I love to taste the truth as I taste words. Good morning. On June 11th, we are going to have a lay ordination ceremony and also a recognition ceremony for lay teachers. So I want to talk today about the history of ordination in Zen Center, both lay ordination and priest ordination and how that has developed in Zen Center and how we practice with priest ordination and lay ordination.

[01:11]

Suzuki Roshi came to San Francisco in 1969 And as he, of course, he came to be the teacher or the abbot for Sokoji Temple in San Francisco, the Japanese temple. There are two Japanese Soto Zen temples. One is in San Francisco, the other one is in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is Zen Shuji, and Zen Shuji is considered the head temple. in America. Can you hear okay? Is this on? Yeah. Okay. Bill, did you say he came in 69? 59. Sorry. Yeah, 59. So the head temple in Los Angeles is where the bishop usually resides, but it's called the bishop, the shokan.

[02:24]

And those two temples take care of the Japanese congregations. And so Suzuki Roshi came to take over that position at Sokoji in San Francisco, not the shokan, but as a priest. And little by little, people came to him because he did Zazen. And so at Sokoji, people would come and they would sit. He invited people to sit Zazen with him. And then little by little, the Zen Center emerged in the Japanese temple with American students. So Suzuki Roshi had these two things going. One was to be the head of this, the priest for the Japanese congregation, and also the teacher for this growing segment of students.

[03:29]

American students. And then about 59, 62 or something like that, he invited Bishop Yamada to come from Los Angeles and do lay ordination for his students. He had about 10 students. And that was the last lay ordination until 1970. Suzuki Roshi had some pretty good students between or in the early 50s. And he sent some of them to Japan to experience practice at Eheiji. And so he ordained them as priests. But most of them didn't really work out. Japanese practice was much too difficult, mostly because people didn't have the knowledge of the language.

[04:37]

And also, because of the Japanese style, it was very hard to fit in. And they made no concessions. So people were very discouraged. And most of his early, he ordained three people. two of whom left, one of whom never wore his robes. The third was his successor, Richard, and I was the fifth person to be ordained as a priest, but there was no lay ordination. He asked certain people to be priests, so he asked me if I would be ordained, and I was rather taken aback because I'd never thought of being ordained, but it wasn't something that I thought of as a possibility, because he wasn't ordaining people. So he asked me this at Tassajara.

[05:44]

And then when it came, two years after he asked me in 1967, in 1969 he ordained me, but he said, I don't know whether to ordain you at Tassajara or in Berkeley. Because if he had to ordain me at Tassajara would mean that he was ordaining me into San Francisco Zen Center. more than Berkeley, because I had already, we had started the Berkeley Zen Center in 67, and I was the caretaker of the Berkeley Zen Dojo up to that time, for those two years. So he said, I don't know whether to ordain you at Tassajara or in Berkeley. But then he just said, I want to do it in Berkeley. And the feeling was that since the Sangha in Berkeley was growing, that he felt that it would be good if they had a priest to have a position of a focal point.

[07:04]

Someone who represents the school. So he ordained me in Berkley-Zento, the old Berkley-Zento on Dwight Way. And then he ordained other people as priests. He ordained about 15 people. I count about 15 people as priests. Then in 1970, I was at Tassajara and I felt a little bit funny being a priest, and so many other people were practicing, but they didn't have any ordination. And I was suggesting that it would be nice if he did lay ordination for people. And I don't know whether it was because I was suggesting it or because he had it in mind, but soon thereafter, they decided to have a lay ordination.

[08:11]

And so there were two nuns from Japan who were very good at sewing robes, and Joshin-san and Yoshida-roshi. And they were invited over to teach us how to sew robes. Now, in Japan, only a few people sew robes as a kind of extra practice. But when you're ordained in Japan, you just buy your robes. They have robe manufacturers. It's not like big manufacturers, but kind of very nice. small companies where the robes are sewn by hand, mostly. Sometimes they're sewn by machine, but mostly it's sewn by hand by seamstresses. And a little different style.

[09:14]

Actually, I wear the Japanese style robes. I never have sewn an okesa, a big robe. Although when people are deemed now, they always sew their own robes. And we always sew our own small robe, which is called the raksu. I asked Suzuki Roshi, would it be okay if I sewed a raksu? He said, no. He said, no, you're too busy. So, but I started to sew anyway. And it took me four years. Then people started sewing their robes, and lay people sewed their raksus, and priests sewed their okesa, and their raksus, and their bowing mat, which is a time-consuming process.

[10:28]

It's amazing. So in Zen Center, everybody sews their own robe before ordination, whether it's lay ordination or priest ordination. Whereas in Japan, the priests' robes are manufactured. But as I said, as a special practice, some monks will sew their own robes. And it's becoming more of a popular practice in Japan now because of our practice. There's actually influence that goes back. to Japan from America and Europe. In the Berkley Zen Center, for a long time, I was the only ordained person.

[11:32]

And when Suzuki Roshi died, then Richard Baker became the abbot of San Francisco Zen Center. And during Suzuki Roshi's time, I want to say, when he was at Sokoji in San Francisco, even though he ordained 15 people, it was mostly a lay practice, like in Berkeley. Berkeley very much mirrors in some ways, the practice of etso koji in San Francisco in those old days. A lot of lay people, people living at home and coming to practice. So even though Suzuki Roshi did ordain a number of people, it was primarily a layperson's practice. And when Richard became abbot at Zen Center, because it was a residential building, 300 Page Street, he had the opportunity to ordain a lot of people as priests.

[12:47]

And so priest practice became the focal point, and lay practice, kind of was marginalized. So the feeling of priest practice is that priest practice is a very strong life commitment. lay practice is also a very strong life commitment. And at Zen Center, there was like the discussion of what's the difference between a lay person's practice and priest's practice. Since everyone is kind of practicing in the same way,

[13:49]

American Zen is very different than any place else in the world. Because in Asia, monks and priests practice monastic practice and more ascetically. And lay practice is, lay people don't practice in the same way. But in America, everybody practices in the same way, more or less. So one way of describing, not defining, but describing the difference between lay practice and priest practice is that the priest is visible as a practitioner, is always visible as a practitioner. The lay person is more blending with society.

[14:53]

People sometimes get confused between what's called Jukai and lay ordination. Jukai means taking the precepts. Kai is the precepts, and Ju means to give. giving the precepts. But giving the precepts is not the same as lay ordination. In lay ordination, you receive the precepts, but it's the feeling of an ordination. It's a lay person's ordination, which includes the precepts, of course. The precepts are the heart of it. But in Japan, they have what's called jukai, And because lay people don't practice in the same way as priests or monks, they bring maybe 100 or 200 people together for a week of practice. And at the end, they give them the precepts.

[16:02]

Jukai. We don't have that kind of ceremony in America. Because in America, are lay people practice as lay practitioners, rather than just as people taking the precepts. So we have lay practice, lay ordination, priest practice, and priest ordination. And sometimes it looks like they're the same, and sometimes it looks like they're different. So there are many places where they cross over. but they're two tracks. They're two parallel tracks. When Suzuki Roshi was at Sokoji, there was Suzuki Roshi and Kadokiri. Kadokiri Roshi later became the abbot of Minnesota Zen Center. And Suzuki Roshi was always the doshi, the person that did the service, and was the teacher and gave the lectures mostly.

[17:11]

And Karagiri was his assistant. Kanagiri came to America because he wanted to help Suzuki Roshi, so he became his assistant. There were several Japanese priests at that time who came to see what was going on here, and they were all quite wonderful. They did everything, Kadagiri Roshi did the whole service by himself. He did the Mukugyo and the bells and the chanting, eating and chanting. And little by little, they let some of us ring the bell. But it was very slow. Our inclusion in the service was very slow. So there was a feeling of a big separation, not a big separation, but definitely a separation between the priest's practice and the lay people's practice.

[18:35]

But everyone accepted that as no problem. We hadn't been practicing very long before. We were taking a lot of responsibility though. And I had been practicing three years before Suzuki Roshi asked me to be ordained. And then two years later, he ordained me. So those three years, I started practicing in 64, and in 67, I was organizing the Berkeley Zen Center. And then two years later, I was ordained. So five years, you know, nowadays, we let a person wait 20 years before they can take that kind of responsibility. So it's interesting. But there's something about being with, you know, like when Shakyamuni Buddha,

[19:40]

was the teacher. His disciples didn't practice with him so long before they were taking great responsibility. There's something about being with the root teacher that matures the students in a certain way, quicker, more quickly. But that doesn't mean that I was mature. I had a certain maturity because I was a little older than most people when they start to practice. And I had some feeling for it, but that doesn't mean that I was mature at all. And I didn't act like I was a teacher. I didn't, people would ask me, If I was a teacher, they say, where's the teacher? I say, well, there's no teacher here.

[20:42]

Norman Fisher, when he first came to the Berkeley Zendo said, where's the teacher? I said, there's no teacher here. He remembers that. So I was always made very clear to stay in my position. to maintain my position and not, even though I had a feeling it would be great to say that I was a teacher, but I never let myself do that. And people would say, well, can I be your student? And I said, I would say, well, if I'm teaching you something, then fine, but I don't want anybody to see me as, their teacher or to be my student. But the teacher-student evolved. Teacher-student relationship just evolved out of our practice.

[21:47]

So everything evolved in a very natural way. I became more mature, the students became more mature. And in our interaction, we matured each other within the practice. And that still goes on. So I was ordained in 1969. And it wasn't until 1984 that I received Dharma transmission. So here are the steps of ordination. There's lay ordination for people living at home who have been practicing for a certain amount of time and want to take that ordination. And then there's priest ordination as a novice. And then we have shuso, which means the head seat for a practice period, the student who shares the teacher's responsibility for the practice period.

[22:55]

And that's a kind of rite of passage for a layperson and a priest, or a priest. And then, but for a priest, there's another step, which is called Dharma Transmission, which I talked about before, and which you know about. So a Dharma transmission is a rite of passage which makes a priest a full priest and gives them, acknowledges their, empowers them to be the abbot of a temple, to be invited to be a teacher someplace, to ordain other people. And to carry, that's how we continue the lineage and continue to propagate the practice, is through the priesthood. So this is the priest's track. But sometimes a priest would just be a monk.

[23:59]

If you have a monastic situation, a priest can just reside as a monk without going through the steps. So, layperson's advancement, so to speak, has up to now stopped at being shuso, or the head monk for a practice period, which gives them the possibility of being a practice leader. after you've been shuso as a layperson, you have the possibility of being a practice leader and you can give interviews and talks and so forth and even have a, well, pretty much that's what they do.

[25:03]

So there's been a lot, since, In the past few years, because people have been practicing so long, we have people who have been practicing, lay people who have been practicing as long as I have, and 40 years, 41 years, and 30 years, 20 years, 10 years. When I think about somebody who's been practicing 10 years, I think, oh, they haven't been practicing very long. But, So, and they have maturity. And they're not priests, but they have maturity and the ability, some ability to teach. And so we're trying to define what is the limitation or what is, how can we empower

[26:06]

lay people to be teachers and at the same time keep these two tracks distinct. And what is the difference? So people have been kind of experimenting with, not in the Zen world, how to deal with this, how to empower or to authorize lay people's practice after she saw. Some people think that we should give lay people Dharma transmission, and some priests have done that. My I must be very conservative, but I think that actual dharma transmission ceremony is for a priest, because this is the priest's track.

[27:11]

If you have dharma transmission, then you give ordinations, and I think that that is the priority of a priest, the dispensation of a priest. And and to be an abbot of a temple, so that you can accept both priests and laypeople. So, what I have done is to have people sew a green raksu and give them a certificate which authorizes them to to teach and to have a group, a Zazen group, but to work with their teacher, to continue to work with their teacher to help develop their practice.

[28:21]

So priest practice is more independent. After Dharma transmission, priest practice is independent. But we're still feeling out what is the proper venue or what it is that, for me, how much permission to do what is appropriate. Some people think, well, maybe we don't need priests anymore. This is always in the world now, this is in the Catholic Church. I think that lay people's practices, when I became, when I developed, as I developed the Berkeley Zen Center, what I used to say was, this is a lay person's practice.

[29:35]

What I'm doing is helping lay people to practice and giving lay people the opportunity to have a place to practice and a way to practice. That was what was in my mind. But people want to be ordained as priests. So I have an obligation to ordain people as priests and to help them practice as priests. So I don't see, I don't think there should only be lay practice or there should only be priest practice. There should be lay practice and there should be priest practice. And although they cross and overlap in many ways, they're also distinct in other ways. Some people think, say, we hold priests to a higher standard. But I don't think that's right. we hold everybody to the same standards.

[30:37]

But a priest is very visible. So when a priest says something people don't like, they say, and that person's a priest? But if a layperson does that, and that person's a layperson? Well, we could though, because we hold everybody to the same standards. So we have to be very careful Many people come to me who would want to be ordained as priests. And I always discourage them.

[31:39]

Almost always. I think Meili was the only person that I asked to be ordained, to have her ordained. Other than that, I always discourage people. And then people, they keep coming back. I really want to do this. This is the only thing I want to do, and so forth. And sometimes they win me over. and I'll ordain them. But then I expect something from them. And I will always work with them. But I have to say, priests are not better than lay people. Priests have all the problems that lay people have and more. So if you want to take on more problems. There are some people who ordain people more easily.

[32:51]

But in Berkeley, it's hard to ordain people easily. because I don't want to have an overbalance of priest's practice and lay practice. So here's another thing that happened. I had Dharma transmission in 1984, and then 1980, a couple years later, I had the abbot ceremony, the mountain seat ceremony in Berkeley, and then I became the official abbot. So then I could start ordaining people. When I became abbot, I could start ordaining people. So then, and I always held up certain people as great examples for lay practice. But some of the people who were great examples for lay practice wanted to be priests. I didn't like that. I didn't want them to suddenly think they had to be a priest in order to have some recognition.

[34:01]

So in a way, it's kind of painful for me. But there was a lot of insistence, so I ordained. and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't work. I have ordained people who just could not stand not to be ordained. It didn't turn out very well. So I think this has happened with every teacher in America. Their first few people they ordained, it doesn't work out. And then somehow you learn. something from that. But mostly, I have to tell you that I appreciate the practice, the strong practice of lay people who set an example of how to practice in the Sangha.

[35:09]

That's the most important thing to me, whether people are priests or lay people. Priests have a certain track, okay, My feeling about when I ordain priests is their task or their education, people say, what's my training as a priest? Well, your training is to take care of people, take care of the Sangha. Lay practice, people are out in the world working, and the priests keep the Zendo going. They keep the practice going. Lay people do too. Exactly the same. Some priests don't practice as well as lay people or as assiduously as lay people. That's true too. But that can't be helped. So if we start comparing, then you have a problem. We should be careful not to compare. When that person's a priest and they're not practicing, everybody's got their difficulties in their practice and their problems.

[36:12]

So we should be very careful I never criticize lay people for not coming to the Zen Do. Everybody has to make a choice. It's your choice. I don't demand anything from anybody except priests. It's totally your choice. So it's wonderful, you know, everybody comes to practice because they want to. Not because I say they should, but people feel guilty. You know, I haven't come to the Zendo for six months and I really feel bad. I say, that's okay. It's okay. It's your problem, not mine. So, but I do expect something from a priest.

[37:19]

When I ordain a priest, someone as a priest, I expect that they will focus on the practice. And it's not just voluntary. I mean, it is, because they volunteered to do it. That's their voluntary vow. Vow is also voluntary. But that's what they vow to do. But just taking care of the sangha is not everything. There are different venues for priests, and that's also beginning to be worked out. You know, we've only been doing this for 50 years. And the development has only been for about 40 years. There's a gradual involvement for priest practice and a gradual involvement for lay practice. I always think of the Berkeley Zendo as a one-room schoolhouse.

[38:24]

You know, you have the first grade, second grade, twelfth grade. You teach mathematics, you teach science, you teach reading and writing and behavioral problems. So it's all under one roof. So we should get along with each other harmoniously, try to get along with each other harmoniously. I forgot what I was gonna say. Well, maybe you have some questions. Charlie? Thanks very much for your talk. It's very good to have some of the points you raised clarified.

[39:30]

I was wondering if you've ever thought about ordaining somebody for afternoons as in on like... No, I haven't. That never occurred to me. Well, I have to say something about that. Often the people in black clothes have children that have to be picked up, have dinner that has to be made while the wife is sitting so I was in, Things like that. Often have a child that is giving them a lot of trouble, or maybe can't quite make it in time from San Francisco.

[40:33]

There's a priest assigned to every period of Zazen, but often it's something that is a problem. So we try to do it as best we can. There's actually a priest assigned to come to each of you. That's great. I thought when you started that you might say something more about the special lay ordination Yeah, I said that lay recognition and that they would sew a green rock suit and have a certificate delineating what they were authorized to teach to do.

[41:39]

What else would you like to? Okay. Somebody in the back, yeah. Well, no, this other lady in the blue. Do you want to speak up? I'm still not clear about the difference between jukai and lay ordination. Do they have jukai in Japan, and do they have a rakusu in Japan? No. They get a lineage chart, but they don't have a rakusu. So it's not an ordination. It's simply taking the precepts. So when you have ordination, the Raksu is a small version of the Okesa, right? So they're really the same thing. They're a Buddhist robe, only this one hangs from a strap. The Raksu hangs from a strap, but it's a Buddhist robe, sewn exactly the same way that a priest's robe is sewn, only it's small. And the priest wears the same thing informally. Some people in the back that had their head down.

[42:51]

You might want to, or be able to take it up later, but I'm wondering, I know you're working these things out over time, these functions and aspects of dedication to practice, and I take it that that is going on at San Francisco Zen Center, and that, you know, there's communication between the two, but there's a Soto, there's Suzuki Roshi's lineage here, which includes more than San Francisco Zen Center. Lineage, which, I'm not sure what she means exactly. Well, those in the Soto tradition that Suzuki Roshi established, there's the Mountain Views Indo and the Sonoma one, and now the, I can't remember, Twin Forks or Great Shears, it's just kind of proliferating, and so I wonder if there's going to be some sort of agreement about these

[44:11]

sort of paths within. Right, that's another, yeah, I understand what you're saying. So from Suzuki Roshi's lineage at Zen Center, there's a spreading out of Zen practice places with teachers, right? Well, that's one reason why we have a priest track. so that some of those people can propagate the practice as teachers. And that's what I've been doing, is giving transmission. I've given transmission to 20 people from Suzuki Roshi's lineage, and most of them are working on propagating the teaching by starting their own places or being invited to some place to be the teacher.

[45:19]

So, you know, it looks like there's a Zen center lineage, but actually lineage is from person to person, not from center to center. So that's why Zen center is this kind of wonderful school for producing or training people, but the actual lineage is from person to person. It's not the center. Let's see, Paul? You have to speak up so people can hear your question. right now, it looks like the priests have roles, have some roles which cannot be shared by laypeople, no matter how advanced in their practice.

[46:37]

But the priests can share every aspect of lay life, every aspect of lay life. I find a problem with that when the priest that was mentioned by Charlie is so involved in their lay life that they can't actually make their priest practice. It looks like they're not making it a priority. They're making their lay life a priority. I don't see how you draw a line. It's not easy. I do too.

[47:45]

I see it too. It's a problem. So I'm going to have to crack down on people. True. Yes. So on this topic I see, to me it sounds like you're talking as always about form and emptiness. So a lot of times that talk, you could think of it in terms of how we use language. And most of the things you said, I mean, some of the things we could really laugh at. Like when you said, I give a certificate, immediately think of the Wizard of Oz, you know? When you talk about brown Roxas, blue Roxas, and green Roxas, then I start suggestion, the only thing that kind of consistently struck me as off in the language you were using was tracks.

[48:59]

And I thought, well, what could I, I know you're trying to get at something that is really important. Do I have a better idea? And I can only think of things like, well, priests wear a special dress. You know, a little bit light. Tracks seems a little dangerous to me, that's what I wanted to say. Well, thanks for that. May not be the best terms to use. I'll try to find some better way to express it. Pauses. What? Pauses. Pauses? Pauses. I don't know. Often, it just looks like priests are just wearing different clothes, right?

[50:10]

But it's more than that. I know. Yeah. We wear the same clothes and different clothes. So we try not to stand out too much. Anyway, I'll think about that. But I don't know how to call on people because it's easy to call the people in front of me, harder to call the people in the back. So I'm going to call on Dean. Thank you. I actually understand, I think, why there are priests and that direction to go. And I see it as different than how I live. I'm not, I don't really understand, you were talking about when you were at Tassajara and you were a priest and you had robes and you looked around and you thought maybe we should have a lay ordination.

[51:15]

I'm not sure why you felt that was important or mattered or why you wanted to go, why that mattered to you. I'm curious. Oh, yeah. Well, because I wanted, I felt like I wanted the students to be acknowledged. I wanted to, I felt it was important for the students and for the Suzuki Roshi to acknowledge his students that way and for the students to feel acknowledged by him. And for them, because it's not something that they had, you know, it was something new, more or less, except for those people who had lay ordination in the beginning. There was this long period where they were the only priests ordained. And I thought that it would be good to ordain people who were not priests, or were not going to be priests, to give them lay ordination.

[52:16]

to fill that gap, to confirm people in their practice. Because ordination is to confirm people in their practice. A word that comes to mind, and I was thinking it before the question about what priests can't do, was focus. Because it seems to me as if the focus, what I see with priests is the focus of their life is Zen. And for those of us who are in lay life, our focus is whatever our family or our career or some combination of But we're not focusing on Zen. Well, I wouldn't say that exactly.

[53:19]

I think people are focusing on Zen. But I just want to say one thing that what you said brought up for me is that in other countries, lay people support the monks, support the priests. Here, the priests not only have to take on the burden of being a priest, they have to support themselves as well. So please, give them a break. Well, I actually have done most of my training in another lineage, and it was handled a little differently, and it might be interesting to say how it was handled. Basically, people took precepts when they felt themselves turning towards practice. And then, if a person felt that they wanted to help the Sangha, help other people practice, then they came forward and said, I want to ordain. and it was really their choice. And then there were people who said, I want to do monk practice, and they went to live in a temple, and had a very simple life, and were supported by the Sangha, but in a very meager way, $150 a month, and room and board.

[54:32]

So I guess to me, what is confusing here is that some people get permission to be priests, and some people don't, because we're lay priests. Some people get permission to be priests and some people don't, and that seems odd to me because it was more like if somebody wanted to come forward and do it, why not just let them do it? Well, mostly we do. Mostly I do. But there's also a problem with just ordaining somebody so quickly. who just because they think they want to be a priest. What I do is test a person out over a long period of time, because you may have the enthusiasm to be a priest, and then suddenly, or due to the circumstances over a period of time, then you get discouraged. And then, you know, so your enthusiasm waxes and wanes. And to ordain a person before their enthusiasm wanes is not necessarily a good idea.

[55:39]

So I would rather wait at least five years before ordaining somebody. In Japan, when you go into the monastery, you're ordained. But it's different here. We ordain people after they've been practicing for a long time so that we're sure that it's gonna work. because we don't have the facility for dealing with monks that don't work. We also have a monastery where people go to practice as monks. This is a temple practice. This is not a monastic practice here. So we have Tassajara, which is a great place to practice as a monk. And you don't even get $150 a month. You don't even get $150 a month. So we also have that, but it's in a different, slightly different form.

[56:41]

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, so we don't have exactly a monk's practice for life. We have a priest's practice for life. And then sometimes you're a monk, sometimes you're a priest. So monk, you know, my definition of a monk is either a layperson or a priest who practices in a monastery. That's a monk, you're doing a monk's practice. You're not doing teaching, you're not taking care of people. Priest's practice is taking care of people. taking care of the teaching, the practice, and various duties, whereas monks practice simply doing Zazen and practicing the schedule. To me, that's monk's practice. And so lay people and priests both do that at the monastery, Tosahara.

[58:02]

Here, it's not so defined. But I appreciate that style and I'm open to listening to that, to considering things like that. Too late.

[58:20]

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