This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations by people like you. Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. I recognize most of the people in front of me. I'm not turned on. Try this. So I was saying welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. I recognize most of you. I see a few new faces. I see a lot of old friends. It's very nice. So this is a talk about being shiso at Tassahara. If I'm talking about being shiso at Tassahara,

[01:02]

then I'm going to be talking about Zen training. If I'm talking about Zen training, then I'll be talking about Zen. And if I'm talking about Zen, then I'm going to be talking about what it is to be human. That is my intention. And furthermore, I've suggested a vast topic, and I'm going to try to be brief so we can have questions and answers. So for those of you who are new here, when I talk about Tassajara, I'm talking about our monastery. San Francisco Zen Center has three locations. This is city center. We have a farm in Marin County. And our monastery, Tassajara, is down in the Ventana Wilderness. When we talk about a practice period, some of you are coming in here for a practice period at Tassajara that's 90 days long. It's... We talk about the container, the container of practice that's created when a group of people, in this case there were 42 of us, come together, arrive on the same day, stay, [...] follow the schedule, the schedule's intense, and all leave on the same day.

[02:23]

So the Tassajara practice period Maybe the main thing about it is there's an awful lot of Zazen, which is great. Average day, seven periods of Zazen. Shuso means head student. Some of us are invited, usually by our teachers, to take this position. It's a training position. In fact, it's the beginning of teacher training. It involved learning rituals, beginning to do morning service, which was... I had no idea. I had no idea what it would be like to be the doshi at that altar at Tassahara. I'd done evening service a number of times, but morning service was profound. That was the sublime. And then there was the bathing manjushri thing, which was pretty much at the other end of the scale. The shiso keeps a banner

[03:26]

that represents Manjushri, who's the real head student. And on personal days, the Shusso and the Shusso's helper, which is called the Benji, marched down to the bathhouse and bathed this banner, chanting all the while. So my wonderful Benji was Dave Cody, and we had a lot of fun bathing Manjushri. We had a lot of fun. He was really important in the... part of the job that involved doing the compost. He was young and strong and willing, so the chouseau gives talks, has teas with students, does encouraging words in his endo, and is generally, I would say, beloved by all. It's an amazing position, so the chouseau doesn't get too uppity, I think. The chouseau also cleans the toilets, does the recycling and compost. A couple of nights ago, I had a dream. I should say when I woke up, it was actually in Zazen that I fully remembered the dream, and it's unusual for me to remember dreams.

[04:36]

I dreamed I was in heaven, floating around with someone, and it wasn't all floating because there was also a strong sense of responsibility. And the person who I was with and I, at the end of this little snippet of dream, passed through a gate. So I realized I was dreaming about being Shiso at Tassahara, because it was like being in heaven. And it also carried a heavy responsibility. And passing through gates was involved. So I'd like to bring forth a case. And this is the case that I read at the Shuso ceremony, Barbara asked me if I was bringing the Avatama Saka Sutra to read to you. But no, since it's a case, this is igniting practice. Igniting practice.

[05:39]

This takes place in the ninth century. The teacher involved is Bai Yin, the founder of one of the schools of Zen. The student is Xuanzo. Xuanzo is studying in Fai Yen's monastery, and happily he ascends to the top and is named Director. So Fai Yen comes up to him and says, how long have you been in this monastery of mine? And the student says, I've been here three years. And Fai Yen says, how come you've never come and had Doka-san with me? And the student says, this is his first big mistake. He says, I dare not deceive the teacher. When I was at another place, I actually realized peace and joy. And Fien, oh, he sees a live one. Fien says, through lunch boards, were you able to enter?

[06:42]

And the student bites. He says, I once asked my previous teacher, What is the self of the student? And the teacher said, the fire boy comes seeking fire. The teacher says, those are good words, only I'm afraid that you did not understand them. The student says, the fire boy belongs to fire. Already fire, but still seeking fire is just like being self and still seeking self. I understand. I told you I achieved peace. The teacher says, Now I really know that you do not understand. If Buddha Dharma was like that, it would not have lasted until today. The student was overwrought and jumped up. Out on the path, he thought, he is the guiding teacher of 500 people. His pointing out my error must have some good reason. So he returned to Phayaan's place and did prostrations and repentance.

[07:47]

So you know what's going to happen next, right? Fayan says to him, okay, what's the question? The student says, what is the self of the student? And of course, Fayan says, the fire boy comes seeking fire. And of course, the student's greatly enlightened. That is the case. So, why did I read that? What is the relevance of a ninth-century story, one of those irritating Zen stories where the same thing is repeated, and the first time the student's wrong, and the second time the student's enlightened. What's with those stories? Why do I love that so much? First, just that phrase, fire boy comes seeking fire, really does it for me. But there are a few things I like about this story. And the reason I wanted to start with it tonight is that what is pertinent about it is not the words but the action.

[08:56]

It's the student seeing himself or herself turning around, coming back and saying, please help me. The meaning does not reside in the words, it resides in the behavior. Zen. is a non-verbal practice. The main thing we do in Zen is Zazen, very non-verbal. And in fact, I've been doing it for some years when I learned that in fact what we're doing when we sit down to sit Zazen is we're arranging our body in a yoga posture so that we can be relaxed and alert at the same time, which to me typifies one of my favorite parts of Zen. We're always taking two opposites, where I always thought, time to choose. But in Zen, the opposites come together, so relaxed and alert. Very nonverbal.

[09:59]

One of the famous phrases in Zen is the finger pointing at the moon, saying that what it is that we're really interested in, the great matter, birth and death, the nature of reality, is so far beyond words. Our teachers, for all of their love of us and desire to transmit to us, can only point in the self-fulfilling samadhi. Dogen, founder of this school of Zen, says, from the first time you meet a master without engaging in incense offering, bowing, jamming Buddha's name, repentance, or reading scriptures, You should just wholeheartedly sit. And then he says, what'll happen if you do that? Drop away body and mind. No words. Just sitting beyond words. In this school, what I found to be true in that recent practice period, is we're supposed to learn by watching.

[11:12]

And I was thinking of examples of that in this building, and the best example, I have two. One example is getting out of the Buddha Hall in the morning after service. There's no way to explain to anyone how that pattern goes. And so we watch. And there's not, it's so nice that the Eno doesn't stand and shout out instructions. You, go in that row. You, do this. You, do that. We're just watching, and we're learning that way. And another great example in this building, I think, is the bathroom altars. Have some of you noticed that some people bow those little altars outside of the bathrooms before they go in? I'm sure it's never said, this is what we do, and yet it's what we do. And it's one of the things that we can only learn by watching. So the greatest benefit for me of being Chusseau was the access that I had to my teacher, who is the co-abbot, Miogun Steve Stuckey, and the chance to watch him really up close.

[12:25]

I heard a lot of words from him. One of the great things was to see his pleasure in having this opportunity to teach, and he really took that opportunity, and he really taught. But to watch his behavior, watch his generosity and his openness and his continuing, yes, was the greatest teaching of all. The shiso sits next to the abbot in the zendo for all of those periods of zazen. And the shiso and the abbot sit facing out. And there was surely something about that. You know, I've heard that Suzuki Roshi, when we first got the monastery, and he'd been working with the Americans in the city, and everyone went to the monastery, and when they went to the monastery, they put on black robes. And I've heard that Suzuki Roshi said, ah, now, now that you're all here in black robes, now you're all dressed the same, now I can see who you really are.

[13:30]

And I thought about that a lot as I sat facing the students who were facing the wall. Maybe seeing who some of them really were, but more importantly, seeing that, really seeing the intention to practice. It was so beautiful. And to sit next to my teacher and just watch the light move across the window floor was profound. We talk about limbic resonance, limbic resonance, and many of us who have done practice periods, the practice period last fall was my eighth. at Tassajara. So almost anyone who's done one practice period at Tassajara knows how it can be with the people you're sitting next to, how you can have maybe opinions about the way they pass you the galassio dish, how you can really love them or they can really grate on you. So sitting next to your teacher, it's bigger than that. It's bigger than that.

[14:31]

We did oryoki together in a Tassahara practice period. You eat in the dining room once every five days, lots of oryoki. And I saw a teaching in that. Initially, I saw how fast I moved. There was no place to go. There was really no place to go. And I'm just zooming along, and I look over, and things are really slow over in the Abbott's oryoki set. And I began slowing. down and then pretty soon we were putting our setsu sticks down at the same time and we were tying the knot at the same time and it was very comforting and bowing to our seats together you know again it's not like oh time to get off the seat and get out of here it's a group activity so i felt that expressed in the way that we moved together There were words, and in thinking about this talk, I thought about what do I think was my teacher's most important point.

[15:46]

So I have a story some of you have already heard, but it's this good. So a friend told me about a phrase another friend expressed that I thought was hilarious, and the phrase was, an ego as big as a football field. So I ran right into the dhokasan room, and when you're shiso, you get lots of dhokasan. It's really cool. You don't have to wait for your name to come up on the list. So very quickly I'm there, and I'm like, an ego as big as a football field. And so I said to my teacher, so if I really practice hard, Maybe I can get my ego down to the size of a basketball court. And he said, I don't care if your ego is as big as the whole stadium, as long as you meet it completely. And I love that teaching.

[16:50]

It's a wonderful teaching for me. I continually forget and... try to make Zen into a self-improvement program. But what did Suzuki Roshi say to us? You're perfect just as you are, and there's room for improvement. This has been very hard for me to believe that with the mistakes, the flaws, with the shadow that keeps squirting out, that that's perfect. That's what perfection looks like. And so my teachers watching that generosity and feeling it myself with my mistakes and my problems was really wonderful for me. The practice period is, my notes say it was bracketed by ceremonies, but it's shot through with ceremonies. When we ordain, when we ordain, we take a vow to uphold, uphold forms and ceremonies.

[17:54]

I've been one who has constantly questioned why we're doing, does it have to be so Japanese? We're in America, could we modify this a little? And so I'm constantly reminding myself, you promised. The vow was to uphold forms and ceremonies. I got a really good chance to take a look at that at Tassahara. The two ceremonies that pertain directly to the Shusō, were the chuseau entering ceremony and then the famous chuseau ceremony. And as soon as your friends in the city know you're going to be the chuseau, they begin about the chuseau ceremony, which is months away. The chuseau ceremony is a question and answer. Everybody sits, the chuseau sits, and each person in the hall asks them a question. Somehow people think it's funny to remind the Chisseau that this is coming up.

[18:59]

But in the entering ceremony, both of these ceremonies follow a very strict form. In fact, you're given a script. These are the words you're going to say. So in the entering ceremony, the Chisseau says three times, oh, they're invited to be the Chisseau. Now, oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, they actually say it's too much responsibility. Too much responsibility, which of course it is. I heard students talking about the entering ceremony the day before in the courtyard. And they were talking about it as if it were a performance. And I had a big reaction to that. This can't be a performance. This has to be our heart. And so when I went through that ceremony, I watched that. And it was... It was pretty good. It was a little weird, but it was pretty good. Following a script. I have issues with memorizing things. I'm not a good memorizer. We got through that one.

[20:01]

And then at the end, of course, here it came. Shuso's ceremony. No, I skipped. Because when I said... Whenever Shuzo I hear says, it's too much responsibility for me, they mean it. Of course it's too much responsibility. The words are, you're invited, the abbot says, she shares my seat. How could you be capable of doing that? That did bring up some anxiety, fear, terror. And I had to work with that, and where I found a way of living with that was in the refuges. And I began, whenever I had to do any ceremonial thing, the first time I did morning service, first time I gave a talk, first time encouraging words were so scary to me. To speak in a Zendo was really scary. So that's where the refuges, that's why the refuges are there for us.

[21:10]

Take refuge in Buddha. Take refuge in Dharma. take refuge in Sangha. And for me, with my causes and conditions, my particular psychology, at a certain point to just give up and trust was immense, and to trust my teacher. He said I was ready to be the chuseo. He said I was ready to do encouraging words. It's really hard for me to trust. So those two things, the refuge and the trust, And for the final, for the Shuso ceremony, I kept trusting being Shuso to prepare me. A couple days before, things were going pretty good. I mean, it was a wonderful, it was a wonderful practice period. He was teaching, the love was glowing, it was Tassajara in the fall, nothing's more beautiful, a little chilly, but beautiful. So a couple days before the ceremony I went to him and I said, what is this?

[22:11]

Why do I have to do this? Is this a test? I don't like tests. And he invited me to think of it as going through a door. Just going through a door. And that was an idea I could hold on to. And it was like going through a door. And I found that what's on the other side of the door looks a lot Very similar. Both sides of the door, very similar. But it's the other side of the door. When we got to the ritual part, when I was supposed to memorize words, there were two parts of the Chusot Statement. I went to Steve, I said, the first one was, I think they were both in the apology. And first the Chusot was supposed to say, I'm deeply grateful for your help, but I'm not worthy of it.

[23:14]

You thank everyone and you say, I'm not worthy. And I told him I couldn't say that, that there is no one who's not worthy of help. There's no such thing. No one on the planet, no being, and not me. He asked me if I was sure. I said, I was sure. He said, okay, we can take that out. I felt like we were getting somewhere. And then we got to this... There is... Next to Shusso says, please forgive me my mistakes. They fell heaven and earth, leaving me no place to hide. That's fine, because I made copious mistakes, and that phrase, fell heaven and earth, leaving me no place to hide, The simplicity and the quiet, the lack of distractions at Tassajara, it's a beautiful opportunity to see your mistakes.

[24:16]

But after that it says, it says, I'm quite ashamed, but I will keep on trying. And I asked him if we could modify that. I come from a life of shame. I'm so over being ashamed. Could I have done better? Could I have tried harder? And we talked about that. And we looked around for an alternative. And so instead of saying, I'm quite ashamed, I was allowed to say, I'm quite humbled. And I was quite humbled by the experience of being chuseau. So I offer that as maybe a pointing in the direction of Americans in Once I said to Steve, isn't it exciting we're creating Americans? And Steve said, you know, actually we're living Americans in. Yeah, right. It's not something in the future. So I think that this kind of softness and adjustment, I'm always interested in whether I want to uphold the tradition.

[25:26]

I love the tradition. But I want to be honest, too. The first part of the job description of Shuso is to be a friend to everyone in the practice period. And I'm what's called an aversion type. Buddhist psychology gives us three types, greed, hate, and delusion. I used to think I was a greed type because I had so many sweaters. I'm actually an aversion type. I've heard that what it was about Suzuki Roshi was that he saw the Buddha nature in everyone. I've been practicing at San Francisco Zen Center for many years, and I've been asking through these years, how can I be like that? How can I learn to see the Buddha nature in everyone? To have it be in my job description that I'm a friend to everyone was really wonderful, because that tendency to make lists, right?

[26:35]

These are the people who I'm kind to, and these are the people who I frankly don't care for. There is not room for that second list when your job is to be a friend to everyone. And I could feel that tendency come up, and then I'd remember, drop it. It was really wonderful training. And of course, our Mahayana vow is to save all beings. There is no extra to that. Our Mahayana vow is not to save all the beings we like or we feel like savings. It's all beings. And so this training is crucial. Coming back to the city, I felt that continuing and I was so happy. And recently, with one person in one incident, I totally lost it. I felt my old habit energy. I was defending myself. I was afraid.

[27:37]

I was afraid of this person being angry to me. I was wanting to close down. And so my practice is don't close down, right? Meet it, meet it, meet it. Turn into it. What is it? Please don't go away. Very difficult. The extra and a definition of Zen is nothing extra. The extra was I was disappointed. Oh, I thought that transformation was permanent. I thought it would never change. So that was my great teaching. Suzuki Roshi promised us that the problems we have today will have forever. Suzuki Roshi invited us to welcome our difficulties, not to work on them, but to welcome them. So I see where my practice is. I see again what it is to be human. And when I see that in myself, I see it in you, and that's the birth of compassion. So fire girls still come seeking fire.

[28:43]

My situation now is I'm working part-time for Zen Center until my chaplaincy program starts up again. I took one unit of chaplaincy training last summer. And in March, I go back to the hospital in San Francisco for six months. And then in September, I made an arrangement with the hospital in the East Bay. And so I'll be moving out of this building and doing a second-year residency and chaplaincy in the East Bay. So it's unfolding. It is not unfolding the way I wanted it to. I wrote a script before I even moved in here that involved peace and love. and me never making a mistake, never being angry and being loved by all. But what I've been given, I'd say, is better than that because it keeps unfolding of here's what it is to be human, here's what it is to be human, here's what it is to be human. So I carry great gratitude to San Francisco Zen Center for the training I have received and great gratitude to

[29:49]

Zenke Roshi, who gave me the gift of ordination in the year 2003. And great gratitude to my teacher in yoga, Steve Stuckey, who allowed me to be Shusawa Tassahara last fall. And there is actually time left for questions and answers. I hope there are some. Trevor? The exchange between It's dropping that waggling finger, the finger I've been waggling at myself for most of my life. trying to hide who I really am.

[30:52]

If I show you who I really am, you'll go away. And I've learned living at Zen Center for seven years that that's actually not true. You won't all really love it. But sooner or later you'll let me be that person. It's the shame. And it is, it is almost a movement of the mind toward rather than a shrinking away and freezing. That's how I interpret Steve's phrase of, meet it. And don't go to sleep, right? The morning breeze has secrets to tell you. Hey, Michael. You know, I'd love to have one. Dana nailed me.

[31:54]

I was really, I went into it, I was surprised. at how relaxed and joyous I felt. And I had a lot of fun. It was fast. I was one of the fast chusos. And then about a third of the way into the former chusos. I don't know what she did. She asked me to do something else. She slowed me down. It was really difficult, because by that time I had a feeling going, this is going all right, I'm doing okay, and that's the one, I'm doing okay.

[32:57]

And in a way, Dana said, what are you doing? And it wasn't what I wanted to hear. But after the ceremony, Blanche, who kindly came down before the ceremony, told me that I had to find Dana and thank her, because she really turned it. It used to be a sign on a nightclub on Broadway, talk to a naked girl. It's like, it's your chance to talk to a former chiseau after anything. All right then, thank you very much. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[34:13]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_96.52