Good evening, everybody. Is this not working? Is this... Yeah, now it's working. you all for being here tonight. It is really only you listening that encourages me to try to say what I can see. And my perspective of the world is of course limited. It is recently limited particularly through the position of being director.

[01:21]

I think it is always limited. But this is the particular limitation that I find myself in. So I'm the director of city center of this temple. And for 11 months, I've been enjoying and suffering the great gift of practicing in this position. I think in every position that we change to, the world is perceived from a different angle. In the director's place, it feels like being in the middle of householding and taking care of the body of the Sangha. And one aspect of this position seems to be to take care of those things that are not in order or that are not in the general flow of things.

[02:32]

The garage door doesn't open. The heat goes on at the wrong moment in the day. Someone falls into a wall. A huge statue is delivered to the main entrance. It's 100th birthday of something or the 50th anniversary of something. Or it was a conflict that has developed to a point that it is disturbing the harmony of the community. And I think the director is in the position to listen, embracing the situation, and support the harmony of the temple. See, the harmony of the life in the temple is kind of an ongoing research project of the director. I would like to bring up a koan from the Blue Cliff Record.

[03:37]

The Blue Cliff Record is a koan collection that was published 1125 in China. And the koan goes like this. The Lord addressed the assembly and said, I'm not asking you about the days before the 15th of the month, but what about after the 15th? Carlo gave me a word about those days, and he himself gave me the answer. Every day is a good day. The days before and the days after. The days when everything is rolling along smoothly. And the days when everything piles up. The days when three toilets break down. And the days when the marvelous dinner comes out of the belly of the kitchen.

[04:39]

Thank you for this day. Every day is a good day. Thank you for this opportunity. My intention is to turn towards and to go with whatever day comes along. But can I cherish broken toilets? Can I cherish the mouth shit and the flower storage area? Not have aversion or not identify with the suffering of something that doesn't work. Can I take care not putting extra pounds and ambition on an event that I want to be 100% good?

[05:51]

Not just every day is a good day. a special day. So that's kind of what I work with a lot. And our founder, Dogen, sees the essence of the director as follows, says, the essence of the director position is to respect the rise and openly accept everyone in the assembly. so that seniors and juniors peacefully stay in harmony and friendship and function cooperatively in the great assembly in order for everyone to have a happy heart. And Tywin then later interprets this as functioning cooperatively refers to activity and attitude that accepts everyone.

[06:54]

as fundamentally the same. It is quite a task. And I apologize for my shortcomings. I think that this description of the director's practice realm is exactly the realm that everybody in the community is practicing with. And that's why I bring this up. So that is cooperation. The Sanskrit word for it is Samala Atata, and it's variously translated as identity of purpose, identification of self with others, non-difference, mutual service, non-opposition, and cooperative function. I understand it as harmoniously functioning together, everyone expressing their unique ability and combining them in action.

[08:10]

Cooperation supports the development of synergy of all energies operating together. For example, the kitchen is a practice model of cooperation, I would say. All the different parts in preparing the ingredients, respecting the vegetables, taking care of the knives, taking care of the space, being aware of our bodily posture, all this combines into a meal. And we have all these guidelines in the kitchen and these practices as methods to accelerate us, to train us, or to direct us in the area or in the way to cooperate smoothly. We also try to use skillful means and cooperate in meetings.

[09:18]

And we do that, for example, by listening to each other, not interrupting each other. not judging why we listen to each other. We acknowledge a sequence of topics that we talk about in a certain way in which we talk about them. Write speech. In finding decisions. In finding consensus in decision making. We include everyone, those who carry the information, those who need to be consulted, and those who hold the responsibility. Our ancestor Dorgan expresses it in the following way. There is a text of four integrative methods of bodhisattvas, where it says,

[10:26]

Cooperation means non-opposition. It is not opposing oneself and not opposing others. It is like a human Buddha being the same as a human. When one knows cooperation, self and others are one justice. And he uses the following metaphor. The ocean doesn't refuse water. Therefore, it has been able to become so immense. Mountains don't refuse earth. That is why they can be so high. Note that the ocean not refusing water is cooperation. Note further, that the virtue of the water not refusing the ocean, too, is cooperation. For this reason, water gathers and becomes an ocean.

[11:34]

Earth accumulates and becomes a mountain. There is no obstruction in cooperation. There is no opposing. There is no hanging on to a self. There's no recreating a self. Cooperation is characterized by humility, respect, and gratitude. It calls for paying attention to one's preferences and habitual responses in order to not to get hung up on them. It calls for making space, stepping back, to give up any selfish agenda. When we are able to encourage solutions that are including and taking care of everyone's needs, solutions that don't exclude anybody, synergy becomes palpable, solutions feel creative and open-spaced.

[12:56]

We cannot plan life. It is impermanent, unreliable, without an inherent self and unpredictable. We can only renew our intention. Every day is a good day. Every moment is a good moment. Every moment is a gift. RAP was helpful in finding the appropriate response to controversial situation. RAP is an appropriate other monk's policy in the Zen temple. RAP is an appropriate scholarship policy. RAP is the appropriate response to homeless people at the door. There's many decisions to make

[14:01]

endlessly. And one parameter of making these decisions in an appropriate way is to find a solution that is not driven by dichotomies like you or I, but that incorporate all elements and conditions. Cooperation finding balance in the harmony of differences, finding solutions without excluding any position, without killing one side to establish the identity of the other side. So cooperatively functioning is also the fourth of the four integrative methods of the bodhisattva practices that Dogen describes. And they are the following, giving kind speech, beneficial action and cooperation.

[15:10]

Dogen describes them in the classical Bodhisattva Shishogo in the Shobo Genzo. So cooperation is the most complex expression of bodhisattva relationships and this encompasses all the other three giving, beneficial action, kind speech. So giving means not coveting, means being not attached and laying with an open heart. Giving is being in balance, being in generosity, expressing connection and affection for life. Giving manifests our experience of interdependence with everything.

[16:19]

Giving and receiving interactions are marked by moments of vulnerability, joy, fluidity. Imagine a book, poetry, a focus arriving at your door from nowhere, or a smile flying to you in the hallway. There's endless ways and many different ways of giving. an apology for making a mistake, a blanket for someone who is cold, trust, encouragement. And different cultures have different ceremonies and rituals around giving. Those ceremonies and rituals are often to balance a social interchange or an interchange with nature.

[17:31]

In our particular tradition, we have a helpful chant in the Seralya food offering that says, May we with all beings realize the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift. We intend to transform our habit of holding on. We may make a food offering before we eat. And all offerings are gifts in many ways. Every offering is a complete giving away, self and others. as a prototype of renunciation it's a fundamental act of producing or making sangha and a wonderful example just happened the birthday party or the birthday dinner for Uyitsu Suzuki many gifts on many levels given and received and enjoyed together and again I wanted to thank everybody who took part in this

[19:01]

The second of the four integrative methods of Bodhisattvas is kind speech. And kind speech means meeting each other with compassion, expressed in caring and loving words. Kind speech is enacting the precepts of referring from false speech, not slandering, and not to praise self at the expense of others. And through kind speech, kind speech is gradually nurtured. To hear kind speech spoken to us directly opens our mind. And kind speech listened to, indirectly spoken,

[20:09]

encourages our connectedness. Kind speech arises from a loving mind, and the seat of a loving mind is compassion. Dogen says, we should learn that kind speech has the power to turn around the heavens. It is not merely the praise of ability. The third of the four integrative methods of Bodhisattvas is beneficial action or helpful conduct. Beneficial action means utilizing skillful means to benefit living beings by looking into the future, in the near or distant future, and employ expedient methods to liberate them. Durban includes

[21:10]

grass, trees, wind, and water in beneficial action. When we are where we are completely, without any tendency of being someplace else, then there is no opposition, no self. There is openness to the universe, beneficial action falls into place it is relaxing with the unknown stepping backward or stepping forward and abiding with each step there is no hangout but it is helpful to try to find the balance the balance between courage and consideration, the point to stop and to listen.

[22:19]

And I would like to close with a poem by David White. Sometimes, sometimes, if you move carefully through the forest, Leaving like the ones in the old stories who could cross a shimmering bed of leaves without a sound. You come to a place whose only task is to trouble you with tiny but frightening requests. Conceived out of nowhere, but in this place, beginning to lead everywhere. requests to step what you are doing right now and to step what you are becoming while you do it. Questions that can make or unmake a life.

[23:26]

Questions that have patiently waited for you. Questions that have no right to go away. Thank you for sitting and listening.

[23:41]

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