So, well, I didn't talk so much about Mel, but I practiced with Mel at Berkeley for three years. When I first went there for science instruction, I was in a pretty—my life was pretty confused. And, as I mentioned, the way I had looked at the world for all my life had suddenly turned out to be erroneous, and so I was pretty disoriented. And the Zendo felt like such a peaceful sanctuary. And I just kind of threw myself into sitting zazen and volunteered as jikido every day

[01:17]

at the Berkeley Zendo. So I would leave home at 4.30 in the morning, go down to the Berkeley Zendo, sit zazen, stay for service, have breakfast, clean the Zendo, and go to work, come back, and sit zazen in the afternoon, and then go home and cook dinner. And so, as my daughter said, things changed around the house a lot. Suddenly, the kids really didn't see me until dinnertime. At that time, Lou had been blacklisted, and he was an internal witness before the International Jikido Committee. So he would mostly take care of the kids, and I was working. So he would come to zazen with me in the morning and then go home and get breakfast and get the kids going to school. So my daughter, my 15-year-old daughter, I came down to Tassajara as a guest student

[02:21]

about a month after I first went for zazen instruction at the Quik, and fell in love with Tassajara, and came back down then again for about 10 days, and I asked my daughter if she didn't want to come with me, and if she could just come with my daughter, and she said no, she was going to go have zazen instruction too, and she was going to come independently as a guest student herself, which she did. This is Trudy. This is Trudy. And so Trudy started to sit regularly as well, and she practiced pretty regularly for 10 years, but it turns out she was mostly doing it because I was doing it. It never became really her practice, which is kind of a sadness for me. In the beginning, anyhow, it was quite wonderful, and she made a connection with Oksan.

[03:27]

She was Oksan's T student, and that was quite wonderful for her, I think. And she made many friends here, but eventually it turned out not to be her practice. I don't think maybe I've talked about already that I immediately sort of applied to come to practice period of being in Berkeley, so I've talked about that. So for three years then, I practiced regularly at Berkeley, did sessions in the city, and developed a relationship with Mel. But when I came down here, it was Baker-Oshie had just been installed in Bethel, and I came

[04:28]

down in the fall of 72, and it was Baker-Oshie's first practice period here. And Rev. Chiseau. And I did two practice periods, and it was a very important experience for me. And I didn't really want to go back to Berkeley and move back into the house and go back to work as a chemist at the health department. I really wanted to continue full-time practice. So when Baker-Oshie said that his head center had rented the house at Jamesburg and needed somebody to live there, and would Lou and I like to live there, and get to go to school

[05:31]

in Carmel Valley, and Carmel, which is a very good high school, we said okay. And so we did that. And Lou went there in April of 73, and I went back up to Berkeley and took care of the head center at the end of the school year, and I came down and joined it in the summer. And we lived there for a year. And ran the stand on weekends and took turns coming in here from Monday to Friday. And I sat in one of the sessions, and he sat in the other session, the practice periods that were out there. Mitzi, however, found two things about it not to her liking. One was 56 miles a day on a school bus on those windy roads.

[06:35]

And the other was sort of an all upper-middle-class white high school after having gone to school in Berkeley. She wanted to go back and go to Berkeley High School where all of her siblings had been. And so still I didn't want to move back to resume my professional life, so we arranged She was the only one left home. The other kids had all left home before we came down here. So we arranged for her to stay with a best friend of hers. And we moved to Green Gulch, where presumably she was going to spend weekends with us, but she never did. Green Gulch is pretty tame for teenagers. So we got integrated into the life at Green Gulch.

[07:40]

It was pretty early in the development of Green Gulch at that time, and I was treasurer and work leader in one thing or another. At a certain point, I kind of came apart. Finally, my veneer of professional competence dissolved. And I was kind of wandering around there a little confused, at least, to say the least. And Baker Oshie asked me, what happened to the competent professional when you came here? And I said, well, I guess she was just all up front. And it was such a relief. It was such a relief not to have to depend to be competent anymore. I just did the best I could, sort of admitting that I was not as competent as I thought I had been. And Reb said to me at one point, Reb was Tom Kelly at Green Gulch.

[08:46]

He said something like, when I was getting kind of frantic about as work leader there, you know, work is endless on a farm. You can never keep up with it. And then nowhere near the number of people there that there are now. And he said, well, when you get to the point where you cannot accomplish it through your own competence, you'll find some other way to get it done. This turned out to be tremendously good teaching for me. Reb knows me very well. He's been a very good teacher for me in many ways. When Baker Oshie asked me to teach Jusot, I was quite excited. Down here, you know, we had Jusot as a classifying thing. And I went to various ex-Jusots and said, you know, I'm going to be Jusot for a while. You know, what kind of advice could you give me?

[09:47]

You know, like, how can I be a good Jusot, right? How can I do it right, be good, whatever? And, you know, various ones told me various things. And Reb said, just go down there and don't do anything. And I said, what? I have to do the compost and the bathrooms and give lectures. He said, well, of course, that's just your job, but just don't do anything. He really knows me very well. And his teaching to me has always been from the point of view of kind of knowing my tendencies and recommending to me an antidote for my tendencies. Lou Richmond was a very important person for me for a time in Greenbelch.

[10:49]

Reb went into the city to become Phil, and Lou Richmond came to Greenbelch. He was a very big support to my purposes. Oh, another time, another time. I was kind of flopping about Greenbelch in the early years. I was following the schedule all together and stuff, but I was in my personal life. Things were kind of confused still. And so one Friday night, which was our night off, I didn't come back to Greenbelch to spend the night. And I stayed with a friend. I told some, you know, I arranged with someone to do my dawn job for me. I didn't even note for the tanking. And Reb called me in and he said, why is the tanking not looking for you this morning?

[11:50]

And she couldn't find you. She didn't, and nobody knew where you were at. And I mean, nobody knows where you're at. If you want to stay here, you better straighten things out. Well, I was curious. What the hell does he mean if I want to stay here? You know, I'd been here, I don't know how many years I'd been in Mid-South Center by that time, but who the hell did he think he was to say if you want to stay here? I was just, I was in a rage for about two weeks. And maybe I will, you know, I'll go back and look at that. And you know, then I went back to him and said, well, you're right. I'm pretty confused.

[12:52]

I appreciate he called me up shortly and he gave this big sigh of relief. And I could see, I mean, I really appreciate, I could see that he put himself out on a limb to get my attention. And he didn't know which way I was going to jump. And that was very... And he cared. And that was very instructive to me about what a teacher has to do sometimes. You have to take chances. And, you know, Baker Oshii too, I learned something from him. When he told me, he kept trying to get me to see... I don't need all this on this tape, he's just going to have so much junk to wade through, I think. But still, this is kind of instructive for me.

[14:00]

When he was trying to get me to see how focused I was on what other people thought of me. He tried to erase things, but once he told me, don't look in the mirror. Just don't look in the mirror. Okay. Yes, sir? I didn't look in the mirror for a long time. I finally said to him, let's wait for him. Well, you can look in a mirror to straighten your collars. So I gathered that my collars were not straight. And various... He said to me once when I walked into the dorm room, I can tell by the way you walk in the door that you're trying to impress me. I wanted to kill him. Get out of the basket. But then he said to me once, I want you to take up the practice of doing nothing for the eyes of the beholder.

[15:02]

And I said, yes, sir, thank you, I will. Let's do that. I went out of there. And I said, this mantra, do nothing for the eyes of the beholder. And within five minutes I realized there was nothing. I mean, I didn't make a move without seeing it from how does it look from the outside. And I didn't have a clue about how it looked from the inside. Not a clue. I was stunned. And I, you know, I very quickly realized there was nothing I could do to fix it. To fix it would be, again, to try to look good for him. Anything I did would have to do with the eye of the beholder. And I just went to my room and cried.

[16:08]

It was an extremely powerful experience for me. So I went back to him and I told him what my experience was. Oh, it worked then. Good. So again, you know, I learned that skill for me comes in trying and failing and trying and failing and trying and oh, that worked. Skill for me doesn't come from someone. It just comes from... Yeah, it's empirical. For me, practicing medicine is kind of like that. Every treatment is a question. Well, you know, this is similar. It's said to be the medicine that cures all illness, right? But still, learning to be a practitioner is a long, slow process, as I'm learning.

[17:14]

It's just the beginning. And, you know, this is what is so painful is as you must know from being a physician when someone is ill, you can't get the diagnosis quite right or understand what's the best treatment for it. But you want to do something because they're suffering. At times like that, I try to take comfort in the I think the Hippocratic maxim that the physician treats and nature heals. And something about at least a good heart. Do you want to take a pause for a minute?

[18:27]

I first asked to be ordained in... And at first Richard Baker said yes. I asked him, I guess, in about 19. 74, and I was going to be ordained with the group who ordained in 1975. But then he said, no, I should wait. I was asking to be ordained and he was asking Lou to ordain. And I had said, well, if we're both going to be ordained, it would be silly for us to do it at different times. It would be silly for a husband and wife one to be senior to the other. So then Lou decided he wasn't going to be ordained and he told me to wait. And I was really annoyed. And I said, that was my idea, that wasn't your idea, that we should be ordained together. But what I realized, and that was extremely difficult for me because I was helping everybody so to get ready. And so I was working very hard on this ordination.

[19:35]

And he was giving lectures about what a wonderful thing ordination was and all. And I was sitting there up in the library, it rained out so infuriously. And then I would just become overcome by waves of feeling excluded. And I would rush out over to the sauna and cry and bawl. And then I'd go wash my face in cold water and I'd go back and I'd sew some more. It was just absurd. But it was an extremely painful time for me. Oh, I can imagine. And it helped me to realize how much, at that time, I saw ordination as something to get or some status or accomplishment or approval or something that he could give me. As a matter of fact, one time at a show song ceremony, I asked him a question.

[20:37]

I don't really remember what the question was because the answer didn't seem to be a non-sequitur. But his answer was, You want me to give you something? I don't have anything to give you. And I'll never forget that. It's true. It's absolutely true. So I kind of struggled with that for a while and argued with Lou because I figured well, if Lou would be ordained, then he'd probably ordain me too. I thought, you know, with Lou. We had this double-doke song with him where he turned to me and he said, Well, you know, there's no difference between priest practice and lay practice. Why do you practice as a lay person? And then he turned to Lou and said, There's no difference between priest practice and lay practice. Why do you practice as a priest? Well, two years later, Reb, who was Tonto, called me in and said, Roshi would like you to measure these people for cases.

[21:39]

And I looked at the list and I burst into tears. And he said, What's the matter? And I said, My name's not on it. And he said, Right. No, I still want it. And Reb said, Well. Some people are ordained but they're still interested in it. Anyhow, it turned out that in fact he asked me to ask Lou to come and talk to him. Lou went to talk to him. And I said, What do you want? And he said, He said, Baker Roshi wants me to be ordained. He wants me to sew a case up. And I said, What'd you say? He said, I said, Yes. This was after we'd had many long arguments about it. So anyhow, that was the group that... This is the group that turned out to be the humongous ordination of 24 people in two days

[22:41]

in 1977. September 17, 1977. And... One other thing. The story about Baker Roshi. When I was, she sewed. Things were going pretty well, actually. I thought I was doing a credible job as she sewed. And so... A day or two before the ceremony I was feeling fairly confident. And... I think he thought I was probably overconfident. Not... Was he thinking enough? So he said to me, Very seriously, Don't let anything distract you from this ceremony until it's over. And so...

[23:43]

I began to get more serious about it. And then my bed, she said to me, Well, you're in the chute now. And so I began to take it more to heart. And that was extremely helpful because I was very... Focused. The history... Not at all conflict. But very focused. And present. And the other thing he said to me before the ceremony was, Don't think about any of your answers. Come... Come out with the first thing that occurs to you. And let it come from somewhere other than your head. Which was both very important. He said to me, For Shusou Ceremony,

[24:45]

For Chosan Ceremony, For Inimando, For Tokusan, For... You name it. So... After... Let's see... After Bakeroshi left, Red began teaching a group of seniors about Dharma Transmission. Studying the Dharma Transmission material. All the vesicles that Goben Senji wrote about it. And some writings from... Some writings about... The... Ceremony and the documents that are done for the ceremony. The meaning of the documents. And the meaning of various aspects of the ceremony.

[25:49]

And... So he started with... Most of the senior people because he felt this... That was one of his jobs. One of the problems at Sense7 had been that... There had been only one person with Dharma Transmission. And... So... We studied for several years and then... One by one, a number of people decided to start. They wanted to do it. So... But by the... There came a time when it seemed that... He expected that those of us who were still studying with him were actually going to do Dharma Transmission. And...

[26:55]

I began to realize that... I really had a greater affinity for Mel who had been my first teacher. And his style is more like me. I can identify more with his teaching style. I've always admired... Rev's... Erudition as well as his devotion. But Erudition is not one of my strong points. And so I always felt somehow... There's a way in which it didn't make sense for me to be his disciple because I was so different. I couldn't see how we could ever... really meet in the way that...

[27:57]

I understood teacher-disciple meant to meet. But... Of course... My greed was in there too. Rev was offering to treat me in this way and Mel hadn't made any such offer. And... When I talked to Mel about it he was totally uncomfortable. Nothing. So for more than a year... I stood with this question... Until I decided that... Well... I was not actually Rev's disciple in that way. I couldn't honestly do Dharma transmission with him. And so I had to tell him that.

[29:01]

And I had to tell him that knowing that maybe I would never do Dharma transmission with him. And... So I told him that. I can imagine. But once I did... You know, once I made that decision... And it was clear... I didn't know if I wanted to do Dharma transmission with him. And... I don't know what to say about Dharma transmission. It's... Mysterious. Apparently we studied some things together. And we... We did some documents. We did innumerable vows. And we did some formalities. It's... Something very mysterious occurred.

[30:12]

First time I saw Mel... After the ceremony was over... We did the ceremony and I went back to the induction room. And I saw him from... Distance. And... My heart beat like it was my long lost lover. There he is! I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. And I still feel it. Something very deep. And... And... And very personal. And... Very... Beautiful. And I don't know what it is. I don't know. I can't point to anything that has happened. That would count.

[31:14]

Any... Any moment that it took place. Any moment that it took place. Well, after Dharma Transmission I got kind of... You know... Again... I don't know if it's... Well, God, you know... Now what am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to stay here and teach? Am I supposed to... What does it mean? You know... You know... I'm supposed to continue the lineage. I'm supposed to... That's so... I don't know. I got a little... A little... Excited. Anyhow, I went... I took about a six week vacation. I went to visit a lot of other... Teachers. Just to see how they set up their Sanghas. And how... I mean, I'm so parochial. I don't really get a sense of it. So I went... And visited Maureen Stewart.

[32:17]

In Cambridge. And I visited... Valley Zen Do. In Western Massachusetts. I visited... Campo Nursal. In the park up in Maine. I spent about two weeks there. Did a sewing session with five people. And they were ordained right on... And we started from scratch. Sewed their own cases. And they were ordained all in one day. Wow. It was great. It was really wonderful to do it that way. You must have sewed yours to the bone. Yeah. The next day was his mountain seat ceremony. It was all very exciting. Oh, wow. And I visited... Covencino in Taos, New Mexico. And... Um... And then I did a session with Coburn. At Chipotle. And so I'm...

[33:21]

Worrying about this problem of... What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to stay in San Sergio? Am I supposed to go out and... Start a Zen Do of my own somewhere? What am I supposed to... And so I... Fussed around like that for a while. And finally Coburn said... The Dharma will greatly prosper. Do what you want to do. Which I took to mean... Who do you think you are? The Dharma doesn't depend on you. The Dharma's fine. Whatever you do. And someone else says... No, no, I think it means... If you do what you want to do... The Dharma will greatly prosper. That's where I go. Um... So anyhow... That was... That was Coburn's great gift to me. Coburn is wonderful. When I was with... There at... He had a shuso and there was a shuso ceremony.

[34:25]

And... I said... A little bit of this and that about traditional form. Now you've got to understand that Coburn has been... Zen center's advisor of traditional forms. Coburn is a thoroughly trained Soto Zen monk. Trained to train monks. He did six years of Aikido training. And he has... Because Roshi asked him to help Zen center... He has been their advisor for how to do all of the ceremonies over the years. So Coburn invited me to go for a little walk. He said... You know... Some of us know the traditional forms very well. Which I thought was... You know... To say... For Coburn to say to me... Some of us know the forms... It was sort of like... Ridiculous. But... Then he went on to say... But you know...

[35:27]

We have to let people here find their own forms. And he's just... You know... Although he teaches us the exact proper Soto Shu way of doing forms... The forms in his temple... Or in his song... He improvises. And if you know the traditional forms... You see all the elements of the traditional forms. But it's completely improvisational. It's quite wonderful. He comes here and plays string quartets. He goes there and plays jazz. Right. Anyhow... I've learned a lot from him. He has... He has taken some pains to get me not to be stuck on form. For example, he asked me to help his disciple.

[36:29]

And she voiced her pain. So... Okay, so... Which we did. And I said, you know... What color are you supposed to sew? And she asked... And he said... Well, some nice earthy color. So she picked a nice brown... Which turned out to be the exact color of her hair. She said... So I'm thinking this is... She's been his disciple for 25 years. This is indicating that he's getting the dharma transmission well. So we're going to present this robe to her. It's sort of a traditional robe presentation. On our way to the zendo, you know... From the community room down to the zendo. We paused and said... By the way, you know... Angie-san is a householder. Don't you understand? She says that four kinds of people can wear this robe. Upasita, upasaka, vishu, vishuni. And then we walk on down and we give her this robe.

[37:30]

This brown robe, right? And I figure that he's just trying to get me to loosen up and not be... Rigid in my ideas. So that's the... You know... That's the realm of teaching that he does for me. Plus the fact that... He is one of the most compassionate people I know. You know, he's taught me... He came... One of the old students who was in the center... Who was living out in Hawaii. Drowned. She was actually at a coma for a few days before she died. He was at her bedside. And he came to give her a table of green vegetables and what not.

[38:31]

And he taught me, you know, quite carefully... How to arrange the zendo and how to do it in a traditional way. And as someone has said about Kogan... He may not show up for a session, you know. He may... I mean, he's... He's a real cloud water monk. He's completely unreliable for most things. But if anybody dies, he'll be there. But if anybody's dying, he'll be there. Now... The only time I saw him... I can't even say that I met him. But the only time I remember seeing him for the first time... The only time... Was he at the mountain seat ceremony? I didn't... He was... He was not at my mountain seat ceremony. He has a new baby. Oh. Oh. When I was staying with him at Taos...

[39:35]

I was helping one of Begiroshi's students to sew a kesa. He came up from... No, from Santa Fe. And stayed with me in Taos and worked on his kesa. And so when Kogan saw me sewing... He had been very influenced by Sawaki Kodoroshi. And he had known Joshin-san. Joshin-san had been tensor at Antaiji when he and Kogan were sitting. He said, she's with Sawaki Kodoroshi there. He met him when he was in school in... Komusawa University. And he went to Kyoto Graduate School so he could practice at Antaiji with him. And he sort of tends to be a little homeless, like Homeless Kodo, you know. He teaches in Chikoji, and he teaches in Taos, and he teaches in Austria. And he goes all around where he's done. But, you know, there are some echoes in which there is a line that says,

[40:43]

and the completion of all dharma relations. And he wanted me to work with his students, sewing. I think completing dharma relations with Joshin-san and Sawaki Kodoroshi. He's had me work with all of his students sewing, and then finally I trained someone who's now with him and is teaching people there. But I think for him, his relationship with me had to do with the completion of his relationship with Sawaki Kodoroshi and Joshin-san.

[41:22]

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