Good evening. Hi, my name is Greg, and I'm the Tanto here at Tazahara Zen Mountain Center, a.k.a. Zen Shinji Monastery. Tanto means Head of Practice. We use a lot of Japanese words in our practice because it comes from Japanese tradition. This is... Maybe the talk I've been waiting to give. We're well into our summer practice period now. Many of us have been practicing together for over a couple months. And people are finding the way, learning their practice positions, making new friends, really getting engaged in the practice. Now, you know, I think I would also like to acknowledge our abbots, Steve Stuckey, Yogan, Steve Stuckey, and Ryushin, Paul Haller.

[01:08]

Steve and Paul, in particular, have been down here this summer already. And also, you know, I've met with them and talked with them before coming down here to assume this role as Tanto, which... I've been doing for a couple of months now, not so long. And they've both been very encouraging, empowering. Please, be tanto. Go do it. Like that. And I found that very encouraging. And Rev also. I had some nice conversations with Rev and he's been very helpful. So... Mel, Steve, Paul, Reb. It sounds like quite a men's club, doesn't it? When Mary Mosin, the abbess at Vallejo Zen Center, Reverend Mary Mosin, said to me not too long ago, she said, you know, when

[02:19]

Blanche and Linda Ruth Cutts, Blanche Harmon and Linda Ruth Cutts were the two abbesses at Zen Center. Everyone said, oh, we've got two, look at that, two women abbesses. Nobody's saying, oh, look, we've got three men abbess. Nobody's actually saying that, you know. Oh, how remarkable. So I've been rereading Crooked Cucumber, the biography of Suzuki Roshi by David Chadwick. And I've been rereading it for fun because in the beginning of April, my wife Linda and I went to Japan. And so now, reading this book, Linda and I went to Suzuki Roshi's home temple, Rinso Inn, in Shizuoka province. And we went to Eheji Temple, the mother temple of Soto Zen in Fukui. in other places that are mentioned in this book.

[03:20]

So now rereading the book, it's like, oh, yeah, I was there. I could visualize what that looks like. And, you know, the Soto at Rinsuin and so forth. So that's pretty cool. And I read something that I hadn't noticed before. I remember somebody telling me that Suzuki Roshi, when he was at Komazawa University, wrote his master's thesis on bowing. But what I learned in rereading Crooked Cucumber, was he wrote his master's thesis on a specific fascicle from Dogen Zenji's Shobogenzo, our founder in Japan, his life work, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, the Shobogenzo, this collection of essays. And I am not a Dogen scholar, and I hadn't even heard of this one before, much less read it. But what he actually wrote his master's thesis on was the fascicle Raihai Tokuzui, which translates roughly as prostrating, prostrating to attainment of the marrow, or attainment of the truth.

[04:32]

Basically, the gist of it was, when you meet the truth, bow to it, wherever, however you meet it. But the thrust of it, a lot of it, is actually equality of the sexes. Very interesting. Dogen lived in the beginning of the 13th century. Then, as now, there's a lot of male hegemony. Maybe more then. But this fascicle is great. He starts out by saying, just if you meet the truth, respect it. If you meet the truth, bow to it and don't have any regard to where you're meeting the truth. But then he goes on into, you know, women teachers are great and you should respect them. And he talks about a couple of women teachers in particular from China whose names we chant when we chant the women's lineage, Mo Shan Liao Ran and Miao Xin.

[05:40]

And he He talks about how the practice in Japan, where they had certain places that were restricted, women couldn't enter them. And he was very, very upset about that. He said, such beliefs are only the blind delusions of stupid humans who try to fool each other with their little tricks. I love Dogen when he gets on a rant, you know. No, that's just tip of the iceberg. You know, that's just one sentence out of there. He really gets into a rant. It's great. So, you know, I recommend that to you. I was reading one of Suzuki Roshi's talks where he says, he quotes Dogen, you know, and I don't know if he's quoting this particular fascicle or not, but it's very similar. And it's basically... It's basically the same meaning of how this particular fascicle starts out.

[06:44]

So, you know, I don't know translations, exact quotation or not, but it's a very, very similar feeling. Suzuki Roshi said in this talk he gave in 1962, he said, Dogen said, everyone is your master. Don't pay any attention to whether they are a layman or priest, a woman or man, young or old. Everyone is your teacher and your friend, but as long as you discriminate this from that, you will not meet a Zen master. So, this is all like kind of roundabout prologue, just to say that in the spirit of, in the spirit, you know, I want to acknowledge that I'm the first tanto at Tassahara who gets to bow to Leslie. When I do the morning jundo, open up the temple in the morning, bow at the various altars, where now, as a friend of mine said, finally, acknowledging Leslie's practice and position here when she's sitting facing out.

[07:59]

So somebody wrote on my Facebook page, What is a disciple? And that was a couple of months ago, and that question has been percolating for me for about a couple of months. And so, naturally, I looked up the word. It comes from the Latin, discipulus, I think. Discipulus, meaning learner. And it's also... the same root for the word discipline. And I looked up the word discipline in my dictionary and it said an activity or experience that provides mental or physical training. I think this person wrote this on my Facebook page because sometimes somebody asks me, what do you do?

[09:03]

I say, I'm a disciple of Buddha. Or sometimes I say, I'm a disciple of Sojin Roshi. So it's probably why that came up. What is a disciple? I think maybe a disciple might be somebody who makes him or herself available for teaching. Who makes him or herself available for the discipline, the training. So, that's the name of my talk, Bodhisattva Training. That's what I think we're up to here at Tazahara, Bodhisattva Training. It is mental and physical training. A lot of people wonder what we're up to here at Tazahara. When we offer stone office talks in the summer, you know, informal talks in the stone office sometimes,

[10:07]

I've done these a lot in my past years at Tazahara. It seems like the main thing people want to know is, what are you doing here? What gives with all the robes and the bells and so forth? Especially, what do you do when it's not guest season? This is a Soto Zen training monastery year-round. Year-round. Okay? we do formal Zen training year-round. Now, in the practice periods, when it's not guest season, it's a lot more formal and maybe more straightforward. But make no mistake, this is year-round activity at Zen Shinji, always a Soto Zen training monastery. So the Lotus Sutra, 20 minutes, no, 17 minutes before my first reference to the Lotus Sutra.

[11:11]

The Lotus Sutra says, we're all bodhisattvas, whether we know it or not. We are all of the nature to be Buddha. We are all Buddha nature. Oh, you want to hear a dumb joke I made up about, just as an aside? Okay, why is guest season like the Lotus Sutra? Because it's good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end. In our ordination ceremony, we say... In faith that we are Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. But what is this entering?

[12:12]

What is this entering? What is it to enact our lives as bodhisattvas? Here's Suzuki Roshi again. Thank goodness. This is from a talk from... October 1965. What I want to talk about now is how to orient your mind in practice. For the beginner, it is inevitable that there will be hard discipline, the observation of some rules. The observation of rigid rules is not our point. But if you want to acquire vital freedom, it is necessary to have some strength or to have some discipline. in order to be free from one-sided dualistic ideas. So our training begins in the realm of duality or rules, what we should or should not do. These kinds of rules are necessary because before you start practice or realize the necessity of religious life, before you adore something holy, you are bound in the realm of necessity.

[13:26]

You are completely controlled by your surroundings. When you see something beautiful, you will stay there as much as possible. When you are tired of it, you will go to another place. You may think that is freedom, but it is not freedom. You are enslaved by your surroundings. That is all. Not at all free. So, we have a lot of rules here at Tazahara, Zen Mountain Center. We have the Zen Shinji, That's this temple. Zen mind temple. Shingi. Shingi means pure standards. Pure standards for monastic conduct. Look familiar? Anybody? Anybody seen this before? Sort of four pages. It's a masterpiece. It's a real... I didn't write it. It is a work of art. No, I didn't write it.

[14:28]

And actually... We didn't really write it. This shingi is specific to Tassahara. It has guidelines that are very specific to Tassahara. But it didn't just fall out of the sky. We didn't just make it up. It comes from a very, very long tradition. A very long tradition, indeed. For example, Dogen, in his temple, Eiji, had... They had their rules, the Ehe Shingi. And this was 700-something years ago. And before that, very famous, in China, the Hyakuzhou Shingi. Only Hyakuzhou is a Japanese name. His name in Chinese was Bai Zhang. 1,200-something years ago in Tang Dynasty China, the Bai Zhang Jingwei Shingi. My Chinese is terrible.

[15:31]

But the tonal thing I don't do. But something like Bai Zhang Jingwei. So this is an old, old tradition. And you know, before there was Bai Zhang, before there was Zen in China, there was the Vinaya. And there still is. There's always been monastic rules, rules for conduct. If the rules seem rigid sometimes, it might be that your mind is rigid. So I told somebody I was going to have fire and brimstone in this talk. So that's my fire and brimstone. Maybe your mind is rigid. No! My mind is not rigid. Not rigid! I kind of... One thing that came up for me when I was looking at this and thinking about, I think the first place a lot of us encountered this was online.

[16:42]

You're looking about Zen practice, you're looking, looking, Tassahara, summer student, Chingi, what's that, guidelines, you know, open up the doc. And it might be like, I analogized it, like when you're buying something or downloading some software online, you know, it says terms and conditions. And, you know, it's just like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, boilerplate, boilerplate, yada, yada, yada, yada. Scroll down, scroll down, scroll down, scroll down. There's the button. Accept. Click. And... What I want to say is, if that was your experience, great. That's great. That's a wonderful way to enter practice. Really.

[17:44]

I mean, that's what Suzuki Roshi said. That is the right attitude toward life. Just accept it. Click. Accept. I want to go to Tazahara. I knew that. And then, great. Find out how it is. Just find out. Discover. Try it on. Practice it. Get up. Put the wake-up bell. See how it is. Find out where you're resisting. Mmm. Juicy. And ask for help. You'll never find a more supportive environment. I don't think. In my opinion, IMO. That's what I think. And know that help may be offered to you even if you don't ask for it.

[18:50]

This is what I call the Tanto's Dilemma. Because... You know, I think some of you did. Just scroll down, click. So, you know, how much to offer? The Lotus Sutra puts a lot of emphasis on upaya, skill and means, tactfulness. It's translated various ways, but skillful means, responding appropriately in the situation. So I think that's my particular challenge. And... I ask for your help. And, you know, you could ask for my help. You could say, some people have actually said, Greg, if you have any feedback for me, I'd like to hear it. So you could do that. Or not. Just a thought.

[19:54]

When Linda and I were in Eheji Monastery, actually we got a private interview with Godo Roshi, who is Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoichi Suzuki. We met him in his office. It was so great. I'd forgotten the name of our guide, the guy who showed us around, but He was so impressed that Dakota Roshi was going to talk to us. He was like, wow, this is great. And we went into his office. Oh, and the part of the monastery where his office is, in the alcove to his office. Anyway, they were doing some construction. So in the alcove to his office, as we walked in, I saw he had a hard hat with the Aheji crest on it. I want R to have with the Aheji crest on it.

[21:05]

But I guess if I want that, I'm going to have to go to Aheji and be the Godo Roshi, which is not likely to happen. When we were talking to Hoi Tzu, I actually seriously asked him for advice. I said, you know, I'm going to go to Tassajara, which Hoesu loves Tassajara. I said, I'm going to go to Tassajara. I'm going to be the Tanto. Do you have any advice? And the first thing he said was kind of joshing me along. He said, well, as Tanto at Eheji, I got to pretty much do what I want. Nobody above me telling me what to do. He said, I think at Zen Center, You don't have that luxury. He's right. And then he said, very seriously, he got pretty stern face.

[22:10]

And he said, you must protect the practice at Pasa Hara. Please. look like one of those guardians they have in the mountain gate in the Sambon. When you walk through the gate, you look to your left and right, and there's these big, fierce dudes. Mess with the Dharma, you mess with us. You look kind of like that, stern, you know. You must protect the practice at Tazara. How do you do that? thinking about it pretty hard. What's the point about all these rules and the schedule and the forms and the ceremony, etc., etc.?

[23:15]

How do they serve us? Exactly. Really, how do they serve us? When I was Eno at City Center, not too long ago, I had the same job that Kathy as here at Tazahara. And that's also similar, you know. Protect the practice. Somebody at City Center, one of the residents, told me, I'm not really here for formal Zen training. I just like the community. I'm just here for the community. That's my reason for being here. And... That made me very sad. That made me sad because I thought, what do you think? The community just happens? You know, like magic? Like somehow because we're in this building, we have this amazing community?

[24:16]

I don't think so. When Mel and Steve were here at the beginning of the month, Mel was talking a little bit about when they were introducing some of the monastic forms here at Tassahara, when Tatsugami Roshi came from Eheji, he was the Ino at Eheji, and he was Mel's Shuso teacher, his Jugoshi. And he introduced the Dwanryo and many, many of the forms that we observe now. And so when it came to question time, They gave a talk in the dining room. At question time, I shot my hand up and I asked this very leading question, a tanto question. I said, why is that important? And something that Mel said in response to that question was he was thinking about when Zen Center was in crisis in 1983, pretty severe crisis, like maybe there wouldn't be Zen Center anymore.

[25:24]

And... He said, actually, what kept it going was, we just kept doing the forms. We just kept doing it, you know. When it was time for someone to come up here and hit the Han, somebody came up and started hitting the Han, and then people heard the Han, and they came to the Zendo. And so, we must be a community of monastics, because here we are. And community survived. the observation of rigid rules is not our point. Suzuki Roshi put a lot of emphasis on formal practice with informal mind. So, as Buddha says, Shakyamuni Buddha, middle way, practice with flexibility. It takes a flexible mind to accept the terms and conditions of this human life

[26:30]

whether we're living at Tassahara or not. Or as Suzuki Roshi once said, what we're doing here is far too important to take it too seriously. And I also want to add that Suzuki Roshi cautioned his students against looks like good. you can't really truly know how someone is practicing. Someone who looks like they're all over the map and just barely hanging on by their fingernails might be really engaging with the practice. And someone who looks like they got it all nailed, they're doing every form perfectly, always where they should be on time, etc., might just be coasting.

[27:32]

It's unlikely, but it is possible. The point is, you can't know. And I think there's something about us withholding judgment anyway, so I'd like to suggest this is a strong support for withholding judgment, because you can't really know. As I said at the beginning of this talk, I'm deeply impressed by everyone's practice. Turning towards the Dharma, what does that look like? I can't tell you. I'm really not sure what that looks like. But I think there's a lot of it going on here this summer. I think there's a lot of healing going on here. this summer. A lot of bodhisattva training going on.

[28:38]

Let me see. Oh yeah. I said it before and I'll say it again. Bodhisattvas practice friendliness and helpfulness. These two core Buddhist virtues. So if you don't get anything else out of this talk besides Lotus Sutra, Bodhisattva, friendliness, helpfulness, that's great. Just these core Buddhist virtues. I think that's what we're up to here. Training in that. I wanted to end with a quote from my teacher, Sojin Roshi. This is from a lovely little book that's available in our bookstore called A Path Unfolding and it's about Sojin's life in his words.

[29:46]

So he says, I'm trying to keep our practice pure. We're not doing it just any old way because then we wouldn't actually be doing it. As soon as we start adapting the practice to what everybody wants, we find out that this one wants to do it this way and that one wants to do it that way. Pretty soon we're just accommodating everybody and nothing is left to the practice. You can't bend the practice to fit your idea. You have to soften your mind to fit the practice. You have to walk through the small door. It's not up to you to determine how the practice goes. It's up to you to conform to the practice. When you can do that, the practice becomes your own. So, well, it's about quitting time. About time I stopped talking. Maybe there's time for a question or two. Yes, wow. I'm sorry, I should have left more time. Makasiana, so first.

[30:49]

So you mentioned in the Bodhisattva training, you mentioned the schedule, you mentioned the form, a lot more that we do during the day that hasn't been mentioned. I'm wondering if you could talk about work. Work is our core practice. It's part of the schedule. Following the schedule means showing up on time, showing up for whatever's on the schedule. What's next? Work. Fully engaging body and mind the same way we engage body and mind in the zendo. My zazen instruction in five words in case anyone's interested, stay present for whatever happens. If you can bring that mind to your work, no problem. Then work is Zazen practice. Just take care, as Mel always says, pay careful attention to whatever's in front of you. Just do it.

[31:51]

Just taking care of whatever's in front of you, fully engaging with that. That's our practice, whether it's in the Zendo. or in a garden, or in the kitchen, or in a guest cabin, etc., etc. That's the way I see it. Judith? So, what does a bodhisattva do if she feels unfriendly, unkind, nasty, isolated? I mean, do bodhisattvas feel that? And what do they do? Well, you know, It might be another talk. The bodhisattvas practice paramitas as Darlene has been teaching Kishanti Paramita. It's spaciousness, inclusiveness, accepting. That's one of them.

[32:53]

Kishanti usually translated as forbearance and patience. and you have to practice it with yourself first. So, before you can make space, well, maybe I won't say before you can make space, maybe I will say making space for others is making space for yourself, that they arise together. So, easier said than done, right? Breathe. That's a good one, you know. And be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself first, and you can be kind to others. Well, we should stop. Thank you very much. Good night.

[33:52]

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