Dharma is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas, having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tatataka's words. Good morning. My name is Linda. And how many of you are here for the first time, if you'd put your hands up? Nobody here for the first time? Great. Okay. Every so often I really like to do this. Just turn and say hi to your neighbor. You can say it out loud. I assume. Hello to everyone online. It's great to see you. Ah, nice.

[01:01]

I'm definitely feeling full of sangha joy lately. So last week there was a mountain seat ceremony and to install a new abbot at Berkeley Zen Center, so here we are now. That would be me. And as you may guess, I'm still... processing this and full of many feelings, joyful and stretching and all kinds of things. But the first thing I want to say is just to express deep, deep gratitude for all of you and everyone who's not here in person, all of you online, and just everybody who made the ceremony possible. And in one way or another, I think pretty much every one of you did for some reason. aspect of it. Since I returned to BCC a year and a half ago now, it's amazing how the time goes by.

[02:14]

From the time I walked in the gate and whoever it was that I met first, probably Lori, I just felt completely supported by everyone here. Greg and I both have, which made it possible to say yes to staying, to being with all of you and to deepening our relationship. So much gratitude. You know, the Buddha taught that it is a good thing, a wholesome thing to recognize and appreciate all that is good in our lives and in our practice. a lot of what I'm talking about today is kind of holding up a mirror to all of you and to Berkeley Zen Center over its entire history of the boundless field of virtue and merit that all of you are and all of it is and the power of that in the world because we can often overlook what's really close to us.

[03:26]

It ceases to register in the same way. So I just want to hold that up a little bit. Especially when these days there's just a lot going on in the world that is change and in not good ways. So... It's just really feeling important to me to highlight continuity and the importance of that and the significance and meaning of that. And I want to do that through talking about the ceremony and to say a little more about it. So it's a very ancient ceremony. As far as I understand, it comes from ancient China. And in Japanese, the ceremony is called Shinsan Shiki, which literally means... ascending mountain ceremony. So it's ascending to the seat. The mountain is the monastery or the temple.

[04:31]

And in China and Japan, the abbot or main teacher of a temple would take on the name of the mountain where they were practicing. So there's an old teacher called Stonehead. So... And the mountain was their seat. So they were like sitting on the mountain. The mountain is their seat. So in the ceremony, mountain is symbolized everywhere by a raised platform. And we recently found, I think Ross found some pictures of Sojun Roshi's mountain seat ceremony in 1985, which was here. And they did the mountain the same way by taking these two tans and putting them in front of the altar. You can see it in the old photo. So leading up to the ceremony, many of us, and certainly I was, very, very focused on many, many, many details.

[05:42]

who to invite, how many we could invite, what's the food going to be in for the reception, and who's going to do it. It's just big party. I mean, that's one way of looking at it, is like event planning. If you've ever done a big event, so it's all of that. But then the ceremony itself is very highly choreographed. And most people here are not so... used to doing ceremonies in a way that they would know all these kind of movements of things. And it's a really unique ceremony. So even though I'm familiar with ceremonies, so many pieces of it were really different and unique. So it required a lot of memorization and getting it in the body. And as I engaged more and more deeply with that and got more and more focused and the time got closer and closer.

[06:44]

I found that the form and the structure and layers of meaning and significance and symbolism began to reveal themselves to me. A lot of it was by just going through the motions again and again. I'm not so familiar with using the horsehair whisk. It's like a short and then it has horse hair or synthetic horse hair these days attached to the ends. And it probably started with shooing away flies before you sit down for zazen, but it evolved this whole meaning of teaching. And Huitzu Roshi, who came to help with the ceremony, talked about that as it's... is to kind of clear a space of silence and presence before sitting, before something significant.

[07:47]

So all these little turns of, you know, whisk, read a statement, offer fragrance, bow. So over and over again there's sequences of moving to different parts of the temple doing particular gestures and forms, people coming forward and backward, approaching the altar, approaching the founder stones, coming through the gate and making a statement and bowing, expressing gratitude again and again and again. Yeah, I think this is a reflection of why... repetition is so important in, I think, pretty much any practice. It's like you're practicing doing something over and over again. It's not that you just do it once and then it's done.

[08:49]

And if you're practicing writing or you're practicing music or you're practicing Zen, Part of practice is showing up, whether it's easy or hard, whether it feels like a good day or a not-so-good day, whether it's boring or fascinating. It's kind of like getting married to the present moment, a dedication to be there for what's happening right then. Because when you get married to a person, you're saying, for richer, for poorer, et cetera, you agree to show up for the whole deal. So practice is, you know, it's like a whole series of little tiny vows to show up for this moment by moment by moment, and then we build that muscle. We get stronger, and then we develop the confidence that we can show up moment by moment, that it will be okay.

[09:52]

Maybe not in a, quote, objective sense, but that we can be okay to relate with it in the most wholesome way that we can in the moment. So a mountain seat ceremony, shinsang shiki, is not just about affirming a new abbot or that role. I mean, it is about that, of course. I was confirmed six months ago in this role, which is like head priest, But I didn't become abbot until a very particular point in the ceremony. So that's the marker. That's when it happens. And it was when all of you who were there were out having intermission and talking to each other.

[10:53]

So it's just a little private ceremony. So that's the moment. And you sign a document. But it's also not just about It's not about just the person. It's not about just the temple. You would be amazed to know how many people I and we have been hearing from all around the country and a few people internationally who are just delighted to hear that this is happening, that this happened at Berkley Zen Center. So there are so many people who are connected through all this web of relationships which you don't necessarily know about unless you're in you know you travel to other sanghas or some of you know Karen Dakotis who's now at San Antonio so if you keep up with Karen in San Antonio you'll have some sense about how they're feeling about this and what's going on in San Antonio so yeah it's

[12:06]

It has ripples that many of us can't even see. Sojin Roshi had this ongoing relationship with Suzuki Roshi's son, Huizu Roshi, who came with his son, Shungo-san, to help us... rehearse and set up the mountain seat, and Huitzu Roshi plays a very particular role doing the ceremony. He plays Manjushri. It's reflected in a koan, and his part is all in Japanese and in a very stylized way of speaking that is common in Zen ceremonies in Japan. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Somebody has... Stray sound in the Zendo?

[13:11]

Ah, yes. Oh, yes. Hutsu Roshi playing Manjushri. And he's saying the Dharma of... now hear the dharma, and the dharma of the dharma king is thus. Recently, Patrick McMahon, who's a long-time practitioner here, goes way, way back to the early days. I think he knew Suzuki Roshi. He found some old letters that Liz Sojin's wife had actually shared with him that you had found going back and forth between Sojin and Patrick when Patrick was in Japan. And it was right around the time of Sojin's mountain seat ceremony. And he was talking about reaching out to Huizu Roshi and connecting with him and seeing if it would be possible to support.

[14:28]

So Huizu did come in 1985. And I recommend this wonderful talk that he gave after the mountain seat ceremony here in 1985, which is on the Engaged Wisdom site. If you just search for it by Huitzu, H-O-I-T-S-U, you can find it. I found it most unexpectedly, and it's lovely to hear. So we have this relationship with the Suzuki family and with Rinsoen, Suzuki Roshi's old temple. And I think a number of you have been there and have visited with the Suzuki's. Greg and I got to do that in 2010, which was amazing. It was so warm and generous and welcoming. So this wide web of family ties becomes increasingly powerful and meaningful the more you find out about it.

[15:33]

and the more you start having connections. It's like joining any family. There's lots of things that in the beginning are like, okay, that seems to be a thing, and I get that these two people are connecting around that. I have no idea what that's about. But bit by bit, it settles in, and you start sorting out the language and the forms and the meaning, and it becomes deeply, deeply... because it's part of this whole web. We're also connected with Akiba Roshi, who's right here in Oakland, right over in Rockridge, just east of College Avenue. It's beautiful, very, very Japanese. temple and home.

[16:33]

And he's married to Yoshi of Yoshis, the jazz club. And they're delightful. Akiba Roshi is the Sokan or Bishop of North America and has been for many years. So the relationship actually goes both ways. Suzuki Roshi came originally to take care of Japanese Japanese-American people who were in this country and practicing at Sokoji in San Francisco. But then he got very much involved. He was very interested in, from the beginning, he was very interested in meeting Westerners and seeing what their relationship with practice might be. And even at the time... There was an article in one of the Soto Shu, which means like basically Soto School. Soto Zen is our lineage of Zen and the Soto School.

[17:36]

They had a newsletter in 1959, way back before that, that was talking about kind of the ideal missionary, that wouldn't have been the word they used, but basically missionary to the West. And the description... matches Suzuki Roshi so closely, it's astonishing. Speaks some English, has an interest in Western culture, just curiosity, flexibility. It's like, wow, that's amazing. So it's a mutual relationship. Many of the Japanese practitioners and priests in particular and teachers who come here are very interested in how is it that Americans are so interested in zazen and practice? Because that's not always the case in Japan. It's structured very differently. Here we have all these lay practitioners being fully into practice.

[18:38]

I know you all know that, but to remember it and reflect on it is important. I wanted to say a little bit about the names, the various names of this place. So our... I don't know what you would call Berkeley Zen Center, but that's how we generally refer to ourselves as Berkeley Zen Center. Certainly, I think, how they're incorporated. But there's also a mountain in Japanese... In Zen, there's a mountain name and a temple name. So the mountain name is Old Plum Mountain, and that was because there was a red plum tree here that Sojin loved, and plum is very auspicious within Soto Zen, and it was Dogen's favorite flower.

[19:41]

In the Zen tradition, the plum is compared to the mind of the Buddha. And it symbolizes purity. And purity not like getting rid of defilements, but purity like non-duality, interconnection, emptiness. It's free from the defilements of our minds, of the separation. There's a Zen saying, plum blooms after a cold winter. And Huitzu's comment was, after the cold winter, you can smell the freshness. Have a very delicate fragrance. And Huitzu, this is from his talk that I was referencing in 85. He said, America's Zen and the teachings of Zen will surely endure the cold winter. So I think just like a plant blossoms, then in this country we'll experience cold, severe winters.

[20:48]

Then flowers blossom. There are many, many flowers producing wonderful fragrance. Please raise many beautiful flowers. So we, our practice, our relationships with each other are all the flowers, the fruits of practice. There are actually three symbols that are, three plants that are most meaningful in Soto Zen. In addition to the plum symbolizing purity, there's also pine and bamboo. These are like three very auspicious things, auspicious growing things. The pine symbolizes continuity, or unchanging quality, it's always green. And the bamboo grows very straight, always grows very straight and tall.

[21:51]

And then the temple name here is Shogaku-ji. So that comes from Suzuki Roshi because his full Dharma name was Shogaku-shunryu. And I think it often happens. Not always, but often happens that the temple is named after the founder. Sho means auspicious, favorable, promising, encouraging. And Gaku means a high peak or a mountain peak. And Huitzu commented, when we say mountain, we mean something like Buddha or something big, something high, something noble, something very, very high. And for us, that would be something like Buddha. So the translation would be something like the temple of the happy or blissful Buddha. That was his translation, is Shogaku-ji here.

[22:57]

So that was in 1985 after Sojin's mountain seat ceremony. So that's been 40 years, which is amazing. And that mountain seat then really marked a big shift. The first mountain seat ceremony is always a big deal, a big thing. But the first one for a temple is particularly significant because it marks a shift from a sitting group to a temple to someone who's actually kind of at the level of having an abbot. It doesn't just happen anywhere. So from the attic at Dwight Way to having this whole compound as a space, as our own dedicated space, having a zendo, a community room residential practice, that's all marking that.

[24:04]

And also Sojin's maturing as a teacher. By that time, he was ready. So those two things happened right together. His becoming Abbot and becoming a teacher were close. I think his Dharma transmission was in 1984, so it was the following year. The thing that was coming up so strongly for me as I was sitting this morning was all of this is about the relationship between continuity and transformation. continuity and change. So there's this continuity that is really highlighted and brought forth in the context of a mountain seat ceremony. I mean, it happens every day when we have service and we acknowledge our ancestors and we acknowledge our founder and express gratitude and bows, but much more deeply so in the mountain seat ceremony because it's really

[25:13]

pulling back to the whole thing. And I reflected that for me personally, just my own experience of this whole process and particularly after, has been about continuity and transformation. The process of writing the statements in particular, there are 17 statements throughout the ceremony, and the process of reflecting on each one and trying to understand what each one was about, because I had several different peoples to look at from different mountain seat ceremonies, so I had some idea of what other people had said. But in the script, it just has... a one-word name for each one of them and a one-word translation, but many of them are not entirely clear what it's about.

[26:23]

Like, one is translated as personal. So I just want to talk a little bit about some of the statements that I read there and how they're a part of the ceremony, how the ceremony is structured. So it starts at the front gate, entering the mountain gate. The gate of the temple is a very powerful symbolism within Zen. It demarcates the container, the boundary of the temple. And even when we come in the zendo door, we acknowledge it in a couple ways. Like we can walk up the steps and then we take off our shoes on the top landing. So that's a transition. This is acknowledging, recreating again and again the container and the field of practice, of intentionality.

[27:30]

And then we take off our shoes and put them on the shoe rack. When we come in the door, we always make a bow. to the altar. So entering the gate, the phrase entering the gate often means like entering onto the path, stepping forward, wanting to dive deep into practice. So I won't read all my statements, that's much too long. But I will read this one. Thirty years ago, I entered this gate for the first time. Within a wooden zendo like an ark, strong container of practice, community, refuge, a place to grow strong roots. Now, standing at this gate, once again, and for the first time, I wonder, who is it who now enters? All are welcome to enter.

[28:31]

Please, come. together, welcoming all who come, strangers becoming friends. Then we went on to the two stones, which are right back here, two large stones, which are memorial stones to our founders, Suzuki Roshi and Sojin Roshi, and spoke words of gratitude to them specifically for founding this temple. And also a way of saying, and we're still here. So you founded this, and it's still here. Thank you very, very much. And then came in the zendo, and there were three statements at the altar. The first one to Shakyamuni Buddha. The second to Daigun Shuri. Yeah, Daigun Shuri's not up anymore. Daigun Shuri is... Fierce protector of Zen temples.

[29:34]

And is often represented by a stand that has calligraphy on it with his name. But the physical images of him show him like this. Like looking out. Don't get out. Be safe. I'm guarding this place. This feeling guardian. And then the third one to Bodhidharma. who's right over there on that scroll looking intense and slightly grumpy, who brought the teachings from India to China. So again, speaking words, giving gratitude, bowing, bowing, bowing. And then we went in the abbot's office to sign documents and... And then coming back in, the space had been transformed and there's now a mountain. And the first thing was to receive a new robe, a new Buddha's robe that had been sewn by the Sangha, which was so beautiful.

[30:45]

And doing the robe chant and expressing gratitude for this gift. And then... a statement before ascending the mountain, which I concluded by saying, although keenly aware of my faults and limitations, I am deeply supported by all the Buddhas and ancestors. By myself, so little can be done, but together with all of you, so much is possible. And then there's one for world peace. I don't know if that's always been in there, or I have no idea. These just came to me as a repository of what is now. But there's one specifically about world peace. And I also brought in our local great ancestor, Maylee Scott, who wrote the Metta Prayer that we do on, I think, Wednesday mornings.

[32:00]

and then the founders, well, I'll read that one. That would be the Meili part. With our great ancestor, Seisho Meili Scott, I vow to continually cultivate the ground of peace for myself and others and persist independent of results. May I know that my peace and the world's peace are not separate. May all my acts of body, speech, and mind be always in accord with that fundamental truth. May our practice and work together be dedicated to peace throughout the world for the well-being of all living beings and for the life of this small, fragile planet. So in a way, all of these statements were writing prompts, you know, prompts to reflect on all of this. And like, what do you want to bring forth? So this continues to be an amazing process.

[33:07]

And then with gratitude to the founders and former abbots, to our members, donors, families, and deceased members, to my root teacher, Sojin Roshi. And then there's what's called the backbone statement, the fundamental statement. The question is basically, what is my teaching? What is the heart of my teaching? How do I express that in a tiny, tiny handful of words? And I think that's so helpful for all of us to reflect on periodically. It's like, who are you? What moves you? What do you have to offer the world? That's such a helpful thing to even just reflect on it. gratitude to Huizu Roshi for coming. The personal statement turns out to be all about gratitude, just reflecting on the whole of our lives and how we got to this place.

[34:17]

And then a koan. And then understanding of a koan. And then I'd like to read the concluding statement. One step at a time, I have walked a path that unexpectedly led to this mountain seat. With surprise, joy, awe, humility, and overwhelming gratitude, I am standing here. But we are all doing this together. I have deep trust that we will continue to walk the path together to find our way in these uncertain and unsettling times and that we can rely on the collective strength of our practice. of our trust in the Dharma and in one another. Of course, this trust is not separate from the very real effort it takes to manifest what is good, what is beneficial in the world for the sake of all beings.

[35:23]

Thich Nhat Hanh said, the future Buddha may manifest as the Sangha, the lived recognition of the power and vitality of collective awareness and action which is far more powerful than any single person, no matter how gifted. Let's find out what we can do together for the benefit of all beings throughout the entire world. So I'm just... Again, the gratitude and this theme that just really arose for me strongly this morning of the relationship, the intimate relationship between transformation and continuity. And just feeling, again, the gratitude that we have this tradition where what constitutes right view is that everything changes.

[36:38]

And the practice is how we can learn to be okay with that, how we can be fundamentally okay in the midst of not being okay. So we have this container, that structure, container that we practice, but that's always changing. And I realized that, I mean, you could say adapting is another piece of it. Because anything that doesn't adapt dies. And many things have died out. Species have died out. Ecosystems, whatever. Zen went through, Buddhism went through a tremendous amount of adaptation and change and transformation in coming from India to China, and then again from China to Japan, and then again from Asia to the West.

[37:42]

And it's still in that process. So we are the living out of this change, of this transformation, of making whatever Zen is in this place, in this time. And what will we do together? I'm so curious to find out with all of you. And I think now we have a little time for some questions. Or comments. Thank you, Linda. I have a comment. Anna questioned. My comment is, if I remember, well, there were five wild plum trees in the huge yard we had on Dwight Way.

[38:47]

And if I remember correctly, Plum Mountain was the name of Desendo before we moved here because those five plum trees, I mean, we had a huge yard. Mel had a little farm garden. And five plum trees. And then my question is, oh, and by the way, I have several more photos from Mel's mountain seat ceremony. If people, I can send them, if people would like to see them. Could you just put them on the list, sir? Okay. If that's okay. Yeah. My question is, since you were talking about the mountain seat ceremony, would you please tell me What is that fan about? And the little fan and the staff. Can you explain those items, please? As well as I can, which will be limited. The fan, you receive a fan, and I don't know why a fan.

[39:53]

I mean, I think it's a ritualized form of fanning, like whisk. But that you get when you're a chuseau, and you get one to keep. if you are coming to a mountain seat ceremony or there's some other very big ceremony, you would carry your fan. So all the former abbots carried their fans while they were seated in the ceremony. And I don't know why the point in the ceremony where I was holding the fan and not the wisp and not the staff is because I was receiving congratulations. But you hold the fan throughout the chaiseau ceremony. You get it before the chaiseau ceremony, and then you hold it, and then it's yours. So it's something in there. The staff, I eventually realized, it's like, when am I holding the staff, when am I not?

[40:59]

It's when you're walking. that you're only using the staff when you're walking, and it's something that you receive at dharma transmission. So you get a brown okesa and a brown rakasu, which symbolizes dharma transmission, and you get a kotsu, the teaching stick of your own, from your teacher. All of this comes from your teacher. And a staff. which is called in Japanese the shujo. But beyond that, it's like in processions, basically. Significant high processions. Anyone else? Yes. And would you please remind me of your name?

[42:00]

Vidi. Vidi, thank you. Would you mind sharing the koan? Sure. What I have here isn't the whole koan. It's my understanding of the koan. Oh, there it is. If you want to look up the whole koan, it's often called either sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, or Master Ma is unwell. Actually, I could say the whole koan just to give you context. Master Ma, who was an old teacher, was unwell. The head administrator came to visit him and said, how is your venerable health?

[43:01]

And Master Ma replied, sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. That's it. That's the whole koan. The commentary says that sun-faced Buddha is a Buddha that is alive for, I don't know, some very, very long time. And the moon-faced Buddha is alive for only one day and one night. So you could say, looks like good, looks like not so good. But here's my commentary. And there was a verse. There's commentary within koans and there's a verse. So I reference the verse. Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. Secho's verse says, for 20 years I have had fierce struggles going down into the dragon's cave for you. Clear-eyed monks do not make light of this suffering.

[44:02]

Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha, I say, 30 years, but who's counting? This suffering is the small door, the birth canal. We have to go through it. It cries out to be entered, not once, but again and again. Inside the cave... Feared enemies reveal themselves as dear friends, laughing and sharing a cup of tea. The tea is sweet. Suffering still has sharp claws. The dragon is curled close by. Thank you. Maybe one more, and then Rich. Thanks for your talk, Linda Roshi. I noticed how adept you were with the whisk.

[45:08]

That stood out to me during the ceremony, so good job. I wonder if you could just talk about what it was like for you to reflect on your backbone statement and whether that was an easy process or where that took you. I was reflecting what was really true for me in my practice, what I knew all the way down to the bottom, what I could speak to completely out of my own experience, nothing theoretical, just I know this territory. And it also came out in the koan. I know what it's like to have mental anguish and to struggle with that in practice. and the ways that I tried to find my way out of that, just the struggles that I've had.

[46:11]

What did I say? I said, so many years, seeking a path through silent desert spaces, persevering without destination, turning toward the unknown, the unwanted, the dark places, The path created in walking, in falling, in getting up and walking and falling, again and again. The path and the practice, just this, one continuous mistake. One continuous mistake is a quote from Dogen. Like we're always making mistakes and that's the path. Deep trust beyond doubt and within doubt Nothing is separate. Nothing is wasted. Every step you take is the movement of the light. There are no mistakes. There is nothing that is not nourishment, that is not the beating red heart of practice finding its way.

[47:20]

Walking the path, the path walks this person. The path, undivided, unfolds of itself. which is a way of saying when I get out of my own way, it's pretty clear. Once I got to that point, writing this was not hard. It was getting there that was hard. Getting, like, the suffering. I don't want to go there. No, do not, do not. But it's like, okay, just go. Ah, what a relief. Thank you. Thank you. Will you take my question online? Yes, thank you. Heather, hi. Hello. Oh, is this an echoey thing? Can you hear me okay? Yes. Okay. First of all, I just want to say how delighted I am to see you today over the threshold.

[48:26]

It's really wonderful. I'm taking Karen's precepts class, and I was reminded of a moment in the Jukai ceremony where it felt like the Dharma just sort of blew through me, like a real moment of transition, a threshold. And I found myself wondering if you had a moment or moments like that, in the mountain seed ceremony. It was a really interesting experience because I experienced that on one level. I experienced it coming through me continuously, but it wasn't me. I cannot say that my body was very easeful for much of the time because it's like just...

[49:28]

being so mindful of what's happening next, next, next. Because it's all scripted. The most relaxing part was really the mondo, the Q&A part. It's like, oh, I can just meet this. And someone asks, how are you feeling? It's like, oh, how am I feeling? Well, from about the waist down, grounded, and about here to here, a little fluttery, And up here, joy. Heart on up, joy. But I know that feeling you're talking about of things just kind of blowing through. That feeling of lightness only happened after. Definitely.

[50:12]

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