This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for coming on this beautiful Saturday morning to City Center. Some days it's not so easy to get up in the morning. Hello, Allison. There are a few people that I haven't seen for many years. It's wonderful to see you all. Thank you. current city center to Ponto for invitation and Mako for the invitation as well, to speak during this intensive on cooking and our lives.

[01:12]

I bring the mind of gratitude as I sit up here for the many teachers that I've had in my life, both living and now deceased. My name is Mary. I started sitting formally in 1999. And I'm grateful that most days I sit and that I have established generous practice that guides me every day. I lived and worked in this community and in the other two temples of San Francisco Zen Center, plus I've lived in other temples and practice centers, both in Europe and in Canada and the United States. And in every single one of them, people eat.

[02:22]

So my question today, my question most days for myself and for me to pose to you is what is the shape of your mind? Is it hard? Soft? Is it certain? Is it questioning? Is it boundaried? Is it vast? Is it free-flowing or organized? These are not necessarily better on one side.

[03:34]

than the other. The important thing, I think, is to understand our own minds and the shape they're in in this moment. Generally, through practice, I aim to have a mind that is kind. And in a talk a number of months ago that I gave at City Center, I said that and there was a question what does that mean if you had to use another word? What is kindness if you have to use another word? And my response was, have you ever smelled the head of a baby or a puppy? That warm, undeniable feeling of softness. That's a kind mind. The founder of the Sotozan School, Dogen Zenji, was born in the year 1200.

[04:56]

He was born into the upper echelons of Japanese society. We don't know exactly who his father was. However, we know that his father was in the ruling family at the time. Dogen received an extraordinary education. And at that time, the mind, the intellectual mind, the poetic mind, the conversational mind, was valued perhaps above all things. It was this culture-developed mind that could discuss and argue in polite ways and convince and play. intellectually. And he was a very precocious student and learned very well these tools, these techniques, this way of engaging with other people.

[06:12]

He was an orphan at the age of eight. And his uncle, who was of the same ruling family, more or less took him under his wing and was going to give him all privilege and possibility. And Dogen decided that he didn't want to follow that path. And at the age of 13, he ordained as a monk in the Tendai school. The Tendai school is a Mohana school. One of the beliefs is that we all have, as part of our inheritance as a human being, the idea that we are enlightened. And further, what they believed, unlike many other places, is that you didn't have to have

[07:20]

formal meditation practice in order to live as an enlightened person. And this was the question that caught Dogen. How is it that we're all enlightened, and what do we have to do to be enlightened? And there were no answers to this question that he could find after some years of seeking. So in 1223, he decided to go to China. In 1223, that was not a particularly easy thing to do. The trip was dangerous and long. So it wasn't just like jumping on a plane.

[08:22]

He was seeking. And he was curious. Maybe even craving answers. So one of the things that struck me as I read about his life was his recounting of his a couple of experiences of meeting Tenzo's in China. You have this person that has this very agile, trained mind.

[09:26]

And he was very curious. While he was waiting to disembark from the ship in China, there was a Tenzo that came to look for mushrooms, shiitake mushrooms, hoping that this ship that had come from Japan had mushrooms. And... The story is brief, however, Dogen was very excited about seeing this person, asked him, like, when did you leave your temple? Where are you from? How far did you travel? Can you stay? Can we talk? And the Tenzo said, I left after lunch. I have to get back. No, I can't stop and talk. Dogen was like, what do you mean? This is a great opportunity. I've never seen a Tenzo before.

[10:30]

And the guy said, the Tenzo said, there's no one else that can do this. I'm the Tenzo. And Dogen was like, surely there are other people that can do this in your temple. And the Tenzo said something like, it's my job. and there's no one else doing that job right now. I think that this changed the shape of his mind. What I understand is that in the Tendai school at that time, you became important in a monastery, and then you sat around and had tea and talked about dharma, debated the ideas of dharma.

[11:34]

You didn't work in the kitchen. You probably didn't do a lot of work, actually. Drank tea, had conversation, debated the ideas of dharma. Dogen running into this Tenzo who had been practicing for 40 years and who said, oh no, I have to get back, I have responsibilities, was very odd to him. How could that be possible? You have a monastery of people and you're the only person that knows how to put together a mushroom soup. So this seemed to have been an opening for him. The second story he recounts in the Tenzo Kyokun is he was at a monastery and he was moving from one place to another. The day was very hot. And he notices this older gentleman drying mushrooms in the hot courtyard.

[12:38]

And he walks by and he said, like, how long have you been practicing for? And I think the guy said, again, something like, 40 years. And Dogen said, why are you doing this now? And the Tenzo says something like, what other time would I do it? Dogen says, why isn't somebody else doing it? And the Tenzo's response is, who else would do this? So again, I think this practical approach to Dharma changed the shape of Dogen's mind. He started looking into this more, having conversations about this thing, about this practical thing that was happening in these monasteries in China.

[13:46]

Sure, I think there were people having tea and talking, However, there was a lot of work happening in these temples. And as a result of those experiences, when he went back to Japan, he took this idea with him, which is Seeing what each moment calls for, which I would say is one of the major requests of the Soto Zen lineage. What does the moment call for? Does it call for tea? Does it call for rolling up the sleeves?

[14:51]

Does it call for a soft mind? Does it call for a very certain clear mind? What does the moment ask of you? So the Tenzo Kyokun is a Tenzo is the head cook. That's the translation of Tenzo. Kyokun is instructions. So instructions to the head cook. And in my world, it was a lifeline for me to Dogen. Because most of Dogen's other writings are obscure for me, difficult. they don't produce in me a warm feeling.

[16:02]

I read different translations of the Tenzo Kyokun this week in preparation for this talk, and I realized that while I was reading those translations, my heart was warm, and I had a smile on my face. And unfortunately, or fortunately, I can't say that about any of the other fascicles of Dogen. One of the things I appreciated about being Tenzo is that we read parts of the Tenzo Kyokun every day during service. The crew gets together. We do a very small ceremony and read this instruction. And just like all dharma for me, it felt like every time I read it, a different fascicle of the jewel was being revealed to me.

[17:08]

For me, it's a bit like a kaleidoscope, if you remember, or if you ever had one as a child. You look through this tube, and if you move it, different pictures appear at the end of the tube. Quite fascinating. And for me, that was the experience of the Tenzo Kyokum. Depending on the shape of my mind that day, I would pick up different things from this instruction. And the crew would talk about it. We would focus on one thing, perhaps. Plant a seed for the day in our minds and go to work. And in Buddhism, one of the things that I appreciate is that it recognizes that people have different abilities, different preferences maybe, different paths.

[18:25]

Some people really like flower arranging, ichabana. Some people like... engaging in ceremonies or rituals. Some people enjoy archery. Some people like sewing. And it was a relief to me that there was a way to study Dharma that seemed to me to be very practical. this document. And for me, it was kind of like a recipe. Ed Brown said that for him, there's this movement from as a cook starting

[19:33]

from a vision of what the meal looks like, and then doing the planning after that, to moving to looking or deciding what ingredients you wanna use, what colors, what textures, what tastes, and then working back from there. Both of those are very good things, I think. It's a different way of approaching. And for me, the Tenzo Kyokun allowed for this changes of approach, looking at the shape of my mind. So some of the things that felt important to me as Tenzo were being a steady presence in the kitchen. I'm sure you all have the experience of showing up to work and your boss is flying off the handle.

[20:42]

It affects your day or at least your moment. Being a steady presence in the kitchen allowed for people to have their own mood rather than taking off from my mood. That was really helpful. As Tenzo, I set kind of like behavioral standards and training methods. For example, the only time I would ever yell across the kitchen was if somebody was in danger. Other than that, nobody yelled. As Tenzo, I enjoyed being curious.

[21:50]

Curious about food. Curious about the crew. What were they bringing? There was one young man who was on a crew early on when I was Tenzo. And he He knew how to boil water and he knew how to put things in a microwave. That was the extent of his cooking experience. It was fabulous. Given the right container, it was so much fun to watch him because all of a sudden he went from being afraid to being able to cook food and decide what he wanted to eat, what ingredients to buy. I remember having a conversation with another young person and that person in their household had never used anything other than paper plates and plastic cutlery and had not sat down together with the family.

[23:09]

And that changed the shape of my mind because I grew up in a household where we ate meals together and we did dishes together. And my mom had a fabulous garden and food culture was like the air I breathed. Another thing I enjoyed was an instruction from Suzuki Roshi, which is offering a large pasture. What I think this means or what I took it to mean is that if you give people space, they will discover who they are. If you give them no space, they will never find out.

[24:15]

They will only know what you want. So it was really interesting to give people space and see what would happen. See what kind of cooks they would become. See what kind of food they enjoyed. developed respect for other approaches. I am an excellent rule follower. Some people, if you give them a recipe and ask them to follow it, they cannot do it to save their lives. It's extraordinary. And it would be like I would taste something and I would look at the recipe and I'd say, did you follow the recipe?

[25:23]

And they'd say, well, you know, this is better. It was, again, really interesting for me. And I appreciated the instruction and the ability to follow a recipe because what it allowed me to do when I was cooking is the first time I made something, I would follow the recipe. I was able to do that. And then the second time, I probably would just change it a little bit. And then the third time, maybe I'd look in the walk-in first and see what was there. Change it some more. that sort of development or that change over time was really interesting to me. I had the very good fortune to be guest cook at Tassajara one summer, and part of the fun for me was having a menu or creating a menu, and then the next time I would use the same menu,

[26:44]

And sometimes I did the same menu over the summer, let's say 10 times. So it became an engaging developmental process. By the 10th time, I had the timing down. I would be able to do all the dishes myself. I felt like I was on top of things rather than being completely snowed by things. It was really, really interesting for me. Very fun. Thank you, Mako. Mako was the director at the time. So the role of Tenzo is very practical. On one hand, you have to do the ordering, menu planning, figuring out what recipes to use, the cost of things, what's seasonal, what's not seasonal, what's too expensive, what people want, how much to cook, cleaning the kitchen.

[28:05]

I really like the practical part. Partly I like the practical part because my earlier training before I came to Zen Center was as a carpenter. And I remember being told there are 250 different ways to frame a roof. You will learn one of them today and you can decide what to do next. And part of what was interesting to me was talking to different people and finding out how they framed their roofs. Why? What made that the best way? If they thought it was the best way. If they had ever done anybody else's method of framing a roof. Some do, some don't. Again,

[29:09]

Is the shape of my mind rigid? Is it flexible? Sometimes it's one, sometimes it's the other. Why is that? These were questions that were up for me when I was in the kitchen. Why some days I would be frustrated with a person because they didn't follow or couldn't follow a recipe, and why some days It was okay. What was going on for me? And being curious about what was going on for them. And then the other thing that the Tenzo role allowed me to do was work to understand what the role was and how I would act within that role. Because every Tenzo does it differently. And there are Tenzos that are very happy to tell you how to do it.

[30:17]

But the shape of my mind is different from the shape of every other Tenzo's mind. So how could I do that job without being crushed? It's a big job because people care about what They eat. And if they're at Tassajara where they don't have many distractions, they care even more. You can't go to the movies. You can't buy a new car. You can't even go to sleep when you want. So all of a sudden, the meals become... let's say I was the Tenzo it was early on in the summer and I remember there was a meal that one of the guest cooks had produced it was a breakfast and it was bagels with cream cheese some fixings you know and that

[31:37]

particular guest cook had not said that they were gonna put sliced red onions as part of the menu. And we talked through all the menus as a group of guest cooks and they get posted and this was the menu that day. And I was sitting in at the Tenzo's desk and this guest flew into the kitchen and said, that was the worst I've ever had, and I've been coming to Tassajara for 30 years. I was like, wow, it was bagels. And this person said, there were no sliced onions. How can you have a bagel without sliced onions? In my world, bagels with sliced onions are a slice of heaven. So I was really puzzled. And this person was furious. And he said, well, give me an onion, I'll slice it.

[32:44]

And I said, that was not part of the menu. Oof. And I'm okay with saying that. I felt like I was backing up the meal, the guest cook. This guest was very angry. And it probably didn't have a lot to do with the onion. And then there was another meal where, I don't remember what the dish was, or the menu was, but a guest came in, like, said, that was the best Tosara meal I've ever had in all my years of coming here. So happy. Left the kitchen two minutes later, Honest to God. This other person comes in furious. That was the worst Tassahara meal I've ever had. So as Tenzo, that either can be extremely confusing, and you can kind of have lots of conversations with the guest cook about what the meal actually was and what was going on, or it can be like,

[34:05]

wow, that person really felt feelings. And it didn't have to go any further than that. It was like, wow, that was a big meal. So I felt that this kind of training was fabulous. Fabulous because everybody that is participating, everybody that is open to these instructions for the Tenzo, these instructions about how a kitchen works, is thinking about what's going on, is saying what the moment calls for.

[35:09]

And I appreciate that in our busy, busy lives, fewer people know how to cook. Fewer people have the time or the resources to cook. So this young man who knew how to boil water and to turn on his microwave isn't necessarily unusual. And so what a gift it is to be able to go and work in a place where you are encouraged, expected, shown the tools for feeding yourself and feeding others from this place of practice. generosity, kindness.

[36:23]

As I say, when I think about my time as Tenzo, it's mostly the warm-hearted, tender feeling that I get. And when I first worked with the crew, often what's happening is I would be in the kitchen always. That's how I figured out how to do the job. I was just in the kitchen all the time. And it wasn't a problem. At Tassajara, I set my alarm for 3 o'clock in the morning. I ran down the stairs. I was in the kitchen by about 3.15 with my first cup of coffee, working out the menus or working out the recipes or... working out whatever. And that's how I managed the job. I was there. And so this understanding for me what it was to be in there and comfortable with myself and in my own skin allowed me to then be a presence so other people could be the same way.

[37:48]

They could show up. They could be there When I was guest cook, the first meal that I had to cook was, on my own, was tofu stew. And I arrived, as was the part of the job, you arrived at one o'clock to cook the dinner meal. And I arrived at one o'clock, and the Tenzo at the time said, oh, by the way, there's no tofu. I could have really lost it. Because I was really scared. You're cooking for like 180 people. No, 80 people. No tofu.

[38:52]

So instead, we had a conversation and it became a navy bean stew. Nobody died. And I started to think more like, this is what I want. This is the menu that I think would be good. And if it doesn't happen that way, other things will be possible. Again, this idea of seeing what the moment calls for. The basic request of Soto Zen practice. I recommend this job. Claire, I hope you're having fun. If not now, later. It's the place where I started considering the shape of my mind, working with other people,

[40:09]

working with a structure, noticing what press things, noticing how to respond in a way that opened people up rather than shutting them down, and also opening myself up rather than shutting myself down. So if you've never read the Tenzo Kyokun, I encourage it. There are many translations. It's a practical document that could encourage you in your working life, no matter what your working life is. Because it's encouraging you to live your life while it's happening.

[41:12]

So thank you very much for your attention. And may you eat a marvelous meal soon. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[41:52]

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