I love what you taste, the truth of us is how it just works. I'd like to speak this morning about lay practice and very specifically about opportunities for lay practice at Berkeley Zen Do that are outside of the realm of sitting zazen and listening to lecture. I think especially for those of us who work long days and come and leave, and those of us who live far away and can only get here on Saturdays, that maybe it's important to look at the whole realm of possibilities within Berkeley Zen Center.

[01:19]

In addition to the way we go out of the Zen Joe, as it was said recently, with our hands this way instead of this way, remembering that we take our daily practice, our Zendo practice into our daily life outside the Zendo. I was recently at Tassajara, as were some of the other people, with Greg and Andrea, who isn't here right at the moment, and with some other people from Birkwiesendo. And I think one of the things we kept saying to each other was one of the things we got from Tassajara... This is a wound, too. One of the things we got from Tassajara was

[02:23]

Our appreciation of this practice here that when you're a hundred steps from the Zendo door, which I counted one day it's a little easier to get there than when you have to go out in the rain or ride your bicycle or try to remember as I do where my husband left the car last night in our crowded neighborhood and go looking for it. And sometimes it almost feels like breaking a precept to drive that car and that thing that uses gas and leaves pollution into the beautiful stillness of the morning. Anyway, we really came, I think, to deeply, more deeply appreciate the efforts of the people who get here and support this practice and take part in it Just before I left Tassajar and people were saying, please come back.

[03:37]

I said, oh, I'll come back, but there's one thing I don't want to do, and that's work in the kitchen again. I've spent enough of my practice life in the kitchen. I was one of the first tenzos 24 years ago at Dwight Way, and I spent a lot of time with my large family in the kitchen. And somehow I just, and I spent my working periods at Tassajara in the kitchen and just seemed like it was time for it to be over. And the first thing that happened, one of the first things that happened, let me backtrack, one of the things I kept thinking of at Tassajara was what shape my practice might take when I got back. because going to Tassajara was really the first major thing that I had done after retiring from many years of teaching school.

[04:42]

And so one of the things in retiring I knew I wanted to do was go to Tassajara and spend more time with my Zendo practice. And it was a little scary because I couldn't see the shape. And the only thing I knew that I didn't want to do was to cook. And the first thing that happened when I got back was Alan said, would you consider being Tenzo? And I said, only if someone would share it with me. I don't know why I said that. I thought maybe he would say no. No, you can't, Sherry, you have to do the whole thing. But he didn't, and Dolly and I have been being co-tenzo, and I really am really grateful for having this opportunity, because after some years of practice, it's a different experience.

[05:46]

And it's a real opportunity for me to practice that is very different from practicing on Dwight Way in a kitchen that, we complain about our kitchen, but that kitchen was, what, half the size of this kitchen? And in a situation where you were just Tenzo, The kitchen got cleaned up, you came and did the shopping and cooked, and that was it. That was just it, because it was Mel's kitchen and the kitchen of whoever else was living there. They cleaned it, they organized it, they made the decisions. Anyway, plus I'm rather a different person than I was 24 years ago. whole generation has gone by. We're working on the next generation in our family now. Anyway, it's been a marvelous opportunity and one of the things that made me, brought me back to realizing

[06:57]

what a marvelous opportunity it is to do things like that, the kinds of things where you're actually doing something instead of saying, oh God, I wish I was in the Zendo. You know, being Tenzo is great, but you don't get to sit that much Zazen, and it really isn't the same. So one of the things I started to do to help myself with that opportunity was to read from Dogen's directions to the Tenzo. And a lot of Dogen's writing is sort of divided into two parts. You find things that are very beautiful and philosophical. And then these sort of, what Laurie referred to the other day as these sort of fascist directions on how to do things. But I've been reading a little bit of this every day and trying to have this, and this has really sort of turned my attitude some.

[08:18]

When you prepare food, do not see with ordinary eyes and do not think with ordinary mind. Take up a blade of grass and construct a treasure king's land. Enter into a particle of dust and turn the great Dharma wheel. And of course, Blade of Grass is part of a koan from Blue Cliff Records, and it's the same as the 16-foot golden body, which is Buddha. And the Treasure King's Land is the Buddha temple. So anyway, that has helped me. Some of these instructions work and some don't. There's a very specific instruction in here in how to count the number of people and know exactly the amount of food to serve. And this morning, I failed at that. We ran out of grain before seconds were served.

[09:20]

Anyway, I think for anyone who has a chance on Saturday to come early enough to help cook in the kitchen, to work in the kitchen and have that opportunity, or during Sashim, That's a great opportunity to extend your practice. And I guess for me, one of the things that has stuck in my mind, and I've asked several, many people about it, and no one seems to know if it's written anywhere or remember hearing any lectures about it, but when the first raukusus were being sewn, It was either Suzuki Roshi or Kadagiri Roshi who spoke about visible mind shadow and how the practice of sowing is one of the ways when you work and you do something, you're not only doing the work to finish the raksu and practicing to be in that moment, but you can also see the shadow of your mind.

[10:31]

And that sometimes if the door slams, you'll see that everybody's Raksu at that point has a little, just a slightly different stitch. So, pretty soon Jukai is coming when people, and some people are sewing their Raksus, getting ready for that, and having that opportunity to practice. And many of us here have done that already. And, I've had the opportunity to sew a raksu twice, and I have a third raksu, which was given to me and sewed by a lot of people in the sangha, and it's a wonderful thing. Kathleen sort of directed it, and when you look at it, if you ever get a chance to be near me, I'll show you close up. She said it looks like a drunkard sewed it. And it's not that a drunkard sewed it at all.

[11:33]

but that 25 different people sewed on it to make this. And so you can see almost exactly where a different person took it up and started sewing. And each set of stitches is really beautiful, but it's visible mind shadow. Patrick, do you have your rocks on? Mine's almost in tatters. I'm ashamed to wear it. The first one I sewed, Patrick lost his, and I gave mine to Mel, and then Mel gave it to Patrick. So, I always sort of look around for it, and it looks, it was the first one, and I sewed it with, you know, with a lot of ego in it. And each little stitch was, you know, tiny and small and careful and even. Except that when you see it on, before it went into tatters, when you see it on Patrick, it looks sort of like a pair of blue jeans.

[12:40]

And it sort of bunches up. And I think often when we think about these, at least I have fallen to that, that trap. When we think about doing these body-mind practices, such as sewing, we sometimes get into the detail at such a level that we forget the whole picture of what we're doing. I was reminded by someone recently that was the trap. Anyway, this is the second raksu I sewed. Whoops! And it's falling apart, but I don't wear it very often. And it has much bigger stitches, that's the thing I can say in favor of it. And it lies flat, or flatter. So I think that I must have learned something between the two. But I tend to wear this one because when I wear this one that was made by the Sangha, I always sort of feel wrapped in love.

[13:56]

We've just finished, many of us have just finished taking the precepts class. And that certainly was an opportunity for a lot of us to practice. And classes, of course, are one of the ways that you can extend your practice beyond the zendo practice. And this class, for me, was especially wonderful, and I think for a lot of us, because it, well, it was tied to jukai, the fact that people will take the, are sewing their rakusus, and will take the precepts. very soon. They're working to finish those. And I think that's a very important step for people to take. But it's also something that becomes available to many of us.

[14:59]

And the precepts class was tied to that. And the way we worked, the way Alan designed it was we had an opportunity to look at a few precepts at a time and then look at them during the week and to watch how our daily practice, our practice in every life related to those precepts. And it was very hard for a lot of us. Sometimes it was hard to remember that one of the reasons we take the refuges in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha during ceremonies with the precepts is that when you take on that sort of heavy vow you also need the refuge to go with it and to keep remembering that you're that when you vow not to slander and not to take life that you're part of that life and part of those things

[16:09]

community that has to be cared for. Right in the Zen do, there are a lot of things, especially when people come first time to instruction, they often want to know why we do this or why we do that. And a lot of the things we do, and maybe we do them even more at Tassajara, at Tassajara And I don't know whether this is part of the instruction here. At Tassajar, you always come in with the foot first that is near the doorjamb, depending on which doors are open, so that as you enter the zendo, even before you got showed, you're brought to that opportunity to have a moment to bring yourself right into the moment. and to leave what's outside the zendo outside. And there is all those constant chances within the zendo to come to that moment, to turn right when you turn.

[17:18]

Not that turning right is any better than turning left, but it's another opportunity to bring yourself and practice being in that moment And one of the things that I've said, I'm sure everyone who's ever been near me has heard me say this, that, well, there was a long gap in my formal practice in the Zendo. I practiced steadily for about seven years, and then I stopped for a period of years and kept trying to come back. And I came back a little bit, but never sort of stopped coming back to a daily formal practice. And the one thing that carried me through was Mel teaching me to gassho. And I found that even if I wasn't gasshoing with my body, somehow in my body-mind I was doing it. And the way he taught me was that both hands are engaged and that the bow is not going down.

[18:24]

or coming up, but the bow is the moment of zazen at the bottom of the bow. That's a practice that I try to remember in the zendo and has stood me in good stead in teaching and in moments when I needed to stop and see where I was in relationship to the world around me. And of course, Oryoki is another big opportunity to practice with our body-mind and to be in the moment and to do that kind of practice. And if you're someone who can get here on Saturday and comes for lecture and for Zazen, coming early for breakfast and eating out of Oryoki is really an experience that you might try. The other, of course, some of the other things in the Zen Do are the chanting and the ceremonies that we have.

[19:36]

And the chanting in a way can also be another opportunity to look at visible mind shadows and maybe it's audible mind shadow instead because when we chant We chant with our Zazen breath, the same breath we use in Zazen. So it's an opportunity to watch that breath and hear it as well as watching it in your head. I want to backtrack just a little bit because one of the things I wanted to say about the class and all these opportunities for practice when we talk In the class we talked about the sort of three prongs of practice. Dana, Shila and Bhavana are generosity, the precepts, or what I tend to think of as morality, and then the mind development or mindfulness, the sitting zaz in itself.

[20:48]

And it seems to me, as I look at all these opportunities that every one of them can be a way that they're all three, if you really are involved in them. They're both generosity and giving. Also, we usually do it looking at the precepts, or can, and of course with the mindfulness So then there's the other list of things we can do. There's the being Jikido, which everyone is welcome to sign up for. And it's not just an opportunity in the Zen Do for the mindfulness practice and the giving and the generosity of giving to the Sangha, clean Zen Do, but it's also a wonderful opportunity To get some kind of, I want to use the word ownership, but that sounds sort of greedy.

[21:58]

But to really make the whole Zen Do yours when you brush every corner and sweep, it feels like yours. And at Tassajara, it's a wonderful experience because you sleep in the Zen Do. And the last thing you do formally before you go to sleep is you bow three times to Buddha. But I've been a mother for so long and a teacher for so long that I found that I was paraphrasing one of my favorite books, which is Goodnight Moon. And I was saying, goodnight Buddha, goodnight Manjusri, goodnight Mukugyo, goodnight Delves. And by the time I finished, I was sound asleep. That's a practice, personal practice. But being Jikido and serving, cooking, taking part in work period, those are all parts of practice that we can bring ourselves in mind to.

[23:06]

And our opportunities to be, do all these things, I spoke about the classes we have, just briefly, and I think one of the things I want to remind people of, too, is the Monday afternoon class, which I have never been able to get to, but it's there, and it's another opportunity not just to be in a class, but it can be sort of a bridge to get to know the Sangha. And I think, as part of lay practice, for many of us, especially people who come new to the Sangha, it's hard to be part of the Sangha practice. And especially if you're in a family and the family isn't involved in practice or you have work colleagues who don't know what you're doing.

[24:07]

Somebody this morning told me this wonderful story about Mel, who had gone back. It was right after he'd taken a priest ordination, and he went back to see his mother, and his mother was there with one of her friends. And as Mel was leaving, she said, well, good luck with your cult. And sometimes some of us feel that way. So having opportunities to relate to other people in the Sangha are really nice, especially for people who are newer. So there's Friday Tea. And I'd like to remind people about Friday Tea. And there, of course, is Dokusan with Nel. And I know that a lot of people are wary sometimes.

[25:10]

They think, you know, they've read about Dokusan in books and what's going to happen or what isn't going to happen. And I think if you find your way into the Zenda, you've found your way close enough to sign up for Dokusan. And on another I guess I'm thinking back to Tassajara and how much it meant to me to be able to talk with other people and have other people share with me where their practice was. To just sit down and have tea with a group of friends and say, well, how's your practice today? Or how is it going? Is that what we said? How is it going? And there's a list of people up on the board who are available for practice discussion. And it doesn't have to be a big problem.

[26:12]

It can just be if you feel like discussing your practice or a question about practice with someone. There are a list of names up there with telephone numbers. And if you feel a little shy about just approaching someone, you know, after lecture or something, those names are up there, and they're Alan, who's right over there, Maylee, Fran, Ron Nestor, Raoul, Raoul's still here, he left, and myself, and those names are up there, and those people are available to you, not just to discuss a heavy problem, but really to chat about your practice, but still it is practice discussion. I promised I'd watch the time because I do like discussion more than just hearing myself talk.

[27:16]

Some other opportunities are coming up for practice, and one is practice period, which will start May 1st to June 14th, when you can make a commitment to sit more, and you'll have an opportunity to ask both whoever is the head student or the Shuso questions that you bring Any question that is important to you and that you bring in a lot of, you'll have a lot of time to think about that question. And also to have tea with Mel in a formal way. Oh, that's not tea, actually. But to have an opportunity in a ceremony with Mel where you can bring a formal question to him and have Dharma discussion with him. in this room with many of us sitting here. Then after that, on April 16th to 22nd... Oh, it's changed?

[28:22]

No, it's April 16th before May. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Oh, I taught children how to do this. There is a week reserved at Tassajara for members of our sangha to go and taste a touch of, sort of a touch of life in a monastery. And I guess you talked to Alan if you're interested in that. Yeah. If he's here. I guess one of the things that a long time ago, Dr. Combs, I guess, came and spoke and gave classes at Cal in Buddhism.

[29:40]

He's one of the people of this century who's done a lot of translating of Buddhism. works, and quite a scholar. And one of the things he said that stuck with me was that the challenge of American Buddhism and Western Buddhism is to figure out what to do with women in democracy. And not in democracy, but and democracy. And we've certainly been working on that, but I think also the burgeoning, growing lay community and how we develop this practice is one of the exciting, to me in a way, the most exciting things of this time. where we can go off to our jobs and raise our families and still be involved in a real, a real practice, a real zendo practice.

[30:53]

And I don't mean by that to put down other practices of lay people, of caravans, but it's different, it's new. One of the, and how you keep your practice going and how you're going to grow and continue it. And one of the ways to do that is the taking of vows. And recently, thanks to Greg, I was introduced by a book of vows written by Aitken Roshi, and I wanted to read just a couple of those to you because they're so accessible and I find that they help me with my lay practice.

[32:08]

One of the things we spoke along, one of vows relating to right speech and not speaking ill of others, not gossiping and not harboring ill will. And this, the name of his book is The Dragon Who Never Sleeps. But this one really helps me sometimes. When tempted to speak of another, I vow with all beings to consider my reason for speaking. and call right speech to my aid. Another vow, in addition to these vows, I think of condition not as just a physical condition, but as your total condition. I vow with all being to rest in my condition,

[33:11]

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