In the last class we focused on teaching that karma is chetana. And I'd like to say again that part of the reason why I brought this up was because it the term intention had been brought up, and I think Carolyn used the word chaitanya in her talk, didn't you? Yeah. So the word chaitanya came up in Carolyn's talk, plus I'd been getting ready to talk to you about ritual. And so I wanted to connect this thing called chetana, which is the definition of action with ritual. I'm continuing to try to do this.

[01:04]

So, last night we had a little discussion about the word intention and so we looked it up in the dictionary and the English word intention was defined as a plan of action or an aim that guides action. And another possible translation that people use for chaitanya is volition. And volition is an act of willing, choosing or deciding conscious choice. And another word is that sometimes is used to translate chaitanya is will, the English word will, which is defined as the mental capacity, mental faculty by which deliberate deliberate

[02:20]

or by which one deliberately chooses a course of action. So all those definitions sound like there's this thought, like a choice or a will or a plan, a thought, which leads to action. or guides action. So when I read the definition for, one of the definitions for intention where it says, an aim that guides action, the Buddhist teaching would be more like intent, the Buddhist, the chaitanya is more like an aim which guides further action or an aim which is the source of further action because an aim in this teaching is an action.

[03:27]

A decision is part of action. So the words, the English words intention as they appear in the dictionary, volition and will do not work for chaitanya. although all those activity, all those thoughts, all the type of mental phenomena are part of what the Buddha uses to define action, karma. They're all included in chaitanya. So it's hard to find one English word to translate it. Two English words work pretty well. Overall pattern. The overall pattern of consciousness is cetana. That's the way it's usually defined. Translated into one word, it's hard to find a word. Some people have tried synergy, which is not in the dictionary, but there's synergists.

[04:35]

So within an ordinary state of consciousness, according to the analysis of the Buddhist tradition, there is decision, there can be planning, and there can be contradictory plans, contradictory decisions. It's the overall pattern And the Chinese word, the Chinese character that's usually used for, I have to do it sort of in the air because I don't have anything to draw. Oh, here we go. The Chinese character that's usually, not always, but often used, most often used to translate chaitanya is this character. which means thinking, usually translated as thinking.

[05:41]

And it's a nice character because the top part of the character is a pattern, a pattern of a rice paddy. It means rice paddy or rice field. But it's also kind of a pattern. And below it is mind. So you could etymologize the character as the pattern of mind. It means thinking. So... It is dry, isn't it? Thank you. Okay. So in a sense, the way the Buddha teaches is that thought, not all aspects of thought are action. Consciousness itself is not said to be action. It's just awareness. However, consciousness arises with a complement of many mental factors, many functions.

[06:48]

The overall pattern of these functions together with awareness itself is called thinking or shetana, overall pattern. And that's the definition of action. That's the source of all action in the sense of action that's relevant to bondage and liberation. Bondage is reinforced by this type of action and bondage is liberated by the process of studying this action, karma. So once again, in the Buddha's teaching, action and thinking are not two different things. Physical action, that motivator has its source in mental action, is cognitive activity.

[07:59]

a posture that's intended or that emerges from the source of the mind, that's karma. An action maybe like salivating or your fingernails growing or your hair growing, these are not usually considered to be karma. They don't originate from thinking. But all postures and speech that come from thinking are also karma. They're cognitive activities. They're cognitively sponsored action. But the source of them is mental action. So bodily movements are not mental, but they're cognitive when they're karma. Vocal expressions are not mental, but they're cognitive. And they arise from the basic activity, from the activity of mind.

[09:06]

The activity of mind is the overall pattern of given moment of consciousness. So now I'd like to start talking about ritual, if I may. And So part of what I'm going to talk to you about is Western and Eastern views of ritual. So I propose to you that one Eastern view of ritual is, for example, that we have in this tradition three pure precepts, which I mentioned also the other day. The first of the three pure precepts is the embracing and sustaining of ritual ceremony regulations.

[10:07]

And this precept is further taught as the reality body of the Buddha. So according to this teaching, Buddhahood is a ritual performance. So we have this text called the Phukan Zazengi. And I wrote a little article about it in Warm Smiles from Cold Mountain. And these are the cold mountains that I was referring to in the title. There's a chapter called The Ceremony of Zazen.

[11:19]

Fukan Zazen Gi, the word Gi, is on the cover of the book. It means ceremony or ritual. This character. Oops. This part means person. This part means meaning or righteousness. So that's the last character, gi, in Fukanzazen-gi. And almost nobody... translates it, among the various people who translate it, almost nobody says, the universal admonitions for the ceremony of Zazen.

[12:26]

They usually say universal admonitions or universal encouragements for Zazen or for the procedure of Zazen or the method of Zazen. But the character means ceremony or ritual. It's instructions for a ritual. And it's an instruction for a ritual which is said to be... It's not just learning meditation, it's totally culminating enlightenment. It's a ceremony for the total culmination of enlightenment.

[13:28]

It's a means by which our ultimate concern supreme enlightenment and saving all beings. It's a means by which our ultimate concern is generated, experienced and affirmed as reality by the community. That's what the text is about. Some people who have studied ritual in various societies have suggested that religions are composed of ultimate concerns, beliefs, faiths,

[14:42]

ideals and rituals. As I've mentioned before on the tape, which unfortunately is not recorded, I think it's very important for me to reiterate that a lot of people who have ultimate concerns, whether they know them or not, come to Zen Center to get away from rituals that they didn't like. They were performed incorrectly. And so they come here and they're now faced with what they were running away with from, namely rituals and ceremonies. And also some people came to this center to get away from religion and they got here and there's a religion here. There's faith here and there's ritual here. And some people would say that the faith or the ideals of religions are mental, are thought, and the rituals are action.

[15:58]

So there again in the Western tradition, and I feel it in myself, like think before you act, you know? You can't think before you act. As soon as you think, you've acted. But anyway, with this split in our culture, that's the way ritual looks. And in some ways, I feel that ritual, as I said, ritual is a way to bring this split out into the open. So, at the first level, the first observation is that ritual is one thing and thought is another. Thinking is one thing. Life values and ideals are one thing and action is another and ritual is that. Rituals are seen then also as ways, actions which remind a community or an individual

[17:04]

both actually, remind an individual and community of these values, of these ideals, of these faiths. It reminds us of it. It reaffirms our commitment to it. There's a next step, which I also mentioned before, and that is that once you split, which is already in our mind, once you split thought or ideals or faith and ritual action, then once the ritual is going on, the ritual serves the function of reuniting action with thought. It reintegrates them. If they're separated, we've got a problem.

[18:11]

We need them to be reintegrated so that our life actions are generating and affirming and experiencing the value, and ritual does that. But somehow it's split apart first. First it is discriminated from thought, from the values, and then it reintegrates what has been discriminated or differentiated. So it's a way that individual behavior and perception are socially appropriated and conditioned. When you're doing ritual, your individual perception is involved, your individual behavior is involved, but when you're doing a ritual, the society in which you live can appropriate your activity because you're doing a ritual.

[19:19]

And they can condition it. When you do a ritual, you avail yourself of being appropriated by the society which shares the ritual with you and being conditioned by the society, or as I mentioned the other day, carved by the society, shaped by the group in which you perform the ritual. So all of us during this practice period have been performing various rituals, like it or not. You may say, I never did a ritual the whole time I was during practice period. But some people, some anthropologists here think you do. They saw you doing some rituals. The training of a of a Buddha, in one sense, is taking a sentient being and training them until they understand that everything they do is a ritual.

[20:29]

Everything they do is appropriated and conditioned by the community. Everything they do is for the realization of their faith. Everything they do is integrating thought and action, integrating beliefs and action, integrating ideals and action. It takes a long time to make such a creature. That's what a Buddha is. A Buddha is ritual performance. And some people are that way in a moment, and then the next moment they lose it. But at that moment, as it says in this tradition, when you practice the ritual one moment, that's a moment of Buddha. When you do the ritual one moment, you are performing Buddhahood.

[21:38]

There's one thing here that I thought I might just mention before much further, and that is this part about ritual activity... ritual activity... Ritual activity of something. Anyway, so here's an example. I'm sometimes doshi here for morning service and I perform the prostrations to the ancestors in the lineage that I feel responsible for.

[22:47]

And then when the names of the women practitioners are recited, I have not been doing prostrations. And this has been an example of where in some sense the community has appropriated me because I'm doing a ritual, and has been conditioning me. And so this is an example of a ritual conditioning. And so I'd like to actually discuss with the community today you know, is there some way that you, other than doing prostrations, that you feel, if I'm in the position of being the ritual actor for that position, is there some way other than prostrations that I could express respect for female practitioners?

[23:55]

I'm asking about that. And for this discussion, since I think there might be so many people, maybe it's better if you stay in your seats today. Yes. I'm trained as an anthropologist, and I'll use your example. And more contemporary theory would argue that anything, like ritual, but not only ritual, would cause the person, not necessarily the ritual, but the person. And the person, through the enactment of the ritual or the performance of an identity, also carves the society. So let's look at the female ancestors. You sense that you're being carved by a certain tradition and understanding, but other doshis who bow for the female ancestors, who perform prostrations, are not only being carved

[25:01]

by the ritual and by the received tradition. They are, in fact, carving it simultaneously. So it's more of a dialogue. But I'm trying to carve it too. People don't like the way I'm carving it. Yeah, I'm just saying it's not just a top-down. It's much more dialogic. Yeah, right. So I'm talking about now us carving the tradition. There has been an attempt to carve the tradition by introducing the names. The next step in carving the tradition was people doing prostrations. But I didn't feel that was appropriate for me. So I'm saying, you can carve me, you can try to carve me, and then I will, and then my response will be carving the tradition too. So that's what I'm talking about today, is let's carve a tradition. Let's carve a ritual. Yes? Well, I want to respond to your comment that people didn't like what you were doing. at least for me, it wasn't that I didn't like it, it's that it's painful for me.

[26:01]

Well, that's what I meant. People found it painful. But there's a difference. Okay. Not liking it, I can put up with it and go, okay, well, that's what he's doing. When it's painful for me, then I have to say something. Okay, so people find it painful. Some people found it painful. So when somebody tells me I'm doing something they find painful, then I think, well, Do you have some suggestion of something else I can do?" And you did. So that could be one of the suggestions. Yes? Can I ask you a question before we get into this discussion about what you were saying right before? Yeah. So it sounds like you were saying that everything we do is a ritual. I would say ritual is the base, not everything we do. Some things, I would say, I would go along with people who say ritual is the basic social act. Not all actions we do are social acts.

[27:02]

Like some people, when they go to the toilet, they do not do a ritual. But obsessive compulsives and Zen monks, they do do a ritual when they go to the toilet. There's a difference? Yes, there's a difference. And we want to integrate that. But some people don't really, like a child I don't think does a ritual when they're just lying in bed and pooping in their pants, I don't think it's a ritual. But like my grandson, right, there was a phase, he's not that way anymore, but there was a phase when he was going to the toilet, when he had to go, he would go, he'd say, I gotta go to the toilet, he would go to the toilet, but he couldn't yet wipe. very well at all. So he would invite someone to go with him.

[28:04]

And when he was at our house, there were like mother, grandmother and grandfather available to assist him. His going to the toilet was a ritual. It became something he didn't just let go. It was a social thing. And then he would choose who got the honor And on one particular occasion, he chose his grandmother, who he calls in Chinese, Abu. So he chose Abu, and Abu went in with him. And he was sitting there, and he said, Abu, it was really hard to choose. But I chose you. In that case, going to the toilet is a ritual. It's a social act. The basic social act is where your individual behavior is appropriated and conditioned by your social group.

[29:09]

So it's not the only kind of action. It's the basic social action. When you practice and make everything you do a ritual enactment, of your values of benefiting all beings and realizing supreme enlightenment, then that's Buddhahood. That answered it, huh? Great. I somewhat disagree with that because I think that actually Action is a ritual. We just recognize it at a certain point as a ritual. But it's continual. Because, like, in the sense of nothing is hidden for, like, there's not, like, I think also mind only, like, everything is an enactment. It's just more or less. No.

[30:14]

Okay, well. So it's just another kind of, That's the point of view of what I mentioned the other day. Somebody's saying, aren't we always helping everybody and isn't everybody always helping us? Yeah. So the point of view you're looking from is Buddha's point of view. Everybody's actually doing the ritual of the Buddha way. Everybody actually is Buddha. But most people don't get it and you have to do certain practices. You have to consciously do rituals in order to understand what you're saying is true. I was kind of wondering, or I've been wondering for a long time, there's certain writings of Dogen that seem to be more like a philosophical war. are giving the teaching, again the koan, and then there is a lot of writings that are very explicit about rituals. And they are very important, too.

[31:19]

And I was always wondering what the context of that. And when I tried to understand my own teaching, then it kind of comes together. And now I'm going back to what you said before. I don't think that Southern isn't any way it leads to something else. And I think you said that it is not like that we're doing a ritual to arrive someplace else. It's only that there is the ritual. It's difficult for me to kind of get closer to this. But that's kind of my question. Does that make sense? I don't see the question. What's the question? Well, if we have the request that Dogen teaches the mind only, if we are kind of always in a dream, and the dream is also the liberation,

[32:36]

then there is no split, there is not like here is the ritual and here is the reality. Right. And in order to realize that, we seem to need to put the ritual out there. and separate it from thought in order to focus on it and to perform the ritual in such a way that the ritual is the realization of the value. We need to look at the ritual until we realize the ritual is not out there or in here. And in that sense the ritual is the Dharma body of Buddha, is that the ritual So when you look at the precept of forms and regulations and rituals, that precept, you might think, oh, it's doing those things.

[33:41]

Well, it's true, but it's doing those things as Dharmakaya, namely doing those things without any elaboration. Like there's no elaboration of those things being out there. There's no elaboration of those things existing or non-existing. It's just the action done so purely that it's integrated into with everything. But I'd like to, I invite you to talk about, help me figure out how to perform that ceremony in such a way that you feel like I'm really expressing my respect for female practitioners because I'm not going to do the ceremony anymore until I feel like I'm able to express respect. If what I'm doing is hurting people, I'm not going to do it. I have other things to do. Plenty of stuff where people don't feel like I'm hurting them. I'll do those. But I'm not going to do something just because people want me to or other people are doing it. Like I don't perform the Eucharist in the Catholic Church.

[34:44]

I don't do that. Even if people wanted me to, I wouldn't necessarily do it. I mean, I might if you wanted me to. I'd consider it. But there's a lot of things I'm not going to do just because people want me to. But I would like to find a way to, in that situation, if there was a way I could do that that you felt was expressing respect, I'd like to hear about it. Did you have your hand raised? I did. Yeah. For me, so the underlying microphone? Yeah. A few points. First, understanding the underlying distinction between the forms. sisters, which my understanding is that you are performing it as you were taught. Yeah, I was taught that by Suzuki Roshi. And I loved, because I hadn't thought of this, but I loved the question of the balance of, because we're maintaining these Japanese traditions and bringing

[35:49]

American now needs to create and create forms here. So, and I lose the importance of not losing too much ancient traditions too quickly, they wouldn't organically meet the need. Because I think it's too easy for them in teaching to be lost. That's just a question, what that balance is. So I really appreciate, at this point, your standing for a distinction between the two, because that's true for you. And that's a great example for me of not doing something It's because it would be popular to do it and maintain the tradition and yet be open to the change. May I also, would you say that the next generation could change it? I thought that was really interesting. Well, the next generation already has changed it. Some people who are the next generation of me, in a sense, are doing it differently than I'm doing it.

[36:51]

And they're very popular. I don't know if there's more words that could be said, you know, in acknowledgement of the pain of those women and what they had to do to practice. And I don't know if there's more of a statement that could be said. I don't know if there's any sense lighting that they wanted to really be different. in the prostration series for the male, there might be just something, another ceremony that just brought forth gratitude and respect for the actual words for himself. Yeah. There could be a new thing that we haven't tried yet, and that is an expression of atonement to the history of the tradition. In that regard, that could be said. And then it would be an atonement thing. It's a possibility.

[37:54]

And I think that has been considered. Yes, thank you. Anybody else have their hand raised and want to speak? Thank you. This is the thing that sticks in my mind every time the subject comes up, and that is the role of the individual. Why is the individual mispracticed? making these decisions, where you talk about ritual as an expression of the community or an act within the community, but what I keep hearing is that it's what you were doing at the altar, it's linked to the lineage that you and Roshi feel connected with.

[39:05]

And that seems, in my mind, to go against or to diverge from the purpose of ritual. Because there seems to be some personal identity, some ego there in a place that surprises me, that is not And if it were not there, if there was complete openness to honoring our ancestors male or female, then regardless of personal lineage, then it seems to me there would not be an issue. OK. Let's just ask that you hold the microphone a bit away from your mouth.

[40:09]

Well, I just wanted to comment about our conversation and just offer up what we had talked about, which was to treat it the same way that we treat the other echoes, and the Prajnaparamita echo in particular, because it is addressed to the feminine, and by asking you to stand in ,, instead of kneeling in the same way that the rest of the community And you and I have talked about that. And you asked me whether or not I felt like it would be less painful. And even now, having considered it, I'm not sure. So it's one experiment. How would people feel about that form? Yes? Well, I wouldn't say you're supposed to stand.

[41:22]

Yeah. So Makla said she didn't know that we were supposed to stand during the recitation of the hymn to Prajnaparamita, and I wouldn't say you're supposed to stand. I wouldn't say that. Again, this is not a traditional form. We introduced this, actually Steve Weintraub made this up, this statement, and it was originally an echo that he wrote up when he was maybe Eno or something. It was an echo which we recited after chanting the Diamond Sutra. And it's an abridgment of something called the Hymn to Prajnaparamita, which is translated by Edward Kansa in Buddhist texts through the ages. So that's where that came from. And then a few years ago, we thought about, well, how about starting to chant that as part of recognition of the feminine? And then there was, I don't think there was agreement. You're supposed to stand when you do it. It's just that you come back from, usually the way we do it now, you're coming back, you're walking back from

[42:26]

from the altar. And so some people just come back and stand and chant it. But I think kneeling is okay with me. It's not an established thing about that you're supposed to stand or sit, as far as I know. But if you ask, we can make it. You're trained to kneel. Okay. So some people are kneeling and some people are standing there. So I was standing. I've been standing, partly because I'm standing and also the show Samyo is going to come up. Again, part of the aesthetic that was transmitted to me by Suzuki Roshi is he felt he didn't want these big American bodies going up and down too much. So he actually reduced the number of—he suggested he reduced the number of prostrations during the daio shows from nine to eight. He suggested that to me and Silas Holdley, who he trained just before he died.

[43:29]

And he just sort of—so I got the feeling, don't go up and down too much. So coming back from the altar after the Heart Sutra, knowing that there's going to be the Shosai Myo, I thought, well, if I kneel for the Prajnaparamita and I stand for the Shosai Myo, it's kind of like coming back down and up quite quickly. And so you're not going to be settled even by the time the chant starts. It's an aesthetic decision made up. But I kind of wondered if you want to look at this. I'm just interested in your response to this particular suggestion. Yes? If I understood what Daya was saying, it doesn't strike me as more respectful to be standing than kneeling. We could decide that here that was more respectful, but I don't think it would communicate to anybody else. I thought the idea of doing something different that mentions in an echo, atonement, maybe that's the word, but something like that, you know,

[44:32]

We regret that. There's more expression in the echo of why we have this whole group of women names and a whole group of men names that don't include any women. You can't go into a whole, I couldn't say very much, but enough that would make it a different thing than what we're doing with the ancestors. And that the explanation of what we're doing would be right there so that anyone who heard it maybe they wouldn't have to have this kind of conversation again if we came up with something. I mean, it would communicate. So in that context, then, would we stop chanting the acharyas? Or chant them as... So I personally would still be left with the same issue. I think what Leslie's saying, though, is that the introductory part where we say... But then would people feel like I would need to prostrate in order to respect women? That's the question.

[45:34]

I wondered if it were broken down in that way, with a segment with a very specific meaning, not as a continuation of ancestry, but as these are our women predecessors. How about just one long prostration? That's what one person does. One person just bows down and stays there the whole time. The atonement couple, that's really beautiful and meaningful. And before I was wondering, each segment, each detail of the ritual, of the service, has a meaning. And you spoke to that when you were answering Don's question about the realization of that You know, that something good is going to come.

[47:12]

There's some more people over here. So in that suggestion, you know, you told me She had noticed that Darlene Curran wasn't being called prostrations anymore, but was standing up and bowing and lifting her hands above her head, and I was just wondering if that's sort of possible to appropriate, because it's a different form of acknowledgement, the importance of the Lord, or the ritual of that issue. I just wondered whether that might be... It's like not going up and down with the prostration. It's just bowing one's head and lifting one's hands. Well, the reason why I think she did that is because she couldn't bow. Yeah. But I mean, I understand that, but that doesn't mean it can't be used for a different... So I just want to respond to a couple of comments that have been made specifically and just express a lot of our thoughts here.

[48:32]

So one thing is, it seems to me that it could be appropriate to have an echo immediately after the patriarchs, the ancestors, and then have a separate section of the service that would be about the women. And to me, actually, this idea of atonement is, I have to say, a little uncomfortable. To me, the reason why we mention the women ancestors is to appreciate their support of the passing down of the dharma. that they too played a role in your in your ability, in the teaching that you offer, in making that able to come to us. And I would like to see that that be acknowledged in some sort of echo, and perhaps that might shape the list.

[49:34]

I have to admit that I don't even know much about how the list was determined at this point. And lastly, in terms of the actual form, so I also kind of feel like standing in Gesho is maybe... marginally more acceptable to me than kneeling, but an actual standing dasho bow, like you would do for the Sixteen Arhats or any number of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas who are also mentioned throughout other ekkos, or the deceased benefactors for that matter, right? So to pay the same level of respect as you would to those folks or matrimonials that are echoes. And to me, that would mean that you would lower your head, perhaps not all the way to the floor, if you feel that that is a meaning I want to reserve for the particular male ancestry that, as you say, you have taken the vow to have received, but certainly to lower your head to some extent.

[50:45]

So let's see, Joanne and Mako. I think I have this feeling of why differentiate at all? To examine the question, well, you're not willing to put the same respect to the males as the males. And for me, it comes back to the quality of the same treatment for both the males and the females. Yeah. simply. I mean, as little I know, the male lineage is constructed similarly to the women's. That's not to the same extent that there's degrees of construction. It's not reality or truth.

[51:57]

The details of bowing, not bowing, just Yeah, and the same respect offered to both males and females. I just wanted to put another plug in. I think it was before that what we're calling our male ancestors may not be all men. So I say that because there's evidence that they're not all men. So when you say male ancestry, they're like, oh. It just comes like that. Well, maybe everybody else . There's evidence. I don't know how accurate the evidence is that at least could have been a woman. If there was a ,, maybe there are lots of

[53:03]

but with their stories from the region that there's a female Buddhist teacher named at the same time that Bodhidharma was in that region. And then there's stories about their relationship, their connection. And then there's also some possibility to the transmission of names from one place to another especially going from a culture that has gendered pronouns to one that doesn't, how easily something like that could be dropped. So I just want to say that when we talk about it and we think that we're talking about men and then women, it makes it very divisive. When you open to the possibility that that's not the case, I feel much more soft about it, and I feel like it it undermines, knowing that that possibility is there, undermines the divisiveness that comes up.

[54:04]

So I just want to say that. And I also wanted to say that I really appreciated what Conan said about atonement. For me, I feel like a statement of atonement would be completely different from a statement of appreciation and a statement of respect. So that actually feels kind of... And then I also wanted to ask you the question about prostration. Because you said, what can I do to demonstrate respect without the prostration? And I'm just wondering, what does prostration mean to you? Prostration means to me that I'm joining their particular practice. that I'm entering their lineage. That's what it means. Well, it's not just respect, it's homage.

[55:08]

And homage means you're aligning yourself with them as your practice. That's the way I see it. So there's many people you respect, but not everybody do you accept responsibility for their tradition. But I'm saying I join this tradition. And I feel responsible for this tradition. But I don't do that for all traditions. But it's not that I don't respect Jewish and Hindu and so on and so forth. I'm just not in there. I'm not in there. They didn't invite me. I didn't practice with them. I'm not in their school. So... Yeah, I guess I don't feel like I'm in the fifth ancestor...

[56:21]

I guess I don't feel like I'm in her lineage, even though I understand, you know, I went to the fifth ancestor's temple and there's a hall dedicated to her because she, in the story of his life, she played such an important part. So there's a hall there for her. There's another hall for the sixth ancestor where he pounded the rice. But I don't feel like I'm in her lineage. She's part of the extended family, you might say. But I don't feel like I'm her disciple. I don't feel she's recognized me. So it's mixing an important ritual with something that's been created where to do the same thing for this new realm, it just doesn't seem to be, it doesn't quite fit for me. connected to what Mark has said and what I said about the constructiveness of both the male and female language.

[57:36]

I think of the example you took up earlier in the practice period about Bodhidharma being possibly several people or a mix of different characters, perhaps not even a real person, and yet he's in the lineage of as one example of the construction of the Nile refuge. I also mentioned what Marco said. Yes, and that constructed lineage is one that I honor and am responsible for. But there's other constructed lineages around the world, too. that I'm not responsible for. Yeah, I can relate to that. I mean, I saw the day that Anna took up the issue to begin with, you brought up other religions and lineages, which I think is a little bit of an irrelevant argument.

[58:46]

Let's focus on the issue of Soto Zen practitioners. If I go to another Soto Zen temple, I do not do prostrations to their lineage either. Well, okay, let's talk about, within Buddhism, you don't do prostrations to other people's lineage, because you're not in the lineage. So a male priest doesn't do prostrations to somebody else's male priest lineage. They don't do that. You can say they're both constructed, but they bow to one and they don't bow to the other. And so at Eheji, they stop at Dogen because everybody at Eheji is in the lineage to Dogen. But the other lineage is that people are not required to bow to. So you don't go to somebody else's temple and they ask you to do prostrations to their lineage because it's not yours.

[59:50]

And you're actually not supposed to. And you're actually not supposed to do prostrations until you have Dharma transmission to that lineage. So, if Zen Center had, for some strange reason, made another lineage that they thought was important to have of Soto Zen people down to the present, I would have felt funny bowing to that list of men of another lineage. I would say, well, the people in that lineage didn't ask me to bow to join their lineage. They would say, why are you bowing to us? You're not in our group. You're not in our family. They wouldn't want me to. They wouldn't permit me to. If I said, can I have your permission, they would say, no, it's not appropriate. If you want to practice with us and join our lineage, okay, but otherwise you wouldn't be bowing. So it's not really a male-female thing. It's that I'm not in their lineage. They're not my family. You could say they're my extended family, but so are Theravadan.

[60:55]

You can make a list of all kinds of other lists of women or men. You can extend it as far as you want, but within Soto Zen, there are lineages like Kadagiri Roshi. He's my teacher, but I'm not in his lineage. And he told me that he felt it was impolite for him to be asked to bow to a lineage other than his own at Zen Center. In other words, one that has Suzuki Roshi in it. So. I guess this brings up questions for me with regard to the whole lineage issue and interconnectedness and who teaches us and those sort of things as well. But that's another story. Excuse me. Could some people who haven't spoken, please, have a chance?

[61:55]

There's quite a few here. There's Jean and Abby. Well, this was brought up earlier. When we first started talking about this was I didn't hear what you said there. If there were a what? I think you had mentioned when this conversation first came up that if If there was a lineage that was written up of sotos and teachers that were women... No, no. I'm saying I'm not in that lineage. I'm bowing to the lineage that I have been allowed into, that I went to. That's the lineage I bowed to. The other ones, I'm not in their lineage, even if they're women or men.

[63:02]

I understand. No, but I'm saying Soto Zen the same. What I'm saying is that in Japan, the only women who would bow to a lineage of women would be the ones in that lineage. They wouldn't bow to a lineage of another group of women. I mean, I shouldn't say they wouldn't. They might, but they might not because they say, well, I'm not in that lineage of women. A woman might say that. And a man would say a Soto Zen priest would not bow to would not recite the names and bow to a lineage of some other tradition, of the many lineages coming from Dogen. They wouldn't do it. They take care of their own. But it's not because they disrespect the other one. One of the historical amazements of our tradition is that one of our ancestors had a successor, and the successor died. So when he was old, he had, in order for the Soto Zen, there's only one person in Soto Zen left, and he had a successor, and he lost the successor, and he wanted to find a successor, otherwise that lineage, which is now Soto Zen, would have disappeared.

[64:15]

So he found somebody, a suitable successor, But this person, and he transmitted to them, but this person was already a successor to a Rinzai lineage, to a Linji lineage. And that person said, I will accept transmission from you and I will pass your transmission on to the next generation, but I will not be responsible for this lineage because I have another lineage to take care of. So he transmitted to the next person and that person is in our lineage and he's not because he didn't feel he could take care of two lineages. Some people do. Some people are in more than one lineage, and they bow to more than one lineage. But I myself do not feel that I can just adopt a lineage one-sidedly. So it would be impossible to have a list of women that are in your lineage? That would be impossible to come up with? Is that right?

[65:17]

impossible, logically impossible, yeah. Well, no, unless it turns out that there's a lot of women in the lineage, which is fine with me if there are. We may find out something later. It seems odd that the chariots were accepted. It made me wonder how were they accepted into our ceremonies if they aren't How did that come about? It was a series of many meetings of senior people at Zen Center who wanted to do something to express appreciation for the women who had practiced in the history of the Buddhist tradition all over the world. And that's where it came from. Was there some opposition to that? No, I don't think so.

[66:18]

I didn't oppose it. But when it came time to figure out what to do during the recitation, the group did not say that the doshis has to bow, but the doshis did start bowing, and I didn't. And I don't know if all the doshis immediately started bowing. I didn't say, yes, I think we should bow, and I agreed to bow. I didn't never say that. And we've had discussions, and we allow that the doshis do different things. I've been allowed to do it. But during this practice period, I get the feeling like it's hurting people for me not to do it, so I've stopped. And so it looks like at this point I'm not going to be doing morning service at Zen Center anymore, except maybe when morning service doesn't have any lineage chanting, then I can do it. I think Jean was next. So I really appreciate your devotion to protecting our ancient practices and seeing how they've degenerated in other religions that I'm a part of.

[67:36]

I really appreciate how they're preserved here. And I also appreciate, as you said to me the other day, as you pointed out, that you have so many female disciples and female students, and this is how you support the female lineage. And I don't think you even notice what gender they are. These are your students. And you obviously support women in this way. And I hear your question of how should I honor women during the chanting of the acharyas as quite a challenging question for us, because there are about four things you can do. You know, standing on your head obviously is an emotion, not that that would be all right, but you know, there are not many physical movements that a doshi can do during the ceremony.

[68:40]

And I'm wondering if you have a suggestion of what you would feel would be appropriate. Are you happy with what you seem to be doing, is kneeling in the size that I have, with your hands in your shoulders? I'm not happy with it because I understand it hurts people. So one thing I thought of was circumambulating. I felt okay about that. Circumambulating the altar. Just walk around the altar during the chant. I thought of that. Huh? What? But just sort of, just as a, you know, honoring the Buddha, honoring Bodhidharma, honoring Manjushri, honoring Avalokiteshvara. I do feel comfortable bowing to Avalokiteshvara. I do that practice.

[69:41]

But I don't think of Avalokiteshvara as a woman, even though Avalokiteshvara takes the form of a woman. But I feel comfortable bowing to Avalokiteshvara. I feel comfortable bowing to Tara. I feel comfortable bowing to Jesus. But in this particular setup, circumambulation seems, yeah, I feel comfortable with that. Some people back here. Abby, next, maybe. Somebody over there. Okay. Okay. I just want to ask what's going on in this country. There's a really interesting process now. It's like a process of finding a new way.

[70:53]

I think it's similar like when Dharma from India came to China or Japan. Japan just changed and was a genuine process going on. And this is suffering. A part of this is suffering. Suffering really comes to life. And I was surprised myself also when I saw a male bookstore. and I was in the first row, and I just cried seeing a man bow to the woman. And then I thought, wow, that's strange. I just couldn't stop. And the day after that with this marker, it happened.

[71:56]

The same thing happened to me. I could just see how this was not only I myself. This is much bigger, the suffering that comes out. But at the same time, a process came on, I think, with all of us. A process that saw what is the meaning, actually, of this prostration. Because actually, I see prostration to the lineage, the men and the women. our image is different than the prostration to the woman. Because the woman, this is not a lineage. These are just names of women. They have been chosen, and they don't know exactly how they have been chosen.

[72:59]

So I think the prostration towards those women would be another Just another meaning. That's what I think, but I really respect very much that you stand with your feeling. That for me is the most important to see that. Gives me also... It's an example for me, for example, to stay with what I feel what is true for me, even if a wholesome God has another opinion about that. So I'm actually going to share the process that went on for me. I just wanted to express that I think it would be a great loss both for the community and a painful loss for San Francisco Zen Center if you decided to stop doing morning service with the parameters that you feel are appropriate as lineage folder in this tradition.

[74:22]

Secondly, I like your idea very much of circumambulating the altar. I think that that pays respect to the women Ancestor body, whoever those specific names are. And then lastly, I didn't understand all of the technical parts in the service and the names I think they had already suggested this. But another alternative, I would like your idea more, is that when you bow to all the women ancestors, both known and unknown, remember these names, if you come up, and then let the names be chanted, and then, is it A-C-H-A-R-I-A-G-E-L-L? Bow again, to bookmark it, and then continue with the service. I don't know if that's practical, appropriate, or if it's even been mentioned already, but I am saddened that there's the possibility, actually, that you don't feel

[75:32]

that you want to continue with the morning service in the way that you feel is appropriate, because you feel that it's hurting people. Because actually, I think that it would also cause pain in the other way, too, for other members of the society. Some other people that haven't spoken? I was happy to hear Rose mention that the women aren't in real lineage. I think that's an important point. I remember when they were introduced, and I believe just the Indian Acharyas were originally on the list. And I think they were all contemporaries pretty much of each other who practiced as nuns with the Buddha. And I don't know so much about the Chinese. Japanese Uchayas, but I don't see them as ancestors, and I see them as teachers, and I just see a difference.

[76:34]

And we think part of the problem here is that the two of them are juxtaposed. So there is the male lineage, and then there are the women teachers, and somehow they're being equated because they're next to each other. And I don't know a better place to put the teachers. But I feel that's part of the problem. And I think some ceremony that would help everyone understand that distinction and actually what's happening in the ceremony would be good in the service. I think the echo shows it pretty clearly. But I think there's other thoughts that are coming in that people have. And I also want to agree with Marco and Helen. I would be very uncomfortable if this became an atonement ceremony. I don't know who we are that would be atoning. And I don't know what we're atoning for, actually. I'd be saddened that women have not been acknowledged in the past.

[77:38]

And I'm glad we've acknowledged them. I would like to see a distinction, and I would be very sad. Attention horse, if you stop doing morning service, very sad. I would find that very painful myself. Thank you. I just want to say yes, I agree very much. I think it would be a great loss for a lot of people including me if we would not do morning service anymore. And I feel I want to give up that option like we do sometimes in Green Gulch or most of the time. We have one day just the male ancestors and one day just the female ancestors. and so you could still do the male ancestors on that day and on the male ancestor day there could just be somebody doshri who feels in that lineage or feels that connection who respects that lineage in the way that the sangha would like to have it respected and in this way I feel that would be balanced out and one day all the more lazy ancestors and one day

[78:51]

I felt a resonance with Rose. I would just say I do respect what you do during the assortments. I respect your conviction, your understanding, your truth about that. I'm not uncomfortable with it. I also would feel really sad if you stopped doing normal service. That doesn't seem like a solution. It won't cause me. And I, myself, bow. Do we know that there are no women in our lineage? No, we don't know. So that's why I bow. I bow to that. that the probability in my mind, and I'm not a scholar, so I don't know that the probability, that there are more women and that because of the cultural conditions, they were not seen or brought forward in this formal way.

[80:11]

And so in the seeming, they're there. And that's a big leap. That's what's going on. And also the immensity of the teachings going from country to country and women taking that up in the face of I don't have a problem with what you're doing now, and I don't want to be included in the whole saga. I think Carolyn was next. I wanted to ask about the tradition of self-condemnation, the altar, the one that you used to... ceremonies in temples in Japan or China? I think that circumambulating temples is a... I think, you know, sometimes people say the Buddha did not teach any ceremonies.

[81:20]

And relative to the environment he lived in, he certainly reduced the amount of ceremonies in his practice. But whenever, if you look at the sutras, it says in many, many of the sutras of the historical Buddha... the monk or the lay person approached him, circumambulated him three times, kneeled on one knee, bared the shoulder. So people did approach the Buddha ceremonially, and walking around the Buddha three times is... is, I think, something that people do. And when you go to stupas, you walk around them three times or many times. So for me, walking around the Buddha means I'm walking around the great teacher, and the great teacher includes all the men and all the women. It's not a lineage thing. Anybody can walk around the Buddha. So I don't have to be in any particular lineage to walk around the Buddha, which I thought, to me, that means I'm including everybody. So while these names are being chanted, I'm walking around

[82:22]

the Buddhas and all the Buddhas' disciples. To me, it's an expression of respect for the great teacher and all the great teacher's work and community and teaching, which I think that's the way I would have thought of circumambulating anyway. It's not just the historical Buddha. Circumambulating? Circumambulation is a practice which is done on Buddha's birthday, on Buddha's awakening. It's actually done on the Sejiki ceremony we did. I felt like, well, We were right on the edge of what we could cope with, I thought, is what we did. I thought it worked out really well, really beautiful ceremony. But another part of the Sejiki is to circumambulate while chanting the 25th chapter of Lotus Sutra.

[83:28]

So circumambulation is a very common thing to do on special ceremonies. And at Eiji... Hmm? What? Yeah, yeah. And at Eheji, I would say a high percentage of the morning services, they had circumambulation going on. So it is a traditional thing to do. They don't actually go all the way around the altar because of the architecture, but the idea is that they're circumambulating the hall. And every morning, the shiso circumambulates the hall. The shiso, what you do is called a circumambulation. Jundo means circumambulation. Jun is circumambulate the whole. So yes, you every morning circumambulate the whole. You circumambulate the Sangha, the Buddha, and the Dharma. And the Doshi actually is not called a circumambulation. It's called looking at the seats, checking out the Sangha. It's a slightly different meaning there. Yeah, that's what I thought.

[84:29]

I thought it was rather inclusive, but not doing the same thing as I do as has been transmitted to me. I haven't been transmitted a relationship with these historical practitioners. But I thought, well, walking around the altar includes them for me. It's a gesture of inclusion. And I thought what I was doing was a gesture of respect, but some people feel like I should lower my head in order to really express respect. Standing upright is not as respectful in the same way. And I understand that. There is something about lowering your head that's important in this practice. To say, you know, I recognize you as my ancestor. It's important. Some other people want to say something? Oh, yes, maybe.

[85:30]

Laurie? And then Charlie? Who? I wanted to ask, on this discussion about service and the method of service, what is the reason we're doing service in the morning? Just clarify. I think the reason we're doing this service is to develop virtue and to give away the merit of this virtue to the welfare of all beings. blasphemous on my part. But when I get to the list of names, I'm always, and the only names that resonate for me are A. A. Dogen and Kikuchi Roshi. And I try to just get into the chanting of the names, just the sound of it.

[86:36]

So for me, and then getting into making, and then there's also this controversy about how encompassing of a list of who's a man or who's a woman. The whole idea of having two lists to me seems silly. And I think we should honor our ancestors, We don't even know who for sure they all are. So why individualize them into these two lists of people? Thank you. Marshall, did you? What do you mean? No, Charlene. It's really great to wait to ask one question because other people seem to be on the same page and answer parts of it already.

[87:41]

When Rose was speaking, I had a thought, and then she said it just one second later, about understanding what it means when we bow, when we bow. And then Carolyn, thank you for asking about what's the meaning of circumambulation. Because when you first said that, I actually wasn't even sure if you were joking. Because it sounded like maybe, what do you want me to do, walk around the altar in circles? And so now that I understand that, I appreciate it. And I say, oh, that actually kind of sounds like a nice thing to do. And so I think that everybody here deeply appreciates women teachers and our teachers. And I think, not to reduce this discussion in any way, but I think it is a misunderstanding that people have

[88:49]

different understandings or lack of understanding about what the heck's going on, you know? We've got these two lists, and we've got these different behaviors that different doshis do, and we want to be respectful. And so I really appreciate this dialogue we've been having, and I think I think what might help as part of the solution is just more clarity in what we are doing, what the intention is. So I don't think the intention is to juxtapose the two places. I think I'm hearing that one is a list of a lineage of ancestors, not necessarily male, not allegedly male at all. It's a list of ancestors who transmitted the Dharma. And then I feel like we also have a list of women teachers that we appreciate who who acknowledged perhaps didn't have a chance to be in that list of ancestors because of the times.

[89:56]

And I think it's great to acknowledge that. And I think one thing that has always stuck out to me is that Kokyo says, and to all women teachers. And then at the top of the page it says, women ancestors. But I think We've clarified that it's not an ancestor list, but it's a list of teachers. And I think it's confusing to see them put forth as ancestors and then sort of short it by not getting the same respect as the male list. And I would love to appreciate that as teachers and as a big part of how our condition is, where it is. Who's next? So there's three people who haven't spoken who have their hands up. Marshall, Curtis, and Melissa.

[90:59]

And Allison. Allison and me. I really appreciated this conversation because it's brought light to the changes. One thing I'm noticing is that you're talking about two lists, there's a duality. And what I'm feeling is that actually doing these different ceremonies throughout the morning ceremony, there's a lot of difference. parts of ceremonies. And the ancestor ceremony is one complete ceremony. And then we do the women teachers. And this is like a ceremony to acknowledge and attempt to support pain.

[92:10]

when Sangha or everyone in Sangha has felt our acquisition. And so it's like there's a function for that ceremony. And so I don't necessarily think it's helpful to to compare and contrast those ceremonies as if they're like dualities. So what I wanted to offer was the suggestion that we could have mindfulness around speech, the ceremony of the answer. So we really shouldn't say male, that's the situation, we should not say male lineage. We should say that this is the lineage of ancestors and that's the ceremony of ancestors. And so we should be conscious that if we use that term that we can maybe acknowledge it and correct each other and help each other that this is not a male ancestor list.

[93:16]

But what I'm noticing also today is that it's not just a male ancestor list, but it's a living It's a living entity that can be, that's continuing into time through you. And you're giving it to women. And women are continuing this. So I would also like to offer that envisioning that An important consideration we have here is also that all women who are here might be on that list, could be part of that list of ancestors. And so I would love to see that happen. That would make service really long now. But we can do it. Acharya B.V., Acharya Laurie.

[94:18]

Someday. Yeah. I just want to, if I can say parenthetically, that when we do the chant and we say, you know, the 16 great Arhats, and we say all the people on the noble path, at that time I think of all the women all the women on that list are on that path. So I feel fine to, I mean they literally are, they were the Dharma sisters of the people the 16 great Arhats. But then it doesn't just say the 16 great Arhats. It says, and all those on the noble path. And the women, the first women were, you know, were Arhats. And so I think of them at that time. There it seems like, well, there, yeah, that's right. That's why I'm bowing to those specific women.

[95:21]

But I'm not a disciple of the 16 great Arhats. even though, you know, I'm in awe of them, I'm not their disciple, I'm not in their lineage. Curtis and Allison? Did I miss somebody? Otonto? I'd like to say that I really appreciate this discussion. And I'm very glad to echo what Rose said about several things that she said. But I, too, am very impressed with your rectitude and what you're doing.

[96:26]

You're not blowing in the wind with what might be popular. And yet, it doesn't seem like rigidity. It seems like you have the principle and that you're trying to clarify what that is. And to Charlie's point about clarity, the value of clarity, the question literally asked, you know, there's a lot of this stuff that I don't understand. But I'm greatly aided by these questions and the clarity that is brought about by them and my own approach to witnessing the ceremony and being a part of it. down. I'd just like to, maybe, just with my clarity, it sounds like, from what I've heard, It is not the case that you are wishing to respect men and not women. That doesn't sound like the case at all. I think a lot of this tends to get muddled when, as many people have said, there are these two lists, one of which happens to be male and the other which happens to be female, or is constructed as female.

[97:42]

But this is what I mean. It's not that it's a male list and a female list, is my point. It is an ancestor list and a list of other teachers. And it is my sense, and I check this out with you, that if there were another sort of ancillary list of other teachers that were male, you would also not prosper to that if it were not your lineage. Correct. Correct. So I think, again, that... I mean, I'd rather not. If the screws are put to me, I will, you know, I will give in at some point. But I would consider it inappropriate to bow to a list, another lineage of Soto Zen people. And I've never been invited to do so. I've been to Japan.

[98:45]

When people go off to do their lineage, they don't invite me to come along. I'm only invited to this particular family affair. It's a family thing. question of what does prostration mean, or what are we doing when we bow. Different people have different understandings probably. I also am hearing that, how can respect be paid without compromising the ceremony of acknowledging a lineage that one is responsible for. In other words, it's not that you don't want to pay respect, you want to find some way to pay respect. Yeah, I tried a way, but that was uncomfortable for some people.

[99:47]

So I'm now looking at some other way that would feel more comfortable that also I would feel authentic in doing. So, and I don't want to like whimsically, you know, try circumambulation and then try this and try that. I want to be careful so you don't feel I'm just fooling around taking this lightly. This is expressing respect for practitioners is a very, you know, it's a grave matter. And I'm trying to be careful about it. And be careful of being authentic. So I think I could be authentic in circumambulating and to stand and bow, I think I could do that, but standing and bowing for that long is kind of, again, it's so unusual to be bowing that long. So another form I thought of, well, there is a form where actually I have circumambulated women

[100:51]

I have circumambulated women, living women. And then as part of the circumambulation, when standing in front of them, you do a standing bow like this. But then I would also be doing the same thing for a man. Or for the Buddha, or for Avalokiteshvara, you walk around. When you get in front, you do a bow. And you walk around, you get in front, you do a bow. This is like a ritual that is a normal ritual to me. I'm not making it up. It's been transmitted, and I'm happy to transmit it. So that would be involved, lowering my head and circumambulating both our traditional... forms to express respect. And so I would be comfortable doing that myself. And I think that would be relating to the two groups of teachers differently. So that's a possibility for me to do that. But I kind of feel like maybe you could talk not too much longer because we're running out of time.

[101:58]

Yeah, I only have two questions. It's my sense that this is a It's almost like it's a dedication, that part of the service is dedicating. To all these people. My other sense is that it is unusual, from what I've seen, I don't know much about it, but it's unusual, it seems, for the doshu to be doing something identical to the congregation. And there's frequently, it would be a case that the doshu will do a floral prostration and that the people will be doing a standing bow. or that the doshī will be doing a standing bow and the people will be standing. And so it's sort of like a stepwise progression where the doshī is being representative of what the people would be doing if we had four hours for the ceremony and we did all these prostrations. And so... I like the circumambulation idea. One thing I remembered from when this topic came before was that you said you didn't want to experiment with things because that would be disrespectful to take back what was, you know, maybe prostrate one day and then decide not to.

[103:08]

It would be disrespectful. I'm wondering if there is... distinctions is that distinction is being made between serious prostrations and other types of respect pain that these other types of respect pain might might have some room for that like to try it out with the circumambulation how this is my question I'm not clear yet. He says, if you try circumambulation, would you be dedicating that to do that for Christy? Yeah, right. Thank you. Allison? I'd like to echo the appreciation of just how much you're sharing with us about the forms you're participating in and what their underlying meaning may be with a cultural, historical perspective. It's reaming up in me that I know so much of what we're doing in terms of our actions, particularly in the Zendo.

[104:18]

I can presume what it means, but that gets into dangerous water, actually. Having the conversation and hearing your teaching to what you've learned from your teacher from a lineage that is very, very old and has been very helpful. And I would welcome more conversation around the form to participate in. Sitting here, it brought to mind working in cabin crew as an analogy. I work in cabin crew constantly. And I've been in cabin crew over the last four years quite often. And the thing that is so fascinating there is the meanings that people bring. to how rooms are arranged. And so it's like you have to put the matchbook tray right in front of the lamp with enough room on the right of the matchbook tray, because that's where people will put their pillboxes and their clock.

[105:27]

And if you don't do that, it's disrespectful to them. And then the next round of people come through and it's something else. And then the next round of people come through and it's the pillows. I was on a rampage about flowers this summer. There are so many dead flowers in Britain. To me, that meant we don't see you. We see you, and it's important that we see you and that you're welcome. But, you know, it gets into the stuff of what literary theorists write about, that we have all these signifiers up here, and I hold this up, but every mind in this room is going to have a different meaning. about what this is, or stories that go into it. So I just wanted to say that, and I really appreciate what you brought forth today. And around the lineage, in particular, the thing that I appreciate about it most personally, what I bring to it is, here's this line of human beings who have

[106:42]

who transmitted a teaching so that I can wake up. And in saying their names and in my standing here today, I'm in it. I'm on part. This human body here meets all these others who came before me, and thank you. But to me, that... That is something that's really beautiful. And it's something that didn't come to me in the religion that I was brought up in. And it just really speaks to my heart. So it's not necessarily for me about respecting particular names, but really respecting that this isn't just about me standing here today. It's about something way bigger than me. Gendered, ungendered. I wanted to say something to Eno.

[107:50]

That is, I guess the serving crew has to leave at a certain point. Yeah. So we have to end pretty soon, but we don't necessarily have to have noon service if that would give us... I feel like people would want to talk more. Can we have a little flexibility here? Director? You know? Huh? Okay. And then who? Netanto? Okay. People want you to have it. Okay. maybe 12 or 13, leading a magazine interview with the novelist Garcia Marquez. And the interviewer asked him, what do you consider is the most important thing happening in the world right now? And without hesitation, he said, the end of 4,000 years of male hegemony.

[108:52]

and uh they just like it struck me so strongly i was like wow this he's right this man's a prophet i can really see the big picture and uh when i that that part of our service to me is just a celebration of that you know i'm just like it's a relief for for this one it's just like Oh, yes. And I think, you know, there's other parts of the world that is going to be, is and will continue to be a lot more painful than it is for San Francisco Zen, good old San Francisco Zen Center. And I feel sorry for them because I think Garcia Marquez is right. It's over. Put a fork in it. Done. Carla. Carla Garcia Marquez.

[109:59]

It's almost as good as Carla Maria Antonacchio. Beautiful. My last name is Big Bad Tony. I also, like Charlie, have waited to be informed and enlightened by all of you. And I found a lot that I agree with. But I felt like I should stand up or sit down and be amplified as the female priest or the female teacher in this lineage who has ordained at the priest to this point three women and one man. And we don't chant the acharyas in Chapel Hill. And I think the reason for it is we adhere to a tradition which didn't include that list. When my teacher was trained at Zen Center, which she left in 1991, there was not this list.

[111:03]

And when people have asked about it, come to or city center or Greenville, she'd come back to Chapel Hill and say, how come we don't chant the acharyas? She said pretty much what you said. It's not an ancestry. It's not a list of ancestors. That's pretty much been the end of it. I just wanted to say to you, what others have said, that I really appreciate your clarity and your integrity about this, and also opening up to all of the painful feelings of people here. I have not been hurt by what you've been doing, but I want to say I would be hurt if you stopped leading morning service. That would bring me pain. And what I'd like to say close to the end here is that I feel like you're trying to honor our pain in opening this up, that you're trying to address that. I really deeply appreciate that, because I feel pain not around the Acharyas, but around the pain that everybody else feels.

[112:04]

And the division that it clearly, you know, we all respect each other, but we don't all agree. I also want to say that tradition is to get back to the trained anthropologist. I'm an archaeologist, so I'm a variety of anthropologists. My informants are dead. I actually wrote a whole dissertation on genealogy and ancestry in a completely different culture and tradition. But traditions do change. They're malleable. And we have introduced this list of acharyas, or a list of acharyas. And it's invented now. It's not going anywhere. It may change. It may shift its position. It may change its significance. What I like about your idea of circumnavigating is it brings a traditional practice into what has now become a part of our practice. And it's an ancient tradition that I think inscribed in Enso. It creates the wholeness. And I would encourage you, if you're comfortable with trying it out, try it out.

[113:10]

I think the idea that the form of it as a form of inclusiveness is antiquity going straight back to the Buddha. Actually, Enso always honors the list which goes back to the Buddha. So as a matter of form, I would be very happy with it, and I would be grateful if you could do what you clearly seem to want to do, which is to address what's going on. Yeah, so Gary hasn't spoken, so let's give him a chance. And Jessamyn? OK. What about if we chant the women before the men? That's fine with me too. It's also fine with me just to do the women and not do the men. But the thing is, what am I going to do when the women are being recited and I'm feeling some support for trying circumambulation And then when I get in front, a bow, and if you ask me who I'm bowing to, I'm bowing to, I'm circumambulating the great teacher, and the great teacher is all-inclusive.

[114:23]

So that's how I feel about it, and that seems like that's, I don't feel like that's some new thing I'm making up. And so I offer that, and I give you some time to give me feedback if you have problems with it. I'll wait a while before I do it. And I'll talk to the practice committee about it too. Just because you said that you didn't want to try something, I'm curious about, because this is causing so much response within Plaza Hala right now, how any decision that you make now is going to be impacted. How, what will happen at city center in Kootenai, if a conversation needs to happen in those communities before we change the form? I didn't think we were changing the form. I thought we were just talking about me. Doshis are allowed to do it different ways.

[115:26]

Zen Center has a lot of doshis. Some people say you should standardize the doshis thing, but you may notice I bow to the left of the thing a little bit, and I step forward, and then I offer incense, and I step back to the right. I do that. I like the feel of that. To me, it feels, for me... I feel that that's more like my relationship with the Buddha. I don't... When I went to Eheji, they said, you have to do it this way. So I walked straight up in front at Eheji and stood in front and bowed. So they trained me to do it that way. I was supposed to be the doshi at the Buddha hall, I mean the Dharma hall, so I did it their way. But Zen Center has allowed me, the Abbott group has allowed me to do things different from them and they're allowed to do it different from each other. Linda Ruth does it different from what other people do during this part of the ceremony. So I would think I would do that just here to the rest of this practice period.

[116:28]

And I think if I went to Green Gulch now, I would say, okay, before I'd lead morning service, We have a three-week intensive starting. So before I leave morning service, I would talk to the practice committee and say, how do you feel about me doing this during morning service? They've already seen me doing this other thing for years. And at Green Gulch, there's been discussion too. But I didn't get the feeling at Green Gulch it was so painful. So I just have kept doing it. And at Green Gulch also, I suggested alternating the men and the women. But, so I think I probably would go to Green Gulch and I would say, I would say, this is what I've been doing in Tulsa, what do you think of it? And they might, you know, they might say, fine, or they might say, no, don't do it, we'll see. And if I was invited to the city center, they would say, you know, they would feel okay about it, they wouldn't.

[117:29]

And if they would, if I was, pardon? I could walk around the Sangha. Here, I was thinking of walking around the Sangha here, but I had to step over in these Zapatons. But actually, I could go outside, but it's too cold. I feel, I would like to circumambulate, you know, the whole building. Actually, that's my feeling. But I thought just the altar is more practical. But at City Center, you can walk around the whole sangha. You know, you could go, you know... And Green Gulch also, Green Gulch, you can easily walk around the altar, but it's hard to walk around all the people at Green Gulch too. But I think the feeling that I feel good about is a gesture of all inclusiveness and respect. That seems right. But to use this other form, I feel like, well, wait a minute, this is mixing me up.

[118:35]

This is like bothering my ritual body. I don't feel comfortable with this. So for now, I guess I'm just suggesting that, and I welcome your feedback on that. And can we stop now and go to what? Go to breakfast? How about lunch? Shall we go to lunch? We're going to lunch? So I'll stay here for a little while. People want to come talk to me. May our intentionally extent to every being at place.

[119:20]

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