I love to taste the truth of love, that's what I do. This morning I want to talk about our study period, the study period that's coming up in September. And so I thought I'd give you a little background on Buddhist training. Traditionally, in India, the monks would wander for a good part of the year. And at certain seasons, the rainy season, they would get together in a vihara, a place, gathering place, and have a three-month practice period where they would all practice the same way together, pretty much.

[01:25]

And that became rather traditional in Buddhist practice. And it was for the lay people, retreats became... lay people were encouraged to practice at certain times of the year in retreats with the monks. And at that time, the lay people would take eight precepts. That's traditional. Traditionally, lay people take five precepts. The first five of our prohibitory precepts. And then when they, when lay people traditionally come into a practice period or training period, they take three more precepts, which is not to use money and not to

[02:31]

sleep on high beds, not to wear jewelry, things like that. So those people, lay people, traditionally live a more monastic lifestyle for a period of time. Maybe a week or a month, depending on the occasion. And so these two styles became rather traditional from the time of, actually, Shakyamuni Buddha. And in each country, of course, there had to be some adaptation. to the peculiarities of the place and the times.

[03:36]

But for monks, a 90-day training period is very traditional. And when we started Tassajara in 1967, we established two practice periods of three months each for every year during the rainy season. during the winter and the spring and the fall. And then the summer became a guest period where the monks take care of the guests, which is a kind of service to, reciprocal way of supporting Tassajara and a service to the community. But maintaining a 90-day training period, very difficult. We sort of took that for granted after we began to establish that at Tassajara.

[04:43]

It seemed like not such a too hard thing to do. But actually, when you look at it, it's rather amazing that it can be done at all. When you're inside of it, It seems just like the natural thing to do, but if you look at it from outside, it's a very difficult thing to do. So we're very fortunate to have established that kind of practice, monks' practice, which maintains two 90-day practice periods, training periods. our particular kind of practice, we have priests and lay people. And a monk is somewhere in between.

[05:44]

Traditionally, a monk is someone who is ordained, maybe just for the practice period, and maybe for a different period of time, longer period of time, but either way, Usually monks do training periods. Priests, I'm getting mixed up. In our Chinese, Japanese, Buddhist practice, there are priests and monks and lay people. In Theravada tradition, type tradition, Theravada type tradition, there are only monks and lay people, no priests. don't call them priests. So it's a little different. But we have, in our tradition, priests, laypeople, and monks. And a monk, in our tradition, say, practicing at a training period at Tassajara, could be either a priest or a layperson.

[06:57]

But while they're practicing, we call them a monk, whether they're a priest or a layperson, at that time. So that kind of practice is really open to most Zen students who are sincere in their practice and have shown some ability to maintain strict practice. Now, for our particular kind of practice, which is a lay practice built along quasi-monastic life, we have a special kind of situation in America and in this particular place. Because you people are not priests, and although you are lay people, you also practice in a way that most lay people don't practice anywhere in the world.

[08:06]

And it's a daily practice which I'm zazen and is difficult to maintain in your daily life of work and family and whatever your career is. But we seem to want to do it. And although it has many difficulties, we're trying to figure out how we can actually do it. And in the last 20 years, we've been trying to figure out how we can actually maintain this kind of practice and make it work. Sometimes it's discouraging, and sometimes it's encouraging.

[09:11]

It goes both ways. I think we want to do it. And little by little, it becomes more and more clear how to do it. Sometimes it's very unclear. But then it becomes clear again. So we're all kind of pioneering this effort. And so we try various things. This particular Zendo is pretty conservative, I think. Our way is pretty conservative. At one time, we weren't so conservative. But now, the climate has changed in Zen practice, and other people who are more strict are more conservative, and we've become more strict kind of by just the change in the situation, not by having done anything.

[10:15]

But I myself, although I see the need to change and transform our practice according to our situation and the times that we live in, also hold very strongly to traditional style of practice as an anchor and as a source. So whenever we do something, whenever we make some change or try something, we always keep in mind the source of our practice. So our changes take place slowly and whenever there's a change, It has to be proven that it works. I remember Suzuki Roshi was very careful about making changes.

[11:24]

He said, if we make a change, we should stick to it. If we decide to do something, we should stick to what we decide to do. So, when he did make a change, or when we made a change in that time, we were very careful about how we did it. because we knew that whatever change we made, we were going to stick to it, not be attached to it, but not keep changing our mind back and forth. So that makes for a very stable kind of practice. Nowadays, people are trying various things that they never tried before in practice, and I think that's a good idea. But I also think that if we practice the practice we have, it will transform itself naturally.

[12:34]

So I feel that there must be this tension between progress and restraint. And the tension between progress and restraint will create progress, but it will create progress within a fundamental foundation. Anyway, I want to talk about the study period. For us, being householders, we can't give up our job and our activities and our family in order to go to a training period, most of us. And even to give up a lot of our time to do more zazen, is out of the question for most of us.

[13:42]

In the past, we've tried various kinds of study periods. A study period of six weeks, a study period of one month, and I think a study period of one month seems to work pretty well for us. We practice in a very steady way throughout the year. Periodically, it's very beneficial for everyone to get together and do something which recharges or refreshes our practice and renews our practice and intensifies our practice in some way. If we push it a little bit too hard, it doesn't work. And if we don't do it enough, it doesn't make sense.

[14:47]

So to find just the right way for us to have a study period, a practice, we call it study period rather than practice period, because a real practice period is much more intense, intensified than what our study period is. So study period is pretty good. It means we study our way in a more intense way for a short period of time. And figuring out how to do that, because of each person's unique lifestyle, to make something that we do in common is very difficult. So for this particular study period, we decided that for people who wanted to do the study period, one requirement would be that each person would sit at least one period of zazen every day.

[15:58]

The study period is one month, the month of September. And if you're either at the zendo or at home, but you wouldn't leave out a day. That's a pretty minimal requirement, and I think a pretty good one. In our ordinary life, it may seem difficult to sit one period of zazen every day, but most of, even though we lead very busy lives, it's still possible to sit one period of zazen every day, either early in the morning or before you go to bed, at some point. But one period of zazen a day, if you can sit at the zendo, so much the better, because then we're all encouraged by everyone's practice together. But if you can't do it at the zendo, at least you can sit one period a day.

[17:06]

And then to come to the three-day Sashin, which is over the Labor Day weekend, that's the beginning of the study period. And then there's a one-day Sashin at the end of September, which is the end of the study period. And for the four weeks, each Thursday night, there will be a class. And the class will focus on how we practice in our daily lives. And this time we'll study the hindrances, what it is that stands in the way of our ability to organize our life, to practice, and what stands in the way of our understanding ourself.

[18:17]

And along with that, What are the beneficial factors that help us to practice? How can we organize our life so that we can practice? So those two sides. And the class will be based mostly on our discussion about our own lives and our own practice. within that context. I think that would be very meaningful for everyone. It really helps when we discuss like that because we may have some idea about practice, but unless we know and share what our experience is and what our capabilities are, then it's hard to know how to progress or how to develop our practice into the future.

[19:27]

So the more that we can deal with that, the more that we discuss it, the easier it is for us. So I think that those classes will be very helpful. For some people, it won't be so different. There are people who are able to practice and sit every day and who would ordinarily go to Sashin and ordinarily take a class. And for those people, maybe their practice won't be intensified so much, but they will be encouraging other people, which is very important. And they will be encouraged by other people's response. So this is a time for all of us to get together, if we possibly can, and share ourselves with each other in slightly intensified practice.

[20:43]

As I say, intensifying the practice just a little bit is a lot for most of us. But I think we can do it. And I think that this is a fairly reasonable study period schedule for everybody. Some people are new and haven't sat Sashim. And I would think that for new people who haven't sat Sashim, they could not do the three-day Sashim, but do the one at the end. Unless they want to. If they want to, it's fine. But usually, before we do a longer Sashim, it's best for someone to do a one-day Sashim. Also, although we didn't say this when we made the schedule, to come to the Saturday morning schedule is also part of the study period.

[22:03]

Maybe, if you can't come to all of it, at least to some of it. Saturday morning schedule is a pretty important part of our training. And it's a real opportunity. It's somewhat like a mini Sashin. And in order to find out what Sashin is like, to practice Saturday morning, the full schedule on Saturday morning is a way to find your way within Sashin and also a way to find, to train in this practice. Maybe you have some questions?

[23:07]

Would you mention one or two of the changes that you recall that were made slowly, but then you mentioned that... In the old days? Yeah, in the old days. Well, I remember at Tassajara, when we started the Tassajara practice, it was... the students at that time were... people hadn't been practicing for so many years at that time, and they had mixed ideas as to what practice was, what it was about.

[24:18]

And I remember when I came to Zen Center for service, we only practiced, we only chanted the Heart Sutra. That was the only chant that we did. The Heart Sutra in Japanese. Chanted the Heart Sutra in Japanese three times. And that was the extent of our chanting. And that was also so for Tassajara during the first years. And Suzuki Roshi wanted to bring a monastic teacher to Tassajara to actually turn Tassajara into a monastery. Although we had a schedule going, it was a kind of quasi-monastic schedule, and he wanted a real Ahe style schedule.

[25:35]

Not completely, but more training style schedule based on Ahe style. And so Tatsugami Roshi was invited to come to Tassajara. And Tatsugami Roshi was the Ino at Heihechi Monastery in Japan for about 10 years. And he was a very tough bird. Although at Tassajara he was very gentle, very sweet. But he had a reputation as being one of the most hated people. This is typical, though. In Japanese monastery, the ino, or the person who's in charge of the training of the monks, everybody will hate them. All the students will hate them. But when they finish their practice, they all appreciate them and love them. This is very typical. When that kind of teacher dies, everybody cries.

[26:38]

But at the time, they don't like it because they're treated very roughly. So when Tatsagami Roshi came to Tassajara, little by little he started introducing a more monastic style. And a lot of people didn't like it. And he'd introduce one new thing every day. And he taught us how to do the service. And he introduced all of the chants. And he was very good at chanting. And he was a real master at chanting. And our style is kind of copied from his. But we don't do it so well. His style is very strong and really came from his heart. And it's hard to imitate that style unless it comes from your heart.

[27:46]

And then he introduced the various practices at Eheji, not all of them, but what would suit us. And people would just, every time you introduce something a little bit new, a whole bunch of people that can't stand it. Interesting. So, every day, you know, there'd be a lot of upset people. But little by little, the practice got established. And that's the practice that we have today, pretty much. Now Kadagiri, she wants to change that. He went to Tosahara last practice period and changed a lot of things around. People saying, what's he doing? He didn't ask us. Things like that. So when you change something, you have to be very careful. Even a little thing, you have to be very careful.

[28:50]

That's why whenever we Whenever we want to change something, we always talk it over with the practice committee. And we go through all these little details. The practice committee meets every Monday morning and talks over all the little details of what our changes are. And it seems nitpicky, you know. It's, oh gosh, you know, splitting hairs. But if you don't settle something with people, together, someone is going to say, you didn't ask me, and why are you doing that, and so forth. So the kind of process of establishing change is very tedious, but it's necessary. And only those things which seem like they'll really work get established.

[29:55]

There is another way of doing it, and the other way of doing it is to have a charismatic leader who just tells you what to do. I think a lot of people like that. You don't have to worry. You don't have to go through all this tedious stuff. You know? Just somebody says, well, let's do it this way. Okay. And it can work that way, but it's dangerous, as we all know. So instead of doing it that way, we all do it together. And to do it together takes ten times as long and puts everybody on edge. But I think it works better.

[31:00]

And the same goes for our practice. When we first started, pretty much I was doing everything myself. When we started in Dwight Way, I did the scheduling and the cooking and the cleaning and everything I did myself. Everything that everybody does now, together I did myself. And little by little I could portion it out to people. The way we developed is that more and more I wanted people to take responsibility. And it seems to have worked. And one of the things that we try to do is for every member to have something that they do at the Zen Dojo, some position, even if it's

[32:15]

You know, just pulling weeds, or once a month, or something. But each person has some responsibility. Some people have a big responsibility, and other people have just a little teeny responsibility. But that little teeny responsibility is a responsibility, and it connects us with everyone. So, because our practice is of maintaining the zindo, is cooperative practice. And that's at the root of our practice, is that kind of cooperative effort. And it should permeate our life. How we practice at the Zen Dojo with each other is hopefully how we practice in the world with other people. and extend our practice that way.

[33:17]

So my particular practice is to be in my position, and to allow everybody to be in their position. and our positions change. My position stays the same, but everybody else's position changes. But to allow, as much as possible, to create as harmonious as possible a situation where we can all work together without too much vertical hierarchy, mostly horizontal.

[34:48]

create a situation where the life outside the zendo is not so different than the life inside the zendo, basically. Of course, the activities are different, but the essentials are the same. So the question is, what is zazen? And what does that mean? in our life. How do we extend zazen into our life? What does that mean? So in study period, that's what we are taken care of. What does it mean to extend zazen into our daily life? Do you have another question?

[36:12]

Sorry. Sitting 40 minutes on BART? Yes. Would that count? You bet. Sitting on the cushion of a bar train is not the same as sitting on this cushion. But you can find your position. How do you sit on that kind of a seat? What's the best way to sit on that kind of a seat? And you find that position. And you can watch your breath. You don't have to keep your eyes open. Watch your breath. And it's a good way to sit zazen. Just let everything come and go. And if you have to move, you can move.

[37:19]

It's a good way. Same goes for any kind of position that you're taking. I talked, I think, last week about kīnyan and extending that kind of mindful body practice into your daily activity so that you always know where your center is when your body, no matter what your body's doing, you always are centering yourself. That's continuous practice. I'm just still a little bit confused about one detail of practice that we changed recently, and that is the timing of announcements. Uh-huh. You are confused by that. Yeah. What would be a good time, for instance, to make an announcement after a lecture?

[38:26]

Yeah, today. Let's see, I leave, and then everybody straightens up their cushions, and then everybody stands there. Is that the time? That's the time. It's different than when I'm here, ordinarily, because I bow to the altar. We all bow to the altar together, and then we bow to each other. And then that's the time that you'd give an announcement ordinarily. But during, after lecture, what Ron said. Yes? I'm curious what are the five precepts that a layperson follows? What are they? Well, don't take life unnecessarily. And don't take what is not given.

[39:31]

And don't misuse your sexual energy. And don't lie. And don't sell drugs or liquor or some kind of delusion to people. I think those are the five. Joel? I'm happy to hear a little more of the history of the Zen Center. And as I recall, over various lectures, you tell a little bit of the story here and there. I'm thinking about when you told the story of meeting in that little room behind the store. Yeah. and the way you just said that they, that you did all the cooking, cleaning, everything there and then gradually gave it away to them by little.

[40:40]

As you tell us in hindsight, it seems that you had a pretty clear picture or vision of where you wanted all this to go and you knew each step along the way what the next thing was to do. If you were to place yourself back 15 years in time, how are you looking at the future? That's a good question. I was looking at the future as just meeting people within the practice and not taking it anywhere. Actually, I didn't want to take it anywhere. I just wanted to do it. That's always been my standpoint. is that I just wanted to practice people in the Zen Dojo. And I didn't have any plan for it to go anywhere. But I knew that I was practicing with Suzuki Roshi and Zen Center, and we were an affiliate of Zen Center.

[41:49]

And I didn't have any grandiose plan. I just wanted to practice. and help people to practice. That's the only plan I ever had. Just to help people to practice together. And it was just all based on what we were doing with Suzuki Roshi. It's all I ever really had. And I remember Suzuki Roshi asking me that question. He said, well, what do you want to do with that? And I said, I just deal with people as they come. Just practice with people as they come. I don't have any plan other than that. And as far as where it goes, you know, it goes where it goes.

[43:00]

I think it's, My own feeling is that just to find the basic practice and maintain the basic practice without doing anything special is as much as possible to do right now. And it looks like, you know, to some people that in order to do something, you have to expand and create some kind of gadgetry or some kind of spectacle. But my feeling is the opposite, is to keep making it simpler and simpler rather than more and more complicated. So that there's only one thing here. And if you miss it, you miss it.

[44:04]

And if you get it, you get it. I think it takes, you know, Japanese teachers, everyone that's ever come to America has always said, well, it took 500 years for Buddhism to take root in China. And it'll probably take 300 years in America, given the fact that things speed up, you know. We think it'll take about 20 years, we thought, some people thought. But, Maybe 300 years is right, if there is a 300 years.

[45:05]

Anyway, to me, to just go as if it was going to take 300 years. There's no fast way anyway. So I don't think we have to try to go so fast. Everything else in our lives is going so fast. And the feeling that you need in business to keep business going means you have to expand. It's a kind of law of business. You have to keep expanding in order to make it work. But in some way, this expands too. But what we expand is our mind.

[46:13]

If our mind keeps expanding, that's good. But as far as our business, I don't know. A little bit is okay, but too much. I remember In the 70s, we talked about the Zen boom in America. There was a Zen boom, you know. I remember going to Zen Center on Bush Street, and there were maybe, at Zazen, 10 people, 15 people, like here, you know, for years. And then, it suddenly caught on. There were hundreds of people. We were sashaying with 150 people, eventually. And so we talked about the Zen boom. Suzuki Roshi was never fooled by the Zen boom. A lot of us were not fooled by the Zen boom. But some people were.

[47:13]

Yeah, that's right. So anyway, that's my feeling, is just to maintain our practice and make some progress. But what kind of progress are we talking about? Just establishing a practice for each one of us is a lot of progress in a way that works. So anyway, I hope that you'll all be encouraged to take on the study period. I'd like to encourage you to do that, so we have a nice strong feeling here for that month. Thank you.

[48:14]

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