sashim. He'll sit for today and tomorrow and Monday, from five o'clock in the morning till nine in the evening, while the rest of the country is taking a weekend off. This is how we spend our weekend, our holidays. So it's a little peculiar, actually. We say that we sit not just for ourselves, but for everyone.

[01:11]

And our sitting is not just, or our practice is not just to help ourselves. But sometimes we have a little difficulty Because if you sit sasheen for three days over a holiday, your husband or wife may not think that you're being so selfless. Or your family may not feel so good about it. So it's kind of a mixed problem. And Zen practice itself is a kind of problem, raises a kind of problem for people with families, people who have others depending on them or in a kind of relationship.

[02:22]

Most religious practice actually is family practice. You go to church on Sunday, the whole family goes to church, or those who want to go, or those who are forced to go with people who want to go. But somehow it's a unifying family kind of practice, most religious practice, devotional practice. Zen practice, Even though you would like to have all of your friends and family come and practice with you, they won't do it. Even though you drag your friend with you to come with you to practice Dazen, it won't work. Your friend has to come by himself or by herself. Everyone has to enter the practice all by themselves.

[03:31]

So this creates a kind of problem. And you have to do something. You have to be present with your body. Most religious practice is divided into the mundane and the spiritual. And you have your mundane life during the week, and then you have your spiritual life on Sunday. So there's spirit, spiritual life, and mundane life, worldly life. But for Buddhists, spiritual and mundane are on the same side. For most people, spiritual and mundane are two different sides. But for a Buddhist, spiritual and mundane are both on the same side.

[04:43]

So if you try to climb out of your mundane life into your spiritual life, you don't get to the other side. But this is what most people are trying to do in their religious life, to leave the mundane and partake of the spiritual. But no matter how much you try to get out of your mundane life into your spiritual life, it doesn't work because they're both on the same side. They're just two sides of one thing. So you go to one extreme and then you come back to the other. So for a Buddhist, spiritual and material are on one side.

[05:53]

Non-duality is on the other side. Before division is the other side. So that whether you're in mundane circumstances or spiritual circumstances, it doesn't matter. Spiritual, so-called spiritual, is not apart from our mundane life, and our mundane life is not apart from so-called spiritual life. So, Zen is not so attractive to people who would like to get out of their mundane life into spiritual life. because it always brings us back to right here.

[06:59]

So our practice is practice our spiritual life. Our spiritual practice is practice practicing with the body, putting our attention on the body. That's our spiritual practice. And each person has to come to it by themselves. You can't bring the family to zazen. Each person has to come by themselves. So, even though the practice is very open and universal, people who practice are very limited. The number of people that actually practice is very limited because it's devotion to practice. You have to have some devotion to practice.

[08:05]

So when you have devotion to practice, you're turning your attention away from something else. Whenever you do something, you turn your attention away from something else. When you choose one thing, something else becomes neglected. So it's very easy for friends and family to feel neglected by someone who practices. You get up at five o'clock in the morning and go to the zendo while your spouse is still in bed. Wait a minute. And you spend your three-day holiday sitting zazen. It's a big sacrifice. So it's not easy to practice Zen and maintain good relationships with your friends and your family very often.

[09:07]

But it's necessary to do that. Suzuki Roshi used to say, Don't get proud of yourself thinking that you're doing some special spiritual practice while your spouse is sleeping in bed. While you're in the zendo, your wife is doing zazen in bed, sleeping. not to think that you're doing some special thing. But it would be very nice if there was some way that there was a feeling of participation with your friends and your family.

[10:19]

One of the things that we discourage, you know, Our Zen practice has a social side, but it's not what you would call a social practice, even though we feel connected with everyone. Our practice should help us to feel connected with everyone, but at the same time, we don't encourage a social side. Because it's very easy for a social side to kind of wipe out the practice side. So people who practice are kind of wary of a social side of practice. Because the practice side is so, I don't want to say precious, but unusual.

[11:31]

and hard to maintain. So if there's too much social side mixed up with the practice side, then because it's so difficult to maintain the practice side, that the social side just kind of overwhelms the practice side. But there should be some balance. There should be some balance between social side and practice side, because social side is also practice. So I want us to think about how to include more people's other side, the Zen students' other side, so that people's friends and relatives, family, feel included somehow, not excluded.

[12:43]

Because I think everyone who practices would like to feel that their family and friends promote their practice. And it's not just something they do to escape do in spite of what people feel about them. So this has always been a kind of problem. There are a lot of single people who practice and single people sometimes tend to congregate together because they feel that family people have a certain kind of congregation already, which doesn't include them. In my experience at Zen Center, I've had this explained to me.

[13:51]

The people, single people, have a kind of resentment against family people sometimes because of what the family people have. They don't realize how difficult it is to practice when you have a family. So in a way it's easier if you're single to practice. You don't have the same obligations. But I don't see any difference between single people and family people. And I think that we should all be able to, everyone should be able to practice. I would like to see the single people helping the family people, and vice versa, instead of feeling that there are two kinds of camps. So, it's enough, you know, to feel...

[15:04]

Have your friend practicing something like Buddhism, which is so strange and alien, in a way, to a lot of people, much less spending their time sitting zazen on a cushion. So I've always maintained that the best way to allay people's fears and to elicit their support is through your virtue, the virtue of your practice. In other words, you can tell people all kinds of things about what's good about Buddhism, or about Zen, or about practice, but it's how you actually present yourself and interact with people that they pay attention to.

[16:22]

It's like, how do we bring up children? We can educate them in all kinds of ways, But the children know us through who we are. Children actually know us like dogs. You know, you can tell a dog anything you want, but the dog knows who you are, exactly who you are, in a way that people don't know who you are. And children know who we are in a way that most adults My experience with children is that some education is good, but they tend to come around to understanding what we're doing through who we are.

[17:26]

And are influenced by what they see about what we're doing. So I think it's good to be very patient with children and their education, not to force something on them, not to push them into some mode. We used to think about having Sunday school, and I remember at Sokoji, the old first Zen center on Bush Street in San Francisco, 20, 30 years ago, they used to have Sunday school. But it was really funny. Somehow, you know, it was something that you try to do, but it just didn't work. But having the children just hanging around and being part of the life, your practice life, they understand.

[18:37]

And they may not show any sign of understanding, but at some point, they surprise you. And I think it's the same way with your friends and with our family. At some point, they surprise you. So, although I think education is good, the main thing is how we interact with people and how we express our practice, how we show our practice through our daily life. That's the main thing. So, if you have a problem, with your family or with your friends. It's a good koan. That's genjo koan. Without trying to convince them that you're wonderful or that your practice is great, they can't see that.

[19:50]

All they can see is the way you behave, the way you interact. What is your personality like? How do you handle anger and fear and trust and anxiety? How do you stay centered? How do you stop being reactive? So it all comes back to us, you know. If we want to, we may think we know something about Buddhism or Zen or practice, but as soon as we get into, you know, the family is the place where everything falls apart the quickest.

[20:58]

It's the place where nothing will stand up unless it's real. So this is your education. This is our education place. The place where we're educated in practice. Your friends and your family and your associates are your zendo and your teachers. your wife or your husband is definitely your teacher. Because you're always being challenged by your teacher to be straight and to be real. And certainly by your children. So it's not a matter of how you can convince people of the practice.

[22:05]

It's how you can learn the practice that you're doing from them. If you have this kind of attitude, then you know what you're doing. I think that we need to be able to take the space from our family and our friends and our associates to be able to have our practice, to be able to sit for three days. I would grant that to anyone and I would expect or hope that someone would be able to grant that to me. So, it looks like selfish practice because it seems like you're doing it all by yourself.

[23:19]

But we're not doing it just for ourself. You know, the two sides of practice is retreating from the world and then going back into the world. back and forth. And if we're only just in one place, we get lopsided. We get too far in one direction. If we're always sitting zazen, we get too far in one direction. If we're never sitting zazen, we get too far in the other direction. So retreating from the world and going back into the world, retreating from the world and going back into this kind of cycle or rhythm balances our life.

[24:28]

Everyone should do this. But we can't do it for everyone. Everyone has to do it for themselves. And if people don't want to do it, we hope that they will at least allow us to do it. Children sometimes don't like it when their parents do zazen because they're turning away. You know, you sit and you face the wall and you're turning away and that's very scary to people. But then you come back and we bring some goodies with you. Maybe just a smile, just a good feeling, deep feeling. Some kind of all-encompassing feeling.

[25:37]

For a little while, your anger, resentment is flushed out. But I think that we still, there's still many possibilities of a way to make our lives work better with our family, friends, and associates. And something I would like us to think about how we do that. Do you have any questions?

[26:45]

Does this bring up some questions for you? I'm finding it. So many problems and the problems seem to just be snowballing and getting larger and larger. Sometimes this just doesn't feel like enough to sit here. Well, if whatever you think has to be taken care of, you should take care of it. You know, It's not a matter of either sitting or doing something in the world.

[27:49]

You can do both. It's not either or. You can do both. In the same way that you sit, practice, and you can devote yourself to taking care of something in the world. I know it's... there's only so much time to do something. But I think if we don't want to be bound by something, we don't have to be. And we can do something that we want to do. And if we really want to do something, we can find a way to do it.

[28:54]

You can sit Zazen and be socially active at the same time. And they're really good for each other. Sulok, who was here from Thailand. He's a very well-known social activist in Thailand. And he's stayed here with Alan for a while. He said he's a Buddhist. And he's very socially active. He's written lots and lots of books, intellectual. He said, if you become too socially active, you tend to forget your Buddhism. And then your social activity loses its base.

[30:09]

And I think that's true. It's not a matter of either or. If you have your practice and your dharma as your base, then it makes your social activism, social activity activism, it gives it a base. Otherwise, social activism can go to one extreme or another, and you get lost. You just become a kind of extremist, easily. I wonder if you could say something about the practice of friendship. Friendship? Friendship, just ordinary friendship. When you said that our practice tends to discourage socializing, that's been very much my experience, and it's often felt like ordinary friendship was sort of not valued very much.

[31:30]

You know, people kind of come and go, and if you're practicing, a lot, you tend to sort of hang out with the people who are there at the time, and you may make a very close friend, and then they may go off and do something else, and the tendency is to forget about those people, and only associate with the people that are right here. And as I get older, that bothers me more and more. People, specific people seem more and more important to me. Well, I have two things to say about that. One is that I think that's fairly normal in any walk of life, that people come and go in your life, and you maintain friendships with those people with whom you have the most affinity. The other thing is that I think ordinary friendship is great. I think that this place, as far as a Buddhist, as far as a Zen center goes, we've tried to maintain a kind of openness, which is a little unusual because our Japanese teachers maintain a kind of aloofness, and maintain a kind of aloofness toward

[32:59]

people coming in for the simple reason that we didn't want to give people a false impression that it was some easy thing to do. People had to kind of find their way and struggle a little bit to find their way into practice as a part of how you get into practice. so they wouldn't be disappointed later when they found out it was difficult. But we've, you know, and so people used to say, God, those Zen people, you know, so aloof, you know, they're just like zombies. They stand around, you know, and they don't talk to you and stuff. But we made a special effort to be more open and friendly with people. I think that's nice.

[34:03]

Michael, did you want to say something? It's difficult to accept your spouse's suffering. It's not necessarily a lot of suffering, but it's not quite appropriate. It's difficult to just accept that there's a little suffering there, not to deny that it's possible. That gives them anger. Well, that's right, you want them to accept the fact that you're going away. Yes, but it's illegal to accept your spouse is suffering after some years, but it's allowed to deny it. It's stupid, you know. Yeah, I agree. It's not always easy to get around to the other side. I think it's interesting what you were having been in both positions here for actually a relatively long time, even an even amount of time in both now.

[35:16]

I can see that. But one thing that's a little tricky about being in a family is that you have your You have this congregation in your house, in a sense. But actually, each family is quite isolated from each other family. I know a lot of people in here who have children, some of whom have some of the same problems that Laurie and I might have, that I've never discussed with. And each of us is left on our own to work out how we find these balances in our practice life, in our family life, in our relationships. And there's a sense to which that's good and a sense to which that's just kind of the, it's the isolation of American life.

[36:18]

And it made me think, this is maybe an extra thought, would be very tight. They would all know each other. They would all be from the same town. They would work together and interrelate in that way. So it was good for the teacher to be a step back. But here there's a kind of isolation that's hard. And some of it we've been working with not conscious Well, there's not a town that's a support system for the practice. But of course, also this is very unusual for family people to practice the way we practice. It is not done in Japan. So it's a whole, you know, it's new. It's not something that's, it's not traditional at all.

[37:24]

What's traditional is for monks to practice Zazen and laypeople to support the monks and have church on Sunday. So this is a combination. It's our American way. Although we didn't introduce it to ourselves, it was introduced to us by our Japanese teachers. Still, it's unusual. So we're still groping around for how to make it work. For me, the act of getting involved, sitting in Zazen or just getting involved in Buddhism, isn't just a celebration. There's the quality of taking refuge, of having been knocked around somewhat, discovering ice cream in the A's and the job doesn't do enough, there's something missing, or the relationship doesn't do enough.

[38:26]

so that the family doesn't do enough, or something's missing. So the involvement is a kind of confession that something's missing, to show up and say, I'm going to sit Zazen now, instead of saying, well, there's not enough out there. And the people around take that as a personal, I mean, I'm not enough. That's right. What's the matter? Aren't we enough for you? I think that's a good point. And there's got to be a way to sort of celebrate their not-enoughness as a possibility. At least. nobody sort of dropped a

[39:58]

Who do you leave the messages for? For anybody. If you had a computer, I could leave a message for you. And then when you turned on your computer and typed in your name, you would see there's a message from Charlie. That's good. It'd be a long time before I get a computer, but... That's right. I understand. That's a great idea. You don't need to travel to far and dusty lands. with practice? Well, the way I was thinking was that it would take the place of practice.

[42:05]

You know, like in church, so often the social side takes the place of the actual practice. It's very common. People become, you know, they get dressed up and they go to church. And it becomes a kind of more of a social scene than a religious practice. That's kind of what I meant by that. This is something I wonder about all the time, because it seems, for me, that sitting opens my heart, and that I feel much more cordial toward people, and more interested and more willing.

[43:07]

And at the same time, I recognized what you're saying. Somebody said to me, a friend of mine invited me to go to Greenbelch because it's the biggest pickup place in Marin County. And is that true? really sort of intense lookers and seekers. How do we handle that in public? It's out of control. How do we keep that healthy? See, one of the things, that's a good point, one of the things that is important is that we give people the space to enter the practice.

[44:14]

And when you start having a social scene, then people start relating to each other instead of relating to the practice. They get distracted by each other. And I think that's really an important factor. That's why, you know, we ask people to not create relationships with someone who has just arrived. You know, not to create a relationship with someone before they've been here for six months. So they have the space to just enter the practice without being distracted by somebody else, by somebody. Because when you... You know, it's enough to... People come for various reasons, you know. Some people may come to find a relationship. That's true. Some people do. I was surprised to hear that. But it's true. But really the purpose, you know, is to find zazen and to find your way into practice without any distractions.

[45:25]

And as soon as people start interacting too much and picking each other up, then this takes the place of the practice, you know. And after the person's been here for a while, Then, you know, they can have some freedom to do that when they become settled in the practice. But it's very... I've seen so many people just get whipped off, you know, to think, by somebody. So, I didn't know that exactly back then, but I'm sure you're right. But it's quite a social scene for a lot of people. Sunday is a social scene. Anyway, I don't know. I think it's inevitable.

[46:32]

I don't know how to turn that around. Some of it's probably good. how to relate to them in a way that's considered proper socially. I don't know if this is a problem, but it's something I need to accept as part of my growth. I think it's disturbing, more disturbing to the others.

[47:32]

And to you. Well, I think that this happens. When you start to practice often, if you're in one kind of mode, and this mode becomes kind of a radical change, then sometimes you see that maybe your relationships were superficial or your life was. you're starting to move this way and this doesn't interest you anymore. So that's something that you have to handle. And sometimes you just have to withdraw from your old life completely. And then after you have some experience, then you can relate again to those people.

[48:34]

But sometimes it's hard and you don't want to anymore. Because you no longer see things the same way as you did with your friends before. So you can't hold the same kind of conversation. You're not interested in doing the things that you were doing before. So it can become a problem. And I don't want to appear on a different, special place. I'm trying to maintain the same kind of affinity that we used to have, but I don't have it. And I don't want to be the thoughter's continuing of that kind of a relationship. Well, I think in that case, you know, you have to think about what kind of affinity do I or can I have, given where I am now? That's important, because if we tend to go along with everything, then we tend to hide our, you know, where we are at the moment.

[49:45]

So, maybe your friends, if you know how to maintain your own integrity without dissociating yourself from your friend, then they'll see that integrity. And maybe they'll change, instead of you changing. In other words, we can also be influential. We don't have to just follow after everything because we think we should, or we did. We can have our own influence, depending on how we feel about what we're doing. If we maintain our own integrity, you'll have influence And maybe you'll help some of those people. I mean, if you think, well, I'll help them, that's not so good. But maybe they can be helped. I guess it's the same thing that Charlie said.

[50:49]

But I really missed my friends for a while when I started to practice again. And it really took a little bit of inventiveness. I had to look for common activity. In the morning now, I walk regularly with some friends for anything from a half hour to 45 minutes. Or sometimes I have breakfast with friends before they go to work. And it's really enriching. It's sort of moved out of the, you have to have a glass of wine kind of, or go out to dinner kind of thing. But anyway, it's good for all of us to take up the challenge of how we can be with everyone and maintain our own integrity.

[51:49]

God bless.

[52:02]

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