And then the floor. You should bring that left to the floor. I don't know if you ever see it if you don't feel free to walk home. Yeah, it's out a little bit and pound it up a little bit. Okay. Thank you.

[01:39]

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you.

[02:50]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, [...] Excuse me, do you plow to the chair first or out here first? Okay, thank you. Okay, ladies. And they do it every time.

[03:50]

But if you're in hand of the Buddha, you force out your muscles. All right. Just a little bit. Oh, I got another guy. Oh, really? Yeah. Just a leaf smoothie. All right. All right. So I'll have all that. Yeah. There you are. Yeah. .

[05:01]

. . . Yeah. [...] And then you see the shutdown, [...] you see the shutdown

[06:11]

What's your excuse? Thank you.

[07:13]

Thank you. OK. So you can hit me in the back. OK. Yeah, so you can't just sit. OK. No, it's pretty good. All right.

[08:15]

OK. That's good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Thank you.

[09:19]

Thank you. Thank you. up here. Thank you.

[21:46]

morning, good afternoon, depending where you are in space and time. First, I want to acknowledge how lucky we are to be here and to have this practice. And I want to thank Tanto Tin for inviting me to offer this talk and Abba David. And of course, my teacher, Rinso Ed Sattison, thank you for years of very compassionate and loving guidance throughout the path. And this is a special talk, at least a special talk to me, because this is the first talk that I'm giving after going through a process that's known as Dharma transmission. This is the first talk that I'm giving here at City Center. I've been giving other talks in Spanish to Spanish-speaking Sangha.

[22:57]

It's interesting, for those who don't know or are not sure what this Dharma transmission process means or is, it's a moment in time that may happen in practice where after being ordained a priest and then after... some years, maybe you get to be head priest or head monk, Xu So. And after being head monk, Xu So, it might come a time where your teacher feels that your mutual understanding of the Dharma, it's at a place where you can receive this Dharma transmission. And then in a pretty complex ceremony that takes actually three weeks, it's a very long process, you get to receive the full lineage of the ancestors and become a holder of that lineage. It's what we also know sometimes as full ordination.

[24:04]

And it's very, very meaningful and it's very important in our tradition. And now I'll get deeper into that later. So how do I got to that place? I think it's relevant. So I'm going to give some context, a bit of a story of my life that brought me to this point. Maybe a small wayseeking mind of sorts. My name is Sozan. I'm a teacher residing here in the San Francisco Zen Center City Center. And I was born in Argentina. I was born in Argentina in 1972 in Buenos Aires. Studied, went to school, studied. I'm the older of three siblings. And at one point, my quest for spirituality took me to a Catholic practice.

[25:15]

I was very Catholic for a number of years. And that's very common in South America. most of the countries are very Catholic. So that didn't last beyond my 22 or 23, 23rd birthday. So I was at that time working in advertising. I've worked in marketing, then in advertising. I founded an advertising company. And it was because of high stress that started taking a toll on my body that I went to an osteopath. And the osteopath said, well, maybe you should meditate. I don't know. Maybe. He said, well, we have a group. And this group was a Soto Zen group, our school of Zen.

[26:15]

And that's how in mid-2000s, I started meditating and started practicing Zen in a different lineage of a teacher that was called Taisen Deshimaru. Taisen Deshimaru, kind of a similar story to Suzuki Roshi, but in Europe. Taisen Deshimaru went to France, actually, the same way Suzuki Roshi came here to California. He went to France and started this lineage. That's a lineage that's pretty widespread. in South America. So I started practicing in that lineage. And it's interesting because when that's all you know, that's all you have, right? And I kept practicing and it was part of my week going to Zazen. working, talking to members of the Sangha.

[27:21]

And then in 2013, that was more or less a decade after I started practicing, I got married again. And as part of our honeymoon, we came to San Francisco. In coming to San Francisco, I decided to come to the Saturday morning program, kind of what we're doing. we're doing now, but 2013, 11 years ago. I had read Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, probably one of the big pathways towards our centers here. I didn't know what to expect. But honestly, that morning program completely changed my life in a way. At that moment, I didn't know was the case. It did completely change my life and the course of my life. I heard a Dharma talk.

[28:24]

I think it was Paul Haller that gave the Dharma talk. Had tea, cookies, talked to people. And something felt very different, very close. In a very weird way, I felt at home. I was very far away from home, but I felt at home. at home. So I went back to Argentina with a strange feeling of... I was a bit disoriented. What happened here? Went back, and my practice in Argentina, the flavor of that practice, of the Deshimaru practice, is very different to the flavor of... the practice we have here, Susigiroshi's way of practice. And one thing that I would say that touched me was a warm feeling of the way we practice here, warm heart to warm heart.

[29:26]

People talked to you and smiled and didn't hit you with a stick, and it was great. So, you know, I went back to my practice, and I... And I wanted more of that. I wanted that thing that I couldn't put my finger on that happened at San Francisco. And honestly, I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it. I had conversations with my teacher there and then, and also there was a sense of this is how we do things here, and that's how they do things there. So, you know, I say, well, but can we merge... Didn't work. So because I had opened one, I had opened as part of my advertising company an office in Mexico City. At that time we had offices in Barcelona, now in Mexico City. Every time I went to Mexico that year, I came back here for a couple of days, 2013.

[30:28]

And then came back, stayed a while, went back to Argentina. By 2014, this... became too important, too strong, what was going on here. And I decided to do my first practice period here at City Center in 2014. So here's the plan. I go to the U.S., I do a three-month practice period, I become Buddha or Dogen, go back, and then, I don't know, start something. So I did. And that didn't happen. There was something deep going on that I couldn't really understand, at least rationally.

[31:30]

Something very, very deep. And I could see that in the teachers here. I think that's an important part. It's not something that was said necessarily. It was something I could perceive or see. It was a death in the way teachers spoke, moved, relate. And you could see the effect of that on the Sangha as well. So there was something deep going on. And that's, I guess, when I decided I wanted to go deep. But going deep meant change, big change. So I had to do something about my life and I decided that if I wanted to go deep, I had to actually come here, stay here, practice hard, sit a lot of zazen, talk to many teachers and maybe eventually become a teacher myself.

[32:38]

and maybe eventually be able to express this practice in Spanish, which was important to me. It still is important to me. So I left my company. Just left it. Left my country. Didn't leave my wife. There she is. And came here 10 years ago. with this understanding that this death was important, going deep was relevant, was meaningful. And I was coming from a place in South America where we don't have, we're not that lucky of having

[33:40]

that many teachers and that sense of depth or lineage that I could feel here. I just described Dharma transmission. There are not that many teachers with Dharma transmission. So what happens is instead of going deep, it just replicates. The best way it can. This is not criticism. It's just what it is. So there are people teaching and doing the best they can, but without dharma transmission, without that sense of death. And this is what I want to really talk about today. Because I discovered during... during the dharma transmission process that there was a very important teaching of what was expressed to me as the vertical and the horizontal aspects of our practice.

[34:54]

And I'm still reflecting upon this. I guess I'll be reflecting on this forever, but it's so powerful. It's so powerful and so important. There's a vertical aspect of the transmission of the Dharma, and there's an horizontal aspect of our practice and the transmission of the Dharma. It's going deep and going wide. And how important both are. Probably many of us think, oh, deep, deep is great. But no, deep and wide are very, very important. And every aspect of our practice in both directions is really, really important. And it's really important that they are balanced.

[35:56]

That there's a balance between the vertical and a balance with the horizontal. The oral transmission that comes from the Buddha states that the Dharma goes or extends horizontally in the ten directions and vertically in the three periods or three times. You know when we chant all Buddhas ten directions three times? Well, that's vertical and horizontal, according to the teachings of the Buddha. Three times is past, present and future. the verticality of time. And ten directions is this horizontal aspect that reaches everywhere, the ten directions. There's no direction where it doesn't reach. So this three times is vertical in this ten directions is a teaching of the Buddha in regards to this.

[36:59]

So the Dharma is transmitted in time, from past to present, from present to the future, And then it's being spread everywhere. Does it start to make sense? Because it has its nuances, right? It's interesting, and yet it takes, as I say, quite a lot of reflection. And back to my Catholic... first incursion in spirituality, I actually feel or think that, and this happens a lot, that many different religions, traditions, talk about similar things in a different way. And this vertical and horizontal, I feel I can totally connect with the sign of the cross.

[38:07]

And, you know, when you do the sign of the cross, or when the priest does the sign of the cross, Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. That's how they do it. Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. Father, Son, it's vertical. And this is what's happening in the vertical sense of the Dharma transmission. And we'll talk a bit more about this from the Buddha, and then from ancestor to ancestor to our days. That's a vertical transmission. And that's what I saw in regards to the Catholic cross, Father-Son. And then the Holy Ghost, I was taught there and then that it was all-pervading. The Holy Ghost is everywhere. And that's exactly what the Buddha is talking about. Yes, this... linear, vertical in time, and these ten directions.

[39:15]

The Dharma expands in the way maybe Catholics relate to the Holy Ghost. And this was really interesting to me. I said, okay, Buddha, the Dharma, the Holy Ghost, there's something very meaningful there. So this vertical aspect of our practice has a lot to do with this transmission from the Buddha to our days through all our ancestors. And yet, in every point of the way, the Dharma is expressed horizontally. In every point of the way, in every point of that transmission, the Dharma is all-pervading.

[40:16]

So that vertical emphasizes the lineage, the lineage, and a broken chain of teachers and disciples from the Buddha. And the horizontal part reflects the transmission on community, on Sangha. on how teachings just are spread within and with every one of us, from one practitioner, from one being to another to another being. Tenshin Reb Anderson said the following when he was talking about vertical and horizontal. He said, Vertical succession is honoring tradition, the way of past Buddhas and ancestors, with the intention to carry the lineage into the future.

[41:24]

This is emphasizing the conservative and stable aspect of lineage. One must be clearly devoted to tradition in order to change it in beneficial ways. Once I heard here something that I keep very close to my heart and I feel it's very clear in its meaning, where tradition is tending to the fire, not worshipping the ashes. Love that. And this is, I guess, what Denshin Rev. Anderson is saying about this vertical, which is honoring tradition. and that we need to understand tradition in order to adapt, change tradition in a beneficial way. Because then he continues, horizontal succession is expressing an appropriate response in the present moment.

[42:29]

So the ways in which we express that tradition in the present moment appropriately, upaya, skillful means, that's the horizontal. So, maybe another way of understanding vertical and horizontal is tradition and adaptation, or tradition and response. Tradition, the vertical, adaptation, response in the horizontal. And this teaching comes, of the vertical and horizontal, comes from centuries ago, from Dogen, from before Dogen. We chant our ancestors here in many of our weekly ceremonies. We chant every name of the ancestors from the Buddha, in our case up to Suzuki Roshi. And that's a big part of the Dharma transmission process.

[43:32]

An essential part is just acknowledging and writing down, actually in a piece of space, white silk, every one of these teachers. How it came from the Buddha, in this case, to my teacher and then to me. And Keisan Joking, for those who don't know who Keisan Joking is, so our school of Zen, Soto School of Zen, was founded basically by two teachers. Ehei Dogen was born in the year 1200, And then a few generations after that by Keisan Jokin. And Keisan Jokin, and they had two main temples, Eiheiji and Sojiji, which are still there today. And you might maybe have heard about them. And Keisan Jokin wrote a very important book in her practice called Denkoroku, which means the transmission of the light.

[44:40]

And in this book, Kisan Jokin describes or tells the story of the transmission from teacher to teacher to teacher, from the Buddha up to his teacher. And there's a teaching in each of these stories, a koan in each of these stories. It's a very, very deep and meaningful book, and I would encourage you if you have the time or if you want to read it. There is something in that book that I would like to read that's part of the introduction and that really shows or sheds light to what I'm saying right now. Listen to this. It's part of the introduction, as I've said. It says, the record of transmitting the light is a type of literature that can be called spiritual genealogy.

[45:42]

Like ordinary genealogies, it traces a history of a family, locating its origins in some ancestor long ago and tracing that ancestor's descendants down through the successive generations to the present. This accomplishes several goals that are important for the family. It provides the panoramic view of the continuity of a line rooted in distant antiquity. It records the exploits and special distinctions of each generation. It provides a basis for family pride and style, and perhaps most important, it provides a strong sense of family identity. Together, these things create a sense of rootedness as well as continuity and identity through history. It provides a basis for family pride and style. That's exactly what I felt when I came here that time in 2013. And that's the importance of understanding this vertical aspect, because it talks about our family, our family of Zen, our family of practice.

[46:56]

And in understanding and connecting to that family pride, then reflects in the horizontal aspect, in the way we transmit our practice to others, in the way we fulfill our vows, in the way we save our beings, in the way we move through life, actually. So, in understanding that and So I got curious, right? And I started thinking, okay, where else is this reflected in our practice, in this horizontal and vertical? And I discovered that another place that I feel this is actually very, very present, it's in our robes, in sewing our Buddhist robes.

[47:57]

And there is this vertical aspect that we call jo, which, for those of you who have sewn a rakusu or an okesa, Buddhist robe, the small bib-like that you can see around, or this bigger one, first you sew vertical stripes, and then you join them together horizontally. And there is something that talks to me about this aspect of vertical and horizontal in our practice in looking at or seeing our Buddhist robes. So you can see that this vertical and horizontal is present in many ways in places that we maybe were not so aware of. And the invitation is for you to bring this to your practice and start seeing how this vertical, traditional time aspect of your practice relates to your horizontal, everyday life.

[49:04]

aspect of your practice. Again, equally important. Tradition and adaptation. Time and space. Death and breath. Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. When I say they're both important, and because they're equally important, But really, the matter here is they need to be in balance. Vertical and horizontal need to be in balance. When it's only just tradition and there's no expression, something is lost. When there's just sideways and there's no family sense, no tradition, no positioning in present and future and past, something is also lost.

[50:09]

And Dogen was very clear about this. Dogen, when he comes back from China to Japan, they asked Dogen, okay, what did you learn? You went to China, you came back, what did you learn? And he said, empty-handed, knowing nothing more that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. That's all he said. So there you go. And maybe he was talking about Zazen posture. Or maybe not. Or maybe it's just Dogen giving us a teaching inside a teaching, which is very Dogen. But clearly there's something here. And actually, I think he's saying that the important thing here is to see things... as they really are. Seeing reality as it is. In both this vertical and horizontal aspects of our practice.

[51:17]

So, it's probably something to keep thinking about. And in the minutes that I... have left. So I could talk more about these aspects, but I think this is pretty clear. Let's leave it at that. There's a vertical and horizontal aspect of our practice, and the vertical is the family style, it's the tradition, it's past, present, and future, and the horizontal is a family itself. It's sangha. It's practice in everyday life. It's our vows. It's where the rock hits the water. It's a ripple effect. I guess that's a good analogy. So if the rock, there's no vertical, there's not that much of a ripple effect.

[52:20]

When there's a strong vertical, the ripple effect is maybe endless. So I would like to say a few words how I see this being reflected in the world today. As I said, I think it's important to understand that they're both important and that the main thing here is balance. I do not feel right now this is balanced, the vertical and the horizontal. And this lack of balance between the deep and the wide, the vertical and the horizontal, probably creates a lot of suffering. And I know what I think it does. And you can see it in many ways.

[53:30]

Even when we talk about family, I think, in that basic aspect of the vertical. And maybe this is, I'm talking about the world around me, right? In other cultures, this is more established. But I feel we don't have very much of a vertical regarding family. We don't honor our ancestors as many other cultures do or as we do here in our practice. And this is important. This talks about who we are now in this cross of the vertical and the horizontal. So maybe we could explore more that vertical in our lives. And also there is something about the vertical that means that the deep part and the wide part

[54:34]

that connects or we can see reflected even in our attention, the way we pay attention to the moment, a big part of our practice. Nobel Prize Richard Feynman said, everything is interesting. If you go into it, deep enough. And no wonder we're so bored. Because nowadays we tend not to go deep. And of course this is in many ways by design. Hey, I'm a former advertiser. So attention is spread. And we'd rather read a few notes or a paragraph and not read a book so much. And short format video is so much more successful nowadays than a long movie.

[55:41]

Yes, there's something about that depth that we should be looking at, I think, in our practice. And then you see it in other aspects, like... Nowadays, people don't stay put anywhere for a very long time. I'm generalizing, right? This is not always the case. I'm just talking in general terms. And even in companies, people stay maybe a few years and then move. And I have nothing against doing what's, you know, maximize your talent and your earnings. That's fine. But something is lost in that lack of balance. Sometimes we call it tribal knowledge. That person has been there for 10 years, 15 years. And it's something that there's no workshop or reading of the organization's manuals that will bring.

[56:54]

This is time. This is time. Remember the Buddha was saying, past, present, future, vertical, time. That loss of... tribal knowledge is a fact. And that's the way it is, and that's fine, but we need to acknowledge that this is happening. Heck, we can see it in the Zen centers. We can see it here. There's very few people staying five years or more studying Zen in the same place. There was not so much the case before, but it is now. And this has an effect. We lose that tribal knowledge. We lose that sense of continuity through time, that being rooted in tradition. That's something that I felt when I came here.

[57:57]

So this is important to acknowledge. The threat leads the way nowadays. And the vertical, the death, is potentially relegated to something we don't have time for. Time, time, time, repeating that same word. And this is why I felt this teaching that I received during this dharma transmission process So important, and I wanted to share it with you. Because this is the tip of the iceberg, what we are talking about here today. There's so much more for each of you to investigate, to reflect, to talk to others about on these aspects of life. This I feel like my priest Catholic.

[59:04]

Sorry. But, yeah. keep investigating because it's important. And at least it happened to me as I kept going deeper in the vertical, I could see the effects on the horizontal. And it just becomes more and more profound. We need that ripple effect. But we need a sense of family. And we need to be sure we connect with our family of practice, and that in that connection we are able to share it with the rest of the beings. Being strong in that center, where the vertical and the horizontal meets, doing it again.

[60:08]

There's strength in balance. There's strength in that strong vertical that holds a wide horizontal. And you need a strong vertical to hold a strong, big, wide horizontal. If not, something is crooked, something false. We need to work on both. To end, I want to quote Pamela Weiss, who is a teacher in her lineage, who is actually going to be leading an intensive here in May in the city center, from a talk that they gave called Our Woman Ancestors Finding a Way Out of No Way. And Pamela says, we live in two dimensions of being human. which can be called horizontal and vertical.

[61:13]

In the horizontal aspect, we move across the surface, getting from here to there. If you look out at the ocean, you can see the surface with all the change and the waves and so on. That's one dimension, and that's useful. It's good to get from here to there. But there's another dimension, which is the vertical. When we drop under the surface, under the churn at the top of the water, and we let ourselves descend down, down, down, down into the still dark, quiet at the bottom of the ocean. Ultimately, we find a way to do both. To be engaged in horizontal movement, engagement, activity, without losing contact with the depth of our knowing, the depth of our being. So I'm very grateful for this teaching because it helped me to understand why I'm here today, why it's possible for this Argentinian monk to stand strong in these two aspects of practice and to be able to receive transmission from my teacher and eventually offer that transmission, hopefully, to somebody else.

[62:38]

in the ten directions. Vertical and horizontal. Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Thank you very, very much. Thank you. . . . I don't know. I don't know.

[63:44]

I don't know. I don't know. Good morning, everyone.

[65:57]

Thank you for coming today. My name is Kevin. I'm the Yinang Gear City Center, the head of the Zen Belt. A few announcements. Every week I tell you that thank you for coming. And I also say we love having you here. And every week that is very true. We love having you join us for everything that we do here. Our Zazen periods, our Dharma talks, classes, special events. Your presence here means very much to us. And we're very grateful that you've come here and join us. So thank you very much. So Souza talked about going deeper. Are you interested in learning about the Zendo in a deeper way? Today is your lucky guide. Michael will be doing Zendo form right after this. Michael, where would you like to be? Lobby at 1120 would be good. So lobby at 1120. Michael will be your guide to everything about the Zendo. what the instruments mean, what the altar signifies, where to bow, how to bow, everything you ever need to know will be taught to you by Michael today.

[67:04]

So 11.20 in the lobby, meet Michael, and he'll bring you down to the Zendo for Zendo forms. Our next Dr. Talk will be on Wednesday evening with Tim. Tim is our head of practice, and he'll be here at 7.30 in the Buddha Hall. So as I also mentioned, there we have an intensive coming up, which will run from May 19th to June 14th, led by Nalois. And the subject of the intensive is finding true refuge. And there's a lot more information on the website, sfcc.org, but I'll give you a little overview. Where do we find refuge in a world on fire? How does Buddhist practice support us in living together well? For thousands of years, Buddhist communities around the world have gathered on the darkest and brightest nights of the lunar cycle to reflect on our actions, consider our intentions, and to recommit to a life of integrity, compassion, and awakening.

[68:11]

In Zen, we carry on this ancient tradition through our monthly full moon circle, also known as Ryaku Fusatsu. So the subject of the practice period will be that. We'll have a one-day sit on May 24th to start off the practice period. We'll have three days of Sheen, an intensive sitting, June to end the practice period. And the subject of the world on fire, unfortunately, seems to be very real right now. So it's a great time to bring this thought to our practice, to discuss it, and to bring it to our attention. There will be a weekly class that we have a little bit. There will be Dharma talks each week. We'll be focused on the subject. So as I said, there's more information on the website. You can sign up to do it in person. You can sign up to do it online as well. And then that brings me to our next point, which is, so, finding true refuge.

[69:13]

We're in the final days of Zen-a-thon, which is our spring fundraiser. And if Zen Center has been a refuge to you in any way, Your support in Zenithon will be very meaningful. Go to the website, and right outside the door there, there are little cards which have a QR code. You can scan the QR code. It'll bring you right to the Zenithon page. There's four pages. There's one for Green Gulch. There's one for Tassajara. There's one for City Center. And there's one for the Maha Sangha, which means everybody, the wider Sangha. So you can choose which page you want to support. If Tassajara has been very meaningful to you in the past and you want to say, Tassajara, thank you, give to the Tassajara page. If Green Gulch or City Center have been very meaningful to you, you can choose to support those pages. So we're in the last few days, so there's just a few days left of opportunity to support Zenithan. So if you're able to do that, if you're in a position to do that, then we thank you very much and are grateful.

[70:17]

Tonight also we have a special event in the dining hall. Japanese Zen monk Yogetsu Akasaka has arrived. We'll be performing in the dining hall tonight. He does Buddhist chants with live looping and handpan and beatbox. If that sounds great to you, please come tonight. You can buy tickets online or you can just show up tonight and buy tickets that way. Urban Gate Sangha are the people who come in every Saturday morning to help us. with the 925 Zazen as well as the Dharma talk. So people from Urban Gate can raise their hands. So all these fine folks come here every Saturday. And if you have questions about Urban Gate or you're interested in joining Urban Gate in any way, please talk to them. They can tell you more about it. It's not a weekly commitment. You come when you can. And it really helps us keep our Saturday program staffed and able to support the Sangha in every way. So Sozan will be in the dining hall now for Q&A.

[71:21]

Feel free to go down there and join him. There will be tea and cookies on the way. Feel free to stop at the table. And thank you so much for coming today. We really appreciate it. Have a lovely weekend. Thank you.

[72:01]

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