It's pretty hard, it's pretty hard to, can you hear back there Gloria? It's pretty hard to talk to you without knowing you better, and you're sort of a middle group of students, you know, you mostly weren't here before I went to Japan, and the newer students I somehow know, and the older students I know, but most of you who are down here I don't, and Buddhism isn't some abstraction that you can just talk about it. When Suzuki Roshi first came from Japan, he talked about Buddhism as some, you know, some teaching, and no one understood him at all, and I kept notes in those, at that time, I

[01:02]

have about two years of lectures or more, all scribbled, notebooks, and only recently have I understood what he talked about, and what he talked about is, when you talk about Buddhism you either, it's rather difficult to say anything, so, I've been looking at his lectures recently, and after Zen Center began to exist, he stopped talking about Buddhism, and he only talked about our practice, our practice, our practice, and in that he talked about all the things he talked about before, but they're disguised, you know, it looks like he's talking about sightseeing at Yosemite or something, and by know you

[02:17]

I don't mean your name, or, what I mean is, it's interesting to walk around the Zendo in the morning, you know, when I do, walk around the Zendo like this, just by looking at you I can, I know you much better than if I see you doing something or telling me something. Right now, for some reason or other, a lot of people outside Zen Center want to know about Zen Center, and so in the last two or three weeks, I've had requests from German television, Japanese television, and NET to do big programs on Zen Center, plus requests for interviews, but, you know, maybe I should know you better, but I don't know if I need to

[03:24]

know anything about all that, so I always say no, no, we don't, but they're extremely persistent, they act like it's a big favor to be on television, and they can't understand why I say no. So one of them insisted that if I ever thought of an idea for a television program about Zen, would I call him up? So the other day I thought, we could, you could start, you could have a television program in which somebody held up an empty picture frame, there's nothing in the picture frame, just an empty picture frame, and the camera would come in on the picture frame, and there'd be nothing in the picture frame at all, until it got it, very close to the picture frame,

[04:30]

and then they have to shut the whole station off, so the entire screen went blank. I don't think they'll do it. The trouble with our Zen practice, you know, always is that we're always trying to fill the picture frame with something. We always want, you know, more Zazen, or Sashins, or our own face, you know, or astrology. But actually, Buddhism, Zen is pretty boring, because it's only the picture frame, you know, all we're studying is the picture frame, and there's nothing in the frame, actually. No matter how many times, you know, I say that,

[05:31]

or Suzuki Roshi says that, actually, most of us believe there's something in the picture frame. But there's nothing in the picture frame. You know, when we have our, when you're initiated so that you can wear Buddha's robe, you're given a new name to cut away the previous name, and history, and family you had, a kind of, of course, a rebirth. But actually, you should be given no name at all. One of the difficulties

[06:42]

we have with our practice is we try to express it to ourselves, like trying to express what we do to a television camera. We try to express what our practice is to ourself. I think that's one of the most difficult things to give up, to keep, to try, to attempt to explain your practice to yourself, to compare it to, has this experience, have other people had this experience? The best way to know, maybe be yourself, is just to work with others, like here

[07:55]

at Tassajara, in a situation where there isn't much choice. And here, we don't have much choice at Tassajara about the schedule, or anything about the life. Unless we're going to live with servants, we have to take care of this place. And if we have to take care of this place, we can't have Tassajara, maybe as much as we'd like, you know, because we have to feed ourselves, wash our face, garden. So, we don't do it completely here, but in a monastery in Japan, what you try to do is you create a place

[09:21]

like Tassajara, where you break the person's habits completely. So, you know, you can't break them completely, but in almost everything, you teach the person a new way to do it. He holds his hands differently, sort of like this. We don't hold our hands like this enough to make it work, but if you hold your hands in some way like this, pretty soon you start to hurt. And that hurt tells you something about where you've been holding yourself for many years, and you can't tell it. And many of you, I see, walking around, and you have a kind of slouch, or something. And I don't say anything, because I think you feel that's some kind of freedom. But you have all of the reasons why you pick up a teacup

[10:27]

with two hands. It's just a disguised way of centering yourself. So, in a monastery, they make many, many rules all based on centering yourself, and try to change most of your eating habits, even how you pee. I don't know what they do with girls, but I know what they do with men. And there's a specific way you have to pee. There's a brass bar, and you have to put one finger in the bar like this. So it's pretty confusing at first, particularly for us, because already Japanese habits are pretty different from our own. And then they have habits to break you, Japanese habits, because a lot of your karma or personality is carried in your physical habits.

[11:35]

So, if we were going to make Tassajara quite strict, we'd look at what are the usual habits that Americans have, physical habits. And then we'd take main ones, and have different habits that everyone had to do. How you picked up something had to be different from how you usually pick it up. You don't always live this way, of course. It's just for a place like Tassajara. But if you do that, it's easier to practice at Tassajara than in the city, where you can't find what your practice is, because it's completely mixed up with your regular life. Do you have any questions about anything? It would help me if you asked me some questions, so I can know you better.

[13:38]

Yes? Yes? I feel that kind of intensifying of intention I already have about practicing here, and what I do here. We eat a little differently. But of course, if there's some special way to pee, or to hold your hands like this, you don't walk around San Francisco like this in Macy's all the time.

[14:57]

I know people who have, and there's one boy who was in Japan. He went everywhere like this. In the buses, he'd stand like this. But be more specific about the confusion. If you can be specific about confusion. We've been here for a very short period of time. It seems to make it very difficult to... It's almost like I'm looking to get rid of an unnecessary concept of reality. I'm looking this way, this is this. So I come here with some idea that I don't have to give this to the person I'm going to be listening to.

[15:59]

But if it's all good for here, it's no good. Do you understand that? Yeah. But if you can get free from being Lucy, so you're only Lucy when it's necessary to be Lucy, then it's much freer in the city. When you go back to the city, your friends will try to make you back into Lucy. Say you get some freedom from being Lucy. Sometimes you're working in the kitchen, you're just a person working in the kitchen. And in Zendo, you're just a person doing Zazen. That's actually all you are. As far as we can put a label on it. But sometimes you have to be Lucy because your family wants you to be Lucy. They'd feel quite strange if somebody else came home for Christmas. There's a big difference between person and persona. And we've lost the distinction between person and persona.

[17:06]

But in Japan, and when I say Japan, I'm not meaning Japan is Buddhist or something like that. But because there are things about Japan that limit their practice of Buddhism, which we have, which help us. But anyway, in Japan, they don't have this idea of person. They have an idea of persona. Sometimes you're a plumber, but that's not who you are. So you have a multitude of names. And even in the, there's something like 50 or 80 ways to say I. Actually, they don't use pronouns ever. You know, you don't use his or hers or I or you can, but in almost all speech, you never specify sex or person or anything like that. But in actual fact, they have 80 or 90 ways to say I, but each one is dependent. It's a different kind of situation. Sometimes, you know, you have to be Lucy. That's all.

[18:18]

I mean, sometimes you have to have an ego. I mean, even if you're quite free from ego, say ideally, you can't go into a supermarket and buy something with Buddhism. You have to spend money. So if you're in a situation which requires you to respond, you know, in an ordinary way, maybe even be angry, you have to be angry. But that's not the usual kind of anger. You understand what I'm saying? I wish I were here more because I feel most of mostly you have specific problems of how to live here at Tassajara, how to practice and not so much problems like this until you go to the city.

[19:22]

I've been wondering about the difference between Tassajara and living here and practicing and being a monastery in Japan. There are things that are so much more already made to practice. Like I was telling you in studying hall, last January, every day. Last January, I was telling you in studying hall, every day. You go in, you sweep it out, put the chairs up on the table and sweep the floor. And in studying hall, the chairs are going to fall apart and there's nothing in there that makes you say, take good care of it. It's not arranged already the way it is. So to take good care of it doesn't come automatically. It doesn't seem obvious that you should. And it struck me as I was doing that, that it was really very valuable, maybe even more valuable than having a place all beautifully laid out that made you take good care of it.

[20:36]

And I think the same way I think I've done that in the altar up there. It's kind of funky, very funky. I'm building, I'm living here. And I wonder sometimes, maybe we should change and remember that maybe this is more valuable than it is. Yeah. Well, I agree. As I have said before, practice is trying to practice. There's no such thing as practice. It's always just trying to practice. So one of the weaknesses of Buddhism in Japan is they think there's such a thing called practice that you do. But actually, like when you do zazen, you're not trying to, like a carpenter, cut a beam exactly according to some blueprint.

[21:46]

So you're not, your zazen posture isn't, you don't have an image of exactly how you're supposed to sit. And you perfect yourself until you sit that way. You can do that. Actually, it's, if you look deeply at yourself, notice exactly what you are, eventually you'll sit that way. And coming to it that way is quite different. It's like a sculptor who knows what zazen is when he's sculpting a statue, rather than somebody who says, well, the iconography requires such and such, so he does it. So a number of people who have been here have said this is maybe the best place to practice Buddhism in the world. I don't know, but maybe America is the best place to practice Buddhism in the world. Because we are trying to find out how to practice.

[22:49]

But a lot of Japan's aesthetic is actually based on taking care. They don't set out to do things beautifully or to be aesthetic or something. They simply take care. And you take care of a cherry tree, you know, somehow, cropping its branches up. But then pretty soon the cherry tree is 500 years old and has blossoms even coming out of the trunk. It's all got full holes, you know. He has these huge branches, sometimes as long as this room. But cherry blossoms all... I mean, any book of Western scientists would say cherry trees don't live past 80 years or something. So they just take care, you know. And there's that zen teacher who never repaired the leg of his cherry, just mended it and had a stick.

[23:59]

So if we keep mending our practice, we'll be okay. One of the ideas we have about Japan is that the practice is much more completed there. So we can go there and they can show us much better how to practice. And in details that may be true. But practice actually, zen practice is really a kind of apprentice system. In which Soto especially, because Soto doesn't use Koan so much except sort of secretly. Not, you know. There isn't something they call Koan practice that's distinct from something else. So Soto practice particularly is a kind of apprentice system where you need a great deal of time with your teacher.

[25:10]

Or to live in a community with a teacher. So in Japan the difficulty is, you don't want somebody who knows just how to sit. You want somebody who knows you, knows your little habits and where you get caught up. And it's nearly impossible for a Japanese person to know your little habits, you know. We don't realize how, maybe we do. But realize how extraordinary Suzuki Yoshi was. I thought he was a good teacher, you know. Of course, being somewhat biased. But when I went to Japan I couldn't. It's impossible, it was impossible and still is impossible for me to see how he came out of Japan. And was able to understand this so well. But the important point to notice when you go to Japan is what the culture is like, what the way of life is like.

[26:33]

Because a great deal of Buddhism is not in the temples, you know. The real religion in Japan is being Japanese. And being Buddhist is an aspect of that. Being Shinto is an aspect of that. But the whole way of life of an old culture like that is extraordinary. And a great deal of Buddhism is in the culture. And the life of the Sangha, of the community, is based completely on the culture in which you find Buddhism. So, our Sangha, eventually, without our even making any effort, will become based on our culture. I don't have any maps, but if you go to Japan you can see how the Sangha is an expression of the culture.

[27:50]

First of all, in Japan, any practice, particularly Zen practice, is to make you an ideal person. So almost any practice, whether it's archery, or being a restaurant cook, or a Zen priest, they want you to be an ideal Japanese man first. Then they improve you that little bit. So 90% of the practice in Japan is aimed at making you an ideal man, which in Japan means a Japanese man, or woman. But we have to be ideal American. Completed American. Western people. What about Shikantaza?

[28:57]

What do you mean by Shikantaza? Well, I don't know. Well, Shikantaza means... See, it's... Different teachers have a little different understanding of it, and all of them come together. But Suzuki Roshi's way of understanding Shikantaza was everything just as it is. And you can accept your Zazen practice, whatever it is, just as it is, that's Shikantaza. But Yasutani Roshi, when he was here, he said, actually, Shikantaza is when your breathing and your heartbeat are extremely slow. The difficulty with that kind of advice, you know, is that then you'll try to slow down your heartbeat or your breathing, which is nearly impossible to do, and also...

[30:12]

You know, not a good way to practice. But what he meant was that if you can accept your practice just as it is now, in whatever circumstance, whether you're doing Zazen or not doing Zazen, it's exactly the same. Zazen is just some way to check up on our practice. It's the best frame, maybe. But if you really accept just as it is, you don't have wandering thoughts and things like that, then naturally you're very still. And if you're very still, you don't have to breathe much. But actually, to look for anything in the frame, you know, is a mistake.

[31:21]

Just whatever, wherever you hold the frame up, there's something inside it, you know? When you can completely accept whatever's in the frame, wherever you hold it up, that's the same meaning as when they hold up their whisk. You can really just accept whatever's in the frame. Normally we want it to be a mirror. Rather, a better image is ourselves as a mirror, reflecting everything just as it is. But even a mirror is rather... As Suzuki Roshi said, my teacher told me that idea when I was only 12 or 15, but it was too simple for when I was 18, 19, the mirror idea. You know?

[32:39]

Anyway, Shikantaza is just to accept whatever's in the frame completely. And that's awesome. Yeah? He's a lot more strict. A lot more strict? Yeah, I think he's a lot more... You know, I can understand... A lot of things he was doing... I don't understand... I think he was really strict with the frame. Yeah. Well...

[33:43]

I think... I think the best way to practice is to be strict with yourself. But we need some help. Exactly how much help? You see, in Japan you can give a great deal of help to people because of this whole group identity. You can really push people around. I mean, you can walk up to them and slap them in the face, and yank at their clothes. If somebody's sitting wrong, you can holler at them in Zen-do. You're not quite in line. And if somebody's picking up something wrong in a ceremony, you can come up and... Right in front of everybody. You know? And...

[34:47]

We started doing that, particularly new students. So Suzuki Roshi, when he first came, he tried to be stricter. And he had a number of people run out of the Zen-do when he hit them on the stick. So he... But... He found that the best way... was the best way. And the best way for the best student is to not to say anything. Is to just... You know, sometimes by a slight incline of the head, you know, about something, you may suggest to the student he ought to notice something. But you don't say anything. Just your own example. Even bad example. So that works for the best students, but doesn't work for the average student. But in America, it didn't drive away the average student.

[35:50]

In Japan, it would have helped the average student to be stricter. In America, he felt it would drive the average student away. So he was quite relieved when Tatsugami Roshi did that for him. Because he... Well, maybe I didn't mean that, but... When Tatsugami Roshi came and was stripped, you know, in the way that he always kind of wanted to, but... had decided that he wouldn't do. So... So... And I've often... I had the number of... Of course, I'm rather clumsy, and... I used to be much worse, and there's still a lot of people around who find it pretty difficult to...

[36:53]

to even speak to me. Because in the first practice period when I was down here, I was too strict with them. Sometimes their wife will come and see me and say, so-and-so can't even... You know, he still has nightmares about you, you know. So, I don't know, you know, I feel... I don't want to be too strict, you know. Because I thought I was helping the person. So I think, you know, we have to find a way. Zen Center is a... It's a rather... large community. It doesn't have any distinct borders, and there's students who come occasionally, and etc. Until finally you get students who come fairly regularly in the city. And then people who come very often in the city, and then people at Tassajara, and then people who have returned from Tassajara and in the city.

[37:56]

Somewhere in there, we can say, these students know enough about Buddhism, and they trust the situation enough so we can be quite strict with them. And how to be quite strict, I don't yet know. Right now I'm just taking Suzuki Roshi's way, of mostly just watching. So it's actually all of our responsibility, because the needs we have and the problems we have will create Zen Center, if we stay with it, you know. Tassajara

[39:02]

Eventually, you know, you have to be strict with yourself, because no one's going to do it for you. So maybe that's the best way. But I thought that before we got Tassajara. But then I found lots of people who couldn't make their practice work in the city, were able to come to Tassajara and make their practice work. And I thought, well, it does help people to have a place like this. Shashu But it's... Shashu is not just a kind of positive hold, you know. By positive hold I mean sometimes we have negative holds, you know, down like this.

[40:02]

But it also just happens to be the way the sleeves work, and robes. So it's the way to keep these long sleeves from dragging on the ground. So whatever you... See, I... This is a Soto robe. I also have a Rinzai robe where the sleeves are shorter, and I also have another robe in which the sleeves are quite a bit shorter, which I sort of designed myself. So I found out many things. Unless the sleeve is that long, it's like living in a tent. Unless the sleeve is that long, when you put your hands this way, it does not hang straight down. So as soon as you shorten the sleeve this way, you get a sleeve that curves like that. As soon as you shorten the sleeve this way, you can't put your bowing cloth in it. So as soon as you change a little thing in the practice, you know, like as soon as I changed the sleeves,

[41:09]

then I couldn't carry my Zangu to bow. So actually making conscious changes is rather difficult. But actually starting a practice that eventually will change is difficult. So should we do Shashu, or should we find some other way to walk? I mean, I don't know exactly. This kind of way, and it's very Japanese, it's not... China and Korean monks don't have this kind of flavor that Japanese monks have. And the rest of the Buddhist world is rather critical of Japan for that. So, you know, it's not so easy. So right now, I think we're doing okay. And... The best you can do now is if you know what you need, be strict with yourself.

[42:13]

If you want to sit straight, just sit straight. Everybody walks around that way. So we all walk around that way. And a lot of times I felt really, you know, absurd walking that way, but everybody's doing it, so I didn't have to do much. I didn't, and I got into it after all. But it's impossible, in a way, like it's very difficult. Even if I think it might be the best thing for me to do, to walk around that way, and going out to pray and everything, it seems to be absurd. If you respect the city, everyone will try to make or be lucid. Well, I think that if you have the sense of centering yourself when you walk, when you pick something up, it's nearly the same, you know.

[43:15]

Even though you may not do this, but I think you can do that. I walk that way quite a lot. Of course, in Japan there are many ways. This is for young monks. Old monks, older priests, can put their hands down. That's called the old priest position. And young monks have to bow like this, and older priests bow like this. So it's some status, you see. As a young monk gets to be, maybe he's 30 or so, and he now can... Then he'll start dropping his hands. It's not old enough. You're not old enough. Anyway, in the end, Zen becomes quite relaxed. In the training situation, it's quite... Actually, you just do things naturally.

[44:18]

But usually we're not natural because we have so many habits, you know. Hmm. Someone back there had a question. No more? I'm just wondering, like, I don't enjoy sometimes all this radio, my radio mind sort of thing. You know, I'm like... I don't know. It's like a monster, this thing. I don't know. Who said you shouldn't enjoy it? Me. Because now you have a problem, right? Radio mind lasts about... I don't know.

[45:22]

Two or three years? I don't know. Maybe one year. I don't know. What do you think of Robert Price's

[46:46]

comment on Japanese and that they take the authoritarian system of which everyone is scared shitless of and make good. Well, they do take an authoritarian system and they make it, what in Japan has the reputation of being the most authoritarian system, the Zen. And they try to beat you into being free of it. That's true. That's a very difficult question to answer

[47:59]

and make sense of it. And it's such a difficult question that there's a profound confusion about it in Japan where Buddhist non-discrimination and social power public governmental non-discrimination are all mixed up. So, that's how Zen got into the place of being so involved in the last war. And you have a rather famous Roshi in Japan telling, talking to me and a few other people talking about, with some pride, about how he ran through the snow to Myoshinji every morning at 2 in the morning to have Sanzen with his teacher, Dokusan and then chanted and then ran at 4.30 in the morning

[49:01]

to the war office where they put him against his will because he wanted to go into the front against America. And he, there was a complete identity between the running through the snow to the to the temple and the running through the snow to fight the war. And that's just a complete confusion of non-discrimination. And so, this kind of confusion has allowed the Japanese society to take over Buddhism in Japan. I mean, it's amazing that within it there are still live areas because for the most part Buddhism is just you know, just a tool almost, of the society. And the priests will support anything. One of the, you know a book called

[50:02]

Zen for the West by Ogata-san? The paperback or something. Ogata went into a kind of seclusion after the last war in, in, in some kind of great distaste for himself and for the other Rinzai priests because they did nothing to stop the war. And he thought they could have. But they just, whatever the government said, they did. Anyway, so of course if there's some possibility of change you can change things. But that's not the same as accepting yourself. And that's not the same as seeking change. If you're seeking to change yourself that's not real change. You know, that's your ego deciding that that's better

[51:03]

or I like this better or something like that. That's not real change. So Buddhism is a kind of, you know, it's a dialectic, so you have to arouse the desire for enlightenment at the same time if you're seeking for enlightenment you can't ever have any idea what Buddhism is. So what this means, you know, this kind of what look like opposites is a kind of secret. And no one can exactly tell you. Buddhism is very definitely a religion disguised as some kind of practical practice. And no one's going to give it away because no one, it can't be given away.

[52:03]

So Suzuki Roshi, near the end of his life, he talked a lot about priests because in the end in the world it's priests who have continued the teaching, not laymen. And he said And he felt that maybe people who can, only people who can wholeheartedly commit their whole life and energy toward being alert for their actual activity, for their actual life, for what their teacher's trying to be there for them for. Maybe that's the only people, you know, maybe it's too difficult if you're married. Who said that? What?

[53:20]

Gloria? Oh, okay. There's a different question coming from you. Well, the practical answer to that is that in Japan being married is rather different than here. I mean, Roshi has talked to me about his first wife how he felt quite really badly, quite guilty about the fact that for years at a time he'd never see her. He'd go out to monasteries and temples and do this and that and she just stayed home and took care of the temple. And in Japan the villages

[54:22]

almost require the priest to have wives because the person who really does most of the activity in the temple. We are married in a rather different way. We take marriage as a marrying of natures, not just of social functions. But even so it's difficult. But also in Japan you see, sorry to give historical answers but the reasons are historical. In Japan the family system has taken over every institution brought from Japan including Buddhism. So that everything that's supposed to be passed I mean, there's whole ways in Buddhism

[55:22]

how you choose the next abbot of the temple, how it has to be chosen in a certain way. The idea that it could be a priest's son is just, I mean, just out of the question it would be considered immoral in China. I mean, it may have been done but by all rules. But in Japan it's completely done. In every field and if the man is not your actual son he adopts your name. So to not be married in Japan is pretty difficult. One is you'd never have anybody to take over your temple. But Roshi clearly feels that it doesn't make any difference whether you're married or not. But when you practice Buddhism as long as he did

[56:23]

Buddhism seems extraordinarily precious. In the end your overwhelming desire is to transmit it at all costs. I mean, nothing else matters really. So if you can find somebody and you can just say don't do anything else in your life but hold still. You can't tell them you can't tell the person what Buddhism is about because then they won't understand. It's not tellable anyway. So the person has to hold still for it. And it takes a long time of holding still. And if you're married and have a job and other you can't be there enough unless you're with your teacher for many years. But he also knew that we can't

[57:30]

Buddhism can't survive in America if we don't find out don't know what Buddhism is can be for women laymen and couples as well as for monks. So and we're finding that out just by practicing here together. It's really fantastic actually. I mean I Buddhism on the one hand is really is extremely boring. Just that frame you know. And there isn't much there isn't any excitement. You know it just goes on. And at the same time it's pretty interesting. Anyway

[58:32]

thank you very much.

[58:33]

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