Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. And I hope that you enjoyed this discussion and partaking in it. My plan is to read the koan together and then I'd like to share some comments about the koan that came up in the class where people who identify as or are identified as women have been meeting. We discussed this last week. And then I'd like to do dyads, just three minutes each to generate some more ideas and also to generate interest in the material before I share with you some research I've done. So I'll talk for about 30 minutes and then I'm hoping to have 15 minutes at the end where we can then have a discussion, which I'm not looking for it to be a discussion where I defend my opinions or what I've but that we can engage together and learn more from each other about what comes up.

[01:05]

I also realize that many of you need to leave at 4 and that people might be coming late, so... No, not you. Oh, great. Well, if you need to leave or for whoever comes late, that's, of course, not a problem. So some people volunteer to help read this con, and you know who you are. So... Please try to speak loudly, and I guess we'll leave it to those people, the actors, for the beginning. Whoever is the narrator? Oh wait, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt you. I see not everybody has a copy, and it would be hard to understand without reading it, so there are copies floating around. And if you don't have one, could you share with the person sitting next to you? Raise your hand if you don't have a copy.

[02:10]

Ben, Caleb, do you want a copy? Can you share? Great. Okay. Sorry to interrupt you, narrator. Go ahead. Before Nya Zhang became a nun, she used to do that Master Dawi and Zatakao's Monastery to study with him, and he gave her a roof in the Abbot's clothes. Senior monk Wanan did not approve. Dawi said to him, although she's a woman, she has outstanding merits. Wanan still disapproved. Dawi urged him to interview with Nya Zhang. Wanan reluctantly agreed and requested an interview. Nya Zhang said, Do you want a Dharma interview or a worldly interview? A Dharma interview. Bye, Moana. Niauzhan said, Then send your attendants away. She went to the room first, and after a few moments she called, Please, come in. When Moana entered, he saw Niauzhan laying naked on her back on the bed. He pointed at her temple, saying, What is this place?

[03:13]

Niauzhan replied, All the Buddhas of the Three Worlds, the Six Patriarchs, and all great monks everywhere come out of this place. Wanan said, And may I enter? Miaozhan replied, Horses may cross, asses may not. Wanan was unable to reply. Miaozhan declared, I have met you, senior monk. The interview is over. She turned her back to him. Wanan left ashamed. Later, Dalwi said to him, The old dragon has some wisdom, doesn't she? How many people have not read this before? Okay, great. All right, so before I talk about what I learned when I studied this last spring in a class called Zen Texts at Union Theological Seminary, I want to just share some thoughts that came up in the group last week when we discussed the interview.

[04:15]

So one thought that came up was that men's koans don't necessarily or most of the time focus on sex. So why do we need to do this in a koan about women? And by the way, it comes from this book of koans that are collected about the women ancestors and their encounters with women. each other. Another is that Miaozhong's koan diminishes women two-seps. Why not just talk about dharma? Another comment was about the word although, and although she's a woman, she has merits. Why not just say she has merits? Why qualify that, although she's a woman? Another comment was that we talk about female, not male, monks. For example, when we chant the ancestors, we say the woman ancestors, but we don't say the male ancestors before the Buddhas and ancestors.

[05:18]

Another comment, why does she have to get naked? This felt very familiar to some of the people in the group. Like again, it's reduced to this. Or somebody said, is he the one on his back stripped bare? The quotation where he says, may I enter? Somebody said that, well, she's good enough for sex, but this disqualifies her as a teacher. And then the last statement, the old dragon. Why is she called an old dragon? Is this disrespectful? Is it derogatory? Why this patriarchal language, supposedly patriarchal language for women, He respects her, but he respects her, but why is she an old dragon? And somebody else said she's giving him a lot. This is a very draining position for a lot of women where they feel like they have to teach somebody something.

[06:22]

Or when you're the minority and the person who holds power, you have to show them where they're wrong. That's draining. And why is she choosing to give so much to him? Somebody else asked, why didn't he bow three times to her? This was a dokuzan, after all. And of course, this is 12th century China, and it doesn't seem dated to some people. And another question is, who in fact wrote it? Is studying such things a waste of time? Somebody asked, why not just sit zazen and study dogen? Why do we have to do all of this undoing work if everything is empty anyway? So those are some ideas and questions and concerns that came up when we discussed this last week. So I'd like to give you all an opportunity to just generate some more ideas and questions and concerns or whatever might come up and just to find somebody to talk to for three minutes.

[07:24]

We'll do dyads. One person will talk for three minutes and the other will listen and then we'll switch. So find somebody and make sure one of you has a copy of it, if possible. Okay, so if you haven't already started talking about it to your partner, I'm going to start timing three minutes now. Okay, yeah.

[08:36]

... [...] I don't know what they do, but I don't like anything. I don't know.

[09:43]

Thank you. I'm going to say just a little bit. [...] Oh, yeah.

[10:59]

If you can finish what you're saying, I guess not all of you are thinking, and switch partners, three more minutes. Just to speak about... I don't even know what I'm saying.

[12:05]

I don't even know what I'm saying. I don't even know what I'm saying. I don't even know what I'm saying. It's still a crease. Right down. I love it. It's in it. Thank you. Thank you.

[13:15]

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take it. Take it. I'll let you be coming in place. I'll let you be coming in place. It sounds like I'm going to be right here, but it's still a lot.

[14:29]

It's still a lot. [...] So if you can finish your thought and come back. So it was really exciting for me to hear all of the energy in the room around this. I'm excited at the end to hear more of what was actually said by y'all. So I'll share with you... some of my research and thoughts, and then we'll open it up for a discussion. So just to give some history and context, in Ming Dynasty China, Abbasis quoted Miao Zhang and considered themselves part of her female lineage, even though they were not her direct dharma descendants. And in 14th century Japan, women of Tokeji Temple studied the words that Miao Zhang exchanged with Wen'an as a koan in formal meditation practice.

[15:34]

So this has been studied for centuries and has just come again to life through the Hidden Lamp book. And it was rediscovered by Miriam Levering. Let me make sure I get this right. This book, by the way, is by Grace Shearson, who I understand is a good friend of Artanto's, right? Our sister. Zen women. And she has actually been given permission from... It says she has been empowered to teach koans by Keito Fukushima Roshi, a chief abbot of Tofufuji Monastery in Kyoto, Japan. So she's put quite a lot of study into her explanation of these koans. So I found this book really useful. She says that Myajang's famous encounter with Wenan, where she, unquote, vindicates the vagina, was first discovered and translated by Miriam Levering, And Marianne Levering also discovered this under the record of Wenon.

[16:35]

So apparently Wenon himself wrote this down. So if you're wondering who wrote it down, that's the story. And Marianne Levering also wrote the foreword in this book. And both of these books are for sale in our history, The Hidden Land and Sun Women, and this one, which I'll talk about later. So let's see what else I want to say before I get into my thoughts here on paper. Oh, some history of Nia Zhang. She was a daughter and wife of an upper-class, educated, and politically successful family. And she apparently had an awakening as a teenager and wanted to get ordained, but she wasn't allowed to. So she studied Zen for many years under different masters, and eventually Da Hui was her teacher. And later, after this... interview story, she did receive dharma transmission from him. And I want to let you know that in 12th century China, if you're not aware, Zen monastic life, like here, meant living in tight quarters, up close and personal.

[17:43]

In fact, the monks might use the meditation hall for dormitory-style sleeping quarters. So the abbot, like here, has separate quarters. So some of those quarters had guest rooms, so Miao Zhang was invited to stay in those guest rooms. So according to Shi Sun, she neither disturbed the monk's dormitory nor was the subject to the lack of privacy the men adored. So putting aside the monastic rules forbidding women's entrance, her residing in the abbot's quarters made sense. But Da Pui's head monk still didn't approve. So it was actually unprecedented that a woman would stay at a monastery, a male monastery. But Master Da Hui permitted Mia Zhang to stay in the abbot's quarters. Why he made this exception is not clear. There was speculation at the time that they were lovers. In fact, Shearson talks about Da Hui's teacher being the subject of such controversy.

[18:45]

And these were apparently true, that he was taking lovers. So that was in the air. And it would be the head monk's responsibility, if there was something untoward going on, to challenge the teacher about it. Like, hey, what's up? This shouldn't be happening. So he kept bringing it up. Why is she staying here? She shouldn't be here. And Da Hui kept saying, well, why don't you go talk to her? Why don't you go talk to her? And there was resistance on Wenon's behalf. But eventually, he decides to go and meet with her and have Doka-san. So... When Da Hui says, although she's a woman, she has outstanding merits, it is not clear in and of itself whether this statement belittles Miao Zhang or not. The scholar Hsia Dinghua, who wrote an essay called Images of Women in Chan Buddhist Literature of the Song Period, stated that Images and roles of women portrayed in Chan literature reveal more about men's perceptions of women than they do about women's experiences as seen from their own point of view.

[19:53]

So is Dockwe unaware of his own prejudices in using the word although? Is he implying that she has merit even though she's a woman? Somebody brought up the idea that like here at Tassajara, Somebody might say, oh, you know, although you're a woman, you know, you look strong. You could probably work in the shop, for example. But, you know, why not just say you can work in the shop because maybe you have experience working with wood or those kinds of machinery, right? So why not just say she has outstanding work? Go meet with her. Wenang's reluctance to have an interview with Mia Zhang. in my way of reading it, is most likely from fear. Fear of the idea of meeting intimately with a woman, or fear of what other monks might think, or fear of manning up. Reluctance is a form of aversion, which is one of the five hindrances.

[20:54]

And with many of the hindrances, they have the mirroring opposite, which in the case of aversion is desire. Anand's aversion to have an interview with a woman may be because of his unconscious desire for her. We can suppose he is aware of his aversion hindrance and has enough insight as head monk to know that all hindrances are empty. So the fact that he agrees to the interview in the end is a sign that he's willing to work with this hindrance. Right out of the gate, Miao Zhang tests one on without him knowing it. She starts the interview by asking him what kind of interview he wants. A dharmic version of a duel, according to Shearson. Choose your weapon, right? Dharmic, worldly. Knowing full well, there is no difference between a dharma interview or a worldly interview. We have the two truths, right? So when on bites, he requests the dharma interview, most likely believing this to be the more holy of the choices.

[21:56]

So here we might recall Bodhidharma's response to Emperor Wu in case two of the Book of Serenity. where the emperor asks, what is the highest meaning of the holy truths? And Bodhidharma replies, there is nothing holy. So there is no division between holy and not holy, dharmic, worldly, male, female, ultimately, right? In the preface, in fact, the first sentence of the preface of this book, Sunwomen, Grace Shearson says, tell us this little story. When a male teacher returned from an early North American conference of Zen teachers, one of his female students asked him, how many women teachers were included in this conference? The male teacher answered, we were all women. A long, confused silence followed. So we think of, well, this makes me think of this Andrew-centric kind of assumption, right?

[23:02]

Andrew-male-centric, central, this male-centered assumption that exists in most religions. I like how Shearson says that today I would cut through that confusion by asking him politely, how many of you women teachers use the ladies' room at the Zen conference? Yeah. Heather and I were talking a little bit about this when she shared with me an essay that Rita Gross wrote in this book called Buddhism Beyond Patriarchy. This book was written in 1993, and a lot has changed. This is still an important conversation. Her most recent book was published posthumously. It's called Buddhism Beyond Gender. But for the sake of what we're talking about, I want to read something that she said. She said, I realized that I was so frustrated by scholarship on women and religion, and it seemed so inadequate because such scholarship resulted from an androcentric model of humanity in the scholar's mind.

[24:04]

And she gives this example, which I want to share with you and then connect it to some of our liturgy, actually. She says, definitions of androcentrism could easily be multiplied. While abstract discussions are important, A simple example has great power. So here's for example. How many times has one read or heard the equivalent of the following statement? The Egyptians allow or don't allow women to... The structure is so commonplace that even today, many of my students have no clue about what is wrong with such a statement. For both those who make such statements and for those who hear them without wincing, Egyptians are men. Egyptian women are objects acted upon by real Egyptians, but are not themselves Egyptians. So when I spoke to Fu this summer about the male-female ancestors, and it's really exciting that we have started chanting them both equally, another thing that I brought her attention to, I'm sure she's noticed before, but it also came up in her group, so I wanted to tell her about it, was that when we chant,

[25:19]

names of the buddhism ancestors it doesn't say the male buddhism ancestors but when we chant the names of the female ancestors it says the names of the women ancestors so again this is you know what is the norm and then what is like you know we could just as easily take that quote by uh gross and say buddhists are men Buddhist women are objects acted upon by real Buddhists, but are not themselves Buddhists. She had a good response, which is totally fair, because I was like, can we do something? Can we put the word male in front of the male Buddhism ancestors? And she brought up, well, that brings up another issue, which is it propagates the gender binary. Like, what do we do really to take away the division of men and women? So that's like another topic that is an important one. Okay, so moving on.

[26:28]

Myajan asks him to send his attendants away because he asks for this dormant interview. So what is most striking in this decision is her willingness to further break the monastic rules that don't allow male monks to be alone with women. She is making it explicit that this is to be an intimate interaction. and is perhaps clearing their meeting from any sort of hierarchy that goes along with having attendance. So he sends the attendance away on her request, thinking, oh, well, I'm going to have a Dharma interview, so no attendance. And I'm struck by two possibilities in regard to Anand's question when he enters and sees her lying naked on her back. He asks, what is this place? One possibility... is that he honestly doesn't know. Maybe, you know, he's grown up in a male monastery, probably he's never seen a woman's genitalia before, and he's like, what is this place? It's also curious that Wen An's question is so direct, whether naive or not.

[27:36]

Of all of the ways he could respond to what he sees when he walks into the room, he gets straight to the point, just like Nia Zhang has, and unabashedly he meets her. Kudos to Wong. Without skipping a beat, Miaojong challenges Winan to shift his sexist attitude toward her as a lesser being to seeing her and all women as the creators of life. Not only did all Buddhas, patriarchs, and monks come out of the womb of a woman, Winan himself did. He would not exist if it weren't for women. She could also be teaching him that women are certainly sexual and that sex is not something to dismiss or attempt to be above. Dinghua Xie, who I quoted earlier, says that Miao Zhang is shifting Wenan's attention away from the sexual meaning of her genitals toward their function in giving birth. I don't agree with that. I think that all mothers are, in fact, brothers of life as well as.

[28:41]

sexual beings. And the only way for one on to understand that the worldly is the dharmic is for him to accept both truths about women. Women use their genitals to fuck and women push babies out of the same place. It doesn't get more base or worldly than that. So after I studied this in the class last spring, I read more in here. She goes through some line. There's about 10 pages on this. And I noticed, I discovered, that Wenon also might be, or Miyazhang also might be referring to something called geomancy, or geomancy, which is, what is it? I don't want to get this wrong. So temple geomancy is the science of orienting buildings in harmony with the universe. So this is something that started in The arrangement of the Chinese then-temple buildings was established in Tang Dynasty China and was later copied in Japanese temples.

[29:47]

The architecture incorporated seven monastic buildings in the shape of a human body. So when Miao Zhang refers to her genitals as the place where all of the Buddhas of the three worlds and the six patriarchs and all the great monks everywhere come from, she is integrating another level of wisdom about temple geomancy. The monasteries are laid out in the shape of a human body, and guess what the Dharma Gate is? You can look at this later. Again, this is in the library and the bookstore. But there's the layout of the temples, which I actually matched up to our Tassahara temples. This little handy map. And sure enough, the temple gate is where... the anus, urinary tract, and genitals are located. Surprise, surprise. So the main temple entrance, Shearson says, is in actuality the place through which all of the Buddhas of the three worlds and the six patriarchs and all the great monks everywhere come.

[31:00]

In order to practice, all monks must enter the path, must find their entrance to systematic investigation within a community of monks or nuns. All monks and nuns enter the temple through the Dharma gate. So when on... probably knew this and he could have been, you know, doing the Dharma combat thing and he could have been actually suggesting that he needs to ask permission as we do historically outside the temple gate, may I enter? So, you know, it's not clear what's going on here, but it's interesting to think about the possibilities. So dharmically speaking, all of life arises out of Tathagatagarbha. Tathagata the Buddha, the womb of the Buddha, or it's a word we use to describe Buddha nature. All life arises out of Tathagatagarbha with the potentiality for awakening. Prajnaparamita, wisdom beyond wisdom, is known as the mother or womb of all Buddhas.

[32:06]

We know the metaphor of the three mountains, right? We have first there was a mountain, then there was no mountain, then there was a mountain. So the world of phenomena, the mountain that we see superficially and think as a mountain, and then the world of emptiness, there is no essence to the mountain, and then what Dogen would call suchness, the world is in fact the dependently co-arisen what is-ness of the mountain, as Suki Roshi said famously, as it is-ness. So Meijan's challenge comes from a place of suchness, the third mountain. and understanding that there is no division between worldly and dharma. Whereas Winant fails to understand that the dharma is the worldly and the worldly is the dharma. He is stuck between the phenomenal world, the first mountain, and emptiness, the second mountain. By presenting her body to him in this way, Miao Zhang creates a possibility for Winant to awaken to this moment, to the reality of suchness.

[33:10]

Her challenge is, in fact, a gift. So one reading is that Winan fails this test by asking if he may enter. He slips off the second mountain where he thinks he's having a dharmic interview and falls flat on his face, stuck in the mud of the first mountain. Or, as I mentioned before, is he playing student and asking, may I enter? Will you be my teacher? If so, a better response would have been for him to prostrate three times in front of her, which came up in one of the questions. Why didn't he do that? When I wrote that line in a paper for my class that my teacher Greg Snyder taught, he wrote in the margins, you may as well ask him to spread wings and fly, to sprout wings and fly. So we know that, I think many of us know, or if you don't, when Mahapajapati finally was allowed to come into monastic life through the help of Ananda, who asked three times to the Buddha, many extra rules were placed on women, right?

[34:13]

And one of these rules was that no matter how enlightened or how old, a woman will never prostrate to a man, even if it's like an 80-year-old Dharma-transmitted woman in the company of a 19-year-old monk who just entered the monastery. The woman will bow to the man. So, when on was not, that was not going to happen. He's not going to bow to her. So poor Wenan remains a confused ass, and Yao Zhang doesn't let this go unstated. She replies that asses may not cross, only horses may. This is an intriguing reply, one that leaves pregnant the possibility for Wenan to wake up. We can connect Yao Zhang's reference to a story with Xiao Zhou. Let me just find this. Shearson writes... Miao Zhang's next answer turns Zen tradition on its ear one more time by both using and reversing an expression of the great Zen master Zhao Zhou.

[35:15]

This is 8th, 9th century. Zhao Zhou, in referring to his own ability as a bridge of enlightenment, once answered a challenging smart aleck who was referring to him as the great bridge of Zhao Zhou. The smart aleck questioned the greatness of the bridge, and Zhao Zhou responded, Horses can pass over this great bridge of Zheozhou, and asses can too. Zheozhou meant that his teaching was strong enough to carry even an ass like the smart aleck across to enlightenment. In her reference to the wisdom of Zheozhou, Miao Zhang answered by recreating Zheozhou's wise remark to fit her present occasion. Regarding the gate, when An asked about entering, she replied, horses may cross, asses may not. Miao Zhang and Xiao Zhou showed their teaching skill as they both reflected the small minds of inquiring monks in their own mirror mind. Xiao Zhou helped the smart alec see himself reflected in the unruffled great teacher's eyes.

[36:16]

Miao Zhang helped Wenan see his deluded attitude toward her vagina. With a judicious and recognizable Zen reference, which she altered instantaneously to fit her own circumstances, Miao Zhang asked Wenan to consider his view and its consequences. And then we get to his inability to respond. So this is a really, I think, important moment. She kind of bests him and he's stumped. This is somebody who's going to have a shuso ceremony soon and has probably been practicing with his fellow monks and probably went in there thinking he was going to best her with his, you know, study and wit and advanced wisdom. And she stumps him in this moment. So his inability to respond, when I studied this in my class called Zen Text, we also studied a koan from the Book of Serenity called Nanquan's Cat.

[37:18]

Is anybody familiar with this? And also, interestingly enough, Nanquan is Zhao Zhou's teacher. So one day at Nanquan's, the Eastern and Western halls, the students in the Eastern and Western halls, were arguing over a cat. When Nan Juan saw this, he took and held it up and said, if you can speak, I won't cut it. And everybody looked up and were like tongue-tied. They froze. So we cut the cat in two. And this goes on, but it's for another time. Greg, my teacher, Greg Snyder's reading of that, he calls Nan Juan's cat the Cohen of our time. If you think back to the recent election, Everybody kind of was like, what do I do? What do I do? And it was like this frozen moment where people were just like too stuck to do anything. I mean, people were doing stuff, but there was this overall like frozen-ness. But I talked to him earlier this summer and I think that broke a bit when the children were being ripped from their families.

[38:23]

I'm thinking of the cat being cut in two, right? These children being ripped from their families and people started getting unstuck. and started like, wait a minute, this is not right. We need to do something. We need to save the cat. We need to keep these children together. But Wanan couldn't answer in this situation. He missed his opportunity, both to meet Miao Zhang as an equal and to awaken to the reality of his own confusion. It makes sense that Wanan felt shame. And these are his own words. He wrote this down. He said he left ashamed. And I think it makes sense that he feels where he felt shame when he left. Shame, I think, was at the center of his fear in the first place, right? What's underneath fear, especially with sexual desire. The whole interview was one challenge after another in an attempt to reveal and help him wake out of that shame. That he left feeling shame shows that he is still stuck. So the last line of the koan, later Da Kui says to him,

[39:26]

The old dragon has some wisdom, doesn't she? So we think, according to Shearson's research, that she's older and has had experience with sex. She was married. Whether she's widowed at this time is unclear. And she has an authority that comes with a certain amount of maturity that he doesn't have yet. The adjective old might recall grandmotherly mind or old woman's chan, that became popular during the Sang period and was used to refer to wise teachers as a metaphor for compassion, patience, and kindness. In the kitchen, over the kitchen altar, we have big mind, joy mind, grandmotherly mind, right? So he might have been honoring her with the word, the adjective old, and of course, what the translation might be in a different way, we don't know, but in this one, it's old. And the reference he makes to a dragon is significant in that a dragon symbolizes the height of fierce wisdom.

[40:30]

Thus Da Hui is saying that Miao Zhang's wisdom is the fierce wisdom of compassion. So that's what I wanted to share. And we have a good amount of time to open up for Questions, I don't know that I can answer. Maybe other people can, but we'll see what happens. Any thoughts or comments? I have a question. Can you say your name just because this is being recorded? She gets you. Is it possible, since he did request the Dharma interview, that he went in sort of... the misunderstanding, and the misunderstanding that, because as far as I know, there's an account to, let's say, like a monk or a teacher, saying a woman, let's say, baby, and she's very good, and she vows to a woman, and understanding that, okay, this is where, like,

[41:48]

Is it possible that he already has his understanding and is really trying, was really testing her when he asked the question, what is this place? That maybe she might not. She might not. What's that? What part? I'm not quite sure what that means exactly, but I'm assuming... some understanding of the adult person, something more, maybe, more, uh, uh, simplistic. And it turns out that actually she's, she's not an idiot, or she's not. Yeah, yeah. Um, and the manager, I mean, that, again, is all the warnings of, like, really wanting a worldly interview, but thinking of school in the Dharma. And so the embarrassment comes from the fact that she's not quite what she is.

[42:54]

But is it possible he did go in with this kind of understanding? Yeah, I agree. I think he did. I think he was trying to beat her. I think that at the beginning, the things that he was saying were coming from his place of, I'm the one in charge of this situation. Whereas from the outset, she was when he chose the Dharma interview. Yeah, thank you. Anybody else have a thought about that? It's an interesting moment. Yeah, Laura? I had a question about the may I enter. I almost thought like in another way, it's in what you're talking about, but like if you're saying Buddha nature is already here, the question of may I enter is actually kind of the wrong question, right? It's like saying there's no way to enter. There's nowhere to go. So maybe even in that way, that kind of directionality or the coming in and out of is a consonant.

[43:58]

Yeah, yeah. Or is he being really sexually explicit? May I enter? Are we here to have sex? Is that why you're on your back? You know, what's going on here? Yeah. I don't know. Anybody else have a thought about that? What's your name again? Nicole. Nicole. I think it's important in this too, it's not just as he says, may I enter, Ray says, and may I enter, as if he is continuing the thought that he said before, as if talking over her. And I'm not sure how far I want to lean on that, but I think it's noteworthy that and almost makes it a compound thing, as opposed, like, in an awareness that... You know, he didn't even, like, listen to me to respond. He just already knew what he was going to ask. Right. Like, whatever. They all come out of this place. May I enter? Let's get to it. Right. Did you have your hands up? I was just curious. I asked you this question, but I was curious if anybody here knows of a con or a story like this, or sexuality involved, that involves two men.

[45:01]

Because there's... Yeah, there's actually another one with Miao Zhang and somebody else in another. Anybody? Maybe we need to write that one down. Seriously. Yeah, Ron. There are Japanese stories of love between punky actors and monks. And there's a collection that's been translated again. Do you know what it's called? That's nice to know. Yeah, Caleb. I just wanted to comment on how this whole koan is quite resembling has lots of resemblance to the Gospel of Mary, and also Scripture, where Mary is with Jesus, and he transmits a vision to her.

[46:14]

Mary, his mother? Mary Magdalene. And then when she meets up with the twelve disciples, Peter confronts her, saying, what did you see, or what did you speak about with the Lord? And she said, the Lord gave me a vision. And he was really angry and said, like, why would he give you a vision when you're a woman with any of us? And then one of the other disciples, Levi, confronts Peter and says, like, brother, like, maybe this is a time to look internally at why there is nothing. there's no vision being transmitted to you. Like, maybe... That's great. Maybe there's, you know, Mary, you know, yeah, maybe there's something wrong that's going on with you. Right. But yeah, it reminds me very much of this.

[47:16]

And there is, like, we can act off, but there's also a speculation that, like, that Mary might have been leper with Jesus as well. Yeah. Thank you for that. Anybody else? Yeah. Can you say your name? I'm sorry, I'm David. Sorry, I forgot. Yeah, to me, it seems tricky. I would like it to, if you could repeat what you said about the statement because to me, it seems that by referring so strongly to the reproductive function of women, she kind of perpetuates strong patriarchal thinking in her statement. Which statement? All the Buddhas of the three worlds, the six patriarchs and all great monks everywhere come out of this place. How do you think that perpetuates patriarchal thinking? I mean, seeing women mainly as the possibility for children. Yeah, and that was one of the things that I said came up in our group, is this

[48:23]

Diminishing women to sex. You could read it that way. I choose to read it that way. I feel like it's a real powerful statement saying, more like you wouldn't exist if it weren't for women as a way to empower women. Other hands? Milo? And then Heather? One thing that you're in this is, I mean, there are a number of themes, but something about during the practice period, Paul Hallard said, Authenticity is the wind of the Zen school. And what's happening here, she is actually, her and the Dao'i are bucking up against the tradition of Buddhism in the monks. And they're bringing sexuality in, in her case, a very wonderful, flagrant way. But I think only she could have done this, or Dao'i could have done this. they were expressing, they were saying, actually, this is my expression of awakening, and actually doing something very radical in the context of the whole history of Buddhism.

[49:39]

And I think that's shocking to our limited views. It's very zen, so... Yeah, yeah. I would say that Da Hui doesn't... I think Miazhan brings sexuality to the conversation. I don't think Da Hui does, because he's just bringing a woman in. That doesn't necessarily mean he's bringing sexuality in. Or in any case that they were having a relationship. I was thinking... If they were having, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, Miao Zhang, like in her presentation of her body to him in the room in the first place, she's like, all right, let's cut to the chase. You have a problem with this. This is what the problem is. Let's just interact from this. So she doesn't waste any time with him. Yeah, Heather? Just sort of following on what Milo said, I also think it doesn't have to be that... We'll never know that she actually is his lover. It's like with Mary Magdalene that she have to be Jesus' lover, but if she'd just be this powerful disciple of Jesus, but if he just be this powerful teacher without any aspersion of people being cast at fire, that the only way she got to the monastery is that she's having sex with the other.

[50:55]

And obviously she's putting that out in the whole army. It's kind of fascinating that... that's undermining, whereas how many men have been given advantages because they're men, and it's not usually called into question, like, oh, the reason why he's the head monk? Maybe he's having sex with somebody, or maybe his mother got into a position, and we have no one to question. The woman, there's always this idea where she sets out, where she sets out, where she sets out through sex, so... I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's just an angel-centrism. Yeah. Men earn everything, and women have to do something, you know, underhanded, undermining, in order for us to gain power, authority, and respect. Yeah. Yeah. This is a little bit of a tangent, but just some stuff comes up like that around literature, too. Like that Emily Bronte didn't write Wuthering Heights. He might be her alcoholic brother.

[51:57]

He didn't write anything. She's here, you know. She's never been a woman. And then most recently was this Italian author who wrote a Neapolitan novel. So brilliant. It must be a man. I don't want to give her name. And this is really interesting that genius, brilliance, power, there's a way that we don't trust it coming from women. That we can't possibly be female who has this kind of genius. And we don't walk around saying that. You know, I really think that, you know, T.S. Eliot, maybe it's really a woman. Maybe it's, you know. It's a little tiresome to always, like, women who are in powerful positions with sexuality. Yeah. And I understand what she, I think I understand what she's feeling. You know, she's obviously confronting him, like you're saying, here's my vagina.

[52:59]

What are you going to do about it? Right? And, yeah, so I just want to sort of shine a light on that. Thank you, Heather. Kika? You know, what if one is actually asking, you know, is the vagina a darmigate? Yeah, that's why I brought up the geomancy, and maybe he was asking, really, like, I know that this is where we enter. May I enter? Right. So she doesn't give that any credence? Not in this... version of it. Yeah, yeah. It's an interesting question. I only thought of that when I was preparing for this discussion. It didn't occur to me before, but yeah, maybe. One-sided, because that is this genuine question, this good question, and she doesn't answer it in that way. She's already got an idea. Maybe, yeah. Her idea. Could be. And his shame, for me, I do not see it as shame, but why not? Although, when on wrote down the word, he felt ashamed. He was red, sorry. He wrote, he left red-faced and ashamed.

[54:03]

But yeah, that's another question. There's many questions. I don't know. How could a vagina be at Dormicade? That'll lead us on another. That's another talk. You could give that talk. How could a vagina be at Dormicade? Emer and then Murray. And... I thought it was interesting what David said, because that's actually my reading of it. I think when I was reading this, I think it really connects to core feminist theory in some ways. It's really like the three archetypes that were kind of missing before, of where women are trapped into, like the sexual woman, the mother, the life bearer. the old wise woman who's, like, lost her functionality as, like, a reproductive person in society. So I think, like, it's interesting that each of those images appears. So I think, like, the first one, obviously, and her is, like, the sexual being the second one.

[55:08]

Like, her is, oh, I'm just here to give you babies. And then the third one is, like, oh, you're old and wise and that's your function now. And I actually think, like, it's interesting because the way I read this is that she's, like, meeting him exactly... where he is like she's she's meeting every projection she's embodying every projection that he has onto her and it's kind of like in what now like oh so you think this well okay let's be this I can be this and and when I first heard this story someone told me and like we we talked about it and read it and that was the understanding the person gave me as well so every time I read it that's exactly how I read it that she is actually acting like these like it's almost like this mental projection and you see it in front of you and then you know there's something else there so you can't always limit to that and I think at the end maybe he's even referring to that as well that's how my reading every time I read that the old dragon is drawing on that even more thanks Marie I have a question about um lineage and

[56:23]

I'm wondering if you've come across any other sanghas or lineages that incorporate women into, for example, when we see the precepts, we get our lineage figures. Because it's my understanding that it's not a literal lineage, but that it's reconstructed based on the teachers that we find most important. And so, yeah, and so is there anybody who's thinking about integrating some of the women's ancestors into these papers? Have you seen this? No, I haven't. So this is, who created this? Norman Fisher, Peter Levitt, and Barbara Cooper. They created a women's lineage paper. So this has the women ancestors in a circle. And interestingly, I have a little story to share about this, and then I guess we should end because there's only a minute left, but I'll quickly tell you because I'm kind of excited about this.

[57:33]

When I got ordained as a priest in March, I asked my teacher, could we include this? Because I know it was included in his Dharma transmission. I know that's when I saw it for the first time. And he said, no, actually, because it's only for Dharma transmission. So I thought, okay. I guess. And then I read an article online, actually, that was referencing an article he wrote that I was reading. And this other article, I forget who wrote it, but she was from a different lineage, and she was talking about her precepts ordination and that this was used in her precepts ordination. So, of course, I emailed Greg, and I'm like, well, this person got it. And I sent him the link. And Greg being Greg, right away, he got in touch with Tia and he's like, oh, hey, why don't we do this? So we did it. And that was like two weeks before my ordination. And so we actually did include this in my ordination. So it is possible. It's been done in this lineage now. And Annie, when she received her precepts here, Tia also gave this to her.

[58:40]

So hopefully that's the start of that. Greg? You have a stack of those? I have a stack of those. Can people maybe have copies of them? They're for Jukai. Oh, okay. Handouts. But anyway, they exist. Thank you for that question. I think we should stop because we're just at 3.30. Thank you, everybody. It was fun.

[59:12]

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