Not quite yet. I just want to say what I'm hearing is a number of disagreements, discussion about basically about our society and about the shape of our practice, but I'm not really hearing any disagreement about our practice. That's about the Dharma. I would like to go on and take Jerry's question next, but it may not be entirely comfortable for any one person or for myself, but I welcome the discourse and the opportunity to hash things out or to lay them out, even if we have things that are unresolved.

[01:18]

And that's okay. That's okay with me, and I hope that I'm hearing it okay. I just wanted to say that. Yes? Are you sure you want to call on me? I don't know. I'm not sure if there is a disagreement about dharma or our practice either, but my understanding of non-duality is that it does not ignore the ordinary dualistic world. And in the ordinary dualistic world, it may be the case that there are some who have miraculously, or not miraculously, with supreme effort, moved beyond gender bias. But there's a lot of the world that we live in today, including the world right here, I think it represents a lot of us,

[02:29]

who have not moved beyond gender bias. And so for those benighted souls, myself included, who live in that category, to hear about Dogen's teaching on this matter is very valuable and far from a far from an insult to, well, an achievement that actually hasn't been achieved. Lisa, and then I'm going to go to Jerry. Probably sidestepping this completely, I was puzzled in the passage again and again when he talks about acquiring the Dharma. I don't know what is actually being translated there, but it kind of runs in the face of the dharma being something that one has already.

[03:37]

I'd have to really look at, let me, I don't want to get hung up. Yeah. So it's that whole question in his teaching about what it means for a person to be realized and that the difference between somebody who has acquired dharma not acquired dharma throws me back on this question of enlightenment as being some other state that one somehow has to achieve. I'd have to look at the language here, but I think my understanding is, irrespective of the translation or of the words that he may or may not use, Dogen is often taught, first of all, we have enlightened nature, we are enlightened nature. In fact, he retranslated that phrase.

[04:42]

On the other hand, we're not always awake to it. And so, I think being awake to one's true nature. When you wake up, when you go to bed and you sleep, when you wake up, do you acquire the new day? Or is it already there and you just wake up to it? That's the way I see him. That's my understanding of how Dogon frames it. Right, except that in this passage, so much of his trying to get the monks to understand who is a teacher. It's kind of this idea that some people have it and some don't.

[05:44]

I've said this before, my understanding is every Dharma teaching is medicine. Every Dharma teaching is designed to bring us back into a balance from a place that we were unbalanced. So if he emphasizes something, it's not because that's the absolute truth, it's because he feels he needs to, in this set of circumstances, this is what he has to emphasize. That's the way I see it anyway. But I'd like to go to Jerry and then I want to get back to the Next. Jerry? Yeah, this is something I was wondering about since when you talked about it this morning. And in the first paragraph, he says, a teacher will not be in the dark about cause and effect. That's the only thing that was an interesting thing to pick out.

[06:47]

That's the one particularity that characterizes the teacher. And then there's this whole stuff about the fox and shape-shifting, which reminded me of the story of the master that gets turned into a fox because he doesn't understand the nature of cause and effect. I just was interested in what you had to say about that. To me, he's very aware of that story when he's framing this. turning it on its head. He's playing with that. The story is of the master, some ancient master, who was asked, does an enlightened being, is he subject to cause and effect? And this guy says, no. And because he says that, after he says that, he's reborn as a fox for thousands of years.

[07:56]

500. 500 years, whatever. A long time. And then he shows up in the back of the lecture hall. And the teacher, I'm forgetting who was the person who was teaching, he was asked, this student asks, and they have a private discussion afterwards, and he said, who are you? He said, formerly, I was the abbot of this temple. And I gave this answer, and I was reborn as a fox for 500 years. So I asked you the question, and the present abbot says, yes. they do pay attention to, they have to pay attention to cause and effect and with that he was released and I think, then they had a funeral, right? They found the fox's body and the monks wanted to know why are we doing a funeral for this fox?

[09:05]

Is that correct? Yeah. They drove to the other side of the mountain in order to find him. But yeah, I think that is what he's talking about as enlightenment or waking. It's like really being aware that all of our words, thoughts and actions have consequences and being aware, awake to them and conscious of what we do. Another version of that story has the present habits saying, not yes, but it says an enlightened person does not ignore. Right. That's right. That's right. That's right. Maybe almost as one with cause and effect or something. No, it does not ignore. That's the language that I remember. Another translation is cause and effect are clear. Ah, OK. Anyway, however we translate this,

[10:10]

I think Jerry's brought us back to what the standard is that Dogen is looking at, right? So next, can we go on? I don't want to read all of these stories because I sort of like to get through the first half today. But the subsequent story, I mean, there's First of all, just to point out this wonderful Zhe Shen, when he became a teacher, he said to his assembly, I got half a ladle at Papa Linji's place, and I got half a ladle at Mama Mo Shan's place, which together made a full ladle. Since that time, after having fully digested this, I have been satisfied to the full. This is a wonderful Just a wonderful expression. Half a ladle at Papa Lynch's place, and half a ladle at Mama Moshun's place.

[11:16]

What happened to Mama Moshun? I mean, she's not in our formal lineage. Where is she? We changed her name. We changed her name. Well, it's not our lineage. She was in another lineage. I mean, lineages keep bifurcating. But she is in the record in the Chinese record of Zen masters and abbesses, so she's got a place. Some of these books have hundreds of Dharma errors. Yeah, yeah. I suggest maybe we find a copy of Miriam Levering's record of Moshan, and it would be great to have that in our library. So, then we go to the story of Mao Xin, Just to point out, I don't want to go through this whole story, but these monks show up and they want to visit Yangshan, who is Yakusan again in our lineage.

[12:28]

they come to the monastery and they're having an argument at night about this story that was a famous story in the Record of the Sixth Ancestor, probably you know it, where they're arguing about, in Sixth Ancestor, they're seeing a flag wave in the wind And so they're saying, well, it's the flag that's moving. And another one says, it's the wind that's moving. And the sixth ancestor says, it's your mind that's moving. So here, what's interesting, she's listening on the other side of the wall while they're having this argument, and she says, how lamentable, you seventeen blind donkeys!

[13:38]

How many straw sandals have you wasted in your futile search for the Dharma? The Buddha Dharma has not even appeared in your dreams! And it's like, again, somebody, the seventeen monks did not resent Miao Shin's disapproval. what was happening, and they were ashamed. And they took this abuse, which, you know, we don't talk so harshly in this sendo. And so they inquired about the Dharma, and she said, step forward! And as the 17 monks were walking towards her, 17 monks, picture this, you can really see it with your cinematic eye. As the 17 monks were walking forward towards her, Meowshen said, it's not the wind that's moving, it's not the flag moving, it's not the mind moving.

[14:44]

And they were awakened. In other words, get rid of all your conceptions. They expressed their gratitude, establishing the formal relationship of teacher and disciple, and quickly returned to Western Chu, their own region. In the end, they never climbed Yangshuo. They recognized her, and they didn't even bother to proceed up the mountain. to meet the purported Zen master, the actual Zen master. Truly this incident was not something that could have been accomplished by one on even the three wisdom stages or the ten noble stages. It is the practice of the way in the unbroken transmission from Buddha and ancestors.

[15:47]

So then he goes on and he talks and he says, and so today when the position of abbot or head monastic falls vacant, a monastery may invite a nun who appears to have acquired the Dharma to fill the vacancy. When we go back, I'll try to look at what the language actually is. I have the Now you've been translating in Chinese though, right? Not actively. This is all in Japanese. Nodogan is in Japanese. But he goes on, he says, when one makes it one's goal from the depths of one's being to throw body and mind fervently into the practice of Buddhadharma The Buddhadharma will always have compassion for that person.

[16:56]

It's a wonderful expression. The Buddhadharma will always have compassion. Compassion is the atmosphere of the Buddhadharma. I think it's true, but actually what I was hearing was what was painful to her was that no teacher, no contemporary teacher points out the lack of recognition right here, whether it's here in this Zendo or in other places that she serves. So that's what I was hearing was that it wasn't that she wasn't recognized, it's that

[18:02]

nobody noticed among ourselves did we notice that she wasn't recognized. And that's a point. Just to throw in another thing there, there is a tradition in Zen of these kind of informal people, not only women, who are kind of like that, like that a Zen master may say, oh, go see that old conjurer. And it could be, well, who the hell is he? He's just a bum or something. So it's not totally like she was a woman, therefore she couldn't be a teacher. There are other, that's why I always I sort of thought, well, this is like those stories where they say, go see the cook, and he'll make a fool of you.

[19:10]

So are people like Han Shan and so on, there are these people who were not teachers, but they were kind of recognized as enlightened beings, just kind of hanging out someplace. So in that sense, maybe it wasn't quite so weird. Well, it's within the tradition. On the other hand, we know Hanshan's name. We know a lot of men's names, and then we have these stories of these anonymous tea women. It's out of proportion to the recognition of our ability to actually name them. That's why I really like in the when they do the Women Ancestors at San Francisco Zen Center, in the echo it says, Women Known and Unknown.

[20:12]

And I think that it's important to recognize that in every, I mean it's not, basically We need to recognize history that's forgotten or lost, not just here in Zen but in everything, where real work was being done and we don't know the people's names, whereas we tend to know the men's names. That's all. That's all. It's not that those stories don't exist. Men are the writers of history, aren't they? Yeah, right. So one more thing that I want to, which I really love just as a piece of writing. It's in the middle of, well, I don't have to, at least I do.

[21:17]

Middle of page five, it's like square in the middle of page five. What is so exalted about a man? Space is space. The four elements are the four elements. The five aggregates are the five aggregates. For a woman it is the same thing. In acquiring the Dharma, all acquire the Dharma equally. All should pay homage to and hold in esteem one who has acquired the Dharma. There's something about that language. What's so exalted about a man? Space is space. The four elements are the four elements and the five aggregates are the five aggregates. There's something about that that just really resonates with me. That's true.

[22:21]

And even the question in my mind is whether the Buddha would have gotten it if Ananda hadn't made the case really forcefully. Yeah. Just to come back to that point since Denise was raising it. Our tradition, there is in this country much more of a tradition of women being in positions of power and being able to choose. But in the Theravadan tradition in Asia, there's not. Women, Ellen, you're more articulate to this than I am. Women are still struggling to be able to have recognitions. as teachers of vicarian lineages? Well, it's more literal. It's more precise than that. Very few, very few are able to have ordination. And so for me, it's very helpful to study this and to know this exists, because this is the canon or the teaching that supports the lineage we practice now.

[23:25]

Because it's not so in other parts of the world and other places. It's contemporary. When I was in Germany this summer, before I went to Friederike's place, I was teaching at the Tibetan Center in Hamburg, and the people who run that are these nuns who have full ordination. They've gone to Taiwan to have full Mahayana ordination, and it is not recognized within their tradition, completely not recognized. They do it because they are completely sincere and really want to throw themselves into the practice as fully as they can, but their tradition itself does not recognize that ordination, and that's not.

[24:26]

So that's true in the Tibetan tradition, that's largely true. There are very few fully ordained women in the Theravada traditions in Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka. All of those have had to go to Taiwan, which is sort of what Dogen is talking about. Well, there was an openness in China So they still have to go to China to get this full ordination, but it's not recognized within their own tradition. And it is a source of heartache for them. Real sorrow and heartache. Wasn't there some recent, like within the last year or two, news that something happened in Southeast Asia that was considered real shocking? Yeah, what it was, I'm forgetting his name, there was A Western monk in the tradition of Achan Chah, who was a Dharma brother of Achan Amaro and Achan Pasano were here at Abhayagiri.

[25:36]

He was in Australia. He gave full ordination to a woman and he was kicked out of their order. So, these are the social dimensions of the Dharma, and one thing I would say, which few of us have much contact or knowledge of what's going on in Soto Zen in Japan, but my feeling has been that one of the things that's really A powerful responsibility that we have, that we've been enacting, is to go there too. One is that we've been manifesting lay practice in a really serious, thorough way, and this is also something that Dogen talks about here in this section.

[26:54]

And the other dimension is that we've been validating the practice, the leadership, the transmission, the awakening of women in America, and this has a feedback loop effect on Japan. It's slow. Dogen says, what is called a layman in Song Dynasty China, is a young gentleman who has not yet left home. Some live in small huts with their wives, others live alone and remain chaste, and even though we must say that they are still in the dense forest of defilements, when one of them attains enlightenment, itinerant monks will gather to do obeisance and seek instruction, just as they would from a master who has left home. at this stage in his life and practice, Dogen is still really talking about and validating the lay practice, which is, I think, another thing that pretty much failed to be influential, but resonates with us.

[28:11]

That's another hierarchy that's similar to the men-women thing. It would be unheard of in Southeast Asia, I think, for a monk to bow to a lay person Not entirely. The place where it's interesting, where there's more flexibility is in Burma. I just finished reading this amazing book. It's kind of the record of Dipa Ma. Do people know of her? She was a laywoman, Burmese, and she was really a primary teacher for Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein and some others. I think Wes Visser went in. It's a wonderful book and she had students who were monks. I mean, partly in that tradition, which is interesting, is that the monks are not really meditators.

[29:19]

If they want to meditate, they go to meditation teachers and she was a meditation teacher. But she was a layperson with children, family, lived in the middle of a slum. It's a fantastic book. It was like laying on our bed. Lori had finished it and I just picked it up and started reading it. Who wrote it? I forget who. It's sort of assembled. I don't know who the author is, but Deepa Ma, D-I-P-A-M-A. Knee Deep in Grace? Is that the one? I don't know. Is that it? That's the title, Knee Deep in Grace. So we have a few minutes and basically we finished this first half and tomorrow I want to go on to the of the fascicles.

[30:22]

But any questions, thoughts? We haven't fallen into validating pillars, have we? Destiny, Helen. I don't know. Pillars? Pillars, yeah, and rocks. That's not the spin we're putting on this, right? I'm encouraged. OK. Let's hope that continues. I don't know. Questions, thoughts? Yeah, there are fascicles like that, and there are fascicles that are really tough.

[31:24]

Yeah, I mean, compare this to the Gintra Koan, or the mountains and rivers, or something like that. The Gintra Koan is one of the more accessible ones. Yes? Could you talk more about the effect of the West on Japanese citizens? I'd talk a little about it just a bit. We have an ongoing, we have a relationship. There's a Soto office in San Francisco, and there have been monks who've been living here, some who've been coming back and forth. And, you know, it's hard to say in a very particular way what the effect is, but you can see there are monks who are, both junior monks and older monks, who are interested in what's going on here, and I think one of the more concrete, anyway this is the way I feel about it, one of the most concrete effects is that for the last, I don't know, six or eight years

[32:42]

Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoitsu, has been one of the most senior teachers at Eiheiji. Eiheiji and Sochichi are sort of like the Annapolis and West Point of Soto Zen training. They really are when you go there. Actually, some people really like it, I don't. But this is where they are turning out the next cohort of leading priests. To have invited Hoitsu Suzuki, who's not... the Suzuki's were never high-status priests. They were pretty much local. But it's really... I've always felt there's a validation of Suzuki Roshi's legacy in the West that they were able actually to see Hoitsu and to see his qualities and to bring him in, which is, I don't know, some of us know him and have met him.

[34:01]

He's an extraordinary human being. I've not encountered a lot of teachers in these large monasteries who have a real openness and flexibility just as human beings, not necessarily to the West. Huizu is one of the most flexible and joyous human beings I've ever met. When you're with him, you feel good, which I think there's some family qualities that people felt around Suzuki Roshi as well. I think their recognition of him and keeping him, it wasn't just a symbolic thing like, oh we'll give him a two-year position. They're keeping him there because he's actually really training monks in a way that fits what's needed in society.

[35:06]

a certain recognition of the validity of what we're doing in the West. Right, the group that I went with was the first group to go there in 1989 and we slept in the Zen Dojo, we practiced the Zen Dojo and they felt, the family realized we have something here and they rebuilt the temple so that it could accommodate people coming in.

[36:13]

Western Americans have had some influence, or there's a synergy going on. Now, correct me, because I may not know this accurately, but I believe in Japan, women train in the nunneries, and men train in the monasteries. And it's only in a few monasteries that take Westerners where women and men train together. But there are a few exceptional women who have trained with Japanese teachers. and have been transmitted in Japan by their Japanese teachers who are American. I'm thinking of Taihaku Priest as one. I'm thinking of Grace's time with her teacher, although she could get transmission from him, I don't think. I'm thinking of Tenku Ruff as another person. I'm sure Diane Binage. There are a few others where there's that kind of relationship that's happened that's, I think, new. Yeah, Diane Binage, who probably, I don't know if any of you know her. She's in Mount Freedom, Pennsylvania, I think.

[37:20]

Mount something. In Pennsylvania. She's an American woman. She is the highest rank priest, Soto priest that we ever had in the United States. She has the rank that would enable her to lead a training monastery. They're very into ranks. This is a position. It's not to say she's more enlightened or anything else, but she has a formal recognition of position higher than Suzuki Roshi ever had or Maezumi Roshi ever had. There's never been anybody previous to her who's had this position. So yeah, these things are happening. I think we need to end. So thank you very much and bring your questions and we'll proceed with Dogen's polemic tomorrow.

[38:24]

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