Heaven surpassed every Indian, perfect. beautiful spring morning here in Berkeley. A little Christmas in the air. And I'm happy to be with you here. We're the second week, is that right? Third week of our practice period. Time flies when you're having fun.

[01:09]

And really appreciated hearing Archie Soh, Sue's talk last night, and the speaker next Saturday, I believe. Ready? No. So as to say just yes, whatever it is, just say yes. I'm exploring no a lot. Okay, that's good. That's the other side of yes. There's always another side. Next Friday, we're going to have what would ordinarily be Bansan or evening tea. We're going to have a tea-less tea. Live in the Zendo, so really want to encourage people to come. It's gonna be live and hybrid. And been in discussion with a number of people, feeling like it would be useful to the functioning of our forms, of our Zen forms, and I'll speak of that a little today too.

[02:29]

And in particular then to go over points or questions that you might have. So Bansan is usually an informal question and answer discussion between the teacher and those who are present. So that's what we'll do. The subject is going to be our forms. Last week I was away for much of the week at a quite a remarkable event. I was in Los Angeles at the there. There's two Soto temples in California. Actually, there's more than two. There's the main temple is in Shuji in Los Angeles.

[03:33]

And that's in little Tokyo. And here for 100 years. And so one of, there was a series of ceremonies that took place. And one was to mark the centenary of Soto Zen in America. The other, so there were several ceremonies around that. And the other ceremony was a preliminary memorial for the 700th anniversary of our ancestor Keizan Jogen, who along with Dogen is seen as one of the two principal founders of Japanese Soto Zen. So there was a pretty elaborate series of ceremonies.

[04:38]

And there were a number, about 40 priests from North America, and about an equal number had come from Japan, including, for the first time, some very high-up people in Sotoshu, the abbot of Sojiji and the ino of Sojiji, the president of Sotozen, And so this was an important occasion, and I'll say more about why I feel it was important. The other thing that happened was that we had a visit from a number of priests and practitioners from Hawaii, from Soto practitioners from Hawaii who came and visited us and we sat in this And then we went and had tea and had a discussion.

[05:43]

And these are, they're very moving events to me. From time to time, Sojan Roshi would kind of give an overview of our relationship or our evolving relationship with sort of the Soto Zen organization, you know, a church, if you will, in Japan and what our relationship is to it here in the U.S. And that's an evolving relationship. So often when I come back from, we have meetings with, let me just step back a second. about 50 priests in the West who have, if you will, an ecclesiastic rank who belong to the Sotifu organization.

[06:54]

And Sojin was one of those, I'm one of those. And we have this rank and also we have an appointment, if you will, as foreign missionaries. We're Soto Zen missionaries. So it seems a little missionary, but I actually have this piece of paper that says this. And it's always been puzzling as a position or as a, you know, an organization that I don't know much about, it's not been so comfortable. You know, and we've had, we've had some challenging times in relation to the Soto organization.

[08:01]

Sometimes it's interesting, they, as missionaries, they give us a very small amount of money. Every year is a gift. And then they also, we also have to pay dues. At one meeting, but we never knew like, they kept changing the rules, which was very uncomfortable. I remember one particular meeting where Sojin stood up and determinedly said, no taxation with it. because we didn't know who it was, it was making these decisions. So it's been a, it's been a challenging relationship. But something is moving, both in the relationship and in to, I think in connection, the way I see it, in connection to our practice.

[09:05]

And also in my own vision of what we're doing. And that vision has really been shifting in the last six months. During the winter, spring semester, I was asked to fill in for my friend Greg Snyder, who was the teacher at Brooklynsen Center, which is in our Suzuki Roshi Manich. And he teaches at Union Theological Seminary. And so he was having medical treatment. So he asked me to fill in to teach a class on Buddhism in Asia. And this was on the one hand, I have a very

[10:14]

wide experience of engaged Buddhism in Asia, having over the last 30 years and being influenced and moved and connected to these movements in Asia. But there was something about teaching this and studying it that really re-centered my understanding. And I think that it goes, I should say, it goes, it's not unrelated to what we've been, some of us have been working on here with the many community program, which has been looking at equity, diversity, inclusion, and looking at kind of the corners of our thinking, of bias that we might carry, things that are programmed in us in the course of this particular society.

[11:32]

And when I looked at Engaged Buddhism, and now when I look at in Los Angeles last week, I see it through different eyes. And those are eyes that recenter the Asian experience. Really powerful for me that, you know, for many years, I was the director of Buddhist Peace Fellowship here in the West. And so my idea a certain level of examination, even though I've always been an internationalist, there was a way that my understanding of engaged Buddhism was shaped by my location here in the West and also by unexamined premises.

[12:42]

And I think that what I've found, and it's really coming up for me this week is that a similar thing has created my understanding of what we're doing in Zen and where it comes from. Reading Sojin Roshi's memoir, there's a wonderful memoir, which will be published in the fall, where he honors his, in particular, his Japanese teachers. Suzuki Roshi, Kanagiri Roshi, Komachino Roshi, Tatsugami Roshi, who was his Shuso teacher. And these are really formative.

[13:47]

These these figures who came here to share their traditions with us were really on him. And he always honored them. And he maintained that connection. He maintained a connection with after Suzuki Roshi died with Maizumi Roshi, Katigiri Komachino, and Gengo Akiba Roshi, who lives at Kojinan in Oakland, on Chapeau. And all these figures were Sojin was always in a very close connection with them.

[14:51]

And I'm just thinking about that more and more. So I'm thinking about what our relationship is, what we owe, what we owe to the ancestors who planted the seeds, what we learned from them. And I've been studying this history. So to see how Soto then came to America a hundred years ago. And if he came to America a hundred years ago, we would not be here. Pretty possibly we would not be here. And we wouldn't have the traditions that we have.

[16:01]

We just had bodhisattva ceremony. And it was really beautifully done. And not perfect, which is good. Perfect is the enemy of the good. but it was perfect. And that was something that was brought to us. We've adapted it slightly, we've translated it, but the very shape of it is something that to our ancestors. The shape of the practice that we got from Suzuki Roshi He brought what he could, what he felt was the essence And we see this in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind But he also made a point, a certain point in the mid to late 60s He invited Tatsugami Roshi to come and set up the monastic forms of Tassahara He didn't feel that he had

[17:17]

mastery of them. And those forms, so that was 55 years ago, 56 years ago. And those forms are now transmitted day by day, year by year, at Tassajara and the other San Francisco Zen Centers. They come from someplace. This is what's really powerful to me is to recognize where things come from. And that it's not this great man, say Suzuki Roshi, brought this. It's important what he brought. But what he brought was also in the context of an entire community, an entire society.

[18:19]

and a whole tradition which includes ordinary people and it includes priests it includes you know great teachers but one thing that was very moving at Zenshu was every day we had lunch and dinner cooked for us by the members of the Senchuji Temple. They were sustaining us. These are Japanese-American practitioners, mostly. Some not of Japanese background, but many were. And at the same time, fully their third or fourth generation here in the United States.

[19:25]

And so they're negotiating this wonderful territory where they honor their traditions and also are very much part of the society that we have, that all of us share across different ethnic backgrounds. And they sustain the values and practices that were given to them, and that they really wholeheartedly and generously share with us, those of us who are outside that temple community. This is very powerful. We studied about Kezon.

[20:31]

Kezon, we don't talk about so much. Perhaps we should speak about it a little more and understand. Kezon was the third generation or the fourth generation. Well, third generation after Dogen. Dogen transmitted the dharma and the apathy of AHE to Kohen H-ho. And Kohen transmitted, gave the apathy of AHE to Tetsuki Kai. And then there was some controversy, which I don't even, I don't fully understand, but Tetsuki Kai left. And his disciple was Kezon.

[21:37]

The lineage proceeds there. And Kezon gave the transmission to and so forth onto, into Suzuki Yoshi and Sojin. And so to speak about the spirit of our tradition, when he was studying with Kezon, with, I'm sorry, with Tetsukikai, One day, Tetut Gikai was lecturing on a very famous case where a dialogue between Nasir Nansen and his student, and his student, Joshu. Joshu of the famous Dog Have the Buddha Nature case.

[22:43]

But Nansen was speaking of was asking Joshu, actually I can't remember which way it went. I think Joshu was asking, what is the way? And Nansen said, ordinary mind is the way. And with that, Joshu had an awakening experience. Well, when Kezon heard his train on that, he had an opening. And he went to Gikai to say something about this. And Gikai asked him, what have you done? And Kezon said, a black lacquer person runs through the night.

[23:48]

And Gikai said, That's not yet it. Can you say more? Keesan said, at tea time, I drink tea. At meal time, I need rice. And with that, Ikai smiled and said, this person in the future will arouse the enemy. At teatime, I drink tea. At mealtime, I eat rice. So this is the spirit of our practice. Last night, or Thursday night, we were studying the chapter in Zen Mike McKenna's mind on study yourself. And in the epigraph,

[24:52]

Suzuki Roshi says, to have some deep feelings about Buddhism is not the point. We just do what we should do, like eating supper and going to bed. This is Buddhism, eating supper, going to bed, drinking tea, eating rice, doing everything in its appropriate moment. ordinary mind. This is the enlightenment that we all participate in fully. And we glimpse maybe only at moments, at rare moments perhaps. And it's the expression of our realization. As Dogen explained, it is practice realization and it's not the method or the means by which we attain something, it's actually the expression of it.

[25:59]

And I think that this was what we learned from Sojin Roshi, what we learned from Suzuki Roshi, who always foregrounded just the practice. So one thing that I've been thinking about coming back from Los Angeles is, we tend to understandably is on, we have an emphasis on Zazen. And then there we were in Los Angeles, doing these very elaborate ceremonies. Seem to be kind of the antithesis of Zazen, right?

[27:08]

And I've kept thinking, what is it that connects these? And this applies to when we do the Bodhisattva ceremonies. I could see from my peripheral vision, some people were trying to figure out, well, when do I bow? And when do I get up? There's a lot of explanation. It's just we watch and we see what happens. There is a form that we're trying to enact. We don't always explain it. And I think that one of the things that was very helpful last week, not exactly a new perception, but something that was meaningful to me. So just to say forthcoming is a new translation of Dogen's Shobhogen.

[28:19]

the whole thing, it's eight volumes. It's got the English, very accurate English translation, it's got the Japanese, and it has a whole lot of scholarly apparatus with all the footnotes you could ever want. Things which I, I want them, you know. And this has been done by the Soto Text Translation Project, which was going for 15 years. And it's run, it was, it was coordinated by Professor in Stanford. And Carl, who was, who was a student of Suzuki Roshi's, was there to kind of present and show us and tell us about this new translation. I have ordered it, by the way. It's very expensive. a copy for BCC.

[29:23]

Carl said something interesting. I think this is what binds the practice of Zahasana and rituals, which he was saying that The Zen tradition is, you can look at it as performance. It's performative. In other words, you actually have to do it with your body. There's something we do with our body is sitting down and doing zazen. We put ourselves into Buddha mudra, into the posture and position of the Buddha. that one has to do. It's not a state of mind. It's not some rarefied experience. It's a physical embodied activity.

[30:31]

And the same thing is true of the Bodhisattva ceremony. The same thing is true of all the ritual last week that the operative question is how? How do I do this? Because the operative question for our life is also complicated from the perspective of performance. The operative question is, how do I do this? How do I live? How do I die? And this is of studying ourself is to study each activity that we do. So we're bowing to the Bodhisattva ceremony.

[31:33]

Okay, so what's the cue from the bell? When do I go down and raise my hand? When do I get up? All of these are questions that at different times, if we're paying attention, we may ask ourselves. And this is at the heart of what I think our ancestors to us. And just in the how, there's also the manifestation of our relationship. So how we were served, how and warmly we were served food that had been really lovely prepared by the temple members, that's part of the larger performance of Zen or of Buddhism.

[32:37]

Sojin often talked about how is really the fundamental question for us. not why, but how do I do this? Why is another, is another thing. It's another question. Why, you know, you can look at any of these rituals, you know, why do we walk around this endo in Shashu like this? Or why do we bow to our seat? there's not a particular reason that's called for. It just, this is what was done, and this is what we're doing to be in alignment with, to try to be in alignment with our ancestors, to try to be in alignment with the gifts that were given to us,

[33:49]

and to try to do things in harmony with each other. So this is how we study ourselves. I often come back to this line in translation of the The Jomera Samadhi, actually it's in the last, it's not the translation that we use right now, but it's the translation we used to use, which says, the meaning is not in the words, it responds to the inquiring impulse. That inquiring impulse is how? So I want to leave time for discussion, but I want to,

[34:51]

I want you to hear something. One of the things that was really fantastic in the, which was new to me in the context of these rituals was that there was a musical background for them. There's this tradition in Soto Zen called Baika. People know It's beautiful, I'm gonna play you something. And we had this wonderful teacher who gave us a couple of instructional sections and got everybody singing. And so while the ceremonies were happening, there was this musical background within which we were settling this very deep,

[35:52]

So I want to play this to you. I spoke to the instructor who's coming to do some teaching in California in February, and we're going to set up an instruction session with him for a day or an afternoon so he can teach us these songs. It's really fantastic. So you hear this. Can you hear that? that we sang, that's the three treasures, taking refuge in the three treasures.

[38:09]

So I think I'm going to stop there and leave time for discussion, anything that you want to know about LA, what our relationship is with Xochitl Shu, what the relationship is with our practice. Flora's is open, and I'm also, we'll be looking at raised hands. So first, anyone here? Yeah, Preston. Can we sing like that here? What? Can we sing like that here? Yeah, if we learn how to do it. It sounds fun. What? It sounds really fun. Oh yeah, it's really fun. I mean, we all, this is what we, I mean, we would not experience of the certainly the Westerners were experienced in doing it, but they have a Baika performance group at Zenshuji, which knows how to do it.

[39:14]

And yeah, I'd like to, I'd like to. Yeah, Carol. The voices were so high. What was it? Male and female singing? This, I played one with female. Yeah, there's both the teacher that we had was male. Yeah, you have to find a comfortable pitch. But it's not that hard. It really isn't. But it is wonderfully nuanced. I'll go. I'm wondering from your perspective, what is kind of what's an essential transmission of what American Zen gained from Japanese Zen and if anything is like lost in the transmission across cultures?

[40:16]

So I don't know if you heard what she's saying. What was an essential transmission from Japanese Zen here to the West and if anything was lost? I just, what I'm coming to feel is that it's not a question of whether, for me, it's not a question of whether it's a question of what do I understand about the tradition, what we share about the tradition, and also that these traditions are not fixed. that actually historically they're always changing. This is one of the things that I saw when studying, we were doing the class at Union. It's like we think of Soto Zen as some just kind of monumental tradition that is unchanging.

[41:27]

But it's always changing. And so things are always, things are being lost, and things are being gained. And things are being translated across cultures. I think what, for me, and I said this, I think, last night, you know, what I felt when I went and practiced at Tsuyo-ji in Japan, was I recognized this version of forms that we had here, and that the forms that we had here had been somewhat simplified for our circumstances. But I also think, and I see this, I often talk about this, that I study and play, there's always levels of nuance, complexity, that you can always go deeper.

[42:35]

And I think that what, this is something I want to, what's really shifted over the last 15 or 20 years is that we are now in an active collaboration with Japanese, particularly Japanese friends from Sotoshu who are sharing us, sharing really basic understandings of how you do things and showing us how to do them. And we've asked We've moved over the threshold of resistance. And so, you know, for one of the ceremonies, the officiant, which is a complex role, was Conjun Galenggagwe.

[43:36]

For one of the ceremonies last fall, Chosen Base was the officiant. So we're becoming partners. which is what they wanted all along. So everything's not going to be the same. Things are going to change. Soto Zen in Japan is also in the process of change. So that's kind of as far as I can go. There's some hands out there. So Peter. Thank you. Can you say something about the how of practice in those many, many moments, periods, when you're not physically engaged in some understood form or shared form? How do you hold yourself lightly while taking yourself to the Berkeley Bowl or doing any other...

[44:50]

random activity, which on the face of it seems unconnected with how we intend to practice, but... Yeah, the simplest... Formless practice, formless practice, let's put it that way. The simplest form that I can apply to formless practice, which Sojin said many times, is you should always know where your feet are. That is a how question, right? Yes. You know, where am I placing? I mean, I'm sure this is a big question for you, right? You know, how am I placing it down? You know, how am I standing? You know, is my weight divided? So you could always, this is a moment of mindfulness. Mindfulness of the body. Mindfulness of the body is a how question. Or mindfulness of the breath. Or mindfulness of the mind.

[45:51]

So those are the kind of broader engagement with form that we can have. Thank you. So is it Barmajohn or Jeff today? Jeff. It's Jeff. Thank you. I may have misunderstood you, but towards the beginning of your talk, I thought I heard you... gained through recent experience a new, some new understanding about engaged Buddhism, especially in Asia. And I don't think you elaborated on that. So I was wondering if you could elaborate on what the new understanding was, if I understand correctly. Well, I think it applies to Buddhism, period. Not just engagement. And the new understanding was, it's not a new understanding, it's just a heightened awareness. It all comes from Asia.

[46:54]

There's a root there that is, without that, we would not be doing what we're doing, if that makes sense. And I can explain to you at this point how I see that flow happening Asia and you know there's reasons it all it's partly engaged Buddhism and I don't want to get into this too much to some degree it arose in response to colonialism and oppression and it took a new form as as a survival technique but also in in the pursuit of of justice And equity. And I think that I would say this is another really large question.

[48:03]

The Buddhist traditions that we have here in the West, particularly if you're looking at Soto Zen or you're looking at Jodo Shinshu, the context in which they were necessary contexts in necessary developments in the context of really pretty terrible racism that was directed at migrants coming from Asia and that were not done with but so these it's as Ross pointed out the other day, the Lotus blossom flowers in muddy waters. And so those are those are so what I'm saying, the new understanding was a really a recentering in Asia that is extremely helpful for it to really clear clarifies a lot for me.

[49:14]

But it's a that's a whole other class. Thank you. Anyone else here? Ross? You spoke of your and Sojin's receiving a rank from the Soto Shu, and I'm wondering if you could speak about that in relation to the story of a true person of no rank. How do those two work? Well, I think the wonderful example of that is Akiba Roshi. For any of you who know him, he's probably the highest ranking Soto Zen priest that we have in America. Unpretentious, you know, the rank is just a rank is just It's an organizational responsibility.

[50:17]

It's not a You know, and I don't think Sojin ever wore that badge. I don't particularly wear it. But it does, I do feel like I have some responsibility to transmit the teachers, the teachings. That's it, you know. And I think it's more complicated here in America because It used to be, in Japan and other countries, ordained people were professional religious. And the primary responsibility for dissemination and transmission of the teachings were in their hands. It's not like that anymore here. You know, it's...

[51:19]

And we have people whose maturity is really recognized, quite aside from the question of ordination or not ordination, or rank or not rank. So maybe in the case of Akiva, that the degree of rank he holds is directly relation to the horizontality of his ordinariness and just being part of the community. I think that's right. I think that's right, yeah. Thank you. Ken or Katie? Thank you, Hozan. So I just wanted, first of all, I really appreciate the connections you're drawing to present-day Japanese and other Asian immigrant communities. I've always had an interesting question of So it's interesting to hear about connection as well.

[52:26]

And I wanted to ask if I was understanding you correctly in terms of what you were saying about the forms and the physicality and performing them. Were you saying that through our physical performance of these forms, we are physically connected? to our Asian ancestors and our Asian siblings as well, you know, in a particular way because they have a, we're doing things in a particular way to be connected. Yes. Should I repeat that? Let's see if I can. Katie is asking about whether I see the forms as a manifestation of our connection to the Asian and Asian American communities and cultures.

[53:37]

Is that correct? Yeah. Yes. And, you know, every year when we have these Soto Zen conference in LA, every year we have a workshop and they are teaching us the forms. And some of them we bring back as appropriate to our communities. So there is a really determined effort to share the tradition with us. And that is That's really precious to me. But I want to say that it's not more precious than the friendships. The friendships that we have, people who come from Japan, the friendships that we have with other people in our tradition, whether they're lay or priest,

[54:51]

These are what sustains the relational, the kind of formless relational aspect that is part of it, and then that heart is manifested in certain particular ways. Okay, maybe one more, and then we have to end. Anyone else here? And Judy? One of the things that many of conversations around ceremony and their purpose, for instance, to be a container for what needs expression. For instance, a memorial service, a container for grieving, for gratitude, for moving through. that there's no one way, just like people say there's no one way to grieve, there's no one way to contain, right?

[55:53]

And so I'm wondering in terms of, say, come to us, so does Shu, so does Zen, is where does, you know, Dogen's experience and stepping away from Tendai practice and its emphasis on fit in here and and where does the lineage of Kodo Sawaki Roshi and Uchiyama Roshi and interestingly Shihako Akamura who participates in this very engaged in such if you will high ceremony how do you you see that I don't really have a good answer to that because I think it involves subtleties of that I'm still learning about.

[57:03]

So for example, last night, Genpo and I watched this a beautiful movie by Ozu, a Japanese filmmaker. I think it was called Good Morning. And at the heart of it was, what does it mean? What did these really simple, seemingly meaningless things that we say to each other, how do they tie us together? good evening oh and the last scene is these these two people who are coming to recognize their love for each other staying on a train platform and one says ah it's a beautiful day their woman say yes it's a beautiful day the guy says it looks like we're going to have good weather

[58:08]

Yes, it looks like we're going to have good weather. It's these really things that have no particular substance, but what they are expressions of relationship. And so I can't say what Dogen's relationship was to, say, his Tendai tradition or what he carried, I don't know enough about it. But I would guarantee, and I know from so long, because I've watched Shogo so much, he's not really interested in the formal forms, but he's a person. The way he moves, the way he speaks, the way he relates to people, is the expression of that form in a formless way.

[59:11]

And in that, he's profoundly Japanese. And we're never going to be Japanese. However, that's not the objective. The objective is how can we be with each other? How can we be awake? How can we be awake ourselves? How can we... create a setting in our relationship.

[59:42]

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