Whatever you think. I don't want your arm to be... Good. So lately I've been talking about what Zen practice is. And at Tassajara, sometimes during the summer, you don't know what Zen practice is because you're doing it. But the first, I think of it as three different pieces. The first is Zazen and relationship with the teacher. The second is forms and teachings. And the third are the cultural connectors, psychology, communications, diversity, listening.

[01:13]

And of course, the first, number one, is the most important. But all three are important because if one of them is lacking, there's the problem. Recently, there have been three books which I bear some responsibility for, and I thought I'd plug them, as well as they do take care of some of the points I want to make. Maybe I should say that about two months ago we had a priest meeting in the city, and Paul wanted to ask, what training do we think that we need?

[02:26]

And about 20 people answered before anybody said zazen. I think because zazen was assumed. but if we assume zazen, then we may assume that we're not practicing. So what's the most important thing? This calendar I used Kuan Yin, and there are a lot of Kuan Yin or Kanan or Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. And for each month I had a teaching and then we had some pictures and a couple of my pictures are in there too.

[03:39]

Kindness and compassion are the heart of Buddhism. throughout its history. The Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokitesvara in Sanskrit, Guanyin in Chinese, and Kanan in Japanese. All these terms literally mean the hearer of the cries of the world. The Bodhisattva started out as a male figure and increasingly became represented as a female figure. He, she has made a vow to leave no one behind and is often represented with a thousand eyes and arms to see the world suffering and to be able to respond effectively with many arms and hands. Lou Lancaster from the University of

[04:47]

Cal Berkeley, gave his last talk a few years ago to a class, and he was trying to say what Buddhism was after all his teaching. And this is what he said. How does a Buddhist act? Do I live like a Dharma bum? believing in some form of renunciation and not using up things of the world? Would I have to give up shopping, meat, sexuality? The frustrating thing about the Buddhist tradition is that at every level, whenever we define it, we have already lost it. I ask myself how people can know that they are Buddhists. The one thing that all forms of Buddhism hold as their highest ideal is compassion. This seems as close to a universal answer as I can find. Buddhists, when they talk about compassion, say that if you are enlightened, you'll have a deeper response to suffering.

[05:51]

If insights do not lead to compassion, then it is not what the Buddha experienced in his enlightenment. This view makes an enormous difference. Now, sometimes people say, true kindness is strict. And sometimes it is, but I would be careful with that. True kindness is honest. Since Andy Ferguson is here and I'm happy that he's visiting Tassahara and teaching us, I wanted to quote something from Xu Tung Po, a Chinese poet.

[07:05]

He said this on August 5th, 1088. One desires pleasures and fears a hard life. These are sentiments one entertains before leading the so-called pleasurable or hard life. After one is in it, one tries to think of the envy and the fear and finds that they are gone. Then where are the pleasurable and unpleasurable thoughts after they are past? They seem to be like a sound, a shadow, a breeze, or a dream. Even these four things or somehow more tangible. Besides, how is everyone going to find happiness by countering one illusion with another illusion? I wish I could express this deep truth to you, but I cannot. friend of mine who's a teacher and I were talking and I mentioned Richard Baker Roshi and he said, how dare you call him Roshi and I don't want to speak to you again if you do that.

[08:35]

So I nodded and then I said, another coercion. He was arguing against the coercion of calling somebody, giving them a title. and then he was trying to coerce me into not giving them the title. Teachers and students are difficult matters. Which brings me to the next book, Umbrella Man. Umbrella Man is essays by Sojin, Mel Weitzman's dharma heirs. And why it's called the Umbrella Man is the person who gave him dharma transmission, Huetsu Suzuki, said, when one becomes 80 years old, the character for 80 has an umbrella on it.

[09:39]

And it's thought that at that time someone could be, could put an umbrella over people who are practicing to protect them. So there's a lot of fantasy about what a student-teacher relationship is like. And I probably will add some more fantasy to it. I'll read sort of what I wrote. Be who you want to be. I first saw Mel at the Zendo and Dwight Way in the late 60s. He had a wild look in his eyes, lots of hair coming out of his ears. I didn't have much contact with him, but he reminded me of Brody the Dharma. He seemed to epitomize Berkeley, while most of the other Zen priests in the Bay Area seemed more buttoned down.

[10:45]

I still didn't know Mel well when he was asked to be abbot in 1988. His primary practice place was to be the city, and I wanted to know who he was. The question of religious leadership was consuming the Zen Center community at the time. Paul Harler, Pat Phelan, and I were taking responsibility for the practice in the city. I watched Mel closely, and he welcomed the scrutiny. He seemed to accept whatever came his way. Soon I realized I had a new teacher. I found that I could be straightforward with him and that we could disagree without jeopardizing our relationship. Then I read a whole bunch more. But one thing that we had a dinner with most of his deshi, and what I was struck by was most of the time when there's a big teacher being honored, all the light goes to him.

[11:50]

But in this meeting, their light was throughout the room. When Mel found out we were writing, putting this book together, he said, I don't want it to be about me, I want it to be about the deshi. And the deshi mostly talked about their relationship. They didn't talk about them or him, but their relationship. Zazen is a profoundly disorienting practice. It completely tries to cut off your habits of body, speech and mind. And when you're doing that, you need a good friend.

[12:53]

who can keep you grounded and who you can trust and who you can fight with, if necessary. The third book is Commit to Sit, which is a compendium of articles from tricycle on meditation. And they picked one of mine, which is so unfortunate because it's the lecture I give when I don't know what I'm going to talk about. So now that it's out on print, I have to find another one. But it's about the five perfections. about the perfect time, the perfect place, the perfect teaching, perfect teacher, and the perfect student, which is the most important.

[14:14]

You should have confidence that you can be the best student there is, because no one else is going to teach you. Now, most of the time when I talk to people, I say, now, if only I was at Tassajara, then I would be practicing. But at Tassajara, probably I'd have to say, if only I was in Tibet, then I could be really practicing. Or even better, if only I was in practice period, then I would be really practicing. But wherever you are is the opportunity to practice. Practice isn't something that you feel good about. necessarily. It isn't some kind of big ice cream cone. So the perfect time is right now. It's not when you get a job or you finish school or you get a divorce or you're married.

[15:22]

It's right now. And that's the truth. That's the truth. And the perfect place is wherever you are. And that doesn't mean that you can't move to another place. But still, where the place you are at the present moment is where you practice. The perfect teaching may be in some cave in Tibet. It's hidden under some leaves. But it's probably your roommate who's giving you a hard time. Maybe the perfect teaching. The perfect teacher is yourself or who's ever talking.

[16:26]

Whatever I say, you can correct it. Of course, most of the time people spend their time correcting lectures and don't listen to them. And the perfect student, you should have confidence that you can find the truth with your best effort. Because if you can't, it's hopeless. I once was denigrating some of

[17:31]

teachers at Zen Center to know. And he said, be the teacher you want to be, not the teacher you don't want to be. As if somebody else is to blame. So, particularly when your practice is very good, you may not think that you're practicing because it's so integrated into your life that you think it should be separate. You think it should be some separate hard thing that you're doing. Your life here at Tassajara

[18:36]

is practice from morning till night. But you say, where's the practice in it? I'm just living my life. The hard truth is it's all in your hands. There's no one to blame. Sometimes we think we want to know who to blame.

[19:45]

Am I to blame? Is somebody else to blame? Kategori Roshi was one of my teachers, and after he'd been in Minnesota for a few years, they got together a big event for the donors to meet Kategori Roshi. They had good food and a nice environment and plenty of flowers, and Kategori Roshi walked in and said, you're all going to die. It wasn't a particularly good fundraiser, but he was giving them the truth. I also once

[20:52]

A lot of my contact with Kategori Roshi would be at the airport. And I don't remember if I was picking him up or if I was taking him out. And Norman and I were together. And I asked Kategori Roshi, I like Western teachers a lot. They give examples that are my upbringing. But there's something about Asian teachers, some kind of warmth or heart or faith. That's what I want to learn from you. How do I learn that? Now, this was a long time ago when most of the Western teachers hadn't practiced as long as Katagiri Roshi, and I don't think it's true so much anymore. I think there's a kind of hard faith something which, whether you're American or Asian, develops with practice.

[21:54]

But that's an aside. Kategori Roshi said, did you hear that, Norman? That's a great question. And he said, when people see me, see Kategori Roshi, they don't see the time he spent working with his teacher just doing regular stuff. And I had a little bit of sense of that since I hadn't been his attendant for a while. He left me to do my job and I helped him do his job. But some interesting things happened. If I tried to get his approval, he would be very mean. He assumed that I was going to do the best job taking care of him. and that he would do his part.

[22:58]

And that kind of closeness working together is an important part of practice. It's not that it's so much fun working with your teacher. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. But there is an intimacy or closeness I was struck with Shen Yang, the Chinese teacher who just died recently. I read his biography, which is very nice. A few things about Shen Yang is that he was, I don't think he, he didn't, something like he didn't walk until he was four and didn't talk until he was six. Something like that, or maybe it's the other way around. And he was in China at the time of World War II where the Chinese communists and the Chinese nationals were mean to each other, more than mean, cruel.

[24:11]

And then the Japanese came and they were very cruel. And he didn't hold a grudge. Later on, he studied in Japan, which very few Chinese teachers did. They were so shocked at what happened. Anyhow, this is all on the side. He told about a time when his teacher said, you know, see that ceiling there? There are three tiles missing. Could you find those tiles? So he went and found tiles that were similar. He said, no, those are not the same tiles. So then he found the same tiles and he said, no, those are not the same batch. So then a month or two passed and the teacher said, by the way, there are three tiles here that are the exact ones.

[25:17]

And Shen Yang understood that he wanted to please his teacher. And his teacher didn't want him to be so self-congratulatory. It may seem mean or cruel, but it's, it's something he learned. So when I was at Tassajara, in the old days, I was at Tassajara from 73 to 77. I feel like the same people were there except their names had been changed.

[26:23]

To this day, I feel a closeness to the people I practice within, which I think you will too. Frank, who's, I think, visited here, was a couple of years with me, and he was kind of being annoying to me in Chapel Hill. And I went out and wrestled with him in the middle of the lecture. But he understood that, because nobody takes him seriously. But I took him seriously.

[27:39]

And he appreciated it. Though it was an odd thing to do in the middle of a lecture. So I've been very impressed with you and you've done a good job of snowing me at Tassajara. I think the students are doing a great job and the teachers are doing a great job and the staff is doing a great job. It's pretty hard to live in paradise and know that even in paradise there are ugly things, difficult things. We want our practice to just be glowing.

[28:41]

We don't want to know that we're going to die. This book, Umbrella Man, I thought Max who spent a couple of years here, and I put it together, and I thought it would be a nice book for Mel. But it turns out it's not about for Mel or the other teachers that you know. It's about how to have a real relationship with a person. Too often we get into, my teacher is the best teacher.

[29:44]

And because he's the best teacher, I'm the best. It's not about that. Zen Center is not about being the perfect institution, though we try.

[30:51]

But it's really about developing teachers. And having a good institution hopefully helps. But being able to be in any situation without having the situation throw you off course. I'm trying to make a point here. What was it? Let's see. Yeah, I did.

[32:13]

So I'd like to thank you all, all the students who are helping to make Tassajara as great a place as it is, and all of your guests who are helping to support us to do that. And it's quite unusual to have such a place as Tassajara which now for over 40 years has been a place of Zen training and provides a respite for people. But are there any questions? You mean the fact that you think you're not going to die is going to improve you?

[33:35]

I think when you get to be my age, maybe I have 10 to 20 left, and I want to make the best of it. If you think you have an infinite time ahead of you, or when I was younger, I thought, well, there's a lot of things I want to do. But now I have to choose. Not the worst. Part of it is you have to find out. If I gave you a definition of what's the best and what's the worst, you should throw it away.

[34:44]

But for you to find out, what do you want to waste your time with? Where can you make a difference? If you think I'm making a judgment about you, it's not so. I'm just asking for information. You're welcome. Hard questions are always welcome. Yes? Should they reside?

[35:48]

Just in their life. We share our life with each other. What am I not understanding? Say your question. I think it's hard to build. I'm wondering if you think it's spontaneous or if it's a way to actually build ourselves through. If so, where does that come from? How do we do? Lots of questions. I think it's important to look for a teacher. And a teacher will not necessarily be easy for you or hard. The reason I became intimate with Mel is because I could argue with him.

[36:59]

And he respected my opinion and most often didn't agree with it. But we could respect each other while we still had different ideas. Does that help? One of the interesting things in this book is, Steve Weintraub mentions that for 20 years after Suzuki Roshi died, Zen Center ignored Mel, and Zen Center's priests were told not to do things with him. And Steve says he feels badly that he did that, but he noticed that Mel just carried on.

[38:07]

He just did what he needed to do. Sometimes a teacher is not a parent. Well, we can talk about this some more. Maybe you can help me understand more what you want. One more. You could get really stressed out about finding a teacher. Yes. Yes. The desire to have a teacher is like any desire fraught with peril.

[39:11]

On the other hand, to have some closeness with somebody who's more advanced than you are or who has more training than you are is a very natural thing. Mel actually had a sort of Dharma transmission with three different teachers and cut it off. So being truthful and honest is very important. But the desire to have a teacher is if that teacher is going to solve your problems or is going to be The great ice cream cone, that's a tendency we sometimes have. Anything else?

[40:22]

Well, I think it's important to have many teachers, but I think it's important to have a primary teacher. Yeah. I've had many teachers, too. And all the teachers were helping and preparing for having a relationship with Mel. And even so, after Mel, I have other teachers too, currently. But there's something, there's some connection I have with Mel, which I feel connects me all the way back and all the way in the future. There's a lineage connection. Okay, I didn't mean to give us all teacher-itis, but I think somebody came here last year and said that if you don't have a teacher, you shouldn't practice.

[42:00]

And I don't agree with that. I think you should practice and look for a teacher. The only reason to nod is if you feel arrogant enough that you don't need a teacher. Okay, sleep well.

[42:28]

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