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. Well, I want to thank you all for your hospitality residence and our retreat has been wonderful for people who joined us for these few days. and food. So thank you, Mary, very, very much. And I have the great privilege of introducing a person who's become a dear friend in the process of learning about each other and how we teach together. And this is Mary Yang. And Mary is a teacher with Spirit Rock up in Green County. And we've taught now big times together down there.

[01:04]

And the last two sessions, the last two retreats we did were with Gay and Lesbian Community and our commitment to diversity. Certainly Zen Center has a long-standing desire to deal with people with diversity. So there at night, we're very, happy and willing to share our experiences in the gay lesbian community with the community of people who came. And then we said, well, you know, maybe it's time for us to just offer Dharma teaching, which is what we do and what we love most. So we decided this year that we would open ourselves to anyone who'd like to come and talk about the traditions that we each have been trained in. So I'm a Zen tradition and Larry, you know. So we've been using the image of braiding as we were teaching together, and starting with these two strands of these two traditions.

[02:14]

And then every time we kind of cross and meet, it's a very wonderful film. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that this evening. And then we'll have some time for questions. You did that, too. We overprepared. But, you know, one of the ways that we thought we could integrate the community into what we experienced in the retreat is actually just to share with you the process of the retreat, which we had some conversation beforehand, but it was also... a work in progress, you know, in the moment, in the spontaneity of the week. And it was quite short. I mean, it was really two-fold day. And so our first session, the first two sessions, we presented, we shared, I mean, it's impossible, really, to share the teachings of the whole lineage.

[03:27]

two hours, but we shared what was prominent for our practices, what was alive in the way that we teach, but also in the content. So in the morning we did the Vipassana practices and the afternoon we explored more of the Zen practices. The third session we practiced So it was primarily silent practice, and we wove the different instructions and the invitations. And the last session, which we just had this weekend, I'm sorry, this afternoon, was really an exploration around our common aspiration, which is freedom. And what is it? What is freedom to us? So as the question lands in your sense door, just take a moment to feel, maybe through the body, maybe through the heart, maybe through the mental gate.

[04:40]

How does that question land for you? How would you answer that? What does freedom mean for you in this moment? However you languish that or feel that, like what we experience in our smaller circle, probably everybody in this room has a different answer. Everybody would languish that slightly differently. And that variation, that uniqueness that we bring into this common aspiration, I think, is part of the spreading of the lineage, that these lineage are collective expressions of this diversity, of both practice, intention, and yet there is this common aspiration of freedom from suffering and a path for more happiness.

[05:52]

One of the ways that Larry and I discovered something about each other's approach. And I think it would be safe to say that we both consider our approaches to be through us. I mean, this is the Larry and Cool approach to Xan and Katasuna. It's not Xan and Katasuna. And so that's one thing we want to make clear. So in my trying to express my own aspiration as a new student in Xan, I think what I did with the idea of enlightenment or awakening was to put it very high and very far away. And I attributed that, whatever that is, to, I was saying in the group this morning, all of the young people I saw when I arrived at Zen Center who had shaved heads, you know, so. I just projected that these are enlightened people.

[06:54]

It's something that was very alien to me. So that attribution of a goal or an aspiration was outside of myself for a long, long time. And I think one of the interesting features of Zen is that we give over no again. Well, you are muda. You're already there. This is it. It's right here, right now. Where else could it be? That kind of encouragement to recognize that this is it. Right? Right now. Right? Easy. But it's like hitting yourself in the head of the hammer. It's like, I don't see it. I don't see it. What? What's it? So that kind of tension in the practice, for me as a Zen practitioner, I used to think of the image of a cat on glass, trying to get a hold of something. I can't see it, there's no edges to it.

[08:00]

So then he noticed that his approach, rather than starting with this notion of enlightenment as the first principle, is to come at it from from the distance and to approach it as a path. That you're going towards something which is understood to be the distance. So, maybe you want to say something about that? Yeah, it came up really, it came up in what we were going to talk about tonight, it came up in terms of how we were going to design the week, that one of the first words you used was emptiness. And so, I felt you go, you know, to the ultimate. And I'm feeling like, oh, how I would language it is how you get there. And so there was this interesting convergence of expressing the ultimate through the particular aspects of our lives, our unique lives, and then figuring out how does this path work

[09:14]

for each of us to get to the unconditioned place. And I realized that part of my perspective on whether it's the Dhamma or Vipassana practice is my own conditioning. I grew up with this very strange multicultural conglomeration of Asian, Western, American Baptist, Christian, And so when I was growing up and the similar language around the unconditioned in other traditions like unconditional regard, unconditional love, which is not unlike what we talk about in the state of freedom. I had no idea how to get there. I never knew how to get there. really i actually felt resentful in my adolescence of not being able to get there and so i was looking for a path which would show me the way and so this when i when i came across these incremental teachings of vipassana and the dharma because i really feel that so much of the teachings are

[10:39]

are held in common, regardless of how their language. The fact that I can reduce suffering in this moment, the fact that when I came into practice because I was in early recovery and I was tortured as a psyche, and as soon as I sat to see it, I wasn't lost in it. As soon as I sat to see the suffering. I wasn't lost in the suffering. And that was huge. That actually reduced the suffering in that moment. And that I felt that physical shift, and that gave me to reinforce faith that, oh, I don't know where it's going to end. It carries a condition, but this trajectory is leading there. So, I think you all, I don't know if you all, but there is, within the Zen story, you know, there are some characteristics of Zen that I think are familiar to most of us who've been around.

[11:58]

Right now, you've probably noticed some of them. One is ritual. Ritual. Including clothes where you are. A hairstyle. and so on, adornments. So, Larry and I embody, in a way, how these traditions have been received in California. There's a back story to why I'm sitting here in these clothes, and how Tassahara got to be this way, and why it looks like a Japanese, or very Japanese. And for Zen Center, the word Zen itself is a Japanese word. So it's no accident that Suzuki Roshi was an ordained Japanese-trained monastic, trained in the monastery, and that's who introduced this form of Buddhism to California, to his students, and by extension to all of us who come to practice here.

[13:09]

So, for me, in a way, as I was saying to the group, when I came to the Zen Center at the age of 29, that was Buddhism. I didn't know there were any other types of Buddhism. You know, the Zen Center was Buddhism, and it was a long time before I found out, you know, the truth. There are many different kinds of Buddhism. It was very, very interesting to me, living right next door to Spirit Rock all these years at Greenville Farm, as I do, to find out what they've been doing up there, which is... I had some ideas, but it had totally made up, not just fantasies about what I had read about Theroranism, or what in the old days she would call... no longer spoken word, but there's this prejudice that are built into the texts that we read about what, and some assumptions I was making about Southeast Asian form of Buddhism, that it's really wrong, and it's embarrassing.

[14:29]

So, Anyway, I've really learned something new, new, about the origins of American Vipassana, and I think you'll be interested too. Well, I think, you know, one of the interesting expressions of both Zen-san and spirit rock is how culturally determined practices, how culturally determined how the Darwin is coming into this particular set of cultures in the West. And that, you know, in our conversations around this, we began to understand that Zen has gone through many cultural transformations from when it landed as Chan in China, and from India, and morphed into including

[15:30]

you know, including the ritual, which was important in Chinese society because in terms of one of the obstacles in allowing Chan to become part of the cultural, spiritual practice, is that everybody in that culture had to bow to the emperor. And the monks and the monastics, the nuns, could bow to a life person. So what happened over centuries, because it took 700 years for China to actually become Buddhist, is the emperor became a big embodiment of the living Buddha, which began to affect the development of the monastic tradition of China, which, as it moved to Japan, incorporated the family, and so that priests could get married and have children.

[16:37]

And these cultural transformations you've gone through over these centuries, landing in the U.S., that is actually pipeline as a relationship between domestic and land communities. You've actually had centuries to experiment and and develop that we, you know, transform. That actually hasn't, at least in my perspective, hasn't happened within the Theravadan lineage, which is from Southeast Asia, Thailand, Burma, Shulaka, where Vipassana has come from, because the monastic container was much more rigid, and the boundaries between lay and monasticism was not as permeable. And so monastics were never allowed to marry.

[17:41]

Or even today, when I was ordained in Thailand, you walk for your food. So the monastics don't do the work, the service, the involvement in the community that is so much a part of Zen practice. The monastics in Thailand offered spiritual teachings, and they're completely supported by the lay community. And so that is the monastic practice that influences American Vipassana. And with American Vipassana, our senior teachers, Joseph Goldstein, Jack Coinkiel, When they went over and brought this practice to the U.S., they did not emphasize the monastic container. There's a monastic presence in the U.S.

[18:42]

of Theravada Buddhism, but it's not as strong. And this is very interesting because it's one way in which Some of the academic historians around the Dharma say that when the Dharma enters a new culture, as it is in the West, the Dharma changes that culture and it's completely changed by a culture. And this is what's beginning to happen in the West, that the Dharma is beginning to be transformed into ways that are being transmitted. So when our senior teachers came back from Asia, they didn't actually start teaching in existing Asian temples. And I think that is a very interesting cultural interaction. Because, why?

[19:43]

I mean, culture is a huge part of my practice and my teaching and so, in reflecting on this is probably because in those temples, they didn't see themselves reflected. The teaching stories were not of Western life experiences. The relevance to the lives of Westerners were not probably abundant. And so they started their education centers of Wittsburg Rock, and inside education societies are just two. And so, in a way, the way the Dharma is being expressed in American Vipassana is already beginning to shift how the teachings have been offered. And I think it makes sense that

[20:46]

there's been cultural determinants in how Vipassana has been expressed in Southeast Asia, and that they change over time as they're expressed in the Midwest. I think one of the interesting places is, as it becomes laid in Vipassana, it's probably why we have less ritual than we do, because your manasa container has has held that peace, which is a cultural peace. The other thing that I'll just say that, you know, this aspect of culture is, I mean, it's alive today in our politics, it's in their newspapers, it's probably in our meditation centers of how do we deal with sort of the multicultural experience, you know, really honestly.

[22:12]

the Dharma has been dealing with the multicultural experience for thousands of years. So if it's not new, then we can really learn from how the aspect of culture, our transition of these teachings. I don't know if people were familiar with this recent Buddha-Dharma article, I can't even remember who wrote it, She was investigating these old polys with the sutras printed on them, and trying to go backwards into the tree. What are the pure teachings? Where did they originate from in Afghanistan or Central Asia? And what they're finding through the linguistic analysis is that it's not a tree.

[23:13]

It's actually a bush. It's actually these multiple roots almost as soon as the Buddha passed. You could call it fragmentation, but you could also call it diversification of interpretation of what freedom is. It was almost immediate after the Buddha's passing. which was emblematic of the First Council, which was 70 years after the Buddha passing, there was this major fragmentation, or schism, they call it. But, you know, the individuation of these teachings is part of our own process of making the Dharma our own, you know... I'm going, oh, you have stuck there. No, I'm... But really, I mean, whoever gives you the instructions, are you ever doing the instructions exactly as they've been given to you?

[24:28]

Or is it like learning to play an instrument from your instructor? Do you ever play a piece of music exactly like you're an instructor. Probably not. And so that's, you know, I think that's the invitation that you're all given. How do we make this practice at home? Yeah, I read this article recently that I thought was a really big help to understanding how, you know, we're all trying to approach the Dharma. We're new to it. We're all new to it. So it's not the culture I grew up in. grew up as a Christian, more familiar with that, you know, teaching, you know, understanding. So it's hard to not translate early childhood lessons into what Buddha might be or Buddha nature and Buddhism. But there's this article about ritual performance as play and that, you know, so far Buddhism has been basically hacked at by scholars and

[25:38]

in very helpful ways, but they're very logical. So that's one side of the coin is the logos, the logic. And the other side is the mythos, you know, which is, I came in through the myth door of the Zen lineage is true, that I, I, I believe that Chakni Buddha, Kastomajana, Tamakashapa, and to Ananda, and all, in the names we chant every morning, and to me, you know, that was true. And so the scholars are kind of messing with me. around, you know, of course that's not true. You know, now I know, of course it's not true. But to just see how the folks who have an experiential draw to Zen or to practice, coming through our experience of sitting, of chanting, of bowing to one another, is something that can't be described in a text or, you know, scholasticized in any way. So this intuitive, mythical, mystical side and then the textual side.

[26:39]

And then the third piece that was added in this wonderful article is the ritual side. And that ritual, the man was quoting Isadora Duncan, and she said, if I could explain it to you, I wouldn't have to dance. And that gave me a whole new appreciation for all the ritual we do, which I think I always felt a little bit alienated, I mean, I do it, and I do it willingly, but it's like I've got some juice around the idea that it doesn't have to mean anything, it doesn't have to be my tradition from my childhood, but just the act of offering incense, of bowing, of lifting my hands above my head, you know, it doesn't have to be more than the dance of this wonderful celebration that's come to us through the Dhammas. I've adopted this understanding of ritual as dance, and as play.

[27:42]

We can play together. I think we've all had the experience of Buddhist, kind of, you know, unhappy-looking people. I don't know what else to say. We've heard it together, and they go in the office, and nobody smiles at you. I walked into a staff meeting last year to ask something really simple about Buddhist birth table things, you know. I took cake or something, and I walked into the store, and it looked like Dutch burgers. They were all sitting in black, and nobody just smiled. No one looked at me. They looked at my friends, and I've known them all for years. Finally, I sat down and said, I'm starting to feel nervous. And I said, um, are you okay? And one of them said, it's not personal, Phil, what do you want? So that broke the eyes. I think you're fine. But anyway, I think we can learn to play more.

[28:43]

We can be more... Of course we want to be our meditator peacefully meditating all day long, many days. No question about that. When we're not doing that, we can really enjoy each other. And I think a lot down here. There's something good going on in this place with all of you so I appreciate it very much. I appreciate the invitation too. I experienced the joy coming here and really appreciate this opportunity to develop our teaching but also deepen our friendship and everybody that I have met that Dr. Haradot, I don't know, smiles at me, and it welcomes me, and so I really appreciate that invitation, cross, lineage, cross, whatever it is, because it is that common inspiration, you know, when we sat, we were just talking, sitting in the room with our circle, when we sit,

[29:57]

You know what I'm saying? That's when the break crosses. Right there when we're sitting. That's it. So we would like to take questions from you and we promise to stop in 12 minutes. So you can all go ahead. Does anyone want to ask anything? Just one comment about I went to Temple Avenue a while back, and it had a big sign to say, enjoy your life. And I kept joking with many children about that. I'm like, it'll never be a tough time, you know, enjoy your life. But I'm curious, the more I read about Poshno, they talk about enlightenment experiences, and you know what consciousness is like, substrate consciousness, and it's very detailed about what consciousness is and how the mind works.

[31:01]

And then Zen is like, just sit there and stare at the wall and just notice things. And so I'm curious, since it's all coming from the Buddha, where is that fork? I see a little bit like a fork, and I know that's obviously converging on the fact that we're sitting and meditating. So I was just curious if you could maybe just speak a little bit too. why those things didn't seem to really talk at all about enlightening experiences, or really getting to, at least what I believe, getting into a lot of detail about consciousness, and Mipassana seems to be like, oh, here's exactly, here's a little signpost, it's exactly for me, and, you know, so, I don't know, it's a good question. It's a really great question, if anybody heard it, around why does Mipassana focus on the details of consciousness, and and maybe what you're referring to are these 16 stages of insight that is very emblematic of the Mahasi Sayadaw Krakistan.

[32:02]

And I will say that even though that seems attached to the Theravada tradition, that is something, that's a slice that has been brought over to the West, but it is only a small slice of what actually the breadth of Theravani tradition actually is, live in Asia. And so I'll take it to a personal level in the sense that my personal belief is that whoever sits here can only teach what works for them. That's what we can share, is our direct experience with interpreting the teachings and our moments of freedom. And for some people, this articulated, structured path makes sense. Personally, I hold it right, but I don't think it's necessarily the door that attracts a universal consciousness or a universal experience.

[33:13]

There are actually many ways of languaging awareness and consciousness. And I actually really admire the lyrical, you know, the not knowing piece of them in that way, because I don't know if you can actually have a map towards awakening. That's universal. Just to build on what Larry said, there is an interesting citation in the Abidjama literature about types of people. I think what you said, I think you all know, well, you don't all know, but five scholars, you know, this is basically five scholars sitting here, and that's one way of describing a person, but there's also, you know, 12 and there's an 18 division. And what it says about, which is all the same description of the person divided, you know, differently and more complexly,

[34:16]

and each of those different forms, three forms. And what it says in the Siddha, or the Aridhana, is that the first example, the scholars, is for people who like a simple instruction. The second one is for people who like a mid-length instruction. And the last one is for people who like a nearly long instruction. I'm always so relieved. I've always liked simple instructions. You tell me one thing to do, and I can remember it. So I think it really is tailored to the... the receiver of the teaching. And each person, certainly in my understanding, it's about each one of you. How do you need to practice in order to fulfill your own desires? And when is it going to work best to be? And we try to find that out through our personal interviews and personal instruction. So... Maybe just to say that it's so easy to have... It's so easy, and so, you know, this aspect of attachment, the second normal truth, is so insidious, because we can so easily attach to freedom.

[35:27]

And, you know, it happens to work in a certain way with someone or a particular teacher. We can just focus on, oh, that must be the way. And, you know, the attachment will, well, it'll create dogma. But the fluidity of practice really is the invitation of what works for you. That's the invitation of the Buddha. Don't believe him. Don't believe either of us or anyone sitting here. What is your direct experience? So you've mentioned cultural forces in making the Dharma your own. which for me is the most important thing. It's how I'm going to share it. So I want to know what your thoughts are about reconciling, making the dog with your own within a vessel of cultural monastic influences when you don't necessarily feel connected to those influences.

[36:35]

And you often see the messenger things. But you still want to work within an organization or a group of people, because you believe at the core, the teachings are the same? That's the question. Are you talking about this place? I think probably almost everyone goes through some version of that in one of two ways, either They learn about the forms and they resist them by, you know, resisting being laid or, you know, kind of putting your hands up like that. I mean, it's all kinds of... At the nose, fingertips are at the nose. You know, I always say this over and over again. The other way to resist is to do it too much. That's another form, like too tight or too loose.

[37:38]

But the point of the... Ritual, in my understanding, is to get a quick shot at helping you with which of those things you're here to work with. If you're here to work with you and the way that you approach life and things that may be challenging you, you know, we really want to be your friend and we want to help you to find a way out of your own instruments, whatever they are. So it is a way for you to show up and where your struggles are. Suthi Rishi talked about that. He said, I can't tell you apart when you're all dressed differently, but when you put on robes, I can really see how different you are. And so there's something about, you know, submitting ourselves to these forms and allowing ourselves to be helped by others that's a big part of entering into the Dharma relationship and Dharma transformation. And it's painful. You know, the depth of things that we most dare to us, like us.

[38:48]

But us to go. No? Maybe not Jane. Maybe one more question. Can you talk about the role of Sangha in American Vipassana and American Zen? It seems like Sangha is pretty important to Zen practice in America, but I don't know much about the role of Sangha in Vipassana practice. I don't know about Vipassana Sangha. So your question about the refuge of Sangha in Vipassana practice, it's I think challenging because it also doesn't have, for example, the infrastructure that the Zen Center has. And so we are actually living into what does it really mean to bridge this personal practice that often our meditative history

[40:08]

create into a collective experience? Where's the link between personal transformation and collective transformation? Some people have been doing this for a while and sort of in more engaged circles. At the meditation center that I started in Oakland, we're really trying to do this with very different communities, inviting and giving You know, it's one thing to invite communities that are really different, whether it's cultural or around secular orientation or economic basis. It's one thing to invite them through the door. It's another thing for them to actually live together. And that is, we are just beginning to learn how to offer skills that the Dharma, and it is in the Dharma, it's in the Buddhist teachings. of how we develop these relational aspects using the precepts and ethics.

[41:13]

But it's, you know, I think it's particularly a 21st century challenge of how do you bring your daughter to these particular multicultural communities. And it's exciting. I think it's where Western where the Western multiple-seated cultures can influence how dharma changes? How does dharma look like in an Afro-Korelian community? I don't know. But can we create the doors that actually invite that to happen? And so, I think many Vipassana communities are struggling, for example, experimenting with a community that is formed around a teacher versus formed around the community that invites teachers.

[42:21]

Very different models. And there are benefits and disadvantages to both. And so, you know, Practice is an experiment. So I would say the practice of community is also currently an experiment. I think that's why for a while Zen Center and Spirit Rock were meeting to actually talk about these issues for a couple of years. And there's, I don't know, at least from some of the people I've been talking about, there's a new interest in collaborating because You know, these are common issues. They are not just resident in one or the other of our communities. And I think we can learn from each other as well. I think one of our biggest problems is the inside-outside problem, too, because the same is you make something that looks like a unity, like a community, within that inside.

[43:23]

People belong, feel like they belong. And the resident, non-resident populations, as I said, have always been Challenging. How do you belong? Residents feel like they belong, but then what happens when you move away? People have anxiety about that when they're about to leave. How do I keep them focused? How do I stay connected? And we certainly haven't solved that. It's a long way from being solved. And we just have to keep envisioning ways to understand and belong. When folks we can't see, we don't see them anymore. but how to hold that relationship. So we can help with that. Thank you all so much. 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.

[44:27]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[44:37]

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