Amen. Amen. Amen. I really can't recognize it better than this, so I'll try my best. It's a very crisp and clear winter morning here in Berkeley, and we have some clean weather, which is great, because immediately this talk, we're going to have a ceremony

[01:09]

to enter a portion of our teacher Sojin Roshi's ashes. That's what's wrapped in white there on the altar. And we have a, there's a beautiful stone that you see back in the memorial garden that Sojin picked out at Tassahara. And with some, it got shipped down here, or up here from Tassajara. And then with even greater difficulty, we figured out how to move it from the driveway into the garden and actually to plant it there where it looks like it was, except it wasn't. It had to be put there. We're going to have this ceremony.

[02:11]

It's a, the stone is, well, Sojin Roshi was an artist. Before this place was his canvas, he was a, you might consider him an abstract expressionist painter, which was the important movement in the 1950s. And he was part of that. But he always had an artist's eye. And once that stone was placed there, you could see its expression of his artist's eye. And to me, it's a self-expression because there's something about the roundness of that stone that evokes or invokes a sense of sojin for those of us, at least for me.

[03:36]

I think for others who knew him for over a long period of time and quite intimately, and I hope it will convey that to other generations of people who are coming here to practice. So everyone will have an opportunity to, once the third, to ladle a portion of water over the stone as an act of purification. And that's an act of connection. That's what we'll do. But I wanted to speak this morning to my mind This place and this practice became the principal area of Sojin Roshi's creativity.

[04:55]

And I want from a talk that he gave which is called Establishing a Practice, which is completely relevant to how are we living our lives and establishing our practice. This is part of a book that is a part memoir and part collection of lectures from Sojin Roshi. It's called seeing one thing through. And this is to say that Ron Nestor and I have, we have handed off the manuscript to the production team at Counterpoint Press, so it's really in the works now.

[05:58]

And I think that it will be published sometime in this year. But it's out of our hands at last, thank God. Ron put a lot of work into it over the last three years. And there are other people in the Sangha who contributed mightily to pulling this together. Anyway, this is one of the lectures that I'm going to speak from, not to read the whole thing. So it begins when Suzuki Roshi asked me to establish a Zendo in Berkeley in 1960. I found a wonderful old Victorian. I determined that I was going to sit there every morning and every evening. And if somebody else came, that was wonderful. If nobody came, that was okay too. But someone always came.

[07:02]

Little by little, we had a community of practitioners. sangha. It took many years before the sangha actually matured, at the point that he was writing this in 1993. He says, After 26 years, we still have some of our original members practicing regularly. Well, there's a few almost original members who are still practicing with us. And a few who lived in that old Victorian and right way and remember it fondly. Together we have been through many changes and phases.

[08:06]

And I think that that kind of mutual support creates something wonderful. Each member should have something to do to take care of the place itself. The realm of doing of Sangha activity that is Kind of what you do when you have begun your actual Zazen. So somebody's assignment may be to take care of a certain space or to take care of one of the altars or a section of the garden. All of the, all these small things add up and that responsibility into mutual stewardship. then everyone feels appreciative for everyone else and feels, I'm supporting your practice and you're supporting my practice.

[09:16]

So without the word, my feeling is that without using the word, Sojin assumed that there was a virtue in community. That the practice that we have from our teachers, particularly in the Zen tradition in Japan, was not an individual practice, was not a practice where we sit in our own caves, but is something that we do together. that everyone throws in a bit. And that's how we're supporting our practice, by this activity.

[10:19]

Here he's talking about activity in place. But I think we can extend it as well. When we're, the way we sit, you know, look, you're all sitting next to each other. And even if you're facing the wall, Usually there's someone next to you. And those people on either side of you are supporting your practice and you are supporting theirs. As I said, I think it was last week or the week before. Sit this way, we actually create a, we create a space for a kind of limbic resonance to take place between us, to communicate from and between our bodies to support each other in being upright.

[11:24]

As a mostly lay community, we sit together and study together, but we lead our lives independently. This is one of the things that's really unique about this place, and it was particularly unique in its day when Berkeley's Internet was started. But the model that Sojin brought was actually the model that he found when he came to San Francisco Zen Center. When he came to the first Suzuki Roshi's first place, which was Sokoji on Bush Street. They didn't have a residence as such. Some people lived together in sort of Zen houses, but people came from their home and returned to their homes and their lives. And it was a lay practice. Then once they bought properties and, you know, Tephthysko Zen Center now on Page Street,

[12:36]

Dasahara and Green Gulch, they created a residential practice. But the experience that Sojin had first was of this lay practice. And that was the model, I think, that he brought to Dwight Wei, where the first house was. So he says, our center in Berkeley, speaking of this place, is more than just four buildings. It's a Zendo, a community space and a residence with most of our members in the area. When we come together to do this, there's a kind of cooperative mutual support that is most valuable. It's important for everybody to figure out

[13:37]

What is my practice? And this is one of the of this piece. He says, how can I arrange my life so that my practice harmonizes with my other responsibilities? In other words, how do we see our life as an integral whole And that whole is contained within the space of what we see as practice. He says we have Zen philosophy, we have Zen doctrine, we have Zen this and that. But the important thing is how to practice. If we can't sit cross-legged, how do we sit in a chair or some way that works for us? Two sides of every practitioner that every practitioner is dealing with is the balance of how to establish a zendo practice, a practice here, a formal practice, and how to practice in our day.

[15:06]

And he suggests, take a certain period of time. And in that time period, you look at your calendar and decide, I'm going to sit this time every week. It may be one day, five mornings, or whatever. You decide that this is what I'm going to do, and this is the way I'm going to do it. This practice schedule fits in with my life. I remember Sojin Roshi saying, he was describing what he thought of as authentic practice. And he said, well, you know, if you pick one day, you look at the calendar and you pick one day, you know, say, like, Tuesday, April 24th, I'm going to sit Zazen and

[16:13]

The day rolls around and you sit asana. Well, that's authentic practice. Because it's keeping your intention. Maybe we can do more than one day here, but the principle is that. He says, what it all hinges on is what your commitment is to yourself. The most important part... practice is your commitment because you can't practice without some commitment. When you sit Sazen, you're committing yourself to sitting still for a period. Sazen has become an integral part of your life. If it's not an integral part of your life, it's not true Sazen. because Zazen is nothing more than the way you live your life.

[17:18]

So it's not like this special activity that we come, just do it here, and we think that we're good, disciplined Zen students because we come to the Zen Do. It has to permeate our lives. all that we're doing. We have to give it the space to do that. Suzuki Roshi would say that Zen practice is living your life moment by moment. So you have to be careful with your commitments. Many people have a tendency to overextend themselves. So they may try to sit five days a week. But if this is not realistic, you'll become discouraged.

[18:21]

So after you have this trial period to see what the shape of your Sendo practice might be, you review it. Did it work? Yeah. So you extend it. for a month or no that didn't really work so well so you change it or your life changes and you have uh you find that your previous commitment is not working for you so you have to change it all you have to do is change your commitment to work with the way your life is now. So this is, you know, a lot of us, quite a few people, and the shape of our lives changes.

[19:30]

Our work commitments change. Our family commitments change. Our physical abilities change, not always in an encouraging way, if we're getting older. And when that happens, we have to be fluid and let go of what can change what our previous . Not be rigid about it. compel ourselves to do something that's really outside our capacity at this moment. So it says you keep experimenting until you find your proper rhythm. And it's up to each one of us to find out how to do that.

[20:34]

If you're in a monastery, You commit yourself to whatever the monastic schedule is, and you follow that. Everyone has to make their own practice schedule. So monastic life is really wonderful. But what it offers is, the way I think of it is a kind of exoskeleton, you know, the framework of schedule. And your responsibility, if you're living at the monastery, is to just keep the schedule. And that has its own difficulties. Everybody who's done that knows that can be really hard. But there's also an aspect of it that's really easy, because after a while, You just fall into the rhythm and you don't have to make decisions.

[21:39]

When am I going to eat? When am I going to sit? What am I going to eat? Actually, there's a lot of thought about food. That's the most important thing in monasteries, the food. It's like one of the last things you get to obsess about, but you have no control over it. Whereas here, we have to make decisions about everything that we did. That's really hard. That's, you know, that's the... That's where the rubber meets the road of lay practice. So Sojourn suggests, here everyone has to make their own practice schedule. Then he says, and it's your responsibility to create it with your teacher. It's good to go to your teacher and discuss your Zazen schedule.

[22:41]

Because sometimes the teacher thinks that you're doing one thing and you're actually doing something else. If the teacher doesn't know that, they may expect something from you that shouldn't be expected. So it's very good to keep in contact with your teacher and discuss your practice. What you're doing, it makes your commitment more realistic. So talking about this with my wife Lori, when we came here, when we came to practice, the assumption was one had a teacher. One may have had, it may have been formally a teacher, it may have been a respected senior that you saw as a practice leader but it was very clear that that was kind of that was the way we worked and that in some sense there was a there was a bond and an accountability and um that was great i really you know when i

[23:57]

develop that relationship. When I developed that relationship with Sojin, I was very happy because it was a reliable and honest relationship. And I just would encourage you, I think the way times have evolved, sometimes there's a hesitation for people to to have teachers, something that we can talk about. But I'm not talking about a teacher in some hierarchical role. I'm thinking about just who do you talk to, who can you build trust with to really speak about what's going on in your life of practice.

[25:03]

Be honest with it and to get honest reflection back. So I just want to encourage you without lingering on that point right now. When you share what you're doing, it makes your commitment more realistic. Practice needs this kind of intentional commitment, because otherwise it's based on the way we feel. Feelings are important. But if you only depend upon your feelings, it's not real practice. Feelings are not reliable. We may have noticed that. They change, feel one way on a certain day and another on the next day. And then... really it's a deep point of this talk that's challenging for us he says real zazen is when we practice without preference we're not trying to get something good we're not trying to get something bad anything just giving ourselves to ourselves in order to establish ourselves

[26:32]

on ourselves. We're just trying to give ourselves, just giving ourselves to ourselves to establish ourselves on ourselves. And that's a wonderful kind of gift. And I suspect we're going to spend a lot of time together in days, weeks, years to come, trying to understand what that means. Really encourage you to think about what that means for you. What does it mean to settle the self on the self? It's an expression of Zen Master. So that's where Sojan ended the lecture. And there's a kind of lively question and answer that I'm going to excerpt a little before we take some questions here.

[27:40]

So first question is, is the commitment just to seek Zen or does it include that my room will be tidy also? That's a real question, right? And it gets one of these slippery answers, I think, from Sujin. He says, in zazen, it means that you don't move from your position. In your daily life, it means you don't move from your intentions. So your intention may be, if you have an intention to keep your room clean, then you should follow that intention. You may have the thrust of your living intention maybe in another direction than keeping your room tidy.

[28:52]

But maybe the good thing to do, if your room isn't tidy, maybe Close the door so that you're not imposing it on everybody else that you live with. And so that when you walk in the door, you have to face your own mess. Everyone else doesn't have to face it. Anyway, there may be things that you need to do other than keep your room tidy. To keep your room tidy. That's what I think. He's talking about sitting still and sitting zazen. And this touches on a dialogue we've been having over the last couple of weeks. For the most part, it seems like sitting still and doing zazen would work well. But then when my daughter comes in and says, but I have to do this and that.

[30:02]

Then I find myself saying, but I have Zazen this morning. And Sojin says, your daughter comes first. This is an immediate thing. But if she says that every time you want to sit Zazen, then you have to make some agreements. It's a kind of give and take. When your life is involved with various things, or when your life is involved with various people, like your family, you have to intermingle somehow. So there has to be space for children, space for family. You know, you'll go off to Siddh Sazen and somebody else resents it. That's a problem that a lot of people have to deal with. You know, as far as this comes up. because our lives are so pressurized that sometimes it may often feel there's not enough time.

[31:12]

And so if you're going to Sesshin, it may feel like you're borrowing for your family. So you have to talk about this. You have to get this out and keep it on the table. You're gone all day to a seshin and your husband or wife is doing something. It's good if your family is very understanding. But you have to be careful how to regulate your practice so it integrates with your other responsibilities. Lay practice, which is the kind of practice that we have here, even for those of us who are wearing. We're living in the world. In our particular tradition, to wear a robe doesn't imply celibacy or any kind of isolation.

[32:21]

We're right here. So lay practice means that you have to take the responsibility for integrating it with your family, your work, and other activities. And it's going to be something that is going to create a little problem. And everybody has to be able to accept that problem. I have to accept that problem in my life. It's not just that everybody else has to accept that problem. It's like as a practitioner, each of us has to accept that problem. Question. It sounds like it's just more practice. You can either escape your family responsibilities by saying, oh, but it's such and such a time I sit zazen or whatever, as Aminu saying, oh, well, I can't sit zazen because I have to do such and such.

[33:30]

It seems like it really has to be continuously weighed and reassessed. So just says, that's right. does have to be continually weighed. People within the family have to give each other space to do something without feeling that somebody is running away. It's really good if you can take the quality of your practice and extend it to your family, extend it to your workplace. That's what makes the practice not self-centered. It's not something you do just for yourself. And even though you do it by yourself, you're doing it, if you're doing it just for yourself, it's not practice. The point of this practice is to integrate ourselves, integrate our lives into whatever we may learn here, facing ourselves and facing the wall,

[34:38]

We need to carry it into our life. Finally, he says, the first stage of practice is that we practice for ourselves. This is usually what brings us to practice. Stage, we're suffering. The second stage is that we do the practice for everyone else. It's a kind of altruism, which is also wonderful. The third stage is that we do the practice, which includes everyone else. But to do the practice just for the practice is the practice of no self. and others get taken care of without us taking care in a particular way or without us getting taken care of.

[35:51]

The practice takes care of everything. That was Sotjan's faith. We come to practice for various reasons. But we don't always know what it is we come for. I don't think I knew exactly what it was that I was coming for. That was Sojan speaking, and I would concur. When I came to practice, as I've put it many times, I felt like I had, at the age of about 35, I had run to the end of the script that I had in my hands. It just didn't go any further. I had to do something. And I came here. And I said, okay, I'll try this.

[36:58]

And here. Maybe that means I have very limited imagination. I'm not sure. But it still works. So he says, I don't think I knew exactly what it was, what I was coming for. But when we make a sincere effort to practice, sooner or later we realize what it is. We realize that there is nothing to get. And that this nothing to get has to be found by each one of us. And that's the end. So we have a few minutes for comments, questions and answers. And before we go out and do this lovely ceremony we're going to do. So people here can raise their hands.

[38:04]

Online, please raise your digital hand because I can't see everyone on the screen at once. So, thoughts, questions. Sue, speak up when you have a question. Okay. I love this, what you spoke about and sharing Sojin with us. I vaguely recall being here for that talk. It's familiar. You might have been. I was. I was here. And it was just great. I feel like I absorbed a lot about how to live my life because of his words. A lot of things I didn't agree with or understand, but that one makes sense to me. Thank you. Thank you. I just really wanted to bring his voice today. as we're about to go back out there.

[39:07]

So, thank you. Peter. Yes, thank you. I'm rather curious to know, so did you see anything about the way the Orient is found? Well, first of all, I think he indicated which was the front. of the stone, yes. You have some question about it? Ross, my understanding is that, did he show Kika or he showed you where it should go? After we placed this Zuki Roshi stone, we pointed to the right of that stone and said, and I'll go here. That's all he said about it. I think Greg and I kind of, Greg Denny and I kind of fine-tuned the precise location.

[40:09]

And we got this master stone mover to move it. It's a real art. It took us two, three months to find the right person to actually move the Ferschluggenau stone, you know, but it's in there now. Yeah. Ferschluggenau, that's a Japanese word. What does it mean? You know, it's like one of those words that has like hash marks and asterisks and exclamation marks. Do you understand? Yeah. The gestures. Other, yeah. I just wanted to say, I haven't been here in a few months, but I woke up thinking about students. Good. And I decided I had to come today, not even knowing that this was today. You're calling me today. And I'm so happy to be here. Good. For this. I'll have you here.

[41:12]

Is there anyone out there? Zoom ahead and have... Mira? Well, I've been sitting here since I was 28. And I'm not continuously free. But anyway, I've been in many relationships. And I just want to say that practice has created challenges, struggles, difficulties in all my relationships. Even the one that I met here. So, good luck. I'm not going to be in a relationship, and then it's going to work out. But it took me until this old age to say that. Well, that's good. For me, I've been in a relationship for 34 years, and it's a big problem.

[42:22]

So, yeah. Our problems are, you know, this is just what we're given to work with. But I'm really glad you're here. That also has its problems and also has to be worked with. So I appreciate that you're doing that. And each of us is doing that. Jerry? The surgeon told me those words so many times in two ways. Which words? The words that he was from the talk. And I tried to live my life that way, for better or for worse. But I found out that I had to have this business about setting an intention wasn't so simple. In fact, keeping to what Mira said, you had to have the agreement of your partner.

[43:32]

If I'm going to be gone every Saturday morning, when you've worked all week early and the kids are there. But then you make a deal, okay, Saturday morning, you've got Sunday. And with my kids in there, my kids, it was understood. Certain times when I was going to be there, certain times when I was going to be away. It got renegotiated. Yeah. But it made it possible. By setting an intention, and then negotiating the intention with appropriate people, like going to Tazahara and negotiating the time off the move to be with them. Yeah. That negotiating and setting an intention, when you had the intention, it made it possible to negotiate. Right. It gave you that whatever it inspired, that whatever it took for you to be. go forth and do what I needed to do so I could put the intention.

[44:37]

Did you hear that? Yes, she was saying, sending the intention, Jerry was saying, sending the intention is a critical piece that when you set the intention, then you have the basis for making agreements. That makes sense to me. really mean that it's all easy, or that everybody's happy all the time. Maybe we have time for one or two more, and then we will adjourn. I'm looking out there online, anything? And I'm also looking around the room for... yeah. those last words from his talk? Sure. Last words from the talk?

[45:39]

Well, the meaning. By the way, I have a question out there. Was I discreet in my moving of paper? Was it okay? Oh, good. I'm trying to be really... It's like, whatever we do, there's a new opportunity for mindfulness. And moving the papers on the computer is one, because I know it makes a weird sound. So I'm trying. We come to practice for various reasons, but we don't always know what it is that we come for. I don't think I knew exactly what it was that I was coming for. But when we make a sincere effort to practice later, we realize what it is.

[46:45]

We realize that there is nothing to get. And this, nothing to get, has to be found by each one of us. you know what, that's a really good place to end, if that's okay. So we will do our bodhisattva vows, and they'll be, just to say, they'll be the usual Saturday that Joe will do. And then Hannah, is Hannah in here? She'll come in now. She's coming in. Hannah will come in and tell you what's going to happen in this ceremony, give you a brief introduction. And that's it. Actually, Liz, when me and Matrisha leave, could you come with us?

[47:52]

We'll go to the office. So, with that, thank you very much. are numberless

[48:07]

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