Think of something. Well, I have to think of something. Today's speaker is David Weinberg. And I forgot to ask you what your dharma name is. Kankai Muji. Which means what? It means observe ocean, no indication. That's pretty good. Thank you. A man needs no greater introduction than that. No, actually, David has been practicing here a long time, and before that at San Francisco Zen Center. He's been a Shuso head student here. I think that was a memorable ceremony when the electricity went out. So he was the only electricity. And he's been a priest here. He's been teaching for many years mindfulness-based stress reduction. Would you call it that? Yes. And David has also been selflessly and tirelessly BCC's treasurer for the last couple of years, which is actually a very difficult job.

[01:23]

So I don't know which of these There's so much equipment up here. And I'm getting older, and everybody's getting older. And someday, I imagine, we're going to have an IV drip. A little more morphine, please. Can you hear me? Yeah. Thank you, Alan. Next August, during the interim, several of us will participate in an initiation ceremony called Denbo, or Dharma Transmission.

[02:34]

Catherine Cascade and I will receive transmission from Hosan. and from Steven Weintraub, our teachers. Sojin Roshi, who is the teacher of both Alan and Steve, is the spiritual grandfather for this transmission. I don't know if he thinks of it that way, but I do. And I'm giving the talk. Dharma transmission is one of several initiations that we observe in our Zen lineage. Others include lay initiation, lay entrustment, priest ordination. They're not all identical and they're not completely different. Many of you, of course, have participated in this process and are familiar with it.

[03:42]

whether as an initiate or a participant observer. These ceremonies are wonderful events, occasions for joy and celebration for the individuals involved and for the community. They also involve I hope everyone here who wishes to gets the opportunity to be involved in such a ceremony when the time is right and it suits you and your teacher. Today I want to say a little about my experience of dharma transmission. I'm only part way through the process, a process that in a sense never ends.

[04:46]

The culmination, or a culmination, is still some months off. Maybe we'll have post-initiation talks as well. That's something we do here in our village. My teacher, Steve Weintraub, says he and I have already accomplished transmission. I think I know what he means by that. We're deeply connected after many years of practicing together, sharing Dharma ideas and experiences. We see eye to eye. There's an affinity and a linkage between us, but there's definitely more to come and we're taking it quite seriously, but not too seriously. In all of these ceremonies, there's a robe involved. In our lineage, we sew our own robes.

[05:52]

So we have expressions like, oh, she's sewing a green rakasu, or he's sewing a robe. Or we just say, she's sewing. Everybody knows what that means. Or we think we know what it means. Sewing is not easy for us with our busy lives and limited manual skills. Sometimes it seems endless, giving us a fuller appreciation of time. It's also quite grounding to sew up. a robe and other paraphernalia, it's been quite good for me. I've needed it and enjoyed it, partly because I have a terrific sewing teacher, as many of you have and will have and have had, Jean Selkirk, who knows exactly how to handle me, how to provide just the right balance of encouragement and discipline.

[07:11]

and some choices now and then. Some of you know Gene very well. Someone said there are 15,000 hand stitches in a seven-jowl robe. This is a seven-jowl robe. Most of us are 15,000. until I added up the lines of stitching and multiplied the length times the number of stitches per inch and so on and so forth. And guess what? 15,000. The grounding that I experience in the production of a mystic garment has helped me navigate through anxieties I feel about the details of my life. about what is to come, including transmission. Even though I don't know what is to come, still I dread it.

[08:18]

Even though I welcome transmission, seek it, I also dread it. Preparing for a transmission that has already happened, I experience self-doubt, some loathing, fear of the unknown. This pattern of responses is familiar to me. It's my particular brand of suffering. I think, but I don't know that this impending transmission actually provokes confrontation with my character flaws, my demons. I gather this is not unusual. clutching at the shreds of dignity for myself, I imagine the Buddha sitting under the bow tree facing his demons on the verge of his great transformation.

[09:24]

The initiations are sometimes likened to simultaneous death and rebirth. How much fun is that? Dharma transmission, unlike the rest of our ceremonies, happens out of public view. Sometimes it is called secret, but it's not a secret from anybody. And I understand that the week-long ceremony itself is arduous. You have to be in good shape, lots of bowing, but more on that at another time after I've survived. One of the items I've sewn is a little cloth bag used to contain, to hold, the lineage papers that are an important part of transmission. This bag is made like everything else we've sewn according to a particular pattern.

[10:29]

Mine is made of brocade with little semi-ferocious dragon dogs on it. I picked out the cloth from what was offered to me by Jean, and the other day I saw that that same cloth is on the lining of Raoul's envelope that holds his robe, so we're connected in mysterious material ways. Also, one can sew a symbol on the front of the bag, which is a swastika. That's optional. Some of us have chosen not to use that symbol because of its recent horrific associations. But I chose to use it, as others have, to help take it back and put it in its rightful place.

[11:32]

The swastika is an ancient spiritual symbol that appeared in many parts of the world. I read that the earliest physical evidence of a swastika is one carved into mammoth ivory dated 10,000 BC and found in the Ukraine. The swastika first appears in India in 2500 BC. And it's widely used in Tibet and China in connection with Buddhism. And it was used by Native Americans. In our Zen school's lineage documents, the swastika appears in two forms. One is right-handed and the other is left-handed. The right-handed swastika stands for leaving the world and accomplishing realization. The left-handed one stands for coming back into the world, down the mountain, and helping sentient beings.

[12:42]

I chose the latter. Now I'd like to talk about one of the transmission papers, which is familiar to many of you, the Kecchimiyaku, or Bodhisattva's great precept, blood vein. Sometimes it's called precepts vein, sometimes it's called blood vein, depending on what's being emphasized. I'm relying here on a document called Secret Explanation of the Three Things in the Abbott's Room, compiled in the mid-18th century. Don't you want to know some secrets? or teaching that seems like it is just for you.

[13:45]

It doesn't belong to you like property, but it's yours to hold and to use and to be used by it. It might not be clear what it means right away, but there it is. Something in you is ignited. I'm sure many, many of you have had this experience. The secret explanation says regarding the Kecamiyaku, the precept vein means Buddha nature and ultimate reality. It is not opposed to false dharmas. One and the same Buddha nature is totally manifested in the symbols and letters on the Kecamiyaku paper. The precept vain means Buddha nature and ultimate reality.

[14:52]

It is not opposed to false dharmas. That statement is about me. It's radical and startling. I mean it's so short you could just slide by it. If you read it or if it just reaches out to you, you see it's radical and startling. The second sentence taps right into the absolute. One and the same Buddha nature is totally manifested in the symbols and letters on the Keche Miyaku paper. This is identity. Some might call this a mystical statement, claiming that a piece of paper with symbols on it is Buddha nature. For some it might be mystifying. But there's no calculation here, I think. It's just raw assertion. I like that kind of talk.

[15:54]

Anyway, something in me got ignited reading those words. I can't explain it or justify it, but it resonates with so much that I've heard and experienced in my life. My particular idiosyncratic response was to go searching through precious books, bristling with slips of paper and underlining and so on, reading old familiar passages with what seemed like new recognition and appreciation. I've been having a field day. When Suzuki Roshi talks about the teaching that is just for you, He says, you realize that you are the only being in the world and that no one can take your position. Whatever you say about yourself, we all say quite a lot about ourselves, you are the only one.

[17:01]

You cannot escape because the whole world is yours. This is beyond the truth we can talk about. This is ultimate truth, he says. Well, this is medicine for a benighted soul, like me, who often feels cut off from life, unworthy, basically responsible for everything that goes wrong. This is a narcissism that burns in on itself. and undermines a healthy sense of self. Suzuki Roshi cuts right through such delusive thinking and behavior. The whole world is yours, is deep ecology. Lack succumbs to fullness.

[18:06]

Lack is just the feeling of lack, nothing more. fullness is lack, appreciated for just what it is, a feeling. For a human being, certainly this human being, the most profound suffering is the feeling of separateness, separation from other people, separation from the world, separation from myself, from life. This is the root of loneliness and neediness, of emptiness in its dualistic, toxic sense, an abiding lack or absence at one's core. This sets up an understandable, desperate but fruitless

[19:10]

effort to ground oneself in something or someone to defeat this sense of lack. But that struggle just reinforces the basic suffering, reifies the delusion of separateness. Again, Suzuki Roshi's voice, all the things we see, all that we hear, is an expression of Buddha nature. When we say Buddha nature, Buddha nature is everything. Buddha nature is our innate true nature, which is universal. When we practice zazen, Suzuki Roshi says, we are practicing with all the ancestors. You should clearly know this point. If you sit having conviction in your Buddha nature, then sooner or later you will find yourself in the midst of the great Zen masters.

[20:18]

Buddha nature is the whole enchilada. As human beings we are grounded in everything, which means we aren't grounded in anything. We are everything. As Buddhist practitioners, we're rooted specifically and beneficially in the lineage of ancestors. This lineage is a list of people, some real and some imagined. It's a mystical succession. It is all beings and all things. And the practice, especially the practice of Zazen is realization of profound interconnection, of oneness. Saying oneness we may feel that we will lose something special or unique, lose our precious selves.

[21:25]

It's good to remember that oneness really means not one, not two. Gogen Zenji cites an ancient Buddha. The mountains, rivers, and earth are born at the same moment with each person. All Buddhas of the three worlds are practicing together with each person. He goes on to say, a Buddha's practice is to practice in the same manner as the entire universe and all beings. Do not think that Buddhas are other than you. By what delusion do we believe our body and mind is apart from all Buddhas? Such delusive thought is groundless.

[22:30]

How then can delusion hinder the thought of enlightenment and the practice of all Buddhas? Thus, understand that the way is not a matter of your knowing or not knowing. So, we're in very good company. And we're free of the burden of knowledge and doubt. You don't have to understand in the usual sense of I, separate being, cognize some objective knowledge. the way is beyond that kind of understanding. Dogen calls it no understanding or intimate awareness beyond subject-object duality. I found this on a website apparently taught by Dogen.

[23:34]

In the ocean or in a great river, there is a place called the Dragon Gate, where vast waves rise incessantly. Without fail, all fish, once having passed through this place, become dragons. Thus the place is called the Dragon Gate. The vast waves there are not different from those in any other place. water. Despite that, mysteriously enough, when fish cross that place, they all become dragons. Their scales do not change, and their bodies stay the same. However, they suddenly become dragons. The Dragon Gate Dogen speaks of is nothing but taking the actions associated with being a dragon.

[24:46]

Fish become dragons, we become ancestors. Dogen also teaches, no one but a fish knows a fish's heart. No one except a bird follows a bird's trace. When fish try to go up through the dragon gate, they know one another's intention and have the same heart. It is the same for Buddhas and way-seekers like us. We take our vows together with the same heart. We study the Buddha way together. We study the self together. We forget the self together and are reborn together with all beings and the entire universe. Together means alone and alone means at one. I'll leave you with a little poem by Yokan, master of loneliness and emptiness.

[26:03]

Walking along, I followed the drifting stream to its source. But reaching the headwaters left me stunned. That's when I realized the true source isn't a particular place you can reach. So now, wherever my staff sets down, I just play in the current's eddies and swirls. Thank you very much. So, Jain Roshi, do you care to say something? Thank you for your talk. You're welcome. Maybe you could say something about the form of the Kechamiya-Fu. Since many people have received one, and they have labored a nation, And when you do this ceremony, you make your own, which is six feet long, from scratch.

[27:18]

I'm worried about that already. Can you say something about the meaning of form? Yeah. The form of the kechimiya-ku, and those of you who have one know what it looks like more or less. It's basically a circuit, a circle and it includes all of the teachers, all Buddhas and all of the successor ancestors in our lineage. right down to or up to, depending on which way you're going, your own teacher and yourself. So, one aspect of the form is this connection.

[28:33]

We're in what appears anyway on the paper to be a linear connection with all the people who have practiced in our lineage, and perhaps by extension others as well, but that may be my imagination. It's a circle, and it goes, I feel it goes, I think the tradition is that the circle, the circuit that's made goes both ways. And even though it appears to be linear, or a circle, that is a line of people arranged in a circle, that's because that's short of having a holographic representation of Rakeche Miyaku.

[29:39]

It's the only way you can put it on paper. But the feeling of it is that it's all happening simultaneously. The teaching goes both ways all the time. Sojin Weitzman's awakening at any given moment is connected to Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening and to Hozan's and to yours. So there is succession, there is a timeline you could say, but there's also at the same time this simultaneity.

[30:45]

And I think also a sense of simultaneous responsibility. my awakening helps Shakyamuni. Just as the lineage that Shakyamuni began and has carried on through our ancestors helps me. That's what I have to say right now. Alan? Well, something you said just raised a question for me. like the notion, the holographic notion, and thinking about this document, because I just helped Sojin with the transmission for Greg Fain and Lynn McGallian and Taz Sahara, so it's pretty fresh.

[31:51]

How do you feel about, so there are names that are on this document, right? There's this And some of us in this room have received our own. But the dimension I wonder about is our connection to each other in the names that are not on the document. And I wonder what you think about that. Yeah. Here's what I think about it. I think that in a sense you're raising the matter of Sangha. And that while the Kechamiyaku emphasizes a succession, part of the simultaneity that I was referring to before really extends

[32:59]

horizontally in any case, so that the awakening, the various processes that individuals on the paper experience are also connected to the processes and awakenings that are occurring all around them. So any one person represented on the on the paper with a name and a red line running through his or her name, actually also represents branches, branch streams, if you will, that go out towards you if you're holding the paper, and behind the paper, and all around. You know, one can delusively believe that having your name on the paper and somebody else not having their name on the paper is exclusionary.

[34:10]

But I think I would prefer to think of it another way, which is that those names are, that they stand for something, and they stand actually for a succession of sanghas, brothers and sisters who've practiced together throughout history. As you're describing that, initially I thought circuit, okay, printed circuit board, it looks a little bit like that, it's kind of serpentine and all that, but from this just last, what emerged was the whole blood circuitry of a living body. Yeah. blood is flowing outward from the heart and to every cell in the whole body and then back in a complete closed circuit and all the branches are needed to reach every cell in the body but what you are holding is a little sort of like a road map that's connecting you to the circuit with the understanding that every name is a branch point

[35:31]

that's going out to all the other, in all the three directions, past, present and future. It's wonderful, thank you so much. Certainly. And the holograph introduces the notion that like it in a body, that the whole thing can be reproduced from any part of it. Yes, Sue. Thank you for the inclusiveness of your approach to this. And it makes me also want to ask you, you know, there's been changes happening about the management of women ancestors. Is that affecting the, is that incorporated in any way into your coming ceremony? Well, of course, I'm going to be engaged cheek-by-jowl with a woman, also receiving transmission.

[36:37]

But I think your question is, are the women ancestors represented explicitly in the Kechi Miyaku paper? Or an alternate paper, right. I'm not aware of that. I remember Many years ago, though, somehow I had this same thought. I think I was thinking of various teachers who've influenced me directly and indirectly, meaning the ones I know, whose names I know. And I made a, I think I took an Excel spreadsheet and just scattered names all over it. including all the ones sort of officially in our lineage, but people that aren't. And it was quite an enjoyable undertaking, and I'm not making any predictions, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the direction in the future.

[37:49]

Yes? for people who haven't seen it, it's worth saying that this red line vein goes from the beginning down through your name and up again. And up again, yes. As a continuation and visualization of that circle. Yes. I just wanted to say that. There were people who had lay ordination and priest ordination and so forth, and their names are at the bottom of the succession. And then it goes back up through Shakyamuni, and everybody's standing in everybody else's head. That's two circles, not just one. And there's a circle at the top, which is called emptiness, from which everyone emerges.

[38:52]

But I just want to say, And Chino sensei, Chino Kobayashi once said about this inclusion, he said, everyone who has not yet chosen You're in this club whether you want to be or not. It's time to end, no? Is that right? That's what it says for me to hold the striker up. And you're holding up the striker, so that's the end. Thank you. Thank you very much.

[39:48]

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