Good evening. My name is Susan O'Connell, and I'm a Zen priest, and I am the president currently of San Francisco Zen Center. And I want to welcome you tonight to this really fortuitous event. I would love for us to be able to take credit for having planned an evening of reading of Zen women priests on International Women's Day, but we didn't plan it. These are the way things happen sometimes. They all arise together, and we have a wonderful event with women priests on International Women's Day. Tonight, you will hear from these four women who are part of the coterie that are in this book, Receiving the Marrow. I want to say that I've had the great opportunity to study with three of them that are sitting behind me.

[01:07]

And I don't know, I was wondering, is it different to... learn something, to be in a teacher-student relationship with a woman priest as opposed to a non-woman priest. And I think it is different. How is it different? I don't know. I just don't know. But I hope that you can savor what is offered to you tonight from these teachings. And I'd just like to say Soto Zen Women Priests. I'd just like to say that. Soto Zen Women Priests. Those words together are really revolutionary and important. And part, in my mind, part of the offering that Western Buddhism has made to Buddhism and to the world. I'm not going to introduce these wonderful teachers to you. Reverend Ado Frances Carney is going to do that, and she is the editor of the book, and will tell you a little bit more about how this came to be.

[02:12]

So welcome to San Francisco Zen Center, and enjoy this experience. Thank you. Good evening, everybody. First of all, thank you. Thank you, Susan. Thank you to the abbot and abbesses of Zen Center and your various temples. Thank you so much. It's a deep honor to be here, to be among the women who have been part of this book. The teachings are exemplary. They astound me. And I want to tell you how the book came about, or how I got the idea that this had to happen. So I was sitting at a dinner table with Shinshu, who is right here, Shinshu Roberts, and Shotai De La Rosa, and Joshua... Yeah, you all know these people, Joshua Pat Phelan.

[03:29]

they started talking about the challenge of how difficult it is to teach Dogen Zenji. And I listened and I listened and I was astounded because I myself had only tiptoed into teaching Dogen Zenji. As you might know, I did my training in Japan. And in Japan, you don't start to teach Dogen Zenji until you are about 70 years old. The idea is that your mind needs to mature. You have to be able to really understand the depth and have deep experience in the Dharma to be able to address the, first of all, the difficulties of the way Dogen speaks and the way he teaches. All of these are a great challenge. So I myself was only a little bit there. So I... I was silent in the conversation because Shinshu Roberts had been teaching Dogenzenji here, and she had a lot of experience with it, as did Shotai De La Rosa, who was a student of Shohaku Okamura Roshi.

[04:35]

But as they were speaking, I was listening to the brilliance that was coming out of them. And I think I stopped Shinshu in the middle of hers and what she was saying, and I said, where are your essays? Where are they published? And she said, no, no, I don't have time for that. I mean, I'm so busy teaching with all of these things. These things are not published. I said, they have to be. I said, more people have to hear this brilliance because it was so down to earth. It was so excellent in the way they were speaking. It was so understandable and so enthusiastic and so devoted to Dogen Zenji's teachings. The next day at the meeting, I announced that I was going to do this. And I put myself out in public so that I couldn't back off. And so I invited all of the Soto Zen transmitted priests in the United States to participate in this.

[05:41]

And 11 of them answered. 11 of them took up the challenge. And some had actually never written essays on Dogen, and it was their first time. And I know it was my first time to actually write an essay to participate in this. And I only did it to convince Shinshu that we had to go forward. I had to show her something to say, you're not alone. We're all in this together. We're all going to show up at the table. So we took the 11... essays, and I tried first to find a Buddhist publisher, but the response was not so great because some publishers wanted to know where are the men. I speak the truth in this. This happened. And so I thought long and hard about it and decided that we needed to go forward. We... Needed to put ourselves on the platform and not wait around forever to get this into people's hands so we created an imprint temple ground press at Olympia Zen Center where I'm the abbess and We put it out and we put it forward and I'm so glad we have and I am so honored to be among these brilliant teachers So

[07:06]

I will just read a little bit about, you know, from the beginning. As you might have read in the review that came out in Buddha Dharma this week by Stephen Hine, he does point out that this is not a feminist treatise. This is teachings by priests. And we just happen to be women. But we are also celebrating and showing gratitude for Dogen Zenji for his egalitarian approach to the Dharma, that everybody participates fully in the Dharma and equally. And imagine Dogen did that in the 13th century, daring to say such a thing at such a time when we have only dared in this century to fight for that equality. So who could not want to follow Dogen? who could not want to stand in company with him and be grateful for that.

[08:12]

So this little bit from the introduction of the book, I also want to say that the title of the book comes from the Rai Haetokuzui chapter that Myohan Grace Shearisen is going to read tonight. She is the author of that book. But Receiving the Marrow comes, the title comes from that fascicle in which Dogen demonstrates that equality. So the collection contributes to our Soto Zen literature by bringing forward seasoned voices of priest teachers in their kinship with Dogen, interpreting him as a clear dynamic and force of spirit for the 21st century. The essays are an homage to Dogen, an implicit expression of gratitude to our translators, and a tribute to women and men standing together, teaching side by side, supporting one another fully and equally in the Buddha Dharma.

[09:19]

So Dogen is so modern. He's so wonderfully modern. So I'm going to introduce, I'm not going to read from the chapter that I have, but I'm going to... introduce each of the readers today. Dogen is not easy, and so we're going to be offering you some pretty, maybe some heavy teaching, I don't know, but we'll see. So I will introduce each one as they come forward. So the first reader tonight is Myohan Grace Jill Sherison. And I want to say that her essay is acknowledged in the Buddha Dharma Review. And Steve Hine says, Grace Sheerason on Rai Hai Takuzui is a fascicle that speaks directly to the matter of women.

[10:25]

He says, Shirason looks at how Dogen asserted the authenticity of female practitioners and championed the ultimate equality of male and female perspectives and understanding of the Dharma. And she is also the founder and abbess of Empty Nest Zen Group, Modesto Valley Heartland Zen Group, and the Fresno River Zen Group. She is president of the Shogaku Zen Institute, a seminary for Zen Sangha leaders. And she is author of the book, Zen Women, Beyond Tea Ladies, Iron Maidens, and Macho Masters. She has trained in Rinzai Zen in Japan. And she is a clinical psychologist and has taught classes on Zen throughout the United States. Please welcome her. Thank you.

[11:32]

It's great to be here, and I'd like to give a little pitch. Elizabeth, where did Debo go? There you are. We have a Zen women's retreat July 18th to the 21st at Empty Nest Zendo. Not a flying leap, a flyer. I became interested in Raihai Tokuzui, which is bowing and attaining the marrow, before I became interested in Dogen. Somehow, I found out that Dogen had gone on a hellacious rant about women. And I was very excited about this, and people who know me know that a good rant is very close to my own heart. And it turned out my teacher had some of Dogen's writings, which had Raihai Tokuzui in it, some of the Shobogenzo.

[12:33]

Some has it, some have it, some do not. And he was very excited that I was interested in Dogen. But actually, I was interested in the rant. And it was such a great rant. It started out sounding like a regular Zen talk that is so important to realize the dustness and bow to it But it then went from the equality of all beings to a rant about the foolishness of ignoramuses in Japan. And I just loved it. It was like, finally, somebody said this. Wow. And it was such a great rant that 700 years later... the Soto Zen nuns in Japan were able to use that rant in coming against the Soto Zen bureaucracy and say, look, this is what Dogen said. So previously they hadn't been able to have Dharma transmission or to lead and teach in their own temples independently.

[13:35]

And they took Dogen and they said, this is what the founder of Soto Zen said. This is his rant, and they ranted about it sufficiently, and they were declared equal, I think, sometime in the 1980s. But whether that's true or not, it was very inspiring to me to know that someone like Dogen, who was bringing Zen from... back to Japan, went to China to find a more authentic version. Very much like some of us will go to Japan now and say, what are they doing there that's different? What's the heart of this? And he was able to have such an impact for so many years because of the depth of his understanding. And so to me, that's very inspiring for us today. that when we see things that are not quite right, and actually lately we've seen quite a few of those, when we find out things that are not quite right, we take a stand.

[14:36]

I know that Buddhists are a little conflict-averse. I'm a little different in that respect. in that I love a good rant. But in any case, he did this. He affected things socially over the course of many centuries, and we can too. And that's, to me, why it's so exciting to read this fascicle that was written in the 13th century. Now, when Dogen came back to Japan, he particularly was objecting to the fact that women were not allowed entry to the three most holy sites, in Japan to Mount Hiei, to Todaiji, and to Koyasan. So these were the three very large and holiest sites in Japan, and women were not allowed to set foot on those sites. And this was primarily what he was writing about when he wrote Rai Hai Tokuzui. How could people think like this if they were Buddhists and they knew about equality?

[15:37]

So I'm going to do a little bit of his rant. Although I don't have the best parts where he really cuts them out. You'll have to read Dogen for that part. And there's more ranting in our book here. Why are men special? 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, not status of a person, not gender of a person. That's my editorial. You should honor attainment of the way. Do not discriminate between men and women. This is the most wondrous principle of the Buddha way. So for Dogen, it's not a political situation. In fact, he was encountering stereotypes that have existed

[16:39]

in Buddhist cultures from the very beginning of Buddhism. And he wanted to build a community that was based on these principles, not that just taught these principles, but that actually did these principles, that actually had women who men bowed to. Now, this is a very interesting and revolutionary teaching of Dogen in that the Buddha... or it is attributed to the Buddha, that the most senior nun was to bow to the most junior monk. Now this is in the eight special rules for men and women practicing together. So the idea that a man would bow to a woman is a very revolutionary concept in Buddhism. So I'll read a little bit. Beginning with the Buddha himself, many great Buddhist teachers had to work around customs and laws of their times and cultures that placed women in the position of second-class citizens.

[17:42]

In this context, Rai Hai Tokuzui was more than simply a statement of and about equality. Dogen wanted to go further to establish an actual community based on this teaching. Without enacting his understanding of equality in his community, full and true expression of the Buddhist teaching would be compromised. Dogen's guidelines of equality for the Buddhist community directly oppose the established customs of his day. The guidelines he voiced and insisted on changed the lives of Buddhist nuns for more than 700 years and finally helped them to achieve equal status in the Soto Zen sect in 1989. To fully appreciate the powerful and courageous nature of Dogen's teachings and the long-lasting effects of Rai Hai Toksui, it is essential to understand how consistently women were excluded throughout Buddhism's history.

[18:44]

While exceptional teachers bent rules to offer women training, opportunities, and full empowerment as teachers, few Buddhist leaders clearly branded these superstitions and discriminatory practices, as Dogen did, as contrary to the true spirit and intention of Buddhism. They just worked around them. So rather than just working around these... discriminatory rules for women, Dogen directly opposed them and explained why emptiness is emptiness, Buddha nature is Buddha nature, we don't have to get any clearer than that. All of these rules, excluding women and limiting them, have no place in Buddhist practice. And Raihai Tokusui stresses the necessity of the actual rather than the conceptual inclusion of women. as foundational to Buddha's vision of human actualization.

[19:46]

So this is very important. We can do the talk, but if we don't do the walk, it's not going to happen. So this is why I all have loved Raihai Tokusui and was so delighted that we were able to include it in this book of essays. Thank you very much. One of the important reasons for doing this book is also because of these issues of trying to find women's literature in the past. It's very difficult to find spiritual texts by women. And women were not always self-empowering. And so it's very difficult to find it throughout history. So it seems to me that if we are going to really acknowledge that we are equal, then we have to come forward so that in the future, people do not look back and see discrimination during our time.

[21:03]

We are responsible not to create gender wars. So all women, please come forward. You don't have to cook every single day. There are other, you know, you don't have to hide. You can come out. We have come out and we have shown ourselves here and put ourselves forward. So there'll be other books coming. So I want to introduce the next speaker, Shosan Victoria Austin. She is also featured in this review by Stephen Hines. So I want to read what he says about her. Austen highlights the differences between male and female counterparts. Equality does not mean sameness, she suggests. Men and women may need to be treated differently when it comes to sitting practice, even if the experience of awakening knows no such differences.

[22:07]

So Shosan Victoria Austin is a Soto Zen priest in her 40th year of practice at San Francisco Zen Center and Tassajara Zen Mountain Monastery. She was Dharma transmitted by Sojin Mel Weitzman Roshi, and she is a yoga teacher and former president of San Francisco Zen Center. She has written and published articles in various... Buddhist magazines, and we are so honored to have her represented in this book. Please welcome her. The fascicle that I chose is Shinjin Gakudo, Body and Mind Study of the Way. And It's a fascicle that I've loved for a long time. And at the time that I wrote this article, Reverend Zen K. Blanche Hartman, who's sitting in front of me and I, were leading a practice period together here.

[23:21]

And that practice period was an outgrowth of one that Sue Ray Darlene Cohen and I had taught in maybe 1999 or 2000. And I strongly miss Darlene and our talks about body and mind study of the way. And I wanted to, I had always promised her that I would do part two. We had always thought of the first one that we did as part one. And we promised each other that we would do part two and not let this train of thought be broken. But then Darlene developed ovarian cancer and died. And, you know, I'll miss her forever. And her presence in my life and her ability to make very basic experiences of everyday life come into full-blown awakening mode within the Dharma.

[24:30]

And Darlene was very, very mischievous. And I could imagine her laughter when I sat down to start writing about this fascicle, which I had written about in a scholarly way for my own use before. And I woke up about six pages later and I had written a classic 60s feminist rant. A rant. And it was, you know, definite, like a fist-waving, us-and-them, let's-march kind of rant. A big one. And, you know, believe me, I remember what it was like to write them. And my first thought was, oh, I should throw this out and write something real about Dogen Senji. And so I started writing it out and then I sat in front of the computer and I couldn't write anything more.

[25:37]

And suddenly the thought came to me and it had Darlene's little smile and whisper in it. Get to that trash can and take it out and find out what it was underneath that needed to be said. And I said, no. And then I distinctly heard Darlene's voice say, get over there right now. And so this commentary is the result. So what I realized when I was writing was that, as you know, as you may know, the transmission of Zen is offered in two... main dimensions, what's called vertical transmission, which is the life-to-life, hand-to-hand, generation-to-generation, handing on of the Dharma, the bringing up, you know, kind of parent and child relationship between teacher and student that occurs generation after generation for us.

[26:54]

It's, at least for the three of us I know, it's the 92nd generation. And for Reverend Edo, what generation are you? 89. 89. Okay, so we know in our lineage papers what is this vertical dimension of transmission. Even though some of it is a story and we can't tell, some of it is... women's names that have been turned into men's names or unknown names that have been turned into names. We don't know. There is that sense of the passage through time. That's vertical transmission. And then there's horizontal transmission, hand to hand, this way. Within the context of all beings, how does the Dharma arise on this spot? Right now, here, in this body and mind. And what I realized was that It's not just a matter of Dogen Zenji saying that women's practice is genuine.

[27:56]

There are generations on generations of pain and invisibility embedded in the vertical transmission of the Dharma. And there are person upon person of pain and suffering and invisibility embedded in the horizontal expression of the Dharma. There's a legacy of pain brought on by our habits and preconceptions about you and me, us and them, male and female, racial, class, ability, habits of thought. Anyway, Darlene, for me, stands for what is it when somebody's life is so great that that it becomes timeless and becomes a pure transmission of the lamp in all possible ways. And so this essay is dedicated to her.

[29:00]

So I'll read a piece of the essay that Darlene and I had many conversations about. That is about what happens in the body and mind transmission of the way, with the body being... how we transmit the Dharma horizontally, the mind, how we transmit it vertically. Studying with the body allows us to discover a deep appreciation of how we and all beings come thus. The Buddha is called the Thus Come One. When we truly appreciate the suchness of things as they are, we understand how one thing exists with another, hand to hand, side by side, in mutual transmission of Buddha nature, appearing and responding freely, awakening everyone and everything.

[30:06]

With respect to gender, it might be useful to understand how physical and physiological differences between men and women might play out in the discernment of suchness. And I want to add that I picked men and women because it's one of the easiest ones to work with. Specifically, what is it to awaken in the body of a man? And what is it to awaken in the body of a woman? A generalization of gender-specific phenomena might help us understand some of the practice norms we encounter in studying with the body. In a man, a high center of gravity and the capacity for large muscle strength plus high reserves of oxygen give our hypothetical practitioner a talent for what I call sprint strength. He is able to take on a physical challenge. He recovers quickly and is ready for more. Because a man has a relatively narrow, tall pelvic girdle, often slightly tipped back,

[31:14]

with strong muscular support at the outer hips, the meditation instruction, push your lower back slightly forward, will produce a feeling of alertness. I'm speaking in a general way. And because he physically thrives on competition and challenge, he may experience interdependence as a relatively unknown and the experience of relationship as a vast step into a greater mystery. In contrast, our generalized woman practitioner is someone who has experienced menarch, menstruation, and perhaps pregnancy and menopause. She has faced blood and profound change as regular occurrences in her life, whether or not she and her practice environment acknowledge this. Her center of gravity is lower, her pelvis is wider and often slightly tipped forward. An instruction to raise the front of the spine would make physical sense to her.

[32:18]

Her physical strengths are endurance, fine muscle control, relatively wide peripheral vision, and good eye-hand coordination. She has relatively greater lower body flexibility, but also a tendency towards lower body tweaks and injuries. Because she is physiologically geared towards cooperation, She may experience individuality as relatively unknown and the experience of asserting her awakening as a vast step in the study of the self. So let's look at what happens in the body in Sashin, an extended meditation retreat over seven days. Through the power of concentration, many experienced practitioners, whether male or female, have the capacity to flood pain signals with bliss, and that's not part of this discussion. Our hypothetical man did not find it easy as beginner to cross his legs, but after months or years of practice, his muscles and ligaments are finally loosening up.

[33:24]

He wants to learn how to sit in full lotus, so he crosses his legs, pulls his feet close to his torso, ignoring a slight knee pain. In the first day, he finds that his body settles down, but the knee pain gets worse. By the third day, though the pain is present, if he changes posture occasionally, he can handle it. Anyway, we keep going, and then on the seventh day... He has had an experience of clarity and peace, sleepy but settled. Overall, he concludes that he has come closer to his goal of sitting in full lotus through a whole sashim. Our hypothetical woman was able to draw her legs into full lotus after a few months or years, but now her hip hurts. The knee pain and hip pain gives her a feeling of unsteadiness and doubt. She decides to study how her knees and hips function, but she gets cramps. Her period comes, it says menses in the book. Now everything aches, and so on.

[34:25]

On the sixth day, this is all over, but her physiological state has changed. She's stiffer than the first day, more concentrated. She's alternating posture. She doubts whether the schedule is good for her. She studies other people to see if they seem to be in pain. But on the whole, she cannot decide whether to go to the night sitting, but maybe not. By the end of Sesshin, she feels pretty good about the way she's learned to take care of herself. And under it all is a growing feeling of concentration and confidence in Bodhi mind. but the next day she feels hungover and cranky. Left wondering about Sashin as a physical practice, she resolves to discuss this with her teacher and other participants. Both the man's body and the woman's body are capable of sitting still. However, as in their process of studying the mind, their study of the body may take quite different routes. As previously discussed, this man's practice may be more effectively mirrored by the lineage teaching.

[35:31]

The woman's practice may be seen as resistant or lacking resolve. However, a good teacher will see and respond to the student's own study of the body. He or she will listen to the student's words and offer guidance on how to settle the body in the body, as the Buddha taught. Okay, so... Thank you. We'll come back to this in a little while. So there are two other names I want to mention before we bring on the last presenter tonight. I want to thank David Zimmerman, Sitting there, thank you so much for doing all you do and bringing this forward. Yeah.

[36:32]

Thank you very much. Yeah. And I also wanted to mention Jisha Warner's name. She was written in on the program, and some of you may have expected her to be here. She was not able to be here, but she has also a very wonderful chapter in the book, All Beings Sing the Song of Dharma. And so I'll just read the last chapter of... last paragraph, I mean, of her writing. How do we extend the realm of our true relationships, deepening our already existing but so often misunderstood connections? At the close of his essay, In Sentient Beings Speak Dharma, Dogen says, know that in sentient beings speaking Dharma is the totality of Buddha ancestors. We can open ourselves to hearing this speaking, accept it as the voices of the Buddha ancestors, and let ourselves be changed by it so that we can live with confidence in terms of the truth of this inclusive Dharma world.

[37:40]

So I encourage you to take a look at her essay also. So I want to introduce our last speaker. She is also featured in Stephen Hines' essay in his review of the book. This is a teaching, I think, that Shinshu Roberts gave here at San Francisco Zen Center, a chapter in Dogen, Uji, Time, Being, Time, that is tremendously challenging to us, but at the same time, a really interesting chapter that just lures you in and makes you understand that you're never going to understand, at least that's how I feel. But it's a spectacular chapter and a tremendous challenge. So Stephen Hines says about Shinshu Roberts in the review, in another effective essay, Shinshu Roberts...

[38:48]

explicates the notion of here and now reality expressed in the Uji being time fascicle. Dogen points out that one cannot ever think that the mistakes of the past are left behind as we charge toward the future. Because of the unity of past, present, and future, according to Dogen, there is no sense of arriving at an illusory endpoint. Rather, there is only an ongoing process of self-cultivation. So Shinshu Roberts is ordained to the Sotozen lineage of Suzuki Roshi, whom all three are tonight. She received Dharma transmission from Sojin Mel Weitzman Roshi. She holds the appointment of Kokusai Fukyoshi, teacher qualification with the administrative headquarters of Soto Zen in Japan. And I believe she is serving on the board right now of the Association of Soto Zen Buddhists.

[39:52]

She is a co-founder with Reverend Dai Jaku Kinst and teaches at Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, California. So let's welcome her. So I thought I would start out by talking about my process, studying Dogen. So first of all, can you hear me? So first of all, I'd like to say that for me, Dogen is a faith-based practice. So I initially feel that Dogen's Zenji's teachings, whether I understand them or not, are true. Okay? So I start... from there. And then the next thing that my process is about is I try to understand intellectually what it is that Dogen's saying.

[40:55]

And the way I do that mostly is by reading scholarly articles about Dogen because there isn't a lot of accessible texts on Dogen, although Shohaku Ogamora has written some wonderful things and Kategori Roshi wrote a book on Dogen that's really wonderful. So it is out there, but mostly that's my process. So I figure out what it means, what I think it means intellectually. Now part of this process is that I've noticed is I think we have a tendency to try to translate the things we don't understand into something that we do understand. So, for example, we read something, we say, oh, that's the doctrine of emptiness, right? And so we kind of put it in that category and then think that we understand it. But I think that it's really important with everything that we read, but in particular with Dogen, that we don't try to make Dogen into something that we already understand. So I go through that process. And so you can tell I'm kind of linear in the way I think about this stuff.

[41:57]

I go through this process. But finally, the point is, is that it has to be about my everyday life. Because Dogen is about our everyday life. He didn't write this as some kind of esoteric, impossible-to-understand tract to impress everybody. He wrote it because he genuinely wants us to understand something about the nature of reality that will enhance our life and enhance the lives of all beings. So I always try to come back to that place. So the part I'm going to read is the last section from my essay. So this is a quote from Dogen. Oh, and let me say before I start this that I started out studying Uji because I was teaching it to a group of people, many of you who are here. We studied once a month, Dogen, and we studied, it took, I guess, almost two years because there are 29 paragraphs in English in Dogen.

[42:58]

So we spent 29 months studying this. All right, so this paragraph is, the essential point is, this is Dogen, the essential point is, Every entire being in the entire world is each time an independent time, even while it makes a continuous series. In as much as they are being time, they are my being time. Okay, so the first sentence I'm going to do is going to require some heavy lifting, and then you can relax, okay? So the first sentence that I wrote is, we are citizens of the being time of all being time, and the being time of all being time is citizens of us. You got that? Okay. I use the word citizen because it denotes the shared activity and responsibility we share with all beings for this world.

[43:59]

In Shobogenzo Gyoji, which means continuous practice, Dogen writes, Because of this continuous practice, there are sun, moon, and stars. Because of this continuous practice, there are earth, sky, and heart within and body without. Conditional arising is continuous practice. The time when continuous practice is manifested is what we call now. This is another aspect of the essential point of being time. When my being time is the shared being time of all being, we enter the territory of shared reality and responsibility. My continuous practice and the continuous practice of all beings are not different, just as my being time and the being time of all being are not different. In Gyoji, Busho, and Uji, among other fascicles, Dogen unites realized activity and being time as one unit

[45:01]

of actualization. We and all beings make the world. We cannot escape the inner penetrating effects of our activity which resides in the now of our being time. Realizing this interlocking and interconnected simultaneity of activity, responsibility, and being within the context of the present moment is the essential point. We are not separate from the simultaneity of arising being times. To see the world only from the side of your needs and your desires is delusional. But when we can allow everything to come forward in the moment and present itself to us and to actually see it, standing on the mountaintop, having a view, that is realization. Yet we cannot get trapped in trying to manipulate and force this actualization. We don't always know what is happening. Again, quoting from Gyoji, when the continuous practice which manifests itself is truly continuous practice, you may be unaware of what circumstances are behind it.

[46:09]

We can only present our understanding as it arises within the context of our present circumstances. How we respond is often spontaneous. Our practice is to focus on the immediate awareness of our life. In this way, we can truly look at our circumstances and the circumstances of others. And I'll say here, one of my favorite examples is driving your car. So we don't often think of Dogen in relationship to driving. But if you think about it, driving is an activity in which we are engaged in the continuous practice of all the other beings, our own continuous practice, and the continuous practice of all beings at the moment that we are driving. If you think of it as like this great matrix happening all over the city of everyone driving simultaneously, this is the continuous practice of driving. If you don't stop at a stoplight, if somebody else doesn't stop at a stoplight, if somebody pulls in front of you, all those things that happen, right?

[47:12]

All of that stuff is one great thing that's happening simultaneously. You can't see all of it. You can't understand all of it. But you know what your part of it is. You know when you're annoyed. You know when you're happy about it. You know when you're following the rules. You know when you're breaking the rules. All of those things that are going on is a kind of continuous practice. And it requires you to totally be present for that moment of driving your car, which includes presencing for every moment of everyone who's driving their car simultaneously with you driving yours. This is the being time of driving your car. So we like to think of this as being something really esoteric and difficult to understand, but actually it is our everyday life. So this is the last paragraph of my piece here. We enact this teaching by realizing our shared continuous practice with others and our skillful response is not hindered by problems. We can only do this practice within the present moment.

[48:14]

We use the past as a source of learning, not as a way to reify our position. We use the future as possibility, not as a fixed notion of success or failure. Each moment is a fresh moment that we can enact to the best of our ability. Each moment is another birth of continuous practice. This is our being time. This is the shared being time between us and all beings. Again, this is not abstract. It must be enacted while we wait in line at the supermarket, our drive to work. We do not need extraordinary circumstances to actualize our realization right now. We cannot waste a moment. Thank you. Let's talk. So let's have some talk and some engagement here.

[49:17]

Ask anything you want of any of the speakers. Maybe you want to teach on Uji. Maybe you have some... Or on Raihai Tokuzui. It's really wonderful to hear these teachings and to come to this moment, come to this being time when all of this actually, we actually did it. We got the work done. So maybe you have some thoughts. Any kind. Doesn't even have to be about this. I don't know if you remember the poet William Stafford. Stafford was a poetry teacher. He taught up in Portland. And he felt that if he asked a question, the students were responsible for the answer. And his goal was to get up to 15 minutes to wait for the students to answer. And as a classroom teacher, I got up to seven minutes waiting.

[50:18]

And then these students evaluated me and bad evaluation saying, she allows silence in the classroom. So here we go. Is this on? I have a question for you. So what I would like to know is, do you think that you are a realized Buddha at this moment? Or how about this? You know, when I was here, everybody would say, well, you go down to the Zendo when you're sitting, you are Buddha. So are you Buddha? Come on. I know you've thought about this. Everybody's Buddha. Are we Buddha all the time? No. Use the microphone. Are you realized? Well, you know, Dogen says in Boucho, he says the time right now, if the time arrives... is the time right now. And he's talking about Buddha nature.

[51:19]

So if the time arrives, do we have to wait for the time to arrive? I don't know the answer to that, but I do want to ask you something. May I? I was just trying to get a rise out of you, so please. I'm just wondering what other women find are challenges particular to women living in the Zen community and trying to uphold Zen teaching? I think that all of us could answer this. So... For me, one of the most difficult things is, and I don't know, I don't think that this is as true now as it was when I began, but I think it was the lack of reflection of my way of being that was one of the most isolating things.

[52:27]

Also the fact, and in part it was that over the course of Buddhist history and practice, Many women have received Dharma transmission, but their lineages have not continued for political reasons and reasons of thought, of how people think and how people are. And so I felt like I was carrying a shadow of not being okay. And that personally was extremely difficult. But there are other things like... For instance, I heard from our friend Diane Banage. Diane was a... She studied ballet, and she was a performer. She was an artist. And she went to Japan and became interested in Zen, became ordained and started training as a nun.

[53:33]

And at that time, and until... sometime in the mid-70s, women's temples, women's training temples were not funded. So many women in her temple had malnutrition. And she became very ill and almost died. So just at a very basic level in the history of Buddhism, there are things that seem unquestioned or simple, like... following certain rules and not being funded and that sort of thing. When I was at the, I think Blanche and I were both there, and I think that several of us were there at one of the Western Buddhist teachers' meetings many years ago. And there was a section of monastics, and so I went to be with the monastics. And as you know, we are 16 precepts. monastics and ordained people here and the usual the monastic all over the world the men receive 250 vows and the women receive over 350 vows and so not only was it difficult to get people to take us seriously as a monastic but it was also extremely hot at our little meeting and because of the rules

[55:01]

The men were wearing sleeveless garments and the women were wearing long-sleeved garments. The men could speak and the women had to defer. And I'm not saying that there was no reason for this. But I am saying that I found it extremely difficult at a personal and at a practice level to be in that space with those people. And that, for me, it was one of the reasons that I didn't ordain in that tradition. Anyway, that's a long answer to a short question. But the unconscious privilege and the discomfort of being in the shadow are some of the most difficult things for me. I'm going to rant on something in the same area, which is we have yet to define what leadership looks like in a woman.

[56:02]

The spectrum of qualities is so narrow that it does not exist. Either she's too aggressive or she's too emotional and there's very little in between. And particularly in the Zen tradition, I think being strong and silent has a lot of clout. And I don't think many women do that very well. I know I don't. So I think that the notion of women's leadership and the respect for women's leadership is yet to come into its own power. We don't know what it looks like. And when women are themselves, there's always something wrong with them. in the eyes of the community. If they take power, it's aggressive.

[57:06]

If they don't take power, they're too wishy-washy. But there's really very little space for them to lead as a person. And if you look in a more worldly realm, you see this among female politicians, that it's very hard for them to have a leadership position that is acknowledged as strength, there's always something wrong. So I would only add to that that there are so many hidden gender challenges that come from women to women that are really difficult that we don't spot. we don't see right away and we don't understand what the undercurrents are of some of the difficulties we run into as women teachers. And so it's endlessly challenging. And I can't think of anything more difficult than to be a Zen teacher.

[58:10]

It's the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. I would like to relate an encouraging anecdote about gender roles at San Francisco Zen Center and my experience. Years ago, when there was a male Eno, I was probably in about 1999 or 2000, and I was relatively new to residential practice, I noticed in looking around the doanrio and all of the temple jobs that everyone who was resident in this building had to do, that there seemed to be a really strong gender imbalance in the way the roles were assigned. And I was so struck by it that being a kind of geek by nature, I did a little statistical analysis. And I saw and documented quite clearly that 80% of the roles that were front and center and some kind of active, recognized position like Kokyo, Doan, things like that,

[59:16]

were held by males, and 80% of the behind-the-scenes cleaning up after things roles were held by females. And I was naturally outraged by this. And to the credit of the male Eno, I wrote this all out in longhand on a legal pad, showing my calculations and who was doing what and how I classified the positions and so on. And I just wrote, is this your intention? And he immediately shifted things around to make them more equitable. And I think that that is about as much as we can expect of people to see with clarity how things are and say, is this my intention? No. Therefore, I should change it. OK, I will. And it was clearly dependent on your noticing and speaking out. I was so delighted to find the book, and I've already downloaded it and started on it.

[60:21]

But I don't think any of us were expecting to have an opportunity to speak, and so I haven't been formulating questions. I've just been letting it soak in. I'm just so delighted at all these ideas, and I don't have anything more substantive to say than that, except thank you. I want to appreciate all of you for your writing and teaching and for this book. I think there's a real change happening in American Buddhism. More and more women are writing, and there are so many women now who are heads of temples all around the country, including here. We have... two abbesses who are women right now, and Leslie James, who's our senior Dharma teacher at Tassajara. And when I first came to Zen Center, there were some women role models and teachers, but there are so many more now.

[61:29]

And I feel very encouraged by that, and I think that it's probably very encouraging to people coming into Zen Center now who are women. And exciting that more women are writing. It's like almost... since this is International Women's Day, it feels like there's a women's movement. Although, you know, I heard and I know, maybe I can't remember when it was, there were more gatherings of women in Buddhism. Aside from the one happening in Sakyadita, there were American women in Buddhism getting together and encouraging one another. And I don't see that happening now. And I'm wondering if you have any ideas about why that is happening. I know there's the gathering at Empty Nest, but there were big ones, you know, women from many different schools. Oh, you know, one of the, historically, anytime women have come forward, they've always been pushed back.

[62:32]

I mean, I think that that is happening politically today, that women are being pushed back. And perhaps we're a little complacent about how far we got. Certainly, our younger women have no idea of what we came through, what I came through. I was born in 1940. So they have no idea of the challenges we faced in the workplace. I had three possibilities in my life when I graduated from high school. I could become a nun, a nurse, well, four, a teacher or a secretary. That was all. And so we've come a long way. But as Reverend Martin Luther King says, that the challenges of oppression have to be fought by every generation. And I think that we are being pushed back now. And we think we've come to a certain place and we haven't. And so, Tova, that is what I would say, that we've become complacent.

[63:38]

We think we don't need to. I mean, certainly when I tried to put this book forward into the Buddhist publishers, they didn't want to see a book by all women. But I know that there are plenty of books put out with all men, and nobody thinks twice about that. But anyway, that's my take on it, is that we think we don't have to. I think I agree with that. I think that... Come on, baby. I agree with what Reverend A. Dosan said. I feel that to a certain extent some women are bored with the idea that we need to talk about our practice as women. They see women leaders and so on. It's kind of old. There's this kind of pullback

[64:41]

On the feminist movement, we don't want to burn our bras and we don't want to look unglamorous. There's a kind of a pullback of you don't sound very interesting to us. We're having fun. So I think there's some of that there. But I'm also interested in the experience that women have when they see other women in positions and how encouraging that is. That's a question I have because it made all the difference. for my continuing in the practice to see Blanche and to have a close relationship with Maylee Scott at Berkeley Zen Center. Otherwise, I would not have continued to practice. So I just wonder whether it does have an impact on women. Well, I would like to talk a little bit about the fatigue that comes from working with the shadow that I described before. It's not that I think that... I don't think that we're conscious of it or have to literally deal with it every moment of the day, but there are those times that we do have to deal with it, and there's a cumulative effect.

[65:56]

So I'm thinking in particular about one woman who came to a position of leadership, and she had a collaborative style. And the... in the meetings that I was privy to was that she wasn't a very good leader but the fact was that this woman had a wonderful collaborative leadership style in which she listened to a wide variety of people before making her decision and that this was seen as weakness and I know that she at that time felt or talked about emotional exhaustion with dealing with the impact of being slightly, not overtly, but slightly negatively perceived in a lot of the situations that she was in that were already tension-filled situations because of her leadership role.

[67:03]

So I think Sometimes we have fatigue. It's like compassion fatigue for ourselves. Or as a community, compassion fatigue for a particular group of people that's been marginalized. And also sometimes we're willing to go a certain amount of the distance, but then when the needs of another traditionally marginalized group become apparent, that becomes more part of our consciousness. There are so many people who are traditionally marginalized. And I think that we're running around putting out fires for one group and for another group and for another group because we're only starting to realize the importance and beauty of difference and how the dissonances of difference are creative ones that we need to work with to live.

[68:05]

So I think part of it is fatigue. And I think that if we talk about boredom or complacency, we have to realize that there's an element of aversion or rejection when we speak about boredom or complacency. There's an element of no. And where does that no come from physically and physiologically? I think it comes from a sense of almost compassion fatigue, sometimes. Anyway, I think that we can meet together and practice together as women. Actually, I was talking with a man the other day, and he was in a yoga class, and he said, no, women showed up, and we had a men's class. It was so great. And I like... mixed classes, but it was so great just to have a group of men practicing together. There was just something so refreshing about that.

[69:09]

So I think we can do that. No, I... Everything that everybody has said, I completely agree with. I grew up in the 70s during the women's movement. I'm also a lesbian. So I would say that that, from a political point of view, was my primary focus growing up. But on the other hand, if it weren't for the women's movement, I would not have been able to come out. I saw this program on PBS recently. I don't know if you saw it, which was on the women's movement, which was a fascinating program. And unfortunately, it looks like things are going backwards, not too encouraging. Roe v. Wade, et cetera. But I must admit that when it comes to my personal life and the problems that I may or may not have, I don't normally associate them with my gender or my sexual preferences or sexuality.

[70:11]

I associate them just with me. This is me dealing with whatever obstacles are coming up or not. So I'm sort of sitting here listening to this thinking I don't have any really kind of snappy... feminist response to what's going on. But I do think that it's a very important issue. I agree. It's a very important issue. And it's important for us to pay attention to this for anyone who's discriminated against, regardless of their sexual preference or whatever their sex is or the country they're from or any situation that you can think of. That, to me, is what our practice is when we talk about coming forward and being present for all being about our compassion and wisdom. This is what the doctrine of emptiness is, is this non-duality, which is essentially that we are all the same and that we practice from that point of view with each other and that we always try to mirror this lack of discrimination, whatever it may be.

[71:17]

And yet at the same time, that includes pointing out when you see that situation arise. So I'm not saying that we shouldn't come forward and say something because we should. In a skillful way, of course. Unless, of course, it doesn't work. And then we act up. So I have this theory about the very, very earliest days of Buddhism and a resistance to women wholeheartedly embracing leaving home and monastic practice because it was perceived as a threat to society, right, because of women's roles in childbearing and childrearing. And I wonder to what extent you all, I saw some heads nodding, to what extent you all might feel that there is still a shadow of that for women personally, but also in general in American society, in Western society.

[72:18]

And a corollary to that is whether there is a a potential benefit for women monastics to practice together. So just as much fun having an all women's yoga class, for example. I do think that there's some concern that women fulfill their function, not just in producing babies, but taking care of others. And that's why you see many women in the background or why we're finding out that women thought it was their job to be available sexually to a teacher because this has been traditional woman's work. So I think that that shadow goes on today in Buddhism and we're just shining some light on it. And that's also a difficulty for women because that's not an uncomfortable place to be.

[73:25]

for many women to be taking care of others. In fact, I think in certain ways, it's a primary delusion for women who come to practice, that they come to practice and wish to ingratiate with people that they're practicing with, play up to the people in power, men or women, and I think they need to be busted for it. And I think it's a different delusion that men bring to practice, which is, I'm going to be the best at this. And women are. I'm going to be the best liked at this. And that's how they get lost. So I think it still plays out in that way. But there was a second part of your question, too. Well, I was just going to say that certainly in my early years, throughout the time I was growing up, in my early years here, I was quite a militant feminist.

[74:46]

But, you know, my experience has not been... that I was... You talked about whatever we do is wrong. I feel that I've been treated with a lot of respect. And I really appreciate that. And I also think that I've learned a lot about learning how to... stand my ground without being contentious about it. I really do appreciate harmony in the sangha. And one of the great events of my life was going to Japan with a whole group of women. Because

[75:49]

Hall Disco didn't think that it would be alright for us to have a mixed group of men and women go over and practice at Rinso Inn. So I said, well then can I take a group of women? He checked with Suzuki Roshi's son and he said, yeah. That was a great event for me and I've made some lifelong friends from that occasion. But none of it has been for me the kind of us against them energy that I used to have on feminist issues 40 years ago. It's been very different. And the more I can move in the direction of let's do this together with men, the better I feel about it.

[77:01]

Well, that's a realized point of view. And so let's expand that a little bit and talk about in a world in which everybody feels... respected? Is there a place for a nun's group to study or a women's group to study the way? And I think there is. I think there's room for each group to study. A long time ago when I guess I was Tonto at Green Gulch there were a lot of women asking well let's have a women's sitting and I thought, why? But they wanted it, so we did it. And as soon as we got together, for example, we sat in a circle. We didn't talk about it. That's the way we arranged ourselves.

[78:07]

And it's not the usual way that we do things. There's usually somebody up front, and everybody is facing the somebody up front. And as the day went on, I realized, oh, I understand now why we should have a women's sitting. Because it's different. Yeah, and oddly enough, our women's sitting also sat in a circle. And we did the Avalokiteshvara chants and the Tara visualizations. And I wonder whether your women's group, Tova, did the same thing. So you did a one-day women's sitting in. You sat in a circle facing in. And we didn't talk to each other. Just saying. So I just wanted to say something about the question of leaving home. Home leaving. I was ordained when my children were still fairly young.

[79:11]

And so I... remained in hiding and waited until my children went off into the world on their own before I came forward publicly to live that way. But you know, now I have two grandchildren, and I think I'm still working with leaving home because I want to be near them. And this is a difficult matter. So I think it's not something you do just once. I think you're always finding where that balance point of leaving home is. And maybe we never leave home. Or maybe home is just being me and there is no other place to go. I mean, I don't know. But I don't feel as though... I can just put myself in a certain place and live the Dharma without keeping that connection as a woman, as a mother, as a grandmother.

[80:14]

It's a big challenge, I think. And maybe it's because I was a mother when I ordained. So I will never leave my children. And I agree that it's part of... hero's journey in a certain way to have a family and to leave home and that's expected and it's not so expected nor is it as desirable for women who and even though I wrote about many women in my books and women the pattern of staying connected to family life was consistently a part of the story of the nuns and they didn't talk to each other either about what they did so it's It's something when we were in Japan, and I was in Japan with Blanche, and we went to Shindu Aoyama's temple and spoke to her nuns. The first question they had for us, seeing us in robes, was, can you have children as nuns?

[81:19]

This is a big part of life. And we need to find some accommodation to continue our practice. Well, just one little... I wanted to put in a plug here for Paula Arai, who wrote a book just recently called Women Living Zen. The new book is what? Do you remember the title of it? Zen at Home? Zen at Home, maybe? Anyway, it is a wonderful book about... Japanese women who are mostly in their 40s to their 60s and wisdom on every page and they all are practicing Soto Zen. And Grace is going to look it up on her smartphone. Yeah, so I lived in Japan five years and my daughters, I have three children, two daughters, one son.

[82:21]

My daughters came to visit me in the training temple where I was. And I realized in some conversations we had or as I introduced them, I introduced them as people I had known before and things that they were doing. And my eldest daughter looked and she says, you don't know me. And it was very stunning because there wasn't exactly a sense of abandonment, but I didn't know her was the truth. But, you know, I'll just finish with a little funny story, though. So the youngest daughter, she's a photographer, so she was photographing everything, and she went back to her job at this photography place where she worked, where she was a photography editor, and everybody knew she had gone to Japan to see her mother. And so she showed them this group picture of, I was there with all of the monks that I was training with, and they said, yeah, but where's your mother? And she said... Oh, she's that little bald-headed man in the front row. So they get through.

[83:25]

I mean, we all get through it somehow. But I don't think it's easy. I don't think it's easy for anyone. And I think it's hard for fathers, for dads, for the leaving home piece. That's not only a woman's issue once you've had children. Okay, the book by Paula Rye is called Bringing Zen Home. Great. But I think we have to finish. I actually just want to mention one thing about there's a musical that's been in Berkeley called The Fourth Messenger, which is the premise is If the Buddha Were a Woman. And the two things that it turns on, the two differences are that the fourth messenger, instead of being a monk, seeing old age, sickness, death, and then a monk, the fourth messenger is having the baby. The child, the innocence of the child is what turns her out to leave home to go and help the world. And then the final temptation of Mara is the regret for having left the child.

[84:32]

So it's a very powerful and fun musical, but it speaks to some of those things that you were just saying. So thank you all very, very much for coming and sharing. your writing and yourself and your teachings and your rants and everything. So there are a few minutes left for you to go and buy a book and have them signed if you would like to do that. And if a few people could maybe help put the dining room back together, those of you who know how that works, thank you very much.

[85:07]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_97.55