So, um, is that okay? I'd like us to, I'd like to get to know, I think I know maybe most all of you, but I'd like to hear your names and have you hear each other's names. So we don't have to do it the way we do in Rev's class where you say the name afterwards unless you really, really want to. We can just, um, say our names. Okay? So, Linda. Hey, Robin. Matthew. Linda. Susan. Nithin. Blake. Jack. Patrick. Gwen. Catherine. Ida. Roy. Mark. Marty. Catherine. David. Siobhan. Mary. Courtney. Greg. Leslie. Judith. Yuwa. Jill. Linnea. Simon. Campbell. Carol. Anna. Michael. Denny. Jess. Barbara. Everybody? That's everybody. Cool. Welcome.

[01:04]

So, um, as they say on the airlines, you're in the Tenzo Kyokun class and, uh, we're studying. If anybody thinks they're in another class, you can go ahead and know. So, the Tenzo Kyokun. Linda. Yes. Could we close the window behind you? Yes. Is it too breezy? I feel like a giraffe on my... Yes. We can, um, I think it... Can I open another one? Yes. We can crack. Let's do cracks here and there for a little... Cracks. Crack. Do we have a fire? Is that... Do we have a fire? Is that... No. Okay. Well, please... And that's on too. Okay. So, I think it is important for our concentration to have the right temperature in the room.

[02:07]

Being a sensate type myself, if it gets too hot, I can't function. And I also, um, get very red cheeks. So, um, so the class, this class is on the instructions to... There's two heaters going here. The instructions for the cook or instructions for the head cook. And this, um, particular piece of writing is by Dogen Zenji. Is there anybody who's never heard of Dogen Zenji before? Dogen was a Japanese Zen master, and I'll tell a little bit more about him, who is considered the founder in Japan of the Soto School of Zen, which is Suzuki Roshi's lineage and our lineage, Soto School. So, he wrote this particular piece, which can be found in a larger work called The Pure Rules, the Eihei Shingi, The Pure Rules for the Zen Community.

[03:09]

So this is a separate chapter in that book, and this has been, not too long ago, translated by, you know, Taigen Leighton, Dan Leighton, and Shouhaku Okamura, Dogen's Pure Standards for the Zen Community. So this is, um, all sorts of very, very practical things for how you live together in harmony in a Zen community, in a Zen monastery. And it goes into great detail about the administrators, the staff, like the senior staff, and what kind of practice and how they should take care of the community and the temple and the donors. So it's very specific. And there's also a chapter in there about how to receive food and practice orioke. And the chapter about the administrators, or the six main officers,

[04:10]

like the ino, the head of the meditation hall, and the director, and there's a section in there on the tenzo, or the head cook, and then there's a separate chapter just devoted completely to the work of the head cook. So Dogen really felt this was very, very important. And this was also new to the Japanese mind, that the cook's job was treated as one of the most respected and lofty, as one of the translator's words for it, this lofty position of head cook. And those of you who are in practice period, and those of you, actually everybody has something to do with food and cooking, if not eating. Everybody has something to do with eating, and if not only eating, then there's preparation and choosing foods and buying foods and growing foods and cooking foods for others.

[05:10]

So this is Dogen's mind about this kind of practice, and he equates this mind with zazen, and the practice of everyday life of cooking and the practice of zazen are not two. So there's three main translations that I've been working with. One is the one from this book, Dogen's Pure Standards for a Zen Community. This is the Eihei Shingi. Eihei, Eiheiji was Dogen's monastery that he finally established. His name was Eihei Dogen. It means eternal peace. Peace, Ei, is eternal, and Hei is peace. And the Ei is part of my name as well. I'm Jiko Eijun. The second part of my name is Eternal Accord Eijun.

[06:15]

And Shingi is these pure rules. So there's this. This came out years and years ago, and it's been re- I think there's another name for it now, Cooking Your Life? Anyway, this has been re-issued. This is an old copy. This is Uchiyama Roshi, Refining Your Life, From the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment. And this has the translation of Tenzo Kyokun and then commentary by this Zen master who we have. Well, Shohaku Okamura, this was his teacher. He's a, Shohaku Okamura-san, Reverend Shohaku Okamura, teaches in the city and also he has been in the states in different places, but he's now associated with the Soto Zen Education Center in San Francisco. And he works closely with us, Zen Center that is. So some of you may have this already, and there's a new translation out.

[07:17]

And then in Zen Center's Book of Dogen, Moon and a Dew Drop, there's a Tenzo Kyokun translation in there. So there's three main, and there's another book coming out pretty soon called Nothing Hidden, which might be even out in November, which has another translation by the scholar Griffith Falk, plus a lot of essays about this work by contemporary Zen masters. Some have died. Daining Katagiri Roshi has an essay in there. So that may be coming out actually during the class, which might be fun to look at that. So I have chosen for the main translation Taigen Leighton and Shohaku Okamura's translation from Dogen's Pure Standards. So I have about 17 of these or so. And also I wanted to put together a kind of Tenzo Kyokun study book,

[08:24]

which Matt, my assistant, will do, I think. If there's a lot of interest in it, then I'll make them for everyone. There may be a slight cost for the Xeroxing, but we thought we'd have the three translations that we have on one side with the notes, and then you can kind of compare. I don't speak Japanese or read characters, so the best thing would be to have a character-by-character study along with that, which I hope to put together with this little study book. But how many people would be interested in having a little study book like that? If you don't think you'll read it, don't raise your hand. So how many is that? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. Okay, so maybe about 20 maybe even. Okay, we'll see if we can get that ready for next week,

[09:28]

and then we can look at how there's certain things that people translate a little bit differently, and it's fun to see how different translators do it. Some are a little more interpretive and all. But I think this will be our main text. So how many of you don't have a copy of anything with you? Okay, most of you. Those of you in the practice period who can pick one of these up tomorrow, we'll have a bunch tomorrow, so I'd like to pass these out to those of you who are not living here. How many people have come from outside? Maybe it's just a couple. Okay, well, I'll just pass these out, and be sure the people who aren't living here get one, and then I'll see how many more for next week. So just to say a few things about the class. We have six classes, and my imagination was...

[10:29]

I have a lot of Tenzo stories. I was Tenzo for a year at Tassajara, and we have a current Tenzo with us, Judith Keenan from the city, who's the Tenzo now in the city. Do we have any... Judith is in the back. Are there any ex-Tenzos here? People who've been Tenzo before? What? Why are you still Tenzo? So this particular text for me has been really a pivotal teaching and a pivotal text, and for those of you who are in the practice period, this is a wonderful thing, I feel, to be studying while you're in the midst of formal meals, working in the kitchen, serving meals, eating oreoki style, working in the gardens, working with food. I think it's just a wonderful thing to put your attention to,

[11:30]

and you can bring it forth in your everyday life, and everyone can too, whether you're in the practice period or not. So I was hoping to be sure that we read through the text. In fact, I thought we might even do that tonight out loud, taking turns, so we just have it in our ears. But I also, there's a lot of stories, teaching stories, both koans about Tenzos, great Tenzos, and also more modern-day koans from our own Tassajara monastery and other places, and other stories around food that illuminate our mind and our difficulties and how to negotiate the way. How does that sound for a class? Good. Okay. So I wanted to just give you a little bit about Dogen,

[12:32]

for those of you who are not that familiar with him, because the mind of Dogen, of course, comes through. So Dogen Zenji, just about his life, he was born in 1200, and last year we had this big anniversary of the 800 years, a big thing at Stanford University, kind of a Dogen memorial, and he died at the age of 53, so he was really young. I'm 53, so his life was not all that long, really. And I don't know, comparatively speaking, about medieval Japan, what the average age span was, but he did an enormous amount of work, writing during that time. His masterwork is called Shobogenzo, The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye,

[13:34]

and Munanadudra has a lot of, they're called fascicles for some reason, but they're like little essays, or big and little essays, that are called fascicles. Anyway, there's lots of translations of Shobogenzo, and he also wrote poetry and different... There's a new book called Eihei Koroku, which is his work in Chinese, a variety of things. His opening Dharma talk for the beginning of a practice period, letters to people, just different things. So he did write an enormous amount, and at the same time he practiced Zazen, was his main fundamental practice, and established Eihei Monastery, and this teaching lineage that we chant in the morning

[14:38]

and dedicate our service to our first ancestor in Japan, Eihei Dogen Daiyosho, great teacher. So just a little about him, born in 1200, his father was from the aristocracy, a descendant from one of the emperors, so he was really in the aristocracy of Japan. Murakami, the emperor Murakami, his father was a Minamoto, and his mother was also in the aristocracy. His father died while he was an infant, and his mother died when he was eight years old, and one of the turning points in his life, as you may imagine, was the death of his mother at this young age, and seeing the rising of the twin lines of smoke coming up from the incense stick that was burning by his mother's body,

[15:40]

and he had a very strong experience of impermanence and the ungraspability of life, and had some turning, even at that young age, because he was being schooled to be part of the civil servant nobility, those kinds of jobs, and he actually slipped away when he was about 13 to go to a monastery to be ordained by his uncle, I think his uncle on his mother's side. And he was very, very precocious. Supposedly he read the complete Abhidharmakosha by the time he was, if you're familiar with this work, it was that thick and hard to get through. He supposedly read that at a very young age and kind of mastered what was offered to him at Mount Hiei in Japan, and he decided to go to China

[16:44]

because he wasn't satisfied with the teaching that he was receiving there. Now, I just came back from China, as many of you know, about a week or so ago, and it took a long time to get there from here, you know, long plane ride, and once you get there, long plane rides and train rides. Anyway, at that time, in 1223, I think he was about 23 when he went, it was an enormous journey to go to China. By boat, it took months, many, many weeks or months. You didn't know whether you were going to make it there alive or not, and then once you got there, it was rough. I just wanted to say a little bit about China at that time, having just come back from it. China was the most kind of vibrant culture, and we saw, for example, the Forbidden City,

[17:50]

the place where the emperor lived, this huge complex compound, more like it really was a city with many, many buildings, and very elaborate, and that was a little later, that was in the 1400s, but China was this fountain of culture and learning, and Japan looked to China for everything, really, the language and literature and the art and their religion, too. Buddhism came to Japan through China and Korea in about the 6th century, and supposedly there were some pilgrims from Japan to India, but they never returned. The journey to India was very rough as well, so going to China was a big, big journey and a very important pilgrimage. So he went off with his teacher Miaozhen,

[18:56]

who died actually in China and didn't return with him, and Dogen, there's stories, and in the Tenzo Kyokun, there are stories of his encounters with practitioners, Tenzos, in fact, head cooks who he met, who really turned him around because he was this young, precocious, very bright young guy who was going for the true Dharma, and he had a lot of ideas and he had a lot of ways he had been exposed to the teaching, and then he met something fresh and new, and the Tenzos he met were pivotal encounters, which he talks about in Tenzo Kyokun. So when he came back, this is kind of skipping through his time in... Oh, he met his teacher in China, Rujing,

[20:00]

Tendo Nyojo Daiyosho, or Rujing in Chinese, and when he returned to Japan, he felt that he had received the treasury of the true Dharma-I, the Shobo Genzo, the true Dharma-I, and he was going to bring it back to Japan where they had not received it yet, he felt. And he didn't call his teaching Soto Zen, he called it Buddha Dharma. This was Buddhism coming from the original Shakyamuni Buddha and it had gotten off course, he felt, and he was going to bring back the true Dharma, so he was very fervent about this, and when he came back and stepped off the boat, he wrote several things, and Tenzo Kyokun was one of the earliest things he wrote. He wrote it in 1237. Some of the other things he wrote very soon were

[21:04]

Fukan Zazengi, instructions for universal admonitions for Zazen, and Gyakudo Yojinshu, guidelines for practicing the way, and Bendowa, the endeavor of the way, and what else, Genjo Koan, these are some of the earliest things that he wrote. And Tenzo Kyokun, the instructions to the head cook, were right up with these very, you know, we chant them as liturgy in the Zendo, the Fukan Zazengi instructions, universal admonitions for Zazen, and the Genjo Koan, we use those for our service chanting, and Tenzo Kyokun was written in and around those same works, which shows how important he really felt this was, this particular transmission. So let's see.

[22:07]

So when he returned, this goal of establishing the true Dharma was not easily brought into reality. He came back and stayed at a temple that he had lived at before, Keninji Temple, and then he moved to a place called Koshoji Temple, had a small gathering of monks who came to practice with him, which is when he wrote this. But there was, you know, we like to think of Dogen as kind of above any kind of competitiveness or, you know, rivalry or, you know, jealousness or something, but anyway, there was this, he wasn't, he didn't get a lot of support from the powers that be, you might say, and there was another pilgrim Japanese man who had been to China who seemed to be a little more politically savvy or something. Anyway, he kind of got the court's support and Dogen didn't to establish this new Zen center.

[23:12]

So Dogen ended up leaving and went into Ichizen Province, and I was talking the other night about my different feeling about provinces. Now when we talk about different provinces, for those of you who weren't here on Sunday night when we talked about the trip to China, I now have a feeling for what these, and in Japan too now, when they say so-and-so came from a certain province, it's like saying so-and-so came from Texas or so-and-so came from the Midwest, and then we have a feeling for that, where this person come from or so-and-so came from the Bay Area. Well, he went to Ichizen Province, which is way away from Kyoto and the court and all the cultural stuff, and it's snow country, you know, it gets snowed in, and it was pretty far out in the countryside. That's where he ended up establishing Eheiji. Has anyone been to Eheiji? Who's here? I've never been there either.

[24:14]

This was a very good thing, it turned out, in the end because there was persecution of the Zen establishment that was more connected with the court and the Gozan, the Five Mountains Zen, and the military and the establishment, but Eheiji was way out in the boondocks basically, and it survived this. This was later in the 14th and 15th century, and Soto Zen, which ended up being established in the countryside, more rural areas, did last, and it's actually the most prevalent between Soto and Rinzai in Japan today. So he left for this kind of wilderness area, like, I don't know, Alaska or some kind of feeling like that, way out there and established, and people came to practice with him in this temple. And then he wrote this Eheishinki, the pure standards for Zen communities,

[25:18]

how do you live together and get along and bring forth Buddha Dharma and also conduct yourself in a way that expresses that. So Tenzo Kyokun was written when he was at this place called Shoji early on before Eheiji was established, and it was written for the practitioners there, so it's very practical about what goes on. So are there any questions about just that quick overview of Dogen and his writing and life? Yes? I was just curious, this Dogen's pure standards for the Zen community, is that kind of like a monastic rule for Eheiji to follow? Yes, yes, it's like a monastic rule. You know, there's references to an earlier rule,

[26:20]

Bai Zhang's rule, Hyakujo's rule, but there's actually, that was a Chinese rule, but there's actually no extant version of that, no one's actually ever seen what that rule was. So he references that in different places, but the scholars feel this is one of these things where there's a kind of Soto sense of things, and then the scholars say, well, there may never have been such a thing. But anyway, yes, this was like, we have the guidelines for practice, and it's very specific to our place. For example, at Green Gulch, you know, we have the Zendo is both the Buddha Hall and the Zendo, whereas at Eheiji there would be separate living quarters, so there's different, like for Cloud Hall, there's certain rules for how you conduct yourself in Cloud Hall, which is, so it's like that. It's the very specific thing for monastic life at Eheiji. Okay, well, before I talk about

[27:31]

kind of how the text itself is organized, I just want to say a little bit about my own experience in terms of pivotal things that happened with me around the cooks and food and my practice. So when I first came to practice, it was 1968, and I came from Minnesota out to Sokoji, where Suzuki Roshi was leading the Japanese community at Sokoji. It was called a mission. They still call them missions. He was sent to be a missionary. It's kind of funny. He did a good job. So the Sokoji Temple wasn't a residential place itself. It was just a temple. Actually, it used to be an old synagogue which was made into a Japanese temple,

[28:31]

and the Zendo was there, and Suzuki Roshi's living quarters were there, and then across the street there were these Victorians on Bush Street, and this was in 1968. So Tassara had been established in 67, and there were practitioners who lived in little Zen houses, you could say, of four or five people or six people who shared these Victorian flats, and I came and stayed as kind of a guest student in one of these flats, and I remember there was a kitchen, and I think the group there, they all shared the cooking. So each night, they all worked. Nobody worked for Sokoji. That was the Japanese community. Everybody worked out downtown, and Reb, who was my friend in Minnesota, was already out here practicing and working at Bank of America, I think, and other people had been at Tassara and had come up and were working or doing different things.

[29:32]

Anyway, so they had dinners together, I think. Anyway, I was staying, and I went into the kitchen, and there were these people who had been to Tassara. They were older students. They had been to Tassara for a practice period, maybe, or a year, maybe, and they were cooking dinner, and they were chopping onions, and I remember I came in the door, and I saw they were cooking, and I looked, and there was something about what they were doing that really grabbed me, and I looked, and I thought, well, they're just chopping onions, and then I realized that they were just chopping onions. That was all. They were just chopping onions, rather than whatever it was that I saw, it came in completely. They are just paying attention to what they're doing completely and chopping onions, and as I've said before because I've told this story before,

[30:33]

I had seen my mother and aunts, and I don't think I had chopped all that many onions at that time, but chopping, but there was something about this that was different, and I remember thinking, I'm not sure, but I think it was right around there when I thought, I want to live like that. I want to do that. I want to chop like that. So whatever that is, I didn't know what it was. It just looked like it was complete. It was wonderful. It settled. I don't know what it was, but you got it, I think, when I told you. So seeing those two people preparing dinner was a turning point for me, and it took me a couple of years to get back to Zen Center because of my karma, which included being accepted to a junior year abroad program in Italy and wanting to do that, and so I went to Italy and stayed another year. So I came back in 1970, and 300 Page Street had been purchased by then,

[31:43]

and I was given permission to move in, even though Rev was director at the time, so he knew me, so I got to move in as a kind of temporary resident, went to school in Berkeley, kind of finagled. The only reason I was transferring to Berkeley is so I could be at Zen Center and learn to chop like that and actually to settle my life, which was very unhappy at the time. So January 1, 1971, I moved into the building and commuted to college and lived in the building, and because I went, these are my cooking stories, because I had to go to school every morning, I couldn't do my house jobs, that we shared house jobs, there was breakfast prep, dinner prep, and dishes, so I had to do everything on the weekend. So I would cook Sunday morning breakfast, and I did Saturday night dishes, and Sunday night, anyway, I did this whole weekend in the kitchen

[32:46]

because during the week I left every day. And the tenso at the time was Debra Madison. Some of you may have heard of Debra Madison. She subsequently wrote, well, started, was the head cook at Green's and wrote the Green's Cookbook and Savory Way and this big vegetarian encyclopedia kind of recently. She was the tenso, and there was no crew. We just, Judith, there was no crew. We just shared. We all had a dinner prep. Anyway, and same with sashimi, the tenso, very similar to tenso kyokun, really took care of a lot of stuff on her or his own, it was Debra. Anyway, for sashimi that I sent, she needed some people to help wash lettuce, so first period of Zazen, I'm sitting there very, I don't know if I was happily sitting there, but I was sitting there, and I got asked to come to help in the kitchen, first period of Zazen,

[33:49]

and I think I was a little grumpy about that because I didn't, I wanted to be in the zendo, but I, so she put me to work, Debra, washing lettuce, and I did it in some way or another. I just got through the job and it was over and got to get back to the zendo. And when the lunch lettuce was served, well, it wasn't in my bowl, but in somebody's bowl. Anyway, I was called, the tenso called me to her later to say the lettuce was gritty, the lettuce was dirty, and it was served in the zendo for sashimi, and there was grit and people had to, and I had, oh, she found it, gritty, that was it, and I had to wash it all over again. And I remember feeling right then that I had a lot of highfalutin ideas about, it's very much like the tenso kilken, about what practice was, and it was important to be in the zendo, and kind of complaining mind about, you know.

[34:52]

And meanwhile, all my ideas about learning to chop and completely do, thoroughly and completely be present for whatever was just, it was just a bunch of ideas. I was not living it, I was not living it. And I was, I think what came over me was a deep sense of my non-understanding, or it was actually, I was ashamed, I was ashamed of my poor practice. And that kind of shame is very wholesome, that's like Kri, H-R-I, there's two wholesome dharmas that are present in every wholesome state of mind, one is Kri, and the other is Anapatrapya. No, excuse me, there's many wholesome dharmas that are wholesome in states of mind, but there's the lack of two that are necessary for unwholesome states of mind, and the lack of those two are Kri and Anapatrapya.

[35:55]

One is a sense of shame, but in the sense of, let one do nothing that the wise would reprove, that kind of feeling. And the other is... So it's translated sometimes as sense of shame and a feeling of blame, blame and shame. But I'm sort of getting off on this, but I just want to say that the wholesomeness of those are that it matters to you what you do and what the wise might reprove, it matters. It's not like, eh, don't be so... So there's a little grit and a big deal, let him deal with it, that kind of mind. That's kind of unwholesome state of mind. That's not a sense of these kind of sensitivities. So anyway, I had this feeling come up, and I realized that my practice was not thorough,

[37:00]

it didn't reach to every corner. It was like practice was imazendo, inzazen posture, maybe service, okay then, and dokusat or something, but these other things, you had to do them. So that was very clear. And there's other stories which will come up, I'm sure, as we're talking, but after, let's see, I graduated in June of 1972, and we got Gringotts that June, and I was planning on getting a job and making money so I could go to Tassara because there was no WPA, there was no work practice apprentice or farmer apprentice, you had to pay for your practice period, and people got jobs and saved money to pay. So I got a job right away in Ghirardelli Square, selling candles at this little candle shop. I walked in, and that's another story. So I got this job at the candle shop, but that very afternoon,

[38:04]

we had just gotten Gringotts, and I was asked by the president, I think, or the secretary at the time, Yvonne Rann, we have this new practice place, Gringotts Farm, would you be willing to be the Fukuten? We're asking Isan Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, some of you may know him, the book Street Zen is about him, was Tenzo at Tassara. We're asking him to come up from Tassara to be the cook at Gringotts, and we need someone in the kitchen. And at the same time, and this is totally serendipitous, my mother, as a graduation present, gave me a year at Tassara. So that was, it was like, you know, my life just sort of fell into alignment, and I called up the candle shop and said, forget it. I never even worked one day there, it was actually the same exact day. So when I came out here, I was the Fukuten, now that's kind of a highfalutin term, Fukuten was like Vice Tenzo

[39:05]

or second-in-command cook, but it was a very small group, there were five of us all together out here. So the two of us were in the kitchen, and then the rest were on the farm. And then on Sundays, on Sunday, then people would come out, and slowly, slowly, over the Sunday it got to be, over the summer, it got to be more people on Sunday, and we'd cook lunch, and people would volunteer, and pretty soon more people moved in, slept in the zendo, and so on and so forth. But I worked with Isan Dorsey, who had been Tenzo Tassar, and just this one story about my day off. It was time for my day off, but I was so needed in the kitchen, I mean, how could he do without me? I mean, we had these meals to put out, and there was lunch, and I mean, don't you need me to do the soup? And he said, would you get out of here, please?

[40:06]

Just get out, take your day off. And I remember thinking, he said, what did he say? You're not that important. Just out, you know. And I kind of got it, you know, that my whole thing about, oh, I'll help, and it was all about me, you know, it wasn't about the needs of the kitchen or him, it was not in alignment with, he was fine, he was doing great, there were volunteers coming, he was fine, go, take your day off. So I realized the, which is this encounter with the Tenzo, you know, this is one of these encounters with the Tenzo, who was an older student, definitely had been to Tassar, had been Tenzo Tassar, and there was, he was, he cut through, you know, clinging, whiny kind of unhappiness.

[41:08]

Just whee, whee. So in the fall of 72, I went down to Tassar, and I was at the Tangario, and one of the people on the crew in the kitchen actually got pregnant, or was pregnant, and was not feeling well, and she couldn't be on the crew. So who do they ask to be in the kitchen for her first practice period? Linda Ruth Cutts. So I remember being asked, and I thought, this can't be true, this cannot be true, my first practice period, because the schedule at Tassar in the kitchen is a little different than the Zendo schedule. You sit, at that time we sat the first period in the morning, then you go to the kitchen, and everybody else stayed in the Zendo, and had orioke meals, and you ate in the kitchen, and you had a different day off. My first day off, nobody else was off, it was just me. So when I was asked, my practice at the time was just the practice of yes,

[42:15]

but I didn't feel yes. I mean, I did it as a practice, but I didn't really want to be in the kitchen. But that's where I was put. So I worked that first practice period in the kitchen and found out a lot about who I was and about Tassar practice, and I'll tell you more about that. And then I went back in the kitchen in the summer, and then I can't remember when I was Tenzo, but I can't remember. A couple of years later I was Tenzo. So those are just the kitchen work and encounters with the Tenzo, for me, have been very, very important. And the practice as Tenzo, when I was Tenzo,

[43:17]

was one of the most hardest and most developing practice that I ever had in terms of temple administrator jobs. What was asked of me, what I had to find within myself was very... I can't say what it was. So with that as a little background, I thought we could read the Tenzo Kyoko tonight, see if we can actually read it. I know what happens sometimes in these classes. You can just, because the classes, you know, there's no tests, you don't have to turn in papers, and it's easy to just, you know, you don't have to necessarily read.

[44:19]

You can kind of ride through because it's not necessary really. You can just glean things from going to class. But I really would like us to read this for you to read it and study it. I've read this many, many times, and each time there are jewels, and it reopens or it opens something differently for me based on my own life and my own experiences. So you can read it early in your practice, you can read it late. We can add more light. Does the dimmer go up a little higher? How's that? Is that good? Okay. Let's see. So does everyone have a copy to either share or... This was my feeling about tonight.

[45:24]

We should just read it through without commentary, without talking, and then we'll go back through it. And it can be roughly, or one rough way to divide it up is into about five sections, which we'll see. We might take each kind of a section each week. Some sections are more, we want to spend more time. I'm afraid we probably won't get to the end. We may not get to the end discussing it all thoroughly, but I'm not sure if we can do paragraph by paragraph because... Why don't we start, and if you end up with a paragraph that's particularly long, just share it with your neighbor and pass the page on, okay, and see if everybody can read something. And then if we all get to read, we'll start over again, okay? I'll start. Instructions for the Tenzo, Tenzo Kyokun, compiled by Monk Dogen at Kanon Dorikosho Horinzenji Temple.

[46:30]

From the beginning, in Buddha's family, there have been six temple administrators. They are all Buddha's children, and together they carry out Buddha's work. Among them, the Tenzo, chief cook, has the job of taking care of the preparation of food for the community. The Zen En Shingi says, For serving the community, there is the Tenzo. Since ancient times, masters with way-seeking mind, lofty people who had awakened their hearts were appointed to this job. After all, isn't this the single color of diligently engaging in the way? If you do not have the mind of the way, then all of this hard work is meaningless and not beneficial. The Zen En Shingi says, You must put to work the mind of the way, offering appropriate variety in the food served, so that the community can feel satisfied and at ease. In ancient times, such people as

[47:33]

the Mara bequeathed since ancient times by Buddhas and ancestors who had the mind of the way. First of all, you must deeply study the Zen En Shingi. After that, it is necessary to hear discussions about details of the job from former Tenzos. Here's how to fulfill the job for a whole day and night. First, after lunch, consult with the director and assistant director in their offices to get the provisions for the next day's breakfast and lunch. This includes rice, greens, and other items. After you receive them, carefully protect these ingredients as if taking care of your own eyes. Zen Master Bao Ming Ren Yong said, Guard the temple properties as if they were your own eyes. Respect the temple food as if it were for the emperor. This attitude applies to both raw and cooked food. Thereafter, all the temple administrators gather in their offices and discuss what combinations of flavors, which vegetables,

[48:33]

and what breakfast gruel to prepare for the next day. The Zen En Shingi says, Decide on the ingredients of the different courses for breakfast and lunch after discussions with all of the temple administrators. The six temple administrators, Roku Chiji, are the director, Tsu Tzu, assistant director, Kan Tsu, treasurer, Fu Tzu, supervisor of the monks, Kanda, Ino, chief cook, Tenzo, and the work leader, Shi Sui. After agreeing on the different courses, write a menu and post it on the signboard at both the abbot's room and the monks' study hall. Next, get ready the following morning's breakfast. Select the rice and prepare the vegetables by yourself with your own hands, watching closely with sincere diligence. You should not attend to some things and neglect to be slack with others for even one moment. Do not give away a single drop from within the ocean of virtues. You must not fail to add a single speck on top of a mountain of good deeds. Zen En Chingi says,

[49:34]

If the food is without the excellence of the six flavors and without the endowment of the three virtues, the Tenzo is not serving the community. While examining the rice, watch for sand. While examining the sand, watch for rice. If you minutely observe different viewpoints without absent-mindedness, then naturally the food will integrate the three virtues and include the six tastes. Xu Feng was Tenzo when he studied with Dongxiang. One day while the rice was being cleaned, Dongxiang asked, Do you sift out the sand from the rice or do you sift out the rice from the sand? How do I say it? Xue Feng Xue Feng said, I throw out the sand and rice at the same time, Dongxiang said. Then what will the community eat? Xue Feng Xue Feng overturned the bowl. Dongxiang said, Later you will meet somebody else. In such a manner, lofty ancients of the way have carefully practiced this job with their own hands.

[50:40]

As their successors, we must not be negligent. It has been said that for the Tenzo, rolling up the sleeves is the mind of the way. If you have made a mistake cleaning rice and sand, correct it by yourself. The Chingi says, When you cook food, if you intimately and personally look after it, it will naturally be pure. Keep the white water that drains from washing the rice, not wastefully discarding it. Since ancient times, we take a bag and strain the leftover white water to use it in the rice gruel. After you have collected the ingredients in a pot, you must be sure to protect it from old mice following in my footsteps. Also, do not allow whoever idly wanders by to examine or touch it. After preparing the breakfast, vegetables, get together the wooden rice container,

[51:45]

pots and utensils that are used at lunch for the rice and soup, and intimately wash them clean. For all the various things, put away in high places stands up long in high places, and put away in low places stands up long in low places. A high place is a high level, and a low place is low level. Tongs and ladles and other utensils should all be treated equally. Be with a sincere mind and picked up and put down with a light hand. After that, put together the materials for tomorrow's lunch. First, remove with great care all the bugs, small inedible beans, rice bran, sand, and stones from the rice. While the Tenzo is preparing both the rice and vegetables, the Tenzo's attendant chants a sutra and dedicates it to the guardian god of the oven. Next, choose and take care of the ingredients for the soup greens.

[52:46]

Do not comment on the quantity or make judgments about the quality of the ingredients you obtain from the director. Just sincerely prepare them. Definitely avoid emotional disputes about the quantity of the ingredients. All day and all night, things come to mind, and the mind attends to them. At one with them all, diligently carry on the way. Before midnight, arrange things for breakfast. Sometime after midnight, take care of cooking the breakfast roll. The next day, after breakfast, wash the pot, steam the rice, and cook the soup. While the lunch rice is soaking, the Tenzo should not leave the sink area. To wash the rice properly, carefully wash with clear eyes that not one grain is wasted. Then put it in a pot, light the fire, and steam the rice. An ancient said, when steaming rice, regard the pot as your own head.

[53:48]

When washing rice, know that the water is your own life. Soon after the rice is cooked, put it either in a bamboo basket or in a container, and place it on the table for food when it is ready. You should also cook the vegetables and the soup at the same time that the rice is steaming. The Tenzo closely watches what the rice and soup are cooking, and has the attendant and kitchen workers, or all in person, arrange the kitchen implements. Recently, at large monasteries, there are rice cooks and soup cooks, but still they are supervised by the Tenzo. In ancient times, there were no rice cooks or soup cooks. The Tenzo was the only worker. When you take care of things, do not see with your common eyes. Do not think with your common sense. Pick a single glare blade of grass and erect a sanctuary for the jewel king. Enter a single atom and turn the great wheel of the teaching.

[54:50]

So even when you are making a broth of coarse greens, do not arouse an attitude of distaste or dismissal. Even when you are making a high quality cream soup, do not arouse an attitude of rapture and dancing for joy. If you already have no attachments, how could you have any disgust? Therefore, although you may encounter inferior ingredients, do not be at all negligent. Although you may come across delicacies, be all the more diligent. Never alter your state of mind based on materials. People who change their mind according to ingredients, or adjust their speech to the status of whoever they are talking to, are not people of the way. If you are resolute in your intention and are most sincere, you will vow to be more pure-hearted than the ancients and surpass even the elders in attentiveness.

[55:55]

The appropriate manner of putting the mind and the way to work on this is to decide that even if the old masters got three coins and made a broth of coarse greens, now with the same three coins you will make a high quality cream soup. This is difficult to do. Why is that? The difference between the ancients and the people of today is as remote as that between heaven and earth. How could we ever stand even with them? However, when we attentively undertake this job, we can definitely surpass the old masters. This principle is a certainty that you still do not yet create and understand, only because your thinking scatters like wild birds and your emotions scamper around like monkeys in the forest. If these monkeys and birds once took the backward step of inner illumination, naturally you would become integrated.

[57:09]

This means whereby although you are turned around by things, you can also turn things around. Being harmonious and pure like this does not reside in the eye of oneness or the eye that discerns differences. Take one stalk of vegetable to make the six-foot body of Buddha. Invite the six-foot body to make one stalk of vegetable. This is the divine power that causes transformations and the Buddha-work that benefits beings. I just want to remind you, it's hard to stop when we're in the middle of a paragraph, but if there's a long one, let's split it up. So, to see if everybody can speak. When you have completely finished taking care of the food, see where it is there and place it here where it belongs. When the bell rings, follow the assembly and join the Dharma meeting. Now I'm going to take one more of your e-mails. When you return to the kitchen, right away you must close your eyes and clearly envision how many people are in the monk's hall,

[58:13]

how many distinguished retired monks and other monks with high positions there are in private rooms, how many monks are in the infirmary, the elderly monks' residence and the dormitory for recuperating monks, how many traveling monks are in the guest dorm and what number of people are in hermitage. Carefully calculate in this way and if you have the slightest uncertainty, ask the e-mail monk supervisor, the heads of the various monastery departments, the managers of the different offices and the head monk of each department. When you have settled your questions about the number of people to be fed, carefully determine as follows how to provide one grain of rice for each grain of rice that will be eaten. If you divide one grain, you will have two half grains, sometimes divided into one third or one fourth, one half or two halves. If you put two separate half grains of rice together, you will have one whole grain of rice.

[59:20]

Also, if you give one ninth to someone, see how many parts are left over. Or if you take back one ninth, see how many parts they still have. If the monks get to eat one grain of Yunnan rice, they will see monk Weishan. Also, if you get to offer one grain of Luming rice, you will see the water buffalo. The water buffalo eats monk Weishan. Monk Weishan pens the water buffalo. Have I determined it yet or not? Have you calculated it yet or not? After inspecting and clearly discerning these details, when you see an opportunity, explain. When you face a person, speak. After all, exertion like this, with the suchness of unity and the suchness of duality, whether for two days or three days, must not be forgotten, even for a little while.

[60:22]

When a patient comes to the monastery and offers money for food, the temple administrators should discuss it together, as is the custom at Buddhist monasteries. When donated materials are to be dispersed, also they discuss it together. Do not abide their authority and create a disturbance on the jhāna. After the lunch or breakfast has been properly prepared and placed on the table, the tenzo puts on the okesa, unfolds the zagu, and, facing the shodo, offers incense and does nine prostrations. Then the food is sent out. Throughout the day and night, prepare lunch and breakfast without wasting time. If you sincerely arrange the implements and prepare the food, all of your conduct and performance become the activity for the sustained development of a womb of sages. Taking the backward step of transforming the self is the way to bring peace to the community.

[61:27]

Now, we in Japan already have heard the name Buddhadharma for a long time. However, the venerable ones have not taught, and previous people have not recorded, the description of how to prepare monk's food respectfully. How much more have they not seen, even in a dream, the observance of doing nine prostrations towards the monk's food? People in our country think that the way monks eat, in a way to prepare the food, is the same as the way birds and hairy beasts eat. Surely we must pity this. Surely we must grieve. What a shame. When this mountain monk, Dogen, was at Tianzong Temple, a person named Yong from Hingyuan Prefecture had the job of tenzo. I happened to be passing through the eastern corridor on my way to Xiaorong Hut after lunch, when the tenzo was drying mushrooms in front of the Buddha Hall. He carried a bamboo cane, but had no hat on his head.

[62:30]

The sun beat down on the hot pavement, and sweat flowed down, and drenched him as he resolutely dried the mushrooms. I saw he was struggling a bit, with his spine bent like a bow, and he shagged the eyebrows. He looked like a crane. I approached him politely, asked the tenzo his age. He said he was sixty-eight. I asked, why do you not have an attendant or a lay worker to do this? The tenzo said, others are not me. I said, esteemed sir, you are truly dedicated. The sun is so hot, why are you doing this now? The tenzo said, what time should I wait for you? I immediately withdrew, thanking to myself as I walked away. I deeply appreciated that this child expresses the essential function. Another story? If anyone has not read, it is good.

[63:32]

Another time, in the fifth month of the sixteenth year of the Partey period, June or July 12,023, I was on my ship at Guinyang. While I was talking with the Japanese captain, an old monk arrived, who looked about sixty years old. He came straight onto the boat and asked one of the crew if he could buy some Japanese shiitake mushrooms. I invited him to drink some tea and asked him where he lived. He was the tenzo at the monastery at Ayuwang Mountain. He said, I am from the western part of Sichuan and left home forty years ago. This year I am sixty-one years old.

[64:36]

I have spent time at many monasteries in various areas. In recent years I stayed with Guinyang Dai Quan. Then I went to practice at Ayuwang Monastery, where I have been kept very busy. Last year, after the end of the summer practice period, I was appointed tenzo at the temple. Tomorrow is the fifth day's celebration and I do not have any special food to serve. I want to make noodle soup, but I do not have any mushrooms. Therefore I came here to try to buy shiitake to offer the monks from the ten directions. I asked him, what time did you depart from here? The tenzo said, after lunch. I said, how far distant from here is Ayuwang? The tenzo said, thirty-four or thirty-five mi about twelve miles. I said, when are you going to return to the temple? The tenzo said, as soon as I finish buying the mushrooms, I will go.

[65:38]

I said, today unexpectedly we have met and also had a conversation on this ship. Is this not a truly fortunate opportunity? Allow Dogen to offer food to you, Tenzo Zenji. The tenzo said, it is not possible. If I do not take care of tomorrow's offering, it will be done badly. I said, in your temple aren't there some workers who know how to prepare meals the same as you? If only one person, the tenzo is not there, will something be deficient? The tenzo said, during my old age I am handling this job. So in senility I am doing this wholehearted practice. How could I possibly just give away my responsibilities? Also when I came here I did not ask permission to stay away overnight. I then asked the tenzo, venerable tenzo, in your advanced years, why do you not wholeheartedly engage the way through zazen or penetrate the words and stories of the ancient masters

[66:45]

instead of troubling yourself by being tenzo and just working? What is that good for? The tenzo laughed loudly and said, Oh good fellow from a foreign country, you have not yet understood wholeheartedly engaging in the way and you do not yet know what words and phrases are. Hearing this I suddenly felt ashamed and stunned and then asked him, what are words and phrases? What is wholeheartedly engaging the way? The tenzo said, if you do not stumble over this question you are really a true person. I could not understand at that time. The tenzo said, if you have not yet fully gotten it, sometime later come to Ariwang Mountain. We will have a complete dialogue concerning the principle of words and phrases. After saying that the tenzo got up and said,

[67:46]

it is getting dark and I am going now. Then he left to return home. In the seventh month of the same year, August or September, I rested my monk staff at Chiang Tong Monastery. At that time this tenzo came to visit me and said, after the summer practice period was over I retired and I am returning to my home village. I happened to learn at my monastery that you were here. How could I not come to see you? I was deeply touched and overjoyed to welcome him and during our conversation I brought up the issues that we had mentioned before on the ship concerning words and phrases and wholehearted engagement of the way. The tenzo said, people who study words and phrases should know the significance of words and phrases. People dedicated to wholehearted practice need to affirm the significance of engaging the way. I asked, what are words and phrases? The tenzo said, one, two, three, four, five.

[68:47]

Also I asked, what is wholeheartedly engaging the way? The tenzo said, in the whole world it is never hidden. Although we discussed many topics, I will not record the rest now. For whatever bit I know about words and phrases or slightly understand about wholeheartedly engaging the way, I am grateful to that tenzo's kindness. I recounted this conversation to my lay teacher, Myozen. He was delighted to hear about it. Later I saw a verse, Shwedu, wrote for a monk that goes, One character, three characters, five and seven characters. Having thoroughly investigated the ten thousand things, none have any foundation. At midnight the white moon sets into the dark ocean. When searching for the black dragon's pearl, you will find they are numerous. What that tenzo had said in former years and what Shwedu had expressed naturally matched each other. More and more I realized that this tenzo was a true person of the way.

[69:50]

Accordingly, what I previously saw of words and phrases is one, two, three, four, five. Today what I see of words and phrases is also six, seven, eight, nine, ten. My junior fellow practitioners completely see that in this. Making such an effort, you can totally grasp one flavor zen through words and phrases. If you do not do this, you will be influenced by the poison of the varieties of five flavors zen and your preparation of the monk's food will not be appropriate. Certainly, there are ancient stories to hear and recent examples to see concerning this job. There are words and phrases and principles to follow. Shouldn't this work be called the true core? Even if you have the honor of being appointed as abbot, you must also have the same mental attitude. The Zenin Shingi says, The food cooked for both breakfast and lunch should be refined and abundant.

[70:55]

The four offerings to monks should have no shortage. The world-honored one, in his compassion, bequeathed twenty gifts for Texas descendants. The merit and virtue of one beam of light from the white hair on his forehead is received and used without being exhausted. Therefore, just serve the community and do not worry about poverty. If you do not have a limited heart, you will have boundless fortune. Apparently, serving the community like this is the crucial attitude of the abbot. As for the attitude while preparing food, the essential point is deeply to arouse genuine mind and respectful mind without making judgments about the ingredients, fineness or coarseness. Have you not heard that by offering to Buddha one bowl of white water left from rinsing rice, an old woman attained wondrous merit during her life and that by presenting half a mango fruit to a temple,

[71:56]

King Ashoka could generate his final great act of charity and thereby receive the prediction of Buddhahood and enjoy the great result. Although they create relationship to Buddha, donations that are abundant but lacking in heart are not as good as those that are small but sincere. This is the practice of a true person. Cooking so-called rich, creamy food is not necessarily superior. Cooking plain vegetable soup is not necessarily inferior. When you are given plain vegetables to prepare, you must treat them the same as rich, creamy food with straightforward mind, sincere mind and pure mind. The reason is that when they converge in the pure great ocean assembly of Buddha Dharma, you recognize neither rich, creamy taste nor taste of plain vegetables but only the flavor of the one great ocean. Furthermore, in developing the buds of the lay and nurturing the bloom of the sages,

[72:57]

rich, cream and simple vegetables are the same, not different. There is an old saying that a monk's mouth is like an oven. We should understand this. Reflect that simple vegetables can nurture the bloom of the sages and develop the buds of the lay. Do not see them as lowly or worthless. A guiding teacher of humans and celestial beings benefits them with the plain vegetables. One also should not see the assembled monks as good or bad or consider them as elder or younger. Even the self does not know where the self will settle down. How could others determine where others will settle down? How could it not be a mistake to find others' faults with our own faults? Although there is a difference between the senior and junior and the wise and the stupid, as members of Sangha, they are the same. Moreover, the wrong in the past may be right in the present.

[73:58]

So who could distinguish the sage from the common person? As Siddhan Jainji says, without distinction of sage or common, monks meet together throughout the ten directions. If you have the spirit of not arranging everything into right and wrong, how could you not carry out conducts of the way that directly proceeds to unsurpassable beauty? If you take one false step, then you will stumble as you face what is before you. The bones and marrow of the ancients are found completely where this kind of constant effort is made. In later ages, you follow practitioners. Your fellow practitioners will also get it for the first time by making this effort. For the regulations of high ancestor Baizhang have been in vain. After I returned to this country,

[75:00]

I stayed in Kenenji Monastery for a few years. That temple, being settled in this position ten years ago, Baizhang really did not know. He did not yet discern that this was Buddha's work. How could he possibly understand and comply with the way? Sincerely, he lost compassion for those who never meet a true person and recklessly tear apart the common people's way. I saw that this monk never wanted to supervise practice alone. He entrusted it to his servant without brains or feeling and ordered him to take charge of all matters, large or small. It depends on whether he ever went to see whether things were done correctly or not. It was as if there was a woman next door and he went to visit. It was a shame and a problem. He occupied an office, sometimes taking naps, sometimes having chats, sometimes reading sutras, and sometimes chanting for many long moons,

[76:01]

not going near a pot. Moreover, he did not buy the utensils or carefully consider the various menus. How could he have known his job? Needless to say, he had never even dreamed of the two daily occasions for making nine prostrations. When it was time to train novices, he did not know anything. How pitiful and sad. He was a person without a way-seeking mind. He never had the chance to see anyone with the virtue of the way. Although he had entered the Jewel Mountains, he had turned empty-handed. Although he had arrived in the Jewel Oceans, he came back with a worthless body. You should know that even though he had never aroused a true mind, if he had met one example of an original person, he could have practiced the way. If he had met one example of an original person, he could have practiced the way.

[77:04]

Even though he had never met a true person, if he had deeply aroused his mind, he could have hit upon practices of the way. Since both were missing, how could they have been any benefit? As I have served the people who were devoting themselves for years to the job of temple administrators or heads of monastic departments in various types of psalms I met, each of them maintained the three essential attitudes of an abbot whenever they performed their job, encouraging themselves to strive at their tasks, benefit others, which simultaneously gives abundant benefit to the self, make the monastery thrive and renew its high standards, aspire to stand shoulder to shoulder and respectfully follow in the heels of our predecessors, clearly know that there are fools who treat themselves as indifferently as others, and there are honorable people who consider their others as themselves. An ancient said,

[78:05]

Two-thirds of a lifetime has swiftly gone. On the spiritual foundation, not a single speck has been polished. While indulging in life randomly passes day after day, if you are called but do not turn around, what can be done? You should know that if you have not yet met a guiding example, you will be overcome by human emotions. We must pity the foolish child who took the fortune handed down by her wealthy father and in front of others uselessly worked digging up filth and excrement. So now, how could we be like this? Appreciate that people of the way who did this job before naturally matched their conduct and their virtue. The great Guishan's realization of the way happened when he was Tenzo. Gongshan's answer, three pounds of sesame, was also when he was Tenzo. If you value anything, value realization of the way.

[79:12]

If you value any time, value the time of realizing the way. As for what remains from cherishing immersion in the way, there is an emanation even from offering sand as if a treasure. We see that often there is a resonance from copying the Buddhist figure and doing prostration. Even more, this job is the same and it still has the same name as what ancestors such as Guishan and Gongshan did. If you can convey this attitude about this activity, how could the elegance of this way not manifest? On all occasions when the temple administrators, heads of monastic departments and the Tenzo are engaged in their work, they should maintain joyful mind, nurturing mind and magnanimous mind. What I call joyful mind is the happy heart. You must reflect that if you were born in heaven you would cling to ceaseless bliss and not give rise to a way-seeking mind.

[80:13]

This would not be conducive to practice. What's more, how could you prepare food to offer to the Three Jewels? Among the Ten Thousand Dharmas, the most honoured one are the Three Jewels. Most excellent are the Three Jewels. Neither the Lord of Heaven or a wheel-turning king can compare to them. As Zen Enshin-Gi says, respected by society, that a few three apart is most pure and unsatisfactory. Now I have the fortune to be born a human being and prepare food to be received by the Three Jewels. It is not a great karmic affinity. We must be very happy about this. Moreover, consider that if you were born in the realms of hell, hungry ghosts, animals, fighting gods or others of the eight difficult births, even if you desired refuge within Sangha's power,

[81:15]

you would never actually be able to prepare pure food to offer the Three Treasures. Because of suffering in these painful circumstances, your body and mind should be fettered. However, in the present life you have already done this cooking, so you should enjoy this life and this body resulting from incalculable ages of worthy activity. This merit can never fade. You should engage in and carry out this work with the vow to include one thousand or ten thousand lives in one day or one time. This will allow you to unite with these virtuous karmic causes for ten million lives. The mind that has fully contemplated such fortune is joyful mind. Truly, even if you become a virtuous wheel-turning king, you do not make food to offer the Three Treasures. After all, there is no benefit. It would only be like a splash of water, a bubble or a flickering flame.

[82:18]

As for what is called nurturing mind, it is the mind of mothers and fathers. For example, it is considering the Three Treasures as a mother and father figure of their own economy. Even impoverished destitute people firmly love and raise an only child. What kind of determination is this? Other people cannot know it until they actually become mothers and fathers. Parents earnestly consider their child's privilege without concern for their own money or property. They do not care if they are cold or hot, but give their child covering or shade. In a parent's thoughtfulness there is intensity. People who have aroused this mind contemplate it well. Only people who are familiar with the mind are truly awake to it. Therefore, washing over water and over grain shouldn't everyone maintain an affectionate kindness of nurturing and nourishing children. Great teacher Shakyamuni even gave up 20 years of a Buddha's life span

[83:30]

to protect us all alike in these later times. What was his intention? It was simply to confer parental mind. Tathagatas could never wish for rewards or riches. As for what is called magnanimous mind, this mind is like the great mountains or like the great ocean. It is not biased or contentious mind. Carrying half a pound, do not take it lightly. Lifting 40 pounds should not seem heavy. Although drawn by the voices of spring, do not wander over spring meadows, viewing the fall covers. Do not allow your heart to fall. The four seasons cooperate in a single scene. Regard light and heavy with a single eye. On this single occasion you must write the word great. You must know the word great. You must learn the word great. In Kshitenza of Jishan monastery,

[84:34]

had not studied the word great, he would not have saved Taiyuan with his spontaneous laugh. If Zen Master Guishan had not written the word great, he could not have taken a stick of firewood and blown on it three times. If Enerval Dongshan had not known the word great, he would not have picked three pounds of sesame to demonstrate to a monk. You should know that former great mentors all have been studying the great word, and right now freely make the great sound, expound the great meaning, clarify the great matter, guide the great person, and fulfill this one great cause for Buddhas appearing in the world. How could abbots, temple administrators, heads of monastic departments, and monks ever forget these three kinds of minds? Written in spring of the third year of Khatai, 1237, to instruct later wise people who study the way, written by Monk Dogen, who transmits the way,

[85:35]

abbot of the Khamang Dori Kosho Furing Bojig Temple. Thank you all for your voices and reading that. So that brought us to a little before nine. And I'm really glad we all got to hear it through that way. And I'd like for us to be familiar with these stories that we'll be talking about. Just briefly, the text, there's the preface of the kind of introduction about the whole heart of practice of the way as the job of Tenzo. And the second part is the actual work, the description of the attitude and the work. And then there's the stories and the attitude required for serving meals and serving others.

[86:47]

And then these are certain parts that are kind of pulling out the whole part about not discriminating between anything, refined or coarse foods, and the importance of that also discriminating amongst people, picking and choosing, and the example of that Tenzo who wasn't doing the job. And then this last section, there's also the koans. There's a lot of koans that are mentioned, and you can read about them in the notes. And then the last is the three minds, the joyful, magnanimous, and parental mind, which is the mind needed for any of these jobs, actually, but the job of Tenzo in particular. So next week, actually, I feel like there may be things that have come up for you while you were reading it, and by next week you may forget.

[87:52]

So maybe you could jot down in your little notebooks right now anything that's come up, because I like to end really right on time. But I also want to hear from you. And all week long, those of you, I think all of you will probably have contact with food in some way or another. Those of you who are cooking and serving meals, please bring up for yourself or ask yourself, what is big mind, joyful mind, and nurturing or parental mind? What is that as you're doing these tasks? Okay. It's a little homework assignment. And I think that's all. So those of you who did not get a copy of this will have these out and in the office. And also, we usually have our ‑‑ was there any attendance list that was passed out?

[88:57]

Okay. We'll do that next week and you can check off your names. And how about the chairs? Does anyone know? I have no idea. I know. Yes? All but let's put them away except for the first two rows. First two rows remain and the rest go away. Yes, of course. Okay. Amen.

[89:31]

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