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. Good morning. Good morning. We just... had a tea, the staff, most of the staff, not all the staff, but we had a tea with the Tongario students and we just finished. Even though we weren't finished, we ended. And so I'm going to kind of continue where we left off. The question was asked about Steve Stuckey, our central abbot who just passed away.

[01:08]

So I was going to say a little bit about him, and I'll probably repeat myself a little bit. Steve came from a Mennonite family of farmers in Kansas and Pennsylvania. And he learned to farm and drive horses, a horse team, which when he came to Green Gulch, he was assigned to drive a horse team to plow the fields when we were starting organic farming. And there's a wonderful picture of him standing up on the machine and the horses with the horses driving. He came to San Francisco to meet Suzuki Roshi after being in New York.

[02:13]

I think it was Edo Roshi. And he came out just in time to come to Suzuki Roshi's funeral. And he was there when we placed Suzuki Roshi's ashes under that stone up on the top of the hill at the flats. It took a little ego trip for me. It took me about a week or two with the help of one or two guys to bring that stone up the hill. Anyway, that's another story. And Steve was there when we scattered the ashes on the spit of land that oversees the valley, just off the road. So he remembers that.

[03:14]

Every time we would come out of Tassajara, he would stop there and pay his respects to Suzuki Roshi. He really loved Suzuki Roshi and was... really disappointed that he couldn't have met him. But he came to Zen Center, and I remember him coming to Page Street. I think we had a Sasheen, and I was the work leader. And I remember giving him a—he remembers me giving him a position, cleaning something or other. And he asked me why he should be doing this, and I said, because it'll be good for you, or something like that. Anyway, he practiced at Greengoltz for a long time with Richard Baker, and that's mostly where he learned his Zen for a good number of years. And then when Zen Center had its big crisis with Abbot Richard Baker,

[04:24]

having to leave and Zen Center was in a kind of turmoil and for many years actually after that that was 83 and then he quit Zen Center he left and started a landscaping business in North Bay. So in the meantime, I had become Abbott in 84, I think, and no, 88. I became Abbott in 1988. I had dormant transmission in 1984. And so I became co-Abbott in 1988. And Steve, he had started a small Zendo in Bell Valley. and that was where he did his practice.

[05:24]

And he came to me, I was in Berkeley still, and he wanted to, he was feeling me out, you know, for, he wanted to relate to somebody as a teacher, and I think he wanted Dharma transmission, and he was feeling me out, and he asked me, what's your practice? And I said, my practice is like water. And he said, I want to be your student. I said, okay. And so we started the Dharma transmission process. And I gave him Dharma transmission. And he started practicing with Zen Center. And The new abbacy was coming up, and so, as it turned out, the Elders' Council is the body that recommends abbots.

[06:42]

The Elders' Council goes through this big, long process of selection and elimination until someone finally is still standing And that's the person who becomes the abbot. And so it's a little bit unusual because to select an abbot who is not a resident. I was not a resident, believe it or not, when I became abbot. That was under severe circumstances, though. I came in as abbot to... be a support for everybody and for Reb. And I was not a resident. I was still in Berkeley. But Steve was more on the periphery. But it turned out to be a very good selection.

[07:47]

And he had to prove himself. he was returning to Zen Center from an outside position and so he had to prove himself and so he worked very very hard and he was a great addition for Zen Center a great asset he had a wonderful mind for organization and a great grasp of Dharma. I really enjoyed listening to his Dharma talks because he's so eloquent. Whatever he would write was really eloquent and his talks just unfolded in a beautiful way. Those of you who studied with him know about that.

[08:50]

He had not done a practice period at Tassajara before he was Abbot, which is interesting. Nobody realized that. But I kind of thought that, I thought, he's missing a lot of things as Abbot that we usually do at Tassajara, but I didn't understand why. And then he told me, he said, well, I never did a practice period. at Tassajara, so he didn't have that information. But he did a very good job, and he was quite a wonderful abbot. And sometimes the abbots do the practice periods at Tassajara. There used to be one abbot, and then when Rebbe and I were abbots, it became two abbots.

[09:53]

And then when Steve became abbot, it became three abbots. And then Steve took the role of central abbot, which was a new position. But he always came down to Asahar and never left. When he did practice periods, he never left, although he did all of his communication through. electronics. I was a little bit... I didn't like that too much, but it worked for him. But he really worked himself very hard. I think he worked himself too hard. But there was... Sometimes the abbots get into a position where they don't have the time to come to Taza Har to do the practice period. So this time... Steve was able to do maybe a month, and then Paul and I, to make a long story short, decided that we could try doing three abbots, or three leaders of the practice period, each one doing a month, and just see how that worked.

[11:18]

Because we're all pretty compatible with each other, and our teachings are... compatible, and we all belong to the same nose hole society as Satani Roshi always says. But suddenly, I think it was the last day of summer? Yeah. He was not feeling well and decided to go see the doctor. And when they analyzed him, they said, you have station four pancreatic cancer, fourth level pancreatic cancer, which is totally incurable. And the worst part of it is like so invasive at that point.

[12:20]

So that was a big blow to him and to his wife and his family and to everybody else, of course. Big surprise. And so he spent the next couple of months, you know, nobody knew how long he had, but they knew he didn't have long. And he spent the next months in Sonoma, Kotati, where his family lives, and little by little just getting weaker and weaker, and at the same time getting stronger and stronger. As his body would get weaker and weaker, he would get stronger and stronger. this was so impressive about his teaching was so genuine because in his dying he was teaching us how to live and in his living he was teaching us how to die I never saw any real

[14:05]

weakness in his demeanor. He was always glad to see people always there for everyone. He would get tired. I could only see people for 10 minutes, you know, before I started getting tired. And this whole process of dying was something. So he finally did die. And they say that when he died, he had a big smile on his face. And there was a... Sometimes, I don't know how this works, but... The hospice assigns some big, strong person, like a Samoan, who weighs 300 pounds, to be present so that that person can take care of whatever happens, if anything happens.

[15:30]

And at the moment that Steve died, he went thumbs up and smiled. And... when the Samoan was leaning over him, he put out his hand and they shook hands and he died. So, you know, Steve always liked to study together with me. And so every summer we did a Suzuki Roshi seminar in July, I think, together. And then he would invite me to come to his practice periods. And I shared a couple of his practice periods, as some of you may know.

[16:32]

And that was nice, because the former abbots kind of liked to come down and do the practice periods. practice period is a treat, you know, for the abbot. It's like what, it's your reward for being abbot. You can come down and leave the practice period. And so the former abbots like to continue doing that. At least I do. And I know Rib always liked to do that. And so he would invite me. and we would do the practice period together and it was a nice combination. We'd alternate giving talks and class and so forth. So I think I would characterize Steve as a person of utter integrity.

[17:37]

and courage. And kindness. He's a very kind person. A loving, kind person. And I know that many of you have experienced his teaching and his presence. have a chance to express that to everyone. I held a cremation ceremony for him about a week ago or so, two weeks ago, which was a nice celebration of his life and death. There will be a what's called a funeral ceremony, a memorial ceremony, on the 9th of February.

[18:50]

And because not everyone here can go to that, there will be a ceremony here, right here, for people here. Tomorrow. Oh, tomorrow. Okay, and will people be able to say something? Yeah. I think that if anybody would like to express some memory or something, that would be really nice. That's what I think. That's not the funeral. That's not the funeral. No, the funeral is the ninth. This is a kind of Tassajara version of whatever we want it to be. Yeah. Tomorrow is a smaller multiple of seven-day memorial.

[19:54]

And then on the 49th day, we'll be having our larger memorial in February. OK. That's what I thought. I thought, yeah, that tomorrow would just be ordinary kind of. Yes. I wonder if I open it up more, yeah. So, does anybody have a question about that? I mean, not about the ceremony, but about anything? Yes? That's a good question. Nobody knows. Only Lane knows. was his wife and I think it was very difficult for her because to have suddenly have this happen and have it and then have the end just this difficult he was really in pain he was in pain the whole time as a matter of fact

[21:12]

You know, usually they can ease a person's pain in this kind of situation, but somehow it never got eased, and they could never really control it. And so that was very difficult. And so Mary Stairs, remember her? Some of you. She was his jisha, and she was taking care of him the whole time. And so she and Lane were kind of together in the house, taking care of him a lot. Mostly it was Mary. And Lane is just unhappy, as you might guess. But she stood up to it and did her best. I always felt like she was always there, difficult as it was. I said to her that she had given over her husband to do this eight years, I think it was, seven or eight years of being Abbott.

[22:30]

And then, when it's almost time for him to not do that anymore, he's gone. So that's a big disappointment. I think she's holding herself up and she has to find a new life. The tri-tempo meeting shortly after Steve's death, somebody asked yeah that's the other side yep I'm sure there are many sides

[23:32]

was going to talk about our practice and so I'm going to talk a little bit about our practice I think we have time how much time do we have yeah but you know officially noon service is in 38 minutes okay I'll talk a little bit there are two terms Japanese terms that are used to describe our practice. One is Gyoji and the other is Dokkan. Gyoji means continuous practice. Absolutely. Practice is something that is

[24:54]

has no beginning or end. And the other term, dokkan, means circle or ring, ring of the way. I like that word ring because it means circle, but it also means sound. I like that double. Yes. I'm not gonna talk that long. I'm just gonna introduce the subject. Long introduction. Dokkan means ring of the way. Not only the circle, but the sound. I like that kind of double meaning. Gyoji means that when we're engaged in practice,

[26:00]

When we have a vow of practice, I like to use the word vow of practice because that means that's engagement. We can practice, you know, we can go along and think that we're practicing, but until we have the vow of practice, which means this is it, that's gyōji. So it means that everything we do is practice. Everything that we're engaged in is practice. Good practice, bad practice, wonderful practice, terrible practice. It's all practice. Whatever it is. Dokkan is the area or the area the the rhythm that we have in our daily activity.

[27:05]

So in the monastic life, as we looked at the guidelines last night, that's dokkan. It's like, this is how we do it. Every morning we get up, we do zazen. following the schedule basically is Dokkan the ring of the way and even if you were not at Tassajara this is a kind of problem I see with Tassajara students because Dokkan is such an obvious thing in Tassajara that when we're not in Tassajara we don't see where the Dokkan is. We don't see where the Ring of the Way is. And so we don't know what to do. And I think that's a problem with being at Tassahara and leaving Tassahara. As soon as people are out of Tassahara, they don't know what to do.

[28:12]

They don't know how to set up their own practice. So I think at Tassahara, there should be some kind of way of helping people to understand how you practice when you're not at Tassahara. how to set up your own ring or way ring when you're not here. Because what's the sense of being here if when you leave you drop your practice? This should be the preparatory place where you learn how to practice in whatever situation you're in, wherever you are. This should be the foundation, not just another place to practice. If this isn't the foundation, then to me it doesn't make sense. So when you leave, if you ever do, and you will, how do you continue practicing?

[29:13]

Do you leave because you don't want to practice anymore? No. You leave because you practice here enough. And then you leave and practice in a different situation. Every situation should have its You should set up the ring of the way. So it's the rhythm that you set up in your practice and the various ways that you know are, these are the things I do. These are the points of my practice that I do every day. regardless of what else is going on. You have a job, you have a family, whatever, but you sit this time and you chant at this time and you have an outline that is the basis for your life because practice is the basis, is what your life is about.

[30:15]

And all those other activities fit into the practice. It's just like we sit zazen in the morning, we sit zazen in the evening and so forth, but in between we have all these things that we do, like work. So the same situation can be set up in any venue that you happen to be in. To me that's how the creative side of practice. When we're in the monastery, we follow the practice. But when you're outside, you create the practice. But you also create the practice in the monastery. It's not just following. Leading and following is the way we practice. If you're only following, then it's only one side. And if you're only leading, that's one side. So following and practice...

[31:17]

When following and leading are exactly the same thing, that's called perfect practice. I call it perfect practice, when you're leading and following at the same time. When you're playing the makugyo, boom, [...] you're leading, right? Leading the chant, boom, boom, boom, but you're also following the singing. If you're not listening and following, if you're only doing boom, boom, boom, and leading, then you get ahead of everybody. And everybody's saying, oh, wait a minute, wait a minute, where are you going? Or you're slowing down, you're slowing down, you're slowing down. If you're not listening, then you're only leading. And you're leading people in a bad way. And if you're only following, everybody's waiting for you. So you have to lead and follow at the same time.

[32:17]

We call it riding the wave and driving the wave. You're driving the wave, you're driving the practice, but you're also following the practice. So that's a kind of refinement that creates stability. And so you never get ahead and you're never behind. The schedule is the Dokkan. The schedule is the master, right? Not the Abba, not anybody else. The schedule is everybody pays attention to that. And if you get behind, then you suffer. If you get ahead, you suffer. How to stay within the rhythm? When we're totally within the realm, then everything is easy. When you're not, then everything's very hard.

[33:22]

So how you stay on that merry-go-round is still calm. How you harmonize with it. When you harmonize with the schedule, everybody's harmonizing with the schedule. Then everybody's harmonizing with each other. So then... There is the horizontal and the vertical. The horizontal is everyone is even. Everyone is equal to everyone else. There's no person here that is more valuable or more equal than anyone else. We're all the same. We all wear black robes. I mean, so to speak. We're a little bit brown, but basically we're all in the same. Even whether we're brown robe, black robe, priest, lay, or nothing. It's all the same. That's horizontal. Vertical means everyone has a different position.

[34:29]

This is called hierarchy. Everyone is in a different place. We're not all in the same place, even though we're all in the same place. There's the Abba, the Tanto, all the officers, and then down to general labor. So novices are general labor, which is usual in any situation, in any organization. Novices are always at the bottom. You work your way up until people see that you're who you are. You have to be able to show who you are and then... Those who have more experience see who you are and know how to help you, actually. The people at the top of the hierarchy are devoted to helping the people who are new. And then the people who are new are encouraging the people on the top.

[35:32]

You may think that the people on the top are the ones that encourage the ones on the bottom. That's also so. But the people, the new people, actually encourage the people who are the teachers. Because your beginner's mind activity is there. And how you make that effort is so encouraging to everybody. So the Tangariya students are the ones who encourage everybody else. So we're all equal. Everything is equal. So, as a person in general labor, if you do what your assignment is to the best of your ability, you're really making a big effort to do that to the best of your ability, then you're driving the whole practice period.

[36:35]

You're leading the practice period when you do that. If you're washing the dishes, to the best of your ability and totally one with the activity, you're leading the practice period. So everyone is leading the practice period. It's just being driven by all of us equally, but by everyone doing that which they're supposed to do. So even though we're all equal, we're all different. We all have a different position. And if we stay here long enough, we... find ourselves in different positions. And from that position, we relate to the whole practice period, to everybody. So if you're general labor, you relate to the practice period from that spot. That's your position. And so you're not just an isolated piece. You're one part of the whole... We say one monk.

[37:38]

Tatsugami Roshi used to say, we're all one monk, and each one of us has a different place in the machine. They used the word machine, you know, in Zen a lot, back in the 9th century. So... So this equality is part of doka. Difference and equality. You know, it's what our practice is about. Difference and equality. That's what the sandokai is about. That's what the hokyo zamai is about. It's about difference and equality. So, although...

[38:45]

everything is equal, everything is different, and how difference and equality work together. Or become one, actually. So, don't—gyoji is more like— How do I practice moment by moment? What is my practice on this moment? And what is my practice on this moment? So we live from moment to moment. We also have a longer view, right? Like tomorrow we'll have such and such for breakfast. That's the long view. If I'm still alive tomorrow, we'll have like rice cream and soybeans. I want to live until the next rice cream and soybeans because that's my favorite breakfast.

[39:51]

But even so, even though we have the long view, we're living on each moment, one moment at a time. That's continuous practice. Continuous practice means living one moment at a time. And that's the practice that Suzuki Roshi introduced to us. He didn't talk about Gyoji and Doka, but he talked about all that stuff without using those terms. I like using the terms because they give us some way to think about it. Establish, oh yeah, that's Doka. So Gyoji, Dogen wrote his longest fascicle in Shobo Genzo is in two parts called Gyoji. And it's examples of the old masters and their practice and how they practiced Gyoji. Whether you're feeling good, whether you're feeling bad, whether you make mistakes, as Suzuki Gyoji used to say, big mistake, big Buddha.

[41:04]

Instead of criticizing ourselves for our mistakes, we should acknowledge our shortcomings and acknowledge our mistakes. But within the practice, mistakes are just mistakes. You can repent or whatever. Suzuki Roshi once gave this example of a woman carrying a big jar on top of her head, probably full of water. And as she's walking, the jar falls off and smashes behind her. All the water is all over the place. And she just keeps walking. She doesn't look back. She just keeps walking. That's Gyoji. Just keep going. Don't let anything get you down.

[42:18]

You may have to, you know, apologize to everybody, which is wonderful. Apology is good. Apology is really helpful because it frees you and it frees the other person. But if you say, oh, I can just keep making mistakes and apologize, that's not good. That's not right practice. In Imo, fascicle, Dogen's fascicle of Imo, he says, when you stumble on the ground and fall to the ground, you use the ground to help you back up. So, you know, the obstacles that we have are our practice. We're always facing obstacles, and that's what our practice is about. Without obstacles, there's no practice. So we should not be discouraged by obstacles.

[43:24]

We should be encouraged by obstacles, by facing the obstacles. How do I deal with this? How do I deal with this? That's practice. How? How? Not why. Why did this happen to me? That's not practice. Although it's within practice. Have a vow practice. Everything is within practice. There's nothing outside, even though it seems like it. It's just, how do I deal with this? How do I deal with laziness? How do I deal with distraction? How do I deal with pain, suffering? It's all practice. So those are two themes that I'm bringing up.

[45:06]

And I will continue, I think, to talk about them. I also want to say that in my talks, if anybody has a question, you know, it's okay to ask it, not in the middle of a sentence, but when it comes to a point where you feel like you want to ask a question, that's okay. But I think... Questioning is good because something is coming up immediately and it helps clarifying something.

[46:17]

Yeah. That's where I was. How and why. Why is okay, but it's not. How is better? How is our practice? How do I deal with this? Why is more psychological? How is... gives us the opportunity to act. Excuse me, but I think how can be psychological too if I just brainwash myself into saying, oh, it's a gift. That's good brainwashing. Actually, this practice is called brainwashing. You know, the precepts, we say, we keep the precepts or we break the precepts.

[47:45]

Precepts are very hard to keep by rote. So those are dead precepts. I vow not to kill, not to steal, all those things. Those are dead precepts. But dead precepts remind us of what real precepts are. Because a real precept is how. How do I deal with something? So instead of breaking the precept, when our mode is practiced, within Gyoji, when you break a precept, it's not breaking. It's only breaking when... you are standing outside of practice. But within practice, it's called staining. The precept is still there. You're not abiding by it, but you're staining it.

[48:50]

And so it's like when you wash your clothes, you know, I thought of this about... The term grease monkey, I don't know if they still have that. People don't fix their cars anymore, but they take a little mechanic. But the mechanic is the grease monkey. And his, you know, overalls are all dirty and all that. And then that's staining. And then he washes them. And then we wash them. They still have some stain, you know, but they're clean. So even though we stain the precepts, We can wash them. We can wash our overalls. Wash our mind. Wash our heart. And it has the stain, but that's not the... Actually, the stain becomes a kind of wonderful picture on the clean clothes. So your transgression, when you actually repent of your transgression, becomes a kind of wonderful picture on your

[49:58]

clean clothes, on your clean mind. So we're always washing our mind, washing our mind all the time. Suzuki Roshi, when he was in his room up at Page Street, and in the morning he would listen to the monks sweeping the sidewalk on Page Street, and he said, they're sweeping their mind. It sounds wonderful to me because everybody's sweeping their mind. When you're cleaning, you're cleaning your mind. When you're washing the windows, you don't wash the windows necessarily just to keep them clean. The windows are already clean, whether they're dirty or not. You're washing your mind. So yes, this is brainwashing. That's what we're doing all the time. When you go through Tangario, you know, you have all this stuff in your brain, in your mind.

[51:05]

And then you sit there for five days and it's... Or whatever it is. And then you come out and you feel all clean and new and, you know, refreshed. And you run up and down the... Main Street, you know, and you're hugging your friends and kissing, you know. You're free, you know. You're free of all. Even though that stuff is still staining, it still has its residue in your mind, you're really free of it for the moment until you put it all back in. But you're free of it at that moment. When we have ordination ceremony, you know, you are now, you know, clean. And then you step out and start all over again, maybe. But yes, keeping the brain, washing the brain, washing the mind over and over again. Every day, that's what we said, Zazen, every day, and let the mind get washed, and the body.

[52:11]

And then you come out of the Zendo after breakfast, everything's all bright and new, and what will I do now? opportunity to do anything because you don't have you're not carrying the karma around at least for that moment you're actually free of the karma at that moment until you start your habit energy again so how to live without being without creating karma doesn't mean that you're not creating karma but it means that your practice is the practice of keeping your mind clean and not creating karma. And when you do, to all my ancient, tangled karma, twisted karma, from beginning this greed, hate, and delusion, I now fully allow. And then we take the precepts again.

[53:13]

We admit all of our karma from ancient, you know, But we're not saying that it's bad or good. It's just, this is my accumulation, whatever it is. And then we take the precepts again and start all over again. But we don't say, I was bad or good. Yes? Yes. You're not living by the precepts. That's right. I'm no longer abiding by the precepts. What if, although I kind of hate hypothetical questions, but maybe I'll say it like this. If you happen to notice that I'm standing outside of practice, will you tell me? I'll let you know.

[54:16]

Thank you. That would be something to see. Well, it's like I no longer have faith in the precepts. I no longer have faith in the Buddha Dharma. I no longer, you know, you know, you can't really quit. Right, right. Once you start, you can't really quit. Even though you want to quit. You can't do it. But, so you can't really break the precept. Yeah, that's right, yeah. But if there was such a thing that was possible, then you can do that.

[55:21]

Yeah, we try hard to do that, but we can't escape. Yeah, so it's a kind of trap, you know, once you start practicing, even though you try to run away or whatever, you know, can't do it. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[56:10]

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