Yay! Well, I'm very fond of the phrase, way-seeking mind. A lot of times my practice falls short in my own eyes, but I have always had a way-seeking mind since I was about 12 years old. And my parents were quite worldly people and my stepfather regarded any kind of behavior that he regarded as emotional or something. off of his idea of sophistication, I guess you could say. I don't know quite how to say this in the Zendo, but he regarded it as like having to do with the phases of moon and hormones and things.

[01:07]

So he would say, kind of, you know, nudge, nudge, wink, wink, Meggie is going through her religious period. But I didn't let that stop me. It bothered me, yeah, but I didn't let it stop me. And I still have a way-seeking mind and I think I always will. And so today I will tell you what's been on my way-seeking mind lately. We've had wonderful ceremonies lately. So, last Saturday was, no, last Sunday was Jerry Oliva's Two-Soul Ceremony, which was quite wonderful to attend. And this weekend, this past weekend on Saturday was Mary Mocene's Mountain Seat Ceremony at Clearwater Zendo in Vallejo.

[02:19]

And so my mind has been a lot on that because I, as well as being a student of Sojan, I am also a student of Mary's. When I lived in Benicia for many years, I practiced at Clearwater for some years. I'm president of Mary's board of directors and therefore had some position of responsibility in the ceremony and a lot of people from Berkeley took part in it. Sojin and Vicky Austin from San Francisco Zen Center were guiding spirits. Leslie was the Eno and it was very complicated to arrange all this and she just, every detail was beautifully taken care of. And there are a lot of people from Berkeley there.

[03:24]

And I think everyone who was there would agree that it was just a beautiful day. Mary was wonderful. Every word she said, everything she did was in that spirit. And it was attended by many senior Zen teachers from all the Zen centers of the Bay Area. And getting ready for it was a little anxious making because that's a very small temple and the room was full of chairs. I think there must have been more than 70 people there. And so it was like, are we going to be able to move in some kind of flow way was what bothered me, but we did.

[04:30]

And it was, we all who took part wanted to do our very best for Mary. We were, you know, Vicki had things for us to learn and do right, and we tried as hard as we could. And I think everybody who was there agreed that it was a beautiful day. I was particularly taken with a senior teacher whose name I think is Jisha Warner from Sebastopol and she said when it was her time to speak for the for the wider community was her part, to say something.

[05:32]

And she said that she was very moved by the ceremony, that it had a simplicity and a genuineness. It had the forms, but there was a simplicity and genuineness to it, and I think that was true. And I also very much liked what Greg Denny had to say when he spoke for BCC. And he said that nobody had mentioned much the word honesty. And he felt that honesty was the word that he would choose to characterize Mary. And I think that is absolutely true. And he also said in behalf of all of you and us that he hoped Mary would keep a part of her time and commitment here, which I'm sure she will.

[06:44]

And so at my part as the president of the board of directors was to present the the paper that was the inviting of teacher Zenki to become the abbess of the Clear Waters Zen Do and it was, you know, taking it around and remembering to bow at the right time and there were seals to stamp, and I'd never done that before. I couldn't get the whole ink all over the thing, so I was stamping. But anyway, it was duly done, and many people spoke, and we had a a lovely ceremony outside the, you know, a reception with the traditional wonderful strawberry shortcake.

[07:48]

And it's a lovely garden there. You should see it if you haven't. So it was a great day. And I was very, very moved and grateful to be able to be a part of it. The other thing on my mind these days in practice is that Mary, as my teacher, has asked me to sew a green rakasu. And I gave that a lot of thought before I thought that I could do that because I'm an old party here and I don't know how much time I've got left to be of service, but nobody knows that, I mean nobody knows that.

[08:50]

So, and I always just sort of feel inclined that when a Dharma opportunity opens for me that I feel that I can grow in practice and maybe be helpful that I ought to do it. So I'm going to. But it's a serious thing to commit to and I didn't come to it just right away. And then just in general thinking, I've gotten quite interested in reading about Chinese medicine because I feel that those people will have been at it for three or four thousand years and they know a lot.

[10:01]

And I have been reading an interesting book called Between Heaven and Earth, which is from a saying of Xuanzu. I think it goes, heaven and earth and I are part of one another and are one thing, which certainly is our teaching here. And And Sogen, in his talk on Saturday morning, he gave the lecture at Clearwater, said that, I think it was Kategori Roshi who had said that bringing Zen to America was like trying to put a flower into a rock. Is that right? put a flower into a rock and that has stayed with me because it goes along with the thinking that I've come to from reading about Chinese medicine is that the way that every

[11:30]

pore of our being has absorbed a Western way of thinking, I think it makes it very difficult for us to open to the wisdom of the East and the wisdom of Zen. And it's not just because our culture's tuned to the shopping channel all the time. I think the reason is that ever since Aristotle and certainly since Descartes our minds are set to the idea of taking things apart as much as we can into different parts to see how they work and you know, we've got to the molecule and atom and smaller and smaller, and even though I'm certainly not going to say anything Western medicine bad, Chinese medicine good, anything like that, I don't think that way, I don't know much about Western science, and from what I do gather that

[12:56]

the advanced physics is sound more and more to me like chi or emptiness is the basis of everything. And yet I do feel, I certainly know it in myself, that analyzing or dissecting the mind is just such ingrained in the way that we're taught, that it's difficult for us to open to the idea of oneness, which is not easy. In Doug Greiner's Dharma group that some of us attend, we've been reading Opening the Hand of Thought by Ujjwala. Buchiyama Roshi, and he said that he had been a Zen monk for 30 years and he was just thinking he was getting to understand oneness now, so that says something about how difficult it might be, but the concept that

[14:17]

I can get my mind around is the part in the book Between Heaven and Earth that described Chinese medicine as being something like gardening, that the idea is that it's not We take this part and we fix it. I know that simplistic description of Western medicine, but anyway. But more like the relationships of one thing to another. That health is a matter of everything being in harmony. And just as a gardener, the elements of the soil and the water and the sun and the care of the gardener to watch is what puts things into a state of good health, that that's the way that health is in a general sense.

[15:26]

think there are many, many Western physicians who are very interested in becoming more holistic in their approach and having this idea. But this idea of gardening as the approach doesn't interest me only in matters of physical health, but it just seems to me a way to think about practice for myself, in that I think one kind of simplistic-ness, if that's a word, of my mind is that I want to think, this is good and that's bad, or this is right and that's wrong, or I like this, I don't like that, and nothing is ever really that way.

[16:37]

the worst things have some good side or some other side and even in our most contented outlook there's a cloud there. And so it's a matter, it really is not a matter of dividing things up, it's a matter of shifting relationships all the time. And I'm sure you've all learned this way before I did. So, just in my practice these days I'm trying to think about that, that aspect of relationship and flow back and forth between things. Let's see. So, I'm trying to think how to do this and one thing that

[17:52]

I read about in the newspaper that I enjoyed very much while I look back was a couple from Milan have started this movement called slow living and it came out of the slow cooking movement, which slow food, slow food, which is the opposite of fast food. But they came to New York, this couple, and I think this was probably kind of a publicity stunt, but they stood out and handed out pamphlets and gave tickets to pedestrians who were walking too fast, which in New York would be everybody. But anyway, I really find that this is something I have to think about these days because I cannot be wholehearted about doing what I'm doing when I'm in a constant state of rushing around like a crazy person and yet I have to say I have not so far in my life retired to Walden and

[19:09]

and therefore I don't think I'm going to. So it's a matter of having to learn how to be a slow living in doing the things that I am doing, which will probably continue to be a little bit too much. But I also am thinking about how I can kind of weed out some things but that seems to me the most fruitful approach right now to how to engage with life and practice and just my general things. So that's about what's been on my mind and if there's anything you'd like to ask or tell me I'd love to hear it. Well, I imagine that's another instance of where we think we have to have either an analytical mind or a non-analytical mind, and it's probably a matter of relationships.

[20:50]

There's certain times when we need to analyze, and there are other times when it's not going to be fruitful, would you say? Thank you. Yes, Charles? Well, I'm the secretary of four different boards. Or three boards and president of one. So, I'm thinking about When my terms expire, I might just not renew some. Yeah. But it's hard, Charlie, because I like everything I'm doing. So it's... Oh, no, not that, you know.

[21:51]

Yes, Linda. Well, I like when you started about... And I was hoping, you know, I was, as you went on, I wanted to, I was longing for more, kind of, insider, more personal things. So I thought of a question of what you did say, that could, which was, you said that sewing a green rocket suit was something that you could take easily, or that you could easily decide to do. I sort of wanted to hear from some, Wow, well, well I can, I can, I'll very briefly say little Maggie, there was nothing

[22:58]

in my world at that time, but Christianity, so I tried that and have been a seeker ever since until I got to the Zen Center. I was an attender at Quaker meeting for a long time, which is still would be okay with me. I'm very fond of the Quakers. But, you know, I just kept looking for what I felt I could sincerely give myself to, and then when I came to here, then I could settle down. It gets more complicated than that later, but anyway, that's it. How are we doing now? Okay, and as far as the Green Raksu, well, I just had a birthday this month, which I know I'm come from the generation that doesn't tell how old we are, but I know you want to know, and at this point, why not?

[24:10]

I am 82, and so it's both a kind of, I don't think I know enough to be a teacher. And two, I don't think I have time to learn enough to be a teacher. I just feel like, is that an appropriate thing for me to do so late in life? And then as I said, I began to think, nobody knows how long they have to do this, I might as well just assume that I have some good years left and can do what I can. But somewhat, you know, I just feel that I have a very Zen 101 kind of mind, you're not ever going to get really abstruse things out of me and of course I don't think maybe that's not what a teacher needs to do.

[25:28]

But it was more a question of wondering, you know, do I have enough wisdom to do this and enough time? Answer? Yes, Lisa. in the way of participation. And so, I think that it was very helpful.

[27:04]

You did respond to my condition. And I want to thank you very much for that. And I look forward to watching you. Thank you so much. Yes? Thank you.

[27:36]

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