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 evening. Welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. This is... Kind of an auspicious occasion. It's the first Dharma talk of the new year at Zen Center. And it's also an auspicious occasion for me in a couple of ways. Monday, I celebrated the 30th anniversary of my arrival at Zen Center. And I still remember it pretty well. I came for a Dharma talk. It was given by Sojin Mel Weitzman, and I just loved it, and I came back.

[01:08]

And another reason that it's an auspicious occasion for me, and that I'm giving this Dharma talk tonight, is that it's traditional at Zen Center for a person who has received Dharma transmission, to give a Dharma talk shortly afterwards. And I received Dharma transmission along with Mark Lesser on December 24th. And that's why I'm wearing this new brown robe. So for me, brown is the new black. LAUGHTER And I feel pretty spiffy. I'm afraid of spilling anything on myself. So I know there's a lot of mystery around the Dharma Transmission Ceremony, so that's what I'm going to talk about tonight. There are three rites of passage for a priest.

[02:18]

The first one is ordination. And a priest receives the 16 bodhisattva precepts, the same precepts that a lay practitioner would receive for lay ordination. There's no difference. I was lay ordained first and priest ordained later. That's a very typical thing to do. And... I was finally priest ordained after I had been practicing for 23 years because I wanted to acknowledge to myself and to other people that practicing the Buddha way was what I was going to devote my life to, that it was the main focus of my life. And I wanted to say that to myself as well as other people. So it's actual. actually traditional that people are ordained after they are already living the life of the priest.

[03:25]

So it's an acknowledgement of who they already are and what they're already doing. Then a few years later, a priest may be asked to be Shouseau or head monk for a practice period. we're going to have a chuseau in this upcoming practice period. And the chuseau helps the abbot or other practice leader lead the teaching for that practice period. And it's also a role model for all the monks. So the chuseau gives several Dharma talks. and during the practice period, and has tea with each practice period participant, and is available to everyone as a supportive Dharma friend. And at the end of the practice period, there's a public ceremony in which all the practice period participants and all former chiseaux

[04:38]

everywhere at Sun Center. They've scattered far and wide, but they're invited back to this ceremony to ask the new Shuso a Dharma question, which she will do her best to answer during the ceremony. And having completed that training, the new former Shuso can then give Dharma talks and teach study center classes at Zen Center. So it's an entry into a teaching role for the priest. And then the third, some years later, a priest may receive Dharma transmission or a lay practitioner may receive lay entrustment. Mark Lesser and I received Dharma transmission from Michael Wenger. who has been my teacher for many years.

[05:39]

And Mark and I spent eight days together, and every day we did a jundo, or tour, of all the altars in the building early in the morning before the wake-up bell. And also every day we would... chant the names of all the ancestors in our lineage and do a full prestation to each one. There are 96 of them, so it took some time. And then we were given the task of copying three traditional... documents onto large pieces of silk with sumi ink and a brush. So these documents, which we inherited from our ancestor Ehe Dogen, all have to do with lineage, naming our ancestors and tracing their connection with

[06:51]

their unbroken connection from Shakyamuni Buddha to ourselves. And the ceremony is secret, and the final transmission ceremony takes place at midnight, usually. That's the tradition. And that tradition goes back, I think, to the story of the sixth Chinese ancestor, Wei Neng, who received transmission in secret at midnight from the fifth Chinese ancestor, Hong Ren. And the story is that Wei Nung was an illiterate woodcutter whose father died when he was young. And so he lived in poverty with his widowed mother and supported her. And one day he had to deliver some kindling to a customer in town.

[07:55]

So he went to town. And while he was there, he overheard someone chanting the Diamond Sutra. And he was immediately awakened. And he asked about this sutra and was told... was directed to the monastery where the fifth ancestor was teaching this sutra to over a thousand students. And a customer gave him some money to take care of his mother, so he was immediately able to leave and go visit the fifth ancestor. And when he arrived at the monastery, the fifth ancestor... questioned him probingly, and saw that he was enlightened. But he was afraid that his own monks who had been practicing with him diligently for some time would be jealous of this newcomer who suddenly appeared and that they might harm him.

[09:05]

So he sent Wey Nung to the outer buildings of the monastery to chop wood and pound rice. And that's where he stayed for a while. And then one day, Wei Nung gathered all of his monks together and announced a contest. He asked the monks to each write a verse that would express their understanding of reality. And he told them that he would give dharma transmission to whoever had a correct understanding of reality. And there was a head monk who seemed to be the heir apparent to everyone. And so none of the other monks wrote poems because they assumed that this guy was going to win the competition anyway.

[10:08]

But the head monk himself was just very uncomfortable and doubtful and took days to write his poem and agonized over it. And by the way, the fifth ancestor had suggested that they do this very quickly, that it should be a spontaneous piece of writing. So finally, the head monk had his poem ready, but he was afraid to show it to his teacher, so he wrote it on the monastery wall. And his intention was to claim authorship only if the teacher approved of it. So the teacher saw it and was pretty sure that it had come from the head monk and asked him about it. and told him that it was not a correct understanding of reality and that he should try again.

[11:15]

And in the meantime, Wei Nung saw the poem on the wall and asked about it and had one of the monks read it to him. And to everyone's surprise, he dictated a verse of his own to the monks and asked them to please put it on the wall. So the teacher approved Wei Nung's poem. And that night, at midnight, he gave him Dharma transmission. And then again, he was very nervous that his own monks would be jealous. And so he sent him away in the middle of the night with authorization to teach. And I think that's... where this tradition of doing this final ceremony at midnight comes from. For us, let's see, where am I?

[12:21]

For us, there's really no issue about jealousy because... Zen center teachers can have many disciples and more than one Dharma heir. We don't have a system here where the person who receives Dharma transmission also inherits the temple, which of course is a source of livelihood. In fact, when you receive Dharma transmission, you take on the responsibility of to not let it be cut off. And those words are repeated many times during the ceremony, that you should not let it be cut off. And so in other words, you vow to transmit the dharma to others and continue the unbroken succession. So my teacher has given dharma transmission and lay entrustment to a number of people.

[13:30]

And so have lots of teachers at Zen Center. So my own first kind of physical exposure to the Dharma Transmission Ceremony happened when I was at Tassahara in 1988. I was the Anja teacher. or personal assistant for Reb Anderson. And now at Zen Center, there are many people with brown robes. But at that time, Reb and Mel Weitzman, the two co-abbots, were the only teachers with brown robes. Suzuki Roshi had given Dharma transmission to Richard Baker, and Richard Baker had passed it on to Reb. And Mel had received it from Huitsu Suzuki Roshi, Shinryu Suzuki Roshi's son in Japan.

[14:40]

And during this practice period in 1988, Reb transmitted to Ananda Dahlenberg, Paul Disco, Jerome Peterson, and Catherine Thanas. And Mel transmitted to Zen K. Blanche Hartman. And this happened almost immediately after Reb and Mel became the two co-abbots of Zen Center, which was a new structure for us at that time. And it was a bit of institutional catching up, really, because all of these people had practiced with Suzuki Roshi in the 60s and were his disciples and would have received transmission from him if Suzuki Roshi had lived longer. And then, after that, it was another nine years...

[15:42]

before Reb transmitted to Linda Ruth Cutts in 1996. In the meantime, Mel transmitted to Paul Heller, Steve Weintraub, and Steve Stuckey in 1993. So you can see that Zen Center got off to a really slow start on Dharma transmissions, and we have sped up considerably. Now it's... a rite of passage, really, that is given to mature priests whose teachers feel they're ready. And so lots of people have brown nobs at Sun Center. What I most remember from that practice period and my first curiosity about the ceremony was the Red Room. For the last two nights of the ceremony, a red room is created. And at Tassajara, we did this with the summer guest season red tablecloths that some of you are familiar with.

[16:49]

And at City Center later, when we started doing a fair number of these ceremonies, we now have silk red panels that we keep just for that purpose. So on the last two nights, the proceedings take place in this red silk room. And I imagine that some of you who live in that hallway where the Doka-san room is have seen this. And, you know, there's this sort of red glow coming out of this room. And, of course, people peek in. I peeked in at Tessahara to see what was going on. And my impression when I looked into the room and it was daylight and there was light coming through these panels of cloth was that it was like being inside a heart. And I like to think of the ceremony that way, actually, that it takes place inside a human heart.

[17:55]

So fast forward to to December 2011. The first task Mark Lesser and I were given was to copy three graphically really beautiful documents in a form that was handed down by Zen Master Dogen from his teacher because he thought it was such a wonderful form. And we were given facsimiles of Dogen's documents in Japanese and also versions that Mark Lesser and Victoria Austin had created when they received Dharma Transmission. And it was so moving to me that we were reenacting this form that was created handed down from Dogen because it moved him so much when he received these documents from his teacher that, of course, I wanted my documents to be perfect and beautiful.

[19:05]

But alas, neither Mark nor I had any experience to speak of with grinding ink on an inkstone and writing letters with a brush. So we were in for a treat. It takes some practice to learn how to get the ink right and how to hold the brush right. And most of the letters that we needed to make were very small. Some of them were really tiny. And if you... if the ink isn't the right consistency or you aren't holding the brush quite right, it's really very difficult to make really tiny little letters. So I got frustrated and discouraged and I complained that my brush was funky and that it wasn't small enough and Vicki went out

[20:09]

the store to Flax's and bought me a beautiful high quality little tiny brush and I felt very ashamed of myself and also really glad to have it. But I still kept making little tiny letters on my little scrap of practice silk and I couldn't quite get it to go to actually start on the final piece of silk. And Finally, I had wasted so much time and I was so far behind schedule that I decided I just have to start no matter what it looks like. And with great trepidation, I did. And then sort of miraculously, it began to work somehow. Somehow. It wasn't beautiful like I wanted it to be, but I felt absorbed by the process, and I was enjoying it.

[21:18]

And that lasted until the ink changed, and I had to fiddle with it again. And then it was kind of start over. But each time I would start over, it would be a little easier. So I got into... sort of getting it done. I wasn't very happy with what it looked like or anything, but at least it was happening. And I thought, you know, the night before when I went home, I had thought, what if I just can't do it? What's going to happen then, you know, if I just can't do this? The difference between... when it was working and when it wasn't working, because when it was working, the ink would just flow. It just felt really nice. Made me think of those words from the Genjo Kohan, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things as delusion, that myriad things come forth and experience themselves as awakening.

[22:22]

And I think, actually, that our life together at Zen Center offers us this kind of opportunity all the time to explore our various states of mind in relation to whatever it is we're trying to do at any given moment. We have an elaborate job rotation system at Zen Center that continually asks us to reinvent ourselves and see ourselves in a new way as a new person. or to drop any idea that we are a particular person with any particular characteristics. And instead, to just play with life, play with our tasks, with beginner's mind. It isn't necessary, though, to live at Zen Center to have this kind of opportunity.

[23:28]

I think all of our lives are a laboratory for exploration of beginner's mind and all the ways that we use our mind and that our mind uses us. I think what we get at Zen Center is training and actually looking closely at this and examining how our mind works. And, of course, we have... the sangha to help us, which is a very substantial help. We get mind training, and since our life happens in our minds, for the most part, that amounts to a deep life training. So speaking of the substantial help of sangha, I'm very grateful that Mark and I did this together. It was so supportive to have his companionship that I really can't imagine having done it alone.

[24:33]

I know some people do it all by themselves, and I really appreciated Mark's presence. And one of the most interesting things about sharing this experience with him is that he doesn't live here. He is a priest householder. and a right livelihood businessman. And he was always expressing his joy and pleasure at being in the temple that week, that he got to spend a whole week doing this wonderful activity, and that he could sit zazen with other people every morning, and that he was... fed and nurtured and supported by the Sangha. So he was kind of blown away by it all. And it was very interesting for me because I'm used to this life, and this is just my life.

[25:42]

And so through him, I was able to see it freshly and appreciatively through his eyes, and that was a gift. I think it's a little bit like when I go to Tassajara. Immediately when I get out of whatever vehicle brought me there, I just feel this really deep quiet and this just wonderful quality that I love so much. And it feels like coming home. And I know that... that may be different from the experience that people have who live there all the time. Maybe it's like that when they return. So Mark and I worked together in the same room, and from the very beginning, he was always ahead of me in doing the calligraphy. He said he was just happy that he was able to do it, and he just kept on doing it.

[26:44]

And he didn't seem to worry very much about whether it was beautiful calligraphy or not. He just did it. And when he would finish ahead of me, he would take a little break and wait until I caught up. And I really appreciated that. So we kept pace with each other, and we were kind to each other. And it was a very close, intimate time. Kind of in the same way that a sushin is intimate. I think we really got to experience each other's essence, and it's a real gift when you can do that. And in fact, the team of people involved in this process formed a little group, and our experience became like a very intense sushin. We were in a little world all our own with our attention focused on just this, and yet we were very aware of the deep support coming from the community.

[27:53]

My teacher, Michael Wenger, was very sick during the ceremony. He has Parkinson's disease, which is usually pretty well controlled with medication. But he had gotten the flu, and that had upset the delicate balance of his medications. And so in addition to having the flu, his Parkinson's symptoms flared up, and he was having both kinds of trouble during this week. So the main issue was mobility. He was not as mobile as he usually is. And this ceremony calls for a lot of sitting down and getting up and doing some bows and sitting down and getting up and doing some more bows. So there's a lot of moving around, and he wasn't able to do all that.

[28:56]

So other people stepped in to help him and Mark and me. And in the end, it was a wonderful familial event that wouldn't have happened in quite the same way if things had gone exactly as expected and Michael had been in his best health. I know that Michael was personally disappointed in not being able to do some of the things that he wasn't able to do, but he... Focused, I think, on what was best for me and Mark, and he called people in to help him, and they did. He was completely committed to carrying on and following through with his intention, and it was very inspiring. I felt like it was a real sacrifice on his part of some kind of idea of a perfect ceremony that he would have liked to do, I think.

[30:05]

I think it's probably not so uncommon for something like this to happen with Dharma transmission ceremonies. After all, impermanence, old age, sickness, and death are among the reasons why it's important to pass the Dharma on to others. It's the only way to keep Buddha Dharma alive in the world. I'm reminded of Darlene Cohen, who a year ago gave Dharma transmission to two of her disciples shortly before she died, when she was very, very ill. There were two more people that she was very interested in giving transmission to and couldn't. And I also think of Norman Fisher, who gave Dharma transmission to a large group of his disciples right after one of his best friends, Rabbi Alan Liu, had died very unexpectedly.

[31:11]

So Michael is not in that situation at all, of course. But we all come to these traditional forms with various limitations on how well we can actually perform them. We are all both finite and infinite. We interact with the forms and sincerely practice with them, and then real life bubbles up. And it's always a surprise what happens and how we experience it. It is traditional and part of the usual form that the teacher is assisted by a preceptor and an instructor. And for our ceremonies, those roles were filled by Victoria Austin and Mark Lancaster. And I appreciated both of them so much. Vicki is a generous friend.

[32:17]

And she knows the ceremony at least as well as anyone at Zen Center because she's helped with it so many times. And for me, she was a model of mudita, sympathetic joy, which is happiness at another person's good fortune, which I think is one of the hardest qualities there is to cultivate. She just dropped whatever she thought she was going to be doing that week and gave herself over completely to helping Michael. And I so much admired her poise and energetic devotion as she brought the particulars of these ceremonies to life for us. Mark Lancaster also stepped in to help and took a larger role than he had expected.

[33:18]

So in this way, he had an opportunity to learn the ceremony by assisting, the same way Vicky has done so many times. And that means now it will be easier for him when he gives Dharma transmission to his own disciples in the future. I admire Mark so much for always believing in everyone's good intentions and always trying to make other people's lives better and easier, as he did here. He's always been kind and generous and supportive to me, and I think to everyone. This ceremony gave me a second opportunity to sew in Oquesa with Senke Blanche Hartman, which was a real treat both times.

[34:24]

As I had learned during my ordination, this is the best way there is to be around Blanche. She's just amazing as a sewing teacher. Not only did she devote her time selflessly, to helping me complete my oquesa, but she does beautiful, precise work that's just inspiring to behold. Her essence is sewn into my robe, and I feel like I'm wearing Blanche whenever I wear my robe. So this second project, the second sewing project with Blanche for me happened at the time when Lou Hartman, her husband, was dying and died. So for a time, only for a time, Blanche was not as available as she had been.

[35:27]

And Tim Wicks stepped in to fill the gap with such goodwill and generosity that everyone who watched him was inspired. Someday I expect that Tim will be ordained by my teacher, Michael Wenger, and when that happens, I'll be very proud to have him as a Dharma brother. So finally, Mark and I received transmission on the last night, and it was Christmas Eve. The last ceremony mostly consists of receiving things such as the brown robe, Orioki bowls, a brown rakasu, a staff, a whisk, the lineage documents, which we will always keep in beautiful little bags that Tim Wicks had sewn.

[36:30]

So all of these things were given to us ceremonially, wrapped in white paper with red and white ties. And so after the ceremony, our little group repaired to the abbot's office for tea and cookies and to open our presents. And it did indeed seem like Christmas. One of my favorite presents is this beautiful teaching stick that Mark Lancaster made for me. And I'm very touched that he went to that effort for me. Thank you, Mark. By the way, most of the things that you receive on the last night of the ceremony are things you already had. I sewed the robe myself. that I was given. And the Orioki bowls were my own Orioki bowls that were wrapped up with new cloths and given back to me.

[37:40]

And the lineage documents I had created in the same interactive way that I made the robe, which means with tons of help and forms handed down from my ancient ancestors. to guide me. So every step of the way, the preparations for this event were a warm hand to warm hand transmission. And then on the last night, these items were given to me and I had received transmission. So what is transmitted? Whatever has been transmitted was transmitted on all along the way in my life with my teacher and the Sangha over many years. This ceremony acknowledges that the Dharma has been given and received, or perhaps a better way to say it is that nothing is transmitted.

[38:50]

We already have everything we need. What we receive from our ancestors is the teaching. And you are receiving that teaching right now. And you receive it day after day at Zen Center. We have many years to play with this teaching and these forms with our beginner's mind. The same way that Mark and I played with our inkstones and brushes. the silk and all the forms that we were trying to create during this ceremony. One evening, Mark and I were sitting in Holy Hall upstairs outside the Dokusan room waiting for one of our ceremonies to start. And Mark said, I can't believe they're doing all this for me. And that is exactly how I feel.

[39:53]

It is such a wonderful feeling to receive such support from so many people that I hope I will always remember that everyone wants to receive that kind of support. It diminishes our feeling of separation and helps us to practice and live in harmony with other people. I hope I can give that back to other people. And that is in fact the bodhisattva vow I am left with at the end of this ceremony to save all beings, to engage with the world, and put all my effort into bringing about the enlightenment of all beings, including myself. So this is the form that has been transmitted to me, not to let the Dharma be cut off, to play with these forms, with my finite and infinite self, to play with it and work with it with beginner's mind.

[41:15]

And I'm so grateful for this practice. Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:47]

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