English they're learning. But in the schools, I think every Japanese kid up until recently has been required to, I think they're changing the law now, to have as much as eight years of English. So most of what you do when you teach English is polishing. You just go in, you don't have to ever speak a word Japanese. And at first it's a little difficult to make yourself understood, but you can work it out. Okay. If you want to study Buddhism seriously, you know, like really it's your life. They expect in Rinzai a commitment of, for the Koan study, of ten to fifteen years. And I think for the ordinary Japanese monk it's considered ten years is quick and fifteen years is average. And so you'd need about five years of language study before you ... okay, so that means fifteen years for you minimum if you're good. In Soto I suspect the ... any long-term thing is that

[01:33]

in the vicinity of, say, you haven't had any experience in America, is in the vicinity of 8 to 20 years, something like that. It's a little different, they don't have quite such a program that you pass through. Short time, most of the monasteries won't take you, but there are certain places that you take the trouble to find out will accept a person for a month, or two months, or three and where you can practice. Some of the… Heji will accept you for… well, you can go for a short time, sometimes a week or two, but to actually get accepted and practice in the full way, I think you'd have to agree to go for a minimum of three months, and probably longer, but you might get by with three months. So you can do some studying on a short-term basis like that. Well, there are places where you can easily go for a year, that's pretty good. There are even places you can go and stay for two weeks or three weeks, but there aren't many, but you have to find out where they are, etc. About women, in the Hegi, I think a woman is made an honorary man before she's accepted. I'm not quite sure of the details. But in Rinzai,

[02:53]

In Rinzai, women, I guess, are allowed in the monastery and can practice with the monks, and lay people are too. In Soto, I think you have to be a monk. But in general, women are at the low end of the scale and not taken seriously. Maybe they're not taken so seriously in our culture in certain ways too. in the sense of being able to do certain kinds of jobs, but that kind of thing is more pronounced in Japan. But there's no reason... When you're a foreigner, you're so special, a man or a woman, it doesn't make too much difference. You can just go and try to practice and they'll try to help you. Yeah? How about a man, his wife and a small child? Would that be acceptable in a monastery? No. Well, no, because they don't have any women in monasteries, in general, and certainly not children.

[03:54]

Tassajara might accept you, somebody in that situation. Yeah? Do you know anything about Zen psychotherapy? Let me talk, do you know anything about it? You've heard something about it, yeah. There are some psychiatrists who claim to be using Zen or Buddhist approaches in there, with psychiatry. It's hard for me to make sense exactly what's happening. I have a feeling that... well, my own feeling is that the Japanese conscious-unconscious sort of situation is very different from ours, and the distinctions don't apply, and that Freudian psychology just doesn't apply to Japan. I just don't think it does. And I think that when – I've read some books on this and there's a lot of discussion that when this one man who wrote a book called Understanding the Japanese Mind, he says that every time he went to meetings and asked Japanese psychiatrists what they're doing, they said they were using Freudian psychiatry and they were using very traditional Western psychiatry, some of them had been trained in the West, but he didn't believe it.

[05:17]

But it's one thing he could never find out. He felt in actual practice they were just doing traditional cultural things. But certainly it's very difficult to talk about the area of Western psychiatry in Japan, because to me it's a very muddy area in which it's not clear what's happening, as far as I can tell. Something may come out of it, but I can't tell. But it is interesting what Buddhist psychology is. And Buddhist psychology is something quite different from Western psychology and very interesting. I mean, Western psychology, from the point of view of Buddhist psychology, is trying to solve the problems of the small mind in terms of the small mind. And Buddhist psychology is aimed at explaining you and reality without any idea, without any I-concept, without any individual concept. and explaining everything in terms of big mind, in which the problems of small mind are solved in terms of big mind. And this involves understanding what the skandhas are and what the dharmas are, but that's rather complicated and too much to explain. You had a question? No? Okay, I'll think a little bit about your question.

[06:44]

what is the ideal place to practice Buddhism? Well, I think that the most positive thing that I'm able to perceive about practicing Buddhism in Japan is that there's a strong sense of way, more than just teachers, a sense of a way in which you immerse yourself. And there's a kind of rhythm to it, a kind of rhythm to the culture and a rhythm to the life, which is very deep and satisfying. And I found, as I mentioned when I talked at Zen Center to some of you, that going to one of the monasteries for Taisho, which is lecture, that I would come away from that with a deep feeling of okayness, which would last for days. That there's some rhythm of the life there, which is related to heartbeat and lungs and and your basic internal rhythms, which is very satisfying. Just the pace at which people walked, the way things were picked up, just the way a cup was picked up, there's some rhythm that's very deep and satisfying. And this is very related to the Buddhist way, a kind of traditional way. And in that sense, I don't think you can find that here, in anything like the same sense.

[08:13]

That may be a very good situation in which to practice Buddhism. In general, without all of the effort needed to make a go of practicing in Japan or some other country, it's probably best to try to practice here, I think. What are the best conditions for practice? I feel, your own life situation, and that usually means people that you can communicate with and have some relationship to, etc. So, I think in a real sense it's important to, if you're really practicing Buddhism for a long time, that you can't do it all in Japan. Even if you go to Japan, you still have to practice in this country in a situation because it's in terms of and with other people. that the practice is. I mean, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, these three refuges, are a way of describing the interrelationships of everything, and I think practice should include your own familiar situation. Yeah? Questioner 2 After observing the contrast and similarities of Japanese and American culture, I know this is a difficult question, but what changes or alterations do you think it would be advantageous

[09:41]

you may intend to adopt to American culture, you know, say, in America? Well, that's really complicated. I feel that the essential aspects of Buddhism remain the same. I feel the way in which Buddhism is organized may change slightly. Of course, anyway. Okay, that's enough. Yeah? Oh, well, he wasn't criticising them. Oh, no, it was just simply... The main thing was the outer look. The look of Japanese Buddhism. with everyone sitting the same way. I know people come back from Korea and they tell me, well, they feel good about practicing in a Korean situation, which is pretty mixed up, I think. It's mixed up with all kinds of elements of Buddhism and cultural life. But one person may be sitting gazen, one person may be walking meditation, one person may be chanting, one person may be sitting out, one person may be sitting in,

[11:07]

And to us that seems quite natural, you know, each person is making a decision. In Japan, well and also in a place like Tibet, many people practice on their own. Part of practice is to go off by yourself in practice, and also practice in a group. And in Japan, almost all practices emphasize practice in a group. And everyone sits in a very straight line, everyone gets up and does things together, etc. And a lot of that is just like lowering the sun visors and raising the sun visors. And once you realize they're lowering and raising sun visors, then it doesn't look so formal. But to somebody like Govinda, who's his first visit to Japan, he looks around and he says, my, this is so formal, it's lifeless. And I spent a lot of time with him trying to talk about the fact that I didn't think it was lifeless. I mean, since I'm living there and studying there, I can't. Yeah, I'd like to stop now. And if you have any other questions, you can ask me afterwards. Thank you.

[12:10]

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