co-led a Sangha week at Tassahara Zen Mountain Center back when I was still only 69. Over Fourth of July weekend was the culmination of that Sangha week, and that's always a big time in Tassahara. Lots of people want to be in Tassahara on Fourth of July. Interdependence Day, right? We call it Interdependence Day. Interdependence Day. And so we decided to make that the theme of the Sangha Week, interdependence. And I'd like to say a little bit about interdependence in action this morning. What's up? We can't hear very well. We can't hear very well. Well, it's green. Hello, hello. I can.

[01:01]

And I will. How's that? What if I talk like this? Does that help? Y'all have so much fun. The mic is working. Feel free to come closer if you like. There's plenty of room. Can you hear okay? Okay. Where was I? Interdependence. Thank you very much. Yes. Interdependence in action. I had a really, what, I want to say fun, but that's such a California thing.

[02:09]

That doesn't really touch it. Not fun. Satisfying, perhaps. I had a very satisfying morning cooking breakfast with Lori. I love to cook with Lori. I love to move around in the kitchen with other people. do that particular practice. And yeah, maybe some of you, you look at the listserv. I tried to offer it to somebody else. I felt a little bad because it's such a treat to cook with Lori. I said somebody else could do it, but nobody took me up on it. Lucky me. That was, yeah, that was really great. Great way to start my morning. And it's great to see all of you here.

[03:16]

We started out with not very many people this morning. And I thought, gee, I wonder what it'll be like. I forgot to ask if anyone was here for the first time. Yeah, okay. Oh my gosh. Wonderful. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Berkley's Edge Center. So, yeah, there were 11 people eating breakfast this morning and two people serving breakfast. Last Saturday, I served Orioki with Ross. another thing that, wow, what a joy. Yeah. And it was just the two of us. Again, just two servers. It was really great. I love serving oryoki. This is, you know, dynamic activity.

[04:21]

Zen is a religion of action. And When you serve oryoki, you get to check out everybody's bowls. It's fun. They're all a little bit different. They're all like expression of people's practice in a way. I enjoy that a lot. And the silent interaction when you're doing it is something... Yeah, I really... I've been doing it for years and I'm still not tired of it. I probably... keep doing it as long as my body allows me to. The fact that there were only 11 people for Oriyuki breakfast, but we did it anyway, what I thought was Mel would be so proud. This was really important to him. This is the house that Mel built, right? Sojin Roshi, my teacher.

[05:23]

I just think it was very important to him. this Oriyuki practice. I don't think they're doing it on Saturday mornings at City Center currently. It's something we can really take pride in as a Sangha, that we continue this practice. That said, we're going to take a break in August, which I think makes sense. Lori and I were like, yeah, probably might be even fewer people in August, so we're going to take a break and not do... oryoki breakfast in August, except for the one-day sitting, the sachin on Saturday, August 8th, I believe it is. This is... If you think that Zen practice is coming to Berkeley Zen Center and...

[06:26]

sitting on a black cushion or a chair, whatever your deal is, for 40 minutes or an hour and then leaving, you're missing out. You're missing out big time. Often people talk about taking your practice off the cushion, right? You'll hear that expression a lot. How do you extend your practice from the zendo, from the pure art of upright sitting, seated meditation, zazen, into daily life? But Sochan would say, there's no separation at all. Zazen is your daily life. Your daily life is zazen. And all your activity is Zazen.

[07:28]

This is what we studied in the last practice period. Abbot Linda taught Genjo Koan. That's the whole deal with Genjo Koan. This is what Dogen is talking about. It's continuous practice. Continuous awareness. Mel always used to say, just take very good care of whatever's in front of you. I heard him say that so many times. Just take very good care of whatever's in front of you. This he got from his teacher when he was the shuso, or head monk, at Tassahara Zen Mountain Center. Not with Suzuki Roshi, but with Tatsugami Roshi, another Zen teacher that Suzuki Roshi invited to come to Tassahara to teach the monks there about the Zen forms. And he did a good job. Tatsugami Roshi was the ino, the head of the meditation hall at Eiheiji Monastery, the mother monastery of Soto Zen Buddhism in Japan for a long time.

[08:38]

So I guess he knew a thing or two about forms. And he transmitted that to us. And the teaching that he... His English was not very good, but the main thing that he transmitted to Soto Roshi... was this practice called min mitsu no kafu, which is variously translated as intimate attention to detail or taking very good care of our family way. Kafu means house wind, but it's like the wind of the Buddha's house. But each house, like the house that Mel built, has its own particular style or vibe, you know, and we take care of that. In Berkeley Zen Center, we take care of the Berkeley Zen Center way. Whatever that is, well, you know, we get to make that up as we go along and we have common agreements so we can practice together and cook and serve oryoki and do service and

[09:54]

In the morning, on weekdays, you know, after zazen and service, we have soji. Clean the zendo inside and then sweep outside. Suzuki Roshi used to always say, first we clean, then we sit. First we clean, then we sit. Okay, we do it backwards on weekday mornings. We sit, then later we clean. The important thing is they're not separate. They're not separate at all. That is Zen. That's what I really want to emphasize this morning. That it's... Yeah, like I said, if you think that Zen is just sitting Zazen, you're missing out. You're missing out on a lot of it. And I think that's

[10:55]

A darn shame, if so. I was just listening to Sojourner Roshi yesterday because there's a talk of his that I very, very much like. I think I listened to it while I was there when he gave the talk. So I guess I've heard it four times. I found it quite easily on the San Francisco Zen Center website. So I never thought I would hear myself say these words, but there's something about San Francisco Zen Center website that has improved. It's easier to find Dharma talks. And this talk he gave at Tassajara when I was living there. That was Tanto. In August of 2014, there was a student who was working on a dining room crew.

[12:08]

And back then, that was a very specific crew in the summer who just took care of the guests in the dining room. Now, there's no dining room crew anymore. It's very... bare bones. It's like buffet style. But we used to not exactly wait on people, but we would do family style setups and kind of wait on them. We'd bring them dessert. This was my first work practice position at Tassajara in the summer of 2000. I loved it. I had so much fun. It was a lot of work. And it was this dynamic activity. But the guy... was a little discouraged that former crew head of the dining room crew that summer had left and had, like, kind of really regrettable attitude. You're exploiting us.

[13:10]

This is just to take care of these rich people, you know, and this is nothing but a resort. Couldn't see the practice. Couldn't see it, which is... Kind of sad. So this other person took their place rather late in the summer, suddenly found themselves being the head of the dining room crew. And Mel was there and went to Doka-san with Mel and asked him, what is work practice? And Mel gave him an earful. And then he gave the Dharma talk. in the zendo, in the evening, and he starts out by saying, I want to dedicate this talk to the dining room crew. And he just talked about the work practice in Tassajara in the summer and practice periods and why it's so essential.

[14:13]

It's not about the money. Leslie James always used to say, even if we didn't need the money, it would be good. for our practice to have a guest season, to serve people, to take care of people, and to share our practice. If it was only like a practice pre-monastic turning inward all the time, it wouldn't feel so good. Your practice wouldn't be so well-rounded. So, Sojan talked about that, and the name, the title of the talk, if you want to look for it, The title of the talk is Actualizing Our Understanding. How do we actualize our understanding in activity? How do we practice interdependence in our activity, interacting with each other?

[15:17]

People are difficult. Well, they can be. Jean-Paul Sartre supposedly said, hell is other people. I don't know. In the talk that Sojin gave, he brought up the famous analogy of putting sharp rocks in a tumbler. Actually, in his talk, he said a cement mixer. I guess they were big rocks. And just knocking all the sharp edges off, right? Smoothing it out. Or Hoi Tsuroshi talks about potato practice. If you want to get a whole bunch of potatoes clean, instead of cleaning them one by one, you just put them all in a bucket of water and shake the bucket really hard. And the potatoes will rub against each other. And they all get clean and shiny.

[16:21]

This is what practicing as a Sangha is about, whether you're in a monastery or somewhere you come, whatever, Saturday mornings, evenings. We have sasa that happens here three times a day, every weekday. That's pretty incredible. That's another thing we can really be proud of. There's always something going on at Berkeley Zen Center. And it's people. It's people that make that happen. Mind you, this is a very nice Zendo. Very nice Zendo. It's great. But it's not about these buildings, of course. It's about the people. The people keep the buildings in good repair. We do this. People take care of the garden.

[17:24]

Gardens, plural. Check out the back of the zendo. It's like we're farming flowers. There are so many flowers right now. It's people who do this. It's people who cook the breakfast and serve the breakfast and eat the breakfast. In this interchange of dynamic activity, this is genjo koan. This is actualizing our understanding. before I forget to say it, there's a piece of paper on the community room porch on the bulletin board facing the door to the kitchen. It's kind of inconspicuous.

[18:27]

But that's where people sign up to cook and serve Oryoki and what else? Wash dishes. to be Doan. We were hurting for a Doan, but I got like several, yeah, invitations, shall we say, to be Doan. I was like, well, looks like I'm cooking with Lori this morning. And maybe because I'm a resident, I'm more aware of that piece of paper back there, and maybe we should have some other way of doing it than this little piece of paper where people put their names down. Maybe it would help if there was an app. And, you know, you tap something and you get a little buzz. Sorry. Kidding, not kidding? I don't know.

[19:33]

Yeah, it doesn't happen by itself. We, as a sangha, make it happen. One thing, not the only thing I'm sure, but one thing I am sure of is that every order, every school, every sect of Buddhism around the world, wherever you find it, will talk about taking refuge in the triple treasure. We do that a lot. We do that here a lot. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha. The triple treasure is co-equal. Buddha is not more important than Dharma.

[20:36]

Dharma is not more important than Sangha. The three... are equally important. And I feel like in Western convert Buddhism, Western convert Buddhism, we, many people perhaps sort of slide past the importance of Sangha. You know, I just want Buddha. sit upright, be Buddha. That's true. That's what's happening when we do sazen. You are Buddha. You are manifesting Buddha nature. But you're manifesting Buddha nature when you're cooking or washing dishes. All of this activity, if it's only when you're sitting, that's not it. That's not it, friends.

[21:38]

In our sewing classes, we learned this particular stitch. Everyone here wearing a rakasu, this bib-like affair that goes around the neck, or okesa, this here. In our tradition, we sew these by hand. each stitch you say namu kyei butsu. That's Japanese for I take refuge in Buddha. namu kyei butsu, namu kyei ho, namu kyei so. I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha. The great, great sewing teacher, great Zen teacher, Blanche Hartman, really emphasized this a lot.

[22:58]

By the way, speaking of dynamic activity and what a wonderful sangha this is, we have got four fledgling sewing teachers coming up. This is really awesome. Yoni, Jeff, and Marley are not here. The four of them are currently apprenticing to become sewing teachers. Yeah, it's really awesome. It's a wonderful thing. So, once upon a time, I was chatting with a Japanese Zen monk, in Tassajara they come to the USA they all want to come to Tassajara it's true they've all heard of it they all want to check it out and who could blame them so this nice young man was visiting Tassajara and I was trying to be a good host we were having a pleasant conversation and it occurred to me ask you know because this is something that Blanche

[24:19]

used to talk about this word kye. How do you understand that? And this guy, he just went like this. Want to see it again? Blanche would say, plunge. Take the needle and the thread. I plunge into Buddha. I plunge into Dharma. I plunge into Sangha. Don't hold back. Take the plunge. I, yeah, I think I've made my point about my opinion that it's equally important. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

[25:19]

In Reverend Lien Schutt's amazing book, Home is Here, she talks about this image of Indra's net, which you may or may not have heard of. Indra is the Hindu god, and his net is the whole universe. And it's this... net where each node, wherever the bits of the net cross, there's a node and there's a jewel. And each jewel is reflecting all the other jewels. Very cosmic. Very cool image. But Leanne says, in Western Convert Buddhism, we pay too much attention to the jewels and not enough attention to the net. You've got to take care of the net.

[26:27]

What actually holds us together? What binds us together? Apparently, in Sanskrit, the etymology of sangha is that which is bound together or nailed down in place. Yeah. So, if you are here this morning, this is your sangha. Even if just for this morning. Or if you just come to zazen at noon on Thursdays, this is your sangha. Anything can be a dharmagate into practice. Coming here, participating, participating in the dynamic activity called Berkeley Zen Center, talking to teachers and practice leaders, which we are really blessed with a deep bench here, and talking to each other.

[27:34]

Let's just take a break right now and turn to somebody near you and say hi. Extra merit if it's somebody you haven't met before. Sorry, Linda. Hi. How's your day going so far? Okay, great. Okay. Yoni?

[28:47]

Yoni? Yeah, thanks. Thank you for indulging me. More of that with tea and cookies after this. This is, yeah, so joyful. So joyful. This is how we take care of that net. How we strengthen and build community, actually. So, taking refuge in the triple treasure, all three are equally important. So, yeah. I think that's... I didn't really have a whole lot to say, you know. I think I've emphasized the same thing like five or six times, so probably by now you get it.

[29:55]

Thank you for being here. Thank you for supporting and sustaining the practice at Berkeley Zen Center, which we all do together. A little bit... we're going to have a departing monk ceremony for Gensan. Reverend Gensan. Going off to Vancouver, BC, right? Going to practice with Kate and Michael? Yeah. I practice with them at Tazahara. They're really sweet. I practice with everybody at Tazahara. Yeah. But maybe there's time for a few questions if you have a question. Yes, hello. Thanks a lot for the talk.

[31:08]

I was particularly inspired by what you said I was particularly inspired by what you said, just take very good care of what's in front of you. I wonder if you can speak to, do you ever attempt to direct what's in front of you or control or choose? All the time. Yeah. We call that suffering. Yeah. Yeah. But apparently, knowing that... that is the case, doesn't always stop me. Sometimes it doesn't even slow me down. But that is a practice, you know. There's a famous koan where a student asks the teacher, when 10,000 things come at you all at once, what do you do?

[32:10]

And the teacher says, don't try to control them. Ehe Dogen tells this story and he says, you should understand that whatever comes at you is the Buddha Dharma itself, is the Buddha Dharma. Suzuki Roshi said, a lot of times, Suzuki Roshi said, we should be very grateful for our problems because This is how practice occurs. We should be grateful for difficult people because this is how we refine our practice. This is how we become less reactive, softer, kinder. Please. I just want to be kinder. I just want to be a kinder person. That's my entire practice. And it's not easy, you know.

[33:12]

It's not easy. In fact, it's pretty hard work. Maybe it comes more easily for some people than others, but I think all of us, we have to work on it. We have to work on it. Letting go, you know. We're all pretty good at this one. This one is a little bit more difficult, you know. Yeah. How do you unclench? Well... Zazen is really a good thing. I recommend it. I recommend the upright sitting and practicing the Sangha. Yeah. Yeah, because the sad fact is we can't control them, of course. We cannot. You know, we can try. We can try. I think most people do. Small ways and large ways.

[34:15]

Ultimately, we cannot. Thanks for your question. Thank you. Hello, over here. There's people online. There's people online. Hi, people online. That map. Thank you. What is the thinking about the difference between letting go and co-creating? Co-creating together as a letting go response in the world. I like that. What's your name, please? Margie Walkover. Hi, Margie. Hi. Welcome to Berkeley Center.

[35:17]

That's a brilliant question. To co-create something, to co-create something, that means individuals with their individual ideas and their individual agendas have to let go of some of that. In order to work with others and be creative with others, we have to let go of our own fixed ideas and be open to other people's ideas, which is a beautiful, joyful thing when you can pull it off. Yeah. Can I add something? Please do. Another question that is brought up by your answer. If we see everything that's living, including people, as having a rich diversity of gifts and strengths, Can co-creating in the Zen Buddhist tradition be seen as letting go into each other's strengths and gifts to co-create?

[36:25]

I don't have a Zen Buddhist word for it. You don't need a Zen Buddhist word for it. Co-create an organic transforming beauty, like a beautiful meal. Or a way to respond. That anchor is anchored in a peaceful letting go. But if enough people respond that way, there is an effect that's bigger than one person or two people's intentional forcing. Yeah. Fortunately, this is being recorded. And you had the mic. Thank you for that. Thank you very much. Yeah. You can create a beautiful thing called a sangha, a community of people who help each other and trust each other and know that they're in a safe space.

[37:30]

They're in a safe place with supportive people who know each other and trust each other and are open to others, to welcoming the new people. welcoming all people, which is what I must say. I have been here not quite two years. It's been an amazing, what a joy to witness that happening in real time. That's what I think I'm seeing. Thank you. Sir. Right here. My name is Court. Hi, Court.

[38:31]

Hi. I'm looking for your answer to this, not sort of maybe a broader answer, but your own experience. I've been pondering, like, what's... For you, what's the difference, if any, between what you're doing when you're sitting zazen, doing, not doing, the activity, the experience of, and when you're listening to somebody with great care, you're listening to somebody who is pouring forth, and you're just holding that space, but you're really present with them. Yeah. Any? Yeah. Yeah. A long time ago, when I had become a practice leader, and I was just starting to do practice discussion with students at Tassahara, attention Reb Anderson was visiting, and I had Doka-san, a one-on-one interview with him, and I asked him about this question.

[39:43]

I said, well, I was asking him about practice discussion in general. How do we approach it? And I can't remember exactly the thread of the conversation, but at one point I said, well, I kind of like to think that it's another form of zaza. It being what? Meeting someone face-to-face. listening deeply, sharing, mirroring. I said, I'd like to think that is like a form of zazen. And Reb said, that would be good. I think... Thank you, Court. I think we... Oh, he said, that would be good.

[40:46]

Yeah. We're going to do this departing monk ceremony, so I'm going to stop now. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you all for your practice.

[40:59]

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