you And I'm sure he gave me a man, and I'm perfect, and I'm not.

[18:48]

He gave me a man to me. [...] Good morning. Good morning.

[19:52]

Thank you for being here today. Thank you for being you. And thank you for inviting me to talk today on the Tenso Kyokun, Send Master Dogen's Instructions to the Head Cook. normally well a little aside here but on Monday I'm having cataract surgery so if I have so if I talk here again I'll be able to see you all a little better that's the idea anyway of having cataract surgery see how it goes There's an expression in Zen that to give instruction is to gouge a wound in good flesh.

[21:15]

You know, each of you has a good heart, a good mind, a good spirit, a sacred nature as well as... you know, any particular characteristic that you can assess on how others may say about you or you may assess yourself. We use a lot of measuring sticks, you know. So, but in addition to man, woman, age, characteristics, you know, where each of us, each of you, sacred, the sacred spirit. So I try to be careful not to gouge your wound in good flesh.

[22:25]

You already have this. It's also called, of course, beginner's mind. You have a beginner's mind. which we all thought Suzuki Roshi came up with this expression, Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. And it turns out that, you know, he got it from studying Zen. And Dogen, in the Zhebogenso, says, Beginner's Mind is the essential original awakening, enlightenment. So you have this beginner's mind. You are this beginner's mind. Pema Chodron used an expression to mention this, saying, you are the sky, everything else.

[23:28]

That's the weather. But you yourself are the sky. Partly to have instruction is to remind yourself, to remind you that you're the sky and you are a beginner's mind. So as I talk today, I will share some of my understanding, some of my practice in Zen. And... When I began, you know, I met Suzuki Roshi. And so, along with sharing Zen Master Dogen's words from the instructions to the cook, I will share some of Suzuki Roshi's teachings.

[24:30]

our life unfolds. And we don't necessarily plan it. Robert Bly said late in his life in one of his poems, my life has turned out like this. I didn't plan it. I don't know how it happened. But I was at Tassajara. I went to Tassajara and started working in the kitchen. The last year it was a resort. And I started as a dishwasher and I learned to bake bread. And then Zen Center bought Tassajara. And I had been practicing at Zen Center before going to Tassajara and I had two months experience cooking.

[25:41]

And Sam Sander said, would you be the head cook? Oh, okay. And as you know, whether it's cooking or so many things in our life, you're on the spot. and it works out the way it does. And there will be successes and failures, and you will stay with the circumstances and the situation, or you will go on to other ones. So I had no idea what I was saying yes to. When I got to Tassajara, to be the cook after the wintertime, the kitchen that I had worked in was no longer there.

[26:45]

It had been, you know, it's a different era, isn't it? But the kitchen that I had worked in had been taken down because the people living there over the winter had heard that Before we opened Tassajara, we'd have to have a new kitchen. So they thought they'd get started by taking down the old one. There wasn't a phone that was working. And we don't know exactly how this all happened, but there was no kitchen. Or there was a little tiny kitchen. And the people working in the kitchen said to me, I said, where's the salt? And they said, bed at Tassajara. we don't use salt. Oh, really?

[27:45]

Why not? And they said, salt is bad for you. I said, oh, what's bad about salt? Oh, well, you know. And I said, no, I don't know. Anyway, The story of my life, I don't know what to do in these situations. Do I care about what you say? Do I not care? Do I... So at the time, we had a spiritual authority called Suzuki Roshi. So I went to see the spiritual authority and I said, Roshi, they... People working in the kitchen tell me I can't use salt. What am I going to do? And he said, Ed, you're the cook. You do what you want.

[28:45]

You're the cook. You do what you want. So this is a very interesting point. And I've been studying how to be the cook ever since. And in his way, Zen Master Dogen, in the instructions for the cook, says the same thing. He says, if you don't arouse the mind of enlightenment, you will not have success in the kitchen. And another way of saying arousing the mind of enlightenment is you are the cook. And it's up to you. And this is interesting because it's up to you means when you're in your kitchen, when you're in your life, you're sitting in your body, your mind, it's your practice, you're the cook. How will you do you?

[29:51]

What will you use in your cooking? So when I do cooking classes, I suggest to people, I say, when you get home, You're the cook. In my class, I'm the cook. So you do what I say, or you don't do what I say, but I'm offering you opportunities to do something differently than you might do in your kitchen when you get home. You can decide whether you want to continue that practice or go on doing what you used to do, or you keep coming up with the way you're going to do it. So you listen to people. What should you eat? What's a good diet? What's a healthy diet? What's the right diet? What's the politically correct diet? And then what's the Buddhist way? And originally, of course, Buddhist monks and nuns went out begging for food. I have thirst.

[30:57]

I have hunger. They don't say that, but they... ask for food. And then you eat what you're offered. So that's one tradition. And Zen, we keep thinking about it. Eat what is offered. This is, again, an extremely important point. Because when you're the cook, do you try to follow the rules, the instructions, the orders, or do you do you? Do you do what you decide, or do you follow, oh, that's the authority I'm going to follow.

[32:01]

Sometimes you follow the authority and in sin it's called putting another head above your head. Was your head on straight or is there some problem about your head? And your capacity to decide what to do? So we're both listening to requests and instructions and teachings, and then we do something. And in the instructions to the cook, Dugan says, it's the cook's job to make reverential offerings to the assembly. all of your life. It's nothing but a reverential offering.

[33:05]

And you know, when I was a cook at Tassajara, it was the beginning. So after the meal, people would come into the kitchen and tell us what was wrong with the food. Now that's not allowed. Now go talk to the director. You know, go talk to one of the other officers. Don't go into the kitchen and start telling the cooks. So somebody would come into the kitchen and say, the oatmeal was way too thick this morning. Didn't your mother teach you? Oatmeal needs to be really well cooked because in the morning your digestion is really weak and the oatmeal is really well cooked. It's easy to digest and then you can eat it and you can digest it. So if the oatmeal is wet, then another group of people comes in and they say, Ed, we're working really hard.

[34:15]

We're digging a septic tank by hand. It's cold. We don't have any meat to eat. Could we at least have oatmeal you could chew? Come on! Help us out here! So then I thought, well, I'll put raisins in the oatmeal. Then another third group of people comes in the kitchen. Why are you poisoning us? Because... People have different ideas. But at that time, scent macrobiotics was big. And sugar was poison. So raisins, I was poisoning them. And they used to say, if you eat the right food, you will have a calm mind.

[35:17]

So apparently, they weren't eating the right food that often because they were angry a lot. about the food. So what do you do? What will you do to get it right? And Dogen's instruction to the cook is to practice with a sincere and wholehearted mind. Do practice sincerely. Make wholehearted endeavor. And of course, a big point at that time, and nowadays it's not always recognized, but don't waste food. One grain of rice is a whole field of rice. Don't waste a grain of rice.

[36:20]

And that takes, so that's a different kind of focus than can you make everybody happy? Can you please everyone? What will you do to please everyone? Everyone who comes at you from this direction and that direction, and with this argument, with that argument, how will you do it? What will you do? So sincere is, you know, so I decided to make sincere effort. I decided to make a wholehearted effort. The other thing that Suzuki Roshi had told me was when he said, you're the cook, he said, you do what you want. He didn't say you don't listen to other people. You just decide what to do, and you do that. You don't listen to them, you don't adjust, you don't... But at some point you decide.

[37:28]

You do what you want. And this, by the way, comes up in sitting. You know, there's a form to sitting. And at the same time, you do what you want. Because you have your experience. We call it formal practice with informal feeling. So, if you just do the form, I'm getting it right. And if you do the form, but informal feeling, and you're alive inside and your life is unfolding, and Suzuki Roshi in Zen by Beginner's Mind says, Each moment is a complete flashing into the world, into the phenomenal world. Each moment of your life is a complete flashing into the phenomenal world.

[38:32]

Oh, it's like this. Oh, it's like that. Oh. So I decided to practice with sincerity. and wholeheartedly. And whatever you do, you know, it goes wrong. But sincere is a very interesting word. You know, the S-I-N is for without, like sans, S-A-N-S in French, and sere is wax. And it goes back to the use of wax with bronze statues. You could fill in the blemishes and the bronze. with wax, dyed, made the color of the bronze. So how good are you? We used to call it, back in my day at Sun Center, looking good.

[39:37]

We practiced looking good. So what about sincere practice? What would that look like? And you look, maybe, you know, in today's language, well, good enough. But not perfect, maybe. So one of the things I started doing at that time at Teshara, rubber spatulas, heat-resistant rubber spatulas, and I would wipe out the leftovers when they came back to the kitchen. And I would use the leftovers. And not always so successfully and deliciously. But Suzuki Rish's way of saying sincere and wholehearted effort was, you know, it's more colloquial Zen.

[40:53]

When you wash the rice, wash the rice. When you cut the carrots, cut the carrots. When you stir the soup, stir the soup. So I thought, oh, that's for me. But, you know, when you practice Zen, when you live your life, whether you're practicing Zen or not, it's your life. And when you hear the Tenso Kyokan, there are words that come to you, and then you say, oh, that's for me. Oh, yes, I'm going to try that out. I'm going to practice that. So partly you're studying in Zen how you study, how you learn. how you take things to heart, how you set things aside, what you set aside, what you take to heart, what you rely on, what you count on.

[42:00]

So you'll see. What you do with your one wild and precious life, that's from Mary Oliver, you know. That's another way of saying your life, you know, you yourself are beginner's mind. Mary Oliver at the end of summer's day says, what will you do with your one wild and precious life? And moment after moment we're deciding, and on one hand things are coming to us, and on the other hand we're responding. So there's a lot of... At the same time that I was trying to practice Zen, I also wanted to be acclaimed.

[43:22]

I'm sure none of you want to be acclaimed. Do you? You want acclaimed? You want recognition? Not me. Anyway, I wanted to be known as a good cook. It's kind of funny, isn't it? And then how can you be known as a good cook when you can't even cook oatmeal the way that everybody likes? What are you going to do? And you make a sincere offering to the assembly. You do something with your heart and you do something with care. Sin Master Dogen talks about, do not fail to add even one drop of water to the ocean of merit.

[44:30]

Do not neglect adding even one speck of dirt to the summit of the mountain of wholesome deeds. What does that have to do with fame anyway? with your notoriety. And can you put that on your resume? Okay. So, just to say, I don't know what to tell you. Each of you will, you know, again, you're you. And I appreciate you're you and that you're finding out how to do you and studying how to do you and be you and express yourself. You'll see and you'll find thing moment by moment.

[45:32]

But I'm going to share with you briefly, if I can. You know, at one point I got really... I was trying to practice Zen, and I was trying to do what Dogen says in the instructions to the cook. You do everything that everybody else is doing, and you cook. So don't miss morning sasa. Don't miss evenings I was in. Don't miss the services. Don't miss anything. And cook. And if I sat down in the afternoon, if I sat down, I would fall asleep. And I got tired. And I thought, oh, I've never been this tired in my life. And then I got more tired. Oh, oh, there's more tired. Oh, I've never been this tired. I can't believe how tired I am.

[46:46]

And then I got more tired. But we were practicing Zen. Do not fail to add one speck of dirt to the summit of the mountain of wholesome deeds. Then I finally couldn't get up. And various things happened. And this was before we had formal practice of somebody comes to check on you, why you're not where you're supposed to be. You know, a sign-seat in the zendo, the Tenkin looks in the zendo, who's not here? Okay, we'll go find them. And sometimes at some monasteries and temples, you know, there are people like, I've never failed to get my man.

[47:50]

I've never failed to bring them in. I've always gotten them to show up at the Zendo. Nobody's ever gotten away. So, you know, there's various attitudes about, are you okay? why aren't you in this endo like you said you'd be? So, what is the attitude? What is the mind you bring? And Dogen says, don't see with ordinary eyes, don't think with ordinary mind. But this is before anybody would come, so when I got tired and wasn't getting up, nobody came. Nobody comes to see you. It was the summertime. It was very hot. The air was dusty. I thought, what am I doing?

[48:54]

See, we go through these things. This is human life. What am I doing? I want people to like my cooking. Does anybody ever like your cooking? Before the food comes, tell the cook it has to be better tomorrow. And you keep on giving this Keep on producing. It's also known as you're only as good as your last performance. I thought, oh, that's not going to work. I'm not going to be known for my cooking.

[49:56]

And why do I want to be known for my cooking? Well, if I was known for my cooking, then maybe I could like myself. I would have some acclaim. I could like a person with acclaim. Oh, I don't have any acclaim. How could I like me? Oh my, I don't like me. Uh-oh. I had no idea I didn't like me until I tried cooking and pleasing everybody, and it didn't work. And I couldn't ever get enough evidence that enough people like me to convince me to like me. And I thought, damn it. I'm just going to have to like myself anyway. Like, geez, without any evidence. People say, how do you do that? And I say, well, awkwardly at first. Because you're just not very good at it until you get better. But then this is the work of a lifetime. How do you do it?

[50:58]

How do you decide to be kind and... good-hearted, warm-hearted with you, along with your practice, and your cooking, and your life, and your relationships. So I'd like to go on to another aspect of the Tenso Kyokan, and of course you can study it for yourself and see Again, if there's a teaching that comes to you, that draws you in. When Dogen says, don't see with ordinary eyes, don't think with ordinary mind, he also says,

[52:04]

pick up a leaf of cabbage and see a 16-foot golden Buddha. Look at a 16-foot golden Buddha and pick up a leaf of cabbage. There's this, you know, always, you know, meeting the phenomenal world, the sacred world, leaf of cabbage, 16-foot golden Buddha, And this points out the teaching or the understanding that often we're busy trying to make really good food, say, or make things right, do things the way they're supposed to be done.

[53:22]

Is there a 16-foot golden Buddha or is it the profane world trying to fix the profane world and make the profane world look good? What are you up to? And you can only make the profane world look good, and then you can get acclaim, and then you're only as good as your last performance, and then you're going to have a lot of stress to keep your stars. Anybody who's in these three, four star restaurants, everybody says it's terribly stressful. Everybody I've talked to. Because your performance has to still be better than it was. And what you cook has to be predictable.

[54:25]

It has to be repeatable. So you have to repeat and repeat and repeat and do it the way it's supposed to be done and do it the five-star way and do it Do it, do [...] it. And is there any sacred in that? Is there any sincerity in that? Is your warm heart in that? Is your love there? How will we have... You know, Raymond Carver was quite a good story writer and it turns out his editor fixed his story so they would sell. And then Raymond Garber had a whole period of his life where he was an alcoholic and he struggled. And towards the end of his life he wrote a short poem. It might have been called Last Fragment.

[55:29]

And did you get what you wanted in this world after all? Yes, I did. And what was it you wanted? I wanted to call myself beloved. I wanted to belong in this world. So where is our connection with everything when we're busy trying to do it right, and do it the way it's supposed to be done, and do it... Do it and repeat that that's been recognized as being good and has the stars. So it turns out that practice, practice in a way, and Dogen says in the instructions, practice in a way that things come home to your heart and things come and abide in your heart.

[56:32]

And your heart goes out and abides in things. So this connection, heart connection with the phenomenal world, your heart is the source of the sacred. So you're letting things come home to your heart, Suzuki Rashi said. Let your heart go out and abide in things. And take care of things with your heart. that things touch your heart. Nothing to it, right? The hardest thing in the world. And we have so many other ideas of, I will be above, I will be above the pain, I will be indifferent to the pain, I will be beyond the pain, I will be, I will come home to your heart? Oh my poor heart.

[57:34]

So you let things touch you, and when things touch you, It's like a cabbage, leaf of cabbage being a 16-foot golden Buddha. The sacred is there when things touch you. When you're following your breath in meditation, and then from time to time you notice, oh, still, quiet. And other times, So a couple more points, and we can finish up.

[59:21]

I want to come back at least briefly to, you know, do you follow the instructions? Or do you do you? And this is so important. Because... You know, we're doing both. But on the other hand, if you follow instructions, then you think that life is about being in the position of the person giving out the instructions. I will get better at giving out the instructions. I will become the person who gives out the instructions. We also call this, you know, excuse me, I'll tell you another story about Suzuki Roshi.

[60:26]

But occasionally he would talk during zazen, usually the second period of zazen of the fifth day of Sushin. And one time he said, you think that you are the student and I am the teacher. And I will tell you things that you don't know. That's wrong thinking. You think that I will give you answers that you don't have. That's a wrong idea. Sometimes the teacher is the student. Sometimes the student is the teacher. Sometimes the teacher bows to the student. Sometimes the student bows to the teacher. And he went on talking, and then he would leap up with his little stick and go, his was straight.

[61:29]

And he'd go over, we were all sitting facing the wall, you know, and he would tap the first person, and then if he tapped you, you know, you'd get out of the way, bow, and he would hit you twice. And then you bow. And the first person he tapped and hit, he'd say, who is the teacher? And then the second person, who is the student? Bap, bap. Who is the teacher? Bap, bap. Who is the student? And after six or eight people, he ran out of breath and just went around and hit the other 90 people. but we, you know, are also then studying, you know, relationship with our own body-mind. So to put this in the context of food and cooking, you know, what should the food taste like?

[62:42]

How do you know if the food is good or not? And normally, or oftentimes, we think, well, I followed the recipe. Do you have a problem with it? Well, you don't like the food? Well, I followed the recipe. I'm good. You don't like the food? Well, I followed the instructions. I put in the amounts it said. Suppose you just cooked. You have no deniability. You don't like my heart, my heartfelt effort? Uh-oh. But when I started doing cooking classes back in the 80s, we would taste things.

[63:52]

One day we were One of the first things, I would open up canned tomatoes and then we would add different kinds of chilies and different other ingredients, ground roasted sesame seeds or unsweetened cocoa or roasted garlic. We would add and we would make four, three, four, five different tomato sauces, spicy tomato sauces. To start with, well, let's taste the canned tomatoes. So I would get four or five kinds of canned tomatoes. Let's see if we can taste the difference between them. Let's taste the tomatoes. And then people would say, what should we be tasting? Because if you're going to have an experience, shouldn't you have the right one? And shouldn't you train yourself to... produce the right experience rather than just having the experience you might have?

[64:54]

Isn't that the point? That you have the right experience? What should you be tasting? What should in meditation, what should you be experiencing? What should life look like? What should your mind be like? What should your body be like? And then... You know, straighten it out. We live in a culture like this, you know. So are we going to give out instruction and manage, or are we going to say, oh, what do you taste like? What are you feeling now? What are you sensing? What are you seeing? What are you hearing? What's your experience? Oh, and would you be willing to share your heart's song with me? So in meditation and in practicing, whether it's in meditation or in cooking, you taste what you put in your mouth.

[66:08]

You experience what you experience. You set aside, is it the right one to have? And it turns out that when you do that, The sacred is there. It's a complete flashing into the phenomenal world. So I'm going to share a poem with you to finish up. It's a poem by Rilke, Raina Maria Rilke. It's, of course, originally in German. I use a translation that is mostly Stephen Mitchell, but also I translated it with a friend of mine, Hermann Claussen, who survived the firebombing of Hamburg when he was three years old. So this is a translation of Ryoka.

[67:20]

It's a poem about food, about tasting an apple. That in its way, for me, is an expression of so many things that Dogen talks about in Instructions to the Cook. Round apple. Smooth banana, melon, gooseberry, peach. How all this affluence speaks, death and life in the mouth. Surprises you, doesn't it? Round apple, smooth banana, melon, gooseberry, peach. How all this affluence speaks, death and and life in the mouth. I sense, observe it in the child's transparent features while she tastes.

[68:22]

This comes from far away. What miracle is happening in your mouth while you eat? Instead of words, discoveries are flowing out of the flesh of the fruit, astonished to be free. Dare to say what apple truly is, this sweetness that feels thick, dark, dense at first, then exquisitely lifted in your taste goes clarified, awake, luminous, double-meaning, sunny, earthy, real, oh, knowledge, pleasure, joy, immense. Practice in such a way that things come and abide in your heart. Your heart goes out and abides in things. An apple isn't just an apple.

[69:25]

It's an expression, complete flashing into the world, into the phenomenal world. And you can meet it. that complete flashing with your complete flashing, and the complete flashing of an apple in your tasting. And, you know, sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. So, I'd like to wish you well with your... going forward, and some of you are in the, have a one-day sitting today, sashing, and are in an upcoming practice period, so I'd like to wish you well with your practice and study, with you being you. More than once, as the Guruji said, when you are you, Zen is Zen.

[70:36]

And he used to say, Zen is to settle the self on the self. When you are you, Zen is Zen. Thank you so much for being you and studying how to go on being you. the work of a lot of time. Thank you so much for being here. I think we may have some announcements. I hope I finished in time. Oh, yes, that's right. A formal closing. To make our intention, we may suspend to every day we have a place. ... [...]

[72:03]

For those who came in for the Dharma Talk, You can have a Q&A with Ed right here in each room, so you don't have to leave. And that will go on for however long it goes up for. Please bring the cushions back to the rats. Please bring any chairs to the bagging house. Thank you. Thank you.

[74:11]

The special workshop, having a sleeping workshop, it has never been for the fans there. This woman, if she's back, but she's It's great to see you. Thank you. I don't know.

[75:51]

Take this and move on the control roll. Stop. [...] I see you even bigger. Is there a protocol?

[77:23]

No more chanting needed? Oh yeah, let's close the doors. So if you have any questions, I'm happy to entertain and thank you. But I'll finish my little introduction. But, you know, you can also make observations, reflections, questions, comments. You might want to comment. So a question means, like, you don't know something that maybe I know or, you know, so it doesn't have to be a question because I'm not talking about information. So you can also make comments or reflections or share. Yes, sir. Thank you so much for your talk. You're welcome. And I just had a question about something you said.

[78:26]

You said that wasting a grain of rice is like wasting a whole field of rice. Can you expand on how to understand that? Well, that's metaphorical. You know, that... It's a way of saying that food is precious. And it's hard to understand in our modern world because we can afford to waste so much. And whether you say a grain of rice is precious, so that's a poetical way of saying a grain of rice is precious. Everything is precious, everything is sacred. But at some point we... say, off with your head, or... What is our oil doing under your sand? And it's, you know, and I sort of overdo it.

[79:40]

You know, I have one room at my house that's kind of full of clutter. Because it's all precious, it's all sacred, and we can't throw it away. So, you know, it's an ongoing practice or study, what is sacred and what is worth valuing and what is precious. And if you don't, and you try to find something to treat precious as precious, You know, whether it's a grain of rice or your breath or your hand. What is it to treat, you know, and I'm getting cataract surgery. I did go to see a psychic. I talked to my psychic gold friend, my shaman from the Gold Coast of Australia.

[80:41]

who now moved to Florida because there's better opportunities to market being a shaman here in the United States than in Australia. And he mostly teaches people how to make a lot of money. In his most recent course, he said, new deal. Here's the cost for the course, but if you make $10,000 in the next few weeks, you give me $1,000 of that in addition to the price of the course. And if you make, you know, and he set up a whole scheme of, you know, give me a kickback from, you know, how well you do with my course. But anyway, I talked to him, and so in the world of shaman, you know, he said, yeah, I brought in Dr. Bates, who's a brilliant man, because my friend, Barry Ockotel, my shaman professor, He first started with eyesight, how to have better vision. So I talked to Barry, do I keep doing your exercises or do I get cataract surgery?

[81:49]

You know, how do I take care of this precious eyesight? And how do you treat it as precious? Is it precious? Or do you take it for granted? Or how do you take care of your hand or your foot or your knee? How do you take care of your feelings? Is it precious? Is it? Oh, don't worry about it. Oh, don't be sad. Don't be scared. Grow up. What are you doing? So what do we take care of? So if you're the cook, then Dogen suggests you take care of even a grain of rice. Don't waste even a grain of rice. Make that careful and effort. And it's not easy. It's easy at home. But if you have a big pot of rice and you wash the rice and you have to pour off the water and try to save the rice and when you pour it into something, you pour it into a strainer and then is the rice in the strainer?

[82:54]

Does it have dirt in there in the strainer too? It's not easy to save the one grain. So to what effort do you go to do that? You start with something. Anyway, to finish up about my Gold Coast Shaman, he said, I brought in Dr. Bates, and he's examining one eye while his assistant examines another eye while we're talking. And after we talked for a little bit, he said, Dr. Bates says, go ahead and get that cataract surgery. I'm surprised, because he doesn't usually recommend cataract surgery. So I thought, if my Gold Coast friend recommends and says that Dr. Bates recommends cataract surgery, I'll get it, and that will be the way to take care of my precious eyesight.

[83:57]

But, you know, what is precious? What is worth caring for? And of course Zen emphasizes on the spot. And that you take care of the climate, the politics, the world, by taking care of your place. You take care of your food, you take care of your hand, your eyes, your thoughts, your feelings, your sensations, and you liberate them. You stop just telling them how to be and what's the right experience to have and see what experience they're having. Oh, and then maybe we need to talk over how to work with this.

[85:01]

I don't know if this makes sense, but... You're welcome. Yes? I have a friend who's in the hospital. This is why I brought some food with her. Wonderful. And she... She only wants to eat the food that she loves. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, well then there's a perfect study. You're the cook, and part of being the cook is, who are you cooking for? And what do I cook for this person?

[86:05]

So, and then, and it's, as you say, it's obviously something of a quandary, or, you know, do I cook to something that this person will eat, and, you know, something that they'll enjoy, or, you know, and it comes up with, you know, parents and their children. You know, my granddaughter, who's, I think, grown out of it now, she's 14, but for a while it was... Just the white food. Mashed potatoes, chicken. But yeah, what will you do? And again, being the cook is, who am I cooking for? And then what season is it? What's their circumstance? What's their condition? And there's a certain part of enjoyment that is also... So, you know, and then sometimes we make something, you know, you make basically what they have to serve, and then you try something else on them, and if they don't eat it, you take it home, and you try one thing after another.

[87:31]

All the best. Yeah, wonderful that you can cook for someone, study it. Laura, I don't know who was first, but yeah. Thank you for your talk Ed. You're welcome. You talked about being made Ted cook when you heard a little about cooking, and this has been you know, this is sort of Zen-centered way, to put somebody in a position where they don't know what they're doing and they find out. And I was in that position when I was made a guest cook for the summer when I could hardly cook. Yeah. So I made a lot of mistakes. Yes. And that was hard. It's less hard because you could just go down to the grocery store. I understand. So what is your approach, your understanding? Is it a mistake if you... I had to turn my mistakes into something else, actually.

[88:33]

During the summer time. But are those real mistakes or not? How do you see that? Well, again, in Sudoku Rishi said, you know, everything is, well, you can say a complete flashing into the phenomenal world, but you can also say everything is like a letter from emptiness. Fracturing? Flashing. Flashing. I got my hearing aids. So I can hear myself talking now. So I need to talk more clearly for other people, I realize. But anyway, he said things themselves don't come with a measurement. with the scale, a mistake or not a mistake. We add a scale.

[89:35]

And there are different scales. So by the scale that you may be used to using, you say, that's a mistake. And then you take away that scale and say, well, now what do I do? Given that it's like this, what do I do? How do I... And... And you serve it or you make it servable. Famously, Massimo, I think his name is Massimo, I think was the first in the chef's table. They tell the story about how they make a broken lemon tart. And one night, the chef dropped a whole tray of lemon tarts. And he comes to it. Oh, I just dropped it. And Massimo's like, Oh, we'll glue them together with lemon curd. And so now they'd break the tarts on purpose and glue them together. And similarly, you know, Mark Bittman, who still has an advertisement for the Toss Our Bread book, says his favorite recipe is the three-layer cornbread.

[90:49]

Mistake. Because we put in twice as much liquid as the recipe called for, and it turned out to be three layers instead of one cake. Cake, custard, cake. So you do what you can. And at some point, initially, you may say, what a mistake. And then on the other hand, at some point, you say, well, what do I do? And sometimes it's got to go in the trash. It's just too far gone, even though you can't go down to the store. Well, I also learned that to ask for help. Oh, that's a good one. Ask for help. I learned 12 quiche crusts. Jim Phelan at Casa Vara. Jim Phelan was a wonderful baker. Yeah. It was his day off. He came in and he always made more quiche crusts. Yeah. Oh, sweet.

[91:52]

Good old Jim. What a concept. Yeah, what a guy, yeah. Asking for help is so important, yeah. Someone else? There was something behind you. What's that? I was just, this is in response to Catherine, your granddaughter. My son was also a very picky eater, but I would sneak things in, like put spinach and walnuts and fruits in the eater, squash and mac and cheese. Oh, I see. So is that deceitful? I don't know. I don't know. You know, we try things out and see how they go and see how it goes. And, you know, it becomes even more challenging when you're cooking for somebody who, you know, is ready to throw a fit. You call this food. And then you're like, uh-oh. But otherwise, it's not, you know, you try things out and see how it goes.

[92:58]

Yes, here. Yeah, so I'm curious about what you mentioned at your previous work with Shomani and the Shonani. Yeah. I know that sometimes that can entail psychedelics or other Asians. Not the shaman. Oh, not the shaman. I was just curious. But what's your question about that? I'm just curious about what you think about it. Is there room for that in Zen practice? Yeah. Well, it depends on your school. I don't have a problem with people doing psychedelics. I encourage people, if a question comes up, you know, one of my Dharma brothers, Vanya Palmers, was here for 15, 20 years. I remember when he showed up on his motorcycle with his girlfriend. They had long hair.

[94:07]

Now he has a shaved head. You know, he became a Zen priest. But he went back to Europe and started meditation centers. one at, first of all, at Porig in Austria, and then he started an amazing center called Felsentor in 1,500 meters above Lake Lucerne. At one point somebody said, wasn't that expensive, Vanya? Because the parts for the Zenda were started in Berkeley. He hired Paul Disco. So the parts are carved in Berkeley and then put on containers and shipped to Belgium and then trucked to Switzerland and then helicoptered up to the site where there are no roads. Felsentor. And Vanya at one point said, yeah, it was a little expensive. I needed to sell one of my vineyards in Spain to pay for it. But I mentioned in Vanya,

[95:09]

because one of his great interests is psychedelics. And he's kind of been given the mantle of... in Europe. But he did a... So in his world, he's a great believer in sight-setting, dose, and intention. You know, so this isn't just for the fun of it. you have some intention, and you're careful about the dosage, and you have a good situation, the setting, the right kind of help, support. But he then set up a sachin. I think there were about 20 people there, and half the people got psilocybin and half had a placebo. People knew pretty quickly who got what. and it was a five- or seven-day sashing, and this is with MRIs before and afterwards, with a Swiss university on hand.

[96:18]

So he's a great believer in psychedelics, or whatever we call them. And there's a lot more evidence these days of how or traumatized veterans, you know, can have MDMR or whatever, ecstasy, and one afternoon, they drop, you know, their years of trauma. So, and now it's being used for old age and, you know, death, and so sight setting, setting dosage attention. And people had a great sachin. And so much so, you know, that, of course, he then had to promise the people who didn't get the, who got the placebo.

[97:23]

He said, come on back, come on, come on, I got this other sachin for you. And it's two days, it's just two days, and some of you will get the dose, get dosed the first day, and some of you will get dosed the second. So one of my students went to the first sesheen and didn't get the... He was so disappointed. Then he went out and said, okay, I'm doing this on my own. But then he came back. No, I think he came back to Velsentura. And then he didn't get it the first day, and he got it the second day, finally. And he had an amazing experience. But recreational use, I don't... about as haphazard as anything recreationally. Sir? What were the results of the study that they did? Well, they showed that the MRIs and all the results say that it was a useful experience for the people who had it.

[98:36]

And that the meditation also had good effects, and those same good effects were even more profound with the people who took... I think they were using psilocybin. Personally, I have no interest. What's wrong with me? Let's see, someone else? Someone here. Someone's pointing to someone. Oh, I can see the hand now, you know, my eyes. Yes, sir. I want to thank you very much for your talk and for this Q&A. It's really wonderful. You're a charm. I just have a few observations. First of all, on the cataract, I really, really resonate with your cataract issue, because I'm not just visiting the cataract trail up on Amsterdam, especially.

[99:42]

Oh, yeah, that's a different kind of cataract. That's a great trail. Yeah, it's a wonderful trail. It's amazing. It's a kick down the trail. So I just imagined the park, or not the park, the watershed authorities going into the living cataract. But the oatmeal, I had oatmeal for breakfast with my usual recipe, which is basically to put cinnamon, peanuts, raisins, and verloa. Oh, what kind of oatmeal is that? What kind of oatmeal is that? That's not even oatmeal anymore. It's really good. I recommend it. It tastes really wonderful. And it's a regular for me. I have it there all the time. And the grizzolla makes a nice texture. You get chewy keynuts, chewy raisins. And the cinnamon is always a nice spice. So there's two theories here about cooking, which I didn't talk about, but you're bringing it up.

[100:44]

And it's exemplified by a friend of mine who studied cooking at the CIA, the other CIA, the Culinary Institute of America. And he said there was one of the cooks there, and everybody who's a cook there, the teachers and the students, everybody's a chef. So the teacher for the class would come up to you and say, chef, what are you making? And you would say, carrot soup. And then he'd say, And then the teacher would say, and what should carrot soup taste like? And then you were supposed to say carrots. Because, you know, there's some orange soups, and you can't tell whether it's carrot, yam, winter squash, because it's got garlic and basil and ginger and, you know... any number of things. And people say, doesn't this taste good?

[101:46]

And so Zen leans a little bit more towards, let's have carrot soup taste like carrot soup. And let's have oatmeal taste like oatmeal. But on the other hand, if you're the cook and you're at home, you do what you want. And then, oh, this is really good. But it reminds me also then of... So that was what should carrot soup taste like. And it was very important to me, speaking of oatmeal, you see, when we first started eating in the zendo at Tashara, which wasn't the zendo, it was in the old dining room, which is maybe the new dining room, but we had a temporary zendo while the zendo was being worked on, which is now the student-eating area. And we were serving, because we'd been eating at tables outside, we were serving milk, sugar, honey.

[102:56]

And then for people who wanted it, we had, some people said, well, I like molasses. And you should be able to have things your way, right? This is America. And some people said, oh, well, we like canned milk. And in those days, people were, oh, and could we have half and half? So we had four, five, six little dishes of things on a tray to pass down in the Zendo. And it turned out that it took way too long to pass a tray down the whole row of eight or ten people. So we made up a tray for every three people. So then we had to have like eight trays or something. for every three we had. And then after that day, it was the second or third day, Suzuki Roshi, I was back in the kitchen and we were going like, oh my, what do we do with all these little tiny pitchers and little dishes of sugar?

[104:00]

And do we put the sugar from these dishes back into a big thing or do we leave them in these little dishes or the honey in? Do we put the honey back? And somebody came in the kitchen and said, Roshi wants to give a talk. He wants everybody to be there. Let's go to the zendo, come on. So we went back to the zendo. And I remember where I was sitting, you know, he was sitting up and I was sitting over there. And Shizukuru, she said, I don't understand you Americans. Okay, yeah. And he said, when you put so much milk and sugar on your cereal, how can you taste the true spirit of the grain? I thought, what? What is he talking about? I've never heard of the true spirit of the grain. And then he said, what, do you think you can put milk and sugar on every moment of your experience to make it taste the way you want it to? Probably not, but that was a thought.

[105:07]

How do you make your experience taste the way you want it to? So in Zen, it's a little bit more the aim, you know, and in addition to, and it doesn't mean you can't have your preferences and what you like and make it for yourself, but then you also have some space for tasting the true spirit of the grain, or the true spirit, which is what I was talking about, the sacred. How will you taste the true spirit of the grain of your life, of life itself, of, you know, in Roga's poem, you know, dare to say what apple truly is. And it turns out apple's not just apple. This sweetness that feels thick, dark, dense at first, exquisitely lifted in your taste. It was clarified, awake, luminous, double-meaning, sunny, earthy, real.

[106:12]

Oh, knowledge, pleasure, joy, immense. Immense. So that comes from tasting something and letting it be what it is. But you can also do that with your oatmeal and granola. You can also do it. It's just a little more challenging. One other observation I haven't made for us that you mentioned in any lines of sincere, it was a surprise to me. When I was studying the application literature, what I encountered in the Latin-speaking world was that wax had been used in makeup. Oh, in makeup? In makeup, yeah. Oh, not just with bronzes, but within human makeup. You were without wax. Without wax, yeah. Oh, that's good to know, yeah. So much more liberal than the wax used with a bronze, but wax is used with makeup, yeah.

[107:18]

Yeah, so sincere means another understanding is the lines show. You know, the blemishes show. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So again, you know, I'm not saying, you know, you're the cook, so you decide. Makeup, no makeup. And it's good to have some understanding of, and have some real choice and not just, you know, I have to have makeup, I have to this, I really shouldn't have. choice is high virtue. Yes? It would seem to me the solution to a myriad of different tastes is to serve a smaller portion.

[108:22]

Well, there's that too, yeah. There was a restaurant over here at one point, I call Millennium that might have been, but they had so many dozens, they had just thing after thing in their dishes and it sounded on the menu like, oh, it's got squash and beans and this and that, oh, that's great, but then it was so indistinct with so many different ingredients. But it's part of style and Japanese have more of an emphasis on each ingredient separately, which is their style, and to bring out the best in that ingredient. Oh, yeah. And smaller portions means you more carefully taste. Yeah. Because you're just getting divided too. And they would all agree that they could swallow more. Yeah. Yeah.

[109:22]

You're reminding me, you know, I, after many years of Zen, I practiced Vipassana intensely for another 10 years. And in Vipassana they often have a tasting where you taste raisins. And I thought, oh, to heck with tasting raisins. Let's eat one potato chip. So I started doing the ceremony of eating just one potato chip. And Margot still, my partner Margot, still remembers this, because one of the first times I did this was at Green Gulch. It must have been 1996. I think it was 1996, because I announced, because I would do the kids' talk on Sundays. The first part of the Sunday lecture was a kids' talk for 12 or 15 minutes. So I said to the kids that day, I said, today, you know, we've been here at Green Goats for 25 years.

[110:23]

And today, and you know, we've done a lot of ceremonies during that time. And today I'd like to do with you a ceremony that we've never done here before. Okay? And the kids are going like, oh, okay. And then I said, it's the ceremony of eating just one potato chip. And Margaret's son, Palm, leapt to his feet and said, in a big voice, he's an actor. He said, you're crazy. And I said, that's why we don't do this at home. That's why it's a ceremony. And we had one 14-ounce bag of chips. We put them in those laminated wooden bowls, about six of them, and passed them around. It went around the whole zendo with chips left over. And we did the ceremony of eating just one potato chip. And we talked about, you know, mindfulness, and then you can enjoy it or not.

[111:26]

And then somebody says, suppose I don't feel like eating one potato chip. Well, you do the ceremony of not eating one potato chip. And sometimes people have the experience, I'd forgotten how delicious a potato chip is. And they like, awesome, awesome, sacred. And then other people said, well, there was a... an instant of salt and grease, and then a tasteless pulp in my mouth, and I would have thought I was missing something, except that I was so mindful of what was going on, I realized that there was nothing there in the first place. And there's nothing for me to want. So it's fascinating, you see, to taste what you put in your mouth and to... experience it as closely as you can and then you're educating yourself on what you're actually really drawn to eating.

[112:28]

And that's, you know, and then we call that practice. And it's not to eat this and not eat that, it's to, what is your experience? What touches you? What nourishes you? What brings you to light? And on the other hand, Suzuki Roshi, one of his famous stories was about eating rotten pickles. Should I tell that story? So, you know, when he was 10 or 12, he arranged to study Zen with one of his father's disciples, I think it was, or anyway, another Zen teacher. and so on. And there was a group of five or six kids, and they used to make pickles in the springtime.

[113:32]

And we were taught how to do this at Tassara. I made pickles. And you take carrots or daikon, and you have rice bran and salt, and you have a layer of rice bran and salt, and then the vegetables and rice bran and salt. And I sit for a while, and the salt draws out. moisture from the vegetable, and the bran gives it a little bit of nourishment. And one batch of pickles they were making didn't take. There wasn't enough salt or whatever happened, and they were rotten. And I know one of our batches was rotten. We threw it away. Gjokic and so on said, We eat them anyway. So he served the pickles each day, and the kids wouldn't eat them. And after a day or two of this, the young Suzuki Roshi, the later-to-be Suzuki Roshi, went at night and got the pickles.

[114:46]

the rotten pickles, and took them to the far corner of the yard and buried them. Isn't that what you do with something that is disgusting and you wouldn't want to eat? You bury it. Whether you bury it in the ground outside or the ground inside, you know, you bury things, we bury things. So the next day the pickles were back. But his teacher didn't say, you know, whether he knew who took them or not or who buried them. Pickles were back and the teacher said, we're going to be eating these pickles before we eat anything else. And Zika Rishi said, it was a very important experience in my life. It was the first time in my life, he said, I had the experience of not thinking. Because if you thought a single thing you'd have to throw up or spit it out.

[115:48]

So he said it was just chew and swallow, chew and swallow. And now we call that child abuse. That's what I was thinking. Ah, the things these ancient masters got away with. So we don't know, but... It was a very important experience for him, not thinking. It was the first time he said, the first time in my life not thinking. And so you have a direct moment of experience. But again, I'm not saying, you know, when the pickles were rotten at Tessara, we threw them out. So we have various moments of experience of... things being delicious and things being distasteful. And in the instructions for the cook, Dogen says, don't handle each ingredient sincerely.

[116:55]

And don't complain about the quality or quantity of the ingredients. Handle them sincerely and wholeheartedly. Making a sacred offering, making a sincere offering to the assembly. So we have so many experiences. So he says further, he says, if you have poor ingredients, don't be disdainful about the poor ingredients. So that's a little more gentle than you have to eat them. I mean, I've been at my friend's house, next door neighbors still to this day. And one time I was over there and they said, oh, we have nothing to eat here. And I said, and I opened the refrigerator and we made a meal of what was in the refrigerator. And including some carrots that were, you know, limp and brown.

[118:00]

And we peeled them and cut them up and cooked them. But anything that smelled like airplane glue or, you know, like was purple or green or, you know, with mold, we threw that out. We didn't say, well, we have to eat that. So, you know, you study what to do, and you're the cook. Okay, well, thank you. I think we've gone on long enough. Thank you so much for your time, and thank you for being you, studying, continuing to study how to be you, going forward from here. The work of a lifetime. Yeah, there's that.

[118:49]

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