This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. So as surely everyone knows by now, we did a ceremony this week. We climbed into cars and came down here from... our comfortable homes. Hojo-san, a man who goes by many names. Abbott, Nyogen Steve Stuckey, my teacher for many years. Me, my name is Renshin, Renshin Bunce, Steve's student for many years. And with us came Miyoki Stewart, the awesome Jisha, and Christine Palmer, was my jisha.

[01:00]

And Christine Palmer's already left. So we came here to do something called Dharma Transmission. And all day, everyone's been asking me questions. And I have, I've tried, but people are asking me questions like, how do you feel? What, is the ceremony over? Well... What is Dharma transmission? So let's try that. So what happened in this ceremony, in very simple terms, is my teacher said that I'm a teacher. So when this happens, you get a new robe. So I'm in brown, nice crisp brown. People in black priest robes, that's called an unsweet priest, clouds and water still forming. People in blue raucousus. This is lay ordained.

[02:02]

So you might have noticed Dharma Transmission is a pretty big ceremony. Really big. It lasts for 21 days. It started up in the city. I have been bowing and chanting. It started up there for two weeks and then we all came down here. It continued quite intensely for another week. Some of it, I wouldn't like to say it's secret, but I'd say that some of it is private. Some people, when they heard that this was happening in my life, said they wanted to come down for the ceremony. Once I was standing outside of the scriptorium, you gotta love it, I had a scriptorium. I was standing outside, getting a breath of fresh air, and someone walked up and said hello, and he said, when's the ceremony? This was a few days ago. He said, when's the ceremony? I said, well... You're in it. This is it. So this has been a very, very immensely important part of the whole thing for me, is that you all were in it.

[03:11]

You all still are in it. And your support, because it actually was pretty hard. It actually was a lot of work. So your support, and sometimes maybe you'd notice... You know, our seats in the dining room, as I've said a few times already today, one of the greatest parts of the whole thing is we got to cut in line for food. Yeah. And we had the assigned seats. And I could just sit in my seat and watch you and just love you. You are wow. You are svaha. Or sit on the bridge, watch you go by, stand in my door. So that's been a big part of the ceremony, is watching you be you. Watching you explain to me what it is to be human. And I've heard it said that Zen is the study of what is it to be human.

[04:14]

What is it to be human? So in the ceremony, there's a lot of bowing. There's really a lot of bowing. Greg Fane sent me an email, and he suggested I go to join a gym and use the Stairmaster to prepare for this ceremony. I thought he was kidding. One thing that we did, some of you, some of you participated more actively than others by meeting my Jisha and I up here on the porch an hour before you had to get up. And we went around and did the Jundo of the altars at Tassahara. And... Some other stuff happened, and then Magisha and I, Christine and I, after breakfast and after a few other things, we came back in the Zendo every day, and we chanted all of the male ancestors, and my teacher agreed that I would also chant all of the known and unknown female ancestors, the lists that we chant at service.

[05:19]

And that's what I started 21 days ago. in the city, so you name the ancestor, a pinch of powdered incense, you ring a bell and you bow. If you're Greg Fane, you do a full prostration for everyone. I did my best. It was, it was to, you know, there have actually, I'll confess, been times during practice period when we've been doing the Buddhas and Ancestors, and I felt a little impatient about the whole thing. You know, just blah, blah, blah, blah. To do it this way and to have a little time to, at the same time you're doing something, you could be thinking. Have you noticed? And to be thinking every one, every one of the people we're honoring, every one of the names I'm calling out knows my suffering.

[06:27]

Every name came to practice because they couldn't stand life without practice anymore. Just like us. And the women ancestors, our lists are complicated. The male ancestors, this is as best we know because it's been recorded. This man said to this man, you are my student. From warm hand to warm hand, I give you my dharma. The student received it. That's called transmission. That student became a teacher and said to a student, That's what that list is. That's a direct list from Shakyamuni Buddha to whoever's name is at the bottom of the document. Yeah, as a matter of fact, that's a direct blood lifeline from Shakyamuni Buddha to Renshin Bunce.

[07:37]

And anyone who's taken any level of ordination knows that that line then goes back up It doesn't stop. It goes back up to the Buddha. So we have that for the men. Some years ago, San Francisco Zen Center, when Norman Fisher was abbot, the issue came up, have there never been any women practitioners? So we assembled this list, the women's list. But in the women, we don't have this transmission. It was not the tradition. So we have a list of women practitioners we know. It's a little bit different. And so during what's actually called Buserai, when Christine was ringing the bell and I was chanting the names, to think about that and to think about, to think about even though, even though I'm just a woman, even though by entering the

[08:42]

I'm reluctant to say second class, but I know I'm not going to be the boss. But I'm so, I must, I must, I must. I must have the Dharma. Those are those names, and that's that kind of suffering. So that was a pretty wonderful way to start the day. Some of what happened in the scriptorium was creating documents. The whole ceremony is very concerned with the ancestors. Just before we were coming down, we were, my teacher, Mjogan Roshi and I, we were going over a few details, and I realized that the women weren't going to be included in the documents. So I found this pretty disturbing, and we talked about it. To do Zen, To do Zen, do you know that to do Zen you have to have a teacher?

[09:47]

Do you know that? Do you know that the medicine of Zen is so strong that it's dangerous and you have to have a teacher's help? So I say, and I especially say today, you need a teacher who's kind. So I've been working with Myogun Roshi for 19 years. I have fired him a couple of times. I wandered away once for a few years. It's a very lively relationship. As he says, we've gone a few rounds. But there's never... But when I've made a request from my heart, when I'm not just being a baby, when I've made a request from the heart, that request has always been granted. So he said, yes, the women will be included.

[10:49]

That will happen. When we got down here, we found out that there was a detail that had been lost. So my teacher went to the abbot's cabin and he created this women's lineage document for me to create. That's how it works. They make a template. So my little bag of documents has this extra. Isn't it wonderful? My little bag of documents, the women are there too. I would like, I would like Buddhas and ancestors where the women and men intermingle. But it hasn't been done that way. We can't do that. But what we can do is change it now. And so the list that I have is all men up to me.

[11:53]

I'm far from being the first woman who's gone through this. But from now on, we can create these documents where the women and men intermingle. It's always seemed to me that a part of the miracle of Suzuki Roshi coming to America and bringing Zen to us is that from the start he said yes, yes to the women, yes to the women. And he came from Japan. So that's one thing about this transmission and that's one thing about this transmission ceremony. Pretty good, huh? Really good. So I have, as Greg pointed out, I have entered the lineage I'm now Yogan Roshi's Dharma heir. When we were coming into this, I was down at Tassajara for a Shusoh ceremony or something, and I thought, oh my gosh, now the things that I do are going to reflect on him.

[12:55]

And if I go around, if I'm an idiot, people are going to say, his student's an idiot. So I asked him about, I told him I was feeling that. And my teacher just said, don't worry about it. To me, one of the most important parts of the teaching, I trust things Suzuki Roshi said. I never met the man. In one of my great stories, I lived across the street from the original San Francisco Zen Center in 1964. All I had to do to meet Suzuki Roshi was walk across the street. The person who was telling me about it, he said, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, what's Zen? And in a tragic misinformation, he said Zen is a way of ending desire. So I was a 21-year-old alcoholic. That didn't sound so good to me. So I didn't cross the street and meet Suzuki Roshi. But I have met Suzuki Roshi here. I am continually meeting Suzuki Roshi here. And of the many, there's a handful of Suzuki Roshi quotes I really constantly turn to.

[14:03]

And one is when Suzuki Roshi promised us the difficulties you have today. the difficulties you have today, aren't you waiting for me to say, we're going to take care of them? Suzuki Roshi promised us, the difficulties you have today, you will have for the rest of your life. So I think, you know, for those of us who come, when I first came to Tassajara, I thought, hey, it's a monastery. They're all going to be nice. Hear the laughter? Those are the residents. And you know what being nice means? It means putting my feelings before yours. And that did not happen at Tassahara, especially in the summer when it was 110 degrees. The next thing that Suzuki Roshi said in that particular part, the problems you have will be with you for the rest of your life, he said, so you should get friendly with them.

[15:05]

Instead of pushing them away, really not liking them. My particular tendency, a couple of people in this room already know this one, is anger. So what shame? A woman with anger, she'll never be happy. So what do you do? You push it away, you push it away, you pretend, I'm not angry, I'm not angry. But what Suzuki Roshi said is instead of finding a magic bliss state and never being angry again, check it out. Find out about it. So I have talked about the relationship with a teacher as an essential part of practice. I'll say it again, strong medicine. Get a copy of Zen Mind Beginner's Mind and a Zafu and go home. It's good. You'll be good. Once in, find a teacher.

[16:10]

Maybe stay here. Spend a lot of hours on a Zafu. Richard Baker calls them flight hours to get your license. And what better place than Tassajara for that? We have to learn the workings of the mind. I was at a talk that Bernie Glassman gave years ago, and a woman in the audience raised her hand, and she said, Oh, don't you think for some people they can just have a sort of natural, spontaneous enlightenment? They don't have to meditate or anything. And Bernie Vastman just looked at her and he said, no. So I would teach you Zen if I could teach you Zen. What's going to teach you Zen? is the support of Sangha. Here we are. What's going to teach you Zen is your own suffering as you sit on that cushion, as you put in your flight hours.

[17:15]

And have a chance to learn who's causing the problem. I will give you this for free. It's not them. And in fact, as soon as I'm saying them, I'm wrong. So I'm talking about the relationship with the teacher. I believe in that. It took me a long time to be able to trust one person. I came to trust one person. And precepts. And your teacher gives you the precepts. A guide for living. Not commandments, not do this, do that. Guidelines. Something so that when I... I get the wrong change at Whole Foods. What am I going to do? What shall I do? Shall I give it back? Whole Foods gets so much money from me, I need it more than they do.

[18:17]

But I have just created something that is just, I'm going to be dealing with it. It's not a big deal. There's dealing that's a big deal. The problem is that any of those actions pull my energy away any of those actions pull my energy away from you. That's the problem. So teacher, ancestors, zazen, precepts, when we were waiting, I was also asked to address, what's this all about? So I didn't start as a Zen student, I didn't want to be a Zen student, didn't like ritual, just looked like an opportunity to make mistakes. When I thought of all this as the uniform, it helped a lot. So there's a story that I like, and so true or not, I like it. It's about a tribe in Africa, and when someone gets sick, they go to a particular bush and pick some berries, and they put them in a particular gourd that hangs from a tree, say a particular chant, leave for a particular number of days, come back,

[19:34]

And what's there, they feed to the sick person. And it works in many cases. The sick person gets well. It seems that what they're doing is making penicillin. But how do they know that? The difficulty is, how do they know which part of this ritual is the part that's working? So why mess with it? When I first came chanting in Japanese, who do you people think you are wearing 13th century Chinese men's robes? What is that? Which happened to be very expensive. What, what, what? Well, you know, maybe that's the part that works. Because the point is, yeah, yeah, it probably is. It's probably that Karomo. Why mess with it? And so, as I've told the story about the women ancestors being included in my transmission ceremony, it's alive.

[20:42]

This is fluid. It's alive. We are not blindly following some idea of something someone's doing in Japan. But we got to be careful. I'm talking about Dharma, and I'm talking about Dharma being passed on. And Dharma is a big word that has a lot of meanings. Today, I'm going to say, today, April 21st, and the overness of the transmission ceremony is that we did our... Maybe you noticed me walking around in jeans today. That meant it was over. So Hojo-san and I did some final events this morning. And the way it seems to me after all that you have given me, all that he has given me, all that's been poured onto me during this week, the way it seems to me is that what we're talking about when we're talking about the truth is something that is so simple that it's almost impossible to see.

[21:52]

And At Tassahara, I don't know if it was in this room, David Chadwick asked Suzuki Roshi to sum up Buddhism. And the other students laughed. Suzuki Roshi took it seriously and he thought it over. And Suzuki Roshi summed up Buddhism. His answer was, everything changes. We can hear that and we can say, yeah. Yeah, that's good. I know that. I work in hospice. I can say to you, everybody dies. And we all say, yeah, sure, everybody dies. We can hear the Four Noble Truths. We can hear the truth that it's attachment that causes suffering and that there's a way to work with attachment.

[22:55]

That's really good. I was looking for that. These are very, very simple statements. What do we do to get them to move from being words that we can react to, to truths that we live from? Do you know my answer yet? Back to the cushion. watching it come true in our own lives, watching it from our own experience. We have great teachers at San Francisco Zen Center, and they sit up here and they talk away about this sutra and the that. It's fabulous. It's a guidepost. Believe me, no one's been able to pour anything into this head. But I've heard things, and then later, When I've had that direct experience, I say, oh, that was everything changing.

[23:57]

Wow, wow, spa. So that's the way it feels to me today, is it's so simple that we can't, it's too simple. When we say there's nothing but now, how do we really access that and how do we live from that? All week I wanted a chapstick. And I kept kind of cruising the office. I overheard it would be open. So today I knew the office would be open and I'd be able to find it. I thought I had a shot at finding some money. I put on my jeans. So there was my chapstick. And I think it's like that. I really think it's like that. that I can go through my life saying, everything changes, everything changes. Very popular in the student eating area this summer, you'll hear many people tell you, you're perfect just as you are, and there's room for improvement, and everybody will laugh.

[25:06]

Spend more time on the Zafu. Come to believe it. Come to live it. You're actually perfect just as you are. Can you believe that? And there's room for improvement. A big part of this for me, because I priest ordained 10 years ago, because I thought that being allowed to put on an ocasa I thought the okesa would make me bulletproof in some way. I thought no one would ever criticize me again. She's a priest! And it's not like that. I know. I know. I know it's not about putting on okesa. I know. You know, too. It's about taking the vow.

[26:10]

This is about vow and the power of vow, the powerful medicine of vow. experience in priest ordination was that when I thought I was taking a vow, yes, I will. Gradually, slowly, painfully, the vow took me, right? The vow took me, right? Do not think you sit zazen, zazen, sit zazen. Don't think you take a vow, the vow takes you. So I knew that taking this vow and making this move was really asking for a lot of trouble. It's really a big step into a lot of more responsibility. But what else are you going to do? Because we're all going to die, and we have to get on with this. One of you walked up to me today, and I think what you said was, Who are you?

[27:11]

You look so alive! So, yeah, today I feel pretty alive. in my work when I have a chance to touch a dead body once in a while. I'm a hospice chaplain. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I pulled it off. I'm a hospice chaplain. And after four years, I'm actually becoming a hospice chaplain. So I have a chance to touch dead bodies. And when I move away from a dead body, I feel so alive. And I don't know, did I touch a dead body today? great saying by Mel. He says, you know, the fourth, fifth day of Sashin, when everything gets kind of glimmery and shimmery and beautiful, it's always that way. And that's what I feel. Yeah, here's an answer to how I feel today. I feel like, yeah, it's always this way.

[28:13]

You're always all supporting me. We always are. connected beyond words. And I think sticking around long enough to have these experiences, I think these experiences, this positive information, I think it moves down deep and I think it grows like the vow. Yeah, yeah. I think the information of being here together will take me. I hope so. So while I know that this is not, I actually didn't just win an Oscar. This is not, this is not a reward. Very, very, Curtis, this is not a reward. Ordination is an invitation. Wow, what a disappointment. Wow, I'm so excited about Curtis ordaining.

[29:16]

I'm excited. Why don't you all ordain? It's so cool. We went up to Chico, and we ordained our old friend Rocky just a month or so ago. The same gang, the gang of four, got in the mom van, Miyoki, Miyogun, Christine Palmer, and me, and we dropped ordination on Rocky. It was wonderful. We were there for, I don't know, what, a day and a half, two days? And we were driving home, tired, this, that, this, that. And I just thought, why don't we just keep driving around the country ordaining people? This is great. So let us know. So while I'm acknowledging, while it's really, really big to me that it is openly acknowledged that this is not saying... Again, this is not a reward.

[30:18]

This is a beginning. I want to acknowledge people who helped. So we sew Buddha's robe ourselves. It used to be we find this marks me as a Buddhist. So the story I like is a guy is riding his elephant across the rice paddies and he sees a disciple of Buddha and he stops his elephant and gets off. My sewing students know this story. He gets off and he goes over to bow and he sees the guy's not a Buddhist at all. So the next time he sees the Buddha, he says, can't you give your monks something that will mark them so I can see from a distance? So we sew these garments by hand. And so I want to acknowledge the many people who helped me with this sewing. And that starts with Tim Wicks. And Tim Wicks, he made the rakasu I was wearing today. He made that rakasu entirely, and Tim and I have been teaching sewing together at City Center for a long time.

[31:20]

And Christine Palmer and Kathy Early put, wow, they made the whole zagu for me, and those stitches are beautiful. Kathy Early and Christine Palmer, it's a great team. And Francesca Rosa and Irene Donner, who come to my sewing class, we call them the elves. They just come to sew, and they did a lot of this sewing, too. And I've already mentioned Christine and Miyoki as being the super special, top public, fabulous G-shows. Miyoki worked so hard and has such a talent for what she does. And Christine, too. Christine and I have been practicing together for 19 years. Christine and Rocky and I built the original old Fig Zendo in San Rafael that was Steve's Zen Center. Craig and Linda. Greg and Linda. Greg and Linda. My old, old loved ones.

[32:22]

Here we are. Deeply awesome. Greg and I were Tangario students here together in the fall of 2000. And, of course, the Leslie. Tassajara is what Tassajara is because of the Leslie. Not to say that Tassajara wouldn't be here if Leslie weren't here, but it wouldn't be like this. Someone asked me to talk about compassion. Someone heard I was compassionate. Probably because of hearing, maybe he heard I was a hospice chaplain. She's got to be compassionate. So here's what I know. If when I am in Zazen and pain comes up, and if I'm able to not turn away from that pain, don't even have to be in Zazen for this.

[33:33]

Maybe it accelerates it. I'm walking down the street and I have... a memory, I'm thinking of someone who hurt my feelings, so painful, if I don't turn away, don't turn away, don't turn away, investigate that feeling. If I have a chance to remember to universalize that feeling, if I have a chance to remember to understand that all over this planet at this very moment, Millions of people know that pain, that we are in that pain together. Just as with the ancestors, both men and women, they actually know about this suffering. I do believe that that's the beginning of compassion, is to move it from me, me, me. My pain, it's the pain. And I think we can work toward compassion from there. I also...

[34:35]

think what we do is put ourselves in the way of developing compassion. And this is one of the reasons why my work is perfect for me. I am paid to be kind. I've already told you my big problem is anger. I am paid to be kind. As opportunities come up to be an idiot, but I can't. I'm the chaplain. I have to be kind. This begins to turn, turn, turn that automatic reaction. It begins to change me on the inside. I work with people all the time who never have had, have never heard that we can do anything with our own mental processes. I work with people who are dying, Aging is full of all kinds of loss.

[35:39]

If you're bedridden, you are suffering terrible loss, aside from any disease process. Your friends are gone, your loved ones, no one visits you. This would be a good time to know, to have an idea of how to work with your mind. So we, the people in this room, anyone who's ever come here, even if you just came for a cheap vacation, too late. Anyone who's in this room has an opportunity to actually pick up what's offered to us to learn to train our minds now. It helps us now and you really might need it later. I see it with my patients all the time. I try. I say, wouldn't you like to, would you like to think something different? Sometimes maybe it's helpful. But we have that opportunity. This is not well known, that we can actually work with our own reactions and our own thinking, and so let's seize that opportunity.

[36:47]

So in my investigation, picked up this wonderful book, The First Buddhist Women by Susan Murcott. This is Utama's realization poem. Four or five times I left my cell. I had no peace of mind, no control over my mind. I went to a nun I thought I could trust. She taught me the Dharma, the elements of body and mind. the nature of perception and earth, water, fire, and wind. I heard what she said and sat cross-legged seven days full of joy. When on the eighth I stretched my feet out, the great dark was torn apart.

[37:59]

Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[38:25]

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