This podcast is offered by San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening, everyone. My name is... It's too close to my mouth. No, that's okay. My name is Tim Wicks. which means dark jewel turning towards the light. And I'd like to thank former abbess Christina Lenhair for inviting me to give this talk tonight. She's leading our practice period. A practice period is a period of usually a few months of more intensive study. And this practice period is called Buddha Body, Buddha Mind.

[01:04]

And I'd also like to move up a little bit. Thank my teacher, Rinso Ed Satterson, for his kind guidance as I walk this path. My first practice was Vipassana. which is a part of the Theravadan school of Buddhism. And when this wave of it was started sort of back in the 70s and the 60s, 60s and 70s, the practitioners who'd been trained in Asia and Thailand and Sri Lanka, the American practitioners, when they came back to the United States to... spread the teachings, they thought that all the robes and the ritual and the bells that they'd been trained in were not going to go down so well in the United States, that people were going to kind of be put off.

[02:12]

So they dropped it all. They dropped all the robes and bells and rituals and that kind of stuff. And I was very glad that that happened when I first started practice. because when I came to Zen Center just a few years later, I didn't like all this robes and bowing and bells and bowing mats and statues all over the place. I didn't like it. It was very off-putting to me. But tonight, I'm going to talk about Buddha's robe. I'm going to talk about Buddha's robe as the union between body and mind. A lot of people are wearing rakasus, which are sort of the smaller bib-like, authentic Buddha's robes. They're not imitation or itsy-bitsy robes. They're actually Buddha's robe. And different from those are priest robes.

[03:16]

So with the rakasu, you receive jukai, which I'm going to talk about in a little bit. And then if you want to, you can become a priest if you want later on. It's slightly more complicated than that, but that's roughly what it is. And so I'm wearing priest robes. I'm a priest. I'm not fully transmitted, which is a brown robe. I'm a novice priest, so I'm still under the supervision of my teacher. But our robes, our priest robes, are a geographic record of the traveling of Buddhism. So this okesa that I'm wearing on the top right here, this comes from India. And then underneath, with these really incredibly long and difficult sleeves, is the karoma, which comes from China.

[04:17]

So Buddhism moved from India into China. And then underneath that, I have a kimono, which is Japanese. So our school, Mahayana Zen Buddhism, came from India to China to Japan. And it is said, underneath all of that, we have American underwear. LAUGHTER Which actually, my underwear might well have been made in China or India. LAUGHTER So the story of the robe goes back to the time of the Buddha. And there is in the sutras the story of how the robe came to be. And as it goes, the Buddha had a follower named King Bimbusara, who was out one day on his elephant cart or horse, depending on which translation you get,

[05:19]

And I like elephant. I just like elephants. So he was out on his elephant one day. And off in the distance, he saw someone who he thought was a follower of the Buddha. And so he got off his elephant, which I can only think takes a little while. And by the time he got down, this person was closer. And once he talked to him a little bit, he could see he wasn't really a follower of the Buddha at all. he was a little embarrassed. And the next time he saw the Buddha, he said, can you have your followers, your disciples, wear some kind of robe so that we know who to go to talk to when we want to talk about the teachings, about the Dharma? The Buddha, who was with Ananda, his attendant at the time, as he often was, both of them were standing next to a rice paddy. And if you know, a rice paddy is on an incline, and there's these little pathways where water flows, and the water flows down and out and gives nutrients to the rice.

[06:27]

The rice grows. We can eat the rice, and then we can then become exposed to the Dharma. So the Buddha said, let's design the robe. In fact, he said, Ananda, can you design a robe? based on the rice paddy. And so he did. And the way that we make our robes is they're made out of panels. The rakasu is the five-panel robe. This okesa is a seven-panel robe. And then there's a nine-panel robe. And each of them are made of small pieces with, on the okesa, two long pieces. On the rakasu, it's one short piece And one long piece. And the long pieces are the wisdom, which all of us come to Buddhism for to get the wisdom and to get rid of the ignorance, which is the little ones.

[07:27]

The little panels are ignorance panels. So we actually sew together ignorance and wisdom because our understanding of awakening includes ignorance and delusion. And originally there were three robes, and there still are the three robes. The rakasu is a five-jou, and it was worn originally as a skirt, but we're not quite sure when it is that the skirt turned into a rakasu, but we think it's sometime in China. because there were different cultural ideas about how it is that you earn a living. And in China, work and labor became a big part of our practice. So we think the rakasu came from there. And then over the top of that, the rakasu is originally for when you're outside of the temple or when you're working. The okesa, the seven joe, is for when you're sitting in the zendo, the meditation hall, or when you're doing service.

[08:29]

And the nine joe, which fully transmitted priests have, is for ordinations and for giving dharma talks. So forgive me for not wearing a nine joe. I don't have one. I'm giving a dharma talk in a seven joe. The style of robe, the style of sewing that we do, where we make the robe, is called nioho-e in Japanese, which means the robe according to the Dharma, which are the teachings of the Buddha. Shohaku Okamura, is a fantastic teacher here in the United States from Japan. And he just did a Genzoe on the robe. A Genzoe is a period of really intense study, lost in a week or a couple of weeks. And he just did a Genzoe on Buddha's robe. And he speaks about the relationship between the tangible and the intangible when it comes to the robe, between the mind where the Dharma is perceived

[09:37]

and the body, which is the rope. Nyoho-e, rope sewing, was nearly lost in Japan, but it was kept alive by some nuns at Kichi Shōan Temple. And these nuns were students of the 18th century monk who was very famous, and there was a really important Buddhist named Jiyun Onko. He was a part of the Shingon school, which is a different school from our Soto Zen school. And Shingon is esoteric or tantric Buddhism. Kodo Sawaki, who lived in the 20th century, he died in the 1960s. He lived throughout most of the... He was born in the 19th century, but lived in the 20th century. He met these nuns and revived... the sewing, the Nioho-e sewing of Buddha's robe.

[10:40]

He had a disciple whose name was Joshin-san, and Joshin-san was brought here by Suzuki Roshi in the 1970s to teach Blanche Hartmann, the first abbess of San Francisco Zen Center, how to sew according to Nioho-e. And Blanche taught me for a really long time because I needed a lot of extra instruction. I worked with her for 12 years. Dogenzenji, who is our 12th century founder in the Kesa Kodoku, which is what we did the Genzo A on. The Kesa Kodoku is in the collection called Shobo Genzo, and it's actually the longest fascicle in the Shobo Genzo. And Kesa Kodoku means the power of the robe. And in it, Dogen focuses over and over again on the transmission between teacher and student of the rope.

[11:44]

So when you do Jukai here, we're not supposed to call it Jukai anymore, but I'll talk about that in a minute. You sew and you make the Rakasu, you give it to your teacher, teacher writes on the back of it and then gives it back to you. as the Buddha transmitted the robe to his disciple, Mahakashapa, and so on and so forth, all the way down to us right now. And Dogen speaks about this over and over again as the authentic passing down of the true Dharma. Dogen says, of the robe, I quote, it is the Buddha body, Buddha mind. It is called the clothing of emancipation, the robe of the field of benefaction, the robe beyond form, the unsurpassable robe, the robe of patience, the robe of great love and great compassion, the robe as a victorious banner and the robe of enlightenment.

[12:55]

he repeats the Buddha's prescription for the cloth that's used for making the robe. And he says that it should be chewed by cows, by rats. It could be burned. Menstrual cloth should be used. Stained in childbirth. Cloth that's found in a cemetery and used as a shroud. These are the most appropriate materials, he says. He calls them pure materials. for making Buddha's robe. The robe, he says, protects you from the poison arrows of delusion and nurtures the practice of enlightenment. And Shonawashu, who is the third ancestor who we recite on Fridays, we recite all the male ancestors on Saturday mornings, we recite some of the male ancestors and the women ancestors, and Shonawashu is the third ancestor And it's said that he was born wearing a lay robe, which then magically became a monk's robe when he ordained.

[14:04]

And when you become a priest here at San Francisco Zen Center in Soto Zen, you suddenly have all of this fabric that you have to deal with. And it's the abbot David Zimmerman says, the higher you get here, the more fabric you have to deal with. And what it does is it actually affects the way that you walk. So how it is that you walk, how you relate your body to your surroundings actually begins to change. And it's almost as if your body begins to change. There's a connection in Dogen's writings and in Keisaka Doku between the robe and time itself. My favorite Dogen fascicle is called Uji, which translates as time being. And in both Uji and in time being, when he, or in Keisa Kudoku, when he talks about the transmission of the rope, he talks about the past, the present, and the future.

[15:13]

And in both of these writings, he's asking us to give up our conventional ideas of linear time. He says, and I quote, in authentically transforming the past, recent and future, An okesa is transmitted from past to present, from present to future, from present to past, from past to past, from present to present, from future to future, from future to present, from future to past. It is the authentic transmission only between a Buddha and a Buddha. So he sort of covers all the bases right there. So here's the interconnectedness between the deeply personal, private practice of Zen, so much of which is experienced in meditation, in the mind, but also with the body. And here's the connection between the different understandings of time that we have and the interpersonal but intimate relationship with the physical presence of

[16:29]

of the student with the teacher, this transmission from the student to the teacher. This is face-to-face transmission, mind-to-mind, body-to-body, mind-to-body, tangible and intangible. In this connection that goes from the present back to the Buddha and forward to future practitioners. So when a student asks to receive the precepts from their teacher, so you come here, if you want to, you can get a teacher, you study with them for a while, and then if you want to, you ask to receive the 16 Bodhisattva precepts in a public ceremony that until recently we called Jukai, but Jukai is actually in Japan a very different and much more complicated. that doesn't have so much to do with the relationship between the teacher and the student.

[17:34]

We're calling it now the Bodhisattva Initiation Ceremony. A little bit of a mouthful. I've heard some people calling it Bic, which I don't like. So as I said, you get a teacher, you study with a teacher for a while, and then at a certain point, when the teacher feels like you're ready, the teacher sends you to sewing class. And when I first went to sewing class here, after asking my teacher if I could receive the precepts, studying with him for a while, when I first went to sewing class, it was over in another building over there. And I had already met Blanche Hartman, but this was the first time I was sort of in close proximity. And I found her to be very stern and extremely serious. I would later find out that she actually has got a really good sense of humor, is very warm, and is a massive expression of compassion.

[18:36]

So I started sewing my rakasu, and after sewing for only really a couple of weeks, Blanche, who knew that I was in the craft trades and was trained as a fine artist, she asked me to learn how to be a sewing teacher. which I enthusiastically took up. And I was so enthusiastic that I kind of started to move kind of quickly with my rakasu, sewing it. And I sewed it, and I gave it to my teacher. You give it to your teacher. The teacher writes your new Dharma name on the back. There's a piece of silk on the back. And then they give it to you in this public ceremony. And so I had that ceremony, and I was sitting with Blanche. Blanche would always sit at the end of this table in the dining room, and I would sit next to her. And she was looking at my rakasu, and she grabbed it suddenly.

[19:40]

And she said, you've sewn your rakasu face on upside down. The rakasu's got a top and a bottom. And I was completely horrified. Yeah. I said to her, I'm going to go and fix it right now. I'm going to fix everything. She said, you can't. She said, you're going to ruin it. You have to take the silk off. You've got to turn the silk around. You've got to take off a bunch of little pieces. You've got to take off part of the frame. You're going to wear it upside down. You have upside down practice, she said. And it was prophetic because my whole practice for the next 20 years, has been very upside down. So when we sew, we take refuge with each stitch. with one stitch, with the next stitch, with the next stitch, with the next stitch. This means I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha.

[20:41]

And Blanche would say, you can do that in any language you want, But she preferred Japanese because the kie part in namukei butsu means I plunge into refuge with the Buddha without any resistance, without any second thought. So it's an expression of complete and utter trust. So I tell my students when they're sewing to try and make contact with that internal experience of total and complete trust. So if you've ever had someone in your life who you completely trusted, try and revisit that internal feeling each time you take refuge. And if, like me, you've never had anyone who you've totally trusted, I found it was pretty easy for me to imagine what it was that was missing and so could make contact with that internal feeling. After some time as a sewing teacher, a couple years maybe, I began to recognize only half-jokingly

[21:45]

a pattern of some of the people who were coming to sewing class, and I coined the term, after getting to know them a little bit, I coined the term adult survivors of childhood sewing trauma. People would come to sewing class oftentimes very intimidated and frightened, and sometimes even terrified. And when seeing how common this was and getting to know some of the people, I began to realize that I, too, was an adult survivor of childhood sowing trauma. My mother died when I was eight. And I had three sisters. My father was working and not really around very much at all. I had an older sister, and then I was second. And when my mother died, my older sister sort of became the mother and cooked and did laundry and ironed. And she left after a couple of years, which left me as the mother.

[22:47]

for several years and so you know I did laundry and and cooked as best I could and there was always with my sister this huge pile of ironing that she was always doing so I just did this massive pile of ironing and for years I ironed socks and underwear because no one told me that you don't need to do that but I don't do it anymore I want you to know So in England, where I grew up in London, you have school uniforms and school uniforms need to be repaired. You get rips in them, buttons go missing. No one had taught me how to sew. I just sort of did the very best that I could. And one day at school, Fiona May couldn't believe her lucky stars walking up behind me. She saw a thread hanging down from my crotch. And along with a bunch of her friends, she snuck up behind me and pulled and pulled and pulled in. And I was horrified, of course, and that's the story of the beginning of my life as an adult survivor of childhood sewing trauma.

[23:55]

Sewing Buddha's robe is an intensely private practice. Sitting there, focusing on tiny stitches, working with imperfection and small failures with self-doubt and self-criticism people oftentimes want to take stitches out if they don't look good but we teach joshin-san's way which is that each stitch is sacred we take refuge in each stitch and it becomes sacred and refuge of course is a place of comfort and safety It's a place of shelter when there's turmoil outside. So over the last few decades, there's been a lot of research on brain chemistry. And there's also within that been a lot of study of particularly Theravadan meditators.

[25:00]

who do metta practice. Metta means compassion. And so it's a repetitive, positive practice, making contact with compassion. And it's been shown, they've put electrodes and they can actually look into the brain somehow. And it's been shown that this type of meditation can actually change brain chemistry. So by the repetition of these positive internal experiences, there seems to be an altering of the neuroplasticity and neurochemical pathways and that we can actually shift the way it is that the body responds to memories. A few days ago, Christina in Work Circle, which is the meeting that we have in the morning, mentioned the amygdala. And the amygdala is part of our limbic system, which is where it is that we process emotions like fear, anger, and pleasure.

[26:05]

It helps the brain identify threats, putting into action responses that protect us. So it's sort of like a detector of impending danger. And we now know that for many of us, traumatic experiences can cause dysfunction in the amygdala and in the limbic system. This can create dysfunctional coping patterns that can lead to suffering, which is the main thing that we concentrate on liberating ourselves from in Buddhism. In Zen terms, this is bringing our karmic conditioning, our formation from actions in our past onto the cushion, into the Zen Do, into our practice. Many practitioners of brain sciences say that the treatment of different brain-body disorders is a multiple approach, a sort of combination of therapies, medication sometimes, but often times meditation is included in that.

[27:20]

And sewing is a form of meditation for us. I've heard a number of people speak in different terms about the healing experience of sewing Buddha's robe. I've seen people who are obviously averse to sewing, like I was, wonder why it is that they're being asked to do this seemingly irrelevant thing. I've seen them become enamored with sewing and profoundly grateful for the maintenance of this long tradition that we have. Even I've... been near people who've actually asked if they could become sewing teachers. So I've been a sewing teacher for 20 years this year, and I've noticed a kind of subtle magic that happens to people. We work with letting go of perfection and begin to let go of our shame, our self-doubt, and self-criticism. We change somehow and are never again the same person.

[28:26]

Sewing has provided me with a ground of stability, consistency, and interconnection with both a present-day community, all of you, and a sangha that goes way back into the past. I have historical connections with others. And sewing has done so through various difficulties in my life. And my experience of it has been one of healing and compassion for the self, but also compassion for other people. And compassion is the most healing of our Buddhist practices. So I'm going to close. I really hope we have time for some questions. I spoke a little longer than I had planned to. This poem is by David White. It's not about sewing, but There aren't any poems about sewing.

[29:30]

At least I couldn't find any. This poem is called Song of One Who Goes On. And it's about self-compassion. It's about letting go. It's about gratitude and generosity. All of which are characteristics of sewing Buddha's robe. What I have left behind has not left me. Those I have failed have not failed me. And those I have not loved will love me even in my worst. What I have not seen or failed to see I leave as a gift. The lands I have not walked will offer their paths as I sleep. This earth I have not loved will hold me even as I'm laid beneath it. To everything that is, I give everything I am not.

[30:34]

To the life through which I have walked blindfolds, I give it the sight of my weakness. To life, I give thanks for this. One strength through great failure with marvelous opportunity for all. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:22]

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