkhoji has lay supporters, right? So those two training temples have lay supporters, but they all have training with the teacher. But there's only 30 or something of those, I think, 30 or 40 of those in Soto Zen. It says in the book, right? Do you remember? In that book on ritual, it says how many there are like that. Hmm? Fifty? It's in the history.

[68:43]

It says how many Soto Zen training temples there are. Among the 17,000, there's a certain number that are training temples. But the vast majority is the teacher and the laity. And then even in the training temples, there's still a laity, but there's this group of people there. So the it's the teacher and the laity, but in the training temples, it's the teacher, senior people, or the teachers, senior monks, and laity, I mean, and training temple, training monks, and laity. Of course, Eheji, the laity, is all Soto Zen people are the laity for Eheji and Sojiji. So Rinzuen has 400 or 800 families that are a laity. And most of the time I've been going to Rinzuen, there were no monks living. And sometimes there were. Yeah. Two other aspects of this that you might say something about are the time scale of training in Japan versus the kind of time scale.

[69:51]

Oh yeah, that's the difference too. And also the relative age of new training students. Yeah, so the vast majority of training in Japan is the vast majority of... Well, first of all, the vast majority of priests in Japan are male. I don't know how many nuns there are in Soto Zen. Did it say in that book? It says there that there are three niso-do, three women's monasteries, but I have only heard of ever one, just the one in Nagoya. So I think that's the major one. They only have, I think, less than 50 nuns, and the other two are pretty small. Anyway, there's not very many and also one little dig in there is that all the nuns are celibate, I think.

[70:56]

Lifelong vow of celibacy. And whereas not all the priests are celibate. Some are, some aren't. But anyway, the vast majority are priests, of priests in Japan, in Soto Zen, and I think in Rinzai Zen, and I think in Jodo Shinshu, and Shingon, and Tendai, Priests are male, and that's a big difference. In America, it's close to 50-50. The other thing is that the training in Japan, the basic training is short. However, they grow up in a temple usually. Most of them grow up in a temple. And even those who don't grow up in a temple grow up in a country where everybody at least is nominally practically Buddhist. It used to be everybody was required to be Buddhist. So they grow up in a Buddhist background culture, a Buddhist background culture, and some of them grow up in a temple.

[72:05]

A lot of them grow up in temples. And then their formal training aside is short, a year or two or three for most. Of course, they did grow up in a home where they grew up from childhood, so it's different. And most of them go to university now and study Buddhism. And most of them go to university. And they maybe go to university longer than they train at the monastery. In the West, most people do not go to Buddhist university, although most people who come to practice Zen are in the United States. But the training of the priests in America, especially at San Francisco Zen Center, is long. Less intense, you could say, maybe. Long but less intense, yeah. Or long but... The two or three years they spend is more intense than probably two or three years here.

[73:08]

But there are periods of intensity that are comparable. But again, comparable but not the same because you can be more intense with people when they have no rights. By intense, do you mean like a stricter schedule and a tighter schedule, that sort of thing? It's a tighter schedule. You don't necessarily have a day off. I mean, it might be your day off, but maybe there's a big ceremony happening and you're spending all day working. It's kind of normal. Not what you do. No, I'm not. That's interesting that you say that because it's actually known in the same way. And it's a leaving at all. Maybe it's more like Tassajara practice period. More like a Tassajara practice period year-round for two or three years. A few people would go out and do other things. During that intensive time, there wouldn't be that kind of... I found that passage. Pardon? I found that passage. Okay. There are only about 60 Zen training monasteries in Japan and more than 21,000 ordinary Zen temples.

[74:14]

Although all Zen monks spend some time, a year or two on average, in a training monastery early in their career. 5% of the ordained Zen clergy is actively engaged in communal monastic discipline at any time. The other 95% are ordinary temple priests who marry, raise families, and make a living by providing the parishioners with funerals and memorial services. So that 60 temples include Zen monks? Yeah, Zen monks. So that... Go into the book. Some of that's in the master. That's in page 38. Yeah. Maybe the three women's monasteries also. I'm curious as to what the other two of them are. When I did Zvi Se at Eheji, there was a nun there who lived in a temple with her teacher. And I don't know, I didn't understand if there was any other nuns training there. And her teacher was in the lineage from Ryokan. So Ryokan had this wonder, this love affair with this woman, which is celebrated.

[75:20]

Book of poetry between them. They're letters to each other. She trained at various places, but she didn't train at this place. Anyways, so she was training at that temple, so that, I don't know if that would be called a ni-soto, the ni-soto, that Soto Zen approves as a ni-soto. So there may be other places where nuns are training with their teachers. And we had a woman who came here, she was a Jodo Shinshu nun, Her name was Tessho Kondo. She lived actually with Risa and me at 293 Page. She was in our room. And she had a temple in Japan I visited, a nice little temple in Kyoto. It was a Jodo Shinshu. So there may be Jodo Shinshu nuns who take care of small temples at various places. But anyway, the number of nuns is small. But you do see in Kyoto, you do see nuns on the street quite often. Frequently on the street, myself.

[76:22]

I have a question. You didn't see them? Not frequently. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, if I was downtown, you know, I would see, like, I would see not as many as monks, but anyway, they're out there, but they're the minority. Yeah, they're priests. In Japan, I would say the nuns, I feel that they may not, there may be some hierarchy there, but they seem to be functioning just like priests. Why is it that we say nuns and monks in Japanese and priests when we're talking about us? Their training is different. There's a difference between the training the women get and the training the men get. When I was at the convent in Nagoya, for example, and I went to morning service, it was not like morning service at Zuyoji.

[77:24]

It was much more ragged. They didn't have the same training. They get training in tea and flower arranging. They don't get, and I was told they don't get the kind of education that the men get. It's very different. But I would also say that, just in this conversation, I would try to say monks for both of them in our situations. I think it is interesting that when Japanese monks come to Zen Center, we just naturally say a Japanese monk is coming, but if it's an American, we say a priest. Because usually they're coming from a monastery. No, no, no. Oh, okay. So maybe if they were coming from... Yeah. That's a monk from Tassajara coming. But we don't. Because ordained Americans are not necessarily monastics, whereas the Japanese, at least for a period of time.

[78:32]

But often they're... Well, I guess they usually do come from the monastery. So Zinkereshi usually said priest. to these, you know, what are called obo-san in Japanese. He usually called himself a priest and other people priests. And he said, priest ordination. We didn't say monk ordination in those days. And he said priest and layman, right? Didn't say monk and layman very often. But he did sometimes say monk when referring to, you know, ancient practitioners. He didn't necessarily call Jojo a priest. So when he's talking about ancient people, maybe he would say, look, you can look in his lectures and call them monks. Talking about present day, he would say priest. But we're groping for the words, right? Interesting that we have the cultural thing. Maybe it's because they're coming from a monastery. I think it might be a projection sometimes, too. Like, they're this something special other than us. They're like a real monk.

[79:33]

Maybe they're doing the same thing. I was in Ireland. I was asked to give a talk to women teachers, which I did, which I started out by saying, by introducing myself as a Zen priest. And at the end of the talk, in question period, this man raised his hand and said, I came to this talk with a certain expectation because I knew that you were a woman. When you said you were a priest, he said he watched his expectation raise. It just went up like that, just with the word priest. And I had specifically used, I wanted to use the word priest as opposed to monk or whatever. Or student. Or student. So it allowed somebody to take in the words as more validated by just using priest. Another thing which I'd like to say is that I had a relationship with Suzuki Roshi.

[80:44]

I had a relationship with Katagiri Roshi. I had a relationship with Tatsugami Roshi. I had a relationship with Yoshimura Sensei, who came to Zen Center shortly after I did. I had a relationship with Kobinchino Roshi. I have a relationship with—I still do—with Hoichi Suzuki Roshi. I had a relationship with Richard Baker Roshi. I had some relationship with Thich Nhat Hanh. I had a relationship with Narzaki Ikko Roshi, etc. I've had relationships with a number of priests. And I received some training from all of them. There was not one formal training experience that I had. It's actually with all of them has been my training.

[81:48]

And a lot of things that I'm doing now in a training relationship are things which I didn't quite realize were going on when they were And they emerged in my relationship with people without me intending that they would. And then I realized afterwards that actually they were there in my early relationships. If I'm editing a book and I'm reading a transcript, I often think, you know, I'm editing, so I often think, well, I should say this, this, and this. And I sometimes do. And then a page later, there it is. I've already, you know, the reason I already said it. And when I first started attending priests, I was not trained at how, I was not, Richard Baker, as it goes, he didn't teach me how to train priests.

[82:52]

And I really didn't, you know, anyway, I didn't really think, oh, when I ordained people, I thought, Zen Center, and people want to become ordained as priests. I'm the abbot. I have to ordain them. But I didn't think, oh, now I have to train them. When I got ordained, I didn't even then think Shizuka Roshi was going to train me. And when Richard Baker ordained people, I didn't think, oh, he's going to train them. I thought he was more like in priesthood, but I didn't think he or Shizuka Roshi had a training program in mind. It didn't dawn on me. Then after they were ordained, it gradually dawned on me that there's some expectation in the world somehow of them being trained. And then I realized that Suzuki Roshi, the way he trained me was he showed me mutuality. That he taught me that sometimes he would ask me about what he was doing or he would tell me about what he was doing.

[83:54]

He wouldn't just tell me what to do. And I remember Narzaki Roshi came to talk when I was abbot. And his jisha asked me to tell him not to go to Zazen because he would have gone to Zazen as a guest if I as abbot didn't ask him not to. So his jisha taught him how to train priests And so Narasaki taught me through his jisha that I need to tell the teacher to take a rest because otherwise the teacher would, as a guest, you know. And also, actually I should mention, Suzuki Roshi's wife also taught me, also trained me about things she saw Suzuki Roshi do while he was alive and afterwards. So she also let me come into her kitchen where he was So part of my education was because she let me come into their house and hang out with him.

[84:58]

I trained with her, but also she transferred to me and she would talk to me about her life and what she was thinking of doing. Somehow she decided when she was going to have gallbladder operation, she came to me and asked me if it was all right, you know, to have her gallbladder removed. She transferred that she should talk to one of her husband's senior students about what she was doing with her life, and I was available to talk to her. And she probably asked Richard Baker things like that too, but I was living in the building with her. So she would actually ask me about her life and what she was doing. So a lot of the training is stuff that I didn't really know I was going to do beforehand, but has gradually come forward and shown itself to be appropriate and necessary. But there was not the program before. Now it's somewhat more programmatic because I'm articulating this to you. But it wasn't given to me in an articulated way.

[86:06]

It wasn't given to me as a program, as a system. But it was given, and now when the conditions are right, it comes out again. And I think this might be similar to what I was saying. I don't know. I don't think they're very systematic. In the training situation, they have systematic trainings, but the overall life of a priest, I think, is more like this. So again, the key element, I think, is relationship and intimacy. And in that intimacy, these archetypal forms, I think, of training come out. I think probably throughout human existence this happens. Carolyn had a question. Should we put this on? Try to get this... Yes?

[87:08]

It's very short. It's about feedback in Japan, feedback from students to teachers. Yeah. And that doesn't sound like it's present. I don't see much of it. And there's no questioning of authority. I never heard of a Japanese teacher asking the students individually... or as a group, saying, do you have any feedback for me? They probably do. I never... Suzuki asked me for feedback, but he did discuss with me things like he... When he... He did talk to me about Richard Baker being Abbott. He talked to me about giving Dharma Transmission to Bo Kuang. He didn't say, can I? But he shared it with me. And I don't think he was expecting much feedback, but... Tell me what he was, some things he was thinking about. And I think he did that with other people, too. Yeah. You related to that about the relationship between student and teacher.

[88:11]

When I was studying tea, it was explicitly stated they were very strong and explicit students and teachers, and it did not include socializing. Students did not socialize with teachers. It was very strict. And my impression was in the temple that that was similar, that the relationship between the monks and the senior people was very, very formal. extremely formal. There was not the opportunity for informal conversation. But as soon as you left the temple, it totally changed. Being with the monks outside. Yeah, yeah, that the same, you know, the person who in the temple was just this, you know, formidable, formal, had very strong barriers, you could go outside the temple and have a meal inside and just chat.

[89:23]

And I mentioned that to another Westerner who had been there for some time, and he confirmed that. He said that was typical. He had experienced that himself. that kind of situation, that outside the temple the roles were dropped. This wasn't teacher-disciple necessarily, but someone, a person in a teaching role or God. I thought outside the temple would be like after you got to the road, basically. Like, using green gulch as the… all of this would be… Yeah, that's what I mean, like really off the… Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, outside the ritual. Right, right.

[90:30]

So, the one difference is that inside the ritual container, It's still formal, but in the formal situation, you don't allow feedback from student to teacher, in the formal situation. So I don't think, I would say that in my training relationships with priests and also lay people, they aren't really social. But also outside the temple, they're not really social anywhere. That's the difference. is that I don't go out to bars with you and then talk about stuff that I don't talk about here. I don't think we have those two extremes. We don't, yeah. But we do have something I think they don't have, is that in the formal situation, we have allowing for feedback and disagreement with ...public and in private. And I don't think that's so common in Japan for the students to formally, in the container, disagree with the teacher. But they have maybe this other place where they do it.

[91:32]

Maybe outside they can do it in a social situation. And another thing which I would like to say, and I'd like to... I think should be said for you guys, and whether it goes in the book or not, it can be said without putting disparaging, is that in temples, high-level training temples like sviyogi, in the back rooms, the senior monks are drinking. So it's a very intense training, and at night, They don't drink in the morning, I don't think. But at night, after the day is over, they drink whiskey, usually. Not beer, maybe, but especially whiskey. There's a whiskey-drinking annex on the temple grounds for the senior monks. Not the monks who are there for a month's training. And they're good trainers. But there's... I think some drink a little, but I would say it's a common thing.

[92:42]

It probably doesn't get abused very often because they're living this rigorous training thing, right? But also I've been at temples where the abbot of the temple calls me at night on the intercom and says, you know, do you need any medicine? Kusuri, irimasu ka? Need any medicine? What? Medicine? You need any? What? Medicine? I don't know how common it's used, but that's what the person said to me. You know, I remember one of the presidential races a couple years ago when Gary Hart was running. and the run-up to it, they had a profile of the different candidates, and then one of the items in the profile was what medication they take at night. And it said, one guy says, a glass of wine.

[93:49]

One guy said, you know, quite a bit of whiskey. Another one said, none, you know. But for presidents to drink whiskey is not necessarily considered a disqualifier, but they could actually find out how much alcohol these different candidates imbibed. Some did, some didn't. Some did quite a bit, some did a little bit. But it just, it was medication. you know, regular medication, what they called it. So anyway, the abbot said to me, do you need any medicine? Or whiskey? And I said, yeah, let's do it, man. All night, let's party. But I'm just saying that there's that side to it too, that there's the outside venue of social life I've also heard from Westerners that if you really want to talk to Japanese, get them drunk. They'll tell you, they'll really tell you, they'll spill their guts.

[94:49]

But when they're sober in a business situation, it's very, they don't really say certain things, but they will say certain things. Yeah? I don't know about in Japan, but I have the impression that in Korea, Drinking is an adequate excuse for all kinds of behavior. It's things that you couldn't say or do normally. If you're drunk, it's okay that you said or did that. So that someone could act very irresponsibly, but it would be understood and excused because he was drunk. Yeah, and I've also heard it said in Japan that being a Zen priest is an excuse for acting irresponsibly. Yeah, that because you're a Zen priest, priests from other schools, because you're a Zen priest, you can eat meat and get drunk because you're a Zen priest.

[95:52]

And then, I guess, do whatever else. But because you're a Zen priest, basically, you can do anything because you're enlightened, right? So there's these very And they're not yet said in America. And I think also AA, I think AA is not that strong in Japan. What is AA? I don't think it's very strong in Japan. I don't think Japan has, I don't know what level of alcoholism is going on there. I do not think it's as great as in America. It's a serious problem, actually. You think it is? I've heard that, yeah. Maybe it's changed. But it doesn't mean it's being addressed yet. Anyway, I don't see lots of... When I was in Japan, I very seldom saw drunk people on the streets. Whereas in England, you know, it's like people are all just drinking so obvious. If you're out in the streets, everybody's drinking so much there. So I don't know. But anyway, the alcoholism problem in the United States, of course, is severe.

[96:55]

The drug problem, they don't really, I don't think they have as much drug problems in Japan. You won't hear about the drug wars in Japan. Do you hear about it? I don't think they have the problem of bringing over tons of cocaine in Japan the way we do here. I don't think they have, what do you call it? I think we've got problems here that they don't have there. I think it's a difference. I think Japan, the number of murders per year is about the same as the number in Stockton. The last I checked. Like 130. Yeah. I saw it. There were some guys there who worked for the Shuma show. But then they were sent to Tsuruyoji for a period of a week or a couple of weeks to work with us. And then they'd go back to Tokyo and then come back to... And when they traveled, they wore street clothes.

[98:05]

Then they'd get to Tsuruyoji and then they'd put on their monk's suit. And I was really surprised to see that. You know, these guys who, like, when they were at Tsumioji, were, like, you know, impeccably dressed with samoe or robes. But when they were going out the gates, they would put on a suit. And I think it was because priests are not so respected in Japan. They didn't want to be seen particularly as, you know, as a good man around, I think. I'm not sure that that was my... impression that they didn't want to make that trip, particularly, and as a priest. Why do you say priests are not respected? Because they're... That's your impression, actually. This is my impression, yeah, that as an institution, the Buddhists

[99:13]

You know, temples are very wealthy in Japan. They make their money from funerals that are very expensive. And like Rip said, you know, they drink whiskey and do funerals. they did not like one or two years of spiritual training and then after that it's something more like a business maybe yeah i'm not saying that there aren't some people who are respected but that might enlarge but that's How are you feeling, Arlene? Okay. Well, thank you very much for that.

[100:21]

And our next meeting will be when? Is there a session next Monday? I think we can meet in the morning. Okay. Arlene might have trouble coming. You might have trouble coming. Charlotte, calling over here. There's no meeting next Monday? Correct. So Ando and I will be away in April. When do you come back? Come back in April. April? April. for a little more than three weeks. We're waiting for 10 days to Turkey and two weeks to France. There's no meeting the first Monday of May. That's good. We won't be there. We won't be there for that. You won't be back by then?

[101:19]

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