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. Back last practice period when we were talking about this summer, at one point I said, well, I would like to give a class on the guidelines. And what I meant by that was I'd I'd like people to understand how the summer is practiced and what a wonderful place this is. And then the summer started and there were lots of classes and that was fine with me because I'm not all that fine with giving a class. And then suddenly I heard on Tuesday, I think, that there was no class this Thursday, our normal class day. And I thought, hmm. So in a way, I haven't done much preparation for this so-called class.

[01:01]

In another way, the preparation that I've done is to have been here for a number of years and to have some really deep feelings about what is the meaning of life at Tassajara. This was really Greg's title. And it illustrates quite nicely one of the points I want to make about Tassajara, so maybe I'll remember to come back to that. So I don't want to just talk about the guidelines, especially not in the way of, you know, follow this guideline, follow this guideline, follow this guideline. On the other hand, if there's time, I don't really have any idea how much I want to say, but if there's time later on, before 4.30, and you have questions about any part of the guidelines or any part of life here at Tassahara that you want to bring up, please feel free to do that. So I guess one way of jumping in is I feel like, as I said, I feel like Tassajara is really effective.

[02:05]

That's been my main, like, things happen at Tassajara. Things happen to people, people's internal structure happens here at Tassajara. I lived here for six years with Keith and both my girls were born when I was here. We were here for three years without them and then three years with them when Zen Center was doing an experiment of having a number of kids here. So we were really in the Zendo a lot because we shared it. And then went to Zen Center for nine years and then came back in 1990. Lived here for a year and a half. And then after that, since then, I've been doing this wonderful practice of being here about five days a week and out at Jamesburg two days a week. So I feel very grateful to have done that. And when I came back in 1990, it was after having been president at Zen Center and came back here right after it. So left the presidency and came back here. And my main feeling was, it's so effective.

[03:08]

Even after all those years of being here before and doing prostitution, pretty much not leaving. Now, I wasn't a town tripper. Some of those years, the guideline was do not leave for the whole year. And then when that wasn't the guideline, you would go out for vacations and things, but we didn't go out like to town. So there weren't really six years of being here, except for going out to have two children. That was a little bit cheating. And then I did sneak in some after they were born. So this effectiveness of Tassajara, partly I think indescribable like we want to put it into words because that's how our minds work and that's how we can feel some connection to it and feel some certainty that it's worthwhile and be sure this is the right decision to stay here to go whatever so we want to put it into words but I don't think that's really true to what's happening I feel like this is a body practice at a level that we can't even imagine

[04:17]

with our minds, we can't imagine, because our minds keep wanting to get in there and say, well, but it looks like this, and it looks like this, which is exactly what I'm doing today, trying to put some words to it. But I just want to say, as a disclaimer, that I think that's not really, but it's kind of at a level that we can't put into words. But to go ahead and try to put it into words, in fact, some kind of, you know, like very... structured words that really don't probably go natural going on, but I'll say for now, I think there are two ways that tasara is really effective. And they go together and they help each other. One is what we might call a kind of psychological level, where some people more than others, but basically all of us, really have this kind of fear, this unanswered question at the pit of our stomach of, am I okay?

[05:21]

Do I fit in? Is this my place? Is it really okay that I'm alive, given all the weird things I know about myself and I try to keep from sneaking out, but get noticed every once in a while? So I think that question is very deep in us and that Tosalval really addresses it in a way. And let me just name the other one and then come back to it. The other could be called a more spiritual level or higher level or something of dissolving this small self that you have. So the one is sort of building a self in a way, psychologically. It's like making us strong enough that we can... stand the dissolving of the self and that the dissolving of the self can happen in a healthy way instead of an unhealthy way and um i like what norman said last night the way he described it at one point in his talk last night is the expansion of the self rather than the dissolving of the self into nothing the dissolving of the self into this connection which goes back to do i fit in

[06:36]

So to go back to that for a minute, and how I think Tassajara functions in that way, and again, this is simplified, because that's the way my mind works, and also so I can talk to you about it. Richard Baker, who was my first teacher in the Abbotten Zen Center, once said, Sangha, the third treasure, the Sangha jewel, is a community where you don't have to be popular, where people don't actually even have to like you. It's a place where you fit in, where everybody has a place, a function. And I think tasars really like that. It's like people come, and unless it really doesn't work for them to be here in some kind of gross way, or they choose not to be here, we work it out. We find a place where each person can work and help support the community moving ahead.

[07:38]

And this is kind of like somewhere recently, and I'm forgetting around where, maybe it was in some class. Anyway, someone mentioned, what did they mention? There are at least three examples. There's the bed-making crew. Those of us who are available all go help cabins. There is the town trip truck unloading, when the town tripers be back there early enough that we can help them unload the truck. That's one of my favorite times. That's new. You know, we only started doing that a few years ago, but it's a great example of just everybody coming together and making something happen. Oh, and the one that they mentioned was the bringing the garbage and the recycling up. That was mentioned recently. I didn't say it. Show is class. Show is class, right. But that's a... really an enactment of Dharma, of how we all fit together and how every person, you know, if somebody can stand there and go like this, they're very useful in that chain.

[08:40]

And if they, you know, if they couldn't do that, if they like took it and dropped or something, we'd find some place where it did work for them to be. Imagine they could be, you know, like warning the guests the way. Don't come through here now. For your own sake, you might be picked up. So I think you probably all feel this to some extent. There's a way you can come to Tassajara. It's not like the question goes away. Do I fit in or do they like me? And in some ways it gets bigger. But there's a way that Tassajara addresses it. It takes us and makes us part of the fabric. I see this every spring when we come out of the practice period. You know, you come out of the practice period, it's been pretty intense, and then there's a summer, it is waiting. Waiting there. And all the little pieces, I mean, it starts just, you know, kind of slow away because of the work period and a way slower.

[09:48]

And you start doing the various pieces that are the summer. And sometimes you see it even more when you start the practice period because it's got more little pieces. Like suddenly at the end of the summer when we go into the practice period, somebody has to remember how to serve meals. It's a big deal. But basically, you just put people in these little slots, like you make somebody have cabins, and then you assign some people to work with them, and then it starts happening. You make somebody the head of the dining room, and they start looking at Well, what happens in the dining room? I guess we need bowls. Well, we better get some bowls from somewhere. And it starts to happen. And I think of it. It's like this big mandala starts turning. It starts going very slowly. I push it at certain parts. I say, okay, now you have to send the linen out to be... The countervers are going to pick it up today. And there's all these little pieces that go together. One of them is... One that I always miss that I'm experiencing a little bit today, Judith is helping because if I'm the acting Eno, like this morning, standing there telling people where to sit, I can do that part pretty well.

[10:59]

But then it comes to be like noon, lunch starts to happen. Lunch happening here is a very complicated thing of many, many little pieces. First of all, the kitchen's been working away, but they're doing that. Pretty much that happens every day. Kitchen's working, they're getting lunch ready. But then, when it gets to be almost time to eat, there's a series of things that happen. Noon service, which really no one notices if it doesn't happen. I've tried this. He has not forgotten it. There's the acting eno. There wasn't a tanto there saying, where are they? Noon service happens, and then the eno, or acting eno, finds a person, usually from the kitchen, to do the umpan, or from somewhere, to do the umpan. different ways, different subways, and the acting Eno goes into the kitchen and waits for the tray. So if you've got, or the Eno does that, but then if you've got an acting Eno and they forget, that's the point where they start to notice.

[12:02]

Like, where's the Eno? Who's supposed to be getting the tray? The meal can't happen. People are starting to gather. This whole event that this one little piece keeps from happening, and they have to go running around looking for somebody unless it's Judith, and she's right there, which is wonderful. So that whole, like, how each little piece actually makes all of Kasahara, I think we feel that in some way, even though we don't trust it totally. We don't trust that my piece makes a difference, and for good reason, because people are, as you may have noticed, are flowing through here. They come, they go, they come, they go, and it goes on, right? So does it really matter that I'm here, that you're here? In some way, no. It keeps flowing right along. On the other hand, that each one of us is here and doing our part completely makes Tassajara. And that being functional, being part of a functioning thing that's happening day after day, I think we feel it, we absorb it.

[13:10]

And it nourishes our sense of being part of the fabric of something. People have told me who come to Casa Hara for not so long, you know, some years ago, I've talked to them, and one person in particular said to me, I said to him, he was only here for like a couple years, and I said, was it beneficial to your life to come to Casa Hara for those couple years? And he said, I rejoined the human race, which was really, you know, touching, but this person who I could see had some difficulty with the human race, had felt he had rejoined it at Casa. Just another thought that I had back there in passing, part of the... I can't remember exactly how it fit in when I was thinking of it back then, but part of what brings up this whole psychological side of am I okay in such a strong way here, I think, is the way that

[14:13]

our work and family are brought together in a way that in a lot of our life we tend to keep it separate. You know, we're like, we go to work, we do work, and then we've got a family, and for each of us, those have slightly different importances, you know, and we work it out in our mind, like where we are something and where we're something else and what it means to us. Now, here it all gets meshed together and it can be psychologically a little difficult. It's like if we're competent at work but in our family we felt unseen or we weren't certain that some important family member was actually there for us, that can all sort of come bubbling, spurting up in our Tassajara work because in I think in us, psychologically, those are mixed together.

[15:15]

It really makes us more vulnerable in a way. In a good way. But sometimes a painful way. So let me check my notes. Not very dangerous. And see if I've forgotten anything on that. So then to move to the other way that Kalsara is really effective, this dissolving of the self, which is maybe in some ways even harder to accurately say anything about. I think that this first way, this experience of being

[16:15]

even though we might still have our questions about, do I really fit in? Am I doing a good job? Do they see that I'm doing a good job? Do they think I'm doing a bad job? Do they like me? All of that, even though certainly those questions are not answered, and they don't go away. Still, I think that there's some way that it's safe enough that we can begin to not necessarily consciously, but begin to settle into how little individual self we actually have. I've often felt like the practice periods are kind of like a cocoon. Maybe the first practice period is more than the others, but maybe not. Maybe it's just we stop noticing it as much. A cocoon where the schedule is the cocoon, And it kind of keeps us in place while we turn to mush inside.

[17:26]

So, you know, you wake up in the morning and you know where to go and what to put on and what you're supposed to do when you get there. And they feed you and that makes you look pretty sane. Whereas inside, you're losing track in a way of who you are. especially in the winter, where, you know, you can't remember, I mean, probably even now, you can't remember what day it is, really. So at some level, you know, we think, I'm a person who likes to have bagels on Sunday morning and read the New York Times or something like that. And then you come to Tassajara, and you don't get to choose what you have for breakfast, and you maybe once in a while get to see some newspaper somebody else brings here, and you have no idea what day it is, and it affects... That feeling that we, that endeavor that we're engaged in of making sure I am somebody. You know, I'm a person who likes to do this. And there's a way that that impulse comes from a very deep need to make sure I am somebody.

[18:34]

Because we're not so much somebody. When we are, we have our unique traits and our unique karmic you know we're each of us we are different but it's not set there's nothing there really to rely on because you know if you think i'm a happy person someday you wake up in a really really bad mood and it can be kind of disorienting or you think i'm really not a happy person and someday you wake up in a good mood or you think i'm so-and-so's wife And someday something happens. There's an accident or a divorce. So there are lots of normal things that really threaten our carefully constructed identity. And we can sense, whether we're thinking about it or not, that that's the truth. And beyond that, we can sense that we're going to die, which we mostly don't think about.

[19:39]

But we do put a lot of energy mostly unconsciously, I think, but somewhat consciously, and to say, no, well, this is who I am, I know who I am, and everything's fine here. So there's a way that this cocoon in the practice period that is very much the same in the summer, just maybe not quite as intense, although if it's new to you, it might be just as intense, makes it safe to let go of that a little bit. and gives you a setting where that has to happen to some extent. But probably very, very few people who are in this room would choose where they're living right now as their main house. Their main place where they would go to sleep, you know, is like at the loft at the lower bar. Is that anybody's dream? If you were making your life the way you wanted to, most of us would probably not choose something about our space at Tassajara.

[20:45]

It could be worse. It has been worse. We don't know how long. We used to walk and snow this deep. It was already this deep. That was on you. But the other way I was thinking of it, it could be worse, and maybe more effective, actually, is like in, I've heard, I haven't been to Japan, but I've heard in the training monasteries there, you don't have any private space. You, everybody sleeps in the zendo, and they have a cubby in a shared room where they keep their things, and you just follow the zendo. So, you know, You don't have the kind of breaks that we have here, you don't have the kind of personal days that we have here, and you don't have the kind of space, even if it's just like half of a redwood cabin or a cubby in the lower barn, or if you stick around on that, I'll eat the room.

[21:51]

And I think that really, from what I've heard, and actually, Keith, when he first went to Bringo, years ago, they did that. They lived in Mizendo. and had a, I forget what it was called, a room where the things were. And he said it was really hard, good practice, where you just, you have to give up some kind of search for, where am I going to find my personal space? And just find your personal space, you know, right here and right now. This is my personal space. It's happening now. And your personal space is happening now, mostly being filled up with my words, but you've got your own personal space going on. And your personal space, again, this body practice where life is happening for us. So I think a big part of the expansion of the self or the dissolving of the self happens because of meditation.

[22:58]

in some way that... No, let me take that back. I think the expansion of the self or the dissolving the self has already happened. That's actually how we are. We are totally connected to each other. And the little idea of self that we keep trying to keep together, the reason it makes us so nervous and sometimes defensive is that it's so fragile. So that's already the way it is. But for us to learn to trust it, learn to be able to live in that space where we don't have to get defensive if suddenly a new self has appeared. You know, like I go into the kitchen and expecting Romy to be my good friend who, you know, totally appreciates me. And I come up to her and say, you know, when she's the acting football team, I say, can I talk to you? somebody who had a kitchen crew, you know, and she... So then there's... What's really hard about that for me is there's a new me there.

[24:09]

There's, you know, I thought we had this thing happening that was pleasant and supportive, and suddenly she's under pressure from something, and it feels like, oh, she's attacking me, you know, and I'm whatever that brings up for me. So... To be able to experience that and not feel like that was wrong. We had a relationship, and now it's been destroyed by her bad mood. Or maybe it was something I did. To be able to just like, that happened. That's what's happening now, and it's not stuck. It doesn't mean that's what's going to happen next time, but it was a sign of something. Maybe we need to have a talk or... Maybe she's under too much pressure or, you know, to be able to just be there in that expanded self, the one that is, you know, able to actually be there with this surprising new development.

[25:11]

That's the, you know, that's this dissolving. So I lost my track there somewhere. So there's the fact that that's already happening and then there's what helps us trust it. and how does Tassajara effective in that way of helping us to trust that we are connected in that way, and sometimes it's a pleasant thing, sometimes it's not such a pleasant thing. So that, I don't know how Tassajara does that, I don't know exactly how meditation does that, but I see that it happens here, that people's capacity to stand their own responses, increases and that really I think I only think some of you've heard me talk before I've heard me say this I'm sure that our I believe our own responses are the hardest things for us it looks to us like it's somebody else you know like for me does that I feel bad but immediately I think it's her fault it happened you know I feel bad because she is like this but really what's hardest for me I believe is what's going on inside

[26:24]

And that's what we need to be able to be with. If we're going to actually live our life, we have to be able to be with whoever this comic body in mind turns out to be at each moment. And I don't think that's something that we can talk ourselves into. Like, that will be okay. Whoever I turn out to be in the next minute or the next year or whatever, it'll be just fine. Just don't worry. It's okay. I think we don't believe that. We can think of all kinds of things that we don't want to be, you know, like old, sick, dead, that are likely to happen. And then there are lots of other things along the way there. So if I tell myself, don't worry, that would be just fine. Just be calm. What are you talking about? it won't be alright. So I think we actually need to experience little bit by little bit that we live through these things.

[27:32]

And that's one thing that I think Zazen is about. As we sit there in Zazen, various parts or various cells happening. And, you know, life goes on and the period ends and you get up and walk away. And a lot of it you don't even remember, right? I have a terrible thought about this or that, or my knees hurt. But I think we actually absorb the experience of, okay, I had that feeling which I didn't want to have, and it was okay. We didn't die. And then we start to, with that little bit of base, that little bit of trust, and we walk around in a community where other people are doing the same thing, and we have... some experience, like I just described. Thank you for being part of my example. And it may take a few days to find out, was that all right?

[28:32]

What happened there? I feel terrible, terrible for two days. I think I can never go back in the kitchen again. And then various things might happen, like I might have asked mommy and it might have had nothing to do with me or A person might come and apologize to you, or you might forget about it, or something worse might happen. In various ways, we find out that, okay, that was all right. So this, I think, is an ever-expanding, a potentially ever-expanding island of trust in a sea of danger, you know, potential danger, that we can actually get to the place where we're walking around pretty much feeling safe, feeling trusted.

[29:33]

Even if the situation seems like, Judy, it's not going to be so pleasant. Maybe it's going to be really unpleasant. Maybe it's going to be painful. Maybe it's going to be scary. you can still stay with what's actually happening now. I think that happens pretty organically, just from sitting, and actually I imagine that most of you have experienced it to some extent from even just sitting a little bit, but certainly sitting as much as we do here in the summer, that there's some way that it's easier to be with ourselves, and what that often means is, if it's easier to be with ourselves, our fear goes down a little bit, and our defenses go down a little bit, and more comes up. Parts of ourself that we've been hoping not to see, and ever again, start to, and we, again, mostly unconsciously, but pretty intricately,

[30:42]

construct situations that start to bring up our worst fears. So that, I believe, we can expand this island of trust so we can find out, is that a safe thing to feel? If that's lurking in me and I spend a whole lot of energy trying not to feel it, something in us wants to be able to use that energy just to be available to life and wants to test Is this really as dangerous as it feels? And therefore, not only at Tassajara, but all over, we tend to remake the same difficult situations for ourselves again. And of course, we would do that here at Tassajara too, and we do. And often, we learn a little bit about who we are in that, and that it I've been searching for years for the right words for this, and I keep saying, it is okay to be who I am in that.

[31:43]

I don't know if that's quite the right words, but I feel like it actually, eventually we can find out it not only is okay, but it fits. It like fits in the mandale, it fits with the other people in the situation, somehow with what's going on with them. And there is this potential in a community that is practicing together and sometimes actually needs to talk about things, because things get difficult enough to find out that it actually just... We're all doing this together, even exploring our neuroses. So... Have you seen the culture with Paso Paulo change over the years? And I've heard some people comment that they used to be more macho or something in the early years.

[32:45]

And it softens, and sometimes people come here and think it's too much more. Well, it's definitely... When I first came, I was kind of at the edge. There were still a lot of people who... in the winter time really felt strongly about not wearing socks. I never went there. That seemed really crazy to me. So it wasn't like you couldn't wear socks, but there were a lot of people who didn't wear socks. And at that point, you know, the situation, as I said, is so much better now in some ways. Back then there wasn't any heat in the Zendo, so... In the winter, it was much colder, and in the summer, it was actually much hotter. So that was harder, and the schedule was harder. We didn't have as much break, either in the summer or the winter. We got up earlier in the summer, and we got up every day.

[33:49]

We did not sink in on our day off. And the center had some hard years, 84, 85. And those years, there weren't enough people here to, actually even before that, actually when breeding started, we started being understaffed at Tassahar. And so those years, we had days off. We got up in the morning, and then for a number, for a couple of summers, people were asked to work a couple of hours on their day off. There were other things that we did, which we later, by necessity, found out were not necessary. like they used to, the Firewatch used to sleep at the bathhouse, either at the bathhouse or at the gatehouse, which was out near the gate, which, you know, sleeping, anyway, wasn't nearly as restful. And the Jiki-dos used to clean the Zendo, so they'd be on their regular crew, they'd do their regular crew work, but each crew was a Jiki-do, and they'd go clean the Zendo on their day.

[34:54]

So we figured out some things that were, In some ways, this made sense to do it in an easier way, but in another way, it filled up the day more like this thing of living in the Zendo, where you didn't really have much space, much personal space that weren't the kind of breaks that there are now. We didn't have a Benji crew. We had a dishwasher who did the guest dishes, and then the students took turns to do the student dishes. And so there was a schedule of when you would do student dishes on your break. And then if somebody suddenly had to do a stage, then you had to find somebody. So all of a sudden, on your lunch break, we'd need to do student dishes. So things like that, surprises are really hard. Expectations are one of the hardest things. So if you think, I'm going to go lay down on my break. And then somebody comes and says, could you do that? So-and-so had to drive a stage out. Could you do that? lunch dishes today?

[35:55]

Now? It's hard to be just like, yes. You know, and that idea of just saying yes is certainly partisan practicing was here then and is here now, but there were, I think, more opportunities to practice it. So, yeah. So some things like that have changed. The feeling... There's, like, there also used to be a feeling that students and guests should not mix, and basically you were in one category or the other. We didn't have the guest practice category, and if you were here as a student, you did not, I mean, there were a few people like the Sheikah, and sometimes we had a guest liaison who would eat with the guests and maybe the director or something, but most people didn't eat in the dining room and didn't come as guests.

[36:58]

And if you came as a guest and then you wanted to be a student, you had to choose one or the other. You couldn't keep moving back and forth between those categories. And at some point, we needed more help. So somebody came up with the idea of guest practice people. So that was a wonderful, I think, a way for a number of guests who were very interested in what are we doing to get an experience of... They were always invited to Bizendo, but... not more than that, but I have an actual experience of student life. And a number of students had spouses or parents who were, you know, might be appropriate guests, and we wanted to encourage them to feel good about their people being here. And it used to be at Olive's End Center that if you were a serious end student, basically you left your life and went to work at the back of the bakery or came to Tassajara or something.

[37:59]

So that all changed and became, you know, it was fine to be a Zen student who, you know, worked at the Bank of America or wherever. So those people were coming as guests. And so that attitude about, however people saw that when it was separate. So it was maybe easier for people to, make a real separation there and not feel so good about the guests. Although, you know, it's pretty easy to not feel good about the guests now, if that's the mindset. If you're feeling like I'm full of something you need to do or you can feel like because of them I have to wash these dishes or something. So I didn't actually feel so separate. I mean, I didn't feel connected. I didn't feel like I knew them, but I didn't really feel separate. I felt, you know, we're all here doing this thing together. So was it more? It might have been more that way. Can you imagine guidelines at the beginning?

[39:00]

Could you say how they're going to work with them? Yeah, let's see if there's anything else. You talked a bit about how the schedule or the work practice, different aspects of that contribute. to our spiritual or psychological development kind of in this container. As you've seen the culture kind of change and there being more personal time sleeping in on days off, how have you seen that contribute? Yeah, how has that contributed to life here? Well, and one thing I think it's made it possible for more people to be, more different people to be here, like older people for one thing, When I first came, almost everyone was my age, which was 28. I mean, from 20 to 35 or something like that. Almost everybody. One of my good friends is 20 years older than I am, and she was a real anomaly.

[40:02]

I mean, she came to practice periods and it was really hard. I mean, she has her difficulties as a person, but... You know, she had dietary needs and heat needs and various things that were just, like, unheard of. She didn't have heat. She was the first, besides the abbot, to have heat at Tassahara. So I think it's expanded what's possible, actually, for people to do. And, you know, I think it is definitely possible, although it was also possible back then, to slough off some you know, to take advantage of whatever, you know, the ways that you can get out of following the schedule, basically. I mean, it comes down in a lot of ways the same thing now, isn't it? It's like, do you do it? Do you just do it? Or do you look for ways out of it? And there's a lot of internal pressure to...

[41:04]

And, you know, if you're like me, when you first come, it's like, no, I have to do it. I mean, they said do it, so of course you do it. Not go to service? Nobody thought. I didn't know people could do that, you know. But, you know, pretty soon you find out that actually you can do it. Something happens and you can't be there, and then you notice nobody came to talk to you. And so a lot of it has to do, you know, what's the attitude of the enum? the attitude and energy level. Do they have enough energy to notice that they're not here and go talk to them? Because it's a hard thing to do. It's hard to just keep doing this thing. Why are we doing that? One practice period, you've probably all heard of this, but one practice period, at the beginning of the practice period there was a meeting and some people started I wasn't here for the meeting. I was out. I was out on the weekend.

[42:06]

And when I came back, they told me this had happened. It was like huge shock. But so at the meeting, I'm not sure what happened. I think some people were sort of complaining about the schedule or something like that. And Rev said, you know, this isn't prison. You're here because you want it to come here. You want it to do. You want it to do. So I'd like us to. And the conversation went on a little while. And then he got to, OK. we're not going to have a tank in this practice period. You know, people are talking about the tank and comes and knocks on my door and I feel like I'm a teenager and there's my mother at the door. No, the tankins don't want to be doing that. They don't want to be the police. So we won't have a tankin. And you come to the center if you want to. And you're like, what? More than that. What do you mean? So basically that's what happened, that whole practice period. I mean, He asked the Shuso, do you want to ring a wake-up bell? She very... Of course, she did. Do the kitchen, do you want to go to the kitchen?

[43:08]

So people actually had to decide each... What do you mean by scoring that? What did you give? I read the Shuso's log. The Shuso was very upset. A lot of people were very upset. People who had been in the Zendo a lot stopped coming and then were like... It's your fault. This is the fault of this practice period. They are supporting me to come. I can't get out of bed now. Somebody's like taking your mane and watching for you and be there. So, you know, it's a mix. It is very supportive saying you need to be there and somebody's noticing whether you're there or not and somebody cares and might come ask you, are you going to be there? But also, it's a kind of childish, in a way. And again, the Tankens don't, or not in the summer, you know, and they have been on them, don't want to be the police.

[44:10]

But you want you to come there because you want to come there. And of course, you do want to go there, but not this morning. So, yeah. So I think, you know, there's more room if you want to take it, maybe. But maybe not. I mean, the schedule's still there. Yeah. And something like the... Yeah, it's like on my day off. I can still get up and go to the Zendo and, you know, see me fall. Yeah. Yeah. You can go to the Zendo then, or you can decide to sleep then, which is another wonderful thing. Sleep is a wonderful thing. And like the exercise period. We didn't used to have an exercise period. We had a bath time, but there's just enough time to get to the bath. Don't go there. There's so many stories. And then, you know, it's one point we put in an exercise period. That's really good, especially if you actually use it to exercise. And, you know, some people don't use it to exercise. They use it to nap. Well, that might be good, too. They use the whole period to exercise and not to date. Not to date.

[45:12]

That will probably get talked to. So, yeah. It really does come back a lot to... I don't know, this confusing thing of... In a way, I'm very grateful I was here back then, and that I was uncreative enough to know that maybe you could get around it. Because there was a way that I just had to, just like, do it. And the feeling, I can't do this, certainly came up. Just like it does now. For me, I can't do it. I can't go through another period of anxiety. Like that feeling came up for me pretty much every period of sozzling for a long time. Somewhere after about 30 minutes, the last 10 minutes, never. I am done. This is terrible. And then, you know, you get up, and then you go out, and you forget. But I think it was, there was something very helpful for me about just do the schedule.

[46:20]

I'll just do the schedule. And in fact, that's now what makes it work for me, this weird thing I do, going out to Jamesburg and back. You know, you come in, what's going on here? And something like this meeting happened, you know, and meetings like that happen regularly in the practice group, but also in the summit. Like, you've had a lot of meetings that I've missed, and they've had a big impact on the community. And I come back and think, oh, everybody knows this thing happened, and I wasn't here. hmm, maybe I don't fit in here or something. But what I found is you just start doing the schedule, you know, and you become part of it again very quickly. You just step in wherever it's at, do what's there, and you're part of the fabric. Since the very beginning, we've had guest season. People, we used to come here when it was a spa, asked her to be Roshi, can we please don't come?

[47:20]

He said, that can be our takahatsu, or asking the community for support. Always like guests. And the guests come here, and they pick up on just something that you're talking about that's not really describable. I feel very strongly they pick up on that, too, and that's a big part of the attraction of Tassahara for the guests. But I was wondering what you think. What is the guess practice? What is the practice that you guess? Feet. I think one of the most important things that we do, and I know it's a question, is kerosene lamps. It's a question because it'd be really nice not to be using kerosene, and it's a fire danger. But I think that's one of the major things that changes their mindset. There's not to be able to walk in the room and flip on a light switch.

[48:22]

Nowadays, you know, being gone from just the media and the electronic things and hopefully cell phones never start to work at Pasohara, that's really important for them. And a lot of them do. They come and they go immediately to bed. They're just, nah. That's what's applied around here, I think. So I think that's That's the required practice for the guests. And then the guests are very different. A lot of the guests now, they're varied. A lot of them, this is their church, this is their community. They come every year and really touch base with their practice. And they are practicing. And then they, of course, support us. And they become part of the fabric while they're here. So whatever that... This one elderly, more elderly than me, a woman came a few years ago, and it was her first time here, and she was having a hard time.

[49:24]

For some reason, I was in her room with her, and she said to me, where do you get these people? Where do you get these people, the people who are still working? Where do you get them? Well, they're just posted, and they kind of went down. Yes, they are wonderful, but you know, they're not all that wonderful. They're pretty much regular people. Yeah, Jess. I just hear about the experimental period of having children to talk about. Yeah. By the time, did you just want to talk a little bit about the impact or what we thought? It was wonderful. For me, it was wonderful. For the kids, it was wonderful if you ask any of them and they know a bunch of them. For us as parents, it was a way that we could practice while we had young children all together.

[50:26]

And one of the big factors in how it worked was that there were numerous single parents. In fact, I think that's part of why Dick or She did it, was because there were three or four single parents at Zen Center, whose children were very small, who, you know, they couldn't really figure out how to have them at the city center, and we didn't have, we did have Green Dolch, yeah, or Green Dolch. Because single parent health care takes a lot of effort to take care of the kid, and how are you going to participate in Zen or work and stuff. But down here, we just sort of did it together. So, you know, it wasn't like the kids went off and lived with, somebody else, except during Sashim, then like two people would be assigned to take care of kids. Still, they slept in there when it was made. So anyway, there was a real mutuality that happened there. And I think for the community of Pasajara, it was mixed. I think it was wonderful.

[51:26]

It's the same as now, like at City Center, Bonamales, Woodboy Key, those in the City Center, I think people would say it brings out something, you know, especially people who haven't had that much contact with little kids, you know, really, not in everybody, some people just want distance from it, you know. Norman was saying last night, go get yourself a kid to relate to it. Some people don't want it. I don't want it. But for some people, you know, they really, like, lost something. It brings out a whole other part of them, and it felt to me, when it happened at the city center, back then and also down here that it not just broadened the community, you know, made it more inclusive of more of the spectrum of life. But it did have, you know, it had an impact. It's like you'd be sitting in the Zendo and you'd hear these kids coming to lunch in the dining room. You'd be having lunch in the Zendo.

[52:28]

The kids would be coming and you'd hear all this. Which, I mean, you can handle that. That's how we're some blue jays. And in the summer, you know, there were kids, but they didn't live around the guests so much, and they weren't in the dining room, weren't in the bathhouse when the guests were there. So I think they've... Anyway, I'm prejudiced. I thought it was great, and I'm sure some people are really happy to never have it happen. So it's almost 4.30. I just... come back to Judith's question, which obviously we're not going to have time to talk about now, but let's say I, you know, I think really of the guidelines, really there's only two that are any problem at all. I mean, somebody might have some problem with not singing. Or a certain moment you might have a problem with not singing. And we could talk about it if we had more time. And if it turns out there's another Thursday that doesn't have any new schedule, maybe we'll do another one, but, you know, what

[53:30]

why would we ask people not to sing? Or somebody you might have, I don't know, what's another one you might have a problem with? But anyway, the two that you might very well have a problem with are following the schedule completely and not getting into a new sexual relationship. Those two, it seems to me, are hard for a lot of people. So today I've mostly talked about following the schedule completely. essentially, and I can talk about the other for another hour probably, but not today. So, if, so, we have another minute. If anyone has any particular questions about the guidelines, or a guideline. Don't turn the other side. Then maybe we'll end right now. Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[54:51]

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