Okay, well it's June 16th, 1997 and we're here at the Zen Center with Robert Aitken and Mel Weitzman, Joan Sutherland, Alan Sanofi, John Tarrant is inspected, Tom Aitken is sitting on the bed. And this is what Roshi was calling a Zadankaya. Zadankaya. Zadankaya, which is informal discussion. Discussion. It means to sit and discuss. Right. Sit and discuss meeting. Right. So this was inspired, it's something I've been thinking about for a while, and it was inspired a bit further by the exchange between Mel and Roshi at your retirement ceremony, when Mel asked, nothing special, say a word.

[01:02]

And this is a question of some urgency, I think, for many of us Zen students. I think from both the Diamond Sangha tradition and Suzuki Roshi's tradition. And my feeling is we can ask some questions and see what your respective thinking is, where it agrees, where it disagrees. And I feel that what I've heard over the last few years is On the one hand, respectful agreement and mutual support, and on the other hand, a kind of critique, sometimes spoken and sometimes unspoken. And I think it would be great for the two of you, as long-time practitioners and people who we all respect to get to some of these issues and to surface some what the critique is and see what happens.

[02:19]

So, on the one hand, we have some questions that Joan and I can ask, and John may prod along as well. But the main thing is discussion, and that might well proceed on its own. So does that seem... That's about as much background. I think I want to kind of... I just want to ask questions and spread out and let the two of you go out. And Joan should also feel free to Ask questions and chime in where you feel it needs to be moved. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi writes, So if you continue this practice, more and more you will acquire something. Nothing special, but nevertheless something. My questions are, what is it? And this is the ways we're beginning to uncover what these differences are.

[03:28]

Joan, why don't you read that? That goes after this one, yeah. Okay, well that may be a place to start. You brought it up, so... What do you mean by nothing special? I think that if you continue down the line, you started with Suzuki Roshi's comment, he says, it is special, but it's not special. It's like two faces of the one die. Special, not special, are two faces. And everything is, as you said, I said, nothing special, you said, Everything is special, right? It's not the same thing, but it's the two faces. And what you acquire is yourself. And when you don't have yourself, it seems special. And when you do have yourself, it feels normal. As Buddha said, what we want is the norm.

[04:33]

Yes. I noticed that you brought along Nan Chuan's Ordinary Mind is the Way here. Case 19 of the Gateless Barrier. Zhao Zhou asked Nan Chuan, what is the Tao? Nan Chuan said, ordinary mind is the Tao. This is what we're getting at, what is ordinary mind. To understand what Nam Chuan meant, we can skip to the end of that dialogue. If you truly reach the genuine Tao, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation?

[05:35]

So obviously, this is using the term ordinary in a very extraordinary way. And when we look at the graphs that are used in the original, which we translate as ordinary, we find they can be translated as everyday. Everyday mind is the way, and some scholars do translate it in that way. But also, there is the implication of eternal there, unchanging. Everyday implies unchanging or ordinary. regular, complies, unchanging. So that is the hidden meaning, really, of all.

[06:57]

This is not to be sneezed at, so to speak. This reason that Nantuan was very critical of his brother monk, Changsha was very critical of him. That implies for me the notion that when you do have a glimpse or a touch of this unchanging Tao, by whatever name, that it is important that you not linger there.

[08:08]

Ordinary, as you say, is not the usual ordinary. And ordinary mind is true mind, or non-dual. The mind is not split off. one-sided, two-sided. But it's settled. The mind is settled within reality. What is the personal quality of that mind? How would you describe it? But it's the mind which I experience in Zazen, in deep Zazen.

[09:27]

What is there? I can't say what is there. All right. Yes. Yes. Really, there is nothing that one can say. It is not dual, it is not non-dual. As Ornville said, it is not green or yellow. It's also no special state of mind. Well, there is where we meet perhaps a disagreement, and it may only be linguistic, I'm not sure.

[10:47]

And some of them have never succeeded. So I think it's dangerous to say that there's nothing special about it. Oh, I didn't say there's nothing special about it. I said it's not a special state of mind. There is no particular. It's not a particular. There is nothing particular in that state of mind. Yes. Yes. Whatever.

[12:12]

Isn't that a little general, a little abstract? It is. Yeah, it's a little abstract. That would be a better way. Today the flies, they form a kind of dancing mandala. And the emperor asked Bodhidharma, who is this confronting me? Remember what he said.

[13:23]

Not knowing. He didn't say not knowing. What did he say? Don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Yes. There's a lot of difference between not knowing and said, well, I understood this point. It's, I don't know. I said, you mean you have no idea? Well, yeah, but... So, where do we go from there? From right now?

[15:02]

Yeah, from right now. Where do we go from there? We go from now to now. Again, isn't that a little abstract? No. It isn't? I don't think so. How can it be abstract? Where can we go? Of course. But isn't that a little abstract? The Buddha said, now I see that all beings are of the Tathagata.

[16:28]

Only their preoccupations and All beings are Buddha nature. You know, I think there's no relationship. And that's the miracle of it.

[17:37]

Another version of the Buddha's words, I and all beings have at this moment attained the way. That is the verse that you find in the Dekaroku. It seems to me, All beings are the Tathagata. Means, all beings come forth as the Tathagata. Fundamentally, there is no such So, what the Buddha is saying here, according to legend, in two different ways is, all beings are the Tathagata, or I and all beings have at this moment attained the way, is that each and every being

[19:16]

and independent. And that we have all at this moment attained a way that we are all intimately linked. And these three, the Great Emptiness, the Great Independence, and the Great Network, are completely independent, They don't relate to each other. And yet they express the same thing. They are a three-part complementarity. But complementarity isn't that relationship? Complementarity is identity. Okay. I mean, you have the wave theory and the particle theory of light. Those two theories are the same. The wave theory and the particle theory are the same.

[20:26]

And yet, they are totally, mutually exclusive ways of explaining the phenomenon of light. So, when you say that the Buddha meant that all beings have Buddha nature. Our Buddha nature. Our Buddha nature. It seems to me that you're glossing over the exclusive aspect. Oh, I don't think all beings are Buddha nature means that they're all the same. They're the same and they're totally unique and different. Okay, alright. You can't ever say one thing without implying the other. I think this is one of the problems we have with our words, you know, when we say, nothing special doesn't mean.

[21:30]

No doesn't mean no, doesn't not mean no, means yes, no, whatever you want it to mean. No, can't be whatever you want it to be. No, it means whatever you want it, not what you want it to mean, excuse me, but it means whatever it means. What is Moo? What is not Moo? That's it. Provisionally, OK, but that really isn't intimate philosophy. Maybe our facilitators have something they'd like to stick in here. Can I express it by asking a question? Because it's so difficult to talk about this everyday mind, can we talk about the effect of touching that everyday mind?

[22:33]

And I'm interested in, for instance, Wu Men's comment to Case 1 of the Wu Men Guan, when he talks about a very specific, definite, and quite joyous thing that happens when we touch that mind. He talks about entering a samadhi, a frolic in play, and Hakuin speaks of, you know, never forget this practice will affect a complete transformation in your life. Can we talk about that effect in relationship to nothing special, something special? Well, we're talking about peak experience here. Although both Rumin and Hakuin claim liberation as a result of this peak experience.

[23:40]

Still, what it is, is a glimpse that one can pursue thereafter. It's a simplification dangerous simplification to just leave women's comment, for example, hanging out there without further comment. Because, or as there is, as I mentioned last night, the joy... Come in. Tom is waiting for you because he wants to ride back to Sonoma. He wants to arrange that. You were saying that you thought it was dangerous to leave a romance comment hanging out there without further comments.

[24:50]

Yes. To go back a little bit, to bring John up to speed here. to the effect that seeing into this ordinary mind, which is really the mysterious, unchanging, is a transformational experience. And I want to make it in two parts. One is that it is a point in the practice that it is not a be-all and end-all experience.

[26:03]

It is a very definite which one recognizes immediately, but at the same time it is only a glimpse, it is only a peep, and actually can be allowed to just sit there without further exploration, without further transformation, without real confirmation. About the experience itself, it has, we might say, two aspects.

[27:09]

One is that forgetting of the self, which is at the same time all. He said that in a very early moment. And explored that point as many, many, many facets of the rest of his life.

[28:13]

It seems to me, this is something I've been thinking, maybe I'll turn this towards Mel, in this regard, if the point is, to me, I see the point as the transformation. That's what I understand to be the point of Buddhadharma. And what I see from hanging out with different people, long conversations, some meditational experience, is that there are different kinds and qualities of these kind of milestone experiences that to a degree are defined by the meditational system or the tradition that you're in. and makes me slightly wary that, you know, basically you're setting up a system and setting up a kind of model of dropping off or of

[29:48]

transformation, whatever, and then that model is confirmed by experience. And so the experiences, practicing with Mu, practicing with koans in your tradition, or your variant of the tradition, is one thing. The Vipassana practitioners have other experiences, Tibetan practitioners have other experiences, and perhaps more high-bound Soto practitioners have other experiences. In the end, after these, in the end, there's still the work of transformation. So I'm just, maybe you could respond to Any piece of that that you care to? It's a provocative question. It's interesting because I remember when I was an art student in my 20s and I had no practice.

[30:56]

I can remember several times when for no reason at all, boom, everything just dropped away and I was in this most incredible peak experience of my life for no reason. It was like grace, maybe, And to me, that was one of the real high points in my life, when that would happen. And that was kind of like the curtains opening, as you say. You didn't say, but as you implied, that you get a glimpse. And for me, that was a glimpse that led me to look for this practice. And often we say, that realization, because of realization, practice follows. It looks like we're looking for something at the end, but actually because of our understanding, which we don't necessarily realize, we enter practice.

[32:10]

So, the practice, you know, Suzuki Roshi's way of understanding was, of course, there's enlightenment and practice, and that within practice is enlightenment, and within enlightenment is practice. Enlightenment, this is Dogen's understanding. So, he emphasized the practice side rather than the gaining side of enlightenment. It's not that he said, enlightenment is no good, there's no enlightenment, blah blah. Of course, enlightenment is what he talked about all the time, and what he presented, and what his way was, an enlightened way, but emphasizing it as practice, not as something to get a hold of, not as a prize. And I remember one time he said, you should be careful about what you want, because if you get enlightened, you may not like it, which to me Sounded like a very basic kind of no-nonsense statement.

[33:19]

I'm not sure what he meant. Yeah. But, you know, going back to Alan's question, you're touching the fundamental point, I think, that all paths do not lead necessarily to the top of the same mountain. Not to the top. I think there are many mountains. Let 100 mountains rise. But more to your point, if you're working with Freudian have archetypal dreams. The setting is very important.

[34:22]

And so, it is essential for the beginning student, it seems to me, to begin with the attitude at least, set forth in the Diamond Sutra. that there are no archetypes or beliefs or terms that don't self-destruct, that are not, in essence, I think the closer we can come to that kind of setting for practice, the more genuine the outcome is going to be.

[35:30]

Am I making sense? Yeah, you're making sense. And to get back to kind of my original framing comment, you're making sense. I have no real qualms with that. And yet, there is this trickle of critique between these two approaches. And I'm trying to make trouble here. There is a critique, if I have to say it, of our school as being somewhat soft and deficient in that kind of clarifying peak experience. And quite honestly, some of us feel that. There's a critique

[36:40]

that I've seen the other way of looking at students who have, who are passing through this particular system of Koans, studying, who have passed the gate, and not feeling It depends on, we may be hung up on linguistics here, when you're talking about transformation, looking at how they act in the world, looking at how they move in the world, and not seeing apparent transformation. So that's what I'm trying to get at. Well, I certainly acknowledge. speaking with Pat Hawke about the practice of character formation that all priests, we were speaking particularly of redemptorist priests, have to go through, and he acknowledged that this

[38:35]

tenure process, whatever it is, doesn't take. There are, of course, some egregious examples of people who have become Roshis. So we were referring back to something I said earlier about making things more personal and more intimate. It is possible in the multifaceted, multilayered potential of the human psyche to maneuver one's way.

[39:48]

through Koan study is possible. So it's very important for the teacher to recognize genuineness in the 18-year-old That's non-traumaticized. That's part of it. I think that what you actually meant by, you may not like it, is, not that you wouldn't like it, what he was talking about, if you get enlightened.

[40:54]

Oh, I have never used the word get enlightened. Uh-huh. Well, he used that as a kind of, because this is the way people were thinking. He was addressing the way people were thinking. some, if you think that if you're going for some prize, you know, that you think is going to be wonderful, that you should think twice. Think about what it is that you're doing. So, and I think that we also hear a lot of other things reflected in John Stasios and Yartasios.

[42:03]

I think sometimes we're influenced by our teachers in many ways that, in other words, I think we should see the good things and not such good things about our teachers. And when I look at Suzuki Roshi, I remember just having a great experience and just wanting to rush to him and bow down. And at the same time, I could see his faults, of which he had a number of faults. One of his greatest faults was picking a successor. I mean, to be so keen on the one hand and blind on the other.

[43:13]

And I think all of our teachers have that same quality. And I think it influences, what our teachers say, because we love them so much, really influences us a lot. And we absorb it all. And sometimes we're willing to sort it out, and sometimes we're not. But I try to be really careful. I think that that's part of our, some of that contributes to the way we think about each other's practices. Well, it seems to me that Alan laid out the two critiques specifically. on the traditional modern Soto side, that the critique has been that there is something

[44:20]

For example, I have not met anybody out of this tradition who could be clear about most anything that our ancestors have said. the response, well, there are all kinds of different interpretations of the Oasis, which of course is true. looking at a folk story and seeing the layers of interpretation that one can get.

[45:58]

I find a psychological or historical response to those whole sayings and doings that don't touch any of the aspects. Well, they seem crisp to me. They may not be what one would expect, but I find when I read his taisho and koans that they really grab me.

[47:27]

And he says something in a very subtle way, and cutting. I am reminded of my first then friend's remark about, this is R.H. Blythe's remark about different strokes for different folks, you know, and he was speaking in the days long before There's a man for every religion and a religion for every man. So I want to acknowledge that what can be completely concise and fulfilling and deep for you may not be for me and the other way around.

[48:39]

The other way around. I want to acknowledge this. One of the things that I find, well, Yasutani Roshi's criticisms, which you probably, I don't know how you feel about them exactly, but I think his criticism of silent illumination, It makes it sound like silent illumination is something really bad, you know, as Mokusho Zen. Mokusho Zen is actually not so bad, you know. And it's equated with, like, people are not thinking, you know, they're sitting on, like, blocks of wood and rice bags and all this, you know, as if that's what silent illumination is.

[49:40]

So I think it's either a misunderstanding to something that he's reacting to. But I think to broadcast that, and people say, oh yes, Mokusho is that. Silent illumination. So I think silent illumination is wonderful, and I think Mokusho Zen is really good for us. And I think that there is realization or enlightenment within enlightened, within silent enlightenment, silent illumination. Illumination is light. So, maybe we use different words if we want to talk about something deeper. But, well, all of us, acknowledge that he was much too sharp-tongued in his criticism of conventional Soto.

[50:58]

It came out of his own experience, a very personal kind of reaction, to what he considered to be bad teaching. his revelation upon coming. And the transformation that he experienced was a transformation of attitude towards the

[52:07]

never expected anything from anybody. But he was someone as you can—well, were you there in 1968? gave everybody a good talking to. He was fearless in this way, and indiscreet, you might say. Impolite. But he told it as it was for him. And I think we should look at his criticism. just as we in the Koan schools must look at the criticism that we are receiving.

[53:32]

It's very important that you take Yasutani Roshi's criticism to heart and see for all the rhetoric here, what's he getting at? But I think that he was addressing something You know, we all know that Soto Zen in Japan was corrupt, or however you want to call it. And he was addressing what he knew and his background on that whole issue. But when Suzuki Roshi came to America, that's not what he was giving us. He was reforming the practice. He was redeeming the practice. For him to get that criticism, I think, and for his students to get that criticism, I think is unfounded. That's why I think that there's a lot of idea that goes into this kind of criticism from some other place.

[54:34]

But it's misplaced when it's directed at those people who are trying to make it actually genuine. Yeah. Well, of course, when we go to a foreign country, we are taking our own country with us, and so on. I remember at that experience at Tassajara, Soenroshi found a root, a tree root, that was placed that was, he found it in front of the cottage where he was staying. And it was shaped like a dragon. You could see the dragon shape in it. Oh, this wonderful thing that I have found, see, this dragon root.

[55:39]

And I was finally able to persuade him that undoubtedly Suzuki Roshi had found that root and placed it there. Sagnoshi was quite taken aback because he realized that he hadn't given his colleague any credit at all here. It was just a root that had fallen or something that had appeared from the ground. there in front of the college, and it was very deliberately placed there, you could see, and I knew, because I had some sense of what metaphorical way.

[56:40]

Well, all the Japanese priests that come from Japan have that same attitude. Yeah. And so you just kind of sit back and let them go through it. Yeah. That's right. Now, may I ask you a question that does come out of my experience with Soto practitioners here in Suzuki Roshi's line? I recently had a conversation with a longtime Soto practitioner who's become interested in koans. And she said that she realized as she was attracted to koans and thinking about wanting to do more with them, she had to confront a fear that she had about koan study. And that's about the 20th time I've had that conversation with someone who is practicing the Soto line. So I'm curious if you can address what this fear might be. Beats me. Beats me. I don't know what, maybe just a personal fear. Except that I keep having this conversation, so maybe everybody has the same personal fear, but I wonder. I want to acknowledge that that I don't sense any of that defensiveness from you.

[57:49]

Your gracious willingness to have Alan and others come and study with us indicates to me that you are completely open there. But there is something for sure, because I have that same experience. How would you describe it? I would say it's not only a fear, but it's a great defensiveness, a great defense, a great wall here. And this is true for the Zen Center leaders that I've talked to. I know what Kahan's study is, I've given courses in it, you know, and so I can say there is, everything is moved, everything is moved, so it's just, there's no willingness to take it in.

[59:04]

Well, there's probably some barrier, because they're entering into a different mode of practice. But you see, they come to me and say, I want to work on Mu. Yeah. Well, if they come to you and say they want to work on Mu, then shouldn't we totally dive in? I was very struck by Alan's comment about the social construction of religious experience and I just want to acknowledge that and say that use code.

[60:11]

Also, I meet people in the Sutter tradition who seem to have had that transforming experience, but it's handled really differently. teaches that which she was. I think that there's a point about Shikantaza.

[62:36]

When I read Yasutani Roshi's description of Shikantaza, I was really startled because it was such a totally narrow view of something that was presented to us as something so broad and inclusive. And a half hour of total absorption where the sweat pours off your body. I have to confess that I don't relate to that. Yeah. I have to confess. But you see, to us, that was the center of our practice. But at the same time, what I hear described as shikantaza from the students I get is a kind of modified vipassana. Or or beginners be possible. If one is doing Shikantaza, then that is also included in Shikantaza.

[64:01]

But one can do that without it being Shikantaza. What is included? Watching thoughts? Watching feelings? Taking them? Letting them go? You know, Shikantaza is just this, moment by moment, just this. What would Dogen Senji say if she can't tell us how it was? G-G-U-S-M-I. How do you translate that? Self-joyous. self-fulfilling samadhi. You also said body and mind fall away. Yes, body and mind fall away.

[65:04]

So, in all of our activity, not just in some special place, I think the special place is on your cushions, and it is that which you carry with you, you If that's a special place, then what is this? Sitting here, listening to my friend.

[66:15]

Is that special or not special? Of course it's special. It's precious. Is this like sitting on the cushion or not? Are we sitting on the cushion or not? No, we're not sitting on the cushions. Cushions. What are we sitting on? Rocker. Plastic chair. So what's the difference between the two? Clearly manifested. Justice! Justice! Justice! We're on our question.

[67:18]

I had a question from this and it's on the edge of my mind. Go back to the issue of transformation. and to conversations that I've had with Roshi. I've had conversations about a distinction between realization and character development. And with John, I've had the same discussion, but the line is less clear in the discussion. You have slightly different viewpoints. And with Mel, I think it's a different viewpoint. So to my mind, what I would ask here is, if you're talking about, I feel that the understanding from, as I have learned it,

[68:32]

is that there's not so much distinction between, I call character development, character transformation. And again, I want to get clear if we're talking about a linguistic difference or we're actually talking about a dharma difference. Because I think that if I look at my life, my life over the last 15 years is radically transformed. And I can say it's radically transformed with not very many of those kinds of peak experiences, none that might in fact qualify to be. And yet all the circumstances of my life and some of the ways in which I move through it appear very different to me when I step back. So when you're talking about just this, just this, and is there a distinction between sitting here in this chair and sitting in the cushion, then I come to this question about distinction between realization and character development or character transformation or not.

[69:48]

So maybe that's something to throw out there. Maybe, Mel, how do you see it? Well, no matter how brilliant a student is in their understanding, I always look at what they do rather than what they say. And there's something about our practice of Shikantaza, which makes one very sensitive to how others are behaving. Or, you know, like you say sometimes, a characteristic of our school is to really see where the student is, you should look at them from behind. You know, you get that feeling, how they walk, how they handle themselves, how they relate, how they are.

[71:00]

The student can be really brilliant and give you all the right answers, but it's how they actually perform in that life that shows where their understanding is. So the understanding has to conform with their actions, and we're all off when it comes to that, trying to put the two together. I see it sometimes as a focus. Things are a little bit out of focus, a little blurry. And then when they're in focus, they're very clear and exact. And that's how I see where the student is, how focused they are in those characteristics. And so the character, naturally, should conform to the understanding.

[72:01]

And whether a person's understanding Whether a person can actually express their understanding or not is one thing, but they may not be able to express their understanding. But when you ask them what their understanding is, but they express their understanding in their life. And I think that we have to be able to see that. You know, that someone, you may ask them what is such and such, and they may not be able to tell you, but the way they actually perform their life. It expresses that. So, I'm mostly looking to when I think about who are the advanced students through the way they act.

[73:04]

It's a total Sometimes we have wonderful students who are always bumbling through everything. They can't do anything right. And yet there's something, some quality that they have which is so admirable that it's the real teaching for everybody. So it's hard to say who's the teachers and who are the students. who's right and who's not right, who's good and who's not so good. And I'm sure that you all have the same experience. Your question is very interesting. As I understand it, how does realization experience relate to character development?

[74:11]

What does it do for us? I like that Catholic-Turk character formation. It's very instructive because it implies for me with certain qualities. The mother and father can see in their adult child the same qualities they saw when a child was an infant. However, qualities are

[75:12]

Here we get into sectarian differences in understanding. The task of the parent, and then the task of the teacher, and the task of the individual himself, is to form a character which is true to those qualities, true to the very bottom. So we have this complementarity of the unique and precious individual.

[76:35]

And inevitably, with that upbringing, so to speak, of character formation from the time of infancy, with wise parents, and a wise teacher, and wise friends and teachers, given enough stuff, so to speak, in the individual, that experience, that, as I quoted Bly saying last night, I am dust, that experience, I am what is around me, will inevitably bring further character formation.

[78:04]

Inevitably. So long as there is that bodhicitta, that desire for wisdom and compassion that will carry through those experiences. And the teacher is there any little intonation of pride, then surely, surely there is going to be further character for us. But John's work is with all personal transformation as it unfolds from itself, so to speak.

[79:10]

And so it's making an important contribution. I think we all do that. I certainly think in the same way. My greatest joy is watching the transformations, just participating and helping without doing too much, but allowing that transformation. It's like watching children grow up. I think that's the satisfaction. You said, you pointed to something very specific, a glint in the eye as the satisfaction, but there are other satisfactions as well, which is watching the corn grow, you know? Watching the crops. Soto Zen. in a big, vulture way.

[81:26]

I think that, you know, you find, I think, the inevitable forces that are working with each other, and I think we have to recognize what those are and work with them. And that's the wonderful challenge that we have, to recognize the challenge and deal with it. And sometimes it's abrasive and sometimes, you know, And the farmers, wholesome ecstasy for the crazy other types, you know.

[83:18]

You know, farmers are a very strong base. But, you know, prajna and samadhi are not two different things. They're not, they're two aspects of the same thing. So in the Paramitas, there are two different things. Concentration, Dharana, and Prajna are at different archetypal. If there are any two things in the world, I think everything is different. Even the way none did not say they were the same. No, but there's a lamp and it's light. Prajna is Prajna and Samadhi is Samadhi, of course.

[84:19]

But when you point to the rafter of the house, you say, there's the house. Any part of the house is the whole house. Captain's house. What you, what John was talking about, you know, there has been this kind of fruitful interaction between our two families over a long period of time.

[85:43]

And we turn to each other for different things. Last night's birthday celebration was a really wonderful expression of that. I'd be curious to hear maybe each of you say something about that. What is this turning? What do we have to offer each other? Well, personally, I must say that This is a very curious phenomena.

[86:49]

Why? And I don't know that I could say anything intelligent about it. But it's always been true, always been true since my first Maybe it's because I don't feel any competition here. I'm very sensitive to competition. I stay away from big conferences, generally, because of the very

[87:55]

But I just feel very comfortable here. And I can really be myself. And I feel accepted as myself. And I have such dear friends here. everybody appreciates your work and what you've done and what you're doing. There may be some conflicting things, you know, and there may be, with all of the niceties, there's still room for the That's good.

[89:35]

I personally don't like to avoid the challenges whatever they are. I may get whipped to death, but I still will not avoid them. And I feel it's very healthy to have this, whatever it is that we have. And it doesn't come out in the open so much, but As someone who has practiced in both traditions, I'm very clear about what the differences are in my own practice. And John, when you were talking about the hunter-gatherer and farmer model, which we've talked about a lot, I feel that. That's my experience. And I also get nervous about, like, do I have to just be a hunter-gatherer? Because I can't imagine my own practice without having had both. Where did you study, even? At Sensei Osamu-Nan, which I'm so glad I should.

[90:45]

That's very special. So, if it's so clear to me how different the practices are, and if it is also so clear to me how essential each of those are, what do we say about that? What do we say about how it can be so different, and for those of us who've done both, how important both are. Yeah. Well, all roads may not lead to the same place, but some roads do. I don't know. It's your turn. Or maybe they don't lead to exactly the same place, but they go up the same mountain. So, I think we must banish that metaphor.

[91:48]

I think Guru Swami has a lot to answer for, bringing it up. Rishi, can you address it just in terms of these two traditions, not everything else, but just these two? Is it a different mountain? Are they different mountains? I really would like to... I feel uncomfortable with that metaphor. It's not nature. I don't think it's a valid one at all. When we talk about the same mountain or different mountains. not mountains, you know. But they're valid in the sense that perspective and prospect and vista, all those terms are useful.

[93:05]

I feel that Mel has, you have, presented the virtue of plowing it back. I really like John's expression, plowing it back. It's exactly that. Although I haven't heard that term before, I have that experience a Zen center system. I feel that you have clouded back consistently over the years and decades and that your prospect and views and completely mellow personality are the And people like Hoitsu-sama, for example, as different as he is from you, you know, it has that same quality.

[94:35]

Certainly Suzuki Roshi did. And I see it in many. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to having Galen come. I'm tempted to say something that is stepping in a little further than I kind of want to do, but I'll say it. It's... And I'm not sure I say it. I'm trying to step back from a defensiveness about it, but I wouldn't be fooled by that mellowness.

[95:41]

It's not mellow all the way to the bottom. And that, I think, is working on the kind of characterization of our school. I think. So I bring that up. It's kind of challenging, because... Yeah. Well, Mel is still young, you know. Give him a chance. But I think what Alan is saying is that he experiences it very differently. But I'll know that quality is there. Yeah, I'm not denying the quality. It's not the only quality. I can't speak for my own side. It's clearly not as distinguished. I mean, I'm sure many people, as they were talking last night, identify you as this sort of

[96:47]

Graceful, yeah, as a paragon, and as this graceful, quiet old man, wandering through the corridors. Boy, that ain't the truth either. No, that ain't the truth. I'm a crabby old man that gets on this high horse and causes a lot of trouble. Somebody asked me like that, what am I still working on? terrible in community organizations. Absolutely terrible. If... That's... I mean, I don't know where to begin. I'm so awful. Well, I didn't offer... I wasn't trying to drag out criticisms or self-criticism. That's right. I'm glad to be able to say it. Yeah, it's okay. Well, so here we enter the realm of the archetypes and projections and transference and all of that.

[97:54]

Sometimes I think that the way we've told the old Zen stories have done us a great disservice in this regard. They've set up a field ripe for the kinds of transference and projections that you're talking about, and that that's caused a lot of problems. not help the character formation, character development of students. Ah, yes, I think you're absolutely right. And for this reason, and for other reasons too, I'm sure, but for one reason, we've made the same mistake, not quite so egregiously, but the same mistake as D.T. Suzuki. of extirpating these stories totally out of context and sort of run them together. As though, for one thing, there was a practice involved.

[99:01]

And for another thing, that they were peak experiences of that time and place. The fact is that one can't generalize from any of those stories. And we do all the time. Yeah. I think we have to be very careful. They're so one-dimensional. That's why the whole thing has to be tempered with our own practice and with a good teacher who knows that what the everyday life of a Zen student is, not just a certain aspect of it. Yeah. To me, that was such a valuable thing about our practice.

[100:05]

Taking into consideration the stories, you know, and having all this lore and studying, but the practice is our own. and it's our everyday practice, and not focusing too much on something that takes us out of our everyday practice. I don't know if what I'm saying maybe not exactly hits the mark, but... I think through our own everyday practice, day in and day out, we actually get some picture of the old master's lives. You know? You just begin to see it, you know, all around you. And peak experiences, I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, yes, we should have an enlightenment experience from moment to moment.

[101:13]

And we've took their teachers as if they were industrial. Well, about this harmonious life, you know. The harmony of our life is totally being destroyed moment by moment. And we find ourselves in some situation and we have to harmonize it again, right? We have to find our balance. Find our balance moment after moment. That's, to me, that's our practice.

[103:41]

Finding our balance moment after moment. because it's always falling out. But I found that as our practice matures in our center, and as the members mature over a long period of time, that there's some wisdom that comes out of the Sangha. And it's not so necessary to be leading all the time. And the Sangha takes on leadership by itself, in some way, that expresses whatever the practice is. If it's an enlightened practice, then that's expressed through members.

[104:45]

and the way they do things. Yeah, I think that's one of the important aspects of Sangha. Sangha is not so often, it's not such a big part of the Zen lore. As a matter of fact, Sangha is usually denigrated in some way. You know, that the monks are also stupid, you know. You never hear that all the monks are, you know, they're virtuous, you know what I mean? They're false, right? And there's the master and the students. The master is up here and the students are... And that model is... has some question. As people, you know, you're loved and felt like a part of your family, and just something goes wrong with the transference, and they're off, and the other lady is saying exactly the same thing about me, and they go off to the same teacher that the other day, and they're very happy.

[106:33]

But I think we still do hold to these sort of archetypes at the school level, that we do at the personal level, too. And, you know, you're farmers and we're hunters, and that's the way it is. It's not exactly that way. It's not exactly that way. Especially when you look at it in terms of gender. Yes, that's religion. It makes a difference. But I think to the extent that we do that, we, you know, it's like John was saying, what you don't, what you don't, except for yourself you put in the shadow and then it comes out and it bites you in all kinds of ways and I think we do that to each other. Yeah, we tend to stereotype. We stereotype? We really stereotype. And we don't integrate that stuff, whatever we're perceiving as the other guy's stuff, we don't integrate that into our own practices and our practices suffer as a result. Right. You know, it looks like this is Soto Zen, but Suzuki Roshichi never thought He was not stuck on it or hung up on it and saying, we do the Soto way. Sometimes he would say that, but that was not at all.

[108:11]

But we just happened to have, this just happens to be Zen, that was his background. And as all teachers present, it's their background, right? And what they learned and the way they learned it. And he was hoping that we wouldn't make the mistakes of our predecessors. But you have to have something to go with. He was always hoping that Dick would go to Japan and reform the Soto sect. Good luck. Good luck. Okay, so underneath all of that, what's the ground that we all stand on together? Yeah, that's a good question. Maybe we don't. I'm willing to concede that we don't, actually. We do have different mountains. Maybe what you expect is one thing and what I would expect is something else.

[109:13]

And I think that that's true. But I respect what you expect. And I respect what I expect. And I respect what you expect. And I expect that But then, there are people mucking about on both mountains. you know, not always so comfortable. I mean, Joan talked about one level of fear. I think there's a whole lot of different fears. It's not one fear. It's certainly not all the fear that, I think Roshi was saying, of just like, well, I know these, you know, I've studied these, I've taught these. That's a very small part of it, to my estimation. It may, I'm sure, I know it exists, but you know,

[110:16]

there is something happening here. You know, it's happening with your disciples, looking for a kind of a confluence of some other, some enriching way of seeing. And something different is going to come out of that. part of his training period was from Mao Zedong. Oh really? Oh yeah, Steve Thompson. Well, I think... He looks very happy to be here.

[111:23]

I think we've been talking for a long time. I don't know that people are tired, but maybe we are. I just have one more thing to say. My resolution was to practice this simple way. what I call simple. Not so simple, but this singular way, and just do it totally. And my faith has always been that by doing that totally, I would come to whatever understanding I was going to come to. But sometimes people study with me, I'm ready to go on, alright? And that's fine, you know?

[112:27]

There's still my students, and this is broadening their education or whatever you want to call it. And if they want to become somebody else's student, that's fine. I've never held on to anybody in my life, you know? But they... That's wonderful. Still one of my students now. So they can have that broad education, you know. But I feel that I get all my sustenance from this practice, which satisfies me, actually. If I'm not going to get it all, then I won't get it all. Shall we end there? Any last comments? I actually think that not everybody has to... If there are different villages, some people have to leave one village.

[113:36]

Sometimes, you know, in our tradition, often the people you hear the stories about, they're the ones who had those good experiences of grace, but in transformation, sometimes the great teachers also didn't. And so it's very hard to know who really belongs in which tradition when you really get down to it like that. think of the people I respect the most, like Senzakusensei, who taught and used vocabulary in ways that showed

[115:37]

One Theravada teacher that was in Los Angeles at that time, too, come and speak to our sangha. We heard him speak many, many times, and he would sing this Pali Hymns to Us song in his magnificent voice. Dogen Zenji would deny that there was any distinction between Soto and Rinzai, very clearly. Right. No sectarianism. At the same time, Dogen was very sectarian. Yeah. And in his own way, Senzaki was also. Right. So, we personalize that paradox, so to speak. When you have your own place to stand, then you can appreciate everybody else. I always, I have to say, whenever I want to study a case, I always go to Nyoge and Sensaki as the final authority.

[117:00]

There's no final authority. There's something about his manner of speaking that paraphrases a lot. he uses the language in a way that's wonderful, totally wonderful, simple, and gets to something, the essence very quickly. I just want to thank you for organizing this. I think it was a great thing, and I walk away from it with a feeling that we touched on so many parts of a really big universe. That any one point, sort of like the koans, that any one point, you know, you could just walk through the gate and all the way through and keep going for a long time. I don't know if it's possible to keep going, but I would like to see it happen in some way if it can. Because there's so much richness that we just touched on. And we don't have to stick to this particular format.

[118:04]

No. Well, I can tell you, as I think I mentioned, I had to sort of I had to be very tougher than I usually like to be. There were many people who wanted to sit in on the dialogue, and I felt that because I was aware of at least differences that have been expressed or semi-expressed, I wanted this to be fairly small and intimate. But I think that there's a larger dialogue to be had. I don't think there's anything that needs to be particularly secret, you know. But I just wanted to create a feeling of comfort in the room to initiate a discussion. I have a lot more questions, but they're done for now. So we'll see maybe next time you come back.

[119:00]

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