It is really a man of breathing, and I'm hungry. I will submit the help of the system. I begin to see the end of the second century, she should be ready when we're at this test. And so I was just kind of sure we're getting it done. I don't know if I could get it done. But it was a start for me. And I had to get it. I wasn't getting it out. But I didn't get to see it. I just didn't check the book. See I could already not work at any steps. I didn't like anybody out there was to taste. I'm sure we fucked left up in some pockets and places to wear drinks.

[03:27]

Back when I almost said to God I was just planning a straight day and he got a good new part of his face at least I was talking to my mom. It is, it [...] is, . [...] Good morning. Thank you for coming out on a typically cold, foggy summer morning at Green Dragon Temple.

[04:29]

My name is Kokyo, and I have lived and practiced here for many years in the past. But I'm just visiting now for a few days to help out with a ceremony. My dear teacher, old Buddha Tenshin Roshi is doing a, what we call a, Dharma transmission ceremony for one of his senior students, Reverend Timo, many of you may know, who's lived here for many years as well. So it's a great joy to practice with my old teacher again in this way and to practice with my Dharma brother, Timo, in this way.

[05:43]

in this ceremonial way. So naturally, since we're in the middle of these ceremonies these days, that's what's been on my mind. So I thought to share a little bit about this topic with you all. today. The transmission of dharma from a teacher to a student. The inheritance of dharma for a student from a teacher. This is something, I think, some version of this has been going on in all traditions of Buddhadharma from the time of the Buddha.

[06:57]

And maybe something like this also in all spiritual traditions. But in the Zen lineage, we really celebrated this. this intimate meeting of teacher and student and passing something along in a kind of inconceivable way. In one of our ancient teachers, Dogen's writings, he says, when you first are practicing Dharma, you imagine it's far away from you. But when you actually come to wholeheartedly practice it, you see that Dharma is already correctly transmitted

[08:16]

you are immediately your original self. So that's how it is for everyone who's practicing wholeheartedly. Dharma is already correctly transmitted. We are, of course, all already our original self. But it seems to... some time to fully accept this. Doesn't it? Our practice in one sense is very simple and it's immediate and always now.

[09:18]

But something like Zen is, I think, to really, really appreciate the full flavor of Zen, we just have to chew it for a long time, which you're all wholeheartedly invited to do. For example, these ceremonies, the way we usually do them at this temple, Usually those teachers and students have been practicing very closely together, like living together in the temple for decades, often 20 years, sometimes 30 years. Even though dharma is already correctly transmitted, you are immediately your original self. Still we, for the full flavor, we chew it together, teacher and student, for a long time.

[10:31]

And living together in this ordinary way, sitting zazen together in the silence. You might say, well, couldn't we just do that on Zoom? And yes, we can sit together on Zoom also, but there's something about breathing the same air, sitting together, doing ceremonies together, chanting together, making offerings together, learning the forms of practice, meeting together. solitary, alone meeting, which strictly speaking means when we meet with the teacher in Doka-san, it's like meeting alone.

[11:35]

There's no other. There's not really two people. That's too many for Doka-san. Really, it's meeting alone, meeting yourself. And what do we talk about in these Dokusan meetings? Well, it's pretty open. We share the present and we share it with words, usually. And we explore the Dharma together and our life together. But it's kind of a formal meeting. We bow to the teacher and we sit down face to face, very close. And it's very intimate. And... I think this is a big part about practicing teachers and students together is we meet like this hundreds and hundreds of times. Before I formally received, inherited my teacher's dharma, we've been practicing together, I think about 20 years.

[12:45]

Maybe many, many, maybe the majority of those years, I would meet with him every week. So I can't count the hundreds of Doka-san meetings. Sometimes it's extremely boring. Sometimes in these Doka-san meetings, I would be making every ounce of my effort to not fall asleep. And sometimes my teacher, I could see him making every ounce of effort to not fall asleep while I was rambling away at the details of my life. Sometimes both brightly awake. Sometimes many people, I think, have come to me and come to my teacher like this. It's a scheduled meeting, but actually I really don't have anything to say.

[13:49]

Maybe we should just leave. Wait a minute. And those are often the longest meetings. There's a lot to say when we actually take the time to just sit down together. So what is transmitted? I think one of the earlier earliest expressions of this term. Mind transmission. Transmission of mind in Zen. I think he may be coined this term. Huangbo in the about the 9th century in China. And he's the one who said mind is transmitted with mind. Not or to not attain a single thing, is called transmission of mind. If you realize this mind, you see there is no mind and no things.

[14:59]

There is no mind to transmit, and this is what we call transmission of mind. But... that might not happen when we think that the stuff that's swirling around in our mind really does exist, and there is something there, then the mind can't really be transmitted. But when we see there's nothing really there to attain or to transmit, then there can be this transmission of mind. Dogen and Zenji are... Japanese lineage founder, talks about this importance of self-verification. He has an essay called Self-Verification Samadhi.

[16:03]

Absorption in verifying our true self by our self, right? We verify our self, we verify our true self. But this, Dogen says, this self-verification cannot be authentically transmitted unless one is a successor of Buddhas and ancestors. So it's a self-verification, but this happens doesn't happen alone without a connection with a living teacher in our tradition. Yes, we're verifying ourselves. You are immediately your original self, but this is done strangely with another so-called other, another who is really our self, but we need

[17:12]

that other face like a reflection in a mirror to truly verify our self. It's hard to say what is transmitted. Sometimes we speak of transmission of light in our lineage. transmitted from teacher to student. Light. But like the light that's filling the zendo right now, we can't really see it. Light is illuminating all of us. It's illuminating the zendo. It's illuminating the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. But we only see

[18:14]

these appearances that are illuminated by the light. We can't really see the light. And this light is something that doesn't have any size and shape or color. It's just illumination itself. How could that be transmitted? Well, maybe it can't literally be transmitted. Sometimes when we speak of transmission of light, we might understand this as even though this inconceivable, invisible light can't be transmitted, an appreciation of the light maybe can be transmitted. Most of us Most people in the world, anyway, really appreciate all these appearances that are illuminated by the light.

[19:22]

But maybe most people don't really think about appreciating the light itself, because we can't see it. It's not really anything itself. But... Zen is this kind of strange practice where we can gradually learn to appreciate light more and more. We can appreciate something that we can't see, we can't get a hold of, we can't find it. But it makes everything possible. If there was no light in that room, there wouldn't really be anything to see or relate to. We can be very grateful for light, but we take it for granted, don't we? Maybe if we're lost in the dark when the sun first comes up, then we maybe really do appreciate light.

[20:23]

But it's easy to overlook. Maybe one way of talking about Zen practice is just... you could say suddenly or gradually, developing an appreciation, a deep, deep appreciation for light. Unlocated, ungraspable, unseeable illumination. And I feel like a lot of my appreciation for light over the years has actually come from my teacher's appreciation of light and kind of conveying that to me, teaching the appreciation of light that's come through many, many teachers, actually. Sometimes we, it's kind of hard to kind of put a finger on why,

[21:36]

we feel this kind of connection with some teachers. Maybe sometimes we feel that connection because the way that they appreciate light, we really kind of have some resonance with. I would say that about my teacher, my root teacher, and all my teachers. They help me to appreciate light and the ones that, I appreciate light in a way that really rings true for me. I really appreciate, and therefore, something's kind of transmitted there. Transmission of light appreciation. We have these phrases in English like, seeing eye to eye, And being on the same page, it's another way maybe to consider this Dharma transmission.

[22:43]

We kind of have a similar appreciation for light that we develop over time. And we see eye to eye, we're on the same page. There's these different books that are about light appreciation. And maybe there's some pages on them where like, yeah, this one says it. We're on the same page of life appreciation. Page 53. But I don't think that this means that we always have to agree completely with our teacher. That's too much. And in fact, if we agreed exactly about everything, that the lineage might die out. Sometimes it's said that for the lineage to thrive, the student has to kind of go beyond the teacher, which might mean that they really appreciate another page in the book, while still appreciating some pages

[24:03]

They might be on the same page, but maybe the student likes to read some other pages too. Or the teacher does. So I think that's part of the dynamic relationship. Actually, any intimate relationship. There is a lot of being on the same page, but not exactly always. So there's many stories in our tradition about not always agreeing on everything. Zen teachers and students. One that comes to mind is there was a Zen student who became a Zen ancestor named Dahmei. His name means great plum. And he practiced with his teacher, the great ancestor, horse ancestor, Matsu. And one day Matsu said, either to Dahomey or to the whole assembly, what is Buddha?

[25:18]

Mind itself is Buddha. A famous Zen saying coined by Matsu. And we don't know how various students of Matsu received that simple, straightforward teaching, but Dahme, the great plum, he really received that and joined the same page as Matsu. What page? The page called Mind Itself is Buddha. Dalmei, when he heard that, had this great awakening. He had a shift of perspective, and he thought to himself, this teaching says it all. Actually, I don't really need any more teachings, but I need to enact this for the rest of my life.

[26:22]

And how should I do that? Well, for a while, I think, I just want to sit zazen. to express mind itself as Buddha. So he left Matsu with Matsu's blessing because he wanted to go practice Zazen. Some of you know it. In the Zen temples, there's sometimes not so much Zazen. So Dahme went and built a hut in the mountains and went and just practiced Zazen all the time there. sitting with his teacher's teaching mind itself, his Buddha. You could say he was communing directly with his teacher who transmitted that teaching to him for some time out in the mountains. Later, another student of Matsu was hiking in the mountains and came across this hermit in this hut out there.

[27:34]

practicing zazen. I'm imagining maybe he didn't even knock on the door because he saw him through the window to sitting zazen. Wow, there's somebody out here? Amazing. He went back to Matsu and told him, I saw this hermit living in a hut in the mountains. Matsu, the teacher, said, oh, that must be my student, Dame. I knew that he'd be sitting zazen. out in the mountains like that. But could you do me a favor? It's a long walk out there. My legs don't work so well these days. Can you go have a dialogue with my student, Don May? Can you go meet him and kind of check him out for me? Kind of like make sure we're still on the same page So this monk went out back to the hut in the mountains and knocked on the door.

[28:44]

And Dahmey got up from Zazen. She'd been sitting since the monk was last there. And said, oh, hi, where are you from? And the monk said, I'm from Matsu's place. And Dame said, oh, my dear teacher Matsu, what's he teaching these days? And the monk said, these days Matsu teaches not mind, not Buddha. And Dame said, my old teacher, he's just fooling people. Really, the teaching is mind itself is Buddha. So it sounds like he maybe kind of disagreed with this new teaching of his teachers.

[29:47]

Was he stuck in the old one? I don't want to hear the new one because mind itself is Buddha really works. And he's got this new not mind, not Buddha. Just messing around. He kind of critiqued his teacher, right, to this monk. And said, my teacher's just fooling people with this new teaching. So the monk went back and reported this to teacher Matsu. And Matsu said, ah, the great plum is ripe. So he praised the student for disagreeing with him. He praised the student for the student's confidence in his own practice, even though it was maybe a little bit different from Matsu's current teaching.

[30:48]

Matsu moved on. But he didn't say, oh, he's still stuck in my old teaching. No, he's just a ripe plum. Anyone who goes there take a bite of him and it will be very sweet. So, it's a Zen story about maybe a slight disagreement between teacher and student, but while still being on the same page, really. So, what's transmitted. Appreciation of light is transmitted. But also within Zen and within all these different spiritual traditions, there's many, many ways to appreciate light. I think also something is unique, uniquely transmitted that would be like a particular lineage.

[31:58]

We could say there's many lineages of light appreciation. But they all have slightly different styles. And it's nice to celebrate and honor the different styles. So we could say the lineage is a particular way of understanding and expressing appreciation of light. and also particular expressions. We might say ritual expressions or practices like zazen, ways of being together that are expressing appreciation of light. And they're slightly different amongst all different religions and even within Buddhism and even within different Zen lineages. So a particular lineage style

[33:00]

of light appreciation is being transmitted along with the essential appreciation of light. And I think it's another dynamic kind of tension is when we're transmitting a certain style, lineage style, how much of it can change and how much of it can't. If we changed everything completely, like some Zen lineages have kind of gone beyond the whole Zen lineage thing. They don't keep all the forms. They're just into the light appreciation. I think some Zen teachers would just appreciate light, and so we don't need all this extra stuff, these types of expression, because anything can express appreciation of light. Some, I think,

[34:00]

Zen teachers and other teachers feel that way, which is fine, actually, as long as they're appreciating light. But then it's hard to transmit something because they just say, well, just, I love light, you love light, we love light. Well, that's, I guess, the transmission. But here we also have this, in addition to that loving light, we have these particular, unique, forms, and they haven't changed very much for like a thousand years or so. Kind of amazing. Many of our forms are not just from Japan, but they go back to China, Song Dynasty China. Some go to Tang Dynasty China. Some go back to the Buddha in ancient India 2,500 years ago. Some of our style Particular styles have been transmitted since the Buddha's time in India.

[35:04]

Like the pattern of making these robes we got from Shakyamuni Buddha, 500 BC. Somehow that one stuck through all these different countries. And it's beautiful. That's what makes a unique style of a lineage of light appreciation. And sometimes when we first start doing these forms and ceremonies of a lineage, we think, what's this all about? I think I felt this way when I first saw them. I think maybe most people do at first. I came here to appreciate light. But they're saying to like, I have to do these prostrations and chant in Japanese and do these strange things that don't feel natural and don't seem to have anything to do with appreciation of light. But then, this is why it takes time, seems to take some time for most people, maybe some weeks, maybe some months, maybe some decades, to really feel, oh, that's why it's done this way.

[36:15]

This really expresses appreciation of light so directly. But it took me a long time to kind of feel it in my bones. And other lineages would have a different way. We might have to practice that one for decades to appreciate those expressions of appreciation. So I think the transmission of the lineage is a particular understanding of Buddhadharma. There's many understandings of Buddhadharma. Infinite. Each lineage has a particular one. And then a particular style of expressing that. through ritual and forms and ways of being together. And we might say also that what's transmitted is a responsibility to continue transmitting it.

[37:20]

It's kind of a big responsibility because it comes with all these questions. How much should we change? How much... How innovative, how conservative, how each transmitter has to discern themselves. So the responsibility to keep it going. Why? To keep it going. We can't say, but there's something when we're appreciating light that we don't need to explain. So we have so many stories in our tradition about this transmission of Dharma. The first Zen transmission is told in this story that's the sixth koan in the gateless barrier where the Buddha

[38:27]

Shakyamuni Buddha is sitting on Vulture Peak in India with the great assembly. And everyone's silent, waiting for the Dharma talk. And the Buddha holds up a flower and twirls it and blinks his eyes. And the assembly sits there silently with furrowed brows. Is the Buddha going to give the talk? What's with the flower thing? And Mahakashapa, one of the Buddha's disciples, instead of furrowing his brows, his face cracked into a smile. His face broke, his old furrowed face broke. into a smile. Everyone else.

[39:31]

Maybe they even looked at Mahakashapa. What's he smiling at? And this was the first Zen, according to Zen, the first transmission of Dharma. And the Buddha said to Mahakashapa, when he saw that smile, he spoke and said, I have the treasury of the true Dharma eye, the wondrous mind of Nirvana, the true characteristic of no characteristic, the subtle Dharma gate, not based on words and phrases, a separate transmission outside all these Dharma talks. And now I entrust this to Mahakashapa.

[40:33]

Thus, the Buddha could pass away into parinirvana, and he left this responsibility to Mahakashapa. And then the Buddha's disciple, Ananda, after being Buddha's attendant for many years, after the Buddha's passing, Ananda continued to practice with Mahakashapa, the Buddha's senior disciple. And one day Ananda asked Mahakashapa, I know that the Buddha transmitted this golden brocade robe to you, Mahakashapa. But did he transmit anything else? What else did he transmit besides that robe? Is it just a material thing? A symbol?

[41:38]

What else did the Buddha transmit to you, Mahakashapa? I want to know here and now. And Mahakashapa said, Ananda! And Ananda said, yes. And Akashapa said, knock down the flagpole in front of the gate. And Ananda realized deep, deep appreciation of light. for the first time. Ananda, yes. This is the second transmission of dharma in the Buddha's lineage. So simple.

[42:42]

Ananda, yes. It was transmitted and then just to kind of as a footnote to the transmission. Well, now you can knock down the flagpole. They sometimes would raise a flag when they were giving a Dharma talk, or sometimes it was said they'd raise a flag when they were having a Dharma debate, and the one who is defeated in the debate would take down their flag. Who was defeated in this debate? Everyone. So Ancestor Khezan said, not only was Ananda's flagpole knocked down, but Mahakashaba was knocked down and all the mountains and trees and the whole earth was like knocked down and crumbled away at this transmission of dharma.

[43:47]

Nothing was left. was all knocked down. So... Our ancestor Keizong said about Buddha holding the flower up, he said, you must meticulously study this holding up the flower and carefully verify it. Understand that Mahakashapa was Mahakashapa, is Mahakashapa. And Shakyamuni Buddha is Shakyamuni Buddha. And that is transmitting the perfectly pure way. That's his commentary on holding up the flower and smiling. And then Kezan, our ancestors says about this, Ananda, yes? He says, though Mahakashapa called Ananda, he was not calling Ananda, and Ananda's response, yes, was not an answer.

[45:01]

That's how we could understand their conversation that was not a conversation. So, lots more could be said about this. transmission of light appreciation, transmitting the Dharma and inheriting the Dharma. And it's a big part of our tradition. And just all of you might feel like, well, that's nice. You're talking about this esoteric thing that happens in Green Gulch, but what's it have to do with my life? But so I would say just in summary, It's definitely something about this meeting, about this intimate meeting of teachers and students. So just... I would just encourage people, maybe many people, have connections with Zen teachers.

[46:05]

But if you hang around green gods, it's easy to do, because there's lots of them around here. And you might wonder, well, I have nothing to ask about. It doesn't matter. Just come and meet. And something about these meetings, these meetings alone where there's not really another, meeting yourself through another is just one of the essential elements of the style of the Zen lineage. So an opportunity is available. Sitting Zazen, Dogen Zenji says Zen practice is two things. He said it's just wholeheartedly sitting and meeting teachers and inquiring about Dharma.

[47:12]

These are the only things we really need in Zen. And if you miss either one of these, he says you can't hit the mark. But if you have both, you have all you need. So I'll leave you with that. And I think we have some time for discussion, for meeting. We're meeting alone here, but it looks like there's lots of people. But when we're really meeting, there's really no other. Do you have any questions or points to bring up about these topics? About the light, the appreciation of light, the dharma and the transmission. Yes, hi. Hey there. Thanks for your talk. You're welcome. I understand that dharma transmission kind of meant the teacher's recognition of the student's awakening.

[48:17]

And I also heard some teachers say that in the more recent years, that's kind of gone away. That's kind of gone away? Yeah, in a lot of... I hear in Japan, there were periods where we just needed to fill seats. And maybe here in the West, I've heard of places that you kind of get transmission after X number of years. So... What are your thoughts on that? What are your thoughts on how we emphasize it here at Zen Center or in your lineage? Yes, it's a big question. Wow. That's a big one we could talk about a lot, maybe kind of controversially. But a good one we should talk about. We should not veer away from, I mean, many aspects to that. Like, for example, what is awakening is maybe the... one bottom line question. But yes, I've heard such stories myself.

[49:18]

And I think in Japan, it's true that often in modern Japan, it's the usual, most priests are born to priest fathers in Japan. And they usually receive the Dharma of their father. Not always, but I don't know, maybe like 90%, or it's a huge percentage. And it happens pretty early. They're living just with their father, but it's in a Zen temple, and so they're learning practice, but it's also their family life. So, of course, they have a very intimate relationship with their father, and I've heard stories that it's usually a little different, maybe, than a normal relationship with father and son, usually sons, sometimes daughters, but it's usually... the men in Japan. And it happens pretty early because they have to start taking, yeah, it's a somewhat institutional requirement to run the family temple.

[50:27]

So it's hard to know whether there's some awakening there or not, but there's this institutional impetus, you might say, which is It may be sort of problematic if that has to happen, right? And yet we could say it shouldn't have to be a hindrance either. At San Francisco Zen Center, the style is, instead of Japan, it might be like between, say, like ordination as a priest and dharma transmission might be like a couple of years, I think usually. And San Francisco Zen Center's style is maybe more average, more like 20 years. So in that sense, that's already a difference. But it shouldn't just be about time either. And yet, as I was speaking about this point, there is something about practicing together really intimately with a teacher for a long time, just like being with anybody for a really long time.

[51:36]

We start to become each other. So something like rubs off. Very mysterious. So it's less about a particular big breakthrough experience that might not actually play out over time. It may be less emphasis about that, although that's not unimportant, let's say. But more about how does it play out over time, living in the world, expressing. Maybe it's about, more about how the light, appreciation of light is expressed. And sometimes we, there's then styles that are more like, well, that just doesn't matter so much, but it's more like how it's seen, the appreciation of light, how it's

[52:40]

seen, realized in the mind, and that's all that's important. So one time I remember asking my teacher, I was really into this point of like, what about this realization of awakening, and how does this, how can we, you know, how does a teacher verify that action? And he said, well, the only way, you can't read another's mind, the only way to really verify it is to watch how it's expressed, actually. So it's like you sort of, the teacher can sort of test it in daily life, in ritual, in interaction, and see how the student does in all different situations. That really, that shifted my perspective when I heard that.

[53:45]

I thought, oh, well, yeah. He wasn't discounting at all the inner transformation, but he's like, we can't really say much about that. I mean, we can talk about it. But to really test it has to be in the expression world. And over time, so you could say... Maybe it's more pure in a way too, to not like, well, what exactly did they realize and what did they, what is their inner state of mind or what is their, but we just see how it plays out. Is that satisfying or dissatisfying? My next question that I will, I'm not going to ask, I'll pass the mic, but my next question would be, what is awakening? But thank you for your thoughts. Maybe just to tie it into the talk, one way of talking about awakening would be a direct, non-conceptual, deep, intimate verification that we call simply appreciation of light.

[55:07]

Yes. Here's a hand reaching into space. Yes. Hi. Thanks for standing. Is transmission permanent? Oh, is transmission permanent? Yeah. Moment to moment. So this is regarding time, right? Another thing here, I didn't read about Buddha holding up the flower. Dogen, Dogen Zenji says in his essay called Udumbara Flower, he says, holding up the flower, this moment of transmission, right, was present before Buddha realized awakening, after awakening. Buddha realized awakening.

[56:13]

And at the same time, the Buddha realized awakening. In this way, the flower realizes awakening. And holding up the flower goes beyond past, present, and future. Yes. And in the Koan tradition, In Dokusan, one of the questions about this koan is, various questions about the holding of the flower, but one of them is, when is the holding of the flower? So, is it permanent? It's not within time, actually. But the ceremonial ritual expressions, enactments of the transmission happen in a particular time and place.

[57:20]

And there's documents where the particular day is recorded. And then sometimes I've heard that students later start doing things differently than the teacher. And like they start saying when the teacher says, not mind, not Buddha, the student says, actually, that's not so helpful. Mind is Buddha. And then the teacher says, I'm going to take back my transmission. I've heard about that. I've never heard about that in our Suzuki Roshi lineage. But I think it's not quite right. It's not possible, actually. So that's messing around with politics, I would say. But an appreciation of light, we could say, appreciation of light for a Buddha, they're never not appreciating light.

[58:26]

But us bodhisattvas and even Dogen says, the Zen ancestors are not Buddhas. Maybe nobody's heard that. I was surprised he said that. the ancestors of our lineage are not Buddhas. They're bodhisattvas on the path. That's why we have this term, Buddhas and ancestors. Strictly speaking, at least one time Dogen said that. So we could say, bodhisattvas on the path don't always appreciate light. In that sense, their appreciation is not permanent. But hopefully they're when they forget to appreciate light, if anything reminds them, they're able to find the appreciation pretty quickly. Thank you for your talk.

[59:34]

You're welcome. This is a Pretty pragmatic question, more about the how of teacher and how a teacher is selected. You know, how does it work? Are there multiple teachers at times? If a teacher either leaves that particular Zen center or passes away, you know, what's sort of the process for that? Yes, yes. Great question. These are the practical things, yes. And you're right. Those are all... questions that many people have to face. And I would say there's no set formulas for any of that. It's more that all just... In Japanese, they sometimes use this word, and that means like conditionality. It means like, sometimes they talk about it like karmic connection.

[60:34]

It just means there's a sense of a karmic connection, mostly from the student's side, I think, because the teacher is hopefully just available to anyone who wants to make the karmic connection. Maybe sometimes a teacher might say, we have some stories of the ancients where the teacher is kind of like selecting the student, but usually it's the other way. And so... Yes. These days, if teachers move, we have this whole realm of the internet. So everything is always connected. But also it's nice to practice in person with people. So one doesn't have to just have one teacher. You could say, strictly speaking, ritually speaking, for Dharma transmission in our lineage, that's like this one teacher and that's... That will always be that one, your root teacher.

[61:35]

But you can have many other teachers. And I think it's a blessing to have many different teachers because they all appreciate the light in slightly different ways and help us to do so. So I myself have had many teachers, Zen and other Dharma lineages and non-Buddhist lineages too, particularly Tibetan Buddhist teachers. I consider that I have a root Tibetan teacher that they speak of, they use that term root teachers, the one who first points out the light, they would say like the true nature of mind in a way that it like really like rings true, like it creates a kind of shift. And then you might not even practice with that person, but they're forever kind of like your root teacher. And I met many, many teachers. And how the connections are, some might be you only speak with them once a year.

[62:42]

Some you might not ever meet in person, and they're still teachers. Or you might meet with once in a lifetime. Even some of our Zen ancestors, they met once in a lifetime, and that was like even a transmission. Dogen's main teacher, he only spent like a year or so with him. But he practiced with many other teachers, too. So the practicalities are just being open and curious in what resonates, and then hopefully teachers are available. But there's sometimes they're not that available if they have a lot of students or something. So yeah, it's very, very intuitive. And I think you used the word selecting, selecting a teacher. I don't even know so much if a student selects a teacher or a teacher selects a student. I think it's more like some sort of karmic affinity where it just kind of happens. Just like maybe in relationships with family, couples say, do you exactly select a partner?

[63:48]

Not really like that. Some might talk about it like that, but it's more like, you know, it sort of happens. So it's just helpful to show up. Yes, exactly. And meet with lots of teachers, I think. You can meet with lots of teachers. It's not a big commitment to meet with a teacher. And then over time, you meet with lots. Sometimes they even say, you shouldn't even really take on a teacher, commit to a teacher. In Buddhadharma, they say, more, I think, Tibetan tradition. I wanted to find who first said this. I think it goes way back. You should examine the teacher for like 12 years before you commit to them. Most people don't even practice with a teacher for 12 years. Who's got the time? But more than 12 minutes is probably good. Examine means do you feel like all kinds of things to examine, but maybe main one is do you feel some sort of karmic affinity?

[64:54]

And it takes maybe... getting to know them for a while. Yeah, and we can have many teachers. Koki, I see another question, or maybe even two. I just wonder if you'll be outside because we are at time. Yes, how about that? Happy to meet at tea time. It's an endless topic. And there were many other things. I started writing down furiously minutes before the talk as they came to me. I can barely read. But one of them is just Suzuki Roshi, our lineage founder, various things he says about Dharma transmission. The one thing he says, Dharma transmission means to find your own lamp, light you might say,

[65:57]

through your teacher. That was a very practical, straightforward, simple summary. Teacher can't give it to you, you find your own, but through, through a so-called teacher. It's also said in Zen, really there are no teachers of Zen. It's not that there's no Zen, but there actually aren't really any Zen teachers. I'll leave you with that. May our intention be written to every hidden place with the true benefit of the I'm sorry.

[66:58]

I'm sorry. [...] ... ... [...] I thought it would be like I was supposed to act better.

[68:01]

I thought it would be like I was supposed to act better. I thought it would be like [...] I, I, I, I, [...] God bless you. Thanks for being here this morning.

[69:39]

Before we break for tea and muffins out in the sidebar here, please be aware that we have that instruction at 8.15 every Sunday, and then 9.30 before the dawn o'clock. So we sit for a half hour before the dawn o'clock. So if we have any questions about that, please come and see me afterward. Also, the bookstore is open today. You'd like to peruse our books and tchotchkes that we have there. There will be some very knowledgeable people there. They won't be out with any questions you might have. Also, please visit the donation box on your way out. We have our Muppet maker here, Jennifer, and she relies on those for your tea and puppets. Can't really put a price on the Dharma. But your donations are deeply appreciated. Thank you so much.

[70:40]

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