past and training and perfect dharma is rarely met with 100,000,000,000 Kalpas having it to see and listen to to remember and accept I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's works Good morning, Berkeley Zen Center, and without any further ado, an introduction for today's Dharma Talk speaker, Mary Mosin. Mary started practice in 1988 at Greendalt's retreat with Yvonne Rand, and upon learning there with the Zen Center near her home in Berkeley, she began studying here on Russell Street. Sojin Roshi and Mary Lee Scott were her teachers at BCC. She resided at Tassajara for four years, holding various practice positions, including Tenzo, which is no small thing given the number of students that have to be fed during the three-month practice period, as well as maintain the high standards of the Tassajara cooking during guest season.

[01:18]

In 1994, Mary moved to Green Gulch and was ordained by Sojiroshi, later received Dharma transmission from him, and founded Vallejo Zen Center 25 years ago. Mary recently stepped down as abbess and has never stopped thinking of Berkeley as her home. Thank you so much, Mary. Thank you. Now I'm going to sit down. Good morning. I was here in March of 88, and Ross was here. We're still here. Yes. So far, so good. I was telling my Tisha, I have to wear stuff on my feet because I'm so old, I'm not supposed to go barefoot anymore. So these on my feet are kind of fancy things that we sometimes wear for processions and stuff, but I figure it's better than wearing shoes in here. I want to talk today about...

[02:27]

two things that are not . One is, I want to place myself here. I am an ancestor here. Ross is an ancestor here. We're not dead yet. We're not dead ancestors. But we're ancestors here. And Susan is. And Jerry is. These are people where Mira is. I have a Mira story. You may never have heard this. I don't know why tell it. It has nothing to do with it. It has very little to do with you, actually. When I started, you were away. Mira was away in Japan. So I didn't know. And at that time, we were having Friday afternoon tea, which is something that's kind of come and gone and come and gone. So we're having Friday afternoon tea. And I was going to them. and trying to be helpful and so on. And we were having tea one day, and this person came in the gate, and I never saw her before.

[03:31]

So I started telling her about the Berkeley Center. I don't know if I offered you a brochure or something. Come to find out, of course, it was then known as Miriam Queen, who had practiced here for years and was senior to me, but I had an attack of a common disease, which is called, if I wasn't there, it didn't happen. So it taught me a great lesson. And you know, I don't remember your response, so you were gracious about it. You were very nice. And that was a great lesson to me because it was so stark. You know, it happens regularly. for me and I think to most of us, usually in smaller ways, not so clear cut. I guess that's part of what I want to address is that I am, this is my home temple, this is where I really started.

[04:40]

And that does feel that this is family to me. This is family to me. and Maylee, Sojin Roshi, Rebecca Maieno, Dolly Gatozzi, Nester, Grace Shearson, Ross, Bica, I don't know her last, I think it's Pratt, but it's not Pratt anymore, right? Whatever. Bica. Bica Pratt Heaton. Heaton. Reverend Heaton was here. And some other people whose names I'm forgetting.

[05:53]

practiced here, the woman who wrote conversations with remarkable women. I used the book about all of our ancestors. It's women ancestors, women who were Dharma teachers at the time. They belong to all of us. When I started here, it was very much of a male-dominated place. It looked very hard. I wanted to find out about women teachers because I wanted to find out if there were a place for me here. And Lenora's book was extremely helpful, and I commend it, not just to the women in the room, but to all of us. And it's been revised. I actually have a little paragraph in the revised edition.

[06:57]

But I just, I think it's important for us all to kind of know where we come from. And I come from here. But this was my home. I would come every morning. Rondi and Charlie and It was the three of us, and then there were people that were usually there, but we were always here. We would walk down from the middle, we'd tend to get here about the same time, and then we'd walk down and walk in together. We thought of ourselves as a sort of morning sangha, or I did anyway. And I didn't... stay, I think it's still this case, you sit for an hour and there's a clunk on the big bell and you can leave if you need to. And I did need to. I had to walk my dog and get to work.

[08:05]

So I never stayed for service. Here I was taught how to be a Dawn and how to be a Kokyo. And I was the steward of the doksa hut and kept it clean per sojan. I was part of, I don't know, a weeknight drop-in Dharma group, which is the precursor of one that happens now. And she loved the Lotus Sutra. I remember we read the Lotus Sutra. So I started talking in her backyard. She lived in a big old Berkeley brown jingle house up on Ashby just below college, just above college. And we became friends.

[09:10]

And I was just starting to come back then. Rebecca was the mother of us all. And she had been a stalwart here, and then her kids were little, and she wasn't around. But one of the things she taught me was that she used to offer incense every day during that time when she was not actually sitting here. But she kept that through line. And then when the kids were old enough, and regularly. And she made a lot of teacups, which I think are now, I think that all those teacups are gone now, I'm not sure. And she was a ceramicist and she made, this is a, she was a Prajna Paramita there in the middle of the altar.

[10:19]

She made that. But the first one she made, I boast, she made for me as an ordination present. And Rebecca, she suffered from dementia. But she was always here. She came for a long time. People would pick her up. We'd have breakfast at Fat Apples and then I'd take her home. And we had a ceremony and I don't remember if it was for a birthday or so it was a ceremony to recognize her. Remember she sat here and then people came, spoke to her and appreciated her, which was a wonderful thing to have while you're still alive, you know, instead of waiting for the funeral.

[11:21]

And she did, she did, she recognized people and appreciated it and how much exactly she took it and I don't know. But she's, and she died years ago now. And she's an ancestor. She was a very important part of this. But she taught sewing and she was one of the cooking stalwarts I did a lot of cooking here too. And Fran, I didn't really know because Fran was in, when I started, Fran was just pulling back more because she had young kids at home. So Fran tried, I knew her, but not well. She has a piece and a book. I think it's in Being Bodies, but it could be another one, one of the anthologies of women's writing that she talks about realizing that, for the time being, her children, her babies were her practice.

[12:30]

And Dolly, Dolly was a force of nature, Dolly Gatozzi. She lived upstairs in, what is it, 1931 or whatever. And Dolly, too, had practiced and came back. And she did, she didn't think of herself as a teacher, though she was a teacher. And one of the... sadnesses, I guess, it's not regret exactly of my life, is that I was, you know, I was coming here when I left Tassajara and went to Green Gulch and then to City Center, I used to come here when I could and come for Sashin's and things and just, I would be here.

[13:38]

And I was pushing Dali to come forward more. as a teacher. Because she was a wonderful, wonderful presence. Sharp. And could be very sharp, literally. But one of the great teachings is that she would notice and she would come back and say, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. She would, unfortunately, sometimes beat herself up about it. And she would apologize. She'd realize that she had been She'd been rude or she'd been unkind or she'd been abrupt. And that's a great teaching. You know, you didn't have to go to her. She'd just wait a little and she'd come back and say, oops. And she was wanting to come forward a little more. And then she got cancer and she died relatively quickly after she was diagnosed.

[14:44]

She was a wonderful presence and a good friend. I came from San Francisco Zen Center for a few months before I was at Tassajara. And so I came here and I stayed with Dolly and I was Sojin's assistant. And I typed for him and drove him to conferences and stuff. It was kind of fun. and I lived with Dolly. And it was fun, we actually had a good time. The kind of thing she used to do, somebody told, she didn't talk about it, but a friend had backed away some, and Dolly sent her a postcard, and the postcard was a picture of like a zendo with some cushions, And they were all mostly occupied, and there was one that was unoccupied.

[15:49]

And so Dolly had written on it, you know, this is your place with a little arrow, and then just sent the postcard. And I think she did that kind of thing a lot. She didn't talk about it. She just did it. She just wanted us all to feel included. And I quote, sort of quote, Vika, it's one of my favorite examples of this, at her chisot ceremony. Show me equanimity. And her response, if you were just listening to this, I just sort of went visually. and then a breath and she's settled.

[16:50]

True. I mean, it's true that it happened. I mean, that she's right. You don't get to the equanimity, you don't get to the settled part unless you include the not so settled part. I just wanted to, one thing that Grace Shearson taught me was that we were serving together and She was training me to be head server, I think. At any rate, we were gathered in the back, there were probably four of us ready to serve, and she said quietly to all of us, think where you're in a good place in relation to that. And it had never occurred to me that you need to tell people that, because my mind always works like that. So it didn't occur to me that not everybody thinks like that. I mean, it's a blessing and a crying all the time.

[17:53]

It was a great teaching to me. Oh, and then, and she said it and the others moved. I mean, I probably was already wherever I was headed, but they moved and they positioned themselves so that, you know, they could pick up the pot and go rather than pick up the pot and then and then go. I mean, to me it seems so obvious. And it is obvious once you think about it, but, you know, not everybody thinks like that, which is also a blessing and a curse. And I was, she saw, with Norman Fisher, who was also an important teacher for me, but it was because Sojin Roshi was no longer one of the abbots San Francisco Zen Center, so he was not leading practice periods there anymore. You know, and I trained there for four years, and so it felt like the place to be.

[18:59]

And then, well, before that, I guess, come think of it. I was ordained in September of 94, and he decided to be ordained at San Francisco Zen Center, which was not my preference. But I was sort of the recipient of this. It kind of wasn't for me to say. But also, he wanted to ordain me with the men that some of you may know, Michael Wenkel, who was totally a preacher of the San Francisco Zen Center, and virtually not here at all. He maybe gave a lecture occasionally. But this was not his place. And with a woman named Kathleen Williams, who was a student of Blanche Hartman's. And Blanche started here, in case you didn't know that. It was Louis Hartman's home temple. It was the Mormon's home temple. These are your ancestors. These are my ancestors.

[20:01]

But at any rate, Blanche was ordaining Kathleen, and Kathleen had absolutely nothing to do with the Berkley Simpson. So San Francisco it was, but it was okay. and they accommodated, Judy Smith came, and they, instead of having an ordination upstairs in the ceremonial Buddha hall, which at that time was inaccessible to a wheelchair, they put it, they did it in the Zendo. And they took up, they had these kind of tongs in the center, but more permanent. They weren't made, this one's made to be taken up. They weren't made to be taken up, but they took them up. And so that they . So that Judy could come, for my sake, really. And she did. It was wonderful.

[21:02]

And she's an ancestor. And I'm sure I'm leaving people out. I'm bringing this up partly because next Saturday we'll have a lay entrustment ceremony, and I will give lay entrustment to Ellen Webb. And many of you already know this. And I kind of place it in some kind of context. You know, a lot of you don't know me, or you know me as somebody who seems to appear every year or so. So I wanted you to know, I think of this as home. I am our shared history. And we are in the process, all of us, of figuring out what it is now.

[22:08]

And partly because of Alan's illness, Hosan's illness. But we're always figuring it out. We're always figuring it out. But it feels... I'm trying to think of a word that's short. But it feels, it's up now. Who are we? What is this? What's this place? Who owns it? Nobody owns it. We all own it. It owns itself. Whatever. And an example of if I wasn't there, it didn't happen, is that I've been working with Ellen for many, many years. I'm clear that Sojin is her teacher.

[23:11]

Sojin was her teacher. Number two. And I feel partly that I'm doing this on his behalf. And it's true that she and I have a teacher-student relationship that goes back a long time. And I have that kind of relationship in varying degrees with a number of people here. Because I tend to see them either at my place or somewhere else or off hours. And I used to come here regularly to see people, and I don't do that anymore. It's part of my pulling back. Now I say, you call me. We're not going to have it one day sitting every month where you can just automatically come and talk to me. It's up to you now. or Ellen, and he is very supportive of this, by the way.

[24:18]

We're in process, and we're also, we're hoping, expecting that his health will be good enough that he can participate next week on Zoom. But it is something that I am doing, and Ellen, we are doing together. And that's because for her, it's time. She's been teaching here now for a while. And it's time for me and us, really, to say, please step into that role. Yes, yes, yes, you are teaching, and I do trust you. I do trust you to teach. I hold you up as a shining example of practice. Lucky you have a mask on.

[25:22]

And this lay entrustment, lay recognition, you name it, all these different names. And it's been something we've been doing at the Berkeley Zen Center for quite a while. and it's been going on in varying ways at the San Francisco Zen Center, and it continues to be an ongoing . I don't remember when it first came up at San Francisco Zen Center, and it was a long time ago, and some people thought it was great, so did not so much. And then Ross brought it up with him, and it started to Take hold. I pinch his ear and it hurt. Well, he did a bit well when he was reacting to something. When I received a derm transmission and I thought that I could mark it in some way.

[26:34]

I go away and I come back and all of a sudden I have a brown robe and I'm carrying this funny looking stick and so on. I talked to him about it. He said that was a good idea and take care of it. And then nothing happened. Nothing happened. And I finally said, you want me to give you something that you can work with? And he said yes. And that gave him something that my friend Barbara Cohn had done in Austin, Texas. And then it went from there. So yes. I think ear bending could be useful. So we're, I think we're, we are, this process of lay enforcement, friends in, who are they, Capitola, Jaku and Shichu, they call it elder recognition.

[27:41]

We're figuring it out. We're figuring out what Zen Buddhism is in this country. Soto Zen Buddhism, our school of Zen Buddhism. And as my friend Fu Shutter says, it's a complicated mandala. And we don't know exactly where it's going. It seems like it's a lay practice. What does that mean? We say that a priest takes vows to leave home, and I think of it as that I belong to the Sangha, I'm accountable to the Sangha in a deep way, and I'm less engaged with family and work, maybe. And I know plenty of priests that are not that engaged with Sangha, and not that committed to Sangha.

[28:48]

And I know plenty of lay people deeply devoted to this practice. So it's not clear to me. It doesn't have to be. It's clear to me that Ellen is ready. And it's clear to me that we need to encourage lay practice. It seems pretty clear to me that that's the direction practice is going in this country. Luckily, I'm 80 years old. I don't have to figure this out. So I'm just doing one step at a time. And Ross and Susan and Ron brought this up with me. and with Ellen, and we both said, okay. And then we both went away and thought, what do we want?

[29:56]

I'm thinking, what do I want? What is my relationship with this person? Because it was always, while Sojin was alive, it was a little ambiguous. And so I think Ellen contacted me and said, wait a minute, I don't know. And I was so relieved and I said, oh good, I don't either. And then we started talking and then the relationship deepened and then it became clear that this was something that we wanted to take on because it needed to take on and for me, supported by these other people. But it's a, it's a, it's a, It is an intimate relationship. And by the way, I will not change her name. Sojin gave it to her, so I wouldn't anyway, and it's a great name.

[30:57]

And I'll say what he said when it was how he gave me a name in my jukkai, and when I was ordained and it came time to say my name, he said, you know, my name is Ho'um Zenki Dharma Cloud Tor. And he said, and I wouldn't change it for the world, and I wouldn't change your name for the world. And... So we will do the ceremony in the afternoon, and our hope is that Hoseon will actually participate on Zoom to give Ellen . We shall see. I'm now talking to Ross and Susan.

[32:00]

I thought, duh. I wrote to Lori and asked her to ask Alan what he thought best. We're going around about how to do this. Oh, let's ask Alan. I'm aware of what time it is, sort of. I just wanted to mention Ron Nestor and Doug Reiner. Many of you, I don't know if you even know who Doug is, but he was a regular here for a long time, and he was friends with Sojin. They used to walk dogs together all the time. And I felt they were supported by both of them. And when we started the Vallejo Zen Center, we had a big garden in a big flat area, which is like a patio, but it's big.

[33:03]

The idea was that maybe, you know, if you wanted to, you could have a wedding there, you could have a ceremony there, and as it turned out, We had a jazz concert there every summer for many, many years. And we had to pave it. And I found some adobe pavers, which were both beautiful and cheap. And Doug and Ron came, and we had it professionally graded. but they came and taught us how to do the final stamping down, and I think maybe put another layer of sand, and then you have to lay them, and we had a pattern. It was one, and then two half ones, and then another full one, and then two half ones the other way, and it's the kind of thing you have to be really careful because you can kind of lose track of the pattern.

[34:08]

Doug had a wonderful tool. It was like a 4x4 attached to a flat piece of plywood, but then he used it to tamp things down. So he brought his tamping tool and helped us. And Ron, all along, has been a stalwart. for the Vallejo Zen Center, he used to come at the drop of a hat and lecture. Oh, you know who else came in the morning? It was Jake and Leslie. Anyway, he would come and he would talk. He would talk classes. He just felt like he had my back, and he always came to the party, which wasn't punishment exactly. I'd like to think it was better.

[35:12]

The music was great, as always. But he was there. And this last summer, we gave what we think is probably the last one. And I didn't invite Ron, because his health has not been good, and I just didn't want him to. So I just didn't invite him. And I was usually in and out of... of a building and so on, and I just came downstairs and I looked, and there was Ron sitting there. And I am deeply, deeply touched by that. And that the feeling of connection, you know. And Jake and Leslie We started a sitting group in Pleasant Hill. And they were regulars of that.

[36:16]

And Jake used to come and be Kokyo for full moon ceremonies before we had enough people really trained to do that. So it's always felt to me that I and Vallejo and Berkeley, that we are and support each other. I've taught classes here. So next Saturday, we will do this ceremony and I will offer formal recognition. I give her a piece of paper that says you're authorized and a lineage chart. and a women's lineage chart, which I'll give to everybody. And I hope that it will be a joyous occasion and that you will all feel, not only, I mean, you are invited, I think you've already been invited, but you'll feel welcome and you'll understand the depth of the web of connection that we have.

[37:35]

and allow yourself to get to know me and these other people, most of whom are no longer women, but these other people that have been part of this place for a long time. So I think that's plenty, actually. Does anybody have any questions or comments? Yeah, Liz. Since you spent so much time talking about RON, I just want to encourage Saga members to visit him.

[38:41]

I posted a note on Carrington Bridge yesterday because Ross and I visited him. But I can see on the Carrington Bridge website that most people don't seem to . And so they haven't read my post. But Ron is way down in Fremont. But it's really easy to get there on BART. drive the freeway, and it's an easy walk from the Fremont Park Station. Emron loves to have visitors, and he is much better than he was when I visited him last week in Richmond, Kaiser. I don't know how long he's going to be in Fremont, but I would really like for people to consider visiting him because he really appreciates it. Anyway, that's what I wanted to say. And he has, he's quiet, you know, and he has such a big heart.

[39:42]

And he and his wife Karen, they don't ask, they don't feel comfortable asking for his name for visitors. And so I think, you know, people forget about him because he's so quiet. Can I just... People say to me, well, I don't know him. What do you think about that, about people visiting? Oh, I don't... He doesn't know you. Not you, Ellen, but if you're a person that he doesn't know, I don't know that it makes sense to visit him. And I know he hasn't been around because of his health problems and his mobility problems. He hasn't been around BCC much since the pandemic, so I guess they're... know him but there are also a lot of people who do know him because he's been around since the early 70s and so please consider taking a nice BART ride and walking through a nice comfortable neighborhood.

[40:50]

You can always read to him or something if you don't know him that one. Wasn't it he that would go up to the end up to Milvia and water those plants? I remember seeing him every morning. He'd be out there watering the plants in those big, huge cement planters. Yesterday, when Ross and I visited him yesterday, he was much more alert than he had been, especially last week. And you could talk to him about what's going on at BCC. We talked to him about... And he remembers. And so if you visited him previously and felt like you couldn't engage with him because he just wasn't that alert, he actually was much better yesterday because I think he got past this issue with the low sodium that I think really threw him for a loop.

[42:00]

And now that he's back, I think that's made a big difference. You can ask him about the olden days, right? Because that's how, this is our shared history. And Susan had your hand up. So, getting back to the ancestors and the olden days, and the Dharma, I wonder what you might say to young people here about what is important to care about all of these people. For me, All of the people you named were mentors to me, so I'm heartened by your talk.

[43:03]

But I wonder what you might say about why young people should care. This is like I responded when Grace told people to think about where they were going, and part of me says, well, duh. So excuse me for that, if I have an edge, but it just seems To me, so obvious, this is yours. This lane here doesn't count. Well, I don't know you either, but you're not so young. But I'm offering you a gift. Don't you want to know where you come from? We all have different kinds of experiences, but if you're lucky, Your parents tell you stories about when they were young, or your grandparents tell you stories about when they were young. Isn't that useful?

[44:06]

Isn't that interesting to you? I hope it is. What I'm trying to offer here, what I am offering, is some more information about who you are and where you came from. Blanche used to tell stories. Blanche Hartman, who was, among other things, the atlas of San Francisco Zen Center, and was a long, long time sewing teacher, and she was a disciple of a woman named Joshin-san, who came from Japan. And Blanche used to tell stories about Joshin-san. I forced Blanche to teach me how to sew Raksu, so I do know how now. And I consider myself one of Blanche's disciples in that. And I consider myself one of Joshin-san's disciples. And I feel that I know Joshin-san because I've never met her.

[45:13]

I never saw her except in pictures you may have seen. There's a wonderful picture of Blanche together. If you see Blanche together with the little older Japanese woman, that's Joshinson. And I'm very moved by those stories. Mira. Let me just check, are there any hands? Can you see hands? Yes, I do see one. Why don't we go with the hand that's online and Mary Beth. Yes, Mary Beth. And then we'll take Mira. Okay. Yes, thank you so much. I love hearing about the ancestors. And I just wanted to let you know, Ron has been listening. He's here online like he's online. Many, many Saturdays. So he's not absent. He's right here. Well, thank you. I didn't know before because I don't know if I would have been quite so mushy.

[46:15]

But it's good for him. And Peter is also online and is one of our ancestors. But, Mira, yes? I wanted to share one of the most memorable time I had with Dolly, who lived upstairs where Preston is now, and we were having, I think it was a multi-day retreat, and she died one of those nights. And Sojin invited anyone who wanted to, to go sit in the room before it was removed. And a few of us sat with her for some periods. And that's the only time I had sat with somebody who had already passed. It was a very moving experience for me and made me see between us and others. this world and the next world, and that it was all part of our practice, and anyway, it was profound, and just sit with her.

[47:26]

Thanks. Now the gallery view here, I don't know, am I allowed to touch it? I just did, that didn't work. I think we're out of time, but let's see if there's anyone else. Okay. No other hands. Well, wait, slow down, young man. Yeah. Zachary had his hand. Yeah, okay. Okay, just a second. Is that everybody that's on? Yeah. That has their video on. Okay. Yeah. That's fine. So you have one more question. There's Ron. He's right in the middle. Hi. I meant every word. Yes. Hi. Thank you for your time. As someone who doesn't know all these people, and hearing you tell us stories that can just be kind of ideas or images in my mind, I wonder how you might, if you might say anything about bringing them into kind of our, I know you mentioned sewing a rock soon, that seems like one way, but I'm curious if there are others that you think are important.

[48:43]

I think the more that you have a heart connection with the person telling you stories, then the more real and I had a deep heart connection have with Blanche and with sewing, so therefore and and it does make a difference how what your bond is so that when my mother used to tell stories of growing up in Duluth. She had a friend named Ruthie, I guess. And they would, after school, they would get an ice cream cone. They would have an unspoken competition to see who was the coolest. So I asked to be the one who was still eating ice cream when the other one wasn't. And I just love that story. And I...

[49:43]

I can feel my mother and Ruti, whom I don't think I ever met, but it is different because of the connection. And I think it's also, do you want to know? Do you understand that this is also, this is yours? I belong to you. And all of us here, we, you know, I mean, I, you know, good guy. There's Sue Osher, whom I've known for a long time, and there's Dean, whom I've known for a long time, and Hannah, whom I've known for a long time, but not as long, and Jerry, whom I've known for a long time, and I can't remember, I forget your name, I'm so sorry. I've known you for a long time. Peter? Peter, whom I've known for a long time, and so on. I'm not going to go on and on, but It's how accessible you, it's partly how accessible you want to be.

[50:50]

To this being yours. So that's up to you. But here we are. I think anybody would be happy to talk to you about the

[51:07]

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