This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Good morning. I'm going to... Can you hear me? I'm going to comment on a talk by Suzuki Roshi. If I already did this, let me know. This is called, what we called it, was the Zen of going to the restroom. I would call it restroom samadhi. Suzuki Roshi says, how do you feel?

[01:03]

How do you feel right now? This is a kind of rhetorical question. And he kind of chuckles. And he says, I don't know how you feel, but I feel as if I just come out of the restroom. As I am pretty old, I go to the restroom pretty often. Even when I was young, I went to the restroom more often than others. And sometimes I had an advantage because of that. When I went to Eheji Monastery and sat Tangario, I could go to the restroom without feeling guilty, without a guilty conscience, because I had to. I was so happy to go to the restroom. I think that going to the restroom is a good way to look at our practice.

[02:04]

So what do you think he means here? Actually, one of the main aspects of our practice is to continuously let go. when you have a really good practice, you are continuously letting go. It's not like you put something down sometimes. It's just like you do and forget. But we hang on to stuff like a dog with a bone. So there's a lot of mental constipation, a lot of emotional constipation, Never mind the physical. Of course, it's all connected, right? So how do you continually let go?

[03:09]

Moment by moment. This is what he means by beginner's mind. Beginner's mind is you're always standing up brand new. in each moment without carrying anything forward. So you're perfect. That's called freedom. We vow to free all beings during the meal chant, right? We vow to free all beings. May all beings be free. May we free all beings. That's how you do it. You free yourself and then all beings are freed. So, then he talks about Master Uman, Jinman. He says, then Master Uman may have been the first to make a connection between our practice and the restroom. Do you know this koan? Monk asked Master Uman, what is Buddha?

[04:14]

And Uman said, Buddha is a dried shitstick. Kanchi ketsu. Dried shitstick. And so he says, what is your practice? Someone asked Uman. What is Buddha? Someone asked him. He answered, toilet paper. But of course, nowadays it's not toilet paper. But it's something to wipe yourself with in the restroom. That's what he said. And since then, many Zen masters are making, thinking about it, practicing with this ko-am. What is toilet paper? What did he mean by that? Well, actually, you know, toilet paper is a fairly recent invention. We don't think so much about it. You know, it's like toilet paper.

[05:15]

Toilet paper. But... But... corn cobs were common and of course corn comes from South America but a stick so this stick there are many interesting comments on this stick one really good comment is that It's a tool to prop up the gate. People use it as a tool to prop up the gate. Maybe out in the field. But we need a tool to keep the gate open. So the important thing is how we keep the gate open. Don't close the gate.

[06:19]

circulation is the name of the game. Someone... I'm trying to think about how this went. He was talking about how important it is to eat. So I said, well, which is most important? to eat or to shit. Which is the most important? We think about eating as the most important thing and this other thing of letting go as dirty. This is where the exalted meets the mundane like a box in its lid or like two arrow points. meeting.

[07:21]

The exalted and the mundane. Same thing. Compost is the most valuable thing we have. Without compost, we don't eat. So, how we, and Suzuki Roshi, I remember talking about mind waves, talking about What about all this flotsam and jetsam that goes through our mind all the time? We have these little factories within our mind, this little factory that's always churning out these random thoughts, all these little gnomes in there working away in this little mind factory, churning out these thoughts. And there's a factory turning out these emotions. And unless the stream carries them through, unless there's circulation, they pile up.

[08:35]

Piled up, they make constipation. They make... So, circulation is the most important thing. To not get stuck anywhere. And we get stuck in our thoughts, and we get stuck in our emotions. And when somebody says something that we don't like, we mull over it for days. And days, days. When something happens we don't like, we mull over it for days. It only takes one little comment sometimes to set us off. So we're renting all this space in our mind. And we're not getting any pay for it.

[09:39]

It just fills us up. So how do they go? This is our practice. How do we let go and not get caught by anything? Or how do we get caught and know that we're caught and let go? Sometimes these things drive our destiny. If we continually let go, we enter the samadhi of absolute samadhi, just by letting go of everything as it appears. And then when we take up stuff, we enter the samadhi of activity.

[10:47]

But it's not samadhi unless we let go of it. So absolute samadhi and positive samadhi is really the same thing. So how do I keep our practice fresh? At Tassahara, how do we keep our practice fresh? Because if we don't, then we really suffer. Because there's nothing to replace our clear mind. So it's called not getting caught by desire. Desire meaning wanting things to be the way they're not. So he says in our everyday life we have many things, we eat many things, I'm sorry,

[11:58]

We eat many things, good and bad. So we eat with our eyes. We eat with our nose. We eat with our mouth. We eat with our ears. We eat with our feelings. We eat with our thoughts. These are all ways of taking in and hopefully digesting and then letting go. So take in, digest, let go. Take in, digest, stop. No. Don't stop. Don't let anything stop. So later on, we need to go to the restroom. Similarly, after filling our mind, we practice Sazen. Otherwise, our thinking will eventually become very unhealthy. It is necessary for us to make our mind clear before we study something.

[13:05]

It is like drawing something on white paper. If you do not use clean white paper, you can't draw what you want. So it is necessary to go back to your original state where you have nothing to see and nothing to think about. Then you'll understand what you're doing. He says when you do calligraphy, you should clear the slate. Clear your mind totally. Clear your emotions. Clear your mind. So that when you actually do this, it's done with complete control. Without controlling. Without having anything... interfering with this one act. So the more you practice zazen, the more you'll be interested in your everyday life.

[14:12]

You will discover what is necessary and what is not, what part to correct and what part to emphasize more. So by practice, you will know how to organize your life. This is to observe our situation accurately to clear the mind and begin from our original starting point. So this is like going to the restroom. So cleaning our mind. I remember during the Second World War, people said the Japanese were brainwashing prisoners. Probably a good thing. It didn't seem like a good thing. Brainwashing is actually Zazen. Sometimes when you go to a Central American country or South American or Mexico, you see the women down at the stream washing the clothes.

[15:26]

and bashing the clothes against the rocks and using various abrasives to clean the clothes. And if we let the thoughts come and go through our mind, it's kind of like those abrasives are cleaning our mind, just like washing your mind at the river, and then your mind comes out all nice and white and clean. So we have to be careful because we think that our thoughts are bad. Even though you say you don't, you do. These thoughts are bad and they shouldn't be there. No matter how much we say, it's okay. It's okay. As long as you don't get caught by them. People say, well, what do I do with the emotions when they come up?

[16:30]

You simply let the emotions come up and wash your mind and then let them go. You can let the thoughts come and wash your mind as an abrasive and then let them go. So your mind is always clean. Prajnaparamita, the world cannot stain her. We say that every day. The world cannot stain her. That means that all this stuff, instead of staining the mind, cleanses the mind. The more difficulty you have, the more you glow. when you practice.

[17:42]

But you shouldn't try to make difficulty for yourself. Life is difficult enough. Ordinary life is difficult enough. Don't make difficulty. But when you face any difficulty and accept what's difficult and practice with it, that's what makes you glow. And you come up smiling, that's what makes you glow. So our culture is based on the idea of gaining or accumulating something. Science, for instance, is the accumulation of knowledge. I don't know that a modern scientist is greater than a scientist in the 16th century. The difference is that we have accumulated our scientific knowledge. That is a good point, and at the same time, dangerous.

[18:43]

We are in danger of being buried under all of our accumulated knowledge. It is like trying to survive without going to the restroom. And case in point, of course, is atomic energy. All of the rods, all of that dross of atomic energy, there's no place to put it. This is like the head doesn't see the behind. The head and the tail are not in sync with each other. circulation is not happening. And the more atomic energy that we produce, the more dross there is, which lasts for all practical purposes forever.

[19:50]

And there's no place to put it. The salt mines don't work. So we're dooming ourself without knowing what we're doing. Momentum is just keeps going it's hard to stop it's so hard to turn the ship around the ship is so big that it's really hard to turn it around and that's what we face because momentum is so strong and people shut off the rational button we're so smart and we can do all these things but we don't know But we're doing it at the expense of our planet. Fukushima, you know, should be a lesson.

[21:01]

Japan is the big test for atomic problems. And at the same time that people know they should shut it off, they want to keep it going. We're crazy. But it's a big problem with craziness. So each one of us knows how to go to the restroom without attaining or without attaching to the waste we have in our bodies, of course. And when we realize that we already have everything, we will not be attached to anything. So this is the lesson of living with very little. The lesson of living with very little means that you realize

[22:07]

that we can do that. And the less we have, actually the happier we are. We invent all this stuff to make life more convenient, but actually makes life more complicated. Every year a new computer comes out and then you have to learn how to work with all the complications that it presents. So it just keeps getting more complex, more, more, more complex, instead of simpler, simpler, simpler. So we are the slaves of the computer. We are slaves. And we can't do anything about it because we want our knowledge to reach all the way around. So it's hard to be local anymore.

[23:09]

Maybe things will become simpler. Who knows? But now they're more complex. So actually we have everything. Even without going to the moon, we have it. What they used to teach children in Japan was that the moon Although the moon is over there, the moon is really in your mind. There was a Zen master who was regretting that they don't teach children that anymore. When we try to go to the moon, it means that we think that the moon is not ours. In other words, we think the moon is over there. something over there. Our mind is Buddha and it is one with everything.

[24:13]

Within our mind, everything exists. If we understand things in this way, then we will understand our activity. To study something is to appreciate something. To appreciate something is to be detached from things. or non-attached. When we become non-attached to things, everything will be ours. Yes. When we have something, when we think we have something, it's really not ours. But when we realize that nothing belongs to us, then everything is ours. It's a little paradoxical. Our practice is to realize this, this kind of big mind, In other words, to go beyond each being, including ourselves, and let our self work as it works. That is Zazen practice. When we practice Zazen, we actually clean up our various attachments.

[25:18]

So we are very much afraid of death. But when we are mature enough, we understand that death is something that should happen to us. If you die when you were young, that is a terrible thing. If I die, it's not such a terrible thing, either for me or for you, because I am mature enough to die. He was only in his 60s. I understand my life pretty well, what it is to live one day, and what it is to live the year, and what it is to live 60 or 100 years. So anyway, when you become mature and experienced, having eaten many things in this life, I think you will be happy to die, just as you are happy to go to the restroom. You know, we had the memorial service for, we call it funeral, for Myogen Abbott, Steve.

[26:27]

When he was dying, I visited him quite a few times. He was in Sonoma, and so, you know, commuting up to Sonoma is not that easy to do offhand, but I visited him quite a number of times, and every time, you know, he was a little more thin, and it was really hard for him to eat, given the nature of his cancer, really hard for him to eat. And he was all plugged up. So it was really hard for him to eliminate. So his circulation was, like, not there. And so he'd get weaker and weaker. And he could hardly walk to the... I mean, it took a lot of effort just to walk around, get up and walk around. So he grew weaker and weaker.

[27:28]

But... He was always in a good state of mind. He was always in a really... He said that what he wanted to do was follow this process. He was not... He knew that this process was what was going on and that the inevitability of living was to let go. When we get up to a certain... When we start... from when we're born and then we develop and so forth, and we feel that we're going this way, like a jet taking off, you know, it goes, our life is going that way. And then at some point, you realize your life is going this way, down. So he realized that his life was going this way. And the weaker he got and the thinner

[28:29]

and so forth, the bigger he was. I thought that was really quite wonderful. He would just emerge more and more. I don't know what you would call it, but his big self emerged more and more as his small self was declining. And in the very end, I was not there, but I was there the next morning, and they said that they had a hospice personnel there, and they had this huge Samoan who... He comes to these death scenes to kind of help people if he needs to carry somebody or if he needs to calm somebody down or sit on them or whatever.

[29:40]

But at the very end, Steve reached out his hand to this guy and he smiled. He had a big smile on his face. And that was it. But what a wonderful way to go, with a big smile. I don't know how big it was, but it was a smile. It was like, okay. So he says, an old person of 80 or 90 hasn't many problems, even though they think they do. It's true. They think people are going to steal my money. It's true. The people around me, they're stealing. They're going to take all my money.

[30:41]

They're dying. I mean, they don't have very long. And they have lots of money, but they don't want to spend it on themselves, on care. Anyway, physically, old people may suffer, but that suffering... is not as big a thing as you may think. Depends on the person. When people are young, they think about death as something terrible. So when they are dying, they continue to think that, but actually it isn't. There's some limit to our capacity to endure physical suffering. And mostly there is a limit to our capacity but we think it's limitless. We have limitless suffering because we have limitless desire. That kind of desire is Buddha, as Buddha says, creates our problems.

[31:42]

We are accumulating our problems, one after another, with limitless desire. So we have some bottomless fear. And actually, when we know how to clear up our mind, we will not have as many problems. Just as we go to the restroom every day, we practice zazen every day. In monastic life, the best practice is to clean the restroom. What he means is the shuso. Ordinarily, in the practice period in Japan, the shuso, practice is to clean all the toilets. Here, we have a compost. We do composting. And toilets, too. So it's an added burden. Toilets and compost.

[32:44]

But it can be either a burden or a great joy. Take your pick. Attitude is everything. attitude is everything. So wherever you go, to whatever monastery you go to, you will always find a special person cleaning the restroom. We do not clean our restroom just because it is dirty. We do it without any idea of clean or dirty. This is non-dualistic activity. non-discriminating activity. We don't clean the windows because they're dirty. We just clean them. We just wash them. We don't sweep the grounds because it's messy. We just clean the grounds. We don't wash the dishes because they're dirty.

[33:45]

They're not dirty. They just have food on them that we don't want to eat. Compost, you know, is the most beautiful stuff. of all. When you make compost, I used to make a lot of compost, and when you make compost, there are two ways to make compost. One is with air, one is without air, anaerobic, and aerobic. So usually we make aerobic, meaning the air has to circulate through the compost, and so it becomes very loamy and percolates. The moisture is always percolating, and it creates a wonderful, sweet smell. You pick it up. Oh, that smells so good. Of course, when I was a kid, I used to hang out at the stables, and I loved the smell of horse manure. But that's sweet, too, actually. But compost, when it's cooking, gets nice and hot and starts cooking, and all these microbes are in there, you know, eating up.

[34:53]

all this stuff, and that activity creates a wonderful sweet smell. And then you know that you want to put it on your plants because that's what makes the plants grow. Birth and death support each other. The death of one thing is the birth of something else. So the problem we have is we don't know what we're going to be next. We do not clean the restroom just because it is dirty. Whether it is clean or not, we clean the restroom without any idea of clean or dirty. So what this is

[35:54]

When this is so, it actually is our Zazen practice. To extend this practice to our everyday life may seem difficult, but actually it's quite simple. Our laziness makes it difficult, that's all. That's why we put emphasis on endurance to continue our practice. There should not be any cessation in practice. Practice should go on one moment after another. People used to ask me once in a while, I think this is just an endurance contest, especially during sashim. Is this just an endurance contest? I'd say, yes. It's an endurance contest. It's not really a contest. It's just endurance. A contest would be to see if you can do it or not, but actually we just do it. Because endurance... That's our life, it's endurance.

[37:01]

Some students who practice zazen very hard are able to ignore everyday life. Now here's a kind of criticism of somebody who is like a kind of zazen elitist. Someone who practices zazen very hard, some people are liable to ignore their everyday life. If someone attains enlightenment, they may say, I have attained enlightenment under a great Zen master, so whatever I do is okay. I have complete freedom from good and bad, and only those who do not have an enlightenment experience stick to the idea of good and bad. So what they say makes some sense, but there's something wrong with it. Speaking in that way is to ignore everyday life. They do not take care of their life, and they do not know how to organize. their life to know what kind of rhythm they should have. To know the rhythm of our lives is to understand what we are doing.

[38:03]

It is necessary to see our activity with a clear mind through zazen experience. So this is kind of like, he's emphasizing the rhythm of practice as the main thing. So there are people who can sit zazen very well, very easily. are kind of proud of that, where the next person is always struggling and so forth. This is where you should be careful not to compare yourself. You may look at that person and think, oh, that's it. But the difficulty of the person who is struggling is far more profound than the person who can sit easily. The person who has that most difficult time and endures gets the most out of zazen, if there's anything to get out of it. Personally, it really makes big effort and struggles, but because it's their effort that creates the practice, that creates the enlightened practice.

[39:18]

You may think, well, this person is enlightened because he can sit zazen very easily, full lotus and hops off tahan and blah blah. That person is enlightened, but actually the enlightenment is with the person who's struggling really hard and thinks that they're not getting anywhere, but stays with it. That's enlightened practice. So we have it backwards. So I came to America because in Japan I had too many problems. I don't know what that means, but I kind of knew. I'm not sure, but perhaps that's why I came to America. So when I was in Japan, I didn't practice zazen as I do here. Now I have very different problems than I had in Japan. Even though I am practicing zazen with you, my mind is like a garbage can.

[40:19]

He does not separate himself from his students. This is the one thing about Suzuki Roshi. He identifies with everybody's difficulties. Even though I am in America, which is called a free country, my mind is like a garbage can. I am a Japanese and I have many Japanese friends here. He means in America. So I have the problems of being that most Japanese have. And in addition, I have the other problems that all of you have. Poor guy. It was so hard for him to leave Sokoji Temple. He came to Sokoji at the invitation of the Japanese congregation to be their priest. And when he was here at Sokoji, all these hippie Well, they weren't all hippies.

[41:22]

They were all kinds of people. But all these Americans started coming and they wanted to see what he had to offer. And so they kind of took over Sokoji in a way. And then we wanted to have our own practice place, which was Page Street, which we found. And it turned out to be Page Street. And so he had to decide what he was doing. how to take care of the Japanese congregation to with whom he had obligations. Obligations are very strong. When you are obliged to something, you don't just leave. You have to see it through. For a Japanese person, we tend to come and go at ease more easily. And then he had the American congregation, which is really what he wanted to, he could not ignore us.

[42:25]

He had to, this was his destiny, was to work with us. So it was so hard. He said at one time something like, at some point I was so torn, I didn't know whether I was peeing in the sink or drinking out of the toilet. So that's how confused it was. So anyway, he says, sometimes I wonder what I am doing here. But when I know what I am doing, clearly without any overestimation or underestimation, very honestly and truly, but when I know what I am doing, quote, clearly, without any overestimation or underestimation, very honestly and truly, I do not have much burden on my mind.

[43:33]

When I know what I'm doing, I don't have much burden on my mind. You know, overestimation or underestimation is how you describe humility. Humility, we kind of use humility to mean kind of like... too humble or something, but humility or humbleness means knowing exactly what you're doing and you're not overestimating yourself and you're not underestimating yourself. That's true humility, which means you've found the center of your balance. So I do not have much burden on my mind. Zazen practice especially has been a great help. If I hadn't been practicing Zazen, I wouldn't have survived in the way I did. I started my practice when I was quite young, but even more, I started my practice in a true sense after I came to San Francisco.

[44:33]

And I'll let the kitchen leave. Sorry, you guys can't stay. Or maybe you want to leave, I don't know. So he says, you may have a pretty difficult time with me. I know that what I am doing is challenging for you, but this effort to understand things from another angle is not possible without communicating with people who are brought up in a different cultural background, meaning us. To understand things just from a self-centered personal or national viewpoint is our weakness.

[45:38]

And when we do that, we cannot develop our culture in its true sense. So, yeah, the problem, you know, the Japanese have is nationalism. And the problem that we have is arrogance. Personal arrogance. They have arrogance, too. We have nationalism, too, but those are not our emphasis. Our emphasis is kind of on personal arrogance. I am a self-made person. Pride. And Japanese, more national. We think of ourselves as individuals. They think of themselves as belonging to the group. These are two problems that we have. Our Buddhist practice is one of the three legs is Sangha.

[46:46]

And Suzuki Roshi always emphasized that Sangha is the most important thing because we tend to be such individuals. And for them, sanghas, really strong, family, they need a little more individualism. I don't know about ism, but to express themselves a little more individually, because it's really hard to get to actually have a relationship with people who don't express themselves as individuals. so when you understand yourself better and others better you can just be yourself just to be a good American is to be a good Japanese and just to be a good Japanese is to be a good American because we stick to Japanese way or American way our mind becomes like a wastebasket if you notice this point you will understand how important it is to practice Zazen

[48:01]

Fortunately or unfortunately, even though you don't like it, we need to go to the restroom, the stinky restroom. I'm sorry, but I think we have to go to the restroom as long as we live. If I were younger, I would sing a Japanese folk song right now about the restroom. So Suzuki Roshi actually was one of the few individuals one of the Japanese teachers who came to America, my Zumi Roshi is good too, but Suzuki Roshi didn't want us to have any connection with Japan. I mean, at first he did. He sent people to Japan, and it always turned out to be a disaster, because as soon as they touched the Japanese system, they were totally discouraged. They were not accepted, reading well, and there were no concessions made for them.

[49:11]

They treated them like kids, because it's the kids that go to the monastery and they have this whatever they have. But after that, He didn't encourage people to go to Japan, and he didn't have ties with Japan. He wanted to. He was so happy that we had no baggage. That's what he appreciated about teaching us. We had no baggage at all, and we were just pure, like little birds with our mouths open, and he didn't drop in the worm. It was a good worm. It was a tasty worm. So it was a great joy for him to be able to teach us without any... We didn't know anything. So we were quite clean.

[50:14]

Of course, we had our own problem. But as far as relating with the practice, we were just... Let's do it. So it was all from scratch, absolutely from scratch. No baggage. So that was a great joy. Do you have a question? Yeah. Now that we've been practicing for a while in this country, do you think we're developing some baggage? We might be in danger. What do you mean? Do we know too much? I don't think so. I'm guessing that because they've been in Japan for such a long time, maybe that was part of it.

[51:20]

Well, you know, the baggage of Japan is like when something goes on too long, it becomes... watered down and it becomes corrupt. And we've had our corruptions, you know, but I don't think that we are corrupt. And we don't take our practice for granted. You know, when people, Japanese, go to the temples, they do it as a kind of, you know, to visit the old musty temple. history. They don't see it as a living, vital living thing so much. They go to Heiji and Sojiji and those are the big temples, you know, and they're, you know, you're walking up the hall and the huge crowds are coming down the hall, you know, and it's like a flood because they do everything in groups.

[52:28]

People who visit the monastery, they have a group of 50 or 100 people. They have a flag. Some people get lost. And they go through the monastery. And they all sit down. They get fed. But it's a kind of showpiece. And everybody's familiar with all this. In America, we don't have all that. It's all, you know, he didn't want us to do funeral ceremonies, except, you know, we have to, except what we have to do. But that's the way the Japanese priests make their money. That's how they support their temples, because family temples, and they have, you know, how many families, a hundred families, or, you know, then the dana comes in, the danka produced the dana. And that's how they support themselves.

[53:33]

And then they all have, all of the temples have zendos and nobody sits on them. They were store rooms or something. When you have a room that doesn't have anybody in it, you start storing stuff. So that's the way it is. As a matter of fact, when I went to to Suzuki Hiroshi's temple in Yaizu. When I was having Dharma transmission in 1984, the zendo, the nice little zendo, was a storeroom. And Huitzu didn't sit zazen. And we recreated the practice there of Americans. Actually, we wanted to open up the zendo, we wanted to sit there, you know, and say, okay, whatever, you know.

[54:41]

And we resurrected him as a practicing priest, doing zazen. And then eventually, you know, they asked him to go to AHAG and be the... the Tanto, and then he was the Godo, and all the students loved him. Every year when he was there as Tanto and as Godo, they would ask the students who the teachers were that they liked best, and it was, hands down, it was always Hoitsu. He was stuck in the Japanese system. And we kind of nudged him and dislodged him and brought him back to life, actually. And then, okay, you know, I'll do that. So I don't think, corruption is not our problem or whatever, stagnation is not our problem.

[55:52]

Stagnation is the problem in Japan because after the Second World War, People lost faith in Buddhism because Buddhism was brought to that country in order to protect it. That's why all the priests, the people say, oh, you know, all these priests, you know, they went to war with the machine, you know. Of course, because Buddhism was supposed to be protecting the country in peace or war. And so they failed. And then people lost their faith. And so since that time, Buddhism has kind of stagnated, except for the pure land Buddhism. And then all these new religions, you know, which are kind of based on Buddhism, which is kind of what's happening in America in a certain sense. Buddhism is kind of finding so many different venues, you know.

[56:54]

At one time we were... the focus of Buddhism in America, but it wasn't very long before all these other, the Tibetans and the Nipashanas and so forth, came out. We've become very conservative. We were the radicals, now we're the conservatives because we preserve all the forms and so forth. So we kind of look like, it's such a formal practice, you guys do. So because of the contrast, we look very conservative. Yeah. Then why are we playing Japanese? We're not playing.

[57:55]

No, this is the practice that he brought us. He brought us this practice. This is what he knew. And he had faith in this practice. So he wanted to have the... He presented us with... the formal practice, because he felt that the formal practice was the way to learn what we were doing and the way to practice what we were doing. And then he also said, people always wanted to say, well, why are we doing this and why are we doing that? And he said, 700 years of people's effort to make this work in this way is not going to be thrown out the window just because you want it to be different. 700 years of people's blood, sweat, and tears to make this practice, develop this practice to what it is.

[59:05]

He wanted to make it actually vital. And it is. That's why it's vital. We have very vital practice. Yes. Well, yes, of course. They got architects from China to show them how to make the temples. They were very careful. Very careful. The sound of the Han is served in Japan, China, Korea. The Han is still Han. We have a kind of problem because we want to be, we have a kind of nationalistic feeling as well. We want American practice. Why are we doing Japanese practice? As if there's some difference between them.

[60:07]

There is a difference, but the sameness is more important than the difference. We can never bring the world together without being part of it. Actually, by practicing in this way that seems Japanese, we're actually connecting parts of the world. It's when we're going to be like this and they're going to be like that. We're Americans. We should wear pants and shirts instead of dresses. I remember somebody asking Suzuki, how come you're wearing a dress? So we don't know how nationalistic we are. So as far as I'm concerned, don't put me in jail for this, but I'm a citizen of the world.

[61:21]

I'm happy to be a citizen of the United States, which is a great country probably. I don't say it's the greatest, even if it is, because the world is the greatest country. This is the part that we are part of, but I don't have any problem with dressing up like this. I like it. This is the best way to sit zazen, frankly. I feel strange when I'm not sitting in my robes, but that's okay too. We have this experience by maintaining the forms, maintaining the dress, maintaining the atmosphere, we have the experience of the teaching that's been transmitted.

[62:28]

And there's something about going through this process with the clothes, with the forms, formality or whatever, that sinks into our bones and is a kind of transmission vehicle for the teaching. The forms are a transmission vehicle for the teaching. If we only see it as empty forms, then you're not connecting. Yeah, I see. I realize I want to ask this question, but it's getting bigger and bigger in my mind.

[63:31]

And I don't know. Better ask it before it gets too big. I wanted to know about, so one thing that seems quite temperate is that there are women sitting here. Yes, yes. I guess I want to know the whole history of that. How was it for Suzuki Roshi? Yes. It doesn't happen in Japan. No. And when Suzuki Roshi came, he did not have some idea about how things should be. He did not have any idea of anything. He said, when I came to San Francisco, I didn't study about San Francisco or I didn't think about San Francisco because I wanted to see it fresh from my own eyes without having any preconceptions so when he saw the people that came to him he just accepted them men came women came he just accepted everybody he didn't say these are the men but when we first started as I remember at Sokoji the men sat on one side of the Zendo and the women sat on the other side and it was wonderful I can't tell you how nice that was because when we got up from Zazen

[64:53]

the men and women bowed to each other. I thought that was terrific. The men recognized the women as women and the women recognized the men as men. And then somebody said, I think we should all sit together because this is America. And then they said, okay. But I thought that was really good. It was like... You know, when a woman is totally a woman, that's wonderful. When a man is totally a man, that's wonderful. Of course, men are women. Women are men, you know. We have to find our feminine and masculine sides and balance them. That's part of our practice. I'll talk about that sometime. But it just happened. But then, you know, This was in the 60s, 70s, and men were considered pigs.

[66:05]

What was that phrase now? Male chauvin is prigs. No matter how much you know. All men are like that. So there was a process of creating equality, and that process just went on all through the 70s and 80s, 90s, 21st century, today. It's always going on, that process of mutual recognition and mutual balance. And so we went through a lot of... What would you call it? You know, this. This. And I think we've come out pretty well.

[67:13]

And also I think we've had a lot of influence on other... disciplines as well I think we've been pioneers in a lot of stuff you know and in religion and in the food processing and you know we've been at the forefront of a lot of things but creating the equality between always having, you know, women and men balanced in positions and creating that equality. I remember one time, you know, the women were beating up on the men, you know, and I said, you know what, to this one of my leading students, and I said, it would be really great if sometime you complimented the men on the way they were

[68:19]

working really hard to make that balance work between the men and the women. She said, oh, yeah. You know, why not? Why just keep beating up and not saying something good? Positive, when it's all negative, it's not good. So there has to be also positive as well as negative. even though you may think that things are not as good as they could be. So encouragement and, I don't want to say criticism, but in the best sense, criticism have to balance. So anyway, in short, it's probably some, you know, other people have various other ideas about it, but that's mine.

[69:21]

My view. Yeah. Yeah. Because he had so much suffering in his life. He... He had good roots, but he had a lot of suffering in his life. He had to go through a war. He was in Manchuria. His wife was murdered by someone who, you know, there were these, after the war there were these soldiers wandering around and he would give let them stay at the temple, and she was murdered by one of them. And that was a devastating kind of thing for the whole family.

[70:26]

And he also studied with some of the best teachers in Japan. So he had that embodied in him. And he just, he wanted to give us the best. He said, you know, Japan gave us the worst, but he wanted to show what was best. He wanted to show us what was the best. So that's what his mission was with us, to give us something wonderful. That's not all there is in Japan. During the early 20th century, Japan was turning out all this kind of pseudo-Japanese style cups and saucers and dishes and furniture and stuff that was kind of Japanese-esque, Japan-esque, but not the real stuff.

[71:42]

And he wanted to give us the real stuff. and what was deepest and most true for the Japanese people, for us. So that's what he wanted to do. That's why he was so good. In Japan, you know, his son said he was real strict and, you know, kind of mean, angry. But when he came here, totally different. And he treated us like he just saw the qualities and brought out all the wonderful qualities in each person, as much as he could. And he didn't care, Japanese, American, didn't mean anything, just who you were. That's why he wasn't so, you know, he could see that he didn't want us to get caught up in the corruption of Japan.

[72:52]

That's why he liked us, so innocent. So he found that there was some strong source of practice for him in Japan that he was able to draw from? Well, I'm just trying to, like, balance the contrast between the practice being kind of lost and stagnant in Japan, and then connecting to some sort of strong, alive practice that made him, that was part of making him who he wanted. Yeah. Well, he wanted to bring the practice alive. And he benefited as well. So he wanted to give us the true practice. So those of us who studied with him, who believed in that, hope we are still keeping that alive.

[73:58]

And our students are keeping that alive. And the students' students are keeping that alive. And our students' students' students will keep that alive, I hope. That's why I feel like mostly that's what I want to teach is Suzuki Roshi, what he was about, what he was doing, is to make sure people understand what he was about and what his teaching is about, which is what we're doing. holding on letting go I was just talking to a friend the other day about like I realized when I'm sitting I actually feel like I'm holding my legs onto my body there's in my body I can feel how I'm holding myself together trying to hold myself together I just wonder how you work with that well I don't know what you mean by holding yourself together exactly

[75:18]

If you let yourself go, see if you'll come apart. I just let my body, you know, find the balance. Always, just always finding the balance. Continuously finding the balance. Continuously holding yourself up straight, upright, and finding the balance and just letting go. You think you have a boundary because, you know, like, oh, this hurts. That's because there's a boundary. When you let go of the boundary, even though there's that sensation, it's not binding you. It's not, you actually have no boundary. Like we're all sitting here, you know, for a long time, pretty long time.

[76:36]

I know that your legs are hurting, so. But it's because you can sit there because you You're paying attention to something else and not worried about your boundary. See, if I give a talk, I don't worry about my boundary because I'm not thinking about it. Just opening up. opening up, opening up, letting go. I don't know how to explain it more than that. I've been thinking about the migration of the forms from China to today. For me, that spirit of keeping it alive

[77:44]

is when we chant, for the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and give. And the beauty of that, of carrying this robe to different cultures, and having the men and the women bowing to each other from across the universe. Each of the ways that you were describing how the forms were actively lived when Suzuki came and met his American people, seeing very much about the emptiness of his bewildered mirror, receiving a gift. Do you feel that we've been talking about the five ranks. Would you say that that's where the aliveness of the forms is muteness? I'll talk about that tomorrow. I just want to say one, this is the last thing, is that every place else in the world, the men and the women don't practice together in a monastery.

[78:52]

Our practice is unique. It was, anyway, back there in the 60s. And it just happened. It just, you know, Suzuki Roshi saw it was happening and just... let it happen and guided it. That's all. And so, nobody practices men and women together. This is somewhat unheard of. And the other thing is about that, about sex, is that when you have, because most monastic practices are celibate, and when you have in this case, men and women practicing together, are you going to be celibate or not? If you're celibate, you have problems. If you're not celibate, you have problems. Either side, you have problems. So you choose your problem.

[79:57]

We didn't exactly choose our problem. It was our problem that came through default. It's the default position. Men and women are practicing together, and that's what we have. Are you going to be celibate? Well, kind of. I've been doing this for a long time. Well, kind of, yeah. But yes, be careful. Be careful. So we have this practice of it's not exactly a celibate practice, but we're celibate. And we don't punish people, but we don't want to interrupt each other's practice. As soon as we have a sexual relationship with somebody, it changes our practice.

[81:03]

It changes our practice. and it changes the way we relate. And then we have this relationship, and then we break up, and then we're seeing each other all the time on the path, and then life becomes horrible instead of wonderful. So the thing is, be careful how you relate to everybody. That's the bottom line for we don't want to impose something, but We try to do it in a reasonable way, according to reason. But when it comes to relationships, it's emotional. It's not reasonable. It's emotional. And so we have to impose reason on the emotion so that we can guide ourselves without getting into trouble. And it's just up to each one of us to deal with that. That's your big koan.

[82:06]

How not to get involved with somebody in that way, because we don't want to ruin their practice as well as ours. And it happens all the time. So that's a big problem. But if we were all supposed to be absolutely celibate, if we said celibate, then we'd have to separate everybody. But then there's the gay people. How do you do that? So it's a complex problem and it's ongoing. It's not something that's, you know, people like to solve problems. Okay, it's going to come down this way or it's going to come down that way. But absolutes are huge problems. When you impose absolutes on people, then you really have big problems because then people are doing it wrong. It's either right or it's wrong. So we're kind of leaving it up to our reason, up to the quality of your practice.

[83:19]

And that's what we're practicing with. And we go over the edge and we create problems and we work them out. But it's better than imposing absolutes. So we impose responsibility. Please take responsibility for yourself and others. And to me, that's much better than creating rules or absolutes. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[84:11]

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