This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Zen Center. My name is Kyoshin Wendy Lewis, and this morning... I will be talking about a ceremony I just completed called Dharma Transmission. And what Dharma Transmission is, is that it gives a person a position in the lineage, authority to teach, and to perform sort of the more esoteric ceremonies, including ordinations, lay and priest ordinations, and Maybe someday a Dharma transmission themselves.

[01:01]

So these ceremonial containers that we have, like a one-day sitting is that, or a practice period is a ceremonial container. And they're very mysterious because you don't really, you can't predict what they're going to be like. what will come out of them, what they will mean to you and to other people. And, you know, we can be surprised, delighted, frustrated. All kinds of things can happen, but you don't know what it will be. So this particular container was 21 days. And there were several ceremonies that I did every day, four particularly. And in the morning and the evening, I did the temple rounds.

[02:05]

They call it a jindo. And that meant that someone accompanied me, and I would go to all these different places and offer incense and bow. And actually, I offered so much incense over those 21 days that these two fingers... are just all cracked and dry because so many times I pinched the incense. So we would do these rounds, and while we were doing them, people would be everywhere, even in the early morning, going to the bathrooms, to the kitchen to get their tea or coffee or something. And I started to feel like I was moving against this wave of people. this image came to me that I was walking through water and all these different kinds of fish were swimming towards me and going behind me. And it was exhilarating in a certain way.

[03:09]

And I started to see it as everyone being included rather than it being sort of something that I was moving through in a struggling way. It became this way that everyone was included in my jindo. And, you know, I would hear people, particularly in the evening, people would be laughing and talking and rushing around. And I just felt myself starting to just move through it. And so that inclusion started to feel, I started to felt how much I'd been affected by everyone I've met at Zen Center. And whatever our relationship might be, how we were forming each other in some way. We were reflecting each other and affecting each other. So this inclusion started to just extend into everything I was doing.

[04:12]

And it included people who weren't here anymore. I thought about so many people. I've met inside and outside Zen Center and people who have died who are still part of my inner life. So as all these people and experiences with them became included, it kind of seeped into the other ceremonies as well. And there was one that it required over a hundred boughs. And that was very difficult, and everyone who's done this has found it very difficult. And I did that every day for 20 days. And when it got hard, and I thought, can I do this? Can I keep doing this every day? Can I physically manage it?

[05:13]

I realized, you know, I thought about all the ancestors. and how difficult their lives had been and things that they had been through. And then that all these people before me had done this, done this Dharma transmission process and done it. And I thought, and I just felt sort of humbled, and I also felt encouraged. And I just started to learn how to manage it. So the first few days, you know, it's just kind of disorienting to suddenly not be doing what you usually do. And some of the difficulties were bringing up sort of emotions for me. And then I had a meeting with my teacher, Agent Linda Kutz. And somehow that conversation sort of let me go into some other...

[06:15]

place, I guess I'll just call it. And all my ego anxieties that had been with me, like, I have to do this well, you know, I have to be this, I have to be that, oh, this other person would probably be better at this than me, on and on and on. They just kind of receded into the background. And they didn't go away, and they actually helped me. But they sort of became quiet enough, so let me so that I could sort of feel my way through what I was doing and the feelings that were coming up without being so distracted by perfectionism and all these other things. And this Japanese poem that I read, first read about 40 years ago, Japanese poetry and Chinese poetry were always really important to me. I... don't remember exactly when I started reading them, but when I gave my first way-seeking mind talk at Zen Center, that was one of the things that I said brought me here, was that poetry.

[07:24]

And this one poem that was one of my favorites came into my mind. The flowers whirl away in the wind like snow. The thing that falls away is myself. And so all those kind of vanities and ego anxieties and everything, when they fell away, this deep peacefulness kind of settled on me. And I still feel it, but I think that is what happens. And it's usually temporary. That depth of it is usually temporary. the thing that falls away. So when I looked up this poem, after everything, I found out that it was written by a court official in 13th century Japan, and that he ended up becoming a monk and founding a monastery.

[08:34]

So after all that, I was like, oh, okay. So this peacefulness became a sort of alternate reality as I was like doing all these ceremonies and doing the jindos with everyone all around. And a couple of times I had to come in here when there were people meeting and in the zendo there'd be something going on and I had to go in and just do my bows. So at the same time though, just as I was saying, that peacefulness depended on all these things that were going on around me, that it was informed by them and reminded, I was reminded again and again of how it was working. And so I'm... I'm just so grateful to all the people who I know about and don't know about who...

[09:40]

to create the container where I could have that experience both for myself and with everyone else. I was very busy all day from about 4 in the morning until the evening and sometimes into the night doing these private ceremonies and other things. And I didn't speak very much. A few times... People very kindly let me engage in conversations with them. I really appreciated it, but I didn't talk very much. And it just seemed that whatever happened, I could just, you know, kind of handle whatever arose. And I think, you know, this is a rare, and for me very lovely, and also odd, place to be especially if it's something you enjoy which I do I thought of it as the kind of positive kind of loneliness of solitude and it's full and it's quiet and it requires a great deal of concentration it's always being pulled at and so

[11:06]

always coming back, just like in meditation, you always come back. Now, sometimes when I talk like this, people kind of roll their eyes or think cynical thoughts, and I am familiar with thinking that way. But we often think of these spiritual retreats and sort of spiritual containers as a vacation from reality or from our normal lives. But I think it's very, it's good to remember how challenging they are and what they require of us, the effort that's involved. And so in a way it's ironic that at Zen Center we often emphasize, you know, work practice, everyday life, and all these things, while at the same time the foundation is our meditation or zazen. this kind of shifting of our normal sort of perception and activity.

[12:20]

And when we make that shift toward this spiritual intention of healing and love, We have to go through all these layers of protection that sort of work in our normal life. And as each of those layers are kind of met and negotiated, we keep having to make decisions on how many layers we can to shift through. So I think in a life that includes spiritual effort, we always are asking, how do we integrate these extremes of spiritual effort with the...

[13:36]

sort of demands and assumptions of our work life and our relationships. When I consider the history of Buddhism and how we live and practice it at Zen Center, I think of this title of this article that really struck me, The Truth Wears Off. Now, I actually think that's a very positive statement. It sounds negative. But it's a very creative way to look at Buddhism and our way of understanding Buddhism. The article was about how scientific discoveries are sort of immediately old. By the very discovery of an answer, you create new causes and conditions for the next possibility. And I think that's comparable to the history of Buddhism and other religious traditions.

[14:37]

You know, there's this truth that they're sort of founded in, but it has to be rediscovered again and again in whatever current conditions or situations we find ourselves or anyone the world finds itself. And I think in a way we don't like that, you know, can't there be just one reliable truth that always works? And there isn't. It can't be that way. Otherwise, it's kind of not a truth. And we can take a truth that we think of as Buddhism or practice or something, and we can apply it as strongly and deeply as we want, but it won't go back to that old truth. It is always... shifting and being, going through us and through our assumptions. And, you know, we, in sort of our everyday Zen type, and I'm not criticizing that, I think that is, it's a very important concept, our everyday Zen.

[15:47]

But in it, we often sort of downplay the ascetic side of Buddhism and the ascetic life that the Buddha and the early Buddhists lived in order to attain something that they called enlightenment or freedom. So as we downplay those ascetic practices, what do we do? What is it that we do? to even glimpse that sense of enlightenment or freedom. And I think because that question's always there, we're always in a state of inquiry. And I think that's necessary to any sort of spiritual effort. You can't take something and lay it on yourself and then expect there to be some sort of spiritual opening.

[16:49]

You're inquiring, inquiring, asking always. So as I understand what the Buddha taught from this place of his ascetic practice, that is that the effort toward enlightenment is a process of uncovering all these ego aspects that define and perpetuate what he called suffering. or not freedom is basically what that is. And because it's an uncovering, I think that the process is often excruciating. Yet, even if we get that little glimpse, it can be enough to sustain us through both success and failure and to not choose one of those as being

[18:05]

And I think of this as requiring a form of deep listening. There was an interview with the musician violinist Christian Tetzloff in The New Yorker. He described playing Bach. Bach's music confronts the player and the audience in a very personal situation, in a very alone way. And I try at that moment to put away pretensions in levels of violin playing, pretensions of being a strong man, of being invulnerable, and instead say, this is where all of us have common ground. Most of the time we try to tell ourselves, I'm confident or I'm doing well. But then, in a moment alone at home, you feel how close you are to some kind of abyss.

[19:10]

Music, even at terrible moments, can make you accept so much more. Accept your dark sides or the things that happen to you. Maybe it's just because you see that this is a common trait for all of us. You see that we are not alone. And that's what the... concert situation is about for me when I'm sitting in the hall and also when I'm playing myself. It's about communication. I almost want to say communion. As a player, you really don't interpret anymore. You listen together with the audience. Now, I can't explain exactly what he's saying or how he gets to that perspective, but there's something very familiar about it. I think he's talking about playing the truth of Bach's music while also listening to it and offering it to others.

[20:18]

But the truth is Bach saw it when he heard that and when he wrote it. has worn off. And what's left, though, or what hasn't worn off, is that the music is still available to be played, to be heard, and even though he talks about not interpreting it, he is interpreting it, and he knows that. And it's all happening through listening. The person who's playing is listening for how Bach heard it and wrote it, listening to how it's coming through their body and their experience, and then the audience, how they're hearing it. And so what we are willing to listen to internally and externally is dependent on our desires and aversions.

[21:22]

What music do we like? Maybe we don't like Bach. Maybe we like Mendelssohn or who knows, Mozart. But really listening, you're not going to so much worry about that. Because listening requires that sifting down that I think allows us to go through all those layers of kind of invulnerability or what we assume is invulnerability to this solitude that is also a communion. We're alone and we're not alone. So this time during, I had no idea what it was going to be like.

[22:25]

You know, I thought of it in a very practical way. Oh, okay, I have to do this and this and this every day and this and this and this. And I wrote myself little notes, you know, and then you go here and, oh, here's the list of people who are going to go with me. So then I go and make sure. And then this process, you know. Right. got to visit my vulnerability and discover this peacefulness. So to me, it's a gift, and I owe people and circumstances so much gratitude for that spaciousness. And... Some of them I know and many of them I don't know who they are or what they did.

[23:27]

And as I said, it includes, I mean, my mother was a big part of it and my family and in my mind as I went through. But I think especially to be thanked are the teachers at Zen Center. And they've been living here and offering this practice without a lot of advertising, but more just through their commitment, their practice, and their compassion. And I particularly want to thank my two most significant teachers who I really believe love me just as I am. And that's Sojin, Mel Weitzman, and Agent Linda Cutts. And Leslie James, who was at Tassajara when I lived there, and she's still there, but often her humor and her sympathy would shift everything for me when I was there, and I'm very grateful for that.

[24:43]

And our current abbess, Kiku, Christina Lane-Harrer, I want to thank her for her wisdom and her kindness. You know, in a community, everything about us kind of attains this patina of a kind of fingerprints of everyone around us. And I wasn't going to say this, but it's kind of like, you know, the jam and the peanut butter and the bread box. Everyone has touched those things. And we've also... touched each other, all the doorknobs, everything. And so we're inextricably touched by each other and touch each other. And I am deeply grateful for all of that, whatever aspect it might have, for all the mirroring and all the things that come up in community, whatever our relationship may be.

[25:48]

And like many others before me, I have joined Suzuki Roshi's lineage. And my hope is to keep it alive through letting its truth wear off and be rediscovered again and again. There are many containers and forms through which the truth can be approached, and all of them require an extraordinary effort beyond prescription. I consider the effort that a musician like Tetzloff has made his whole life being about the violin, about music, and all his practicing. The article talked about his injuries.

[26:53]

And what it costs to keep playing that violin physically. And his successes and his failures and all that. And I think our sort of, I'll call it, search for truth is like that. We're searching for an attunement. And it requires both application and surrender, because that's kind of what I feel he meant. You know, he surrenders when he gets up on the stage or when he's in the audience himself. There you are, it's happening. So these Dharma talks that follow Dharma transmission are often kind of amorphous, and I feel like this one has been. And I'm still kind of in touch with that alternate reality.

[27:55]

And I can feel it being picked at and pushed at by everything. But it's still there. So all of these things I was doing asked a lot of me and of other people, and I loved doing them in the context of that spiritual container. And I do have to say, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it, that kind of effort or that. I can't prescribe it in other words. But I wonder, you know, how can we find the truth without that sort of effort and surrender?

[29:05]

And I don't claim, you know, that I have found it. You know, here I went through driver transmission, now I know everything. No, no, no. But the glimpse of it, or the hint of it, gives me courage. And... confidence or something, and gratitude, whatever may follow. So thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving. May we fully enjoy the Dorma.

[29:57]

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