This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzz.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. Welcome. So happy to be here. Happy new moon. So it's traditional for someone who's just had dharma transmission to give a talk afterwards, after the ceremony. So this is that talk. I have new clothes, a new robe. So I always, I always

[01:03]

almost always, start my talks by saying that my talk is just to encourage you in your practice. And then I say, I want to thank and acknowledge my teacher, Sojin Mel Weitzman Roshi. But in this case, I want to say, I want to really, really, really, really thank and acknowledge my teacher, Sojin Mel Weitzman Roshi. Many, many bowels of thanks to Sojourner Roshi for guiding me and teaching me and mentoring me and being very patient with me for many years, taking me up to and through this Dharma gate. Somebody asked me what was the one thing, the main thing I wanted to express in this talk tonight, and I said, easy answer, it's gratitude.

[02:15]

I'm very, very grateful, first and foremost, to Sojourner Roshi, but then it extends on and on and on to everyone who helped, and I'll get into that later. and the entire lineage of Buddhism ancestors, and all of you, and all beings. I wanted to invoke, to bring into the room, a couple of women ancestors who I was present for their talk on the occasion right after their dharma transmission. The first is Darlene Cohen, who did her dharma transmission here, when I was here, before.

[03:24]

And after her ceremony, she gave a talk, sitting right here. And the first thing she said was, what will I do now that I look like a giant truffle? I miss her so much. And the other one is May Lee Scott, whom some of you, most of you don't know. She was a disciple and Dharma heir of Sojan Roshis. And she did Dharma Transmission here in Tassajara in 1998 with her Dharma brother, Alan Sanaki. And May Lee was a practice leader of mine. And I have a big place for her in my heart.

[04:27]

And she meant a lot to me. And she was... well known for her social engagement, founding member of the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement, and very active in Buddhist peace fellowship, and yes, sort of a leader in engaged Buddhism, socially active, and well known for being forthright, matter of fact, down to earth, stating things as they are. And she came back to Berkeley Zen Center, after her drama transmission, and in her forthright, matter-of-fact, down-to-earth way, said, it's a magical ceremony. And then she said it again. It's a magical ceremony. And I was like, huh, that caught me. Coming from Mili, yeah, that was something. Hmm.

[05:28]

Hmm. Things that make you say, hmm. I miss them both so much. I don't really have a lot I want to say about the ceremony itself. I think I'll be processing it for a long, long time. Parts of it were kind of semi-public. A lot of you helped. I know a lot of you helped with the Jundo and the Bhusarai. Every day we were in here bowing to the lineage of Buddhist ancestors, doing one bow with one bell after each ancestor's name. But I wanted to mention about the Jundo. During this week-long ceremony, each morning, before the wake-up bell, in the pre-dawn darkness, Linda Galleon and I did this jundo around many altars in Tassahara.

[06:50]

Jundo meaning like a sort of procession around many altars and making offerings of incense at all these altars, this kind of extended mega-jundo. many altars, so from one end of Tassahara to the other, really. And first, I guess, I mean, it was really important to both of us that it happened in Tassahara, firstly, I'll say that. I'm very, very grateful for that, because Tassahara is my heart. It's not just in my heart, it is my heart. And secondly, that happened during work period, one thing that was pretty neat was our jundo took us through various job sites in the darkness, and it was like the moon was waning. It was getting darker and darker.

[07:50]

And so we would process from the zendo to the kaisando down these steps out there, and there's this little sign that says, watch your step. We got our flashlights, and we're like... where we're going. And then we went out to, you know, when we were beginning going out to the bathhouse, Jack West actually provided us with a piece of plywood that we could put down so we could do our bows at the bathhouse altar. And then in the course of the ceremony, over the days, we got to watch as the deck in front of the bathhouse altar was completed. So that was kind of neat. And then the jindo also calls for doing bows at the foot of the path leading up to Suzuki Roshi's Asha site, which we did on the first day. But on the second day, we got word that this torii gate had been erected. So we said, let's go up there and look at it. So we walked up a little further, and we did our bows there at that gate.

[08:53]

The first time it had these cross things on it, and then... They were taken away, and then it was cleaned up, and that's where we did our bows. It felt very natural. I think that Tori Gate is due to become a very photographed place in Tassajara. I finally saw it in daylight today. So... Thank you to everyone who helped with all that. And since I really don't have much else to say about the ceremony, I thought I would talk a little bit about sewing. So I have this new clothing, Buddha's robe, yokesha. And for those of you who don't know, this is sewn by hand, one stitch at a time.

[09:58]

I don't know how many thousand stitches there are in it, but it took me well over a year. Of course, that's following the Tassahara schedule. But it's interesting. I have a prison pen pal who knows a little bit about Buddhism. He's very interested, and I'm telling him about things that are going on in Tassahara in my life, and he writes me back, and he says, so hand stitching is a big part of your religion. I was like, yeah, when you put it like that, yeah, it's true. Hand stitching is a big part of our religion. It's very important, particularly in our San Francisco Zen Center lineage, in this tradition. So... There's a history to that, which is the founder of this temple, Suzuki Roshi, some friends of his, most notably Kodo Sawaki Roshi, who I believe died in 1965.

[11:15]

Sawaki Roshi did a lot of research about the okesa, Buddha's robe, to find out what would be the more pure style of sewing it. And he worked on that, and he revived what's called nyoho-e, which means pure Dharma robe, style of sewing. So other occasions in Japan don't quite look like this. This, I guess you would say, is much more old-fashioned. And it's important that you sew it by hand. So this doesn't happen in Japan a whole lot, although it's becoming... kind of revived a little bit in Japan, but in San Francisco Zen Center, there's everything. Everybody sews their own robes. In Japan, not so much, you know. It's kind of an industry, and you just receive a robe. But in our tradition, everyone sews their own robes, one stitch at a time. With every stitch, you take refuge in Buddha, namukie butsu, we say, meaning...

[12:25]

I take refuge in Buddha, or more literally, I plunge into Buddha. Kyei, meaning like plunge. I plunge into Buddha, every stitch. So Suzuki Roshi invited a sewing teacher from Japan named Joshin-san, and she's the sort of founding teacher of what we call our sewing teacher lineage. And she worked with Blanche Hartman. And Blanche Hartman taught many other sewing teachers how to sew this nyohoe okesa, zagu, rakasu, the sort of portable version that you see people wearing. And then many, many other teachers have passed this tradition on. And... I want to thank and acknowledge all the sewing teachers, and especially all my sewing teachers, starting with Mako, who's been my sewing teacher on this particular project for well over a year, has been very patient with me.

[13:38]

And then going back to Rebecca Maieno, who is also no longer with us, who practiced at Berkley Zen Center, and... guided me through sewing my first lei rakasu. Although, I also got a little help from Linda Gallion on that occasion, way back when. Maybe that's the first time I ever spoke to Linda Gallion. Rebecca Maieno worked with both Blanche Hartman and Joshin-sam. So when she was teaching us to sew, she would use a lot of Japanese words. It was quite cute. And then, I see that Galen is here. And Galen was my sewing teacher when, Galen Gagwin, Roshi, when I sewed my black, my priest, Lokesa, 10 years ago. And all of them were very patient with me.

[14:44]

Galen used to just put two pins crosswise And she'd say, okay, keep going. Stop there. Come talk to me. Don't do anything else. When you get to there, stop. Come find me. I'd be like, okay. That worked out pretty well. So taking refuge in Buddha over and over again. It's really quite a practice. And I have to say, at this point, I intend to just keep sewing and make it my continuous practice. I kind of have really grown to love it. And the way it's collaborative, it wasn't only Mako who helped me.

[15:47]

Other sewing teachers at Tassahara, Judith Randall, helped me a lot, especially with my rakasu that I sewed. And, of course, my wife, Linda Gallion, was very patient and in the midst of sewing her own stuff, found time to help me on occasion when I got stuck. So there's this story that came up in the last practice period that's a very well-known Zen story about sewing, which is in the record of Dungshan. Dungshan being one of the founders of this school, the Soto school. In Japanese, his name is Tozan.

[16:52]

the Soto comes from two teachers named Sozan and Tozan. So Dengshan is a very important teacher, founding teacher of this school in China, in Tang Dynasty China. And the story goes, it's about Dengshan and Uncle Mi. Uncle Mi is an interesting character in the Record of Dengshan because he He's not very three-dimensional, but he's in a lot of the stories. He's in there a lot. He's like a guy who was there. Spiritual Uncle Mi. I kind of resonate with Spiritual Uncle Mi. I like him. He was there. He's not a big shot like Dung Shan. He's not one of the greats. But he was there. They traveled together a lot. They called him Uncle Mi because... to Dungshan's students, Dungshan's disciples, Chomichu or Uncle Mi, he was Dungshan's Dharma brother.

[18:05]

So they were both disciples of Yunyan. So in our tradition, there's this whole ancestral lineage thing going on that's a Confucian influence. It's very, very important. When you ordain as a lay person or a priest, you always get this document of heritage called the Ketchumyaku, which means the blood vein, or Kaimyaku, which means precept vein. And it's this red line which represents a blood vein that flows through all these names from Shakyamuni Buddha down to you. I'm in the 92nd generation from Shakyamuni Buddha. So Uncle Mi was Dongshan's Dharma brother. So I'm Sojin Roshi's Dharma heir now.

[19:08]

Linda and I have become Sojin Roshi's Dharma heirs, which means I have a lot of Dharma siblings. I'm actually number 23 and Linda's number 24. prolific family. So, Paul Haller is now my Dharma brother. So, to Judith, Mako, and Graham, I could be spiritual Uncle Greg. After we finished Dembo ceremony, which is kind of the culminating, it's really a whole... series of ceremonies. It's like continuous ceremonies, one after another, multiple, multiple, you know, over seven days. But the culminating event is the Dembo. And afterwards, we had like a tea in the middle of the night, midnight snacks.

[20:10]

We didn't drink green tea. But it was very sweet. You know, it was kind of a little party in the Abbott's cabin. He gave us even more presents, including the most beautiful kotsu I've ever seen carved out of a piece of manzanita from North Fork by Sojin last year. Not bad. Not bad. It's amazing. And then he also said, he said, well, have you got chops? Two of you, chops meaning the stone stamps that Chinese and Japanese use to seal documents. They put the stamp in the red ink and they might sign documents or seal papers or paintings or artwork.

[21:14]

You know what I'm talking about, those red seals? We said, yes, of course. Yeah, we've got chops with our Dharma names on them. He said, oh, go get them. And so we did that. And he goes, here you go. And he takes off this rakasu he's wearing, turns it around, and it's covered in red on the back. It's got all his Dharma heirs, chops, imprinted on the rakasu. It was an 80th birthday present. It was sown by Blanche Hartman. And there's still room on there for me and Linda, though. So we put our chops on there, too. So sweet. I'm totally gonna run out of time. The story about Uncle Mi. Oh yeah.

[22:16]

So Dungshan, sees Uncle Mi sewing. And he says, what are you doing? And Uncle Mi's like, I'm sewing. Hello. I'm sewing over here. No, he says, I'm sewing. And Dongshan says, how is it when you're sewing? And Uncle Mi says, well, one stitch is pretty much the same as the next. Or worse to that effect. And Dongshan says, we've been traveling together 20 years and that's all you can say? And Uncle Mi says, well, what do you say? And Dong Shan says, stitch after stitch, the whole world bursts into flames. With each stitch, the whole world bursts into flames. Now, I wouldn't be my teacher's disciple if,

[23:17]

If I didn't say, I think they both have pretty good understanding. Stitch after stitch pretty much is the same. But if it's just tedious stitch after stitch, not so good. Because it's also true that stitch after stitch, the whole world bursts into flames. Each stitch, each breath, each moment, is new, alive, shimmering, fresh, every moment, birth and death. So Suzuki Roshi talked about this in the best-selling book on Buddhism ever published, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a very important chapter, well worth studying, called The Spirit of Repetition.

[24:18]

He used the analogy of baking bread. You know, we bake a lot of bread here in Tassajara. And he says, you know, it might get tedious just doing the same thing over and over again. But then you don't understand because our way is to put the bread in the oven and study it very carefully. How dough becomes bread is what we're studying. How a human becomes a sage is what we're studying. So we just put ourselves in the oven and watch it very carefully. Now, it's really good advice for practicing in any circumstances, but especially summer guest season. You might find it gets tedious. You might find it gets boring. How is your practice?

[25:21]

Where is the vitality? How do you tap into that? These are really good questions. So what it comes down to, for me, is what I love about Soto Zen. Darlene, in her talk, after Dharma Shri's mission, she said, fish swim in the water, birds fly in the air, and it seems to me that the medium that humans move through is greed, hate, and delusion. We are like lotuses in muddy water. All of us. What I love about Soto Zen is it's all enlightenment all the time.

[26:28]

It's all Satori all the time. Non-stop. Continuous. There's the story of the sixth ancestor of Chan, Huynang, the Chinese Buddha, and his disciple Nanyue. When they first met, their very first meeting, Huynang says, what is it that thus comes? It's a very heavy thing to lay on a person. One of the names of the Buddha is the Thus Come One, the Tathagata. So he says to this guy he's met for the very first time, just walks in the room, what is it that thus comes? Nanyue is gobsmacked. He doesn't know what to say. And he goes off to study that for eight years. Eight years later, he comes back.

[27:34]

He says, well, you gave me this teaching. What is it that thus comes? Here's what I think. Words can't reach it. And Huenang seems pretty satisfied. And he asks him, well, does it rest on practice and realization? Meaning, does it rely on practice and realization? Does this thing that is inconceivable, that is beyond human agency, actually depend on what you do? And Nanue, says, informed by his eight years of practice, he says, it's not that there is no practice in realization, it's just that it cannot be defiled. Okay, so we practice real hard. We practice real hard at Tassahara.

[28:37]

We commit to taking on a lot, following the schedule, upholding these guidelines. It's no joke. But it cannot be defiled. It can't be like, oh, I broke Buddhism, or oh, my practice is no good. You might feel, okay, there's room for improvement. That's fine. But it doesn't depend on practice realization. It doesn't rest there. It's just they can't be separated. That's what I love about Soto Zen. All enlightenment, all the time. Mel said to me, I'm just giving back to you what's already yours.

[29:40]

And I think that's... magic that Miley Scott was talking about. So, thank you for listening. I think that's all I got to say and there's time for a couple of questions, I believe. Yes, Shundo? Yes. Mm-hmm. Well, yes. There are different practice positions. You know, Suryodhana Roshi talks a lot about the horizontal and the vertical. So in the horizontal, no difference. The vertical? Sure. It's a different experience being Tanto.

[30:44]

Yes, Brendan. Not a question, really, but a small anecdote. Last summer, I was seated with you and Linda Galleon at dinner in the Sydney area. And you turned to her and you said, I don't have any practice discussion scheduled for tonight. You know what that means? And I was like, well, I didn't say anything. It's coming next. And you said, we can sew together. Yeah. What passes for excitement? Yes, Rachel. Yeah.

[31:58]

I don't know if I can, Rachel. I don't know if I can tell you what they actually mean. I thought about that before when I was preparing for this talk, and I was like, I don't know if I can go there. I can sort of dance around the edges a little bit. For example, the robe and bowl traditionally are all that a monk possesses and the robe in particular has come to be fraught with significance as you know the uniform of bodhisattva kind of the rice field of happiness but

[32:58]

I don't know, that's not very satisfying to me. And especially, it doesn't mean like you have to have a robe to practice. That's crazy talk, you know? So, I don't know. It's deeply personal. And it's public. So on the one hand, you know, it's this very personal thing. this decision and this relationship between myself and my teacher? And on the other hand, is this public kind of, you know, put on this uniform and say, well, here I am. Ask me something about Buddhism. I'm available. I'm approachable. And circling back to what I want to talk about, gratitude, right? Right? What I told Sojin Roshi was, it seems to me the way to repay the gratitude is to do just that, to be approachable, to be available, and if possible, to help.

[34:16]

That's what I want to do. Somehow, somehow, in a way that I can't explain, for this person here, This clothing is a help for that. And that's about the best I can say about it, Rachel. I appreciate your honesty, but you know I have to wonder that this robe is a different color than the other one, but it seems like what you just said goes for the other one, too. I agree. Thank you very much. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click giving.

[35:32]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_91.71