This podcast is offered by San Francisco's Zen Center on the web at sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Hi. Welcome to this Wednesday night talk at San Francisco's Zen Center. And I guess every talk is a special talk. This talk is made special uniquely by the fact that it's part of a series where Rosalie Curtis, thank you Rosalie, invited the officers of San Francisco Zen Center to speak about their position. And hopefully also to express how their work, their job, their work practice is informed, shaped, and affected by Zen practice.

[01:04]

So, first let me say, my name is Jordan Thorne. Jordan Thorne. And I'm a priest here at the Zen Center. I'm a resident here, but I live actually at 340 Page. And I'm the treasurer of San Francisco Zen Center. I say treasurer because I think that's actually a gentler word, but actually my title is CFO, Chief Financial Officer, which always strikes me somewhat odd for a Zen temple to have a CFO. But nonetheless, we have articles of incorporation and bylaws, and they describe that the Zen Center shall have a California religious group nonprofit corporation shall have a chief financial officer, and I'm that person. We also have a president and a vice president who has responsibility for fundraising.

[02:07]

We have a corporate secretary plus myself. That makes the four officers. And last week, Susan O'Connell, who's the vice president and fundraiser for Zen Center, spoke. And after this Wednesday, there'll be a kind of hiatus because of the practice period, which starts this weekend. But then when it's concluded, this kind of rotation of officers speaking will continue. So stay tuned. After I was invited by Rosalie to... to do this sort of talk with a topic. It's been on my mind a little bit.

[03:07]

And one thing I thought was, boy, it could be really boring to hear the treasurer talk about his job. But maybe it wouldn't be boring. But I worried a little bit could be. And trying to understand how I wanted to talk about my work practice and my relationship to this current position that I have, I realized that actually what I wanted to say was something a little longer term about myself. We have a tradition here at the Zen Center, and I'm sure it's not just our tradition, but of people offering what's called way-seeking mind talks. A way-seeking mind talk is where you describe what brought you to this moment, what brought you to this place, what were the... Well, it's uniquely and specifically, generally, about what brought you to practice. And what I thought I wanted to do, what I will do, is offer you all my way-seeking mind story using the jobs I've held.

[04:19]

Or... a number of them, some of them, like a list of them. And I'm going to end by talking about the current job I hold, treasurer of Zen Center. But let me begin by saying I was born in 1953 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And when I was 13, I got my first job. I had a paper route for the Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel. And I had a bicycle. I drove my bicycle in the neighborhood of where I lived, and I threw papers under the porches of homes nearby. This was a real education for me, kind of almost a little shy. Actually, the first job I had

[05:22]

was that I was the son of my parents. And for that I got an allowance. I recall 50 cents. Might have been... You have to adjust for inflation. But I received an allowance just by dint of being kind of like living there at home. And at some point... Just about exactly when I became a teenager, this allowance was vastly inadequate to what I perceived as my needs. So I got this paper route job. When you're 13 with a bike, you can have a paper route back in those days. Maybe these days you need a van or something. But it was a shock to me to realize, though I even knew it ahead of time, that this happens seven days a week. Christmas morning, paper goes out.

[06:25]

Sunday morning, paper goes out. Rainy morning, paper goes out. Every day, at some point before I woke, there'd be a bundle of papers put on the driveway of my home, and I would maybe at 5.30 or 6 go out and I'd carry them up to the garage, open them up, assemble them, put a paper band around them, or in a plastic bag, then I'd put them on my bicycle, and I'd go off on my route. I remember Florida, South Florida, is in the tropical storm zone, and it rained open. And on some very rare occasions, my mother would drive the paper route with me. And I'd be in the back seat of the car with the window down, and I'd throw the papers out as she drove the paper out. But that was an exception. If you think of delivering the paper, mostly what you think of is this thing that happens where the paper is delivered, but also at that time I had to collect for the papers.

[07:31]

I had a big metal spindle with stiff cardboard name tags that had the address and name of everybody, and how much they owed, if there was seven days a week or a weekend only, and a little clipper, and I would go and knock on people's doors and collect for the paper route. And that happened in the evening time. And there was a real incentive to do the collection process because that's where I got paid in that money. I had to pay for the papers, and if I didn't collect, it became awkward quickly. I'm not going to just kind of go on about each job in between then and now, but reflecting on this talk, I suddenly remembered, I remember the kind of charm I felt of owning the streets at 6 a.m., you know, and throwing the paper so accurately, it would just land where it needed to, and then swooping and heading to the next house address on my list.

[08:39]

When I became 16, or 17, I gave the paper route up and I took a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant on the ocean in Fort Lauderdale. And then, after a while, I was just a high school student, which was a sort of work in itself. And then when I finished high school, I very clearly did not want to go to college. I wanted to leave Florida and leave living with my parents, and I wanted to come to California for reasons that I didn't know what they were, but they were deep in me. I wanted to move to the West Coast, and I moved to San Francisco. And I had no personal family resources that were supporting me. So I moved to San Francisco, and I got a job driving a delivery truck for a printing company.

[09:50]

And lived in the Mission District, which at that point was just a very inexpensive place to live, and supported myself in a kind of lonely fashion. driving a delivery truck, living in San Francisco, and wondering what I was doing. I discovered one possibility when I was 20 years old and I attended a poetry reading here at the San Francisco Zen Center. And the poetry reading was actually just an excuse for for me to come here, because I was curious about the place anyway, but I wasn't willing to acknowledge that I was interested in Buddhism, but I thought that I could go to a poetry reading. And so I came to the Zen Center, first for this event, and then for Zazen Instruction, and then I quit my job, and I moved to, I think, 253 Laguna, right where there's a kind of hair salon at the corner,

[11:05]

right around the corner from it. And I lived in an apartment there for a while while I went to City College of San Francisco. And I lived off of savings from my delivery truck job. It was kind of like a treat to not have to work, I have to say. And I lived around the corner from the Zen Center, but not because around the corner was just a nice place to live, but because it was around the corner from the Zen Center. I moved to this neighborhood because I wanted to be near to it so that I could come to morning zazen. And it was then that I got my first job at San Francisco Zen Center. I was the morning door watch. And I was proud of myself. watching out, making sure that no shenanigans entered the building.

[12:07]

The neighborhood was a little more sketchy at that point. And Door Watch really had a feeling that you were kind of like on alert. You were like the border guard. I met folks at the Zen Center and I moved into the Zen Center to live here. And then I realized after, and I was 20 years old at that time. I was 20 years old when I moved into the Zen Center. And at some point, I started to get in my mind the idea that it would be a good thing to go to Tasahara. But at that time, I don't think they had as clearly articulated a way that you could go and work in the summer and then earned practice periods. I felt like I understood that I had to save money in order to go to Tassar, which is still true, to save money to go to Tassar.

[13:11]

So I got another job. I worked as a mail clerk at a stock brokerage firm on Montgomery Street. And one of the reasons that I did this job was because a friend of mine named Robert Lytle, and some folks might know Robert, I'm sure. Rosalie knows Robert, and Blanche remembers Robert. He was a very warm-hearted, good soul, and he was working at this company and suggested that I could get a job there, and I did. So I worked in the financial district for about a year and a half, until I was 22, getting really on there. At which point... I quit my job and moved to Tassajara. When I moved to Tassajara, it was the beginning of the summer.

[14:18]

And, of course, I moved there for various highfalutin reasons of spiritual aspiration, desire, intention to wake up, romantic ideas about what it would mean to live at Tassajar, this Zen monastery in the mountains, which I had never been to before the moment that I moved there. But actually, when I arrived, the first thing I found out was that I had a job. And my job was I was dishwasher for the summer season. They have a dish shack now. and they have Hobart, they have an electrified dishwashing machine. But at that time, the dishwashing area was in the kitchen, and it had several sinks, immersion sinks, ending in one that had a big gas flame underneath it that you turned on at the beginning of your shift, and you essentially boiled the water that was next to where you were working washing, and you would plunge the...

[15:28]

dishes from one rack, from one to another, and then you would drop it into this boiling kettle that was 18 inches away from you for several hours as you worked doing the rest of the dishes. And it was kind of like that. Hell. But I didn't realize that because I was so happy. I was so happy. Tassajara is a beautiful place. I felt like I had said yes to something. And the dish shift only lasted a couple of hours, each one. And the rest of the day was beautiful for me. It was when I arrived at Tassajara that I first heard about something called Work practice. I knew about work.

[16:29]

I kind of heard about practice. I think practice being the cultivation of the Dharma. But putting the two of them together, work practice, was something that was, well, that I learned about and that I felt. But I didn't learn about it because there was like a manual. There was no instruction book. I learned about it because I felt like I was in the midst of it. It was actually kind of, if you asked questions about it, well, I didn't ask any questions. I just did it. I said yes. You know, in Buddhism, there is something called the three jewels. It's just like, you know, this is fundamental Buddhism, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And Buddha is, of course, Buddha, and also the awakening of principle, and Dharma is the teaching, and Sangha is the community of people, of practice. And I think that my original impetus to come to Zen Center was because I had a desire to be Buddha.

[17:42]

I wanted to wake up. I thought that being enlightened sounded kind of really cool. Yeah, why not? And also, I came to Zen Center because I had read stories about ancient teachers who were creative, free spirits. And I thought, yeah, that's a good way to be. And I think what I didn't realize, that the creative, free spirits that I read about were the product of a very careful and almost sort of narrow training process. That the The spark that struck me as such an interesting thing actually was a byproduct or a consequence of individuals who had been in a very specific and specialized and almost narrowly defined hierarchical model.

[18:44]

But when I got to the Zen Center, I kind of felt that. I sort of saw that, and it intrigued me because it seemed almost like constraint. not freedom. Just in the same way that when we go to the Zendo, we make a commitment to not move, like for the period of Zazen, we don't move. And that not moving, if we're really careful with it, can actually open us up to, might, maybe, can, open us up to knowing something about our heart. Well, I found the same thing was true about just simply working. You know, another thing I found out about working was that not everybody liked me or appreciated me or there were some people I had trouble with. And that was like... I don't want to say I knew that already.

[19:50]

I was... previously aware of that fact, that not everybody in the world loved me. But in the work process, in the container of work, those problems I had with individuals became actually a teaching for me. Like, you know, if you think of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, like, I've never had a problem with Buddha. And as far as I know, he's never had a problem with me, or she. She's never had a problem with me. And the teaching of Buddhism I can accept is And sometimes I actually think, well, maybe I just don't get it or something. But in the sangha, I've had problems in the community. And this was something that was very important for me. And then I would forget about it a little bit, and then I would come back to being important. And it's been a thread over many years. So I was, when I first arrived at Tassajara, I was a dishwasher. And then when that summer ended,

[20:52]

I was on the general labor crew. And then when that practice period ended, I was on the kitchen crew. And then when the summer came, I was the Fukuten. I don't know what Fukuten means. I was the Fukuten for the summer. And then I was Fukuten for the next year. And then I was the head of cabins for the summer. And then I was ordained in 1977, 35 years ago. I was 23 or 4. 53, 24. And then after my ordination, I returned and we lived at Tosar for a short bit more. I was in the Doanrio. And then I was invited to come to San Francisco and live in this building and be the work leader. So in 1978, I was the work leader at City Center.

[22:00]

And then in 1978 as well, I was asked to go to the grocery store, which was on the corner where Samovar is. And I was the manager of the grocery store that Zen Center had there. which was kind of interesting. It was almost like having a paper route again. I mean, you had to collect the monies, and you had to pay for the things, and you had to get up at a certain time. You had to get the paper. We actually sold the newspaper over there, but we also sold oranges and milk and other things. And I worked at the Green Grocer for a while, and then I was asked to work at Green's Restaurant, where I worked for about three years until... A series of circumstances, interesting and interdependently created along with some other folks, led to my disillusionment in Zen center and in Zen practice, and I left.

[23:09]

But of course when I left Zen center, that meant I had to get a job, another job. So I got a job. working for a company in Berkeley that published art calendars. And then after a while, I got a job working for that same company as the owner. And then I did that for almost 10 years. At which point, once again, I became disillusioned with that life and with various circumstances and in a very sad situation. A series of events, I became divorced from the mother of Richard and Lizzie, my two kids. And I moved to Green Gulch Farm in 1990, where I was a guest student initially. I was a six-week guest student to try it out after having been away for a long time.

[24:14]

And I did that with the encouragement of Reb. and then I'm going to race through this because I want to get to the present moment. I was a guest student at Green Gulch, and then I was invited to work in the kitchen and be the Fugaten, whatever that is. And I did that for a year and a half, and then I was the work leader at Green Gulch, and the work leader is also the guest student manager. One of the things I felt... coming back to work at Zen Center in the 1990s was how different the place was from when I'd been there before. It felt... When I had been at Zen Center previously, it was a very... Well, hierarchy is okay. It's not so much hierarchy, but it was a very much horizontal hierarchy. The brand of soap that we offered the guests was...

[25:17]

something that Richard Baker, the abbot, participated in the decision about, which was a lovely thing and it felt very involved in. But when I returned to Zen Center, I discovered a place that through its own trauma and through its own growth and maturity had allowed people to have some authority, decentralized, and I appreciated that. I could say more about it, but I'm going to continue on this march. to the present moment, and say that I was the guest student manager at Green Gulch Farm, and then I became the Sheikah, which means the guest manager, which is a different thing than guest students. And then I was invited to work on the farm, which is the last thing I ever imagined I wanted to do, because I'm just... My instinct, Marsha, Marshall's the kind of charge of the gardens here at City Center.

[26:20]

When my hands would get dirty, my thought was immediately I had to go and wash them and clean them. But if you work on the farm, your hands get dirty all day long, and then at the end of the day, the dirt is kind of in the cracks. And for three years, I worked on the farm at Gringolch, which was a really wonderful thing for me to do, partly because I never wanted to. But when I was asked, I said... But I didn't say that. I said yes. Hi. What does hi mean? What does it mean? Yes. Does it mean more than yes or just yes? Does it mean more than yes? Yes. Or is it just yes? Just yes. Okay. Is there ever a situation for a Zen monk where you would not say hi? Yeah. It's okay. We'll talk about it later. I felt at that time that that was the only answer. I didn't want to work on the farm.

[27:21]

It was the last thing in my mind. But when I was asked, I said, yes, okay. And it was interesting. I learned a lot. And also, it was something, a gift to me because my kids, who spent so much time at Ringelge in those years, were able to join me working on the farm, even though they didn't really work. But they did kind of. They were frolicked and romped in the farm. And then after I worked for nearly three years on the farm, and during which time I was Shuso head monk, I was the Eno, Shundo's job. I was the Eno in 1987 at Ringel's farm. And Norman Fisher, who spoke in a lovely way last week here at City Center, Norman was the abbot of the Zen Center.

[28:24]

Norman had become my teacher some years previously. And Norman suggested to me that I should consider moving to San Francisco and taking a job as an officer of the Zen Center. In particular, he and Zen Center invited me to be the vice president and fundraiser. Development Director. That was in 1998. So I moved to San Francisco. My daughter, who was living with her mother at the time, moved to San Francisco with Anna Thorne and myself. And she went to high school in San Francisco. And we lived across the street upstairs from Samovar. And I worked as the fundraiser for the Zen Center, which is a difficult job because it's really tough to ask for money. and Susan spoke about this last week, I won't say too much more about it, but I did that for about five years.

[29:25]

And I never really felt that I did it so well, to be honest. But five years, I did it for five years. And then I was invited to be the CFO, or treasurer. This was eight years ago, about. And I was the treasurer of Zen Center eight years ago, seven years ago, six years ago, for about three years, until a normal, appropriate interval arose. And I was then invited to be the tanto, or head of practice at City Center, a job Rosalie does now. And so for five and a half years, I was tanto. And then last fall, I became treasurer of Zen Center. This little story I just said, it's fascinating to me. I apologize to the rest of you for whom it maybe isn't as interesting, but it has brought me to this present moment, and I want to say some things about being treasurer of San Francisco Zahn Center.

[30:32]

One thing I want to say is I'm not qualified to be treasurer. I didn't take any classes in accounting or bookkeeping. I don't have an accounting degree. And that was true of my successor, Rosalie, and that was true of my predecessor, Kokai Roberts, and it was true of Kokai's predecessor, Mio Leahy, who now lives at Hartford Street Zen Center. So Zen Center has a practice of teaching throwing people into the prior patch, into jobs in positions that they're not necessarily uniquely trained for, but which there's a learning curve attached to. So that's one part of, one thing I want to say, and that's not just about the particular job of my being treasurer, but I think a number of positions at the Zen Center.

[31:39]

But let me be more specific. about the treasurer position. Money is really complicated. And it's this, in some way, as the treasurer of Zen Center, I felt that I had a charge that I could follow the money to almost any place. One way to measure it is how are the bookings? Are you meeting the budget? City center kitchen? Rose probably thinks it's about the food. But I happen to have with me right here the city center's

[32:46]

most recent financial statement. And I can tell you, Rose, let me see if you're over budget. City Center is Practice Center 1. Passahara Practice Center 2. Gringold Farmers Practice Center 3. The administration of Zen Center is Practice Center 4. Oh, God. Rose. You're $9,000 over budget for the 11 months of the current fiscal year that we have reports for. We'll have to talk about it. This is just my way of... This is an example to say that as treasurer, if you want, you can kind of get into it, whatever you want. You can go lots of different places. I think this is the first time I've ever said this to you, Rose. Right? Yeah. But I want to say that even though sometimes when people heard that I was asked to be treasurer, they said, oh, too bad.

[33:54]

But actually, I thought, this is a really good job. This is kind of fun. And on some level also, there is in the type of accounting we do at the Zen Center, which is accrual-based, not cash accounting, but accrual accounting. And excuse me for this tiny lesson, but like if Tassahar purchases a new suburban eight-passenger wagon to take people in and out of Tassahar in the month of July of this coming year, it wouldn't be appropriate to put that $45,000 purchase in the month of July because it's something that will be utilized over years and years and years. So, that purchase is depreciated. And it creates a kind of like a whole story. You have to not just wonder about how you're doing on the financial statement, but you have to wonder about how you're doing on the cash flow statement.

[34:58]

And you have to reconcile it with something called the balance statement. And the balance statement is miraculously a record of the Zen Center's finances that is always in balance. It has to be. Assets and liabilities equal each other. And there's something I find kind of reassuring about that. Not that I understand all the individual line items on the balance sheet, but the fact that at the end of the day, at the end of the month, the balance sheet reconciles itself and adds up equally is a sign of kind of a tidiness that is important, I think, for the Zen Center to have for itself. Some part of... Theoretically, I have two more minutes to speak. We'll see. I actually thought I would allow time for questions. We'll see. A part of the Zen Center's treasurer position is that you're also on the board of directors and on the finance committee, and I'm on the governance committee, and I'm on the Abbott executive group.

[36:09]

And so there is a whole lot of caring for and... what I would just simply describe as devotion to Zen Center. And I want to say that that's been nurturing for me, to be able to express devotion to Zen Center and to this practice. It warms my heart most of the time. Most of the time. to know that I'm helping to sustain and continue this practice in this place. Some of the time, I forget that fact. But then I try to remember. I could say a little bit more I'm actually very ready to say quite a bit more.

[37:13]

But I think at this point, before I finish, I'd like to ask if anybody wants me to ask me a question about anything I've said or about the position of being treasurer at the Zen Center. Yes? When you began the talk, you said it might seem only a lot that there would be a chief financial officer for the Zen Center. And I think in the back of a certain altitude about money, like a certain kind of general, expectation that somehow then doesn't have much money. Yeah. And I'm wondering, in a practice that makes a very amount of effort to apply equal attention to everything, you know, the organ has many statements about that, how money, which is so important to our whole way of relating to each other in your special third category. So what was it? Yeah, I think some of it is an American thing. I think that Dogen described the temple officers, and one of them is a treasurer.

[38:16]

And in fact, I think the Japanese word might be fusu. And fusu, maybe you could translate as chief financial officer. But fusu sounds so much more zen. So I'm the fusu. And we're going to have to adjust our articles on purpose to inform the Secretary of State of that fact. To everything you said, I say yes. Because I want to hear another question. Yes. As soon as Rose does a better job of staying... You know, the stipends at Zenzhen are set very modestly, and it is a problem. Additionally, on some hand, in some way, we live a lovely life here.

[39:24]

We're surrounded by beautiful architecture, and we have a kitchen crew that's cooking meals for us, and we... I have... I have a friend. I'm not so close. I know somebody who makes about $45,000 a year, which certainly seems like a lot more than the stipend that I earn, which is just hundreds of dollars a month. But that person has to pay for their housing and for their health insurance and for their meals. And they actually are not able to afford living in an apartment by themselves. They share an apartment with other people. And at the end of every month, they're broke. Well, at the end of every month, I'm broke too. But meanwhile, I'm grateful. There's no plan at present to increase stipends. But we want to promote the idea that we should be grateful. Because we should be.

[40:26]

One more question. If there is. Yes. Yeah, I guess I was wondering, did you ever, you mentioned working at Tassahara, working with people and seeing stuff come up, and then would you be able to work at that at Tassahara and kind of use some of that on the outset when you love Simpson? Yeah. Was it able to involve your relationships at all? Well, one thing, when I left Sand Center, one of the things that was a revelation for me... Because I had a pretty well-developed sense of inside-outside and that we were noble people inside. And I discovered, actually, that the people who I found myself working with in what's to call it outside, but it's unfortunate to use that terminology, but nonetheless in the marketplace, it was a revelation for me to realize how kind they were and how nice they were. That's one thing.

[41:29]

And that Zen Center had no monopoly on good hearts and good intentions and kindness and vindictiveness and throat cutting. Equal opportunities in and out for all of that. But I hadn't kind of like, I think that was actually, it opened my eyes to see that. I think that the training we have in just sort of being still and remaining present and developing a sense of concentration and patience is a gift that helps us maneuver through difficult circumstances in whatever world we happen to be in. And it's after 8.30 now, so I think I should stop. Thank you very much. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[42:45]

May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:47]

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