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. I'd like to start by, as I always do, start by thanking and acknowledging my teacher, Sozin Mel Weitzman Roshi, the Buddha of the East Bay, abbot of Berkeley Zen Center. And to say that my talk is just to encourage you in your practice. I'd also like to thank leader practice period, Ryushin Paul Howler, for inviting me to give this talk this morning.

[01:05]

I'm so happy to be giving this talk. And Arashuso, Heather, thank you for your diligent practice leading us in this 101st Ango at Zen Shinji, Zen Heart Temple. I was just telling Emily that Chico, just before we traipsed over here, that I'm pretty excited giving this talk this morning. I think more so than usual, maybe a little more excited than normal, because I've never worn this Oquesa before. This is a brand new Nine Joe Teaching Oquesa. which I, you know, Linda and I did Dharma Transmission here in Tazahara in April 2012, but we never before had a nine-zhou-aligned teaching okesa.

[02:17]

And these two okesas were presented to Linda and me, by sewing teacher Tim Wicks first, with no ceremony whatsoever, but a lot of emotion. On a Thursday evening in the sewing room at City Center, he was just like, here they are. And then the next day, we, Linda and I, went to Berkeley, and saw our teacher, Sojourner Roshi, and in a very intimate ceremony, he, if you wish, blessed them, incensed them, and presented them to us. That was very sweet. Yeah, I'm so happy that Linda is here.

[03:19]

Hi, Linda. So, this thing we do. Now, where I'm going to the city to practice with them five days a month, and Linda comes here five days a month minimum. So I'm really happy that Linda can be here right now. And yeah, check it out, it's got lining, see? It's got this blue lining, and it's a very, very traditional style of sewing. The nine panels and the, you know, we say patch robe monk, each section of each panel has got its own little inner patch. So it's about twice as many stitches as the Seven Joe Okesa sewn in this Nyohoi style. It took about four years

[04:24]

I think, roughly, I think, you know, people weren't sewing on them continuously for four years by no means. And I know that a number of people in here sewed on these occasions. So I want to thank you very much. And because we didn't have any other kind of ceremony, and I won't probably get a chance to say this again, and this is being recorded. Just above all, thank you to Tim Wicks, and many other sewing teachers, Gene Selkirk, Connie Ayers, up in Petaluma, in Sonoma County, is a sewing teacher who initially coordinated Linda's Oquesa, which also looks amazing and very different. Hers is kind of Dijon. Very cool.

[05:27]

And Allison Tate at City Center worked on them a lot. Kujaku, Danny Ernst, sewing teacher formerly here and then at City Center. Rosemary Taylor in Minnesota. at MZMC in Minnesota. She sewed two of these Joes all by herself, and that was a long time ago. She got them back to us. Galen Galwin and Vicki Glenn in Houston, Texas sewed on this. And so Kika and Barbara Kokenhoff and many others. So, you know, that's a few of the names, but many, many people sewed on these off and on. for about four years. So it's huge. It really surprised me how big it is. And it turns out that I've been told, reassured, it's supposed to be.

[06:37]

It's supposed to be bigger than what I've been used to. And I believe that the The tradition is, in olden days, monks would have three oquesas, five-panel, seven-panel, and nine-panel. Mostly, we wear seven-panel oquesa. But in olden days, they would have three because they knew about layering. And if it was cold like it is right now, it's pretty cold, they might wear all three, actually. So they did layer up. which sounds like a pretty good idea. And I think that's why the Nigel Okesha is sized a little bigger traditionally. So it's sewn in a very traditional style. Speaking of layering and the cold weather, I thought I might as well take this opportunity.

[07:39]

I was going to ask Emily to say it, but I'll say it now. If you're coming to practice discussion, In my little room over there, you want to wear a hat, scarf, gloves, socks, a down vest, I don't care. I want you to be comfortable. So keep the warm clothes on. You want to keep on. I understand. We won't stand on ceremony. It's just fine. Because that little room can get cold. So, now I'm wearing my Nain Jho teaching o'keza. I better give a Dharma talk of some kind. We ask, you know, what is our practice?

[08:53]

keep this question alive. What are we doing here? What is our practice? How should we practice? Many different versions of these questions. In koan stories, you'll hear many different varieties. This monk will say, you know, what is the way? Or what is Buddha? What is Buddha? The Tenkin Pad. Kind of sounds like a koan. So now I could just get up and walk out now, right? Leave you with that. I won't. No, I won't because this is 21st century California explaining Zen.

[09:59]

So I'm going to expound on that a little bit or maybe a lot. The tanking pad. A clipboard with some paper on it in a nice form that's easy to use when unable to follow some part of the schedule. we can, as we say, sign out on the Tenkin Pad. Hangs on a nail, on a post, behind the Zendo. And this is a convenient way to stay in relationship with the schedule and let the E know. And the Tenkin, the Tenkin is the person who actually takes attendance, a member of the Doanryo, so it's a different person, it's a different member of the crew, each morning gets a chance to hit the Han.

[11:12]

Call the monks to the Zendo. In very traditional, very traditional, centuries-old style, calling the monks to the Zendo. And then, well, they don't all make it. Okay, so... Let's see where everybody is. And the Tenkin takes attendance, and then the Tenkin will check the Tenkin pad. And as you know, if they can find someone in the Zandot, and there's no word of where they are, it's the Tenkin's responsibility to go look for them, which is a very good thing, because you never know. So we want people to be safe, and healthy, and to check in on them, to check on them. It's an act of love. The thinking pad is often a kind of a mirror.

[12:28]

There's a lot of emotion around it sometimes for an innocent little clipboard with a piece of paper on it. It can be a lot of emotion. I see some smiles. I know you know what I'm talking about. Even saying the words, the Tenkin Pad is like, oh yeah. Yeah. Because what we're doing here is hard. following the schedule is hard. And I don't know a single person who has not run up against their resistance practicing at the Sahara. I know of no such person. So the tanking pad for an innocent little clipboard with a piece of paper on it, two clipboards now actually, Thanks to our Eno, we now have a separate one for signing people out for practice discussion in Dokkasan.

[13:31]

But still, we always say, the Tinkin Pad, short end, the Tinkin Pad, can be an object for projection of all kinds of emotions, guilt, shame, fear of abandonment, resentment, rebellion, you name it. It's an awful lot for a little clipboard. The thing is, as we say, we've said many times. It's about staying in relationship. We, human beings, are fundamentally relational animals.

[14:40]

We are relational. We exist in relationship. Without relationship, we die, actually. without being in a relationship, we would die. A little baby, abandoned, dies. We know this. We have the thing that separates mammals from reptiles is the so-called limbic nervous system. Mammals nurture their young and require nurturance and relationship. And you can observe this in all mammals. All mammals. Foxes. Mice. Orcas.

[15:43]

Raccoons. Monkeys. humans, all kinds of mammals have this need for relationship and for physical nurturance, contact. I'm reading The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy, which is a great novel. I really like it. I'll tell you about it sometime. I'm reading it because, oh no, I don't want to get into that. Never mind. You can ask me sometime. Thomas Hardy, this English author, he sets his novels mostly in really bucolic English countryside settings, early 19th century.

[16:49]

And I was just reading a passage the other day where a The fellow is just walking down the road and he passes some horses and Thomas Hardy paints the scene in words of the horses nuzzling each other's necks, doing that thing that horses do, just to comfort each other, just to be in relationship. And it's beautiful. And that's how we are. That's how we practice. We are fundamentally relational beings. So our guy, Ehe Dogen, brought the Soto school from China to Japan.

[17:53]

in the beginning of the 13th century. As we know, wrote The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, the Shobha Genzo, a collection of essays, or we call them fascicles, teachings on particular subjects. And one of these fascicles, shorter one, so well known. In the translation that Kaz Tanahashi did with the help of Soja and Mel Weitzman, Kaz and Mel translated kato, which they translated as twining vines, twining vines. Gura Nishijima and Choto Cross, in their translation, he calls it in English, the complicated.

[18:58]

Kato, the title, is two kanji, two characters. Ka comes from katsu, or we say kudzu, or arrowroot. That's the vine that grows all over the deep south. If you leave it alone for half an hour, we'll cover a house. You know, it grows like crazy. So that's the first character, katsu. And the second is, the tol, is wisteria, which is another really twirly, bendy vine, which is, there's some growing in front of the student eating area in Stoneoffice. Down there, we have wisteria. And if you plant kudzu and wisteria together and let them go, they're just going to go and make a big mess.

[20:04]

Very complicated. Very complicated. Very inexplicably intertwined. I'm going to read you. maybe the most essential paragraph from the fascicle. Like I said, it's pretty short. And see what you make of this. Although there are a number of sages who try to study by cutting off the root of twining vines, they do not regard the cutting of twining vines with twining vines as cutting through. Also, they do not know entangling twining vines by further entangling them. Furthermore, how can they understand inheriting twining vines through twining vines?

[21:05]

Those who notice that inheriting dharma is twining vines are rare. What do you make of that? Clear as mud? Well, let's walk through it a little bit for fun. First, although there are a number of sages who try to study by cutting off the root of twining vines, so kato was considered as something like, you know, undesirable, complicated. I think a lot of people, when they think of zen, they think, you know, it should be austere, it should be clean lines, it should be, you know, like a sand garden, everything very simple. Like, I knew a guy who worked in an art gallery, and the owner of the art gallery came and saw how he was setting something up, getting ready for a

[22:20]

and the owner of the gallery said, it should be more zen, which I think he meant should be less busy, should be, you know, more blank, austere, nothing, empty, common misunderstanding of the word empty, you know, not too busy. So, yeah, kato zen is actually a put-down. Maybe, maybe, uh, uh, What I would say, what I previously joked is, explain ye Zen. Well, I vow to embrace and sustain explain ye Zen. That's fine. And Dogen is saying, you know, this thing that some sages regard as undesirable, this complicated Zen, that's not the problem. That's not the problem.

[23:22]

In fact, let's go there. They do not regard the cutting of twining vines with twining vines as cutting through. Cutting through is in quotes because probably Dovan is using a Chinese expression which means fully comprehending. Cut through. Oh, that's good. You want to cut through. You want to really see to the bottom. How do you see to the bottom? how do you cut twining vines with twining vines? Also, they do not know entangling twining vines by further entangling them. Yeah. Yeah. So we might think, oh, I want to, I'm going to go to Tazahara and everything's going to be really simple. I'm going to do my practice. Keep it nice and pure.

[24:23]

Everything will be cool. I'm going to get enlightened or at least get greater understanding. And then stuff happens. People happen. Confusion happens. The tanking pad happens. All kinds of stuff happens. And you think, oh, this isn't the Zen I wanted to practice. You might think that. This isn't what I came to Tazahara for. You might think that. What's this? This is a mess. Yes. This is complicated. Yes. That's okay. We turn towards that. We turn towards that. And we practice in relationship. Practice in relationship because we are fundamentally relational beings.

[25:26]

It's nothing to avoid. It's something to go towards. Furthermore, how can they understand inheriting twining vines through twining vines? So, last practice period, we studied face-to-face transmission. You weren't here? FYI, last practice period, we were talking about face-to-face transmission. Kapto, this fascicle thwining vines, is actually a teaching about Dharma transmission. It's a teaching about face-to-face transmission. In Moon and the Dew Drop, the fascicles regarding Dharma transmission are grouped together by Kaas. And this is one of them. This is what Linda and I studied with Mel from roughly 2010 to 2012, something like that.

[26:33]

Maybe it started in 2009. We studied these fascicles. How can you understand inheriting twining vines through twining vines? Those who notice that inheriting dharma is twining vines are rare. For me, it's about teacher-student relationships, teacher-to-student and student-to-teacher, and also student-to-student, sangha relationships and all relationships. they can be very complicated in case you hadn't noticed very complicated and it's nothing to avoid and when we try to avoid complications we

[27:48]

go into separation, hiding, denial, or even outright lying in order to defend something, some idea, some idea of purity maybe, some idea of I'm not going to be okay if I make myself vulnerable. I'm not going to be okay if I expose myself to these complications, if I expose my own perceived inadequacies, fears. So we may avert from that. We might be like, this is too much for me. I can't go there. And that's understandable. And, you know, you might find yourself signing out on the tank and pad.

[29:03]

You might find yourself, oh, there's so many interesting ways to sign out on the tank and pad. Once there was a skit on a skit night in Tassajara where these two women were talking about being thinking, and they took a book, a dictionary or something, this massive tome, and they gave it a new cover, and it said, Big book of tanking excuses. And they're looking on the tanker path. They said, let's look it up in the book. What does it mean? What do they mean by that? People have signed out all kinds of ways. My favorite of all time, many years ago, nobody here, nobody's been around for a long time.

[30:11]

I just love the candor. Signed out, bad case. of I don't want to go-itis. Yeah. And sometimes it's catching. And that's okay. It's what we're here to study. It's what we're here to study and it's what gives us the opportunity to study. tank and pad is a mirror and we are all mirrors for each other so we can try we can try to avoid the complicated we can try to avoid what's difficult I think we're really lucky that in the context of this setting the context of this monastery

[31:16]

It's pretty hard to do. It's pretty hard to do. One thing I recall, and I've repeated it more than once, and Carolyn gave me permission to mention it, was in her Shuso Wayseeking Mind talk at Tassajara, when she was Shuso here with her teacher Reb, In her Way of Seeking Mind talk, she talked about Tazahara and how she was very happy to be back at Tazahara. And what she saw as a kind of a special quality, maybe not only Tazahara, but a thing about Tazahara that is just when two people are having difficulty with each other, Relational beings that we are, wanting to be in a relationship, but finding it very hard to be in a relationship, and having a hard time, and trying to avoid each other, maybe.

[32:32]

It has this way of bringing people back together. Kind of just gently nudging us to circle back around and get back together. to reconcile, partly because the geography of the place, right? You know, this is long, narrow canyon. If you're trying to avoid somebody, it can be really a lot of work. You might spend more energy avoiding somebody than you would spend having the difficult conversation or the reconciliation. It's almost impossible. At least you're going to pass each other on the path and stop and bow. At least. And that at least is a lot. That's a lot. So we come back. Just like in Zazen, we come back. We come back to relationship. That's how we wake up.

[33:35]

In relationship. great teacher, Zenju Earthland Manuel, is currently co-leading the practice period at Green Gulch with Abbas Fu Schrader. The two of them are co-leading the practice period there. And Zenju, in her book, The Way of Tenderness, Awakening Through Race, Sexuality, and Gender, she writes, kind of a long quote, but I'm going to read the whole thing. If we are to truly encounter each other with integrity, we must engage with the true intimacy that allows for the expression of guilt, anger, or fear, not to each other necessarily, but to ourselves.

[34:46]

If we are willing to expose our full range of emotions, we must first establish true friendships or relationships as foundations upon which honest dialogue about race, sexuality, and gender can be built. And we must establish those relationships without the agenda of wanting to investigate another's blackness, queerness, etc. The friendship must be integral and genuine. It is within friendship or relationship that a liberated and complete tenderness is experienced. It is within friendship or relationship that a liberated and complete tenderness is experienced. We often want to cross cultural boundaries or to become allies without taking the needed steps toward real intimacy. This deeply encountering is...

[36:14]

I would say, I propose, entangling twining vines by further entangling them. Not being afraid to be curious, to become intimate, to really get to know another. I say not being afraid because it involves taking a risk. It means becoming vulnerable. It means risking looking or sounding foolish. It means risking hurting someone's feelings or your own. Stepping into uncharted territory involves a risk.

[37:27]

I fondly, fondly recall the late great Dharma teacher, Darlene Cohen, he would say, come play with me in the mud. Come play with me in the mud. It's okay. It's okay. You can look foolish. You can get a little messy. If you try to stay pure, separate, got my stuff together, looking good. may not necessarily be in relationship. You might be too busy taking care of looking good. Just maybe.

[38:40]

So, it is that risk. That's the risk we take. But we kind of have to because we are fundamentally responsible relational beings. That's how we exist. It is within friendship or relationship that a liberated and complete tenderness is experienced. I want to experience a liberated and complete tenderness. I am so on board with that. That's how I want to practice. That's how I want to orient my practice. And I would add that it's only within friendship or relationship that a liberated and complete tenderness is experienced.

[39:45]

That's the only way it happens. This is another Dogen fascicle, much more famous, which could be a whole other Dharma talk or a series of Dharma talks, as Leslie James has, in recent years, given many talks, I don't know how many, I wasn't keeping track, on this fascicle, Yui Butsu Yobutsu, Only a Buddha and a Buddha, which takes its title from Chapter 2 of the Lotus Sutra, Skill and Means, where the sutra says, Only a Buddha and a Buddha, can understand, only a Buddha together with a Buddha, can understand the true suchness of reality. You can't do it by yourself. In fact, the topic sentence, the first sentence of the fascicle, only a Buddha and a Buddha, is, Buddha Dharma cannot be understood by a person.

[40:58]

I got that right? I wrote, Buddha Dharma cannot be known by a person. Close enough. Buddha Dharma cannot be known by a person. A person. That's not how it works. You don't figure it out. You don't figure out the way to the end of your suffering. The way to the end of your suffering is through practicing in relationship. So we relate to each other. We relate to teachers. We relate to students. We don't avert from the complicated.

[42:01]

We relate to the near one. We relate to the difficult one. We relate to the biosphere and all living beings. And we relate to that great round mirror we call the tanken pad. Well, that's the end of my talk. Thank you for listening. 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 SSCC.org and click giving.

[42:59]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_94.71