This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. I'm honored to be here in this hall once more to be among all of you bodhisattvas, to see Dharma sisters and brothers in the assembly here. And just to reflect, I think that the last time that I was here was for my teacher Sojin Roshi's funeral. And that's,

[01:00]

I can see that vividly in my mind's eye. And so today, actually, I'm going to speak about Sojin. I think there are probably a number of you that had encountered him, encountered his teaching, and were influenced and taught by him over the years. And maybe many of you who have not. So this is what's on my mind out here today. I have a new book, which I think you can probably get it at the store if the store is open. I don't know if the store is open these days. But I'm going to speak from the... It's called Turning Words, Transformative Encounters with Buddhist Teachers. There's a... section on Sojin Roshi.

[02:02]

I'm going to use that as sort of introductory material about some of my particular engagements with him and some of the things that I learned from him. And then I'm also going to read you something, a book of Sojin's memoirs and his selection of his Dharma talks is In preparation, it'll be published at the end of this year from Counterpoint Press. And so we're still in the last editing stages of that book, but I'm going to read to you at least one of his short edited talks. Oh, thank you. And I'll leave time for question and answer.

[03:06]

And apropos of his Bodhisattva practices, maybe I'll sing you a song at the end. So. I came to Berkey Zen Center twice. I came the first time in the summer of 1968 after we were exhausted and somewhat burnt out from having occupied the university in New York, Columbia, where I was going to school and being beaten, arrested, and living a week in the president of the university's office with 75 people.

[04:07]

That was kind of my major educational experience, but it was a hard time. And we came out here to California, to Berkeley, because it was the promised land, right? And we also came out looking for Zen. And so, we found that summer a group of us who had come out together found the Berkeley Zen Center on Dwight Way, and we also, a couple days a week, we would go into Sacoji, the San Francisco Zen Center, and sit there. And that was my first encounter with Zen, and we went back to New York, kind of charged up to practice and I started studying Japanese and life and the turmoil of American society kind of kicked in and I wasn't able to really follow through for about 15 years.

[05:16]

I reached a point in my life when I felt that I had to run out of script. This was in the early 1980s and I... After having lived back east, I had been back out in California. And it was at that point that I was in psychotherapy, and I asked my therapist this kind of wide question, like, what am I doing on the planet? And she said, that's not a therapy question. That's a spiritual question. And I said, oh, okay. And I went back and I started reading Buddhist books because that seed had been planted and decided I wanted to go and take up this practice that I had begun quite a few years ago. So I called the number for the Berkeley Zen Center and I explained that I had sat there in the late 1960s and had instruction.

[06:29]

I wanted to pick up the practice and I said, what should I do? And the person on the other end of the phone said, you should find a blank wall and sit down and stare at it. And I thought, oh, this is the place for me. I would never tell anybody that, but that was just the right words. And I later found out who it was that said that, but I hope he wasn't reprimanded when this story was heard about. So I'm going to read about my encounter with Berkeley Zen Center and with Sojin, because it sets the context. When I arrived at Berkeley Zen Center in the autumn of 1984, Sojin, or Mel, as we familiarly called him, he was in Japan receiving Dharma transmission from Huitsu Suzuki, Shinryu Suzuki Roshi's son.

[07:38]

So just then, there was no teacher around, and Berkeley Zen Center didn't yet have any other priests, but the community was well established. The community had been established actually in the summer of 1967. For about a month, No one directly led our daily sitting and service, but there were long-term practitioners and residents and in the wider community. Maylee Scott, Fran Tribe, Ron Nestor, and others whom I saw as role models. I watched them and asked a lot of questions. Most of all, I threw myself into Zazen, which was never easy. Sitting was painful. unsettled, distracted, and boring. We sat 40-minute periods, and I was often sure that the bell ringer had fallen asleep at the wheel.

[08:40]

None of you have ever had that experience, right? They never did fall asleep at the wheel, actually, but we wondered. But I persisted, and I still do all these years later. There was something settled, seeming. about people at BCC, and I hoped that I could become like them. After a month, Mel returned from Japan as Sojin's sensei, wearing the brown robe signifying Dharma transmission, affirming the maturity of his priestly practice and understanding. His quiet but confident manner helped bring my vision of Berkeley Zen Center into focus. I was grateful to find him a warm and modest man, devoid of self-promotion and the snares of charisma. Sojin was a steady presence at almost every period of Sazen. I saw that his presence was the pivot around which our community turned.

[09:46]

On his return, Sojin put up a Dokusan schedule with slots for private interviews. I knew that this was an essential element of Zen training, although no one explained to me what happened in the interview room. Nevertheless, I signed up and my time arrived. Ah, BCC has a Dokusan hut in the rear of our property. It's an intimate face-to-face tatami room, tea house size, about seven by nine feet. There was no instruction about what to say or ask in Dokusan. But like everyone else, I found my way. At first, I was focused on physical pain, aching legs, that sticking pain in my shoulders, my inability to find a stable posture for my 35-year-old body. These were my problems and everybody's problems. Sojan was very familiar with such matters because he had to work his way through each problem in his own practice.

[10:53]

My questions extended to my own existential crisis. What was I doing on the planet? What might I make of my life? These, too, were the quotidian matters of Zen. Sojin's answers were rarely direct and never explanatory. He would often turn the language around and give it back to the student to figure out. I wanted something more, and I never got it. So after a time, I came to understand that Sojin was not my father. He was not my friend or my psychotherapist. Each time I tried to place him in one of those boxes, he slipped away. He was my Zen teacher, a classic person I had not previously met in my life.

[11:55]

And as a Zen teacher, his job was to be a mirror so I could see and free myself. So that was kind of our starting point. When you knocked on Sojin Goshi's door, if he was there, and he had an office on the courtyard in the central area, facing the central area of our little compound at Berkeley Zen Center. I invite you, if you're in Berkeley, please come and check it out and join us for Zazen. We have it six days a week, actually, and a weekday is three times a day. So there's a pretty open, available schedule. And since you already know how to sit, all you have to do is just come in. When you knocked on Sojin Moshi's door if he was there, which you could tell by whether his blinds were open, he would answer, Hi!

[13:03]

This translates from Japanese as, Yes. But it means something more, like, I hear you. Sojin explained to me once that he had made a practice for himself of responding to each person who knocked. no matter what he was doing, reading, writing, calligraphy, he would set down his task and attend to the person in front of him. Sometimes you might feel his full attention was not quite there, but mostly it was. I always admired this practice and unevenly aspired to it myself. Recently I've been reading the Hebrew Bible, and have come across the word Inani. When God calls to Abraham, to Moses, from the burning bush, to the prophet Isaiah, in each case, these elders respond, Inani, here I am, or I am here.

[14:19]

Again, in a deeper sense, It suggests a readiness to respond to whatever one is called to do. So I hear Hai and Hineni as parallel expressions of willingness and receptivity. Really, this is the heart of Zazen. A mind and body open to the call of each moment. This really is what I've come to think of as what we call shikandaza. It's just receptivity, opening the senses, opening the mind, opening yourself to each encounter. And that leads to the next teaching of Sojins that I write about here.

[15:23]

This piece is called Don't Treat Anything Like an Object. I haven't read this for a long time. Years ago, before my days of Zen practice, I experimented with psychedelic substances. My friends and I saw them as experiments, as explorations in consciousness. Like others my age, I could tell many stories of these adventures. Some funny, some weird, some frightening. But having discovered that there were even more aspects of reality than I had previously seen, I wanted a wider and deeper view. This led directly to Zen practice. We thought at the time that Zen practice and psychedelics were somehow a continuum.

[16:30]

And maybe they were, maybe they weren't. But I think that those experiences that I had actually did open the door for me to take on, explore Zen practice. Anyway, This led directly to Zen practice, which fortunately was very different from the wild perceptions of LSD. But there was a lesson common to Zazen in the psychedelic experience. This boils down to something Sojin Roshi said succinctly in a lecture. Don't treat anything like an object. In the middle of a psychedelic experience, often one's self dissolves, and that I becomes part of an undifferentiated, interconnected oneness. Sojin pointed to that oneness, where Zazen expresses a reality in which there is no longer subject and object.

[17:42]

That oneness, however, is not a oneness of flashing lights, and sensorial marvels, but a deep and ordinary oneness. Everything and every being is part of me and I am part of it. Separation is an illusion. Yet our perception of oneness still includes differentiation. Each person is unique. Each thing is a unique expression of causes and conditions that momentarily arise, fall away, and become something else in an unending stream of dynamic activity. Marvelous. Mysterious. one of the things that I take away from this expression, don't treat me anything like an object, just to reiterate, is to experience our world subjectively, to experience everything as part of oneself.

[19:06]

For example, Sojin was often very clear, when you pick up a cup, you pick it up with two hands. Treat it like you would want to be treated yourself. So I pick up the cup, and there's water in this cup, and I drink down the water, and the water becomes part of me. And while I'm holding the cup, the cup is part of me, and I sit it down. When I look at all of you, at this moment, we are inhabitants of each other's mind. You're looking at me. I'm looking at you. This is a single moment.

[20:11]

in which there is differentiation in undifferentiation. There's this total subjectivity, which includes objectivity. Actually, I'm going to get to that in the piece that I read directly from Sojin. But I wanted to touch on one more experience that I had with him, which was really important in my life. Long ago, a chilly morning Dokusan, Sojin gave me a sudden teaching. Let things fall apart. This was a year or so into my practice. Life was unsettled. in my mid-thirties, but I had found a new home at Berku Zen Center.

[21:20]

Having a Zen teacher was a new experience. Sojin was disarmingly warm, despite the heat that he could convey to the backward glance or the insistent tapping of a foot if, during service, you dragged the beat on the mukugyo. A fish-shaped wooden drum. Maybe some of you have had this experience of his... He would tap his toe. I think we sort of cured him of this after a few years. But he had a very clear idea of how our service, how our chanting, how things were supposed to go. Anyway, Some Zen teachers keep their students in very close. Sojin's style was to encourage and watch. In accord with Suzuki Roshi's advice in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, to give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control them.

[22:35]

So it is with people. First, let them do what they want and watch them. This is from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. The advice or control was essentially allow beings to do what they want and watch them. In other words, you put your attention on them. So I was surprised to find that I loved the Zen forms and found an affinity for them, even though previous religious training suggested otherwise. Five years at the Orthodox Great Neck Synagogue had not even kindled a spark of religious devotion. Hebrew school lessons were dry as dust, and our chaotic, highly secular home included no Jewish practice at all. And after the empty milestone of my bar mitzvah in 1960, I never returned to the temple. I must say, I have great affection and affinity for the Jewish identity that I carry.

[23:49]

But it's not a religious practice that I turn to. And maybe it would have been really different if I had teachers growing up who were in the synagogue who were as skillful as the Zen teachers that I've had. But that's not what happened. I thought I had disdain for ritual. But after years as a performing musician, I was quick study at the forms of Zen. Walking, bowing, formal eating practice, the intricacies of ceremony, including Zazen itself. I could see how things in the Zendo work together. The flow of time and space. I watched Sojin carefully and I saw his naturalness. He was very much in his body while I was not. There was nothing inflated or egocentric in the way he moved in the world. In and out of the zendo, he seemed to walk right down the middle way, not offhanded, never stiff, but flexible.

[24:53]

This is what our zazen posture should be, just to bring this back to that. Our posture should be upright and flexible, like a tree that bends in the wind. One of our teachers, Roshi Joan Halifax, the way she puts it, I like it a lot. You should have a strong back and a soft front. So this flexibility is necessary, not a virginity. At the same time, an ungainly creature appeared from the depths of my personality. It must have been lurking there, waiting for conditions to give it life. This creature was... Perfectionist, judgmental, impatient, and bossy. He thought he was smarter than others and suffered because of that thought.

[25:57]

As I learned more and more about the various jobs and positions others held in the center, I was critical of how they performed. I found myself getting into others' business. In a sense, this is simply the manifestation of mistrust or unsafety that I felt. On a psychological level, I feared loss of control. If I could not fix the situation, I would be hurled into the void and lost. As a child, I had a recurring dream. I was clinging to a speeding car or train, and as it rounded a turn, I was flung out into space. And every time I had this dream, I awoke with a start before landing. In time, I got the message from some people that my critical tendencies pissed them off.

[27:09]

And I can't blame them. Meanwhile, Sojin let me roam and ruminate, watching patiently. Quite a while. I like Suzy Hiroshi's metaphor of a cow in a pasture. But at BZC, I often felt like a bull in a china shop. Sojin sat unmoving like a frog, watching me and not reacting. Then one day he pounced, swallowing me whole with this bottomless teaching, let things fall apart. I understand that each of us must decide when to let things fall apart and when to work as hard as we can to ensure survival and allow for new things to arise. Letting things fall apart too easily leans towards resignation and laziness.

[28:11]

That's not what Sojin had in mind. And trying to hold on to the present moment or circumstances is simply impossible. Nobody hands out an instruction book. This teaching was given to me as medicine to bring me into balance. Sojin might very well tell another person in another circumstance exactly the opposite. I think of something else that Suzuki Roshi said. The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet. This is where I try to live. This is the example that I draw from Sojin Roshi, who was not perfect. To simply let go, be myself, moment by moment. To fall apart. and come together.

[29:13]

To come together and fall apart. So I want to read you just a brief piece from this collection of Sojin's lectures. This piece is called Formal and Informal. One thing I will say that is he was always He was always drawing on the teachings that he got from Suzuki Roshi. I mean, I had nearly 40 years with Sojin Roshi, and Sojin had maybe five years with Suzuki Roshi. But my sense is that Suzuki Roshi was a very strong teacher. And people got a lot from him.

[30:16]

Not everything they needed, but got a lot from him in a very short while. And Sojin always carried Suzuki Roshi. I think Tenshin Roshi also. They carry Suzuki Roshi as a living presence in their mind. And we do our best to bring that alive. And we do our best to see that in our teachers. So he writes, it is commonly thought that Zen practice is very formal and rigid, and that thinking and emotion are cut off. Formal, yes. Rigid, not really. For every activity, there are rules, directives, and procedures. The formality of our practice allows access to our ineffable, fundamental, formless nature. What looks like narrow confinement becomes, with maturity, vast freedom.

[31:16]

What is formal becomes informal. I just would interject. When I had lay ordination in 1985 or 86, the Dharma name that Sojin gave me, which our Japanese teachers look at somewhat askance. My Dharma name is Kushiki, which Ku, if you study or are familiar with the Hatsaja, Ku is emptiness or formlessness, and Shiki is form. So he gave me his name, Mr. Formless Form, which is a bit much. But It's also been a koan to grow into, and so I'm very grateful for that name. And this is what he's speaking of here.

[32:20]

What is formal becomes informal. Submitting to the Zendo forums enables us, an attentive student, to move and sit gracefully with ease and naturalness. Over the course of our lives, we develop habits and tensions in our body and mind, our body and mind, caused by fears, resistance, defensiveness, and biased views. Zendo practice can help us through awareness to overcome these hindrances. Moving in the Zendo with the awareness of the subtle sound of our steps, the upright movement of our posture, and the relation to our surroundings reflect a natural, unaffected choreography. I feel like when I walked in this room, this morning, and I haven't been in this room in that role for a long time, something internally snapped to attention.

[33:20]

And I found myself moving with that care and attention and feeling like, not like I wanted to put on a show, but like that composure really mattered. It meant something to me. And it's interesting because actually all of you had your backs to me. But in that moment, moving through the entranceway, facing the altar, I was facing myself. So moving into Zendo, with the awareness of the subtle sound of our steps, the upright movement or posture, and the relation to our surroundings, reflects a natural, unaffected choreography. It's not a matter of getting it right or being perfect. Working in the tight space of the kitchen, attending to the various tasks, we move around each other with sharp knives and hot pots in a harmonious, improvised dance, concentrated and attentive, getting out the meal on time with a calm, settled mind and relaxed body.

[34:37]

The life of a Zen student is mostly improvisation. Improvisation works best within a solid structure or container. It is so in music and the arts. This is my experience as a musician that in order to be able to improvise effectively, want to have a deep understanding of the forms from which the music I'm playing emerges. And once you understand that form, then the next responsibility is to make it your own, make it yourself. So a well-trained Zen student feels comfortable within the forms and approaches the activity with gratitude, awareness, and confidence. There is a saying to sit Zazen with warm feet and a cool head.

[35:42]

People often say, I'm a very emotional person. It sounds very special. I've never met anyone who is not a very emotional person. That includes, I will say, I think it took me years to recognize that Sojin was a very emotional person. didn't occur to me that something I did might affect him emotionally. That was really foolish. And once I got it, I never forgot it. The ones who don't show their emotions are often the most emotional. To control or not to control. To have a cool head while sitting zazen is to think the thought of zazen. The nature of thinking is to think or to dream. It doesn't make any difference what it is thinking as long as it can do its thing.

[36:51]

The point is, who's the boss of the thinking? This is another expression of Suzuki Roshi's. He would say, you be the boss of you. Not boss in terms of manipulating or pushing around, but who is helping you clarify what you need to do. So Sochin writes, feelings are both physical and emotional. Emotional feelings are mostly mental. When we maintain a well-balanced posture of uprightness and flexibility, our feelings tend to harmonize with our present situation. Why should we be thinking about something else? or holding on to feelings that have nothing to do with the present situation. It is possible to let go for a while and allow our body and mind the freedom from the fetters of emotion and thought.

[37:54]

Formal and informal. They are just two sides of the same thing. My teacher said, Even though there is no self, still there are rules. So I'm aware of the time, and I thought that, to me, as I was reading and editing these pieces of Sojans, it's embarrassing to say, But what comes to awareness now that he's not with us in body is how fortunate I was and we were to have a true bodhisattva living among us, teaching us, available day by day, always ready to welcome you into his office or into his presence.

[39:07]

And This is a great example for us. Someone who would just, he would never turn away. So I'm going to sing you a song that expresses the embodiment of this bodhisattva way. Maybe you have heard this song, but it's always worth repeating. So this is a song written by Greg Fane and Jonathan, I'm blanking his last name. Anyway, you may have heard it's called Our Hero. And it's basically a very effective, condensed version of chapter 20 of the Lotus Sutra about the Bodhisattva never disparaging.

[40:10]

And it has a chorus which you can sing. Oops. not like this capable okay sorry let's do it this way it's one of these days There's a book called the Lotus Sutra that you really ought to know about.

[41:38]

A holy book that has the power to remove all fear and doubt. And this book tells the story of a man who means the world to me. He could just as well have been a woman except for male hegemony. So they call him the Bodhisattva never disparaged. Bodhisattva never despise. And I'm making it my life's ambition to see the world through his pure eyes. Now listen carefully. Here's the chorus. You'll have another chance. I will never disparage you or keep you at arm's length. Where you only see your weaknesses, will I only see your strength. I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me, I can plainly see you'll be a Buddha someday. I love you.

[42:41]

Now the Bodhisattva never disparaging the countless Kalpas in the past. In the time of the counterfeit Dharma, and he was something of an outcast. because the monks and nuns of his time, they were noted for their arrogance and vanity. These were the folks who exercised great power and authority, but my boy, he never concerned himself if they treated him like a freak. He just bowed everybody equally, and these are the words he'd speak. You ready for the chorus? I will never discourage you. Or keep you at arm's length great. Where you only see your weaknesses. I only see your strength. I would never despise you. Or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me. I can plainly see. You'll be a Buddha someday.

[43:46]

I love you. Well, he never read or recited the scriptures much. He only liked to practice respect. But the monks and nuns of his time, they didn't meet it like you might expect. Instead, they cursed him and they reviled him. They wished that he would go because they all had self-esteem issues like everybody else I know. So they beat him, pelted him with clubs and stones. They tried to drive him away. He'd just run off to a safe distance. Then he'd turn around and say, I would never disparage you or keep you at arm's length. Where you only see your weaknesses, will I only see your strength. I would never disparage you or keep you at arm's length. See, way, thank you.

[44:48]

Preach me, I can plainly see. You'll be a Buddha someday. That's what happens when you think about something else. But I love you. And so it went on for years and years. He was the target of scorn and abuse. Still our hero, he shed no tears, nor did he wonder what's the use. Illy came to the end of his natural lifespan. He lay down, fixing to die. And he heard the Holy Lotus Sutra being preached up in the sky. And his life was extended for millions of years. He's living to this day. And in the pages of the Lotus Sutra, you still can hear him say, last chance. I would never disparage you or keep you at arm's length. Where you only see your weaknesses, I only see your strength.

[45:50]

I would never despise you or put you down in any way. Because it's clear to me, I can plainly see you'll be a Buddha someday. Yes, it's clear to me, I can plainly see you'll be a Buddha someday. I love you. So thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our programs are made possible by the donations we receive. Please help us to continue to realize and actualize the practice of giving by offering your financial support. For more information, visit sfzc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[46:53]

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