This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. It's good to be here. This is Zen K. Blanche Hartman Day. One of my favorite people. Thank you. All those who are supporting today by being here and bringing your lives here. How many are new first time to City Center? Okay. So today I will be talking about and my encounters and experiences with being a student and also having a teacher by the name of Zenke Blanche Hartman. And so I could not not hobble down here.

[01:04]

I'm not supposed to be walking at all. And I'm six weeks out of having stumbled right in front of a city center, going downhill too fast. Now I'm doing king hen everywhere. Yeah. meditation walk. And I feel nervous because I have my shoes on. So I've never worn my shoes in a Buddha. So anyway, let's get started. I want to start by reading this quote by Zinke Blanche Hartland. This book is Seeds for a Boundless Life. And I was the compiler of her talks for this book. And she was so happy to receive it on her.

[02:05]

She was dying at the time I was compiling this work for her. And so I always sometimes feel this was my true transmission. You know, like reading every word. Of course, I couldn't get it all in a book because it was a lot. She had been here forever. So I did my best. Let me read this quote from her. It's very profound. If we're open to embracing the surprises as they arise, then there will be inconceivable joy. I'm going to read that again. If we're open to embracing... the surprises as they arise, then there will be inconceivable joy. If we fuss and fume and say, this isn't what I expected, then there will be inconceivable misery. Just to welcome your life as it is arrives moment after moment.

[03:11]

to meet it as fully as you can, being as open to it as you can, being as ready for whatever arises as you can, and meeting it wholeheartedly, this is renunciation. This is leaving behind all of your preferences, all of your ideas and notions and schemes. Just meeting life as it is. Zenke Blanchard. So her name, Zenke, means inconceivable joy. And when I met her, she didn't look very happy. You know. And I was always like, oh. And then one day she smiled and I was like, oh, you know.

[04:12]

But yet I chose this person as my teacher and my guide and my mentor and my friend. Yeah. So, you know, our coming together as to me as a student and teacher could be seen as a big surprise. You know, someone who had practiced for 45 years and somebody who just coming new into Zen to come together. So it's very auspicious when you choose someone or someone someone chooses you to walk with you on the spiritual path, you know, to be a companion on your up and down. And you might start way up and then hit the ground together and then start way up here and then you hit the ground together over and over again. And it's an incredible experience because it, I think it sometimes goes against the grain of what we think having a teacher is.

[05:22]

Sometimes we come in to, we choose someone, oh, they'll be able to fix me. I'm going to choose them. They look perfect. They look like they have risen above all human conditions. And so I'm going to choose them. Or we want someone we can converse with about the philosophy of Zen. I was that one. The latter one. I'm very scholarly, so I wanted, you know, that to be the relationship. So, of course, this brought a great amount of misery, because that's not what was going to happen. Just as she said, if you're open to embracing the surprises as they arise, then there will be inconceivable joy. So, There was no inconceivable joy because I was not here to wait for whatever arises.

[06:23]

I'm here to deal with right now and hear what I want to deal with you, what I want you for. And I remember asking her, you know, when are we going to study together? You know, so we could go back and forth around the teaching. And she said, who, me? You know, I'm not going to do that. And I was like, whoa, this is going to be interesting. So what are we going to do? I need help. So in the end, our coming together, I think, feel like a surprise, you know, when I got to know her and she got to know me. And I think somehow I was prepared for her. I was prepared for a teacher that was considered extremely strict. And what I mean by that, she was adamant about the Zen forms and Zen practice.

[07:32]

And I could see that. And I wanted that. And I felt I was prepared for it. I wanted maybe that side of her that was like, why is she looking so stern and so, you know, she wasn't like soft and cuddly or looked like that kind of person. And I chose it, maybe unconsciously, but I did choose it. I wanted, what I saw in her later, not too much later, was a passion for Zen. You know, with a deep passion for it, and her deep passion is what helped her walk this name she had, Zenke, Inconceivable Joy. And it came to me, it occurred to me at some point, like, oh, they gave her that name because she doesn't have Inconceivable Joy. You know?

[08:40]

I really got it when I got my name, Zenju. which means complete tenderness, and you learn quickly that that's your path. And because I was like, hmm, tenderness, hmm. I'm going to do that with all this onslaught of my life and the world. But anyway, she was joyful in that she had this practice, and I wanted to find out that gem, that treasure. You know, what was that? you know, that carried her life despite all her, I could see all her regrets and things that she probably felt she made mistakes with and how we were able to meet life just as it is when we came together. And so I felt, I want to talk a little bit about how I felt I was prepared, because you might want to wonder, how do you prepare?

[09:43]

you know, to have a teacher. So I think there are a few things I wanted to share. And then in that, I'll be sharing a few examples of maybe how that came across, came to me. So fortunately, I had 15 years of Buddhism before I came to Zen Center in Nishran. Buddhism, Nishran Daishonan, the lay organization of Soka Gakkai. And there I had already been doing, quote unquote, Dharma talks and had students already. But it was in a different form than what Zen has, that relationship of student teacher. But I was used to... someone, you know, you're grown already, telling you what to do and how to do it and, you know, giving you guidance and they're not your parents and they don't know you and all these kinds of things. So I was already a little bit used to that when I came in and I think that was an important piece.

[10:47]

I also had already, since I had practiced 15 years in Soka Gakkai, which was completely multicultural. And we had small groups and mine was mostly all black and queer. So, you know, I came in with like dessert, you know, coming into Buddhism. I had an environment in which I could be who I was. And I feel fortunate about that. And then after that, I entered here at Zen Center through what we call the POC at that time, BIPOC now is the term. black, indigenous, people of color. And so I came through that sangha and met a fierce teacher, Ramon Gutierrez Baltiquin, and also Xotay Marta De La Rosa. And the two of them were like, whoo.

[11:49]

They're strict. They were very intense, and they were very good teachers. I was ready for them, though. I was ready to be with them as well. So by the time I got to Blanche, I was upright. I had the precepts digested within my body. But yet there was still this way in which I couldn't see anything. I couldn't see clearly. I couldn't see life. I couldn't feel it. I didn't understand Buddhism in my body. I understood it in my mind. You know, and I was still in that place of feeling I wanted to walk with somebody, you know, on this path. So, as I said, I wasn't looking for someone to fix me. You know, I was looking for a person who would not give me their wisdom, but would help me cultivate my own. I wasn't looking for anyone to give me their wisdom.

[12:51]

I wanted it to be cultivated. And I thought that meant reading books, but okay. I found out later it was not, I had no idea. Zen was a body practice at that time and that I would learn through the ceremonies and rituals that I would learn through Zazen and sitting and stillness. I was looking for somebody who would be honest. She would have to have a voice, a strong voice in her transmission of the practice. not let me do only as I please and yet give a wide enough field of practice for me to make mistakes. And she was that person. She was very honest about who she was and who her life was. She was very much presented herself as a human being, as a person, and not that she was perfect. Matter of fact, she immediately told me about all of her mistakes, and I just loved it. It made me so much more comfortable in walking and being with a teacher that acknowledged being a human being, and it definitely got transmitted to me.

[14:03]

As you know, you probably know a lot more about me than I know about you, because I'm always talking about myself in a lot of my books and writing and teaching. And so she was very honest, and she And she had a strong voice. She wasn't afraid to speak to me directly and speak directly to me without me crumbling, you know, just because she said something. And she said some things that would stop me, you know, and make me think about it. And one of the ones she would, I was always talking about what other people were thinking about me. I always said, so-and-so, this is what's happening, and they're thinking this, and they're thinking that. And she always kind of had a gruff way, so she would say, you know, they're not thinking about you. You know, like, with that voice, that tone, you know. I said, oh, it's about to be a teaching. They're not thinking about you.

[15:05]

And I'm like, I'm trying to tell you what's happening in my life and how I'm struggling. She said, they're not thinking about you. They're thinking about themselves. Big lesson turned me around because that's all I was thinking about was myself, was me. That was one of kind of the first big kind of, oh, mm. And of course, all my complaining ceased pretty much. I probably did a little more, but it ceased pretty much. And I began to be turned inward. It was her way of turning me. and to myself. She wasn't afraid of my blackness. That was like, you know, sometimes it can be intimidating if you don't have an experience of it, and there weren't a lot of me around here. And so, or my queerness. And she didn't glorify it, and she didn't ignore it. She didn't feel guilty of herself being different, of her whiteness.

[16:08]

And she would not use our embodiment as the basis for our relationship, but yet it was the basis of our relationship. And so she would, she quickly brought me to the diversity committee meeting. I think I went to one or two. And I said, no, no, no, I'm going to have to do mine differently. I want to do something different. It was the first time I got in a car with her. Now, this morning they had a service and I was listening. And she really liked cars. You know, she liked mechanics and engines and things. So I did go to Green Gulch with her once. Never again. She drives the road to Green Gulch goes like this and it winds and winds. And she was driving it like she was on the Indianapolis Raceway. And I was like, I'm afraid of drivers who drive fast. And she just loved it. She was enjoying herself so much.

[17:10]

It was a different person that I had seen sitting so still, so quiet in the Zendome. for her to drive down that road and back in the dark too, same way. And if I went, I wasn't going to go with her. And then I actually began to feel that the committee itself, I wanted to do that work, you know, helping to bring in, make it more cultural, multicultural within the Zen Center. And my way wasn't going to be through talking it out. I didn't know that way. And I also had done a lot of that in the world. And it felt like the work in the world. And I came here to do the work in this world, the inner world.

[18:10]

So no matter what came up for me around racism, homophobia, or any of these things, or the oppression, I wanted to see what would happen if I used the Buddhist teachings and if anything at all would shift in my life. And I was afraid in the beginning it wouldn't in the first five, seven years. It might not. But it was something that I tried on. And in the end... When I did get Dharma Transmission, I was given a task by Blanche. And it was to, she said, now go out and make Zen diverse. And I was like, well, you know, she's still on where we were way back, you know. And I was with her for more than 20 years, so. a little while. So I looked at how she did it.

[19:13]

I watched her and listened to how she did it. And what she did was ordained and Dharma transmitted, Red Les Muta, Dharma transmitted the first three teachers of color in the Suzuki Roshi lineage. And we had three. That was Zenke Blanche Hartman. This is the way I know it. The story might be different, but I don't remember anybody other than the three of us, which was Lee and Shoot, you know, Vietnamese, and Ramon Gutierrez Baldequin, black African. And Ramon's the first black Dharma-transmitted teacher in the Suzuki Roshi lineage. I just want that documented. So I said, that's how I'm going to do it. That's exactly how I'm going to do it.

[20:15]

And so far, I have brought at least 18 people into the Suzuki Roshi lineage by being the teacher that Blanche wanted me to be. And I don't only have all black students. I have more than that. It worked to me for them, for their lives, the people I ordained. I didn't do it for Zen Center. I did it for what, in the way Blanche did it, this could help your life. That's the way she did it. She didn't ordain people for herself. She ordained them for their life. And that's how I ordained people. I had three people I've ordained so far, and I probably might ordain three more. I don't know. I'll need to do a fundraiser. It goes quite a bit. This is another way I related to her.

[21:26]

It was like, now how am I going to teach a nearly 80-year-old Jewish white woman from Alabama? about blackness, you know, because I could see she was interested. And like I said, I didn't want to go the route of diversity training, which I had done and already knew how to do. So what I did was went to my personal library, and I kind of did one of these things and landed on Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. And I pulled that book out. I said, I'm bringing this to Blanche. And I brought the book out, shared it with her. And she was delighted. And not only did she read it, but Lou, also Lou Hartman, her husband. Sometimes when I'm talking about her, I can't see them differently. So it's kind of hard because I was with them together. I really feel Lou was a teacher, too.

[22:28]

And maybe I have a little time to squeeze that in there. But they were both teachers to me, actually, together. And so they both read the book and they were so excited about it. They both came down and they kept, you know, a few weeks later, meet me at lunch and talked about the book a lot and how they were so excited about it. And for some reason, right at that time, there was... That book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, showed up on TV as a movie. And so they were telling me about the movie. And I go, I know. I know about the movie. It was so sweet. They were so excited. And so then not that long after that, Blanche brought me her book that she wanted me to read. I said, OK. And she brought the book, The Help. It was a controversial book. It was about women in the South and women from different backgrounds, black and white, and the white women in it were very wealthy, and the black women were the help.

[23:36]

And so she brought the book down. She says, I want to have you read the help. And I remember her saying it at the lunch table, and there were a lot of people there at the lunch table, and they kind of froze. Because they already knew it was a lot of talk about this book. And I'm the only black one at the table. And I said, yes, Blanche, I heard about the book. But, you know, I was fine. She kept going on. You got to read it. You got to read the help, the help, the help. And I said, okay, you know. And she loved that. She would always say, because you and I, we're from the south. You know, because she was from Alabama and my family is from Louisiana. So we had southern kind of roots and ways, except her south and my south were very different. But that's okay. I stayed with, yes, because she was so excited. She would smile. Anytime Blanche smiled, I was like, I'm going to smile with you. And I would smile with her about this. So when she brought the help, I was like, uh-oh, it's like, yeah. So...

[24:38]

I didn't say anything, and she kept going on and on. Next, I didn't get the books. Have you read The Help yet? This is a week or two later. No, haven't read The Help. And then she said, well, I'm going to go up and get it. Now, Blanche, you know, her body, she's spiral, and she's going all the way up to the second floor to get the book. So I have to read the book, okay? She comes back down with the book. I ended up reading the book, and she was so excited about it. And it was an amazing experience. A surprise came from it for me. And because I had my ideas about the book politically or socially or whatever. It's like, no, we're not reading The Help. We're not reading about The Help. I'm The Help. She just couldn't see that. But when I read it, I said, ah. She gave me her life.

[25:40]

She shared with me something about herself, about her life and how she was raised. I learned so much in reading that book about her. It was really about her. And I'll never forget it. And she said, so did you read it? And I said, yes, I read it. And I really came to an understanding about your experiences because otherwise I didn't. She was just a... you know, kind of stern Zen teacher. And this way of sharing was constant. And it was a sharing that wasn't verbal. It was definitely transmitted in the way that we often think Zen might be. So right now, each one of us are transmitting as well. We're transmitting. Whether you know Zen or not, you're transmitting. Whether you're a teacher or a student, your body, your presence, your arising is transmitting right now.

[26:43]

Not just me talking. Your transmission may be bouncing from that, but it's not. And so I learned something in that process, you know, sharing the book. People would talk to me about the help, and I said, yeah, it's not really about the help. Because the story about the help is not really there. It's about the other people that were in the room. And so the other thing I felt inconceivable joy could not be, you know, was she finally, was she joyous because of Zen? I don't know. But I do know that I would just watch her. So I would observe her and she would observe me. And that was how we were student and teacher. And I would see her bouncing down the stairs. She couldn't wait, like, to come in a room like this.

[27:44]

You know, I feel she's still here. And to see all the people, like all the people. She would be trying to talk to everybody, you know. And I was opposite. You know, trying to hide all the time, trying to hide. And she would watch me hiding. And... And to me, I was just being silent. I was a very silent practitioner. It's so amazing that I'm talking so much now. But I was very silent. And when I started, I kept sitting on the silent table, silent table, silent table for lunch. And then one time she came over and she leaned over. You do know you cannot sit at the silent table for the rest of your practice. I was like, really? I mean, really, it was a shock. I have to engage.

[28:45]

I have to talk. You know, there's little teachings like that. That's how she was. So did I move from the silent table? No. She had to come get me. She's just, come over here. Come, come. And I sit at the table. And this is when the dining room would be really full. Every table was like 18 people, you know? Just packed at that time. And I was like, oh, I'm just not that kind of person. That's why I came to sit. You know, be quiet. And so I would sit with her. And so wherever she sat, I sat until I got used to sitting other places. I would try to figure out where she was going to sit, you know, like that. But she sat with me for many years to get if she wasn't sitting, Lou was sitting on the other side. So they were very, very busy. intent on taking care of me, you know, being, you know, who I was and being alone like that. And my partner, Simboala, who died in November 2022, Zinke Blanche loved her too.

[29:49]

And I got jealous because every time Simboala would come by, she'd go, she would be with me and then Simboala, she'd go, Simboala! And I'd go... What am I? You know, like she would just forget about me altogether. And I understood I understood that, you know, Zimbabwe was just this beautiful kind of open light. She wasn't hiding. She wasn't a hiding person. She liked that. And so I prepared for a strict Zen training by a very strict teacher. Somebody who had a passion. for the practice, who I saw had joy for the practice, and I didn't understand where that joy was coming from. And after she passed and I saw myself bouncing down the stairs, you know, that was her, you know, here inside me.

[30:55]

because I didn't feel that way when I first came. So don't push away who might be coming to you as a teacher. And even if you don't want a teacher, I can understand that too. I don't think you have to. But it sure is fun to box with somebody and to sit in silence with somebody, to struggle. You know, there were times she got mad and she stopped talking to me. I mean, like human stuff. She's like, you did what? Like I said, she gave us a wide field and I took it, the whole wide field. And I did some things I probably shouldn't have done. And I think, you know, I was listening this morning to her family and her daughters talking about how she mothered those here at Zen Center. And she did.

[32:00]

And she was able to be a mother, even as an abbess. And she did mother us. But I also felt like it was an exchange, because I found myself mothering her, too. So I think she got mothered and fathered and parented by the students as well, if you were a part of it. I think she needed that. I think she needed to be mothered. Sometimes your teachers need to be mothered. So remember that. So I would bring her, how did I do that? I would bring her persimmons, which she loved. And especially at Tassajara, they would grow a lot. I don't think they grow as much. I'm not sure. Do they? Yeah, good. So they're the best, right? At Tassajara, the persimmons, she loved them. I would bring that and... The other thing she liked was mochi, and she wasn't supposed to have that, the Japanese sweet treat. And so sometimes people would bring that to her. So I never brought those because it wasn't the best thing.

[33:04]

And Simboala and I both would, you know, change her sheets, you know, just do things that she needed. And that is important to give back to your teachers, to reciprocate in the care. and to reciprocate in the gentleness and tenderness and to be concerned in a way that's not to fully take care of their life, but to understand you're living a symbiotic relationship on a path that's very mystical, a path that has a lot of, looks like a lot of forms, but once all that's ingested, all the forms you will see yourself maybe bouncing down the stairs, regardless of all the trials and tribulations and the struggle that may come up, like as in life, as in life.

[34:07]

So I also chose Zenke because she was an elder. And I usually tend to go to the elders on ancestral paths, and I've been on many ancestral paths, Native American and African. And I go to the elders, those who have been there for, and I mean elder, like both, long time, you know, over 40 years, and in age as well. And, you know, I'm glad I did that. I chose... someone who had been there. Now, was she full of advice and profound, this and that? Not necessarily. I actually didn't need that. I didn't need anyone to do that for me. I needed someone to see me as a human being. And she needed someone to see her as a human being and to be together as human beings. And I grew. Yeah, I grew into that. It was very difficult.

[35:08]

A lot of people don't believe it. I'm shy. So I am shy, which is scared means scared of people. Introverted. So she helped that. I never thought I'd be sitting here. Never thought I'd be sitting here talking to you all at all. I did not want to be Dharma transmitted. I wanted to remain a novice priest forever. No shu so. I didn't want to do that either. She... got me out of New Mexico, made me come. You're going to beast yourself. And then Dharma transmission. I kind of did that in the beginning, you know, to become a teacher. You know how sometimes your parents say, I'm waiting for you to get married. And then you're like, especially if you're like me, I don't know. And so she said, I want this one before I die to become a Dharma transmitted. And she tapped. I want to see Lou. There's two things. I want to see Lou again. And I want this one to become a full teacher, to become dharma transmitted.

[36:10]

And I was like, uh-oh, uh-oh. I thought I was going to escape it, like she would die and I would keep going. And then when she said it, I just said, well, I hope you see Lou again. That was my response. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, 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. May we fully enjoy the Domo.

[37:06]

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