Good evening. So it's nice to see everyone after three weeks or so of vacation. Nice to be back in the Zen Do. So this is the beginning of our year-end year beginning millennial sit. So we've been hearing a lot about what's going to happen in the next century. reading about it in the paper and so forth.

[01:03]

But I feel that I have to say something about it. About a month ago, the San Jose Mercury News informed me that I had been one of the people selected to say something about this past century and the next century. So I made something up and I gave it to this lady over the phone and then somebody sent me a John Birch Society member sent me a copy of what they had printed. I hadn't seen it. And it was totally jumbled up.

[02:09]

It was incomprehensible, what I had said. And I was going to say something to them, but time passed and I never got around to it. But one thing I'd said was an important event of the 20th century was the United Nations. And the John Birch Society man said, if you really believe the United Nations was such an important event in the 20th century, you're not a real American. Interesting. but as you know the world is getting much, the world itself in size is not getting smaller, but it's getting to be a smaller place and all the diverse people in the world are coming

[03:20]

and the United Nations is an inevitable part of that. If we didn't have the United Nations, we'd just have a feudal system, a feudal world, which we do. So the United Nations is trying to put some cohesiveness to a feudal world. So I really believe that it's important to create, there has to be some way to create harmony in this world of factions. And although the United Nations has its problems, it's the only vehicle we have for creating harmony in the world among nations. And I don't know about the 21st century, but I think that it will have to develop, continue and develop.

[04:32]

But there are so many unknowns in the 21st century. It's just like the 20th century with the horses. It was a horse culture before the 20th century. It's a horse culture. And then in the 20th century it became automobile culture, airplane culture, radio culture, television culture, science culture. And we're just, electronic culture, we're just on the verge of all those technologies taking off in some way that we can't even imagine right now. And just before the 20th century, people couldn't imagine airplanes. I mean, imagine them, but, you know, the automobile, the vehicle that operates by itself, I mean, on its own power.

[05:42]

Amazing. I understand that, well, the medical Science has advanced, it keeps advancing every day in an amazing way. Probably many of us sitting in this room would have been dead 30 years ago if we hadn't had the advances in medical science that we have in the last 10 years, 15, 20 years. But I do believe that one of the wonderful things, because everything that's in advance is also a detriment.

[06:46]

Everything has two sides. So as the world is coming together, the races will undoubtedly have to mix with each other, which is a wonderful thing, but it also is at the expense of the wonderful individual racial qualities. But I think that there will actually be a human race which will be far superior to any one faction. So I kind of look forward to that, even though I won't see it so much. I really think it would be a wonderful thing to see all of the races intermingling and that will be one way to finally let go of our prejudices and racial superiority complexes and so forth.

[08:08]

But I'm wondering if you'd like to say anything about what you think is important for the next millennium. I think a good question for me is what is the role of spirituality or religion in the next millennium, in the next century, because has made a lot of transformations and a lot of pressure on religion to transform itself, to keep up with the changes in society. people often feel that religion is fixed and tinkering with it is forbidden.

[09:27]

So all of the old accretions that hang on to religion really hold it back from being relevant to people as society changes. I mean, I think the role of women in religion is changing, but still way back there. And I think, and even especially in Buddhism and in Judaism and in Catholicism, you know, and in, of course, the Muslim countries, religion is way back there and really needs to catch up in order to be relevant to people. And I see people, so many, who can't and are just kind of drawn into crass materialism.

[10:32]

I think that religion has to really catch up, trim the tree, prune the tree, prune the branches, to come down to the essence of what religion is about and let go of the archaic cultural accretions that are just dragging it down and making it impossible for people to wholeheartedly believe in it or use it as a vehicle for spirituality. When I was in my 20s, I had not been brought up in a religious Jewish environment. I was kind of culturally Jewish, but I had no

[11:43]

But I did long for spirituality, a vehicle for spirituality, but it wasn't there. And when a lot of the Jews came to America, they were so dazzled by the land of opportunity that they put their spirituality on the shelf and indulged in the great material prosperity. So when the children grew up, they were looking for the spirituality, but it wasn't there. And I grew up in that age when it wasn't there. So I made an effort to look at my roots and find out. I was kind of inspired to do that. But the spirituality wasn't there that I was looking for. So I had to find a Zen teacher who took the place of my rabbi.

[13:02]

and I did, with Suzuki Roshi. So he had all the qualities of the spiritual teacher I was looking for in Judaism, and I couldn't find that. But in the meantime, or after that, so many Jewish seekers came to Buddhism And the Jewish community started looking for their spirituality again. And so I thought that was a wonderful thing, that the Buddhist community woke up the Jewish community to their spiritual roots. And I would hope that This could happen in other communities as well.

[14:13]

But there's a long way to go. The Zen Buddhism also has to, I think, wake up to its self-examination to discover its relevance in the 21st century, but I think that a lot of Buddhism is more because Americans don't have the cultural baggage of Buddhism to get rid of. The Asians do, but there's no cultural baggage for Americans as far as Buddhism goes. It's kind of like fairyland, you know, spiritual fairyland in a way.

[15:27]

And everybody comes to it in America from their own desire to practice instead of being culturally brought up in a tradition which has its advantages and disadvantages. But one of the advantages is that there's nothing to get rid of, or very little to get rid of, and so people feel much more free and approach Buddhist practice from the point of wanting to have a spiritual practice and not just a spiritually materialistic practice. So I think Buddhism has a lot to offer and Zen practice has a lot to offer to people as an example of a spiritual practice in the 21st century and also Buddhism is not, although faith is the

[16:49]

one doesn't have to believe in something in a dogmatic sense. I think there are two things about Buddhism. One is self-discovery, And also compassionate practice to help other people. Both are necessary. How to have your own self-cultivation And at the same time, to help other people to do that, one is actually obligated to help others to find a way to self-discovery.

[18:13]

And I think that in the Bay Area, this is a very fruitful place for spiritual practice. There's a little bit of everything here. Everybody comes here and feels that they can actually reveal themselves and practice their various disciplines without interference or criticism or prejudice. So this is where all these spiritual practices meet. So it's a very rich place. somebody told me that they went to India and they asked several people in India, where do you think is the place where the best, the most, the deepest spiritual practice is in the world?

[20:16]

And they said, San Francisco. San Francisco or the Bay Area is a very fertile place for actually spirituality and you know, in the past, in centuries past, there's always been a few centuries in various places, there's been a few centuries where there had been a very peaceful situation and culture has grown and advanced in a wonderful way.

[21:23]

because that place, like in India in the Gupta period, it was a very fertile time for spiritual practice and scientific practice and the arts and sciences. So I think we have that at this point in time now here. And we should, I think, take advantage of that and realize that that's happening and appreciate it and do what we can to advance and make that work. I think a lot of positive stuff comes out of this Bay Area because we live here. we kind of take it for granted sometimes or don't realize that that's so. But if you go someplace else and you look back here, you realize that that's so.

[22:29]

And many people in many places look to this area for guidance, for what's next. So if you take a step back and take a look, perspective look, you can see that this is very fertile, very fertile place and everybody either self-consciously or is actually producing something very valuable for the world. I really believe that. When I was in my early 20s in the bohemian era and the beatnik era and in the 50s and 60s, it looked like people were just running around

[23:40]

in a kind of crazy world, but it was very fertile and all this wonderful poetry came out of it and it changed not only the way Americans think, but the way the world thinks in many ways to everyone's amazement. And I right now, which just seems like our usual practice, when we look back at it 20, 30 years from now, we can see how it's influenced the world. Everybody knows where Berkeley is. Everybody knows where the Bay Area is. And we're on the edge of cultural advancement, spiritual advancement.

[24:57]

So I think we shouldn't take anything for granted and we should be careful about how we do things, how we're practicing, the influence it has for each other and the influence it has for everyone around us. Is it good? Is it bad? Is it relevant? So I think one of the important aspects of spiritual practice is tolerance and respect for other disciplines and respect for race and nationalities and openness

[26:30]

inclusion and knowing what our place is in the world and working toward those ideals. spiritual practice doesn't make sense if it's divisive. Religion is necessary and also evil, destructive, totally destructive. It's creative and destructive, but religion is just a word, right? And religion is used for many things.

[27:39]

It can be used for divisiveness and destruction, or it can be used for creativeness and unity. So people think, well, someday there will be one religion Whether that's a good idea or not, I'm not sure, because if there's one religion then maybe it will become the state religion and then everyone will have to believe in it. So although it may be good to have one But I don't think that that can happen, or that it should happen.

[28:52]

If there's one religion, then everyone will have to believe in it, and it'll just start to be the same old thing. So I think there should be different religious practices, different spiritual practices according to the way people feel and think, and they should be tolerated as long as they're not or divisive. So there are many big questions going into the 21st century. Did you want to say something about anything?

[30:13]

So, tomorrow, did you want to say anything about tomorrow? Yeah, tomorrow's scheduled, so we'll have Zazen, and then block of the day, a large section of time we can spend really cleaning and taking care of the temple and setting it Actually, we do it more than once every thousand years. But this is a very traditional thing to do in Japanese monasteries and temples, to do a very thorough cleaning at the turning of the year. So this is the first time in a long time that we've had an opportunity, really, to do this. So we'll sit some zazen, and then work in the morning, and then have a silent lunch. In the afternoon, we'll work some more, and then have some zazen. to talk amongst ourselves, have some more zazen, and then have a dinner that's kind of social, where we can actually talk, and then move into the usual New Year's Eve, sitting from about 8 o'clock until 12.50, which I, as most of you know, is probably going to be pretty crowded.

[33:09]

So we'll be very intimate with each other. And then just pick up again with zazen at 9 o'clock Saturday morning to kind of complete the transition. So as many of you as can come, please do. Some of you have signed up. This is kind of an improvisational retreat recession. The rules are I think on Saturday morning. Can you say anything about how we might do that? What I was thinking tomorrow would be just to do it like in small groups, to have groups of maybe five or six people sit and I'll try to clarify a question

[34:18]

back. I think so. Thanks. The schedule is posted. Everything is posted on the Zendel motherboard out there. Schedule is fully posted there. And look, see if you have a job. Not so many jobs, but there are some.

[35:35]

And yeah, that's it. And also, this is completely by There's no fee for this.

[35:48]

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