Hi everybody. Can you hear me back there? I usually sit on this, but I hurt myself so I have to do this. Comes in handy, here's awful. Multi-functioning. Today's Father's Day. Yeah. Do you remember your father? Yeah. Thank you. I remember my father. Wonderful man. And. My.

[01:02]

Mother's father, Grandpa Lesson. He married an Irish woman. She had a wonderful brogue. And we used to go visit him in the Bronx. I love to go down there. Grandpa was a cop in the Bowery back in the old days. Just before I left the house, the phone rang and my son called. And I said, you know, happy Father's Day. And, of course, I have to remember to wish him happy Father's Day, because I have a grandson. And he said that he was going to the Padres game, taking his son. I don't know, doesn't Padres mean father? And, you know, that's the, I wonder how many people are going to be at that game. That's the baseball team down in San Diego.

[02:05]

Paul, my grandson, is seven going on eight. And it's wonderful, you know, to be a grandfather. It hasn't been all peaches and cream. But, you know, when I think about it, all these generations, I feel sort of held by... the thought of family. And just happy Father's Day. Just before I came over, I saw, and I was looking in the paper and said, well, are they recognizing Father's Day? And the IJ columnist was recognizing Father's Day. He said that Calvin Coolidge, in 1924, made the third Sunday of June. officially Father's Day. Thank you, Calvin. I think that was actually done at the insistence of a woman who, in Seattle, who thought, well, it was a Mother's Day, they should be a Father's Day, so thank you to her for that acknowledgement.

[03:20]

It's a beautiful day today, yeah. You know, people have been, I noticed that people lately stop and they say, boy, What a beautiful day, you know, just out of the blue. And it is. Is it the longest day of the year today? Huh? Equal. Oh, that's the longest. Oh, well, okay. The astronomers are disagreeing. But it's pretty close. And, of course, come to think of it, what did you say? Longest, so we have a vote, the longest. Willing to speak is good. And now they get shorter, right? Yeah, all right. I have a friend who liked living in a mere beach because it was foggy so much, you know.

[04:28]

And he didn't like the heat. Oh, I was remembering a Sioux warrior, remember Black Elk? He said, it's a great day, it's a wonderful day to die. And he was seated on his war pony, feeling the energy, ready for anything, rising to the moment. No tomorrow, today. And no yesterday, today either. And it's always the longest and always the shortest day. It's always hot and always cold, dry and wet. But today is special because it's Father's Day. So, welcome to Green Goal. And one nice thing about Father's Day is we all had a father.

[05:32]

So it's very inclusive, isn't it? It's like Mother's Day. We all had a mother and we all had a father. And each one of us had a father. And that father had a father. And so on. And we've joined this karmic stream over the ages. And we can feel that. It's like our practice. It's all-inclusive. Everyone has a father. Now, the father of Zen Center here, Suzuki Roshi, Dayosho, said to us and told us in a fatherly way, just to be alive is enough. Easy to say on a nice day like this. But I think he... Well, what did he mean by that?

[06:36]

And Suzuki Roshi, what is this alive that's enough? Each one of us sitting here alive. Is it enough? It might have been a day like this back in 1237 in Kyoto that Dogen... who was kind of the father of Suzuki Roshi's lineage in Japan, was finally finishing his work, the Tenzo Kyogen, which means instructions to the head cook. Now, he'd been studying in Japan and in China for 10 years. He left Japan, went on a little wooden boat across the sea, very dangerous. to China to try to find the way.

[07:36]

And now he's back for a while, and he's writing his instructions for the benefit of the monks and the monastery, which is a fledgling monastery, just beginning. Most important, I think, is that, and most important for us, is that he set out ideas about how enlightenment is actualized in everyday life and all ordinary activity, like sitting and watching and listening to a lecture or vice versa. How is it actualized? How are we alive? How do we do it moment by moment? Maybe we don't have to do it moment by moment. Liberation is said to be life itself.

[08:41]

It's kind of an emphasis on being. But Dogen added something. A perspective of liberation as doing or actualizing life moment by moment. with your full participation. Do you feel like you're participating in your life? Yeah, participate, it's okay. This is a new idea. Instead of floating downstream, it's okay to float downstream, but yeah, do it. Now, the Tenzok Phyogan presents three attributes of the quality of mind that defines a mature practitioner. Dogen was trying to educate, you know, the monks and the cooks. And he came up with these three kinds of minds. I don't know that he came up, but he described them.

[09:44]

And they're generally applicable, I would think. And I was thinking, one of them is parental mind. And I was thinking, oh, Father's Day, you know, I'll talk about the three minds, parental mind, being one of them. One is called... Joyful mind, kishin. Shin means mind or heart, heart mind. And kishin means joyful mind. Then there's parental mind, which is ro-shin. This is the mind of selfless concern and helpfulness, exemplified by a father or a mother's. caring for a son or daughter. And Dogen applied it to everything, really. There's a quote, when you handle water, rice, or anything else, you must have the affection and caring concern of a parent raising a child.

[10:49]

You know, when you pick up that pot, when you relate to each thing, each green, each item, each person really. Have the affection and caring. Take care of it, it's your life. This is Dogen talking about Roshin, parental mind. And then the third is Daishin, which is big mind, magnanimous mind. The mind where nothing's hidden, everything's included, the universal mind. Having this mind allows you to be completely present for each thing, non-judgmental. So I'll talk about Kishin for a while, joyful mind. In Buddhist psychology, it points out that the mental factor, call it mental factor, this is the old-fashioned Buddhism,

[11:58]

The mental factor of joy arises with the mental factor of concentration. Interesting, huh? They come up together. When true concentration is there, joy is there. It's a little tidbit for motivating us to do our practice. a concentration practice. This is concentration in the sense of full involvement. Full involvement can be expressed in zaza and during meditation you'd be fully involved. Meditation isn't checking out. It's becoming fully present. Or a complete presence in all activities, any activity, even sitting there listening, or sitting here talking.

[13:10]

In his writing, Dogen tells a story of meeting these, you know, he went to Japan, China from Japan, and he wrote about it, And he talks about these two Tenzo monks he ran into. Tenzo means head cook. And a very important role in a monastery. And he's a very large monastery. Everybody eats. I was a Tenzo. And it's a very important role as far as everybody's concerned. But it was considered a teaching role. An accomplished... And when you read the history of Zan and all the great masses, most of them were Tenzo's at one time or another. You just learn how to do it. How to cook. So he's on his boat. He goes over there. He's in port. Couldn't get off the boat because he didn't have the documents yet.

[14:16]

And he was waiting. Looking forward to talking and being with teachers. And this Tenzo monk shows up. from a monastery, a large monastery about 14 miles away, looking for some mushrooms, wanted to buy some mushrooms for a special feast. As they say, it was on May 5th, Cinco de Mayo. I'm sure this has nothing to do with Mexico. Is Cinco de Mayo kind of like liberation in Mexico? I'm not sure. how lucky can you get? Here you are, you're stuck on the boat, and here's the Tenzo Muck. So he offered him tea, and then after tea, he said, you can imagine, he asked him to stay longer, so we could talk more.

[15:18]

Can you imagine how, he says, this is cool, you can imagine how fortunate I feel that we're able to meet like this, please stay a little longer. The monk said, I'm sorry, I have to go. I have to go back with the mushrooms and prepare for the meal. If I'm not there, the meal will not be prepared well. Dogen says, but such a large monastery. It was a very large monastery. It was thousands, many people in the kitchen. And why don't you, they're not going, you know, just stay. I'm sure it'll be all right. So this is the mind that Dogen brought to China. And he's meeting the Chinese mind here, the Chinese Zen mind.

[16:23]

But he says, but why, when you are so old, and this guy was old, this honorable monk, do you do the hard work of a tenzo? A tenzo is hard work. That's 365 meals. Three meals a day, 365 days a year, and a lot of other things going on there. It's your light, not your tenzo. Why not spend your time practicing zazen and studying? Sounds like he wants him to retire, right? Is there something special to be gained from working as Tenzo? Well, the monk heard this and he burst out into laughter and remarked, my good friend from abroad, you do not yet understand what practice is all about, nor do you know the meaning of characters.

[17:28]

Dogen said, well, what is practice all about? And the monk says, I've got to go. I've got to get back. The son said, but sometime in the future, come visit and we'll have a long talk. So that's one tazza. And Dogen was moving around from monastery trying to find a teacher that he could relate to. And he was at this Tian Tong Monastery, which he ended up staying at. He ran into this, he was walking down a passageway in the middle of the summer. I don't know whether you've been to that part of China, but it gets hot there. It's sort of like the subtropics. And this monk was, he saw this monk drying mushrooms in the courtyard And the monk was, the Tenzo monk was dripping in sweat, bent over, 68 years old.

[18:32]

He's got a bamboo cane. And Dogen said, why are you doing this? Why don't you have some assistance doing this? Why are you working so hard in the sun? And this is Tenzo Liu. He says, If I do not do it now, when else can I do it? And as Dogen walked away, he said, I walked down the passage where I began to sense inwardly the true significance of the role of Tenza. So he spent 10 years over there observing and learning how practice was done there. When he was back in Japan, he, for a while, he was at various monasteries, but he observed, he took to observing how these Japanese monasteries were, what was happening there.

[19:40]

And he observed the lack of practice in the monastic kitchen. It's a popular place, you know, for visiting dignitaries to wander through to see what really is going on at this monastery. He observed, this is at Kenanji, he observed at the Tenzo to cook. Never did any work. Quote, he just gave orders and he never helped to prepare meals. He never checked to see if work was being done properly. He spent his time lying around gabbing. I never saw him even approach a pot. He said. It was like, there's more to this. He acted as if it was looking into a woman's room. It was shameful to approach upon. And he says in another place, the way-seeking mind of a Tenzo is actualized by rolling up your sleeves.

[20:51]

So this is the practice. Or just do it. And in fact, Zen practitioners, are trained to become ready to take action when it's needed. The training, most importantly, includes the role model of the teacher ready to take action immediately. Not waiting for some magical thing to happen when something needs to happen. You just do it. You see it? Do it. Bust those dishes. Pick up that paper. Cut that tree that fell over the road out of there. Help out. Drag stuff around. Now from the outside, if you watch this activity, you think, oh, look how helpful everybody is. Immediately helpful. But from the inside, it's just a joyful everyday actualization of the Buddha Dharma.

[21:57]

You know, nobody's even thinking about it. They're just doing it. Just doing what needs to be done. There was a group of visitors from Columbia, I don't know, many years ago. They came to visit the center and they visited with the abbot and they were at dinner And they noticed that the abbot was washing dishes for the community. They were amazed. One day a visiting abbot came wandering into the kitchen when I was 10, so. And asked to be given something to do. But we had just carefully cleaned the kitchen. You know, put everything away. But he insisted.

[22:59]

So there's sort of a Zen idea about, well, you clean just to engage in cleaning, not because anything's dirty. So I gave him a broom. I said, well, you can sweep the floor when you're just cleaning the kitchen. And we kind of looked at each other, and they're all right, so here's the broom. And about 10 minutes later, His work had resulted in a sizable pile of sweet wings. He looked up and smiled, and he handed me the broom back. And to this day, I don't know where that stuff came from. I'm sure he didn't bring it in, but I don't know where it came from. The Suzuki Roshi says, just do what is to be done completely. Empty your life into everything you do.

[24:03]

You don't have to get tense about it. This isn't like, oh my God, I got into my life. It's just show up and, you know, joyful mind. Just sweep, just eat, but do it. Be there. This is joyful activity. concentration, complete presence. This is what Dogen is suggesting, that the Tenzo, but, you know, you and I should think about. I was a school teacher, and I can tell you that if you're not concentrated In elementary school teacher, anarchy occurs. It's to the power of your concentration and joyful energy that things happen in a useful way in the classroom.

[25:07]

Now, joyful mind, the ki shin, joyful mind, naturally leads to ro shin, which is parental mind. This is loving concern without attachment for each thing, each person. And in a sense, every action is aimed at preparing the child to leave home, find his own way. It's going to be a coming of a ceremony in our family. This is the celebration. Finding your own way. You don't have to do that when you're five years old. But when you're 13 years old, it comes up a little bit. A successful parent, in this view, doesn't hinder the separation by demanding allegiance to the parent's way of thinking.

[26:22]

isn't held in place through attachment. He nurtures the child to find his own way. Parental line, like enlightened activity, responds and adapts and expresses loving concern according to circumstance. It's said that the greatest compliment for a teacher is that his student exceeds him. There's a story about Dangshan, back in a thousand years ago in China. Dangshan, a teacher, was offering incense on a memorial to his teacher, Yunnan, who had died a while back, and he was Yunnan's successor, he was offering incense. a monk came by and questioned him, why do you conduct a service for Yunnan when you rose to prominence with another teacher, actually?

[27:32]

Dangshan was well known for studying with another teacher, Nanjuan, and just happened later on to receive the succession from Yunnan. So the student was surprised that he's paying any attention. And Dangshan said, I do not esteem my late teacher. I don't esteem his virtues. I don't esteem his Buddhist teaching. I only value the fact that he didn't explain everything to me. Went out of his way to remember him for that. He didn't explain everything to me. The monk said, you succeeded your late teacher, then do you agree with him or don't you agree with him?

[28:34]

And Dangshan said, I half agree and half don't agree. And the monk said, why don't you completely agree? And Dangshan said, if I completely agreed, then I would be unfaithful to my late teacher. He was a great dog shot himself. He was a wonderful teacher. He had many enlightened students after he received certification from Yangon. Yangon didn't try to like make him in his own image. Although that might have been impossible, but he didn't try. He provided him with what he needed though. And parents do that. You provide your children with that container, that structure, that security, that consistency, that allows them to find their own way. Now, students can be very insistent.

[29:39]

The monk wants to know, what is the way? It comes to the teaching. What do I do? How do I conduct myself? Over and over again, it's a theme of, at the bottom of every koan, Interaction between student and teacher. When I was in school, we taught what's called the discovery method, you know? It was kind of a newfangled thing back then. The discovery method is you don't give any answers. You just provide resources to explore the question. And, of course, the students, like my son, what is the best car? He would ask. Those kids, they want something that they can hold on to. Who doesn't? I remember when we landed on the moon the first time.

[30:41]

I was a teacher in sixth grade. And we were discussing gravity. And... What is gravity? And the kids said, well, it's when you drop something that goes down to the earth. And I began to realize, as the discussion went on, I began to realize that these kids, to the man, thought that gravity was a characteristic of the earth only. The moon did not have gravity. How about that? Isn't that kind of amazing? So there I was. Oh, okay. What am I going to do now? Tell them. Oh, no, the moon has gone. I can't do that. You're teaching better to discover. So I said, well, did you see? And it happened to be the day after the moon landing. Of course, everybody watched it on television. And I said, well, did you see the man land on the moon?

[31:44]

And they said, yeah. I said, well, why didn't they float off of the moon? And I thought, I'm making progress here. And they thought for a while, and a couple of them said, well, that it's because they had special gravity boots. I didn't know where to go right then. And maybe they did have special gravity boots. You've got to be open, actually, to that. Oh, what were these boots like and where did they get them? You can go down that path, right? That's what you do by the discovery method. And I say, my son Marcus in elementary school came home and asked me, what's the best car? And I said, well, it depends on what you want to use it for. And he didn't like that. Because at school, the kids would say, well, my father has the best car.

[32:47]

This is the best, that's the best car. So he wanted me to give him what he needed, you know, to go back into battle, you know. And it was hard for me not to do it. And the Buddha, on his deathbed, he talks about the Pirate Navana Sutra. They asked him, well, what was the most important teaching he gave? precepts are more important than others. They had developed like hundreds of precepts and people were thinking, well, this is kind of maybe too much. Let's ask the Buddha before he dies which ones. And the Buddha said, well, I never said anything. Look to your own way. Look to your own light. Observe and find out your own truth. Observe clearly. Now, We must grow up. And sometimes our life and our practice is sort of climbing up what's called a 100-foot pole.

[33:56]

We kind of study that pole, figure out different kinds of ways of getting up that pole, different practices, you know, do this, do that. And finally, maybe you get to the top of the pole. And you're sitting there. What are you going to do now? Are you going to jump off that pole? Commit yourself to the unknown? Leap into emptiness? Let go? Leave home? It reminds me, since his father said a joke my father liked to tell, was that this mountain climber was climbing a mountain. And he got into trouble. It could have slipped off the side. And as he was dropping, he reached up and he grabbed a root that was sticking out of it. And he looked down and it was like 2,000 feet. He's dangling there. And he's terrified.

[34:59]

And the root's beginning to give way. So he shouts out, help, help, please. And he wasn't a particularly religious man, but there was a point where he did ask, You know, God, please help me. And sure enough, at this point, the heavens parted and a beam of light came through. And a voice came out and said, do you need some help? And he said, yes, I'll do anything. Please help me, I don't want to die. And the voice says, okay, I'll help you, but... all you have to do is let go of that root. And the mountain climber hesitated for a moment and then looked back up and said, is there anyone else up there I can talk to? We just don't want to let go of that root.

[36:06]

Let's see what time it is here now. Okay, so that's parental mind. And then the last one is big mind, magnanimous mind. Dogen says, magnanimous mind is like a mountain, stable and impartial. It means that there's no prejudice and you refuse to take sides. This is magnanimous mind. This is a mind that's sorely tested during political controversies, isn't it? And to carry it further, Dogen counsels his monks, don't try to win arguments. Explore things, open things up. Don't try to win arguments. Be inclusive. Be organic. I don't know where he had that word. He says, don't get carried away with the sounds of spring or beautiful days like this. nor become heavy hearted upon seeing the colors of fall.

[37:12]

View the changes of season as a whole, and weight the arrival, and he talked about light and heavy, and that they were relative, and see them in the biggest context. So this big mind is, well, it's actually ultimate compassion for all things, not prejudice. Open your heart. We started out with joyful mind, to willingness to work with anything moment by moment. And from this, parental mind develops. A sense of doing things without gain or loss, but being helpful. And from this comes big mind, which embraces everything with equanimity.

[38:16]

This is radical inclusiveness, nothing held out of the heart. And this is our practice. Now you wonder, we have just a moment, how is Kishin cultivated? What do you do? He says, oh, yeah, the Tenzo should have, he should have joyful mind. Well, I don't know. What do you think? You might have a few ideas. Well, I'll tell you a little story about one. I was thinking about joyful mind a couple of days ago. When I was invited to come to a ceremony in this room, in this send-out for a Zen student who had been seriously injured, in a car crash, I remained in the hospital for many, many, many months.

[39:27]

She was widely loved and respected, is widely loved and respected, and in fact received recognition from the Dalai Lama for her good works. Something had happened many years ago, I lived here and she lived here, such that I felt wounded by her. I really didn't know her very well and was able to kind of keep her at a distance. even in the community. But in the last year, because of her accident and her popularity, I was aware of an outpouring of support for her all around me.

[40:39]

At Zen Center and in the wider religious community of Marin County. People would ask me, how is she? I secretly kept my distance. But now, here it was. She was coming home. Would I be there to welcome her? That morning, I think Friday, my wife left for the ceremony. It was at 9 o'clock in the morning, and I stayed home. So there I was at home, studying for our meeting today, about joyful mind, parental mind, and McNamara's mind.

[41:46]

Yeah, I was there studying. and my joyful mind. All of a sudden, I found myself on the way to the zendo. It wasn't like a decision, I just was on my way to the zendo. And I entered, it was right before the ceremony, everybody was waiting for the doshi to come in, and then I appeared at the door, because I had delayed my, I walked through the door, And I looked over and there she was in her wheelchair. And I looked at her. I never really looked at her for years. I turned to her and she saw me and gave me a joyful, radiant smile, happy that I had come.

[42:46]

My heart softened right there. And I floated over, it was like being attracted, floated over to her and we hugged. And the mental factor of joy had definitely arisen.

[43:04]

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