Good morning. This is the first Saturday in the fall of 2021. And it's good to see you here today. Before I formally start the talk. make two announcements. First is to welcome, to congratulate Kelsey and Ben Churlin and to welcome their new daughter Lyra Evelyn Churlin, who was born on the 20th of September. weighing in at eight pounds and some of you saw the photos the wonderful photos on listserv and we congratulate them we look forward to seeing them and and meeting the baby and having uh lira in our lives for some years to come

[01:26]

Mazel tov as they say in Japanese The second announcement is Blake I actually sent you a an email because I couldn't seem to post this text in the chat Saturday Actually next Saturday the speaker will be Laurie Sinaki who will have completed her Dharma transmission, she's going to speak about that event and that process. Then at one o'clock, BZC is one of the co-sponsors of Buddhist Global Relief's annual walk against hunger. This is going to be a, again, this year, a digital walk against hunger. It's a wonderful event.

[02:32]

I really invite you to participate, to come to the online occasion. And there'll be speakers and children from Shrasta Abbey. And let's see. Reverend Kuahara from the Berkeley Buddhist temple, Ayadhamadipa, who some of us know as Conan Cardenas, the Sanaya Buddhist community, and Karma Lecture Tzomo from Sakyadita. All of us will give very short presentations. support and celebrate the Buddhist global relief which does great work all around all around the world with a commitment to relieving hunger wherever they can so uh you can attend that also if you click on the link uh really encourage make a donation of any amount and this is a fundraising event

[03:55]

So please consider what you're able to give. So the subject for today is actually the robe and the occasion for it, the Buddhist robe, the Buddha's robe. And the occasion for it is that beginning a week or so at the start of aspects of practice, in the morning periods, we're going to reintroduce a robe chant every day. And then we will continue that as we always did in the past. So I wanted to give you some context. And then I wanted to introduce the version of the rope chant that we're going to do going forward.

[05:01]

And maybe we can share it together. Hosan, is that your mic? Raise a thumbs up if the sound is a little bit weird for you. Yeah, check your mic perhaps, Hozon. It seems to have gone away now. I'll give you a thumbs up if it's good. Let me see here. Is it loud? Is it distorted? What's the deal? It was perhaps ephemeral, so it's gone now. Everything's okay. I'll chime in if you don't mind if it goes awry again. I don't mind. Let me make sure I'm on the, yeah, I'm on the right handbook. Okay, so Dogen Zenji wrote two fascicles about the yokesa, the rope.

[06:03]

One of them is called, the merit of the rope. And the other is called, transmitting, Kesa Dene, transmitting the rope. So in Kesa Kudoku, there's a section. While I was in Song, China, doing my training on the long platform in the meditation hall, I saw that every morning after the striking of the wake-up blocks, the monks on... would raise their folded kesa in a gesture of offering, and they'd place it on their head and respectfully make gajo and recite a verse. At that time, there arose a feeling that I had never before experienced.

[07:12]

My body was overwhelmed with joy. Tears of gratitude secretly fell and soaked my lapels. Seeing this done before my very eyes, I was overjoyed. It's a really beautiful passage. So Dogen had not seen this practice in Japan. And from my experience, I haven't seen it in any other Buddhist tradition than Soto. In the Rinzai tradition where Genpo is practicing and where I've practiced, we didn't do a rogue chant. I talked to Dhammadipa.

[08:18]

who's a Theravada nun, and they don't have a rope chant. But Dogen brought this practice back to Japan from China almost 800 years ago. And for 800 years, practitioners in Soto Zen temples have done a verse, opening the rope every morning. So as we begin aspects of practice, we will again do the rope chant, put on our rock sues and our ocases, and open our ropes at the start of every day. We'll do this because we have a 6 a.m., because there's some people who are sitting at 6 a.m., and the bulk of people are sitting at 7.30 right now. We'll do that in both.

[09:20]

So even if you do not have a physical robe, please guys show during the chant, which honors the invisible robe that each of us wears. We'll talk more about that in a little while. Just checking, is this sound okay? Is it? Yes? Okay, good. So since it's been many months of pandemic when we haven't been chanting, I took this opportunity to introduce a version of the robe chant that's slightly different than the one that we have chanted. It seems to be a slightly more accurate translation that was developed by the Soto Zen text translation project.

[10:30]

And most of the temples I've been in here are using this. And it's something that I discussed with Sojin Roshi some years ago. And we both agreed that since we were doing the chant, was in place for all these years, it didn't make sense to just change it abruptly. But since we're reintroducing it, I thought I would take the time to share this with you now. And there it is in the text, in the chat. You can see it. So let's just take a moment and collect yourself. And then I will lead the chant, and please chant it along to yourself, still muted, so that we don't have cacophony, but you'll have a chance to place it in your body.

[11:37]

Great robe of liberation. Field far beyond form and emptiness. Wearing the Tathagata's teaching. Saving all beings. Great robe of liberation, field far beyond form and emptiness, wearing the Tathagata's teaching, saving all beings. So we chant this and then we put on our rakasu or our okesa.

[12:56]

I love wearing the robe. Whether it's the okesa or the rakasu. These are both ordination robes. Usually the... Oquesa is made up of seven scripts, pieces, and the Rakasu is made of five. The Rakasu, the source of it is a little obscure, but the general supposition is that Rakusus were created during a period of Buddhist repression in China when the state was trying to suppress.

[14:07]

And so monks and nuns were not allowed to wear their full visible robes. And so they created this other small garment that they wore under their clothes. What we wear, if we're going to a Buddhist event, at Sogenji, where Genpo was, Most of the day, you would put your okesa on for service in the morning. But for daily events, you would wear your rakasu. It's a less cumbersome cloth, but it is still Buddha's robe.

[15:13]

So we have ordination ceremonies where the robe is given. Generally, in our tradition, each of us robe. And all of you who've been through lay ordination, receiving the precepts, you also receive the robe. And though you have sewn it, you've sewn it, you give it to the preceptor or your teacher, and that teacher gives it back to you as a correct transmission. We have several robe-giving ceremonies. Lay ordination, which we also call Jukai.

[16:22]

Jukai means receiving the precepts. And we will have first Jukai in two years on November 6th, I believe. So it'll be during aspects of practice. And four people will receive their Raksus. And you also receive a Dharma name and a lineage paper during that ceremony. We sow the rocks to ourselves. We also sow our full okesa for priest ordination. And we should receive that okesa. And then there are other occasions in which you might receive a raksu and or a robe.

[17:23]

We have shuso ceremony where generally there's a that's given to the shuso or the head student. There's lay entrustment in which mature students who really have the capacity to do Dharma, are given a green rock suit. And then at Dharma transmission, you receive a brown okesa. So we have these different colors. But they all are Buddha's robe. There's no difference. between them because they represent the same thing. Now, I'll say a little more about what that is and what the meaning of the rope chain implies.

[18:29]

So we have these different colors, but all the ropes are constructed in the form of a rice field. Okamura Rishi talks about this in a section on the robe in Living by Val. He says, One day the Buddha, walking in the countryside with his attendant Ananda, noticed the beautiful patterns of rice, truly planted with green seedlings and surrounded by footpaths. The Buddha remarked to Ananda, These are so beautiful. Could you make a robe like this? Ananda agreed. So the Buddha conceived the pattern and Ananda created the design. Another story about this, which comes from Vinaya text, says basically the same thing.

[19:43]

On his way home from Rajagala to the southern hills, he said to the venerable Ananda, his attendant, do you see the land of Magadha laid out in squares, laid out in strips, laid out in borders, laid out with cross lines? Yes, Lord. Try to arrange robes like that, Ananda. And one of the reasons that they did that, that they designed a robe, was because All of mendicants wore robes. And what Buddha wanted to do was have one that was identifiably connected with our practice and wasn't necessarily going to be confusing to other people. So that's, as I said,

[20:49]

The rakasu is constructed of five roves, and the ocasi is constructed of seven or nine. There's a wonderful section that I found from a lecture by Suzuki Roshi, and this speaks to the broader context, I think. The reason Dogen refers to many kinds of roves, is that the robe should always be with you. The robe is not some special thing you put on. That's the wrong idea. It is something you have always with you. Like the third ancestor in India's robe, that's Sanavasa or Shonavaju. Ancestor in India's robe.

[21:51]

He was born with the robe, so it was not possible for him to take it off. His skin was already his robe. That's pretty interesting. I've tried to track that one down. I haven't found it yet, but I'm going to keep looking. So the thing is, when we put on the robe, It should replace our ego. Our ego is often the where without thinking about it. So ego, when it's replaced by the robe, means ego is replaced by vow. And vow is a field. Vow is the path of liberation.

[22:53]

Vow is beyond. Vow is formless or boundless beyond form and emptiness. It's a really wonderful story that I'd heard from several sources. I think it's in one of David Chadwick's books. Part of it is the first part. The second part is really interesting. So I remembered this story, and I found it in Searching Around in that Okamura Roshi wrote. So he says, I think it was in the early 1960s, according to Mel's story, to Sojin's story. So at Sakoji, they sat every morning and chanted the rope chant. After, they sat every morning, I'm sorry, they sat every morning and did zazen.

[23:56]

But after morning zazen, they chanted this strange verse in Japanese. So no American understood what this means. Mel White said, Roshi, what is this chant after morning zazen? Mel said, Kateguri Roshi started to find... a translation of the rope chant, but somehow he couldn't find it. So probably they didn't even have an English translation. Sojan said Suzuki Roshi came up to him and pointed to his heart and said, love. Love. Mel was really impressed with this answer. It was wonderful. Heart, love. In 1999, there was a symposium at Stanford University to celebrate the 800th anniversary of Dogen's birth.

[25:02]

Sojin told this story at the symposium. In that session, Professor Carl Bielfeldt, a Dogen scholar who had been very close to Suzuki Roshi, asked me, asked Okamura Roshi, How do Japanese people pronounce robe? Robe is R-O-B-E, and love is L-O-V-E. In Japan, we have no distinction between the L sound and the R sound, and the B sound and the V sound. Japanese pronouncing robe and love is very difficult. I still can't do it correctly. Carl guessed that Suzuki Roshi pointed to his rakasu and said, robe.

[26:07]

It's very difficult, this is Okamura. It's very difficult to translate. or transmit something important and subtle and deep from one culture to another culture. So I'm not sure whether this is a misunderstanding or not. This was just Carl's guess. Maybe Suzuki Roshi really said love, but that's okay. It's a positive and creative misunderstanding. Because it is a heart-to-heart transmission, the transmission from Suzuki Roshi to Sojin, the transmission that is received by each of us when we receive the robe, because it is a heart-to-heart transmission, it's wonderful. So what was Suzuki Roshi saying?

[27:17]

Was it love? Was it Robe? I don't think it really matters. What matters is heart-to-heart transmission. That is, what we are affirming when we read this verse, Great Robe of Liberation, feel far beyond form and emptiness, wearing the Tathagata's teaching, For me, what I often say about these ordinations, all ceremonies are about receiving the precepts. They're about receiving the precepts from someone who has been

[28:18]

who has received it according to a correct transmission and is transmitting it to us according to a correct transmission. So the way I have taken this is that receiving the precepts, putting on the role for the first time, there's something transformative about it. There's something that changes us even though we may not know exactly what it is yet. And in fact, because it's boundless, we may never know exactly what it is. It's me of what I felt when I got married the first time. I felt that something that happened, something was different, but I didn't.

[29:27]

And I think that's the way, that's what I feel about these ordinations. And I've always felt them, you know, I think that our first lay ordination, spring of 1985, This was after Sojin Roshi had received Dharma transmission from Kowitsu Suzuki in Japan. And he came back, and there was a group of people who had been practicing for quite a while, and he did ordination. And I remember watching that, and as each person received their rakasu, received their lineage paper and their new name i felt like doge tears just flowing from my eyes i feel that even now as i'm trying to talk about it and i felt that at every ceremony that i've attended of that sort since then

[30:46]

Consciously or not, we're witnessing a moment of transformation for the ordinary. Something that's very, very difficult for them to give back. And that's the way I feel about the robe. Once the robe is put on, the essence of it can never be removed. And so it's really important to remember that. It's important to remember that when we are moving about in our so-called everyday life, And we're not wearing our rakasu or our okesa. But we are.

[32:02]

Because it's our skin. The robe becomes our skin. And we can't take it off. There's not like a time out. So to look at the verse, before I open for questions, this great robe of liberation, that's a translation. So dai means great. Sa is just kind of an exclamation point, like great.

[33:04]

Ge means free or unhindered. And cuckoo is a word for clothes. So it's the, you know, the great clothes. So our relationship with this is not just a relationship to the role, but it's also how we relate to our lives. And then it goes on. There are two other descriptors of the rope. The next line is, mu so fukudene.

[34:11]

Mu means nothing. But it also has been interpreted as all-inclusive. as everything, as boundlessness. When we say nothing, we mean Mu is not a thing. Does dog have the Buddha nature? Mu. The dog is the Buddha nature. It doesn't have something. The robe that we wear is who we are. Fuku means merit or blessings or virtue.

[35:23]

So really, It modifies the next word. Den means rice field. So it's like the virtuous rice field that is the virtuous boundless rice field. That is the robe. A is robe. The wearing, the clothing is the virtuous, is the field of virtue, which is a rice field. It's boundless or it's formless. Then the last line, or the next last line, he is,

[36:27]

Bu is wear. So unfolding and wearing. And Nyorai is the Tathagata. And Kyo is teaching. Like the Enmei Juku Kanan. Gyo, Kyo and Gyo, the same word, teaching. Thus, the Tathagata's teaching. And then the last line is Kodo Shujo. Kodo means to save widely. Sho means various. Shu means And Joe means alive or sentient.

[37:35]

So. Saving. All the various sentient beings. So just looking. Useful to look at the. The Japanese. that we use to translate this. But I think that we can return to this questionable exchange between Sojin and Suzuki Roshi and just accept Whether he said robe or love, robe and love are the same thing.

[38:36]

And when we come to this practice, this is why I encourage everybody to put their hands in kasho and do the robe chant because whether you have directly been given an object called the robe, doing the chant, putting on our invisible robe. We're taking this vow and we're allowing ourselves to be transformed. One of the things that I learned from Sojin Roshi when I spoke to him many years ago about wishing to be ordained as priest, what he said was, he didn't say yes.

[39:46]

I had to ask him a few times, which is not unusual. But what he did say was, I want you to practice as a priest. So if you're thinking about priest ordination or lay ordination, start living that way now. Just live that way. Then when those ordinations may occur, There's no surprise because, first of all, people will already have seen you practicing that way. And what they'll see is not some new revelation but confirmation pretty apparent. And not only will others see you that way, you can see yourself that way.

[40:57]

I think I'm going to open for questions and answers, but let's chant the robe chant together one more time. Great robe of liberation, filled far beyond form and emptiness, wearing the Tathagata's teaching, Fuku Musa Fuku Dene Ibu Nyoraikyo Kodo Shoshujo Great Robe of Liberation Filled far beyond form and emptiness Wearing the Tathagata's teaching Saving all beings So thank you, and I'll hand off the facilitation to Blake.

[42:10]

Here we are again. You know the ritual. I ask that you be direct in my humble request. Please be brief, and then we can maybe share the space more. So I invite you to raise your hand. digital hand and I'll call on you. Rondi, yes, please unmute yourself and ask a question. Thank you very much for a very informative talk. When someone receives the precepts, they receive their robe, but also a new name. So could you say something about the naming in relation to the row? Yes. So, you know, it happens.

[43:14]

There's been a lot of discussion about the naming on certain lists. What we have been receiving is names consisting of two characters each. And one of them is known as your way name, which in a sense might represent characteristics that your teacher sees that you're already manifesting. And the second name is your dharma name, which is a name that, in a sense, you grow into. So each of you have been lay ordained.

[44:14]

You have two names of two Japanese characters each, or Chinese characters. That name is inscribed on your rakasu. Akasu is a, along with your, you receive a lineage paper which traces the Buddhist lineage from the Buddha through the Indian ancestors, through the Rinzai lineage and the Soto lineage, both of which were held by Dogen. Then from Dogen on down to Suzuki Roshi and Sojin Roshi. And then either you received it from him or from one of his students. And your name goes last. And there's a red name, which is called the bloodline, which connects all of these ancestors and then loops back up to the top to place yourself symbolically on the head of the Buddha.

[45:23]

So this is the lineage, presumably, of face-to-face to Warman transmission from the Buddha through 92 or 93 generations to each of us. So your name is inscribed on the Raksu and different teachers do different things with the inscription, but almost always on the Raksu. The Raksu is a kind of transmission document in a sense. You're wearing the Buddha's robe, but it's also you're wearing something that has been really inscribed to you by your preceptor. So that's some answer. Stan Dewey.

[46:35]

Thank you, Hozan, for a wonderful lecture. I really love that story about Roshi and Sojin. I love the story. I wonder if you would be so kind as to put in the chat or an email or something the word for word translation Japanese that you went through because I thought it was enlightening and helpful. I will send it out if it's okay. I'll send it out on the community list. It's a little it's more than I can put I can't seem to paste stuff into into the chat. So anyway, yeah, I will do that. The chat goes away too, so it's good to have it. I'll do it later today. Something we can do.

[47:40]

Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Linda Hess. Hi, I was... Good morning, Hosanna and everybody. Hosanna, this is just a teeny little ritual action question. Usually we put the... Isn't it correct? We put the whole envelope on the head, and then at the end of the chant, we take it off and remove the rocks. Right? That's the way we do it? Anyway, I just noticed when I was at Green College last year, they... They took it out first and they put the sort of bare naked Rokasu on their head. And then so as usual.

[48:42]

That's what we do. Yeah. That is what we do. It is. We put it in the. OK, different for the Rokasu. We take the Rokasu out of the envelope and put it on our head. And the only time that we put it in the envelope on our head is actually during the. lay ordination ceremony. I've been doing it wrong all these years. Do you think I lost a whole lot of merit for that? You've been doing it wrong. You're going to next stop Avicii hell. Okay. This is all, as Bernie Glassman said, this is all making stuff up. Yeah. But it's meaningful. Because we're consciously making stuff up. Right. We can get pretty serious about it.

[49:43]

There's no sin involved. Thank God. Just to further comment, one of the things that came up in this discussion was that our naming methodology in the whole San Francisco lineage kind of wrong. It's out of step with what other Soto does. And evidently Mary Mosin had a conversation with Sojin about it where he acknowledged that and said, you know, usually one name, one two character name, which is what he did from Suzuki Roshi. So where this, Where our present practice came from, I don't know. And nobody seems to know because we've talked with all these Zen Center people who have weighed in.

[50:46]

But maybe that's the way it is. And that's what we do. Again, there's no sin in this. Ross Blum. Thank you. Good morning, Huzan. You've been a priest for a really long time, and it's been great to have you there as our priest and abbot. And just to recall that the people wearing ruckusseus actually, typically, for all the time that I've been here, put the envelope on their head. Oh, really? Okay. So you've been out of practice for a while, so you get a pass. Now, there are different places that do it different ways. And, you know, the bigger thing is, like, things are changing. So it's great if we can all be on the same so-called page around it. And, you know, we'll have a talk about that.

[51:47]

One way or another way, we're all making it up. It reminded me of when I came here, we used to sit zazen first. Then at the end of zazen, there would be a bell, and then we would do the rogue chant. and someone here who's no longer residing here, you know, it'd be nice if we could sit with our robes. And so Sojin thought about it, says, yeah, that would be nice. And we changed that form. So I appreciate the transparency in our conversations to try to kind of do it all together, even though invariably in small or big ways. Yeah. You may be right. And it's interesting. I remembered it differently, but I may have it backwards, in fact. Maybe I do have it backwards. Maybe you take it out and put it on your hand.

[52:50]

At the ceremony, yes. Yes. Okay. So I had it backwards, Linda. Yeah. So your sin is erased. But I think that the important thing... I think, as Ross was doing, wherever I go, I try what their practice is. You know, so this happens a lot when I go, when I teach at Upaya, because they have a different lineage, which comes from Sochichi rather than the AAG, and a lot of things are different. And I, to me, That's actually the fun part is paying attention to how things are done and doing them in harmony with them. So I apologize if I was the correction. And I think that now that I think of it, I think you're right.

[53:55]

I think it may also have something to do with people coming to BCC. are carrying their rockets with their envelopes. They bring it into the Zendo. And then as far as when do they take it out, out waiting for the bell or just put it all in one piece when the bell. So again, it's one of those things that may have been explicitly suggested or just intuited over the years. Anyway. But I wanted to say something about this to me was one of the, we were talking about it. A little while ago when we were looking at Zendo forms, Sojin adjusted the forms according to the circumstances. And I think that's what, you know, that's what he did with the rope chant that he, when someone pointed out to me, he goes, oh, that's right. Let's sit in our rope instead of putting it on the end and then taking it off and going to Soji.

[55:00]

Let's sit in our robe, which actually is different than you would find in other places. So, yeah, what we're doing is adjusted to our circumstances, and that seems to me to be really appropriate action. Yeah. Thank you. Hi, Hozan. Morning. Morning. You had said that if you haven't undergone Jukai, you're planning to as if you have. And could you say more? This is what, you know, to the story that maybe many of you have heard, when Sojin Roshi was ordained, he went to Suzuki Roshi and said, what do I do now?

[56:15]

And Suzuki Roshi said, I don't know. Go talk to Kategori Roshi. And he talked to Kategori Roshi and said, what do I do now? Kategori Roshi said, I don't know. So, I think that The essence of what they taught him and what I'm saying to you is this is a way to look deeply into you. To find out what your understanding is. What's your understanding of being in accord with the priest, of living in accord with the priest. That's a great place to start. rather than memorizing some do's and don'ts. To actually see how these unfold in your life.

[57:20]

Thank you. Give me a time for... David Gill. Hello, Hosann. Good morning. Hi, David. I have an observation or question about the third line of the chant, wearing the Tathagata's teaching. At first, that struck me as being sort of symbolic and abstract, but then thinking about a little more it seems it it dawned on me it's describing something more like yeah that like how do you how do you wear teaching right that there's an oddness to it but um it seems like there's a felt sense in that kind of odd activity of wearing

[58:29]

And could you maybe you could say something a little more about what that line? Yeah, I mean, it represents. Yeah, one second. I'm looking for looking for the what Okamura Roshi says we understand this phrase to mean something like, based on the wisdom of the original teacher, we reverently wrap ourselves in cloth. And you could say that wearing this robe with its and

[59:29]

strips and modeling of rice field is wearing the, wearing, if the teachings are about interdependence, this is wearing a map of interdependence, if that makes sense. If you look at the robe and how it's constructed, it is depicting this boundless reality of interdependence, which is manifest in a rice field, in its independence on air, water, life, a certain order and structure, all of that is embodied or it's modeled in the rope.

[60:41]

And so this is a condensation of the Buddhist teachings. Does that make sense? It does, yes. That's beautiful. Thank you. Right. But I really like, let me just say, I like, I have to think about, I like this idea of synesthesia. It's like, so another synesthetic moment in the Dharma is we think of Avalokiteshvara as a bodhisattva who sees the cries of the world. So that's really, that's also synesthesia. So evidently there are two questions here. Oh, response from Linda.

[61:44]

Yes. You want to read those two? Sure. Responding, the chat is beginning to pop right at the end of lecture. Linda Hess says, responding to David Gill, in general, ritual tends to be all about synesthesia. This becomes that. Everything can become everything. beyond symbolism. And Linda, if you want to drop a great article or book that we can read on synesthesia or anybody, feel free to do that. And Hannah Mira says, as we make each stitch in sewing our robe, we say, I take refuge in Buddha. So, thank you very much. And with that, I think we'll... Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you.

[62:38]

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