This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good evening. I'm really happy to be here tonight. My name is Greg Fane. I'm the Tonto or Head of Practice at Tassajara. And I wasn't really expecting to give this talk, but I'm delighted to be doing it. Be the last talk I give this summer, my practice is gratitude. So I think, well, first off, I should say that I'd like to thank and acknowledge my teacher, Soja Mel Weissman Roshi, the abbot of Berkeley Zen Center, and to say that this talk is just to encourage you in your practice.

[01:11]

Yeah, my practice is gratitude, and I'm very grateful for all of you being here tonight. I'm very grateful for the students, and everyone who's really diligently practicing the Buddha way. I'm very impressed with the practice this summer. It's mid-August. It's going strong. I really feel that. I mean, just coming in, Zendo, and I see, you know, as I sit down, coming in the back door, all the dining room crew and the guest cooks made it. Wow! Mmm! Good energy. It's really good energy. Yeah. My practice is gratitude. Tonight, I want to express gratitude and appreciation and talk a little bit about a student of mine, Susan Spencer, Kishu Yokojom.

[02:29]

Bright effort, jewel shining benefit. Come on. Thank you so much. Take that right now. Girl, I think there's a little ping in the sound. Do you guys hear that? No? No? Okay, forget it. When Linda Galleon and I were doing the ceremony of Dharma Transmission together here in April of 2012, well, we were busy, sequestered in cabin five, doing a lot of calligraphy, really sweating over that.

[03:37]

Sozin Roshi gave a talk in here. Of course, we didn't hear that talk. And then a couple months later, we were on a vacation, a road trip. We were driving out of L.A., in the very early pre-dawn hours, kind of surreal, on the freeways coming out of L.A., and we plugged iPod into the vehicle we were driving, and we had no idea what was queued up on the iPod, and we'd hear Sojourner Roshi's voice, and we were like, we never heard this talk before. Oh, he's talking about us. LAUGHTER That was the talk he gave. How interesting. So I don't want to talk about Susan for the entire talk, but she's coming tomorrow and she's told me it may be the last time she comes to Tassajara.

[04:44]

So that's kind of poignant. And we have been working together preparing for a ceremony of lay entrustment. I'm going to give Suzan entrustment as a lay teacher of Soda Zen Buddhism. And the ceremony is going to be happening on September 18th in Stone Creek Zendo, where Charlie and Sarah teach, along with Jicho Warner. And it's going to be a big party, and you're all invited. Yeah. So when... When Susan comes tomorrow, she's going to bring me a green rock suit if she's sewed. And we're going to talk about the ceremony. And we've been studying together for some time. It's one of the things I do these days. As you know, I go to the city to practice with City Center Sangha and my wife, Linda Gallien, who's there, president.

[05:49]

And it's been an opportunity for Susan and I to get together and study. So it's really quite delightful. I first got to know Susan really well when she came here in the fall of 2011 practice period, Tassajara, her first and only practice period at Tassajara in fall of 2011 when she was only 79. And she... She was a rock star. Of course, well, maybe you don't know, but you might guess that a practice period at Tassajara is pretty rigorous, is pretty physically demanding. And she was amazing. She was amazing. I was truly impressed by her spirit. And she got sick at one point.

[06:53]

I spent a lot of time with her, and she was so great. And we have tradition at Tassajara for new students in the practice period, the Tangaro students, we call them. They give their way-seeking mind talk, and Susan's way-seeking mind talk just blew everybody away. There were a couple of stories. I was contemplating sharing them. I even got her permission. Then I thought, nah, it's too much for a public drama talk. You can ask me later if you want. But it was just like, wow, what a person. Wow, what an amazing spirit. Bright effort, jewel, shining benefit. Really impressed by her big heart, strong spirit. A strong person with a wild fox spirit, Teacher Dogen says.

[07:56]

And where does Teacher Dogen say that? A. A. Dogen, our guy, brought Soto Zen School from China to Japan in the beginning of the 13th century. It's in one of these essays, we call them fascicles, in the Shobo Genzo. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye. Basically, Duggan's life work teachings. He wrote a series of these essays. One of them is called Raihai Tokuzui. Do you know it? It means bowing to the attainment of the marrow. The premise of the essay is that wherever we meet Dharma, we should respect it and bow to it. But it's basically... essay about respecting women teachers. The first three sentences, Dogen says, in the practice of unsurpassable complete enlightenment, what is most difficult to find is a guiding teacher.

[09:10]

The guiding teacher should be a strong person, regardless of being a male or female. The teacher should be a person of thusness, with excellent knowledge and wild fox spirit, whether living in the past or present. So, yeah, I think Susan is such a teacher. Sometimes, as Dogen will do, a wild fox spirit is considered something that could be negative, unruly, dangerous. He likes to take certain phrases and turn them upside down and say, this is a good thing. This is a good thing.

[10:13]

You should be a little wild. Or as Suzuki Roshi said, what we're doing here is we're doing Hinayana practice with Mahayana mind. So we have all these forms and ceremonies so we can get a little wild. We strictly observe the guidelines and our many forms of so that our practice can be held, so that we can get a little wild. Dogen makes it very clear he did not have much use for misogyny. This is one of those fascicle essays where we get a glimpse of angry Dogen. A bit of a rant in places, and some of it's pretty good. I just had to share it with you.

[11:16]

Those who are extremely stupid think that women are merely the objects of sexual desire and treat women in this way. The Buddha's children should not be like this. If we discriminate against women because we see them merely as objects of sexual desire, do we also discriminate against all men for the same reason? Good question. How about this one? If you vow for a long time not to look at women, do you leave out women when you vow to save numberless sentient beings? If you do so, you are not a bodhisattva. How can you call it the Buddha's compassion? This is merely nonsense spoken by a soaking drunk Shravaka. Humans in Davis should not believe in such a practice. Yeah, you know, when Dogen got going, he could really rip into it, I'll tell you.

[12:25]

I'll tell you what. So, I gave away Seeking Mind Talk myself last practice period because it had been a long time since I gave one. And that's available. It's on the MP3 player in the library, right? Ino-san? I hope. Maybe. Anyway, he's got it. I also have it on Google Drive, if you want. I can share that with you. But in my Wayseeking Mind talk that I gave last practice period, there was time for some questions at the end. And Colleen said, asked me about women, the influence of women in my practice, which I found touching. I was really happy she asked me about that. And, you know, right away I mentioned my mom.

[13:29]

And then Leslie James and Linda Gallion. Of course, Sojan Roshi is my teacher. But I would say that Leslie and Linda are the two most important practice leaders in my life. Yes, I'm married to practice leader. That's all right. That's all right. Sometimes we have formal practice discussion. It's true. Sometimes I ask her for practice discussion. Sometimes she asks me for practice discussion. We sit down, we do it all for them. It's true. It's true. Dogen says when Zhao Zhou who was later become great master of the Tang dynasty aroused the aspiration for enlightenment and was about to begin a journey he said to himself I will ask about Dharma of anyone who surpasses me even a seven year old

[14:40]

I will teach anyone who is behind me, even a 100-year-old. When asking a 7-year-old about Dharma, an old man like Zhao Zhou bows. It is an extraordinary aspiration, the mind art of an old Buddha. It is an excellent custom of study that when a nun has attained the way, attained Dharma, and started to teach, monks who seek Dharma and study... Join her assembly, bow to her, and ask her about the way. It is just like finding water at the time of thirst. And Dogen goes on to tell some stories about great women teachers whose names we chant. We chant, it's not a lineage, but we chant the names of great women Buddhist teachers in our warning liturgy. Moshan Liyaran, Miao Xin. These are two names you might recognize.

[15:43]

And I thought, well, instead of talking about them, I would talk about some women ancestors, some contemporary women ancestors who influenced my life, basically elaborating on Colleen's question. Hmm. women ancestors in the sense that they're deceased and still teaching. As Dogen says, great teacher, whether past or present. So, briefly, I guess I don't have that much time, but five of them, in the order in which they came into my life and influenced me my life and practice my my way seeking mind so in 1989 after the loma prieta trembler i moved to santa cruz because there was a lot of construction work there i was doing electrical construction and yeah it was a lot of work so i made good money

[17:02]

And I have no idea how I found out about Catherine Thanis teaching in Santa Cruz. But she had just started there. She had just started. She'd left Tassajara and San Francisco Zen Center. And she just started the Santa Cruz Zen Center. And it was basically a garage. It's the same space, the same site they're using now. but about as different as Green Gulch was when it was a barn from what it is now. It was an old laundry, of all things, a cement floor. And I don't know, I can't recall how I found out about it, but I went, and I listened to her talk, and we made a little connection. It wasn't a huge connection, but it was a connection that lasted, and every time she ever came to Tassajara after that, We always sought each other out.

[18:03]

The warmth in her eyes and the way she... I guess I could say, you know, what they say about Suzuki Roshi, that he saw the Buddha in everyone. And I felt that way about Catherine Dennis. And Catherine is Dana Takagi's teacher. Dana, who was just here. And Dena, I meant to share. Dena just made me this new kotsu, this teaching stick out of a piece of dug fur from the old cabin 14 that she salvaged years ago. It's an old-growth dug fur from a hunk of Tassajara history. Thank you, Dena. When I started practicing at Berkeley Zen Center, my home temple, Alan Sinaki and May Lee Scott were co-tantos.

[19:09]

May Lee was well known for her activities in engaged Buddhism, and not one of the founding members of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, but very, very active. She was the director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, I believe, when I was practicing with her. Her motto was, devotedly do without attaching to outcome. When I asked her about her work in prison ministry, working in prisons and jails, she had me in the Santa Rita County, I mean the Alameda County, Santa Rita Jail, so fast. I couldn't believe it. Wow, that was quick. She said, oh, you're interested? Meet me. We'll go. Yeah. I went to this place called the Community Reentry Center.

[20:14]

It was an interesting place. Everyone was doing county time, but it was very low security. It was people, men, who were doing a drug or domestic violence time. And they could walk out the front door, but if they did, they automatically got another... year. So it was a test in impulse control. And I was teaching meditation and stress reduction, just like that. That was my beginning in prison ministry. May Lee said, may I know that my peace and the world's peace are not separate, that our peace in the world is a result of our work for justice. After May Lee died, I started having recurring dreams about her. I would dream that she was teaching a class on the Vimalakirti Sutra, and she was explaining something about emptiness, and I just didn't get it.

[21:22]

And then she'd laugh at me. Not like she was making fun of me, but she's just like, oh, just kind of laughing, kind of sweet. You know, that's the whole dream. And I had that dream multiple times. Finally, I asked Soja Roshi, what's with this dream I keep having about Mei Li? I mean, I really miss her, but I keep having the same dream. And all I said was, well, you know, in Japan, I feel like death isn't really a big interruption in a student-teacher relationship. She's still teaching. She's still teaching. Dolly Gattozzi was a lay teacher. Dolly was given Green Rock Sioux by Sojin Roshi. She lived at Berkeley Zen Center. She was a fixture. Very welcoming. She would always see who was the person who looked a little lost, who was the new person, who was the person who was standing off and nobody was talking to them, and seek them out and include them and draw them in.

[22:32]

I want to practice more like Dolly. She was wonderful. She was wonderful that way. I was going, at one point, living in a converted industrial space in East Oakland, managing food service in a skilled nursing facility in Fremont, of all places, and still managing to go to Berkeley Zen Center for the evening program. a lot of time on BART. Big part of my practice was BART trains. And she saw that I was just coming. I would just come and sit and take part in evening service and then leave. And one time in evening service, she was the senior person there. You know, so coordinating things. And then maybe she was the Doan. And at Berkeley, you know, there's not a Kokyo, they get a Kokyo.

[23:34]

So she just puts the Kokyo book in my hands. I never trained to be Kokyo. That's the chant leader. It's like kind of high profile. She said, oh, this guy's been coming around a little while. She didn't even know my name. She just gave me the book. Including me. Including me. Blanche Hartman. Zenke Roshi, Blanche Hartman. Of course, the first woman abbess of San Francisco Zen Center. When I first came to Tassahara in 1998, that was a practice period that Blanche was leading. She did this special session with invited teachers and other invited students. It's too long a story to say how I managed to get invited.

[24:37]

Kind of a fluke. But I did. Her assistant called Soja Roshi and said, who's this great thing? And Soja said, well, he'd really like to go. And that was good enough for Blanche. So they let me. So my first encounter with Tassahara was the Sashim in the Fall Practice Prayer of 1998. And I took us on with Blanche, and she said, well, maybe Sojin Mel, I'm sure she said Mel, maybe Mel encouraged you to come because he knew you would fall in love with the place. And I thought, maybe so. That's how it turned out. Blanche was right. Blanche, I always... She'd always talk about how her practice was devotion.

[25:45]

She was very devoted to the Buddha way. Very warm. Great sense of humor about her suffering. Where some of us would be going, I can't stand it. I'm just like, when will I ever get over this affliction? Blanche says, She'd be like laughing. There I go again. That was her attitude. Oh my goodness, there I go again. And she just kind of laughed. Never taking herself too seriously. I realize I mentioned Blanche in my last Dharma talk. And I'd like to mention this again. It was Blanche who taught us in the practice periods she led. I did several practice periods with Blanche. When, as we will, at the end of this Dharma talk, when we chant the bodhisattva vows, we should say, let's have a little less I and a little more vow.

[26:51]

So instead of saying, beings are numberless, I vow to save them, she said, can we chant, beings are numberless, I vow to save them, you know? Different emphasis. Put the emphasis on the vow, not the I. In Blanche's honor, I'd like to ask the students, can we take this up? And then coming back to circling around to Darlene Cohen. Darlene, I was in this training, some students, teachers, in Suzuki Roshi lineage, who started other sanghas elsewhere. Of course, Darlene's sangha was in Guerneville, the Russian River Sangha.

[27:56]

And some others, Steve Stuckey, Alison Aki, and Grace Shearson, Lou Richman, Gary McNabb, all transmitted teachers in Suzuki Roshi lineage who called themselves the free-range deshis. They were kind of a study group. And they all had students. They were ordaining as priests. And they said, well, outside of the temple system of San Francisco Zen Center, how do we take care of their training? So they got together and formed this program they made up called SPOT, Shogaku Priests Ongoing Training. And even though Linda and I were in the temple system of San Francisco Center, they let us participate anyway. And I got to closely interact with Darlene a lot and was just bowled away by her fierce compassion in her presence, the way she made eye contact and the way she would just draw you in.

[29:00]

There was a quality about that that was just so powerful. A huge impression. And she was really good at... Darlene understood, as the Buddha says in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, purity is one of the inverted views. Darlene would say, come play with me in the mud. You know, let's get down and dirty. Helping us get past our guilt and shame so we could actually practice. She was really good at that. And talk about a wild fox spirit. I remember there was a class she was teaching here. She used to come every summer, often with her friend Daya Goldschluck. And Darlene and Daya were teaching this class. It's summer, you know. It's kind of hot. At the end of the summer, without any warning, Darlene and Daya whip out these water pistols and just attack all the students.

[30:06]

Crazy fun. So Susan was Darlene's last chuseau in 2010. And after the fall practice period, I don't know how much long after, was when Susan asked me to be her teacher. So I feel this connection to Darlene with Susan. And when we do the ceremony, I'll be giving her a lineage document of women teachers with Darlene's name on it. When Soja Roshi did Dharma Transmission... in Japan with Susubi Roshi's son, Hoitsu. Hoitsu Roshi said, I'm just doing this for my father because he can't.

[31:11]

And I feel the same way about doing this lay entrustment with Susan. I'm just doing it for Darlene because she can't. And I really appreciate the connection The last time I was in San Francisco, I was on the Internet, as I will do, clicking around. I saw this quote that's been going around a lot. I think it's what you call an Internet meme. I can't even tell you where I saw it. Maybe on A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World. I like that one. The quote is from an author, G.D. Anderson.

[32:12]

I think she writes young adult fiction. I think she's most famous for originating this meme. The quote is thus. Feminism isn't about making women stronger. Women are already strong. It's about changing the way the world perceives that strength. It really touched me. Wow. I like that a lot. Why do I like it so much? Oh, it reminds me of Soto Zen. Here we go. This is my take. Soto Zen isn't about becoming Buddha. You are already Buddha. Soto Zen is about actualizing and expressing the way you are already Buddha. Huh? Huh? Huh? I thought. Why are men special?

[33:17]

Emptiness is emptiness. Four great elements are four great elements. Five skandhas are five skandhas. Women are just like that. Both men and women attain the way. You should honor attainment of the way. Do not discriminate between men and women. This is the most wondrous principle. of the Buddha way. Men, women, non-gender conforming, every expression of sexuality, of race, of ethnicity, every category of the amazingness of humanity that you can think of. Birth in a human body. That's what it takes. birth in a human body, you can practice the way. The important thing is, as I find myself saying a lot these days, we all keep practicing.

[34:28]

Thank you for your attention. Good night. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge 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 SSCC.org and click Giving.

[34:55]

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