What I was and am planning to share with you this morning are some thoughts about continuous practice, what I might also refer to as spiritual formation. But I think we have to begin this morning acknowledging the rising tide of violence and hate crimes against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the U.S. Of course, the shootings in Atlanta are on my mind, where six of the eight murdered spa workers were Asian American women. On February 25th, the Los Angeles Higashi Honganji Joroshinshu Temple was vandalized.

[01:09]

It's a temple that's right around the corner from Zenshuji and is part of the really an intimate part of the Buddhist community in Japan town and in Los Angeles. And a vandal came over the wall, over the locked gate, and damaged their beautiful lanterns in the entry to the temple and also smashed a window. And we heard about this from the priest at the temple, who was also the bishop of North America, of Zoro Shinshu. His name is Nuryaki Ito. And I know him quite well from, he was one of the people that was in the delegation that met with Pope Francis in Rome a number of years ago.

[02:12]

So I was really shaken by that. I wrote to him and sent a donation. And there was a large outpouring from particularly in California Zen groups, many of whom have had interactions with Ito Sensei over the years. I've also heard from Asian American members of our own community, the BCC community and the wider community, who understandably fear for their well-being in the streets, on the streets, and in public. And this is a time of fear.

[03:13]

The origin, which is just mind-boggling to me, is the kind of... baseless and really shameful accusations that somehow the virus, the COVID virus was begun in China. But what we look as we see, look through American history, we find that Asian Americans and other immigrant populations have habitually been targeted in times of national crisis. And so one of the centers, I will try to put something in the chat or send it out to the community list.

[04:26]

One of the centers, the Stop Asian American Pacific Islander Hate, is a center launched in response to this racist repression. They've received more than 3,800 reports of attacks and abuse against Asian Americans in 47 states during 2020. And another report finds that hate crimes, targeted hate crimes against Asian Americans have surged by 150% in 2020. There's a history of this as well. There's history of Asian American of anti-Asian violence in this country.

[05:28]

And actually much of it has been under the cover of US law. You have the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. You have the mass incarceration of Japanese American citizens during World War II. You know, In Buddhist terms, this is a systemization of delusion. It's systemized or systematized in population in the form of what we might simply call white supremacy. It's also been systematized in our legal system at different points in our history. So I do not have a solution to this, but I hope we can commit ourselves personally and organizationally to stand with our Asian American and Pacific Islander sisters and brothers.

[06:46]

We can offer them spiritual and material support And I will try to make that available, the contacts available to you. I made a donation to the Higashi-Hanganji Temple when that happened. And yesterday I found a link to a fund for the families of the victims in the Atlanta shootings. And so I sent a donation there. And I think we could just continue the discussion within our communities and with our friends about what does solidarity look like? What does support look like?

[07:47]

So this Wednesday morning coming after Zazen, instead of the regular well-being service, we'll have a memorial and well-being ceremony in Berkley Zen Center's online Zendo to remember those who have died and to stand with those who live at risk and fear. So we really invite you to join us for that. That'll be at 810 on Wednesday. So let's just stop and take a couple of breaths. In the remaining time today, I hope you'll excuse me for shifting the focus.

[09:14]

Actually, maybe it's not exactly shifting the focus. Maybe we've widened the focus of the next part of our talk by prefacing it with this acknowledgement of what's going on in our country and our vow to bring our practice to that. So I've been, what I wanted to do was reflect on particular teachings that I and we have received from Sojin Roshi. And this is going to be the second in this series of reflections. The subject I want to touch on today is what we might call continuous practice. That's the way, that's what Dogen calls it in his fascicle Shabokensu Gyoji.

[10:25]

He also uses the term Gyoji Dokkan, which means continuous practice in the circle of the way. So I want to quote Dogen. On the great road of Buddha ancestors, there is always unsurpassable practice, continuous and sustained. It forms the circle of the way and is never cut off. Between aspiration, practice, enlightenment and nirvana, there is not a moment's gap. Continuous practice is the circle of the way. Another way that I think of this, as I think I mentioned, is this continuous practice is...

[11:30]

what we might think of as spiritual formation. The constant motion of our practice that spirals both upwards in ascending circles and also downward in the depths of our understanding. So I came across a wonderful talk by Sojin Roshi that was given in Chapel Hill in the 90s. Joel might have been there. You don't know. I don't know. I was there when I was there and here when I was here. So this is a lecture on continuous practice and I'm going to read you a section of it and maybe comment as we go along.

[12:39]

So this is Sojin speaking. We have these two questions. First, why do we do this? When we start to sit, we instinctively know why. It's beyond our reasoning, but somewhere we know. So it's true when I came to When I came to Berkeley Zen Center and it really settled in, the question that I asked myself, it was a why question. And that why question was, why am I here on the planet? And I think I've told this before. It was a question I brought to my psychotherapist. And she said, oh, that's not a psychotherapeutic question.

[13:45]

That's a spiritual question. And I said, oh, okay. And that was when I started looking around and very quickly returned to Berkeley Zen Center. But it was a why question. Why do we... Why do we do this? Once I did walk in here, I felt instantly at home. And I couldn't answer that question why, but I knew it was where I was supposed to be. And that actually, you know, here we are almost 40 years later and I still feel that way. Very, very fortunate. Sojan says it's beyond our reasoning, but somewhere we know. Knowing knows. But when we start to reason about it, we don't know anymore.

[14:48]

We try to match our reasoning with our knowing. And it brings up this question, especially when we get into a difficult spot. Yeah, that happened to me also. Things happened here while I was here and I felt like on some, in some inarticulate way, I knew that this was the right place to be and the right thing to do. But there was also always a part of my mind That was asking, what makes you think this way? You know, why do you think you know? You know, how do you know that this makes sense, that this is a way to live? And I listened to that, but not much.

[15:56]

You know, not much. I trusted that deeper kind of knowing, you know, and partly because I had no place else to go. So it says, it's like taking a boat ride. We know we enjoy going out in the boat, but then a big storm comes up. Pretty soon, The boat's leaning over and the sails are starting to rip. The waves are coming over the gunnels. We say, why did we ever do this? Why do we go out in this boat? But it doesn't help. The real question is, how do I deal with this? So this is at the heart.

[17:00]

of his perspective on continuous practice. Sojan says, and we've all heard this many times, he says, how is the practice question. Why is valid, but it's secondary to how. Take your life, for example. Why were you born? It doesn't matter. Here you are. The real question is, how do I live this life? How do I deal with this situation? And I think that there was a shift in my fundamental question very quickly. I could not answer the question Why am I on the planet?

[18:03]

But that question shifted to how am I on the planet? How shall I live? How shall I live brings up all of the, all of the, Buddhist practices. Another way of framing the six paramitas, the six perfections is exactly how shall I live according to what practices and according to what principles? How shall I live? Sojin says, you can deal with why until you get tired of that And turn to how. Many of us do that. You know, it's why, [...] why.

[19:08]

And sometimes if we're lucky, we get to jettison that on the early side. Sometimes it may not happen until we're 50 or 60 or 70. But if you keep at practice, it allows for that door to open. So you can shift your question from why to how. How do I do this? That is the koan of your life. Occasionally, someone will ask me, this is Sojin. How can I be a good Zen student? Invariably, I say, that's a great question. Keep that question in all your activity. How can I be a good Zen student? He says, how do I do this? What's in front of me. How do I practice? Moment to moment.

[20:09]

We're not seeking something far off. We're seeking to know. How do I stand in this place? Right now. I think one of the practices that Sojin gave me that I talk about. frequently because I tend to very easily move into my head. His practice for me, and I've given his practice to many people to say, where are my feet? And what I find as soon as I ask that question, where are my feet? it immediately gets down to the nitty gritty. How are my feet?

[21:12]

So if I'm sitting back, my legs are crossed, and I ask myself, where are my feet? Immediately, I put both feet on the ground. And my mind naturally goes to the point of contact with my feet if I'm sitting. If I'm standing, I feel that point of contact. I also might feel the way my body weight is distributed on my feet as I'm standing on the ground. And so the question, where are my feet? Again, it is translated into, how are my feet? How do I stand in this place right now, he says. He says, how do I sit in this spot right now? Totally. This is not just about sitting zazen.

[22:16]

It's about walking, eating, moving. In a larger sense, it's about how do I harmonize body-mind with the universe? He says that's our practice. When we sit, we harmonize body and mind with the universe without discriminating, without picking and choosing. In other words, including everything. When I paused just now between words, I heard I hear the chirping of a bird outside the window. And I hear the barking of a dog. That's included in this moment. So how do we harmonize the intellect with the heart?

[23:22]

He asks us that. Where is the center of our being? So as I said, I've been thinking about this in the context of spiritual formation. Spiritual formation is a term that's borrowed from Christian training in a seminary where priests go through a process of transformation. I would say in our approach, Zen in this country, everybody goes through this process. It's not just for priests.

[24:24]

This process of spiritual formation is the process of continuous practice of opening ourselves to the universe. Of opening ourselves to each thing that is That is actually present. And. Usually. Spiritual formation. Is about the process of seeking meaning. But again I think in our. Approach. The question of meaning. is not a why or a what, but it's a how. So rather than saying, what is the meaning of my life?

[25:26]

I would say, I can hear Sojin saying, how is the meaning of my life? And he plays around with that part of speech, how as a noun and how as an adverb that modifies the verb is. How is it? How is it? It is how. And that is a way to explore meaning. Another question you might ask is how am I connected to the world? How am I connected to, say, the vandalized temple in Los Angeles?

[26:42]

How am I connected to the spa workers In Atlanta. How am I connected to. The. Incarcerated interned. Japanese Americans in World War Two. How am I related to George Floyd. How am I related to. My sisters and brothers. on the screen right here. This continual examination and exploration is the circle of the way. It's the continuous practice that we have to find for ourselves

[27:45]

And it's also important that we find in the Buddhist teachings, we see it as we look through these systems of formation, the Eightfold Path, Paramitas, the Bodhisattva Precepts, and so forth. Endless systems which are just devices for getting us to look at how are we right this moment. And also, how do we wish to be? What is our, how are we aspiring to be in connection with ourselves and with others? So, I feel that I was very fortunate when I came here I arrived at Brooklyn Zen Center at some point, I think, in 1984.

[28:55]

And Sojun was away in Japan. He was receiving Dharma transmission from Uitsu Suzuki. And when I walked in, no one was directly leading things. But there were long-term practitioners around. Miley Scott, Ron Nestor, Fran Tribe, and others. And I really look to them for as models of how to live and how to move. And it's interesting when I look back on it now, it's half a lifetime ago, and I was already in my mid to late 30s. In my recollection, it's as if I were a child. You know, I didn't know anything. I certainly didn't know.

[29:58]

I really didn't know. I didn't have an idea about how I wanted to live. So I watched them. And I threw myself into Zazen, which was hard. The sitting was painful. And distracted. And boring sometimes. But. Doesn't feel that way anymore. Actually, it's pretty settled now, usually. Except now my knees have given out. So there's a whole other realm of pain. But I persisted. It was something about the people that I saw around me. even in those first weeks at BCC. And I wanted to be like them.

[31:00]

And then after a month or so, Sojin returned from Japan. And he had his new brown priest robes on. And his and confident manner brought my vision of what was going on at Bradley Zen Center into focus. And, you know, I'm grateful that I have always found him to be a man who was devoid of self-promotion, free from the snares of Narcissism. It was just a steady presence. At every period of zazen in those days. He had very little to distract him. That pulled him into other directions. And I could see that.

[32:01]

It was. This was a presence that was. The pivot. Around which the community. Had formed and turned. And so. I learned about Dokusan, meeting with the teacher in a private interview. And I had no idea what it was, but it was very clearly communicated that this was an essential element of Zen training, although nobody explained to me what happened in the room. So nevertheless, I signed up and my time arrived. Like everybody else, I found my way. At first, I talked about physical pain. Then I talked about psychological pain. A lot of it was about pain.

[33:03]

And he listened. He just listened. His answers were rarely direct. they rarely explained anything. And what Sojun, as we know, what he often did was he would turn your language around on you and make your question to him a question back to you. And so that was how we developed a relationship. And as I've said elsewhere, it was an exploration. This is a critical part of my spiritual formation. Part of my spiritual formation was really watching the sangha, entering the sangha, being part of it, and learning from everyone who was here in such a steady and reliable way.

[34:10]

And part of it was from working regularly with Sojin, Even though I really had no idea what we were doing. You know, as I've said elsewhere, I think my natural tendency was to keep trying to put him into a slot that I understood. Like, oh, father figure. Or psychologist. Or... Friend. Said none of that. What he was was a Zen teacher. Which was. Essentially a kind of mirror. And. That was not something that. That was not something that.

[35:10]

Any of us. Had. Experience with in our lives. It was a new kind of relationship. And our intimacy was based on developing that relationship. And that continued for the rest of his life and the rest of our life together. So I'm telling you about this today because sometimes I think that the vividness of having a teacher may have faded a bit in our community. And I think that there are people here who are good and reliable teachers.

[36:15]

And I would, you know, I just encourage people to take advantage of that. And I also recognize that so many of us were our teacher was Sojin. That will not go away. And it shouldn't go away. You know, I mean, all of us have heard him over so many years talk about his teacher. And very clearly, Suzuki Roshi was alive in his mind. And that he was constantly working with that. And what I find, you know, now he's, he's a little over two months gone. I'm constantly mining the teachings that I received from him.

[37:25]

And they have a kind of refined and pure quality now. And I looked at them, so he's alive for me, as I'm sure he is for other people. And I want to emphasize that in no way do I assume that by virtue of my position as abbot somehow I inherit his students. That's not the case. I invite you into relationship. And I know that the other teachers here would also welcome you into relationship, but that relationship does not displace the pivotal teacher role that Sochin had for many of us.

[38:30]

So, to come back to continuous practice, Continuous practice is Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Buddha is the teacher. Dharma is the teachings. And Sangha is the field in which all of this plays out. This is the territory of our lives. This is the territory of our spiritual formation. This is how each of us should be continuing our practice. As I said, raising the aspiration, spiraling upwards, and really digging down into ourselves to see how is it that I am living?

[39:40]

How is it that I am standing? How is it that I am sitting? We're in Sashin today, and so we have an opportunity to dig even more deeply into that practice. So those of you who are in Sashin, I invite you to continue that way. And those who are not in Sashin, live that way. Please. So I'm going to stop here and leave time for some... questions and comments, and I think that Mary Beth will call on you either from your digitally raised hand or your optically raised hand or your chat. So, thank you. Yes, so he's given you the instructions, so I'll just call on Alex, who already has his hand raised.

[40:45]

Thank you. Thank you, Hazan. You said that a teacher is a Zen teacher is essentially like a kind of mirror. Could you say more about that? Yeah, well. It's a mirror. You know, in an ideal sense, it's a mirror, but but actually. So there's a kind of critical mirror. It's a mirror that talks back. So, I mean, I think one of the mirroring aspects of that is that I found in Dokusan, when speaking to him, I found myself, I found that I could hear myself more accurately.

[41:46]

I could hear my tone of voice. I could hear the things that I was maybe complaining about or whatever. So that was just reflected without him having to do anything. But it's also true that the relationship that I had with him was one of trust in which I gave him permission to see what he saw. That's what I mean by sort of critical mirror. You know, if there were things that I was doing that he felt were not in alignment, and that's actually my next talk on alignment. He had permission from me on the basis of our relationship, not on the basis of his position, but on the basis of the relationship that we developed.

[42:49]

He had permission to tell me about it. And I would say that I felt there was a reciprocity in that permission as well. That I could say those kinds of things to him. If there were things that I might feel that were out of alignment. It didn't happen very often. But it was there. You know, and it's in this practice many times. Sometimes this teacher is the teacher and the student is the student. Sometimes the student is the teacher and the teacher is the student and so forth and so on. But mostly he was my teacher. And that never stopped, even when I had Dharma transmission, which nominally is a kind of independence.

[44:04]

But still, I was living here. And he was the head teacher at Berkeley Zen Center. And so I should just keep learning. And I did. Thank you. Our next question is from Peter Anyart. He asks, Hosan, you implied that you first came to BZC as a result of a discussion with the psychotherapist. But why did you choose BZC specifically to show up in the first place? Well, so first of all, I had gone to BZC I had come to BCC in the summer of 1968. A group of us came out from New York and wanted to practice then. We were living in Berkeley, so we came to Dwight Way and we practiced there all summer and practiced also at Sacoji in San Francisco.

[45:15]

And so there was some connection, even though the temple had moved. I was, the books that I was reading, what I think I read immediately after this conversation, two, three books that were very influential on me. One was Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, which had not been published at the time. It wasn't published until 1970 or 71. You know, until, this was after I had, come out here that summer. The other book was a wonderful book by Jan van der Wettering called The Empty Mirror about his experiences, his difficult experiences in Japan as a Rinzai student. And the other was The Snow Leopard by Peter Matheson who himself had become

[46:21]

a Zen teacher. But so I was, I was inclined. I'd always been inclined towards Zen. But the first place I contacted was the NIGMA Institute. And I thought maybe I would sort of tip my toes in the waters there. But for several reasons, I decided not to. So I just came here. And I think I told this story. I've told this story a lot. I called up Berkeley Zen Center because it wasn't where I had left it. And somebody answered the phone. And I said, well, I had Zazen instruction in 1968. And I'm thinking of taking up the practice again. What should I do? And this person said, find a blank wall, sit down and stare at it. Which is like, I hope nobody is giving people that instruction on the phone. It was exactly the right instruction for me.

[47:24]

I just thought, oh, somebody has a sense of humor. Okay. That's it. Okay, right now there aren't any more hands raised or questioners. There's one more person who wants to jump in. Okay. You guys are very quiet today. Sue Osher. Thank you, Hozan. I guess what I want to say is that I found that I tried to mirror Sojin. I tried to mirror the senior teachers. And I also found myself, when he made some suggestions that I didn't agree with, I didn't do them a lot.

[48:35]

And I tried some of them. He had suggested I wear a robe because then my feet would be warmer. And I never did that, you know, to wear the practice robes. I felt safer watching and I came to this place because it did feel like home and it was and it felt safe and sometimes when people gave me instructions I could hear it and sometimes I couldn't but I loved that I realized that with your talk that I trusted his watching him, learning from him. And I learned a lot from what he said, too. But that practice of being present when you put your palms together, it just was transformative.

[49:45]

And so thank you for your talk. Thank you. I always felt like that was the heart of the way to learn, was to watch what our teachers did and how they moved. And there's another piece which I didn't get to about where Sojin says the same thing about how we unconsciously embody our teachers' ways. We take them, you know, there are people that I can see people's bows. You know, my teachers of the past, I can see how, I can remember how they bowed. I can recall, so for example, Shoto Harada in Japan, who's Alex's teacher, we sit facing out in that tradition.

[50:55]

you know, he would be carrying the stick, and I can see him sort of just going around the room almost like a cat ready to pounce. And, you know, we see these physical manifestations of our teachers, and that is an important way to learn. So thank you for that. See Daniel. I think you mentioned harmonizing heart with intellect. I wonder if you could expand on that. Yeah. I mean, this was in something that Sojin said. The word shin,

[52:03]

The character Shin in Japanese and Chinese, it's pronounced differently in Chinese, I think, represents heart slash mind. That the location of your mind is not just here, it's actually physically embodied through your whole body. But for shorthand, you say heart. You could also say ara, belly. You could say belly mind. That's very good. That might be the best place to put your mind in your belly. One of the dangers of Zen is a kind of anti-intellectualism. And I think in our tradition, both from Sojin and Suzuki Roshi and from Dogen, we don't discount the workings of our mind.

[53:19]

The workings of our mind are part of the workings of our whole being. And so it's not like, oh, those are unreal. They're as real as... as anything else. Ultimately, they're empty. But the workings of our mind are, you know, even in delusion, it's miraculous activity. And so to bring that within the circle of the way, not just to think of our heart, or our body, but to recognize that mind is part of that. So that's what I'd say today. Jake or Leslie? It is I. Thank you, Hosan, for your talk.

[54:24]

My question has to do with relationship to other, and you spoke about relating to those who were shot in Atlanta and George Floyd. My question has to do relating with the shooter, relating to the police officers who essentially murdered George Floyd. And for me, when I try to relate that briefly is, you know, the universal sense it's, there's, death, destruction, all that in the world, there is killing, there's murder. But in a personal sense, I can only relate through it knowing that I have myself been very angry at times and deluded, and I've done things that I regret. And what I see in the shooter, in the murder, George Floyd, is just that extended many times over.

[55:27]

But it's something that Horrible, but it's hard to get beyond much of that emotional connection with the actual murderers and shooters. Your words. You can only go as far as you can go. You know, you've already you have the basis in what you just said. You have the basis for you have the spark of a connection there. that may be sufficient. You might be in a very, if you were actually in a room with any of these people or in a circumstance where you were interacting and you knew who they were or what they did, you would be called upon perhaps to dig deeper into your resources.

[56:33]

I think that kind of a vow that I've made for myself is to make an effort to talk to anyone and to recognize also that may not come to much. That may, I may, you know, make the effort because that's my vow. We may not connect. But I think in the echo for the ceremony that we'll do on Wednesday, it acknowledges the deep delusion and the deep disconnection that leads to these kinds of crimes. that really distort the personalities of the people who enact the crimes.

[57:43]

And so, I mean, to go back to something that Dr. King said, you know, you, which is very, very difficult teaching, to love the person and to abhor their actions. That's really hard. Thank you. I might just add briefly that for me, what's helped a little bit is the murder of Nancy McClellan, her own Dharma sister. And I've forgiven the young man who killed her. And that's sort of my personal connection to something very deep connected to me. Nancy was a friend. And so, you know, he was diluted in drugs and all that. But I think your words are right. Thank you.

[58:44]

Let me ask you a further question. Go back to the question I framed at the beginning, the how question. Yes. Can you say something about how you've forgiven him? Or how was the process that led to that? Yes. I accepted in my gut that the young man is no different from me. But causes and conditions placed him in that situation. I just have a lot of compassion for him that developed. And I think it's what Nancy herself, I know it is, but she would have come to that point.

[59:46]

And also I think meeting the relatives, that was very critical. Seeing a mother and sisters, very, very important. It humanizes them. It humanized, that's right, that's right. You know, a really close friend of mine, maybe this is where I'll end, a really close friend of mine who took up Zen in his 50s, at one point he said to me, you know, I never realized that there were other people out there. You know, we live in this self-contained, self-centered bubble. A lot of people do. All of us have propensities in that direction. But that was such a stunning thing to hear from this friend. Yes, to answer someone who chatted to me, yes.

[60:54]

It was really quite amazing. And that transformed this person. So I think this is where we will end for today. Thank you very much. Okay. We will now chant the Bodhisattva vows. Please remain muted for this. Beings are numberless. I vow to awaken with them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[61:48]

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