If you have a pillow in the back if you have a pillow there's plenty of space up here Those people just coming in This is Easter Sunday. Can you hear me in the back? Okay? No? All right. There's more people than usual So I have to talk. I don't know exactly how loud to talk. Anyway, this is Easter Sunday and you all know it, I guess, because you came to church today

[01:10]

It's also Hanamatsuri or Buddha's birthday. If it gets so, you can't hear me. Mel, would you hold up your hand? I suppose for most people Christmas and Passover and Easter Easter, the remnants of, I think for many of us, the remnants of religious holidays are also the time when we feel the most sense of or memory of community So on Easter, even if it wasn't Hanamatsuri, Buddha's birthday, Hanamatsuri means Hana, flower, festival, or Buddha's birthday

[02:20]

And even if it wasn't Buddha's birthday, I think more people would tend to come out for a lecture on Sunday, Easter Sunday What I want to talk about today is that sense of community, or that community that we call a Sangha It's very difficult, actually, for me to talk about it, because what a Sangha is, is completely new to America. I think so.

[03:23]

No one knows in America what a Sangha should be, and in fact no one knows, and I don't know what an Abbot should be, what Zen centers should be How do we draw such a line? How are we going to find out what it is? And we are always in the midst of that choice, and so very practically it's a question for us Up until fairly recently, in fact, Green Gulch marks the real change. The aim of Zen center has been mostly just to keep a roof over people's heads, you know, when you're meditating out of the rain and the too hot sun But if you look at Buddhism, Buddhism is about limitation and reproduction, or the Sangha is about limitation and reproduction, and the many rules of Sangha are about how do you limit the community?

[04:49]

How do you oust someone who is obstreperous, or upsetting people, or not following the rules? And there are many, many examples of a monk or a nun who did this or that, and how they are finally, you know, it's in great detail. I'll try to explain why it's in such great detail, but detail to the extent that if you're intending to go to the village and you're not supposed to, the thought is one level of offense, taking the first step is the second level of offense, actually entering the village has been a grave offense or calls, requires a formal meeting of the order, etc. But when you limit something, when you draw a line, you also cause reproduction in the same way that if you want a tree to flower or a bush to flower, you trim back its leaves, you trim it back and you will make it flower.

[06:07]

When you get married, marriage means you limit your life in such a way that then you can reproduce children and take care of them, etc. So, one side of it is limitation, the other side of it is reproduction. So, when you limit a community, when we limit Zen Center to 200 people, many other things happen because this is also an act of reproduction. The arrow of time, you know, you can't turn back. The arrow has no power to turn back, and your every act releases that arrow, which it opens, you know, this is springtime, so it opens many, many bows to the fragrances.

[07:11]

But this reproduction is also power, social power, and we must know what that means, what we're getting into. And Buddha himself, he was a very profound individual, and probably, you know, some people say, the most far-reaching teacher of humankind, influenced more other religions, and Buddhism itself reached maybe a fourth of the population of the world. So, his teaching has been extremely far-reaching, profound teaching. But Buddha founded a sangha, a community, and Buddhism began as a community and will end, or exist as long as the community exists.

[08:17]

And Buddha himself was concerned with society. He understood society as profoundly as he understood individuals, and he was interested, you know, I know it's a bad word these days, but he was interested in the power of organization. I don't think I have any other word for it than organization. Supposedly, when he had the sangha help people, they helped people by some organized effort, trying to improve sanitation, trying to end a war or arbitrate some dispute between leaders of various areas. So, when we limit something, if it just expands, it doesn't reproduce. But when you limit it, it reproduces.

[09:27]

So, all choice is at one side, the choice of limitation and the choice of reproduction. At this recent sasheen at Tassajara that we just finished, December, morning of April 8th, we sat pretty long into the night, you know, one o'clock or two o'clock or two-thirty, and we were getting up at three o'clock. And I tried this time to cause some problem, you know, by not making it a decision, a simple group decision to stay up and sit.

[10:28]

We would be sitting, you know, about eleven o'clock, and I would get up and leave. And pretty soon other people would get up and leave. And after a little while, I would turn around and come back. And people would meet me on the road. Oh, God! And I'd go back in the zendo and people would be getting up to leave, and they would all start stretching and sit back down. So, I would stay till midnight or twelve-thirty, and then I'd get up and leave, and come back at one. And lectures were pretty long. Usually I feel a lecture should be about the length of time we talk to ourselves in zazen.

[11:31]

Forty-five minutes or fifteen minutes or so. But this time, lectures were, I couldn't keep track of the time, I don't know why. Actually, I couldn't, and pretty soon it was an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes, an hour and a half. And you put people in pretty difficult situations. I don't know whether we'll end by noon or what. But when you're sitting, particularly if you're the head monk, the shuso, and you're sitting next to me, you know, after an hour and you've been sitting seshin and it's the fifth or sixth day, and you're really tired, your legs hurt. So after, you know, I know and found out that during the last half hour of the lecture, people, they mostly saw swirling colors. You know, they heard a lot of white sound, couldn't tell what was going on.

[12:49]

So the question there is, do you stay sitting as head monk, or anyone else, you're all head monk, as member of the sangha. Do you stay sitting, or do you move for yourself? Or the third possibility, do you move as others? Do you move for others? Do you understand the problem? Maybe you should sit there, and at least someone should sit through it. So you sit there. But you also know, no, maybe half the people can't hear the lecture, because the pain is too great. So do you move for the sake of others, and drop your superego trip? It's a very difficult decision, because when you do move for the sake of others, you're also moving because your legs hurt like hell.

[14:01]

So you feel guilty, oh, I didn't really do it for others, it was such a good excuse. Like my coming back in the zendo, stretching, leaving, turns into kinhin, walking meditation, back to their cushion. Is this honest or dishonest? Maybe when you're quite sure you can sit through it, or would be willing to sit through it, or at least try, then that's the easiest time, as senior monks, students, should be able to, at that time, decide. For the benefit of others, I will drop my superego, and move my legs, so others can move their legs and hear the lecture. So choice is very difficult, you know. How do you choose for others?

[15:04]

When someone brings a tray during serving in the zendo, if it's just a tray for me, I can put my cup in the middle. But when it's a tray for other people to put their cups on, I must reach my cup way to the back, so other cups, and in the middle, so it balances, and so other people can put their cups in front, otherwise they're reaching over. So in one case the cup is an individual, in the other case the cup is a member of other cups. So one kind of decision you make is, when are you a family, in which there's no individual, and so you're a member, not an individual, and when are you an individual? And under what circumstances are you a member? This is part of the problem of sangha. And as you know, Buddha gave up nirvana. Till others are enlightened, gave up nirvana for the enlightenment of others.

[16:11]

This means Buddha gave up nirvana for service. So over the neighborhood foundation door we should have service, not nirvana, or something. So it means service. But how then do you practice the practice you need for yourself, and also service? How do you do service? You know, always people are distracting you, always people are coming to Zen Center, to Green Gulch. Now I'm very interested in Vedanta, which is the kind of Hinduism which is closest to Buddhism, influenced, I think, by Buddhism, and Sufism, and also Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff's practice interests me. But Gurdjieff's practice is very private. You can do it, just you, and with your group of people, and no one needs to know.

[17:18]

Or a Vedanta group can have several thousand acres, and only a few people, and the privacy of those acres are maintained for their practice, and needed for their practice. But in Buddhism we don't practice that way. Sangha means exposure. Mindfulness actually means exposure. It means you are willing to expose yourself to others. Open yourself to the expectations of others. And I talked here one day to the student lecturer. The word sure is very interesting. Sure is the combination of a root meaning se, which means self or alone, but more than self or alone, it means the third person plural, we or us.

[18:21]

So it means self as us. Now I don't want to lay a group trip on you too much, but it's important that you understand Sangha, how you make the decision to move your legs. Self as us. How can you do that? So the second part is the cure, like secure or sure, the cure of curate, the priest, or care. So safe means, sure means without care, without needing to care. Actually it means not that you're in a safe place, it means you've dropped the need to worry. You don't have to worry. So in a sense it means you've cured yourself through us. You understand always when you're a member. So the many and many rules of the Vinaya.

[19:26]

I think it's best if you understand them first as a kind of literature, as a kind of physical exposure of mindfulness. They go together, Abhidharma and Vinaya. They are two sides of the same thing. Abhidharma is the psychology of the minute details of your thinking process and feeling process. And the Vinaya, the many rules, the first step is a minor offense, the second step is a grave offense. Dostoyevsky was worried, he used in his novels, Dostoyevsky says, if you think about murder, is that as serious as murdering? Where do you draw the line? Well the Vinaya draws many lines. If you think it, it's one thing. If you take the first step, it's another thing. So it places you in the situation always. Physical situation of Abhidharma psychology.

[20:28]

Exposing yourself to others. Opening yourself to the expectations of others. So the first thing of Sangha is that you expect, you practice because you expect something of yourself. Maybe this is best termed impatience. Not critical of yourself, you're impatient with yourself. You're impatient with the shilly-shallying. Shilly-shallying means shall I, shall I. You're deeply tired of shall I, shall I. So you expect something of yourself. That's the first step. Second step is you open yourself to the expectations of others. And this is no small matter. To open yourself to the expectations of others. You do something, people want you to be pretty good.

[21:31]

And if you're pretty good, they want you to be better. You can imagine where that will end. What do people want you to be, actually? Let's hear it. Buddha. They do. Once you open yourself to the expectations of others, you're on the Buddhist treadmill. People want you to be a Buddha. People want you to be enlightened. So we're pretty hesitant to open ourselves to the expectations of others. We don't know where it will end. So most of us do a super-ego cop-out. I'm afraid that most who do Buddhism, social work, professors, are really a kind of super-ego cop-out. Many religious teachers are a super-ego cop-out. You get your life in order so it looks good.

[22:34]

Your conscience wouldn't let you be a businessman. So you become something noble. And as soon as you get the look of it, then after that you are doing what gratifies your ego. Messing up other people's lives, wives, husbands. Ambitious, you know. As long as you maintain that super-ego trip. The purpose of Sangha is to smash that. You can't get away with it. Every detail of your life is observed. So you really do, the Vinaya means you open yourself to the expectations of others. And basically this teaching is by example. It's not by singling out. It's very interesting to see the traffic, the way traffic laws are enforced in Japan.

[23:38]

They make it very difficult to get a license. In fact, I'm not saying this is good or bad, just their way of doing it is interesting. I'm told until a few years before I went to Japan, a policeman would sit with his billy club in the back of your head when you took your driving test. And if you made a mistake, and no matter how well you drove, maybe you had to take the test eight times, or six or seven times. It feels unfair, you know, if you drive well. But you know, you finish the third or fourth test and the man looks at it and says, Oh, you've taken it four times, huh? Only failed. So you have to go to driving school or do something, you know. Until you pass.

[24:41]

And I watched them one night, I watched them do traffic traps many times. One night I was walking home from Taito-ji, a monastery where I sat every night, and coming along the street, I saw a policeman in the bushes. I couldn't figure out why he was there. And I went a little further, and there's another policeman in the bushes, and a little further, another policeman in the bushes. And then I saw three or four policemen with a motorcyclist. It was very peculiar. And then a motorcycle came down the street, and the first policeman rushes out and says, Stop! Stop! And the second policeman rushes out and says stop, and the third policeman grabs the motorcycle, and pretty soon they pulled him over. And pretty soon they have quite a few motorcyclists. And they find everything wrong. Is the license plate screwed on tight? You know, is your registration right? Any detail. Of course, if there's nothing wrong, they let you go.

[25:44]

But usually they can find something, or at least they hassle you. The result of this kind of... And I've been going to Japan now eight to nine years or so, and you used to take your life into your hands driving in Japan, going around mountain roads. Really, you'd sometimes... just two little lanes, and coming around the road, a blind corner up a hill would be a truck being passed by a car being passed by a motorcycle. You can't practice zazen in a moment like that, so I would change schools and say, Namu Amida Butsu, Namu Amida Butsu. And Japanese drivers are very skillful, you know, more skillful than we are. And it's...

[26:46]

and everything's all right, you know, usually. But many accidents I saw too. But now, last time I went to Japan, that used to happen four or five, six, seven times a trip in a few hours. Now, it didn't happen making the trip four or five times, it only happened sort of once. But instead of singling out the person and saying, okay, you did this, which may... what the result is, the people who want to break the law then are put in the position of trying to get away with it or not. And the people who don't break the law say, what the heck with those guys, they break the law, I'm not interested in that, I drive fine. In other words, it's a way, by singling out people, it's a way of dividing people. Much more the Sango way, which may have influenced the way Japan does this kind of thing, is you do it by example. Any of you may be hassled by

[27:49]

the traffic police, you know. So you want everyone to obey because everyone is vulnerable. Anybody, if you're... your friends, your people are disobeying traffic laws, you also are responsible because you as a community, you as us, basically are the real enforcement of things. You can't depend on lawyers, law, traffic cops to create fundamental human order. So it's done by example. In the Sangha it's done by example. And I remember I was taken aback several times, you know, by Suzuki Yoshi, who would start to beat me up. You know, I'd walk into his office, POW! POW! I'd go down, you know, like this, and he'd be hitting me. You should understand under my anger. Yes. You know.

[28:54]

And I realized, he was right, but mostly it became clear. He would punish me because I was able to sustain it and not give up, and he meant it for someone else. This other person who's standing there and saying, Oh my God, I do that too. I do it worse. He hasn't noticed me. I better shape up. But if Suzuki Yoshi punished that person, he might say, get angry. It wasn't so bad. Why did he hit me? So this way of punishing or enforcing by example. You know, in Japan there's a tremendous amount of community order. There's very little crime. There's the crime of embezzlement, and, you know, there's bars where you can pay ten or fifteen dollars a drink or else, you know.

[29:58]

But you wandered in there. It's your problem. Or you hired the guy who embezzled the money. You know, it's not, it's a matter of, it's not violent. But if you commit some violent crime or rob the local store, the entire neighborhood is liable to just come, pack your bags, and move you out. There was a man who lived in a community which wasn't a Hillsborough community, you know, or some wealthy community. Mostly noodle shop operators and just local people. And there was a man who lived there who worked for, he was a judge, and he took a bribe or something. I don't think so serious a bribe. Something many people do and their rules about that are different, but he was caught at it, he was made an example, and for three years

[30:58]

he didn't come out of his house. That was his punishment. No one said that, but he couldn't go out with any face and shop in the stores. So community, you know, can be very powerful. And if you put the toothbrush down on the Kleenex box, you know, it's not freedom because next time you want a Kleenex, the toothbrush is in the way. This kind of person, you know, who is free, just when he puts something down, he or she, they put it down in its place. When they put their hand somewhere, their hand is in its place. Yes. So there's this kind of social order, is part of the Sangha,

[32:00]

and a teaching, by example primarily. Now again, as I said, social power, limitation means reproduction, which means power. And we have to face that power. For example, I'll give you a practical example. Can you people in the doorway, you want to come in? No? Please, come in. Only another hour. And there's space down here if you want, if you can swallow your superego and walk in front of everyone. There's space way down here in front if anybody wants to come down. There's a

[33:01]

person named Don Lipper who was written up in the Bay Guardian recently. I guess he got the cockroach of the year award as the worst slum landlord. But we have watched his progress since last year. He's a pretty nice guy I hear from some people. One of the Zen Center students, he used to be his landlord. Anyway, he's written up in the newspaper and it's okay, I think, to talk about him. Because again, to talk openly, to expose situations is part of Sangha. We expose ourselves to each other and open ourselves to each other's expectations. Anyway, he bought the building at the corner of Haight

[34:02]

and Fillmore and he painted the outside only. And then he said the people inside were animals and he just let them fight among themselves, double the rent and wouldn't collect the rent, as I understand it, until it was so horrible people were leaving and there was a garbage, something like raw garbage, something like five feet wide and four feet deep and forty feet long in the back. And he got the city to cover all the costs by a very clever understanding of health codes and stuff, it looks like. And he asked somebody connected to one community group to well, if you'd burn out the pool hall there, he told them, then I would fix the building up. He was, of course, shocked, the person asked, but then a week or two later it was burned out, the pool hall.

[35:02]

Now, we happen to know this person because he loves to come to Tassajara in the summer with his friends. He says it's one of the most interesting things for him. He even talks about practice. The question is, the power of a Sangha is that we can't avoid, should we exclude him from Tassajara? We would never exclude him from the Zendo. But should we say, I mean, how do you express your outrage at such a thing? How do you help others? How does the community reinforce its way of life? Is freedom, individual freedom, mean we wait till the law gets hold of him? Do we picket his house? We do, because we are a community, now have the power to exclude him. We exclude our own members,

[36:06]

or include them. And I should say, you know, ordain comes from a word meaning weft or the row of threads on a loom. Or it means something that is thrown out. But once it's thrown out, every time you do something, you throw something out. And then freedom is the play back and forth on that, the weaving on that. Aristocracy comes from the same root, the same AR. People who are woven together. But aristocracy usually means exclusive weaving. Sangha is just the opposite. It's an inclusive, not an exclusive aristocracy. Anyone can come in, but there are certain rules. And we exclude or include. Now, no one,

[37:11]

again, in America, we don't understand the power of Sangha. If you look at what Gary Snyder has done in the Sierra, and the many friends he's brought there, and how they took over the school and the school board, and then the school was burned down by an arson, you know, and how they brought probably $2 million, $1 million, just four people, actually. But altogether, buying land and borrowing money from the banks, maybe $1 million came into the economy of Nevada City, Nevada County. Because Gary Snyder isn't just an individual, he leads his life as a member of a Sangha. How he builds his house, he builds his house so others understand how you build a house. He leads his life farming, or raising chickens, and reading poetry, so others can understand how do you study poetry, how do you take care of yourself.

[38:11]

He works out his water system in such a way. So when many people move into Nevada County, but when a member of a Sangha moves in, it has a powerful political and economic reality to it, and you can't avoid it. You know, in the city of San Francisco, now everyone and many other groups talk about how a neighborhood got together and built the Koshland Park, the design, etc. But what they don't, still can't quite grasp, is not only did the neighborhood get together, and they got together and got the land together for the park, the money together for the park, the design together for the park, were prepared to build, own, and manage the park, and had the leading designer of space in the world, one of the leading Noguchi, all maybe agreeing to do it for us. Now the ordinary

[39:13]

community group doesn't do that. They can make some suggestions. But what we have to realize is Sangha has a kind of power which isn't recognized in our society. In fact, it's operating now in a completely lawless territory. We have many, everything in our society, the associations, elf clubs, business, all have a purpose and a design, including the government and the state and the environment and the planet, are all conceived of as serving the individual. And there's no entity in there which there's any rules that bind it. It's very difficult to arrest a community. You're under arrest. What do you do? Who do you arrest? The unions. The unions have this power because no one knows what to do with unions. Now unions are powerful

[40:14]

not only because they represent a collective, but also because they've got their economic act together. When you see that, you understand why there's so much money finagling in unions, why the war chest or the pension funds are so huge and often mismanaged. Because it's essential for a union to have its economic act together or it'll be wiped out because it's the only way society can get you. Al Capone, you know, tax evasion. That's all. The union, you know, they have to be very careful. Zen Center has to be very careful about its legality and how it handles money. Because otherwise this is the only way you can be reached. And there is an economic power too to sangha which we also have to see.

[41:15]

I sometimes say the goose that laid the brocade egg. If you want, if you have a goose who lays golden eggs as the story goes and you cut it open to get the gold, you kill the goose, right? But also, if you have a goose that lays a golden egg, if you want the goose, you've got the eggs too. You've got to figure out what to do with the eggs. So community represents another kind of wealth that you have to figure out what to do with. If the members of a village get together and make a brocade robe for Suzuki Roshi, which maybe costs $2,000, and Suzuki Roshi has given it to me, I can't sell it. Suzuki Roshi couldn't sell it. Maybe if there was a war time or something serious you might sell it and distribute it back to the people who made it. But it's not the usual kind of wealth.

[42:15]

If Jim Jones, you know he's a minister in the city who has a radio program, he's a white minister with a largely black congregation. Supposed to be a very extraordinary person. He gets welfare recipients and social security pension recipients who all live separately without getting it together, you know, very well. He gets them to live together, share a place and pool their income and suddenly they're wealthy. They often have more money per person than Zen Center students do. So they do it. They do this kind of organization so they'll have a common kitchen and a television set and a room to, you know, etc. So if the neighbors say, those guys, they've got an extra television set, we're going to, they're wealthy. If they're not careful, you know, this kind of group which is probably tenuously held together that Jim Jones has started,

[43:17]

if you don't see that it's a goose, you know, that the golden egg is the organization of it, you are in some problem. So we must understand how we own Green Gulch through the community, through exposure. If we don't understand that, we're going to have serious moral problem about what represents wealth in the terms of a community. What represents, you know, the power of Friends of Gary Snyder putting one million dollars in the Nevada. You can't deny the fact of it. We're not just talking about, you know, some cave practice or some nice idea about understanding things which has no effect in the world. What we do, what all of you do by being here, has economic and political significance which we have to realize. So what do we do about the social power? You know,

[44:19]

if you have in a Sangha you practice you practice generosity. This is the what you're supposed to do. Practice generosity, kindly speech, service and equality. It means simply if you go in a drugstore, your feeling is to speak kindly. Kindness actually enhances concentration. Kindness is a kind of concentration with another person. So if you speak kindly to the druggist, the pharmacist, and maybe something falls on the floor, some customer drops, knocks some toothbrushes on the floor, you immediately, you want to be of service, you immediately pick them up and you treat everyone as equal. If you do this, you develop social power

[45:20]

whether you like it or not. Everyone wants you to come back in to the store. They want you around. If a community does that and is also, you know, that means you are also honest, as you can be, and impartial, or no ambition, it means suddenly your community is believable. And if it's believable it's convincing. So what the community does or thinks influences what other people do. People want to know what does the community think. You know, even a group like Delancey Street or Synanon, Delancey Street has great political power in San Francisco because no one knows. This is a group of convicts. It's wonderful to hear John Maher talk. He says, these guys, they can't tie their shoes but I'm king of the convicts. You know, he says when they talk about it in political circles because he represents a community. He does. Do you see

[46:21]

what I mean? There's a moral and political and social and economic responsibility to Sangha, to right livelihood, to how we live, to how we open ourselves to the expectations of others, to how we draw the line. Where is the boundary of community? And when you draw a boundary, you reproduce it. As soon as you draw a boundary, other people can see it. And seeing it, it reproduces in them. And some student goes out and starts their own group like a seed, like a flowering of the community. Maybe, I'm only half done, so maybe I should stop. There are many more aspects. The importance of putting all your eggs in one basket. Why usually we don't

[47:21]

tape lectures. Suzuki Roshi didn't like to tape lectures too much. Dogen's great work may have harmed the lineage afterwards. You know, if Suzuki Roshi had left many good books, I wouldn't have to be out on a limb in danger. Because, please, read Suzuki Roshi's books. But by not doing that, the only way I can express my love for Suzuki Roshi and my gratitude to Suzuki Roshi, you know, is to try to tell you as much as I can what his teaching is. And it will only exist in the Sangha if you, all your eggs in one basket, it won't exist unless you continue it. It's completely dependent on you. It's completely dependent on the Sangha. Buddha said, don't look to me, look to the Sangha

[48:23]

and yourself. So it's a whole relationship to the material world, to the whole idea of where you're stored, where merit is stored. And merit, merit is something like dropping your point of view. The earthworm, I watched an earthworm being eaten by a bird, and the earthworm was, the bird was, if I had just seen the bird and it was there doing its feathers, you know, I would have thought, what a cute little spring bird. But I'd just seen this earthworm longer than it go in, you know. So I knew actually that was just this earthworm was, you know. And, then the bird waddled a bit, jumped around a bit, and then I saw

[49:24]

the earthworm take flight and then sing, you know. And I thought, the merit of the earthworm, you know, unintentional merit of the earthworm, losing its point of view, from being the most involved with dirt to finally flying. So all Sashin, we heard many merits of earthworms singing, you know. But when you drop your point, you know, it often says in the koans, and koan means public case, again, exposure. Shosan ceremony, Mondo, Shuso ceremony, all this kind of exposure. The koans often say, pick up one and know three. If you only

[50:24]

have your point of view, when you see one, when one arises, you only know one. But when you let go of your particular, that is the sound of a bird, or that is such an airplane going to Oakland, or something, and you just hear the weavings of a cloth, a kind of fabric of sound, with its own interrelationships, you know, this is merit. So the giving up of a point of view, you know, of dropping your guard, is also part of Sangha. The merit of Sangha, the activity of Sangha. So we're always, and you yourself too, are, not just me as Abbot, you yourself too. Should I practice? Should I not practice? What does it mean

[51:25]

to my life? I find Zazen changes my way of perception. Will it change my life? And the more you practice, you know, you find, sometimes I am self as us. And what does that mean for society? Many responsibilities appear. So when you have opened yourself to the expectations of others, then the third step in Sangha is you have a right to expect something of others. And many koans are about this too. How you expect something of others, and that real relationship when you, time is experience, when you meet something, somebody, anything, and you expect something of it, and you expect something of yourself, and you're open to the expectations, this interweaving, interworking is Sangha. So there's always the problem, what is practice,

[52:25]

individual practice? In a cave, and we are always in a cave, the path of great view. And what is the path of great virtue or extended acts? This is the path of service, of exposure, of danger, of Sangha. Walt Whitman said, from this hour I ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines. From this hour I ordain myself loosed of limits and imaginary lines. This could be part of our ordination service. From this hour, a particular point, I ordain the weft or order loosed of limits and imaginary lines. So there's always this practice and service,

[53:27]

specific act, from this hour loosed of limits and imaginary lines. Kanamatsuri is today flower festival or Buddha's birthday, and it, like the Easter eggs of Easter, it goes back to a kind of fertility spring festival. And the flowers represent, and why it's associated with Buddha's birthday, the flowers represent the ancestors of the crops that, before man developed wheat and corn and et cetera, they had to start with fragrant grasses, flowering grasses. So those flowers in the mountains, flowering mountain, represents the ancestor of crops

[54:28]

and of men, men and women. So this is Buddha's birthday, you know. And Buddha, you know, excuse me, Jesus founded, Jesus Christ founded a, or revealed a belief or faith, but Buddha revealed or gave us a sangha. On Easter, Christ maybe, arose. He was loosed of limits and imaginary lines, rolled the rock aside and went out. But Buddha, on his death, gave us the sangha. So this big Easter egg

[55:31]

of sangha, we have to find out and our practice will be to find out what are its boundaries. It must have boundaries and then what does the, what is the responsibility, the social and political and economic responsibility and power, unfortunately power, maybe unfortunately, of these boundaries. Because, you know, community becomes believable and that's some, something we have to take into consideration. But always, I should say, it comes back to your choosing to practice, your choosing to sit, your choosing to sit for others and for yourself. Your choosing to,

[56:32]

what to do about your life. A matrix of choice is always there. Every act is a choice, releases an arrow and what is done can't be undone. Zen Center could be undone but Zen Center of 1967 can't be undone. Of 1970, it can't be undone. It goes on. Every act is not repeatable, not redoable. So we sit in the midst of that. And we sit together to help each other.

[57:14]

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