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. Well, hi everybody. How are you doing? nice to be here at Tassajara with a full Zendo pretty inspiring been here since when today's what's today Wednesday so we came on Friday and we did a weekend retreat and then we finished that and started another one Sunday night

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And this one ends on Friday morning, and I'll go home. So I've been here long enough I forgot when I came on the way home. And I've had a very traveling summer. In early June, I was in New York attending Some meetings of Buddhist teachers, a pretty unusual meeting of Buddhist teachers from all schools and all lineages. Vipassana teachers, Theravada Buddhist teachers, Zen teachers, Pure Land teachers, Korean Won Buddhism, which is a pretty small movement, Nichiren Buddhism, and all the different, many different Tibetan Vajrayana lineages. The last time such a meeting was held in the United States was 11 years ago.

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It was actually held at Green Gulch. It was kind of a back-and-forth meeting between Green Gulch and Spirit Rock. So after 11 years it seemed like a good idea to organize another meeting, and so we had one, and this time we did it on the East Coast. And in that intervening 11 years, a whole new generation of teachers has developed. Mostly trained by the older teachers who were at the meeting 11 years ago and had been practicing a long time already by then. So this is the first time there were self-consciously two different generations. And the meeting began with two separate meetings. There were about 25 old-timers in one meeting and about 40 younger teachers in the other meeting. So I was, you know, as you can see, in the old-timers meeting.

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And it was very sweet. Most of us knew each other well and had been doing this a long time. And there was a facilitator, but it took about a half an hour to blow by the facilitator. Her plans for the meeting were immediately shelved. And we just talked. It was very sweet. We talked about Dharma and how we understood it and our hopes and fears and but mostly about our own lives there was this you know ambitious agenda to accomplish something or think something through but we didn't do that at all we mostly just had a good time talking to each other and I remember at one point somebody said well so we've been doing this a long time what's

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What do you think the point is? What does it all come down to? And one of our more eminent teachers said, well, here's what I think the bottom line is. We're trying to understand the true meaning of cause and effect of And we're trying to get beyond self-centeredness. That's the bottom line, he said. So we all thought that was pretty good. We all agreed with that. Then, of course, we started talking about, well, what does that mean? That's when we all had different ideas, completely different. And someone else said, I thought quite beautifully, he said, You know, all the questions that I came with 40 years ago have been addressed and answered.

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And now they're all gone. And now I think I have new questions. And I don't even know what they are yet. And I have no idea what Buddhism is. thought that was pretty good. Many of us could sympathize. So then we finished that meeting, and now we were going to have a meeting with the younger generation teachers, and that was very exciting. Both groups were thinking through what we would do in this meeting, which involved all the teachers together. And actually it was very moving to me. because the way that it worked is we were the older people were in a room and we were coming down the hall to join the younger teachers in their room and we walked in the door and they burst out singing and they sang the Triple Refuge but one of the teachers was a musician he was

[06:58]

one of these guys with a whole lot of tattoos and cut off shorts, and of all things, a ukulele. And he had written a melody, and I really wish that I could remember how it went. I can't. And everybody was so impressed with it. They said, send us an audio file. He said he would. Maybe he did. I don't know. I didn't see it. But anyway, I guess you'll have to take my word for it. It was one of the most beautiful songs I ever heard. And he sang it. He's a really good singer, too. He sang it beautifully. He was sitting up in a big chair so that he could be high enough that everybody could hear him. So he sang the Triple Refuge as we walked in. And then they were in two facing rows. And we kind of like... walked down the gauntlet between the two rows and as we all walked in they all bowed to us.

[08:03]

It was very, very sweet. And then we sat down in the front and they did three prostrations to us. Thank you for being our teachers. And then the plan of the meeting was that the two groups were going to make statements to each other. And of course both groups had been meeting separately to figure out what statement will we want to make to the other group. So our group, we just sort of elected somebody to speak on our behalf and so one person stood up and said to the younger teachers, more or less, well, we did our best to pass on to you what we have learned from our teachers. But to tell you the truth, we don't know if we've done a very good job.

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And furthermore, we're not sure whether what we've learned and what we've passed on is what you actually need. So that's more or less the message from the older group. And then a whole Several people from the younger group all stood up, and they had written this immense text carefully that they read, you know, passing it on from one person to the other. And, you know, they took a lot of care and a lot of thoughtfulness. And more or less, what they said was, thank you very much for what you've given us. We really appreciate it. But we have to do it differently. We need more personal connection in our practice.

[10:16]

We need more authenticity. We need more honesty, more reality, personal reality from people. We need more diversity. diversity of age diversity of gender diversity of sexual preference diversity of race and it was a very diverse group in fact and they said most of all we need compassion and we need justice in this world everything that we do has to be about that well The older I get, the more quickly I am brought to tears. So this was so heartbreakingly beautiful to me that I started weeping. I couldn't say anything. Also, it made me think. And I'd already been thinking about this even before the meeting.

[11:21]

I'd been thinking that we all only see as far as we can see. we can't see any further. If I'm a man, I can only see with a man's eyes. If I'm a white, old, married, heterosexual Jewish guy from Pennsylvania, who lived, you know, 25 years in a Zen center in California, Well, everything's going to look that way to me. I'm going to see as far as my eye can see. I'm not going to see beyond that. But maybe, maybe I could see more than I think I can if I'm willing to try.

[12:24]

Unless I to see beyond my conditioning my heart is only going to be as open as my conditioning will allow and that's not going to be enough the more my heart is open the wider I can see the world the more ease and joy I'll have. And the more useful I can be to other people. So I want to see more. And I want to open more. And I think that you do too. And this is not always so easy. It can be pretty challenging.

[13:26]

Because there's a lot of things that we resist seeing. Things that we're frightened of. Things that we don't like. Things that we don't approve of. And whatever is outside of us is also inside of us. It's so clear. And Zazen practice especially makes this clear there is no inside and outside inside and outside our designations their necessary conveniences but essentially if we believe in them it causes pain if I'm over here

[14:31]

and the big impossible world is over there I'm gonna feel vulnerable unworthy and alone only when inside and outside are seen as one intimate continuum can there be any real love and any real wisdom. And there's no way to appreciate the depth of your own life unless you can appreciate the fullness of the world. Every bird, every flower, every person, every kind of person, every thought and impulse in your own mind.

[15:34]

Even the confusion and the violence and the anger. We have to let each thing find its own place with loving kindness and forgiveness. Like I say, not that easy. But we stay in our seat. We trust our practice. And we go forward every day. And we will find out. So after these two meetings that I told you about, then there was a third meeting. And now about 150 more people came. So now there was a huge crowd. It's about 250. Buddhist teachers very exciting and I saw a lot of people that I know pretty well but haven't seen in a long time and had lots of wonderful conversations with old friends and one person that I hadn't seen in a long time but really enjoyed meeting again was Rita Gross who's a feminist religious scholar mostly

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writing on Buddhism but not only Buddhism and she's also a Vajrayana teacher and practitioner and it was really great to see Rita when I was an abbot of Zen Center maybe 10 or 15 years ago we brought Rita to Zen Center and her she's extremely lucid and clear and strong in her point of view she really made a big impact on all of us when she was around in those days. She told me, I didn't realize it at the time, she told me that also her visit made a big impact on her. So I'm mentioning this because you should read her books. G-R-O-S-S. Rita. Rita Gross. She's got several really important titles. So then one of the things that happened in this big meeting with all these people was we broke up into lineage groups.

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All the Zen people went and had a meeting and all the Vajrayana people and all the Vipassana people and so on. And the point of those meetings was that we would, with all these people there from all different parts of the country and different groups and so on, we could assess how are we doing? How's the Zen movement doing? How's the Theravada Vipassana movement doing so so we had that meeting and the idea was what's going well and what kind of problems are you having so that was pretty interesting I thought of course I went to the Zen meeting and the Zen people said that they really appreciated the depth of Zen sitting practice they really appreciated the austerity and the beauty of Zen forms. They really appreciated the fact that Zen has no catechism, no approved set of beliefs that everyone is supposed to believe in order to practice Zen.

[19:19]

They really thought it was great that Zen has nothing like that. They thought it was really super that our practice is based on direct experience. and that whatever kind of faith or understanding we have comes from direct experience. They appreciated the centrality in Zen practice of ordinary daily life stuff, especially work. You know, chopping wood, carrying water. I think you know about that around here. You know, making beds, chopping vegetables. doing the plumbing one person said Zen is the only religion that they knew of where you could do housework and think that you're doing religious practice which is a big advantage if you have to do housework takes away the onus of it you know well I'm really doing Zen

[20:28]

One person who probably stood for many people, some at the meeting and many not at the meeting, had a very sad story to tell about how she had felt excluded and dishonored in her Zen community and she had had to leave the community and now she was in a different one. And she told the story of what happened. But it was particularly wonderful, actually, because the person who was the leader of the community that she left was there in the circle. And so it was kind of wonderful that she could say that. And there wasn't tension or bitterness or anger. It was sad. But there was a sense of, yeah, that happened. And it was sad, and here we are.

[21:35]

And that made us all recognize that one of the features of our practice is a deep intimacy with each other. And a deep sense of really being included in Sangha. Maybe being included with others in a way so poignant and beautiful that maybe Many people have never felt included that way before in their lives. But exactly because of that, it sort of constellates a feeling of exclusion. And no matter how careful you try to be about this and how much you don't want this to happen, it'll happen. Because exclusion, the feeling of being excluded or dishonored, is in us. So we can't really... make it go away entirely. So this is something that I've always felt is both really wonderful and also not so great about Zen practice.

[22:45]

It's kind of sad. Another big problem is it takes so darn long to become a Zen teacher. Actually, there weren't any young Zen teachers in this meeting because you have to be ancient to be a Zen teacher. It's a very bad idea that you have to take so long. The good news about that is that almost all Zen teachers around, you know, in America, Europe, are pretty mature people. They're pretty experienced. They're pretty stable. They're pretty steady. Maybe sometimes not too enlightened or exciting, but you can't have everything. Pretty subtle, though. And, you know, with some kind of very practical, simple wisdom. But there really aren't too many young Zen teachers, and that's a problem.

[23:53]

Because young people should have young teachers. I mean, it's good that there are older teachers. Maybe young people need older teachers, too, but they also need younger teachers. So I thought it was a really honest and good conversation. And at the end, one person there who happened to have been the most senior Zen person at the meeting. I'm sure there are other more seniors and people in the universe, but this was the most senior Zen person at the meeting. And so he sort of summed it up. He said, Zen is boring. overly ritualized and colorless and we all agreed and applauded so I just thought you should know about these interesting meetings so here we are after all this sitting here in Tassajara

[25:07]

living a very simple life on our square black mat and little round cushion. And what are we trying to do after all? Why would we take time out of our busy, important lives to come here and just kind of waste time sitting together in silence to tell you the truth I doubt that we actually know maybe we're looking for something that we think is missing maybe we think this is the best way for us to fully enter our lives our real lives best way for us to express our love and appreciation for having been born

[26:12]

I don't know Zen forms are not just rules and customs from Asia they're actually practices as all of you have been instructed we have a custom a tradition of bowing to our cushion before we sit down Now when you bow to your cushion, please pay attention to bowing. And when you bow, notice how you feel at that moment. Notice your attitude, your spirit, your intention. How is it with you in that moment when you're bowing to your cushion? If you bow and you notice that you're moaning and groaning inside, oh no, you know, it's going to be a rough 30 or 40 minutes on that little cushion.

[27:21]

So it would be a good idea to refresh your attitude when you make that bow. Put your mind and your whole heart into your body and remember that somebody built this zendo. And I remember when they were building it, a lot of people came from all over because the zendo had to be built in six weeks. People came, dropped everything they were doing, volunteered their labor to build this building. Remember that when you bow. Somebody had to make that cushion. you're going to sit on. Somebody made the clothes you're wearing. Somebody gave birth to you and nurtured you. Somebody founded Tassajara so you could do something, discover something.

[28:33]

That's all there when you bow your cushion. And you can think about that. And even if you don't think about it, and you don't need to have a little checklist of all the things you're supposed to think about while you're bowing, that would be pretty impractical. But have all that be present in you somehow when you bow. And suffuse all that through your whole body. So that you're not just in your head with the usual semi-absent vagueness. But you're really bowing to that cushion. And you're really going to sit there and pay attention. And then sit down carefully. And feel what it feels like to be sitting there.

[29:43]

Lift up. Be uplifted. Feel the life force in you lifting your body up from within. So sometimes the posture is presented as if it were an imposition by the will on the body from the outside. But no. It's the body from the inside finding its own spirit. Let that happen. don't prevent it feel the Earth's support beneath you and just like Dogen says you know rock back and forth from side to side and from front to back and settle yourself on yourself then find your breathing in your belly Breathe naturally in and out of your nostrils.

[30:49]

And settle yourself on your breathing. And try to completely enter each moment of breathing without holding anything back and without adding anything extra to it. Just be alive. Completely alive. in that moment give yourself to your life the Zen teachers were right this is such a simple clear practice we have and we have such simple clear lives it is so simple We live. We suffer. Sometimes we're happy.

[31:55]

We try our best. And we die. That's pretty simple. Somehow we contrive to make it all seem very, very complicated and very, very dramatic. but really it's not it's all very quiet and very beautiful everybody in this room is fortunate to be a human being we're lucky to have found one another fellow wanderers in vast dark space with only each other for companionship it's a joy to practice together there's a lot to be grateful for so thank you all very much for listening to my talk thanks to all the people in my retreats this week who've been so kind and so much fun to be with

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Thanks for taking care of Tassahara, all of you, and supporting it so that it can survive another day, another week, another decade. There are lots of Zen places. Well, relatively speaking. But this place is unique. The Zen Center, it really is unique. thanks for supporting it, keeping it going. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information,

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Visit sfzc.org and click Giving.

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