I vow to chase the truth of the Greatest Word. Everyone, I think, remembers Ananda Dalai Lama from his last talk here. It was about eight months ago. And his talk was about several things. point was what kind of flower would a Zen student be, if a Zen student were a flower, something like that. And finally, he told us all that it occurred to him we were all geraniums. And then he had a geranium that he placed on the altar. during work period we were looking all over for some appropriate flowers for that altar and for some reason I think all we could find was geranium.

[01:06]

Amanda is our speaker this evening. Yes. According to the Sutra was the Udambara flower, which is a very rare and precious flower. And we, you, I, remind me more of geraniums. The flower sermon of the Buddha, remember? In most teaching was silently raised a flower. These days are pretty tough times for a Zen center, and I'm reminded of something Mel said some time ago.

[02:12]

He was saying about adversity, adverse conditions, so tough times are in a way very good because it brings you back closer to your original goal, your original inmost spirit, your inmost request. So that usually we sort of leave that origin kind of behind and get so busy with all kinds of different things that sometimes we sort of forget why we are there in the first place. We just are busy, busy with really things that are not so terribly important, almost all the time. Adverse conditions sort of demolish that, and they bring you back. You have no choice but to go back to why you are there in the first place.

[03:16]

And that's a question I'm asking myself, too. Why am I at the Zen Center. And the way I feel is I came to Zen Center with Suzuki Roshi and he was a Roshi, a Zen teacher. Actually we called him Sensei. at the time, and his friends there at Sokoji Temple still referred to him as Suzuki Sensei, not Roshi, not some great big high thing up there, but as Sensei. And I felt that I have long felt that

[04:25]

As the Buddha once said, that the entire holy life can be summed up in just one word, and it's noble friendship. The entirety of the holy life is noble friendship. And in meeting Suzuki Roshi, I didn't much care actually whether he was a Roshi or he was an archbishop or he was a rinpoche or whatever. I felt that here was a friend, a noble friend. As noble a friend as probably I would ever find. Also, actually, I didn't much care whether it was Zazen what we were doing or whether he asked us to stand on our heads. I had such implicit trust in him as one would a noble friend, that if he had asked that I, we do that, I think we would.

[05:34]

We would be standing on our heads today. And I also felt that that same spirit was of what I dreamed of in Zen Center. that us, we, Dharma brothers and sisters together, that that same noble friendship would exist between all of us. I thought that was quite in the spirit of Suzuki Roshi's presence, too. So, for me, then, that's what I dream of, in Zen Center is, if you will, a noble friendship between all us brothers and sisters. It's interesting, I thought, that Trungpa Rinpoche met Suzuki Roshi and knew him quite well.

[06:44]

And after having visited us several times, he gave us a talk and described his feeling for Suzuki Roshi. The way he put it, I have it almost word for word, I think, is, oh, how long it has been. Finally, finally, a friend. Suzuki Roshi, my friend. Someone who isn't trying to shove his trip down my throat, my friend, Suzuki Roshi. I was very struck by that. Someone who isn't trying to shove his strip down my throat. Suzuki Roshi. And I understand that too, in the sense of our gassho,

[07:54]

we do to each other, that we have this implicit trust in the Buddha nature of your friend. Of everyone, actually. Instead of trying to shove my trip down your throat, bow down three times, please, implicit trust in your Buddha-nature. That's a little hard, as we all know. We all are on various trips of one sort. Food comes to mind in particular, speaking of shoving things down throats, whether pure or impure. If you're on the impure side, you may have the reaction of trying to shove some impure food down some pure throat, or vice versa.

[09:05]

Hard to do. And in Page Street there, the city center, they call us zens on the street, our neighbors and so on. What are the Zens up to now? And what kind of image they have of us is slowly getting a little better, I think. But the kind of feeling that I would like to have, I wish that they had, is there are our noble friends over there, our friends. I'm afraid we come on a little bit poorly. not trusting in their religion. So, I also, along with something Mel said, which is that everything is up for reappraisal.

[10:21]

Everything is up to be re-understood in our Zen practice, Zen center, to some extent to, of course, the Berkeley Zen Do, in some way of our family of Zen center. By the way, in years past, we at San Francisco have at various times thought that Berkeley Zen Do was separate. It was over there. Zen center was over here. Never seemed to quite succeed. There's always some deeper bond, some deeper root, so that we are, it always seems to come back, we are indeed of one family. Everything is up to forequestion. The nature of our practice, the purpose of our practice, everything.

[11:24]

And what I would like to also talk to you this morning about is the meaning of ordination, initiation, and ordination. What does it mean? And for years, actually, I've been wrestling with that myself, in my own practice. What does it mean to receive ordination or initiation? It's no easy question, because in Zen, through the centuries, things have changed so deeply, so profoundly, coming to different cultures and now coming to the West, the modern world and so on.

[12:34]

Coordination, what is a priest, what is a monk, so it's all profoundly changed. Used to be that there were a there was a code of conduct and rules for a monk, 250 or 310 odd, that you would take and there would be an orthodox definition of what ordination was. It would be very comparatively simple. Buddhism comes to China, Mahayana tradition arises, different schools, different precepts, different interpretations. Zen altering and drawing up new rules for the monks, for the community.

[13:36]

Coming to Japan, new rules again. And beginning about a hundred years ago, the monks began to marry, very revolutionary kind of thing in the history of Buddhism. So today in the West and in modern Japan we find monks driving sports cars, eating hot dogs and drinking beer, collecting paychecks, setting aside a certain amount in a retirement fund, deciding what stocks and bonds ought to go into that retirement fund. And we find laymen reorganizing their whole entire lives around meditation, simplifying their lives, spending long periods in Tassajara, maybe even celibate. So what is a monk?

[14:43]

And what is a layman? And what have I done in receiving ordination? And for years, I have felt that at the depth of it, the lay practice was the same as monks' practice. In essence, they are the same. But at another level, I keep on worrying. about being a monk or am I a layman? Sometimes I come out very strongly on the side of layman and sometimes monk. And I accuse myself of wavering and what I should do is once and for all, good heavens, get it decided. You're a monk or you're a layman.

[15:45]

And I end up just flopping around between the two in a not very graceful fashion. And what does it mean? And recently I have been thinking about it in a way which has been very, very helpful to me. And that is in thinking about it in two ways. way is what I might call the outward way, the outward signs of ordination, in contrast to its inward sense. And outward signs are, for example, this. And Reverend D'Alembert, yes. Reverend D'Alembert, yes. Outward signs.

[16:54]

Are you a vegetarian? Celibate? How's the stock market doing? Embarrassing questions, maybe. Outward signs anyway. But what is the inner spirit? I think that's the same kind of sense of the terms exoteric and esoteric. The outward and visible sign is contrasted to an inward and spiritual meaning, the esoteric. What is that inward and spiritual meaning of receiving ordination? And we can think about Buddhism in a similar sense and how ordination is related to Buddhism and the inner spirit of Buddhism. And I would say that it's not far wrong, it's pretty close to the truth, that the inner spirit of Buddhism is represented by the term prajna, compassionate wisdom.

[18:13]

In most all schools, maybe all schools, I'm not quite sure, It's prajna, which is the center. And I'm reminded of the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita, the perfection of prajna. Most of the Heart Sutra I find kind of impenetrable. It's too abstruse or too theological or something for me. But the last part, the part that closes with the mantra, the great Prajnaparamita mantra, introduced by the line, All Buddhas depend upon Prajnaparamita. All Buddhas depend upon great and perfect compassionate wisdom.

[19:18]

And that I take to be the heart of it. The mantra, gone, gone, gone, or as I like, going, going, going beyond, going utterly beyond. I feel I have a glimmer about that one, no? And that is to go beyond these external things. Go to the inner heart of it, inner heart. Compassion and wisdom. Going, going. Going beyond. And as that is the heart of Buddhism, and the heart of that sutra, I think it must be, too, the heart of ordination. That's what it's all about. Not this lay versus Am I a layman?

[20:26]

Am I a monk? What's that got to do with it? To resolve, to center one's life on great and perfect compassionate wisdom. The heart of it, the inner meaning of it. The precepts and all. If one has that depth, that inner heart, I'm sure that Precepts, the spirit of the precepts will be somehow honored. Whether there are five precepts, twelve precepts, two hundred precepts, or three hundred and fifteen odd. But if you have that heart of it, the spirit of those precepts will be honored. Lei versus Ma. What a waste of time that has been for me. That resolve, I'm sure, would find its way into lifestyle.

[21:36]

But I don't think it is best regulated by a set of legalistic forms. When that heart begins to blossom, to fruition, it would come in a million and one beautifully different ways. And lay and monk seem so ponderous, so utterly inadequate. It seems to me it would make more sense to maybe instead of decide to be a layman or a monk, it would be much better to decide to be something like maybe What should I be, a dancer, a cab driver, or an attendant at the zoo? It makes more sense in some way, it seems to me. And it seems also to me that that same heart of great compassion and wisdom is not only what it's all about in Buddhism, but it's also sane, must be sane in Christianity, Taoism, Navajo, whatever.

[23:00]

must be that same heart. And I resolve, indeed, to center my life on prajna. That makes sense to me. That's about all I have to say this morning. few questions now, but also I'd like to say that after we might meet outside or perhaps in the community room, if there are some of you who would like to talk to me about what seems to be happening at Zen Center these days, then I could try to, from my own perspective, answer some of your questions. or maybe add to your confusion, I don't know.

[24:03]

Anyway, any questions? Yes? A non-union of you? I don't belong to the AMA. You know what that is, of course, the MA? The Auguste Masters Association. So how would I know? Yeah, I can try. Would something else fit in? once. Sometimes a pretty wise bird. Transmission works backwards.

[25:06]

We ordinarily think, of course, that it goes forward, like so-and-so gives it to so-and-so, and so-and-so gives it to so-and-so, on on down to the present. And I think he's right, it works backwards. That it is, for example, our love for Suzuki Roshi, that made him the reality that he was for us. And we can try to practice in his spirit, and if someone in turn loves us for it, then it will be transmitted. But without that love, you can have all the certificates in the world, and it just won't hold. So it's our love, maybe not for an individual. It might be maybe for a sutra, for example.

[26:12]

Maybe the Lotus Sutra. You've seen these monks going around banging their drums and saying, Yoho Renge Kyo, Yoho Renge Kyo, Yoho Renge Kyo. And it could be that you would love them for it, the spirit that they seem to blossom forth with. And if you find yourself on the street saying, Myoho Renge Kyo, Myoho Renge Kyo, Myoho Renge Kyo, and people, someone loves you for it, then there's transmission. Otherwise, you can give them a certificate or something, but what sense would it make? Maybe an individual, like Suzuki Roshi, maybe a sutra, maybe, I don't know, non-union wise, I would think it might be even pottery or something.

[27:20]

All kinds of things it could be. Life is so infinitely rich and varied, and we keep on trying to hold it to some neat little formula and keep on almost squeezing the life out of everything in some dead little category like layman or monk. So I think Zen practice, and as Dogen said, don't call it Zen, call it the practice of the Dharma. What's this Zen stuff? practice of the Dharma. For me, as I was speaking this morning anyway, that practice of the Dharma is to be ordained to that practice is to center one's life on great and compassionate wisdom.

[28:25]

Yes? I guess this is something of a comment as you speak. And particularly, as you describe prajna as compassionate wisdom, it sounds just a little bit different from the way... I mean, it makes me appreciate a certain difference in your practice. Of course, it's traditional to think of Avalokiteshvara as in the Han Sutra. That is quite traditional. I guess prior to discussions of prajna, I've always thought prajna as things as they are, as wisdom. And your emphasis all during your lecture on compassion and love, just was a little different. Yes, yes. In old Mahayana tradition, karuna and prajna, karuna-prajna, karuna-prajna, always together.

[29:30]

It's so much together that I think we can almost Karuna is compassion, and we can almost dispense with the Karuna. Prajna, of course it means compassion. What else? It must be compassionate wisdom. What else could it be? It must be. The Buddha, in all those centuries of his practice, was he seeking wisdom or compassionate wisdom? His compassion for all sentient beings. Any other questions? Yes. I just, each time I see you, I ask about Nyogen Senzaki. Because I understand that you had Dokusan with him once. And to me, you are a little bit, as you describe yourself, non-union person. And you seem that way from what I've read. And also, in fact, perhaps,

[30:33]

more so than yourself. So I'm just curious if you... Did he have some impact on you? Oh, yes, indeed. My phrase non-union is from him. Yes. Yes. A great impact, yes. Let me tell you a little story about Senzaki. I went down to L.A. to see him. He used to come up to San Francisco, too, but this time I went down to see him. And I said that in college I had been studying philosophy and particularly was interested in empiricism and David Hillman, and had begun a master's thesis on the subject in relationship to the Sautrantika school in Buddhism. But I decided to give up all that kind of thing and instead devote my life to bringing the Dharma to the shores of the Western world.

[31:37]

I thought he'd like to hear that. His English wasn't so terribly good. And he looked at me and said, bring what? And I thought maybe he didn't understand. He did the whole thing over again. To bring the Dharma to the shores of the Western world. To devote my life to it. Bring what? And suddenly I realized I didn't have the slightest idea what that Dharma was. Not the slightest. But I was going to devote my life to it. Best to know, have some idea what it is that you wrote in your life. He wouldn't let his students, for a period, I don't know how long that lasted, he wouldn't let his students sit on the floor.

[32:42]

He insisted they all sit in chairs. Interesting. I think because we sort of get into kind of a holiness fixation on this posture, easily kind of a religion of formalism, where it's only the form that we worry about. By the way, having done zazen for some thirty-odd years now, I can report to you that if your posture is not too good, and maybe you're not quite shaped right for it or something like that, you can waste years and years and years on posture, on form. You can do that. I've wasted a good number of years myself. I feel it is literally a waste. I'm old enough now to know that I'm going to be dead pretty soon and I still could be wasting time on posture.

[33:48]

I could leave dead and spend most of my zazen on posture, and that's just terrible. At least some time on getting to the bottom of the hell with the posture. The only reason I say that, or I feel I have the right to say that, is I am getting old. the closeness of the end of it all is looming up before me and I've wasted a lot of time. Any other questions? Yes? Do you wish to say any more about how or why the pre-Scythian America and refused to do it?

[34:52]

It was the decision of the government, of the emperor, that monks would incur royal displeasure unless they married. Most of them did. By the way, I would add, I think, rather willingly, so... As my own comment to all of that, I would add that Japanese men have a terrible time trying to be celibate. Apparently always have had, and still have. And maybe the Indian mind sort of takes to it, it does seem to. Maybe even the Chinese, I don't know. But the Japanese, well, still is today. It's quite obvious in the teachers in Japan I've known, and the ones that have visited us. It's rough for them trying to be some of it. Almost unwholesome. They get all mixed up about it.

[35:56]

And it's reached the stage these days where maybe your Roshi would even try to arrange a marriage for you. They don't think it's so good for you to be single like that. By the way, you happen to be single? Yes. Maybe we can arrange something for you? Your Roshi might actually be doing that. So, quite a different thing these days. A combination of things. It originally started with Meiji restoration and the edict of the emperor. Anybody else?

[36:46]

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