This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Beginner's Mind Temple. My name is Shundo. It's wonderful to be here on this beautiful San Francisco morning, which is very warm in the home. Building smells of garlic, it's amazing. So welcome everyone in the room, welcome to everyone who's watching online, and welcome to everyone who's watching a recording at some future time, which makes this their present moment as well. So please, who is here for the first time in the building? Oh goodness, so many of you. Well welcome. This is called Beginner's Mind Temple for a reason, so if you have no idea what's going on, that's just fine. And I just want to say, you never know what's going to happen.

[01:02]

So 27 years ago, I happened to come to this building to meet someone by chance. And now look at me. Here I am sitting here. So I've just finished a process called Dharma Transmission, which some of you may know about. And it's very traditional to give a talk right after that process is finished. I'm very grateful that it actually took three weeks to get me on the schedule because it meant that my knees have recovered a little bit from all the prostrations that I was doing. And everyone who's been through this process has given a talk, and I encourage you to go to the Zen Center talk archive, which is one of the things I helped to maintain. And you can find talks given by people, including our central advert. I had a look at that one the other day, remembering Darlene Cohen. And you can hear what people have to say about this particular process. I'm going to share some of my thoughts about it. And I have a lot of people to thank.

[02:05]

We always talk by thanking people. My list starts Bibashi Butsu Daesho, Shiki Butsu Daesho, Bishyafu Butsu Daesho, the very ancient Buddhas before the historical Buddha. But more seriously, I want to thank Tim for helping with the microphone, if nothing else. Also for helping get these robes finished on time. And thank you to Abbot David for fitting me into the schedule. I know I'm intruding on a practice period, so I will try to say something about the parameters, or at least one parameter, I think. And there are any number of teachers from Bebashi Butsu right down to the present day who I can express my gratitude towards. Maybe I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute, but also thanking everyone in the temple, everyone in the temple here today, the people who come on Saturdays to do all the roles, many of whom have been doing this for as long as I've been coming here, which is more than a quarter of a century. The people who are in residence, the people who helped me every day to do the different ceremonies I had to do, getting up early in the morning before the wake-up bell, which is pretty early.

[03:18]

helping ring the bells, helping put out the mats, helping offer the incense. But even the people that just were cooking or cleaning, doing all the other things that happen in this sangha to create this container of practice, this container of practice that we're all swimming in right now, this beautiful space, this beautiful energy, this beautiful practice that we create together. And we're all creating this together right now, today. I look around the room and I see many people I know from many times. And it's very encouraging. And people I don't know yet, which is also very encouraging. So we're sharing this practice space and time. Also, a couple of extra thank yous. I started the GoFundMe because I wasn't able to work for three weeks. And I wanted to help offset some of the costs of that and cost of donations. And I had many benefactors. My main benefactor is actually sitting in the room, so I'm not going to embarrass them.

[04:19]

But I'm so deeply grateful for the people who financially supported me. There's also somebody in this room who lent me their koromo, which is this black outer robe. So on my ordination day 17 and a half years ago, Paul, who was my ordination teacher, kind of fingered this fabric and said, hmm, it's a plastic bag. And it's a beautiful robe, but it really doesn't do very well in the heat. with all the prostrations that I was doing, and I started doing them on the hottest day that we'd had in two years, I was, you know, overheating a lot. And so I was asking if there was a spare, you know, old koromo somewhere in a cupboard, you know, that I could maybe sweat less in. And somebody offered me their brand new from Japan, had not come out of the box, but still pinned and basted into place koromo to wear, which is incredible generosity. And so this generosity that I've been the recipient of, I want to acknowledge.

[05:21]

And I was thinking of gratitude being this kind of very closely connected with generosity. The open hand of giving. The open hand of the perfection of giving. And I feel very strongly that I have been the recipient of so much generosity during this process, during my 27 years of being associated with Zen Center. I want to appreciate that and express that appreciation. And I know, you know, anytime people talk about the perfection of anything, perfection of generosity, you know, there's a little voice in my head that goes, wait a minute, I can't even do the imperfection of generosity. I can't even do the imperfection of wisdom. What are we talking about here? But this practice asks us and invites us to go beyond that. to go beyond our limited ways of thinking, and that we ourselves, everyone else, and this moment that we're all living is much more than we're ever going to think of or ever going to know about or have stories or opinions about.

[06:31]

Excuse me, I did also want to say in the introductions, when Tim offered me this date on the calendar, I said, that's great, and I have a wedding to officiate in the afternoon. So, unfortunately, there won't be a question and answer this time. If I stop talking relatively soon, maybe we'll have a chance for one or two questions in here, but I do have to get out of town, and the 101 is closed, and there's a Mo Kings rally that's going to be assembling just south of here, so I'm hoping a quick getaway after this. So I want to read a quote by Dogen. Dogen is the Japanese founder of this lineage, this tradition that we practice in. And we do very much in accord with how Dogen talked about things, and that was in the 1200s, the first half of the 13th century. And this particular quote actually comes from a chapter that he wrote in his major work, the Shobo Genzo, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. And this actually informs one of the ceremonies that we do every day because it starts with this quote and it has all the list of ancestors and then it finishes with the quote.

[07:55]

And this quote, which I got to say as part of the ceremony every day for three weeks, is now actualizing the Buddha ancestors means to bring them forth and look at them respectfully. It is not limited to the Buddhas of past, present, and future. But it is going beyond Buddhas who are going beyond themselves. It is taking up those who have maintained the face and eye of Buddha ancestors, formally bowing and meeting them. They have manifested the virtue of the Buddha ancestors, dwelt in it and actualized it in the body. So this is something, you know, when you say it, I felt when I was saying it, I was invoking. You know, these Buddha ancestors, you know, going back, Bibashi Butsu, Shiki Butsu, Bishapha Butsu, all these Buddhas, before the historical Buddha lived two and a half thousand years ago, and every single Buddha in between, every single ancestor in between. And there are some very familiar Dogen words for those who know Dogen.

[09:02]

I'm actualizing, manifesting, I'm going beyond. So these are kind of two things. Manifesting and actualizing means to bring this practice, this practice that has been maintained for thousands of years and is now spreading to the West. Bring this practice into this present moment. And it also talks about going beyond this present moment, going beyond this imperfection of wisdom or the self-doubting. Oh, I can't do that. Into this space where everything like that is possible. So I want to talk a little bit about the daily ceremonies because they kind of speak to this in a certain way. So early in the morning, you say it was 4.30 most mornings and most days of the week. You get up and you do what's called a jundo, which is going around to the different altars in the building, starting right here. They've taken down the two figures, but you do prostrations to Shaakimuni.

[10:04]

You do prostrations to Bodhidharma, the first ancestor in China who came from India, around about 500 or 600. And he may or may not have existed as a real person. But symbolically, he's the first ancestor in China. And another bodhisattva, somebody, the guardian of the practice, Daigenciuri. And then you go around the building, making offerings to other teachers. So in the Kaisando, the Founders Hall, on the second floor at the top of the stairs, which on the right is the room that Suzuki Roshi died in, is that right? He was there last week. Right, okay. Yeah, so that's when Suzuki Roshi stayed when he was dying in 1971 in this building. And there's a found us all to him, a memorial hall to him. And there you bow to Dogen and you bow to Suzuki Roshi. And I was thinking of the line in every month we do a memorial on the third and the fourth for the death of Suzuki Roshi to remember him and bring him alive. And in the dedication...

[11:05]

that we do after the chant. When we do a chant, we always dedicate the merit of that chant to other beings. We're dedicating it to Him, and it says, May our life reveal their compassion. Let us honor their true being. Again, these are words that sometimes you can skate over. May our life reveal their compassion. Let us honor their true being. So this true being is not this deluded, simple self that thinks it can't do anything. The true being is the person beyond space and time, the person that connects with this awakening that we trust the historical Buddha had. And it's this same awakening that we're practicing right now, when we manifest the practice, when we actualize the practice. This is why these words are so important. It's not a theoretical thing. It's something that happens right here, right now, between all of us. And then there are other boughs and other prostrations in different parts of the temple, just to connect the whole temple together, to acknowledge, in this case, in my own practice, how all these different parts, the kitchen, the dining room, the bathroom, they're all a part of this practice, not just the zendo, not just the Buddha hall.

[12:26]

And then, after breakfast, there's a personal service, which I do in my room. And there, again, different chants, different dedications. And there were two sets of dedications. So in our main chanting of the lineage of ancestors, which happens in the next ceremony, we stop at Suzuki Roshi. And he was the founder of these temples. And then in this ceremony, I go the next four generations. Orietsu Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi's son. Sojin Mel Weitzman, the founder of Berkeley Zen Center. He's my dharma great-grandfather. Ryushin Zendo, right here, Ponghala, my ordination teacher. Anshin Daegi, Zachary Smith, who I don't think is here because he's not being well. It's my Dharma Transmission teacher, my Hon Shi. And then there's also a place to acknowledge other teachers, not just the direct lineage, but other teachers who have been important in your practice. In my case, I chose another four. Setsuan Galen Godwin, the abbot now of Houston Zen Center, who gave me lay ordination in this room

[13:36]

22 years ago, and gave me the name Shundo. And Zenke Blanche Hartman, who was the abbess in this temple when I first arrived in 2000, and who influenced me enormously, not just in what she said from the teaching seat, but how she lived in this building, how she conducted herself, how she manifested the practice in every activity, and her husband, Lou, as well. and the way he would take care of everything, the way he would fold the newspapers in the morning. Also, Myogen Steve Stokey, former abbot of this temple, the Zen center, who died 13 years ago. And I was the Shuso, the head monk, with him in Tassajara. And again, he taught me a lot about practicing in his way, learning how he manifested the practice. Also, Adrian Linda Cutts, senior Dharma teacher for Ambus at Green Gulch in Central Ambus.

[14:40]

I did three training periods with her at Tassahara, and she was a big influence, and I went to her many times for advice. And then the third of the morning ceremonies after the Jundo going around the temple, up this personal service, it's called the Bhusarai, bowing to all the Buddhas. And that starts with the quote that I just read. And then you... do a prostration and offering to every single Buddha, male ancestor and female ancestor in our lineage. And the male ancestor is supposedly a continuous unbroken lineage. We think that historically this might not be exactly true. But we trust that this awakening that the Buddha expressed and spread has come through. And it's now coming through in this body, amazingly enough. And also the women ancestors. And as we say at the end, to all women teachers, the great women teachers, known and unknown, remembered through these names.

[15:43]

Because we know there were many important women teachers, but they did not necessarily get a look in in history. And we prostrate to them anyway. And so every day you say each name. And some of these names are familiar. Some of them are the maybe so great ancestors, the people you know the stories about. And some of them are maybe the less well-known. But each one of them, equally important in transmitting this practice to us right now. And so first of all, I was bowing every day to them. And then in the last week of the three weeks of ceremonies, you do a whole series of calligraphy where you're writing out this lineage in different ways. And so not only was I saying the name, but I was seeing the name. And then the next day when I was bowing, I was seeing the name that I had written. Feeling drawn into this web of practice. Drawn into this web of awakening in this body. And I say there are ancestors whose stories we know.

[16:46]

And in my time there are ancestors whose stories we know and remember. And it's strange sometimes which stories we remember. So when I first started practicing here, I remember one of the teachers, and I think she must have just gone through this Dharma transmission process herself, was sitting up on this seat, and she was saying, her teacher asked her, you know, what's your relation to the Buddhism ancestors? And she said something like, well, I don't really think about them that much. And I remember just being struck by that reply. Because obviously, in the Dharma transmission process, you have to think about them. You know, you're encouraged to think about them. You take your place among them. And so these stories, you know, resonate. I'm not quite sure if that teacher is still alive or not, but I doubt that she would imagine 25 years later that somebody would be telling that story on the Dharma seat. And so if you end up sitting here any time in the future, for those of you who are not yet empowered to do so, what stories will you tell?

[17:55]

Who will you be invoking? You know, the person I came to meet here 27 years ago could not have imagined, nor could I have imagined, that I'd be sitting up here one day. So we never know. And because I knew I was going to give a talk when this process was finished, I was writing down notes while I was here, thinking about what I might say. And one of the first things I wrote was, I feel like a fraud. And there are different ways for understanding that. I'm quite used to imposter syndrome. Right before I was giving a class, the last class I gave at San Francisco Center, I remember thinking, who am I to teach all this stuff? I don't know anything about it. And I know that there are some people who have found my practice over the years, because many years ago when I was a new priest, my behavior was not at the standard expected of priests.

[18:59]

And I caused harm to people. and people who I think still hold the opinions that maybe I don't deserve to be sitting on here in a robe like this. And if you don't know what this brown robe signifies, you just see somebody sitting on the Dharma seat and think, this person knows something, surely. And if you do know what the brown robe means, you're kind of thinking, this person must know something, surely. But then that feeling like a fraud is just part of my limited and imperfect understanding of who I am. And maybe some of these ancestors, maybe all of these ancestors that we invoke, felt like that at some point. We all have these limited ideas about ourselves which are not the truth. And another reason I kind of expressed that in my notes was

[20:01]

The amount of resistance I felt doing this process was quite extraordinary, really. Not just the getting up in the morning and being away from my lovely wife and lovely dog and my normal life for a few weeks. But the strenuous practice I was doing, I think I counted more than 200 prostrations every morning. And I certainly wasn't used to that. And I'm relatively fit and active, but I know it's hard. I was talking with a Dharma sister who has not been able to sit cross-legged on a cushion since she went through that process. And I was speaking with another elder at Zen Center who said, yeah, when I was doing Dharma transmission, my teacher said, all these rites of passage have an element of ordeal in them, and we have to get through the ordeal. And so this resistance to just doing what was asked of me. Very interesting. And I know that resistance.

[21:04]

You know, when I lived here, you know, getting up every morning, sitting Zazen. When I lived at Tassajara, getting up every morning, even earlier, and sitting even more Zazen. And then doing Sashin's, these retreats, these Monte Day retreats, sitting even more Zazen. And I had a lot of resistance to that, quite often. But I stuck it out. And, you know, there are different reasons why I stuck it out. One is that I'd signed up to do it and nobody was forcing me to stay. And Zen is a very, in a sense, impersonal container for this. It's just like, here is the practice. There's nothing like, we're making you do this. Here's the practice. You can do it if you want. You don't have to, but you can do it if you want. But there's something else that happens when you meet that resistance, when you meet that difficulty, when you meet that ordeal, and keep going. I think the essence of practice is to keep going. Because I wrote down two things here.

[22:07]

The radiant light that follows. If you've done a multi-day retreat, or maybe in any other circumstance, you do something hot, and then when it stops, you're saying, wow, life is amazing. And zazen is a really great way to do that. It's to be in silence, to be still and silent. And even if it's physically uncomfortable, even if it's emotionally uncomfortable or, you know, psychically uncomfortable. You keep going and then at a certain point you're like, wow, okay, that stuff melted away. And what is left is this bright, radiant sunshine. And there's also, you know, a kind of resilience that, again, maybe we don't think we're capable of. You know, oh, I can't get through this. You know, the situations in all of our lives where we have to confront this when we're dealing with loss, dealing with grief we think i can't get through this and somehow we do and we did it in 2020 and we were faced with this you know unheard of pandemic the worst in 100 years like how are we going to get through this and we did so we can always do more than we think we're capable of and can we be generous with our own capacity

[23:28]

So I'm not saying that I'm not a fraud, but I'm not going to be fooled or limited by that thought that maybe I am a fraud. Because another thing I wrote is that dharma transmission is not a cure for foibles. But every teacher is human and is manifesting a practice in their human way. Hopefully offering us glimpses of what it means to be a Buddha and an ancestor, what it means to manifest and actualize this practice. And these days, I don't live at the temple anymore. And a lot of my practice is outside. As it was before I came to Zen, a cross-country runner and a long-distance cyclist. And so that kind of sense of pushing myself came in those fields.

[24:38]

And how often I sit outside, just being present in more challenging circumstances than when you're sitting in a quiet zendo. But day-to-day practice is not really different. You know, whether you're working in the kitchen. I remember when I first lived here, I worked in the kitchen every day. And I didn't necessarily want to chop carrots and onions for hours on end. You know, there's a resistance that comes in there. But then you learn this is also the practice. This is no less a practice than sitting in the center. And if you ask me to summarize how I think of practice, I think of it as constantly... noticing whether we're opening or closing to a situation. Because we start to feel that at a certain point, and Dan and I alternate between leading the Thursday evening online Zazen group, Zazen discussion, and I was talking about how you have to kind of rush from work to get home in time to lead to 5.30, and how, you know, when...

[25:54]

My boss, who may be listening, Charlie, is wanting to talk to me. I'm going to open to talking. And then at a certain point, I can feel like I've got to leave now. I've got to leave if I want to get back on time. And just feeling that kind of tightness that comes, just in a very, very minor situation. But we can feel that at any moment. And Zazen is a great practice for starting to notice that. When we give our wholehearted attention to the present moment, which is what we're... always invited to do in Zazen. We start to be able to do that in the moments when more is happening. Like, oh, yeah, I'm starting to feel a little tight around that. Oh, yeah, there's that closing off. And we can do it with any situation, any person we encounter. Do I feel open to them? Am I closing up? Why am I closing up right now? This is one of my early... experience of this was at Tassajara with somebody I noticed I was avoiding because I didn't want to interact with them. It's like, why am I doing that?

[26:56]

What's going on here? And so when I opened up in that situation, I ended up having a conversation with them. And I don't necessarily like them anymore afterwards, but at least there's the opportunity for meeting in that moment. And that's what this practice is all about, because if we close up, if we start thinking, no, I don't want to do this. I always talk about it as putting blinkers on. We're putting our own blinkers on. I'm wrapped up in my own story here. I don't want to deal with anybody else. But we know, because we know it from experience, that when we do open up and go beyond ourselves a little bit, go beyond our own story, go beyond our feeling, oh, I'm capable of this, I'm not capable of that, something else happens. This idea that when we connect with other people, we really do make a difference in the world. And we're opening to the limitless generosity of the work. There's another quote I wanted to share, which again also came from a Dogen piece of writing, but he's quoting an earlier story.

[28:06]

And this is Yao Shan. And again, if you want to place Yao Shan in this list of ancestors, he's right after the sixth patriarch in China. And the sixth patriarch is sixth after Bodhidharma. So Yao Shan asked Novice Gao, did you get it by reading a sutra or from personal guidance? Gao said, I didn't get it by reading a sutra or from personal guidance. Yao Shan said, there are many who don't read a sutra or receive personal guidance. How come they don't get it? And Gao said, I can't say they don't get it. Perhaps they don't want to hit the mark. And there's another translation of that last answer. I do not say there without it. It's just that they do not dare to experience it directly. So there's a lot to unpack here. So Yao Shan perhaps recognizes Gao's awakening.

[29:12]

How did you get this awakening? Did you get awakened by reading a sutra or by being helped by a teacher? And Gao said, no, I didn't get it by reading a sutra or from personal guidance. And this answer points to the fact that what we're talking about here is not something you get from outside. Even though we're talking about transmission, like if you think about the word transmission, it's going from one thing to another thing, from the teacher to the disciple. That's one level. On another level, nothing is transmitted. The teacher is trusting that you are awakened to this yourself. So if you don't get it from reading a sutra or from personal guidance, people who've never read a sutra or talked to a teacher, why don't they get it? And this point is that everyone has this potential for awakening. Every single person has this potential. And again, we might look at some people and think, not them, mm-mm.

[30:15]

I'm reminded of a wonderful person. I think it's Tassajar currently. He wrote a song. He said, may all beings be happy except you. And that's an impulse we have. Like, oh, no, no, not those people. Not those people. But everyone has this possibility. Now, where do we get it from? We don't get it from anywhere else. And so I can't say they don't get it. Perhaps they don't want to hit the mark. So for me, this is about, or experience it directly, it's that being willing to go inside and look at that stuff. Being willing to say, why do I feel like a fraud? Why do some people think I don't deserve to be sitting in this seat in a brown robe? What's going on? And being willing to investigate that non-judgmentally, which again is something that Zazen encourages for us. It's not that they don't get it, perhaps they don't want to hit the mark.

[31:30]

Do we want to hit the mark? What is the mark that we hit? What is it anyway? I think it's this belief in our own natural awakening and the natural awakening of the whole world around us, which again we don't necessarily want to open up to. And I often think of the practice spirit I spent at Tassajara with Steve Stuckey when I was a head monk is being a little turning point in my practice because I was less focused on being in his ender and more focused on looking at the trees and who can say what it is about the trees at Tassajara but for me that was understanding you know in a different way how they're expressing their awakening moment by moment and this is something Dogen often talks about you know and other teachers talk about the insentient beings are always expressing the Dharma Maybe we can hear it, maybe we can't hear it, maybe we understand it, maybe we don't understand it, but we can join in. We can join in with this expression of awakening that is always happening in the perfect generosity of the world.

[32:32]

And so the Dharma Transmission Ceremony, it's an expression of trust from your teacher that if you don't have access to this, at least you're working on it. You're able to express it, able to say something about it, able to realize and manifest it, actualize it. And in doing so, we are connected with all Buddhas throughout space and time. And this connecting openly with others as we do in this practice place, as we do in the Sangha. Amazing things happen, and we just don't know which of these things will be of greatest benefit to people 25 years down the line. And Dan was sitting here on the seat three weeks ago, and he quoted another line from Dogen that, in fact, Listen to Dan's talk from three weeks ago because he's talking about all this stuff in a wonderfully slightly different way.

[33:48]

But he quoted this line from Dog and Light, Buddhas and ancestors of old were as we. We in the future shall be Buddhas and ancestors. And again, we might not believe this of ourselves. We might not believe this of the other Buddhas and ancestors. Did they think they were frauds? Do we think that in six or seven hundred years people will be invoking some of the stories that we tell from this Dharma seat? We don't know. We don't know what will get transmitted and what will be amplified. But when we do this particular process, but all of us, as we practice, we're vowing not to let it be cut off. This practice that Suzuki Roshi brought to us with incredible generosity, brought to us and established this Sangha 60 years ago, 60, 70 years ago. We're vowing for it not to be cut off. The Zen in the West is still pretty new. It may take different forms.

[34:51]

There may be fewer people sitting in these hot robes giving talks like this. But the practice will still be there. However it is that it manifests, the practice will be there. So can we do our part? And the Zen way is always talking about face-to-face transmission. You know, I'm looking at all your faces, you're looking at my face. Something is transmitted. We don't know what it is. But I look at many of these beautiful faces of people I've known for many, many years and something beautiful happens. We're accessing the awakening of the Buddhas throughout space and time. From Bibhashi Butsu to everybody here and back again. This is what the trust is. May our life reveal their compassion.

[35:59]

Let us honor their true being. We might have room for a question, if anyone... One question. Thank you, Tim. Who wants to be the lucky person to ask that question, or the unlucky person? How have you changed in the last 27 years? Probably in more ways than I can imagine. You know, these hairs would be gray for one thing. But it used to do with that opening. And for me, you know, in my life, not bringing the closing often looked like judgment.

[37:02]

You know, I was used to being on the receiving end of judgment, most of which was not kind judgment, but harsh judgment. And so that was, you know, I would... replay that back into the world. And when I came here, I noticed the difference between a lot of the ways of speaking, ways of relating that I grew up with in England don't really translate to Zen Center. So if I was trying to be sarcastic or kind of snappy with people living here, it didn't work. So that was a very quick lesson. That was one of my first lessons. Like, don't speak like you're used to speaking. Like, it doesn't land very well. And so that was a little part of the opening up. But really it's noticing how much I would close just out of self-protectiveness, fear, feeling like I was a fraud, whatever, and getting over that to a certain extent. Not always, but to a certain extent being able to get over that.

[38:04]

Thank you. 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, please visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[38:33]

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