The third grave precept, not misusing sects. The original title of this precept is No Unrighteous Lewdness, a kind of tautology. which in Chinese and in older English, too, is simply a strong expression, double negative. Lewdness has rather a quaint ring in modern English, but its derivation is instructive. It comes from an old English word meaning Unlearned, implying boorish.

[01:06]

No boorish sex. That's a good precept for us all. What did our Zen Buddhist ancestors say about sex? In my directory of some 5,500 koans, I find no entry for this subject in the elaborate index. I do know one pertinent koan, however, and although it is tainted by stereotyped views toward women, It also rebukes the puritanical attitudes commonly associated with religion, East and West. In ancient days, an old woman made offerings to a monk, to a hermit, over a period of 20 years.

[02:18]

One day she sent her 16-year-old niece to take food to the hermit, telling her to make advances to him to see what he would do. The girl laid her head on the hermit's lap and said, How's this? The hermit said, The withered tree is rooted in an ancient rock in bitter cold. During winter months, there is no warmth, no life. The girl reported this to her aunt. The old woman said, that Bulgarian, to think that I have made offerings to him for 20 years. she drove away the hermit and burned down his cottage.

[03:23]

While we may question the use of the niece as bait to test the monk's realization, it is clear by the final response of the aunt that fundamentally she too disapproves of the misuse of sex. The hermit was not responding to the human being who laid her head in his lap. He was using her to express his own ascetic position. So the ant calls him a vulgari, a boor. Lewdness is boorish. Aestheticism can be and often is boorish. Boorishness is just thinking of oneself.

[04:32]

She drives him off and burns down his couch. Fire is a dream symbol for sex. You don't belong here. Sex belongs here. Or at least acknowledgement of it. Back tracing this koan in my directory, I found that it is listed in the index under offerings to monks. The lack of any classification for sex is in keeping with the curtain that is drawn over the subject generally in Zen practice. After a careful search of the literature, you can find cautions by Dogen Zenji to avoid sexual gossip, but that is about all.

[05:43]

except for this precept and its brief commentaries. I'm speaking here, of course, of the Zen tradition within the Mahayana. In the Zen monastery, food, sleep, zazen, work, and even going to the toilet are organized and scheduled. but it is as if sex does not exist. I am not so naive as to suppose that this could be possible, but I must say that the mildest kind of homosexual fooling around among young monks was all the sexual activity I observed in several months of residence in a Zen Buddhist monastery. The case of the ant and the hermit is not included in the anthologies of koans chosen for Zen study by Harada Daiunroshi, the founder of the Sambo Kyodan school to which I belong.

[07:05]

But it is generally a part of the Rinzai curriculum. Even so, I wonder, how students can apply its teaching. In Japanese Zen monasteries today, women are admitted for sesshin only, as a general rule. They sit in a separate room and only join the men for meals, sutras, and teshos. And even then, they are grouped together And here I am speaking from my experience in Rinzai monasteries. I am not so familiar with the Soto monasteries. But I must say, visiting Eheji, I have no reason to suppose that the situation is that much different there.

[08:10]

Anyway, in the Rinzai monasteries at Taisho time, the laymen sit with the monks, and the women sit on the other side of the room with guests who just come in to hear the Roshi speak. The message is clearly, Zazen is for men. Japanese generally place the onus of sexual distraction upon women. At least until very recently, Japanese boys and girls mingled very little in their teenage years. And the monk who went off at 18 to train in the monastery simply would not be able to handle the presence of a woman in the dojo. her appearance would prompt long-suppressed sexual urges to take over his zazen.

[09:13]

Mu would disappear, and the result would be failure in the doksanram and disruption of the monastic routine. The roshi sitting at the heart of the Zen training program is not likely to be interested in trying to make over the society that presents him with this problem. Within his own milieu, he solves it in the only way that seems to him to be possible, by excluding and segregating the immediate, quote, cause, close quote. This is a negative model for us in Western Zen. And as such, it can be very instructive. Sensei liked the story of Eshun. And maybe you remember this from Zen Flesh, Zen Bonds.

[10:20]

Eshun, it seems, did practice with a sangha of monks. Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Aishun, were practicing meditation under a certain Zen master. Aishun was very pretty, even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her, and one of them wrote her a love letter, insisting on a private meeting. Aishun did not reply. The following day, the master gave a tesho to the group And when it was over, Issun stood and faced the monk who had written her and said, If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now. One of my students remarked that Issun's action was self-righteous. I'm not so sure. In her context, perhaps it was quite appropriate.

[11:27]

In modern circumstances, we seek to be open in such matters and can appreciate her intention. In any case, if you were the monk, how would you respond? In discussing this matter with students, I said that I would go over to her and make a bow, or in our society, offer to shake her hand. No? Well done. One student said, if I were the monk, I'd go over and embrace her. This is a Zen-like response, but also very modern and Western. So far as I know, all the Zen centers in the United States today accommodate both men and women. This arrangement, like ordinary life away from the center, brings a stream of crises that hinge on sex.

[12:31]

In the doksan room, you may be asked about the aunt and the hermit. The question is, in that situation, how would you respond as the hermit to the niece? Like all good koans, this one has only one sort of response. It doesn't mean you have to give the exact words, but only one sort of response is possible. However, the acid test of the maim and the doksan rum is the act itself thereafter. Here you are in your friend's apartment. The circumstances are thus and so. How do you respond at such a time and place with this person? No dithering allowed.

[13:36]

The acid test is also found in the Western Zen Buddhist Training Center, where men and women not only sit side by side in the dojo, but also eat together, work together, sometimes at some centers, even bathe together. How do such arrangements affect their Zen training? How is their Zen training applied in these circumstances? Though there are many problems, I think the overall effect of such proximity is beneficial to the practice. There is an experience of wholeness in having the other sex in close association throughout the day. Fantasies about sex are still present, but surely they are less fierce than they might be if there were no chance to experience the humanity of the other in the give and take of cooking, gardening, and re-roofing

[14:52]

together. At such a level, one is better able to accept the thoughts as normal and natural and permit them to pass. There are tensions in the co-ed community, but so are there tensions in celibate communities. People in combination produce tensions Tensions can be used creatively, or one can be used by them. In the broader community, we in the Western Hemisphere have gone through many changes in sexual behavior over the past 65 or so years, particularly in the decades of the 1920s and the 1960s. Young people today may go through a period of sleeping with partners who might have been just steady dates at an earlier time.

[16:05]

I have the feeling that these new mores are healthier than the courting games of my youth. People emerge from these early years of playing at six with a better sense of bedroom theater than we of an earlier generation could possibly attain with our preoccupations about making the grade or walking down the aisle. There are deeper implications in this change. The sexual drive is part of the human path of self-realization. When our mores are relatively permissive, we have increased opportunity to explore our human nature through sexual relationships.

[17:11]

At the same time, of course, there is more opportunity for self-centered people to use sex as a means of personal power. The path you choose rises from your fundamental purpose. Why are you here? The roshi in charge of a monastery who avoids difficulties simply by dividing humanity in half had his counterpart in Western Victorian society where exclusion and segregation were used as a means of control. With the help of our evolving Western cultural attitudes, we in the Zen movement can use sex in our practice rather than trying to exclude it. I don't mean that we should be experimenting with tantra, but simply that we must acknowledge sexual energy as part of the sangha treasure.

[18:27]

Certainly we cannot justify rejecting sex and accepting the other human drives, such as anger, fear, hunger, and the need for sleep. All we have learned on our cushions proves that physical and mental conditions, the will and emotions, are human elements to be integrated into our daily life practice and our zazen practice. For all its ecstatic nature, for all its power, sex is just another human drive. if we avoid it just because it is more difficult to integrate than anger or fear, then we are simply saying that when the chips are down, we cannot follow our own practice.

[19:32]

According to the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you. In the past 20 years in the West, homosexuals have taken this truth to heart. On this subject again, we are on our own. If the old teachers were relatively quiet on the subject of conventional sex, they were altogether silent about the unconventional. A Japanese Zen monk of my acquaintance became a roshi, and a few months later, looking back on the counseling sessions he had been holding informally with his students, both laypeople and monks, he remarked to me,

[20:43]

I had no idea that homosexuality was so widespread. I thought it was just a very occasional problem. Well, homosexuality is a problem if society and the individuals involved view it as a problem. My feeling is that with the encouragement of teacher and sangha, The individual member has a chance for personal maturity and realization through Zen practice, whatever his or her sexual orientation might be. Buddha nature is not heterosexual or homosexual. Buddha nature is, in fact, the essence and quality of energy, including the human energy of sex.

[21:45]

Bodhidharma said, Self-nature is subtle and mysterious in the realm of the ungilded Dharma, not creating a veneer of attachment is called the precept of not misusing sex. Bodhidharma was celibate, of course, and his words were directed to his celibate followers. Celibacy is an appropriate path for some Zen students today. But celibate or not, we can all of us find guidance in Bodhidharma's words. The non-attachment of suchness is the Tao of all the Buddhas. Sasaki Joshu Roshi has said, When you are completely one with your lover, you don't know whether you are doing something good or bad, or attached or non-attached, I would add.

[22:58]

Dogen Zenji said, The three wheels are pure and clear. When you have nothing to desire, you follow the way of all Buddha. The three wheels are the actor, the action, and the thing acted upon. The lovers and their act of love are intrinsically pure and clear. There is no attainment at all. The celibate too, fully realized, finds Buddha nature pervades the whole universe. Bodhidharma and Dogen Zenji shine light on our path. And if little is said about sex in any direct way in the rest of Zen Buddhist teaching,

[24:05]

we can nonetheless use the more general doctrines of purity and compassion as guides. When there is an easy drawing together, a new love relationship can be conducive to deeper practice for the partners and for the Sangha. A difficult relationship can also be a field for practice. However, practice can be disrupted by actions that Sangha members perceive as boorish sex. If there is a wolf among the lambs, the practice may be overwhelmed throughout the dojo. as though someone had left the television going during session.

[25:06]

And what if the teacher is the wolf? The words of Bodhidharma and Dogen Zenji are simply profound expressions of common morality. It is up to the Zen teacher and his or her senior followers to build a solid road of example and zazen that will link the wisdom of our ancestors to the exigencies of ordinary living. I am especially concerned about the effect of inappropriate sexual affairs in the Buddha Sangha. There have been grave upsets in American Zen Buddhist centers recently which followed upon affairs of teachers with their students. These cases seem to reveal blind spots in the minds of the teachers and indeed to reflect blind spots in Zen Buddhism itself.

[26:14]

The teacher of religious practice occupies an archetypal place in the psyches of the students. He or she continues to teach in their dreams. This is a factor that must be worked with in teacher-student relations. On the one hand, it is important for the teacher to be responsible for this power and to encourage the students to use its influence and to speak out when they think they are being used. On the other hand, it is important for students to avoid blind allegiance. For example, I once challenged a student about sexist and anti-Semitic statements made by his teacher. He replied, it is true, he is sexist and anti-Semitic, but he is the guru.

[27:25]

That won't do, I think. The function of the teacher is to teach, just as the function of the mother or father is to be a parent, or the function of the psychologist is to counsel. All of these roles set up archetypal responses. And at best, such responses are positive and productive. When the teacher, in the role of teacher, confronts a student sexually, the archetype is violated, and the student is deeply confused and disturbed. This is a law as irrevocable as the law of gravity. proved in the suffering of earnest Zen students and their sanghas today. In the everyday world, sexual laws operate at an archetypal level.

[28:36]

The carapace, you know, my students in reading this all complained about my use of the word carapace. You know what the carapace is? It's the shell of the turtle. Turtle shell. Okay, I'm using it metaphorically here. Shell of the turtle. The carapace must be removed in safety. The distinguished husband takes off his hairpiece. The beautiful wife takes off her foam padding. Each trusts a vulnerable self to the other for the intimate ancient dance. Mutually taking refuge in this way brings liberation that is fully protected. But the couple cannot create this protection by themselves.

[29:44]

Dante relates how Paolo and Francesca persuaded each other that mutual attraction alone could justify their affair, and they carried this conviction into the inferno. True partnership is freedom within a publicly expressed commitment. And of such expressions, marriage provides the safest environment. Without marriage, there can still be an agreement to establish a relationship and to work on it. Many people have been harmed by ill-advised marriages or know others who have been harmed and so shy away from an ultimate kind of commitment that has a religious foundation and would be hard to break.

[30:47]

They form relationships, often successfully, but the lack of ultimate commitment is always a factor and may prove to be the opening that permits a decision to separate when the relationship becomes difficult. Commitment in a relationship is the agreement to establish a practice together. The couple reaches a mutual understanding. It is not so much that we agree to love and honor each other, though that is an important part of it, but that we agree to love and honor our practice. We are two people involved in creating a work of art together. In marriage, man and woman cultivate a harmony with their vastly different psyches, each completing the other, each finding the other in the self, the self in the other, the yin and yang of the universe at play in a single household.

[32:08]

Consenting to any sexual affair will involve this dynamism of male and female to some degree. If the intention is directed toward establishing a practice, then the game can move toward liberation. But if other spouses and children are left behind, then the affair can be the source of acute misery. And if deception is involved, then the lives of those concerned are poisoned and the Zen practice, if any, is out the window. Depending on character and circumstances, all this suffering either cannot be healed or it can be the whetstone for bringing new life. I am familiar with the argument that sex is fulfilling only when it breaks the established pattern that human beings are not essentially monogamous.

[33:27]

This is the view of people who cultivate power to attract others, very different from the compassionate spirit of reaching out to them. Saving all beings is our practice. And in the home, this can be just the simple act of doing the dishes or helping with homework, or it can be having a party when the kids are in bed. The dance of sex, the dance of life in all circumstances, requires forgetting the self, and giving over to the dance. Sexual intercourse is the dancing nucleus of our home, generating all beings at climax, bringing rest and renewal. We reveal to ourselves the vanity of fulfillment as a goal when we daydream about sex.

[34:40]

How much time have you wasted in the arms of your lover? Perhaps a true lover of the past, perhaps a lover that never was. While you sit there on your cushions, your back bent slightly forward at your waistline, your eyelids two-thirds lowered, immobile as a stone Buddha in mock zazen. How much time have you wasted as a Zendo resident fooling around in sexual games? The three wheels are pure. Can you realize this? As the Buddha said, we cannot testify to such facts because of our delusions and attachments.

[35:44]

It is time to see through all those empty clouds and into the source once and for all. There is no misuse of sects at the source, no need to prove anything, no boorish self-centeredness at all. Amen. [...] He gave them the glory of the Lord, and the glory of the Father, and the glory of the Son, and the glory of the Holy Spirit, and the glory of the Holy Spirit, and the glory of the Father, and the glory of the Son, and the glory of the Holy Spirit, and the glory of the Holy Spirit, and the glory of the Holy Spirit, and the glory of the Holy Spirit.

[37:04]

On that day in the beginning of the year 12 million of us And so they told us a little, a sort of agreement, you know, on an emotional level.

[38:44]

I have a very deep feeling of great emotion, and I feel, for you to come here and talk about it, and I think I'm blessed to be talking about that emotion. For you to come here and talk this way, it's very offensive to me. And it withstands a lot of pain and feeling that I've had in my relationship with you. Yes, the talk was revised a little after the recent events at Zen Center. But basically, my remarks about the affairs of Zen teachers with their students or Buddhist teachers generally with their students was written as long ago as six years.

[39:48]

But I did revise a little at this essay. And so... You are correct that some of it was the result of recent events here. I regret that it was offensive to you. I guess I've said enough. OK. Yes. Krishnamurti has said that all methods are traps and all disciplines are traps. And I was hoping you might comment on that. Yes. I'm very fond of Krishnamurti. And Anne Aitken and I taught at the Happy Valley School in...

[40:51]

in Ojai, she for many years and I for a few years. And we've both heard him speak and we've read his books and known many followers of Krishnamurti. And I firmly believe that there is a person for every religion and a religion for every person. And so I can only speak for myself with regard to Krishnamurti's path of no path. And that is that for me it lacks a certain definition. And it's very difficult for me to follow him beyond a certain point. And I have known, we have both of us known, followers of Krishnamurti who were lost.

[41:56]

Yes. Thank you. Okay. Yes. Yes. I think that... Certainly many times, I'm lost. And my gratitude for the teaching and my teacher, and what was done. And regardless of how so many of us feel differently about the circumstances at hand, I'm curious to know what your perspective is for how we can begin to bridge the wonderful experiences that represent our relationship with our teachers and the conflict we feel over the difficulty we've had recently.

[43:04]

There are no easy answers to that. It would seem to me that sharing meetings in small groups to enable people to express their feelings and reach some sort of some sort of consensus among themselves. And good communication between these smaller groups and the leadership is very important. I think that it is important to be concerned about the welfare of Bekiroshi And I think that it is also important to look at contingency plans.

[44:13]

Yes, yes. What if, what if, what if, what if. So that when the present state of everyone waiting comes to a natural end, we will see our way more clearly, how we may go, depending upon how how the present period of waiting does end. I would hope that we could think along these lines rather than just holding everything in limbo and waiting to see what would happen and then having to decide, but to visualize various possibilities and think about various contingency planes.

[45:18]

I can't suggest anything more exact than that at this point. Yes. You know, she, especially the metaphor of sex, I hope not too far, you know, just get in the seductive power of some type of magic or vision that holds the community together. I want to know what your view is of the proper use of such magical power. I think the use of the term magical power is very interesting because the power of community cannot be explained.

[46:24]

And so the use of such a term is valid, I think, if we can use it dispassionately and not in any superstitious way. We all sense the power of community. I sense this power in this community. And I know from talking with you individually and listening to your questions, that you feel this also. It is the power of Sangha, the sense that we reflect each other, that we interpenetrate each other, that we intercontain each other, if I may use that expression. This realization is expressed philosophically in the Huayen, in the Net of Indra, where all beings, not only human beings, but all beings, not only animate beings, but the so-called inanimate too, are jewels in a multidimensional net.

[47:48]

perfectly reflecting and containing each other, each jewel containing all others. And this doctrine is indeed being developed on an intellectual level in the field of physics. We become especially conscious of this, doing zazen together and going through the same experiences together, particularly a deeply troubling experience somehow can help to bring a Sangha together. It seems like one of the tasks of Buddhism has to do with dispelling some of the magic. On the other hand, to... to keep the community together requires generating it.

[48:56]

Well, there you're using magic in two different ways, I think, good magic and bad magic or something like that. Certainly, it is possible that some kind of false euphoria might develop in a community that wasn't real or that would not be appropriate or productive. And I think that it is important at all times to to keep a cool head and not be carried away by what one writer has called the madness of crowds. where some kind of organism, an irrational kind of organism seems to occur in which all the individual human beings are mindless elements.

[50:11]

I think that we should keep an eye out for that, but I'm not hearing much risk of that here. at this time. I think it's important to do what we can to encourage unity. Yes. The other side is a one-on-one relationship. It's similar to being involved with some semi-partisanship. And the kind of well-being and that kind of bond doesn't determine what the detail of somebody is.

[51:13]

It doesn't seem to be entirely, or it didn't even at all seem to be on the character of whoever you're involved with. It's certainly true that the duksan, the relationship that is developed in duksan is an intimate bond. in the sense that all human relations have sexual implications, then I would agree that there is sexual overtone or quality. That's not what I mean. What I mean is that the warranty that they owe us is so real that if...

[52:20]

If a person is not in love with somebody, it'd be treason. It's just a question in love with somebody that doesn't agree. I see. The bond is a bond, and whatever somebody does, the bond is very real. But your family, they hate them. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think so. I think that this community will always feel a bond with Baker Oshie. But, you know, I have been concerned on this subject since... 1964.

[53:24]

You know, that's 19 and a half years. It has preyed on my mind. The monk who became Edo Roshi fell into the trap of using his natural charisma in a sexual way. And two of the women in our sangha had nervous breakdowns. And this was the way, kind of accidentally finding out through medical records of the hospital cases. that I learned of his behavior. And he left Hawaii under a cloud, this cloud, and went to New York.

[54:27]

And I was not able to persuade people in New York that this was not a true teacher because he had already made good contacts there. and I was not able to persuade the people who were then my teachers in Japan that this guy was a Roman. And I've watched his career with a lot of concern over the years, and it was... with him in mind that I said some of the critical things I did in the original draft of this tesho. I want really to open my heart to you on this subject. I have felt very responsible for the suffering of many, many people by the fact that

[55:36]

that I was his, that I was Edo Roshi's original sponsor in this country. And so, I don't know, I can hear your resentment and anger and I want to give it space and I appreciate very much your loyalty. Pardon? I beg your pardon? Grief. Your grief. Yes. What is your sense of the hope of this community producing teachers from I think that is a matter of time.

[56:41]

Yes, yes, a matter of growth and maturity. Do you think it's essential that we all stay together here? Well, I certainly wouldn't want to make a judgment on that, you know. I think that people should be responsive to their own deepest motives. And that what I'm hearing from a lot of people is, I want to stay here and support the Sangha. I'm hearing this from many, many people. But that will produce a strong song, or will a strong song produce strong teachers? Sure. But, you know, I think that our vision should be very long, like 10,000 years.

[57:58]

And it may be that in the interim other teachers will be brought in. I don't know. It's very difficult for me as a guest teacher to try to second guess what might be decided here. But certainly in time leaders can emerge from this sangha. The lecture this evening, particularly the aspect dealing with archetypes. Uh-huh. First of all, I think our translation of this precept, do not misuse the senses. Do not misuse the senses? Boy, it says sex plain and clear in the original Chinese. Yes. But it also brought things away.

[59:07]

Yeah. Maezumi Hiroshi's translation is, do not be ignorant. But it also, it archetypes, defences, and brings up another precept we sell to say, do not sell toxicness. My translation of that is, do not give or take drugs. And drugs being a kind of general term that would include liquor. Well, something I feel is some relationship to this archetype idea and people's projection onto this image. the organization of the community around specific archetypes. That this Buddha Hall is set up so that there's somebody in the center of the room. The Zen-do is set up so that there's somebody facing out and often in the center of the Zen-do facing the Buddha.

[60:10]

Teishos are given with somebody facing the Buddha. How is someone prepared to deal with the power of the focus of the community on them as they are the center of this community. And how is someone physically any community? And this seems to me to involve all the precepts, but particularly this idea of not misusing the senses, intoxication, magic, holding a certain sangha or community together in some way. It seems to me that the roshi must be completely settled in that place where there is no coming or going, where there is no birth and no death.

[61:16]

where there is no good and no bad, if you will, completely settled there, at ease there. Are you there? No, not yet. And then... Because he or she is freed from the kind of personal suffering and delusions and attachments and all those things, then is open and can hear the sounds of suffering of the world. and can come forth in a discriminating way and say, I will do this and I will not do that, very clearly.

[62:32]

In the Diamond Sutra it says, dwell nowhere and bring forth that mind. dwell nowhere, and when you're dwelling nowhere, you are speaking from the place of true peace. And you bring forth that mind. When you bring forth that mind, then you are bringing forth the mind of harmony in the world of samsara. Now, good point, you see. I'm not there. My teacher has a hot temper. The teacher must be at a place where he or she is harmonious enough within so that there is a willingness to listen from outside. I say in another place in the book here that the teacher must be ready to hear that he is a male chauvinist.

[63:40]

which I've been told by my own students. You know, we're all in process. And there's a saying in Zen that Shakyamuni is only halfway there. Yes. So, but nonetheless, there is a certain milestone. Yeah, go ahead. So I wasn't talking about you at all. Ha, ha, ha. I think it's better than the whole situation. Like if you wake up in the morning and go to a job, which is the same group, and you come to a lecture, and you only dwell in one little circle, I think you can become very idealistic. And then when something happens, you're so dependent on that structure with such care, it's like you sang. It hurts him because he had this great trust.

[64:46]

I think it's the process of becoming overly idealistic. I think if you have people spread out a little bit more, you won't be hurt so much. Like I am out there. I do a lot of things. No, I see your point. Yes. When you were saying about how he has to be perfect, I never thought that I had to be perfect. That's why I don't feel so bad. I mean, it's unfortunate, but I never thought of him as a perfect man. Yeah, well, I wasn't really thinking so much of Baker Oshie there in response to your question. But I think there is, without reference to anybody, I think that there is a certain milestone that one passes after which one is really ready to listen and is relatively harmonious inside.

[65:51]

And the value of these archetypes, such as Buddha, such as Kanjizai or Kanzeon and so on, is that they shine light on our paths. And as to the archetype of a teacher, As I said, you know, that's a heavy responsibility on the teacher. Now, we've gone around a little bit since your question. How are we doing? I think we'll get one. I'd like to take it up a step further. Okay. I came to Zen practice other than deep teaching in a sense that... I was interested in religion, but all religious systems I saw functioned in such a way that, you know, the power was always sent away to some center place.

[67:09]

Yes. I became attracted to Zen because it seemed more iconoclastic. Wow. And I can see the value of a number of the ceremonial practices you do here, the mandalic structure of the community in relation to the Buddha Hall, the monastery, and so on. Then developing energy and maintaining, containing, and allowing energy to develop and being able to experience it and express it and the use of structure in that way. At the same time, there's this incredible potential for that structure and people within that structure to take the energy into the center and never recycle it back out. And that, in fact, people who are on the periphery or just sort of extras in the room

[68:13]

who are not finding, are not tapping into this. And are not finding personal, specific, individual way of participation in this happening. And I find that that's what I used to call religion. And that's what I identify as religions that exist. And how does one use a system and develop the system and not allow the system to steal from people. Yeah. Yeah. How do we know when it's happening or not? Yeah. Well... I didn't expect an answer. Yeah. We need Hanshan or Bosho or somebody equivalent to appear in the back of the hall, you know, and call it, and then leave.

[69:35]

Or we need to look at the Diamond Sutra once in a while, you know. It says the Buddha is not the Buddha. Tathagata is not the Tathagata. The Buddha does not have 32 characteristic marks. Therefore, he's called the Buddha or she. We need to recognize, as I think you are saying, that our idealism is conceptual and that we really must wipe away our concepts. Really, really, once and for all. The beautiful thing about the koanmu, because it has no meaning, As someone who represents A's and B's till later in the year, I'd like to hear what your views are about peacefulness, peacefulness in America.

[70:54]

I don't know. I haven't figured that one out. I can tell you the problems of a lay center. You know, the lack of continuity, the lack of a core group, the fact that at our last session we didn't even have a tanto, a full time, that is. Three people came in and sat in that seat one time or another, and sometimes that seat was empty. There is a kind of person who is a monk, you know. I think this is a valid calling.

[72:04]

And I wish a couple would show up. They don't have to be ordained or anything. But we talked the first night I spoke about what can be seen as the laicization of Buddhism from pre-Mahayana times through the Mahayana to the Kamakura Reformation. And down through the Tokugawa period to the time when Zen monks were getting married in the late 19th century, to the movement of Zen to America, where the line between monk and layperson is quite fuzzy.

[73:15]

And all we need to do is to get an idea of how this contrasts with the old ways, is to look at the Sino-American Buddhist Association. I was speaking this afternoon in the discussion group about this. They recently published their first issue of their journal, True Dharma Seal, with a big article entitled, The Laity is Not the Sangha. And for them, a monk is one who has taken the 250 classical precepts and the... and the ten big precepts and the forty-eight little precepts, and the nun lives in a community with three other monks, and the nun is one who has gone through a similar path, only taken three hundred and forty-eight vows, and so on.

[74:26]

Big contrast. They represent a stream that hasn't changed. And this community represents a stream that has changed to a big degree. And Diamond Sangha represents a stream that has changed to a radical degree. But I think there is a general movement away from monastic Buddhism. The monastery walls are down. And we have to feel our way to find out. It's as though we're in the middle of the French Revolution. There's a lot of chaos, and we can't really see exactly what the terms of that chaos are. It's only when we distance ourselves a little in time that we'll be able to understand just what we have been going through during this period. But I think there is a process of rapid change.

[75:33]

I suppose I could have said what I'm going to say as we walk back to your place, but I wanted to say it publicly. I was, I've been, one of the things I think is happening at Jensen and now is an awareness about speech that we haven't had before. And we have a lot of seminars and, you know, a lot of energy and expense put into teaching us, teaching ourselves how to communicate with each other. While I'm sorry that maybe, you know, I don't disagree with what John said, I do want to make a public statement of gratitude for a demonstration of direct speech, because I don't think it's easy to talk about precepts. I mean, the history, as you point out, nobody's done it, or people haven't done it very often. And I think specifically, you know, to come into a situation where there's apparently been breaches of precepts, and, you know, it's not as if it's a secret from us, right?

[76:41]

finish now, is that I wanted to thank you for a demonstration of that kind of speech. Right. Thank you. Yes. I'm a little confused on this, that monasticism may be the problem, or monasticism may be on the way. In my experience, it's the task of heart. an encouraging place for us, although this has been, in some ways, not so very well, relative to the complexity of creating the silent on the scale. These two, on the other, are an experience I'd like to include from myself. I see a lot around me. People who are trained for roles that we don't seem to be propelling in a sense. I've lived around, I mean, I had no peers who had been around Zen Center for more than 10 years and were not functioning as teachers or perhaps I could say counselors.

[77:50]

We are a support group, administrators to some degree. And that's a very excruciating situation, maybe even a hurdle. For me, the confusion is much more in that area. The question of the anesthesia as the model for backwards seems, in my experience, to be a very helpful contact experiment, a limited I didn't say it's a problem, but what I tried to observe is that down through the centuries, we can see a movement away from the very strict concept of the Buddha Sangha consisting entirely of monks, with a very problematic place for nuns,

[79:17]

that there is a certain elitist spirit in the old way of regarding the Buddha Sangha as the entire support, really, of the Buddha Dharma. with the laity contributing to that main stream of expression in the hope that in some future time they might themselves be a part of that elite group. We're getting away from that old-fashioned idea of the priesthood as an elite group. and I wasn't thinking in terms specifically of any particular center, but just over the centuries we can see these changes.

[80:29]

It would be unheard of even to this day of a Theravada monk getting married. Unheard of. But it's commonplace for us that a priest or a monk marries. So I was just trying to look at the kind of historical overview. that there definitely are changes. And just as the Sino-American Buddhist Association shows one element, I mean, they could say, well, look at us, things have never changed. So there are things that you can say generally about this historical, specifically about this historical movement. But I think, generally, you can see an overall laicization of the Dharma.

[81:34]

Yes. If you could be somewhat patient, then you're in the U.S. at what point? Well, when you were talking about being healthier, perhaps, to have many learners putting together that, um, that that might discourage that topic, or correct that topic, and so on. Make it easier to handle. Yeah. Um, the only question I have is, might we dare, if you were expressing something, I can't present what I'm saying. Um, But you seem to have some idea of... Oh, no, I don't. Oh, no, I don't.

[82:37]

No. No, I think that's unreal. Yes. So I think, as I said, that inevitably there will be an easy drawing together of a couple... in training circumstances. And when this is easy and natural, then their practice is enhanced and the practice of the Sangha is enhanced. You know, all the world loves a lover. Celibacy is a special trip. And it can take place in a co-ed community or a celibate community. certainly as I said earlier you know there is a sexual component to our give and take right now so let's use it you know openly and frankly to be aware of

[83:53]

of that energy is very good. Remember what Thich Nhat Hanh said about awareness. It's like the sun. When it shines on things, then everything changes. When we are aware of this, the quality of sex in our human energy, then our relationship becomes somehow open and in a sense purified. Yes? I have an observation that I want you to speak to, since I don't know if I want to talk about it. And that's that although we seem to have to express in one ear about what we do, participate in a community with a kind of cooperative form of our community that we share responsibility in such a cool sort of way.

[85:04]

At the same time, it seems to me that there is also a long-term sort of fascination with the original ideal of desire to... I don't know how to express it, but there's some desire to have someone else solve my problems. Yes, yes. And there's... I think something very deep and very human, you know, related to make the OASO an institution of kinship, you know, which we don't really think of as an argument. It seems like there's something real there, you know, that's also going on here at Cincinnati. I think part of the reason why... the Sangha is so powerful, and part of the reason that we're all here, and that there's so many people at the restaurant, so few people at Zatman, they said they were somehow fascinated by this, I don't know whether it's an archetype, but you use the term archetype, they're fascinated with this,

[86:23]

the notion or this feeling that somebody else can lead us or guide us or tell us, you know? Do you understand what I'm saying? There's clearly different things going on. They both have some strength to them. Yes. So I think it's very important, again, that we be conscious of this... of this pull that we all of us have for passive dependency, to have some figure tell us what's what. And this is why I appreciated the first question. That's the kind of action that we want, a challenge. And what makes for real community health, and not a kind of sticky cohesion, but real community health is the feeling that he's the teacher all right or she's the teacher all right, but it's my responsibility to keep that person the teacher.

[87:51]

In other words, to check that person. See? That what you said right there made me really mad. You know? To call it and to try to work it out. Because in that kind of mondo, in that kind of dialogue, emerges a synthesis of that neither could achieve alone. Neither the teacher nor the sangha could achieve alone. So there must be challenge. The students must be ready to use the teaching and, again, not be used by it. Joshu, you know, great Joshu, a monk asked him, how may I use the 24 hours?

[88:58]

He said, you are used by the 24 hours. I use the 24 hours. There's a big difference there. How do you hear my words? Do you use my words or are you used by them? So when we catch ourselves falling into this kind of passive dependency, then it's important to sort of summon up the essential gumption and speak up. The person who said, to me, yes, and this was not a Buddhist teacher, by the way, yes, my teacher is sexist and anti-Semitic, but he's the guru.

[90:01]

See? I really am appalled by that kind of attitude. I think it's very harmful and dangerous. And you see it in the worst examples in the you know, and the munis and people like that. How's that? Yeah, I think we have some institutions here, like, for example, the race platform that often teachers lecture on, which, on the one hand, is designed to help the teacher to reinforce that sense of authority, but on the other hand, It's kind of hard when they're up there and you're down here to really assert yourself. Well, I can see that it would be awkward to speak out in a group unless you're really kind of worked up. But it's certainly possible to corner the teacher afterwards and say, hey, you know, when you said that in lecture, I didn't really understand, or whatever you want to say about it, you know.

[91:15]

I thought it was a mistake or whatever you want to say. I don't speak on one of these at the Diamond Sangha. I sit in a chair. But the reason for that is so I can see everybody and everybody can see me.

[91:31]

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