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. Good evening. So Wednesday nights are kind of, I consider them sort of family nights here at the city center. So we often talk on a theme. We have a theme that's continued on. And family night in that we talk sometimes about our process as practitioners. And then at the same time, people who maybe are here for the first time come. So I want to introduce myself. My name is Mark Lancaster. I'm an American Buddhist priest. I'm married and I live next door. I'm currently living next door in one of Zen Center's apartment buildings.

[01:03]

And I'm happy to be here. And welcome, everybody. The theme for the talk is part of a series on work practice that Abbas Christina Lenher suggested. And her idea was, when she came to me several months ago, was to ask different people in administrative roles to talk about their jobs, their work. And this is my night, and I think someone will come after me and talk about their jobs. So I'll try for people who aren't so interested in my work. I'll try to hopefully ground it in practice for a couple of reasons. This is a Buddhist temple. And this morning, I announced we have a work circle. Every morning for people who don't come every day, we have a work circle where everybody that works together, we meet in a circle and make announcements and bow together.

[02:08]

And at the work circle, I said, oh, by the way, my job description, I've posted it on the HR board. We have a little human resources board. And my job is the human resource director for San Francisco Zen Center slash people policy person. Interesting title. So I'll tell you why we have this dual title, which is part of the complexity of giving this talk, I realized. I had some difficulty with this. One was as soon as I finished announcing that, I was walking down the hall thinking, okay, I've taken care of business. I've got my job description up. And my lecture all set, and it was on my desk, and I had meetings already, so I had to go set up a meeting. Christina ran down the hall, literally ran down the hall after me, and she said, well, wait a minute, I don't want you to talk about your job. I want you to talk about your practice in your job.

[03:08]

And I thought, oh, yeah, I've done that. You know, I thought of my lecture, and I thought, that's what I've done. I've talked about my practice. in how I practice in my work. And then I went back and I had this meeting, an HR meeting, a business meeting, and then I looked at my talk and I thought, actually, you didn't talk so much about how you practice in your job. It was more sociological and historical. And I thought, well, that's actually not really what the abbess wanted you to do, so I had to start over. And then I realized it's kind of hard for me to talk about my job as a priest and as an administrator. I've been thinking about it for many years, but I found it very challenging for a number of reasons. One is you can see my title is HR Director of People Policy Person. So we're kind of doing a couple of different things here.

[04:13]

For instance, in HR, a traditional HR mandala, and there are many of them, you know, what an HR director would do. It says, recruitment, selection, placement, compensation, socialization, evaluation, training and development, promotion and transfer. Pretty straightforward. We just do that. But then you start looking and you go, recruitment to a Zen temple. in a Zen job, in work practice training. How do we recruit people for this? How do I... And what about this selection? How do we select these people? So I thought, well, you know, this is a little bit the trickiness in this. We're not just an HR function. This is part of it. The other half is the people policy part, which was added on. So we're doing something... at the same time simultaneously.

[05:18]

And you can see, again, my job description for people who are curious. It's on that HR board. And as one of my functions, I've had to or worked on 51 other job descriptions, including all of the Abbott's jobs descriptions, and posted them on our HR website. So you can look that up, too, if you want to see all of these job descriptions. So that was pretty good. But it's not just what we do here. It's not just what we do. One project that I've had and I've worked on is something called succession planning. This is very interesting, succession planning in a Buddhist temple. We need some sort of training, but how to decide what training? How to quantify it and measure it? So on the one hand, I think it's valuable But I don't know if you know the story of the fifth and sixth ancestor in Zen Buddhism.

[06:19]

The fifth ancestor, Hongren, had a brilliant student who had studied for 30 years, had really developed himself, and was clearly ready to take the teaching role after Hongren, the fifth Chan ancestor, his Zen ancestor, died. And then he meets... Another, a student named Kui Neng, who actually is totally illiterate, has no training. And in talking with him, he begins to relate to him, and he says, this is the guy. And he gives, this becomes a succession plan, and he says, I give you the robe and the bowl. Fleet for your life. And he has to flee, and there's chaos. The whole temple's thrown. What? Who is this Wei Ning? We've got to go kill him, you know? We've had this guy for 30 years he's been training. So in a way, this is the interesting part of Zen succession planning.

[07:21]

So I thought, huh, no wonder maybe I have some trouble, you know, describing what I do. You know, there's some torque in here that's very interesting. So... So that's what my talk will be about. So I rotated it or talked a little bit more about this place of maybe dialectical tension or torque between practice and administration, or for me, between priesthood and administration, or my role as an administrator. Another level of complexity is we have about 116 staff and employees here, and 16 now employees and staff both have totally different policies, expectations, and agreements. We write different policies for both sensibilities, and yet they work together or try to work together and are working together to fashion our dream and our work in a Buddhist temple.

[08:25]

And also as a non-profit... religious organization, we have many unusual situations come up so that, for instance, OSHA, it doesn't apply to us in our religious function. We're not really covered by OSHA. However, our employees are. So then you have this... I guess if I tripped and fell while lighting incense, it would be one sort of situation, but if an employee fell, it would be a totally different situation. So we have two sets of compliance regulations and laws. So there's a kind of endless complexity here in how we meet the world in our role as a Buddhist temple. So again, I thought, oh, that's complex. And then the real nub of it is You know, in an organization like a factory that makes bowls, you know, HR, you hire some people, you recruit them, and you want to make some really sturdy bowls, and you have a profit, and the organization, the host thrives, and the people that work there all thrive, and it becomes fairly clear-cut.

[09:35]

But we want to not only make bowls, but we want to study our psychological process as we make the bowls. You know, we don't want to just make the bowl to make the bowl. We want to study what we bring to the activity of bowl making. And we want to reflect that in our work with each other. So in a way, you know, we say we cut the carrots just to cut the carrots when you work. But actually dinner's at 6.30. So again, there's this torque between this practice element and then the vitality of the world we live in. So all of this is kind of my sphere, my sphere that I work in, and then how to talk about it, how to describe it, and how do I work with it personally. So that's the nature of this talk. I read a lot, too.

[10:38]

I read a lot of... I had boxes of things. In 50 years, there are giants here. There are really wonderful things that have been written. A lot of process and study has gone into this. How do we actually do this? How do we actually work and maintain these buildings in our practice? And I also studied other organizations, other religious organizations, because I was curious. There's some tension here that I find in being priest-administrator, I call myself. time constraints. You know, I mentioned to Richard, or you've heard me say, you know, I really don't like to lecture so much. And I think you had sort of heard it a little bit like I don't care about lecturing. Actually, I think lecturing is vital. I don't have the energy because my effort is going elsewhere to spend the time on it. That's kind of what I meant. So I want to do something else. And I want to tell you what I do and why I do it and how I practice with it and why I think it can be done to practice as an administrator, you know, safely, safely.

[11:47]

It's very dangerous. It's very complex, actually, to live in this world. You know that? It's very complex. We're driven by the phantasms of success and failure as though they're real, you know. like birth and death, we say. Nagarjuna might say, success and failure is existence. They're inappropriate to discuss. They're conceptual constraints that actually don't pertain. We do something else. And this is the something else that I try to explore and I want to explore. Anyway. Some of the notes I read that I've read to try to help me figure out how to do this, how to be an administrator and work my, you know, my work week is probably 50 hours, I'd say. I work seven days a week. It's 50 hours. And I do that, and I work the seven days so that I can actually study and sit a little bit during the day, which is critical for me to stay balanced.

[12:48]

Otherwise, I become kind of intoxicated in the process, you know. I'm sitting up there writing policies, and I start to believe that I'm changing the world. So I have to stop, ease on off a little bit, come down and wash a dish, or look into somebody's eyes, or be a human being again in this place, which is much more complex, much more vital than that. and I have to read a little bit. So I've been studying a lot of, in fact, Nagarajuna, the middle discourses. I have to read every day to come back and go, come on, Mark, Mark. You're getting a little obsessed up here with your HR duties. So it's very important. So I do that every day. And I observe my mistakes in the painful places and try not to make up stories about them every day too, of who's good and bad, who's right and wrong, what these ultimate things are, and to try to pay attention to what healthy fruit can come out of this activity.

[14:00]

Buddha uses this phrase, he doesn't say success, he says conditions as they become, things as they actually become, and seeing it clearly, and that Certain conditions lead to healthy outcomes, fruit, literally. So how do we produce this fruit? What activity allows this real production to happen that is actually done in the world? It's not done separate from the world. We cut carrots because we need lunch. And they're real constraints. But how do we meet those constraints? So this is kind of my practice in my life. And slowly... Well, let me read my quote, and then you'll see a little bit more. Spirit Rock. So I thought, you know, I feel stretched. I feel pulled in these directions, and I'm not quite, I'm sort of failing at everything sometimes, I feel. And I'll talk a little bit about why failure can be useful, but also detrimental. But Spirit Rock has a note.

[15:01]

One of my jobs is writing job descriptions for Buddhist jobs. which is kind of wonderful to actually write a job description. Somebody said, I was in a meeting with some really well-meaning and very gifted people, and they said, you know, we really have to get a job description together for the abbots. You know, we have to kind of define that. And I thought, the first thing I thought was, oh, I thought it was funny, actually, the thought I said, oh, I was going to say, I'll just go up to my office and see if I can get Bodhidharma's job description and we'll make copies. But I decided people probably wouldn't laugh at that joke. They wouldn't think it was so funny. But actually it's a real joke, and it again points out this dilemma area. However, just to laugh and do nothing is too negligent. Just to take it too seriously, you also overshoot.

[16:04]

So after the laugh, then you roll up your sleeves and go, this is crazy activity, but what should the abbot be doing? And we actually try to do something. And then we have a kind of humility in our effort. So I find that very important in sustaining a sort of safe practice in my role. I don't know how this will turn out. I have my doubts, and it's actually kind of hilarious. here we are going to define this undefinable role. Okay, what's the first thing? Get up for Zaza. We write some things down. And I think if we operate on that basis, it actually is quite dynamic and creative in our work. Anyway, Spirit Rock, when they offer these administrative jobs like mine, I don't know, is David here? I was looking up a job description for the communications director, which is David Zimmerman's job. So Spirit Rock has a little note on the bottom of their administrative jobs that they post up at Spirit Rock.

[17:10]

Spirit Rock is a Vipassana center up in Marin. We're all one family. They're cousins. And they have a note on the bottom of their job descriptions, and it says, This job is not appropriate for someone who is intending to become a Buddhist teacher in the Vipassana tradition. If that is your career path, please do not apply. Time constraints do not allow for extended retreat practice. Okay, so this is, so I thought, hmm, so this could be attached to my job description, I guess, if it were offered, except take out for pasta and say in the Soto Zen tradition. Don't practice, you know, this is too much. You just have to be your, be a good administrator, okay? And then it adds another line, which I find even more intriguing and points out to the, I think, this tension between the spiritual and administrative. And dual relationships with spirit rock teachers, these are the teachers who are Vipassana teachers, will bring unnecessary complexity to the fulfillment of job responsibilities.

[18:18]

So this is actually a very interesting statement, I think, about temple work or religious work. They see some limitations, actually, infusing that role of the pasta teacher-administrator. You're just not going to have time. It's just not going to work. And then, you know, you're going to be teaching, and then another teacher's teaching, but then they have to administer. It's very confusing, so don't do that. But we don't do that. We do both. So how do we do both is really the question. So I thought, oh, that's pretty good. I should look at this. How do I do both? how can I do both safely so I sort of rotate now to being I call myself priest administrator rather than priest teacher we've got a dozen full time people we sustain as priest teachers the abbots and the tantos they do a great job I have complete confidence that the dharma is being

[19:28]

transmitted correctly so I thought what if I take on the role of priest administrator you know is this enough how would I be a priest and be an administrator a practitioner and work at something so I've done that I've started to change over so I've sort of said I don't like if somebody talks and I just there are a few people students I work with we study together I call it and it's pretty pretty good pretty valuable And that's enough. So I've sort of limited these things. And my effort is now being an administrator and practicing as an administrator. And I feel pretty good about it, actually. Although I don't know where it's going to lead. And it's led to me adopting a schedule that's not quite kosher for City Center. I sit the second period and I try to sit at night and I sit during the day. And I read during work. So I'm trying to find a way to do my 50 hours, get exercise, maintain my marriage, work with a few students, and hold my position as priest administrator in a creative way.

[20:39]

But I'm not really ready to let go completely. I'm not ready to agree with Spirit Rock's contention. I'm not ready to concede the point. I still want to practice. I still want to teach or maintain that role, but maybe more on the backside and more through my work. So that's kind of my effort now. So what does that leave me? What do I do? How do I practice as an administrator? So I use this, my practice is to ceaselessly be upright in the face of conditioned existence over and over to come back to things as they arise. Conditioned existence, so Shakyamuni said, the middle path is between the excess of absolute, the eternal or substantialization in nihilism.

[21:52]

Seeing conditions, as they are, as they arise, clearly for yourself, seeing that they're not eternal entities, or we say atman and dharma, that there is no absolute self or absolute object, that it's the dynamic connection that's ceaselessly happening in flux, and to stay there with it in the midst of your own dispositions. It's a very interesting point here. So your own dispositions are how you form reality, how reality is shaped by you. So I would say this is a core practice for me. Buddha would say that's called letting go, not investing in conditioned existence inappropriately based on self-view or separation. Very tricky business, actually, I find.

[22:55]

So disposition, and this is a little bit the Dharma part. Christina gave me permission, because I was going to talk more about my job, but I'll talk more about my Dharma practice in it. So Buddha says, all dispositions are suffering monks. All predispositions, all relationships are suffering monks. And it's true. And yet, our dispositions are psychic formations for our reality. In a sense, you know, I was thinking, let me say, oh, this person is such and such. In a way, I don't meet this person. I actually meet my experience of this person, which is formed by my dispositions, which are all of my memories, all the layers of experience that have also been shaped by my sense of being separate at myself and protecting myself. So I'm endlessly meeting endless layers of my dispositions as I work.

[23:58]

And so I sort of say my job is to stay in the midst of writing my policy, making my plans. I do a lot of mediation, meeting with people. A lot of people get mad at me, listening to people get mad at me. And seeing... the back story the endless back story and how it comes to fruition in these conditions and and trying and the tricky part is you have to filter out information from it without distorting it you can't kill it and you're filtering information this is upright activity in the face of this mirroring effect of your own dispositional energy it takes a lot of work but it's quite wonderful things become quite alive. And even writing a very funny policy like, oh, let's do another job description for the abbot. What will we think is right today is based on a safer ground now.

[25:07]

You know, this ground that Shakyamuni talked about, which he called the middle path. So... The fourth, the disposition, and maybe just for people who don't know, but also as a reminder, Sankara is the fourth disposition of the five skandhas. So Shakyamuni used these as teaching tools to describe the flow of consciousness or becoming, which is a continuum of sorts. It is a continuum, neither dependent on external or internal features, but arising in a dynamic flow. the fourth being disposition the first is form sensation perception disposition and then consciousness our dispositions layer create filters that also shape how we relate to our new experience we don't randomly pick up experience we're drawn to certain people at certain times based on all of our prior dispositions so this work for me is to

[26:15]

go to these meetings and watch the distorting quality of the dispositions that I've layered and to, in a sense, not cleanse them, but, yeah, cleanse them, maybe to see their filter, to filter them with uprightness. And it's very difficult. So that's my practice as an administrator. And some days are good days, some days not so good. But I really believe in this practice. I really believe that that kind of intimacy that Chuck came when he talked about allows me to safely be the administrator. I can hold this with a light hand. I can hold it with a lighter hand. Maybe that's enough about my practice. So we work in conditions, you know.

[27:27]

This is an interesting temple. It's been here this year for 50 years. So as an added example of the complexity of this administrative role, I'll give you a quote from Reb Anderson from 1991. So one of my jobs was three years ago. Somebody said, let's create job descriptions for everybody at Zen Center. So of course, you know, Being a wise person and being lazy, I decided to read everything I could. And I realized that somebody like Shosan Victoria Austin, during her presidency, had created all of these wonderful jobs. She had sat down and actually created all these job descriptions. Oh, wow. So I took that, and I thought, oh, great, I'll use that. This is a wonderful form. But there's some new requirements and everything changes, so I'll add some things. But let's give due. I stand on the shoulders of giants here.

[28:29]

And then I thought, let me read some more of these. And I read this interview with Rob Anderson from 1991. They were questioning him about the Abbasid, the difficulties of being Abbasid, how Buddhist Abbasid was in America. And he said... in being questioned by Ty Cashman. And I asked Reb's permission, because this is a very old quote 21 years ago. I said, do you mind if I bring this up? And he said, I remember that interview very well. Go ahead. So I have his permission. Reb says, but the problem is that administration pulls the abbot into the process so much that he and now she does not have time to teach, Reb adds. But maybe it's good the abbot doesn't have time to teach, doesn't have time to study, doesn't have time to meditate. doesn't have time to do administration. Maybe that's good. Does that sound good to you? And Ty Cashman, being a sensible interviewer, says, well, you know, Reb, in other job descriptions, that's always described as bad. In any corporate situation, if someone doesn't have time to do things well, that's considered a badly designed job description.

[29:36]

Why would that be good? And Reb says, because it's a bodhisattva job description. You don't ever have time to do the things you have to do, ever. A bodhisattva job description is a bad job description. It's an impossible job. You can describe it so that it will look like you can do the job, but I can tell you, you can't do the job. Then he added, I think part of the tradition of this place is the tradition of always too much, never being able to do the job, dying too soon. Starting too early, failure. That's the tradition of this temple, failure. So I thought, okay, this is a good place to begin writing job descriptions. So I used that to inform me, but I didn't stop. So it's important to see what's meant by this.

[30:42]

in a sense, our life is a colossal failure, and then we make an effort. And that invites a level of intimacy in our lives and in our hearts. But it's not meant as literal failure. And this is the tricky part. It's a medicine and an antidote. So in a way, I was thinking, I can't completely accept not being a priest and just being an administrator, and I can't accept failure. It's actually not so healthy. So I'm going to try to do both. But I'm going to try to do both on the ground of not success, not failure, but this activity of wholesome work. Wholesome work. Continually coming back to conditioned existence and working in this way. And seeing that there are things that can't be done. That you don't foolishly endeavor. Now, But I think we have... And so failure practice, it's very good for us because we're obsessed by success as though we're going to get out of here alive somehow.

[31:54]

Somehow it's all going to work out and we can control things. So this has, I think, been a tremendous teaching tool. But it's okay to lean in the other direction, but I think we have to go slowly. Sometimes... When you rebound, now we're going to be successful. It can be kind of dangerous. You can become excessive in the opposite direction. So in a way, my administration is to practice on the ground of this conditioned existence, exploring priesthood, and tentatively success, cautiously success, as I check it out with conditioned existence and how things are actually happening. So it's very important. so we don't want to get wild here and and we need to do it together we have to do it together and check each other and have a dialogue about being successful now this new approach maybe we're talking about administration defining everything you know seeing the humor we can actually make an effort just like to be really tough you have to be really compassionate you

[33:09]

you know sometimes you know that in practice you have to be soft to really pay attention and be honest if you're too tough it's too much so just like this between success and failure how do we proceed you know there's an element here where i have to tell you i don't know how it's going to look or how it looks for me in my practice or if i'll survive here you know i may not fit as a priest anymore it may not work i don't know i really don't know But this is how I'm going to practice as an administrator. Not on the ground of success and failure, but this tentative. Let's try this. Let's try this. So I have to stop because I'm running out of time. But I want to read one thing, and then I'm going to stop. I felt really drawn to this, and I can't. Anyway, I'll read it, and I won't explain why. It's the third case, Master Ma's Unwell is the Koan. I actually like the pointer.

[34:09]

So I'll read the pointer. I'll read the koan, and then I'll read the pointer, which I really wanted to read to you. Great Master Ma, Matsu, was a great Chan, or Chinese master, was unwell. The temple superintendent asked him, teacher, how has your venerable health been in recent days? And the great master said, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. So maybe this is, maybe the, I see this as the era. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, tentatively like Hakuin's blind men on the bridge going forward, carefully with each other. And the pointer says, one device, one object, one word, one phrase. The intent is that you'll have a place to enter. Still, this is gouging a wound in healthy flesh. Gouging a wound in healthy flesh. It can become a nest or a den. Be careful. The great function appears without abiding by fixed principles.

[35:10]

The intent is that you'll realize there is something transcendental. It covers the sky and covers the earth, yet it cannot be grasped. How could you be successful? How could you fail? You have to make an effort. And then the pointer says, this way will do, not this way will do too, this way is too diffuse. This way won't do. Not this way won't do either. This is too cut off. Without treading these two paths, what would be right? This is my tentative practice as priest administrator. Thanks. 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.

[36:11]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, please visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we all fully enjoy the Dharma.

[36:24]

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