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 evening. Thank you, Tim, for inviting me to give today's Dhamma Talk. And thank you everyone for being here. And thank you for people who are joining online. Actually, maybe I should not thank Tim. He asked me to talk about my experience practicing as a woman in Soto Zen. My immediate honest reaction was, I really don't want to touch this topic.

[01:08]

Gender gap in Japan is still large, and I did feel it in the monastery life as well. So it felt like walking into a minefield to talk about this topic. Many anxieties. dashed into my mind. What if I offend someone? What if this affects my work? And what if I give a very negative impression of Japanese Soto Zen? But then I noticed nothing has happened yet. Nobody actually criticized me. or nobody was angry with me. It was just all happening in my own head. And I thought, well, maybe this is a good practice to look at what is happening right now, what I am afraid of, what I am defending, what I am holding onto.

[02:22]

And what story am I creating in my own mind? Of course, that doesn't mean everything. It's just in my imagination. There are certainly been times when I have felt the weight of gender issues strongly. I also want to acknowledge here that gender is not simply a binary of men and women. and there are many different gender identities and experiences. But today, I will focus specifically on what I know from my own lived experience as a female practitioner. While I still carry some undeserved feelings, most of the time, I really don't think about gender at all.

[03:29]

And perhaps more importantly, I really love walking this path. Even there are aspects of tradition that I feel frustration. I have a deep appreciation for Soto Zen and how everything this path has given me. Even there are some frustrations, undone-ness, all of that, there is a much deeper joy. The joy I find in practice and joy in sharing Dharma with others. That joy keeps drawing me back to practice and keeps me walking this path. So tonight, my intention, I hope, is not too much complaining.

[04:39]

But also not covering up, oh, Dalmar is beyond gender, so everything is fine. But instead, I want to explore what the historical situation has been for women and what my personal experience has been and how and whether Buddhist teachings might shed some light on these issues. Actually, many of you might know already the path for female practitioners, has never been completely flat or easy, right from the beginning of Buddhism. According to the early Buddhist texts, the Buddha was initially very reluctant to admit to allow women to enter the monastic order.

[05:46]

But his stepmother, Mahapajapati, did not give up. She was the activist, I think. After her request was turned down, she and hundreds of other women, they shaved their heads and wear the clothes and furrowed the Buddha to where he was staying. And but they become very tired and also they feel very sad that they are not allowed to enter the monastery. And some of them were crying. Ananda, the disciple of Buddha and cousin of Buddha, he saw those women and asked, what's happening? And they answered that,

[06:50]

they really feel sad that they cannot enter the monastery live. So Ananda decided to ask Buddha to allow women to get ordained. So Ananda asked Buddha, Buddha initially said no, but he asked Buddha again, Are women capable of gaining liberation just as men are? And the Buddha's answer was a clear yes. If women have been the same capacity of liberation as men, Ananda asked, why should they not be allowed to enter the monastic order? Ultimately, the Buddha agreed to admit women, though texts say there were some additional rules Nans should follow.

[08:01]

There are different theories about whether all the details of this story, including these additional rules, actually go back to the Buddha himself. So I don't want to take every part of the story as historical fact. I simply want to point out that the position of women has been a challenging issue in Buddhism from a very early stage. And also in spite of these difficulties, women are so passionate for this practice as well. Today in Japan, Do you know how many percentage of female priests in Japan? Can you guess? Yes. Yes. So yeah, it's only 3% of Soto Zen clergy.

[09:07]

It may change a little bit, but how much percentage in San Francisco Zen Center lineage? like women practitioners about how, maybe, or maybe, but pretty much higher percentage, I think. When I trained in Japan, there were times when I was the only female unsu. Unsu is a training monk. So me and several other male monks at that time. sometimes there were a few of us. Probably the number gets higher now, partly because the monastery I train, I train two monasteries, but the Toshioji Monastery have many practitioners from all over the world, so maybe they have more female practitioners now.

[10:14]

And the monasteries I trained were mixed with both male and female practitioners. Yet, throughout my training, I actually never had a female teacher except for a singing class. But I'm not saying that there are no female teachers, or that door is closed. In fact, one of the head temple in Japan, Sojiji, Eheiji and Sojiji is two main temples in Japan, and Sojiji has a female teacher as a seido, and seido is a very high teacher, maybe next to the abbot. So, Yes, she teaches there as Seido.

[11:22]

Her name is Shundo Aoyama. And she's about, I think, 93 years old now. And when she was born, there was a prediction that she's gonna be a great priest. So she, I think, her aunt was a priest, so she moved to her aunt's temple at the age of five and began her training very young. In the old days, it was not unusual to leave your parents' house and start training very early. In her bibliography book, she mentioned that she was often late school because she had to finish all her temple chores before she could go. Through her incredible dedication, passion, education, and strict traditional training, she became a very prominent leader in Japanese Soto Zen.

[12:29]

When I attended a sesim at the monastery, she is a head priest at the at the female monastery, and I attended Sessim there. When she gives Dhamma talk, you can feel her passion and energy from her talk. She often talks about Raihai Tokuzui chapter of the Shobo Genzo. And this is a remarkable chapter. where Dogen Zenji passionately argues for the absolute equality of men and women in Buddhist practice. He makes it clear that true realization has nothing to do with gender and that anyone who has grasped the Dharma is worthy of our deepest respect.

[13:39]

In this Raihai Tokuzui chapter, Dogen Zenji says, women and men can both receive the Dharma. If you are serious about the Buddha way, you cannot make such distinction about male or female. While Dogen Zenji provided the profound philosophy of gender equality, It was Keizan Zenji who truly put it into practice. Looking at Soto Zen history, Keizan Zenji, he's a fourth generation successor to Dogen Zenji and also co-founder of Soto Zen in Japan. He encouraged, actually, his female students to become abbots. and to take on their own students.

[14:43]

But during the Edo period, the situation took a huge step backward. Women are no longer allowed to have their own students. So even though they teach their students and leave temple together, train them, they had to ask their teacher to ordain. the students they trained. Furthermore, Nan's temple usually did not have a dankah, which is parishioner families to support them financially. So they had to rely entirely on their honzi, the temple in their lineage for their income. After World War II, Many courageous nuns such as Reverend Kendo Kojima fought very hard to regain the right for women to ordain and transmit the Dharma to their own students.

[15:52]

It was about 77 years ago that women regained the right to ordain and give Dharma transmission to their students in Japan. So today, you could say that system-wide, things are equal. And although it still feels like a very male-dominated group, when you consider maybe how challenging it is for traditional religions worldwide to fully include female practitioners, so to them, has been making progress. Now I would like to talk about one aspect of Soto Zen or Buddhism that may affect men and women potentially differently.

[17:02]

And this is about shaving the head. In some Buddhist schools in Japan, like Jodo Shin Buddhism, it's very known to have long hair, but in Soto Zen, shaving head is highly valued. It represents leaving home, choosing the monastic life, and letting go of attachment. At Japanese training monasteries, we shave each other's head. every four or five days. And as we do, we chant a verse expressing the wish that all beings may be freed from craving and that all beings may be freed from craving and attachment and realize complete peace.

[18:04]

So we usually pair up chanting this verse or Detaching from craving and wishing everyone's peace and we bow each other and then one person shaved other person's head and Usually Japanese people hair is much thicker and my hair is especially stubborn so whenever new Western nuns have to shave my head. They really struggle. We are now lucky to have five grade, five laser, five blade laser now. So we don't really get cut. But in the old day, I heard if you pair up with a crumpty person, your head would be completely red.

[19:07]

After leaving the monastery, it is up to you to shave or not. But at Soto Zen, I feel, well, there's no specific written regulation for shaving, unless for some very, very specific occasions. But at Soto Zen in Japan, it looks like there's a strong expectations that you should shave. Practically speaking, having a shaved head can affect daily life differently for men and women. For example, I love Japanese onsen. Onsen, it's a public bath. And when I go into the onsen, my head like this. Many women say I'm a man and very, you know, startled.

[20:16]

And also some public toilets too. And one time, a man, he wasn't paying much attention and following me into the women's restroom because he somehow, yeah, he assumed I was going to men's side. So now I wear a hat. when I go to public restrooms. And I put towel on my head at the public bus. I remember when I first shaved my head, it was a little shock. I went to a barber haircut place, very close to my ordination teacher's temple, they shave many heads of his students. So they are specialists. So at that time, my hair was pretty long.

[21:19]

So I cut them and decide to donate for the children with cancer they make, we can use for other week. And after that, they kind of first using the electric shaver and maybe making maybe quarter inch-ish And looking at that, wow, I look like a monkey, but it's okay. And they tell you, oh, now close your eyes with, you know, shave with a laser. So I close my head and they start shaving. And they just leave a very small part of your head on the top that supports your teacher gonna shave at the last time of the ordination. And they finished all of that and told me to open my eyes and look at myself, like completely shaved head. Today I have a little hair, but it was completely shaved.

[22:24]

Oh my God. What I have done to me was my first thought. I knew what shaving means, but I had little imagination how I would really look like after shaving. It is one thing to look at someone with a shaved head and another thing, at least for me, to look at my face completely shaved. I gradually get used to my shaved image and I now continue to shave. although if I was lazy, I let it grow a little bit. At that time, I told myself, hair is just hair, and I shave because I will become a Buddhist priest.

[23:25]

But I realized that I have more attachment to my hair than I imagined. For the first year or two, I sometimes dream, in my dream, I had a long ponytail. Now, some years later, I actually like shaving my head. It feels very simple. I don't have to go haircut. And maybe that itself has taught me something. Something that once felt so important to me, once felt so important to my identity, does not feel quite so important anymore. Personally though, I would prefer that shaving not be an absolute requirement for Soto Zen priests.

[24:29]

I think individual priests should be able to choose whether or not to shave or follow, each temple has decided the customs. I do sometimes get into argument with priests who believe that all priests should shave their heads. And today I say my opinion that it should be Personal choice, but I don't know if someday I change my mind and become one of those people who insist that if you become a priest you should shape Or maybe someday I will decide to grow back my hair again. I don't know yet And And

[25:35]

Here is not the only area where I sometimes wonder whether women are held to a different standard from men. Earlier, I mentioned Nebaret Shundo Aoyama, the head priest of Nanari and the teacher at Sojiji. She often said that women are the ones that carry Soto Zen tradition forward, because many female priests have continued to live a more traditional monastic life, remaining unmarried and devoting their lives entirely to the Dharma. I deeply admire her and deeply admire that kind of devotion. At the same time, I sometimes wonder why most men have families and still be respected as priests and teachers, and why women are expected to remain single.

[26:49]

In the West, I have met many female Zen teachers who have families and children, while also serving as Abbot and teachers. I would love to see more female priests in Japan have that possibility as well. And this is where my feelings become a little complicated. I don't want to simply say the American culture values equality, so American way is better. and Japanese culture is discriminatory, so Japan is worse. Because there are Japanese women I deeply admire who have devoted themselves to taking care of others without seeking recognition or praise at all.

[27:53]

And I like to talk about my mother as an example. I remember once watching her prepare the bus for my grandfather. She was a Japanese hot tub. All the time there was not so much temperature control so we put cold water and hot water to make it a good temperature and she tell our stir very well so that temperature is equal and just a light temperature, but do it in a way that the person who are taking baths, my grandpa is the one usually taking the baths, would not notice that you are doing it. She told me real kizukai, real consideration for others. It's something you do without letting the other person notice that you are doing it.

[28:59]

For example, whenever she cuts a grapefruit, you know, when you cut the grapefruit, there are many sections. Yeah, yeah, sections. She makes a cut each, section so that it is easy to eat with a spoon and There was Seven of us including my mother and she usually just cut for other people and she doesn't eat so So six grapefruits she cuts very Yeah, perfectly and One day when my mother was away My sister prepared the grapefruit instead. She didn't make those little cuts. She just cut half and served. My grandfather took a bite and said, something wrong with this grapefruit.

[30:09]

The fruit doesn't come out well. It's hard to eat. So he had never realized what my mother is doing for him all those years. In a way, that was exactly what she meant by kizukai, the other consideration for others. Her care was so quiet and natural that the person receiving it didn't even know it was there. I think many women of her generation or older generation lived like this. Sometimes they remind me of Kannon Bodhisattva, quietly noticing what others need and taking care of them, without any asking for recognition. Living at the temple can be a

[31:16]

very good practice for this canon activity. Not necessarily because you have a lot of quiet, relaxing time to meditate, but because you begin to realize how much work is being done behind the scenes to make everything possible. You are supported by bodhisattvas and you also join this bodhisattva activity. But there is an important difference between choosing to care for others and being expected to do so simply because you are a woman. I sometimes feel this tension at gatherings at Japanese temples.

[32:21]

Women may be serving tea while men officiate at the main ceremonies. I don't want to say that serving tea is lower and leading a ceremony is higher. But when those roles seem to be determined by gender, it still makes me uncomfortable. And what also bothers me, or perhaps confuses me, is that other women don't seem to be bothered by it as much. Perhaps living in the United States a long time. I came here about a year over a little, more than a year ago, but before that I lived in the U.S.

[33:25]

about 12 years. So perhaps living in the United States a long time has changed me. Some of my friends in Japan tell me, Tenmyo-san, I don't feel you're Japanese. And sometimes I wonder that myself, I'm certainly not American either. But perhaps being somewhere in between is not such a bad place to practice. It gives me a chance to look at both cultures, but also to really look at myself. as assumptions I have inherited, the identities I hold onto, and the stories I create about who I am, or who I am supposed to be. Although our social systems may not treat men, women, or people of different gender equally, the Buddha Dharma

[34:43]

is universal. While there are certainly times when I encounter situations that feel discriminatory, it is the Buddha Dharma that drove me to this path and that keeps me on this path. One of the Zen ancestors He said, the pure mind itself is a precept. Before we call ourselves a man or a woman, Japanese or American priest or lay person, who we are, before all these labels are created, we have pure mind, empty mind, And to live from that empty mind is for me what it means to live by precepts.

[35:52]

When I sit at them, I'm not really thinking about being a woman. I'm just sitting. In that moment, there's no man or woman. Of course, When we get up from the cushion, we live in the society. There are differences between us and sometimes there is inequality. But those differences do not change our equality in the Dharma. And I don't think equality in the Dharma means blindly following existing customs or expectation. It is opposite. Sometimes it may mean noticing that I am telling myself I have to do this because this is what society or other people expects of me.

[37:09]

Sometimes it may mean saying my true opinion or sharing what I really think, even when that feels very difficult. And perhaps it is much simpler than that. Our practice of Shikantaza allows us to go back to our pure mind. Live our life moment by moment with that pure empty mind is our practice and our Buddhist way. Thank you for listening today. And if

[38:12]

If you have any questions, I will answer what I can answer. Thank you very much. I'm always a little hesitant to ask you to give a talk because I know you're shy. And I remember Suzuki Roshi said once that his vision of hell was giving a Dharma cloak in English. But thank you very much for speaking on this topic. I promise you the next time you can speak about whatever it is that you want to... This is very helpful for us. And I want to speak for the whole community when we just say we just love having you here. for your courage and your bravery and just being here with us and practicing with us.

[39:19]

It's a great honor. Thank you, Tim. And thank you for this opportunity to taste the health. I have time for probably one, maybe two questions. I, too, deeply appreciate your presence. I don't know you really well, but we know each other by sight, and I appreciate your incredible practice. It's in your skin, and that's a great teaching. Many years ago, I was in Japan with a group of women. We were practicing. I met Ayo Yamaroshi. I was struck by her strength, her courage, and her kindness.

[40:20]

And I just want to say that it was so wonderful to hear you talk about her, because she, what an amazing role model. And I appreciate everything you said about male, female, because I think everybody feels something. So thank you very much. Thank you so much. One more question, if you like. Thank you very much for your talk tonight. I'm curious, obviously here in the States, we are very much inspired by, you know, what happens in Japanese Zen. And I'm curious if in Japan, maybe do they see, you know, more women being ordained and practicing like that in the United States? Is it kind of inspiring more women in Japan to take up the monastic life?

[41:26]

I'm just curious if it goes both ways. Well, you have one example here. I did start Zazen while I was in Massachusetts. Before moving to US, I did know the basic Buddhist stories because I was in Buddhist school, junior high school and high school. But I thought it was more your grandma teaching you how to do good and don't do bad things kind of thing. And I respect that, but I felt it's not so relevant for my everyday life. And I think that kind of changed in Massachusetts.

[42:29]

going to the scene together with friends, well, my friend kind of took me to there. I was kind of, you know, maybe not so voluntary at first, but yeah, I think it's kind of gradually changed that, oh, I really didn't notice that I neglected this, you know, very rich tradition. So I pretty much, influenced by practice here. 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 Dharma.

[43:28]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.31