Today I want to talk a little bit about the Tenzo Kyokun, Dogen Zenji's guidelines for the cook in the monastery, for the Tenzo. When Dogen went to China, one of his most important encounters with was with the old Tenzo when he was still on the ship and Tenzo from a Chinese monastery and Tenzo impressed him so much that he actually the Tenzo gave Dogen the key that he was looking for about what is practice.

[01:09]

Dogen had been studying on Mount Hiei since he was quite young, and he was studying doctrinal schools of Buddhism. And then he studied a little bit with Eisai and Myosin, Eisai's disciple, and Eisai was the first Rinzai Zen master in Japan. And he died very shortly after Dogen started studying with him. So really he studied with Myozen, Eisai's disciple. And Dogen and Eisai went to China together. So when Dogen met the Tenzo in the Chinese monastery, from the monastery, it really completely turned him around and his whole understanding of practice enlightenment was established around that encounter.

[02:20]

Dogen realized at that time that, many things actually, that enlightenment is not apart from practice, and practice is not apart from enlightenment. So when he wrote the guidelines for the Tenzo, of course he was very impressed with that particular Tenzo, But he meant it not just for Tenzo, but as a guideline for how we conduct ourselves in activity. It could be for the work leader, or it could be for the director, and it could be for any ordinary person who practices. but it's about the Tenzo and what kind of mind the Tenzo should try to develop in order to have the mind to practice inactivity.

[03:47]

So Tenzo Kyokun has always been a very important part of Dogen's teaching and it's very accessible. It's more like Dogen's Shingi. You know, Dogen has two parts to his teaching. One is, or to his writing rather, one is his own personal way of expressing his understanding or his enlightenment, which we read in the Shobo Genzo. And the other side is Dogen's understanding of how we practice and that's called the Shingi and he talks about each of the practice positions in the monasteries and gives various examples of how people have

[04:51]

come to have great understanding through their practice positions. So Tenzo Kyokun is more like, belongs to the Shingi, not so philosophical, not so heady, not so cerebral. but more practical and cerebral. So in the Tenzo Kyokun, he talks about how to be very careful with the pots and pans and how to wash the rice. And as he develops his theme, What he's really talking about is how to be not apart from whatever it is that you're doing and how to utilize everything, even a grain of rice.

[06:09]

How to make some great, wonderful dish for the for the monks out of almost nothing. How do you use almost nothing to make something great? And this is this kind of conservation, not just conservation for the sake of conservation, for the sake of realization and liberation. So he talks about how you can make, how the Tenzo should be able to create a feast for the monks using a blade of grass.

[07:24]

or using a grain of rice. And he talks in such a way that the feeling you get is to not overlook anything, to pay attention to every moment and every activity, every movement, and to pay attention to all the objects that you use and take care of each thing. so that you give life to each thing that you encounter and each thing that you encounter brings you to life. And so that you and things and you and the people that you're practicing with are not separate. And This is part of the practice enlightenment of Dogen's Way.

[08:34]

And he talks about three minds of the Tenzo. Three attitudes or three states of mind which the Tenzo should cultivate. And one is a joyful mind and parental mind and magnanimous mind. A joyful mind is the mind which arises spontaneously when one is completely immersed in practice. without any attachments and completely devoid of self-centeredness.

[09:40]

In our life, especially these days, people are putting a lot of energy into creating happy situation, to finding, to creating conditions for happiness. In the wheel of, Buddhist wheel, you know, there's six worlds. And one of the worlds is heavenly world, the heavenly realm. There's the realm of hell on the bottom and the realm of heaven on the top. And then there's the realm of human beings, and the realm of hungry ghosts, the realm of the animals, and the fighting demons, the Asuras, always fighting.

[10:47]

And that's where they get their kicks. And these realms, of course, are just our own states of mind, which we transmigrate through constantly. The mind of lust will turn us into an animal, and the mind of anger will turn us into a fighting demon, and various states of mind will turn us into living in hell, It's easy to fall into hell when we have a lot of conflict and self-doubt and sorrow, actually. But maintaining the life of a human being is very difficult to just be a human being, to just exist as a human being.

[11:57]

in the human realm. Mostly we're drawn toward the heavenly realm. And the old commentaries say that in the heavenly realm it's hard to think about practicing Buddhism because our mind is turned toward pleasure. We're constantly setting up conditions which lead to pleasure, pleasurable situations. And when we're in those pleasurable situations, we can't imagine that anything ever goes wrong.

[13:00]

But still we keep transmigrating, you know, we're in the pleasurable situation, but when it's karma runs out, you know, we transmigrate into some other state, into some other realm. Either a hungry ghost, a hungry ghost can't be satisfied because even though it has an enormous appetite, The throat is too small to get it all down. So from the pleasure realm we usually fall into the hungry ghost realm, or the hell realm, or the animal realm, or the fighting demon realm. But it's hard to just stay in the human realm because we're not satisfied with ourselves. hard to be satisfied as a human being, just as in that perfect realm, simple realm of what we consider as the human realm.

[14:12]

Of course, all of those realms belong to the human realm. They all belong to each other, actually. They're all part of our human condition. But what we call the human realm is the realm of enlightenment. So, to find spontaneous joy, just living in the realm of enlightenment, which is what's called Buddhist practice. For Dogon, Buddhist practice is the human realm of enlightenment. where your activity centers around enlightened activity, and it's called human activity. Activity which is not creating karma, not grinding out karmic results

[15:20]

if we're always looking for pleasure, creating the conditions for pleasure, along with that comes conditions of karma, which tie us to this wheel of transmigration. So, Dogen says, in the human realm, in the realm of enlightenment, practice enlightenment, When we give up our ego, give up self-centeredness, we can talk about ego in many ways, but when we give up our self-centered idea, then our activity produces joy spontaneously. And that joy is communicated through whatever we do. You know, when you're served a meal, sometimes it can be served the same meal made by two different people.

[16:29]

And one meal will taste wonderful, the other will taste lousy, yet they're the same. And one meal has something in it, some kind of spirit, that makes it very special. And it has nothing to do with the ingredients. has nothing to do with what it's made out of. But a person with that joyfulness can, when you eat that meal, you eat that joyfulness. Suzuki Roshi That's why Suzuki Roshi used to say, you don't have to do anything special. Just practice. If you want to help people, just practice and do what you do.

[17:37]

And what you do will reach people. The result of that will reach people without having to try to do something special. That doesn't preclude helping people in some special way, but you should understand that, the essence of what he's saying. And the next mind is parental mind. means that is the mind of maturity which takes care of people as your own children. He says that parents will give up everything for their children.

[18:51]

And it's just natural to do that. But if you don't have children of your own, that doesn't mean that you don't have parental mind. Because parental mind is the mind of maturity. When we're very young, we're pretty much into helping ourself. And at some point, when we become old enough to... I don't think it's a matter of age, but it's a matter of where you're looking, you know. So rather than age, maturity. Maturity means that we stop just looking out for ourself and see who needs help or how we can help others.

[19:54]

So the Tenzo, he's always thinking about the people that he's feeding, or she's feeding. And always trying to make the very best, do the very best for those people. just in our ordinary life, in whatever we do, to be thinking of how we can harmonize the situation that we're in, and how we can help people that we're with, or even people that we're not with, just how can we help people in any situation that we're in, with that parental attitude. So it's not the attitude which preys on people, that's exploitive. attitude. It's the opposite of exploitation. Exploitation is to see what you can get from people.

[21:01]

I was looking at a movie, I think it was about New Guinea, and it was about how the natives had learned how to play cricket from the British years ago. They were shown the cricket game, you know. And in the cricket game, there are kinds of rules they had, which are very different than our rules. They tried not to win. There were a lot of politics going on in the game. Part of it was, if, you know, you invite these people to play, and then if you beat them, you don't feel so good, you know. So there's different kind of intention in the game and different kind of rules. And rather than to try to exploit or to show how much better you are than someone else is, the game has different kind of rules.

[22:13]

I don't know exactly how they do it, but it's interesting that it's not based on that gaining. attitude and it's considered very bad manners or a very bad attitude to receive more than you give. So people are always giving a lot and they don't have the feeling of wanting to get so much. Of course, you don't even hardly have any clothes. You don't have anything. But it's an interesting attitude. So the parental mind is the mind that's always giving and taking care of without the thought of getting, receiving anything in return.

[23:16]

Therefore, there's no problem with joyful mind arising. And the third mind is magnanimous mind, which is the mind that doesn't make so many distinctions. It doesn't make so many distinctions in the sense of Oh, this is hard. This is easy. I like this. I don't like that. It's the mind of equanimity. And Dogen says, as the Tenzo, If someone gives you some poor vegetables, you don't say, oh, these are poor vegetables. You just receive them and use them.

[24:20]

Or if someone doesn't give you as much rice as you want, you don't say, this isn't enough. You just receive it and use it the best way you can. This is a very difficult kind of practice. to knowing how to be satisfied and knowing how to use what you have and being very thankful for everything. Completely thankful for everything. So, Magnanimous Mind is sometimes called Big Mind, and Suzuki Roshi used to talk about Big Mind all the time.

[25:27]

Big Mind is the Mind of Enlightenment, which is expressed through our small mind, our individual small mind. So we talk about big mind and small mind. Small mind is the mind that's always looking after itself, making distinctions. And sometimes we call it ego mind, or self-centered mind. But that mind is not bad. It's what we see, you know, in front of us. It's what we feel, the mind that feels, see, act. The mind that says, this is me.

[26:29]

And big mind, or magnanimous mind, is the mind that goes beyond. small mind and motivates our small self to act in that way, in a bigger way, as a human being. Small mind is the mind, animal mind or hungry ghost mind, hell mind or even heavenly mind. and fighting mind, fighting demon mind, small mind. And Buddha mind is just human mind, the human realm. So we say human beings and Buddhas have an affinity.

[27:39]

I think that today is different than the 60s. In the 60s there were a lot of people, it was easier to live in the 60s. And there were a lot of dissatisfied people in the 60s. And there were a lot of people who could, young people, who were looking for religious practice. And we had a lot of activity, strong activity in those days from a lot of young people. But the atmosphere was quite different. And I think that the atmosphere today is changing a lot. People are, you know, the hippies are all putting on business suits and getting jobs and careers. They don't have much time, you know, for religious activity.

[29:08]

It's like... I think that the realm of security, or the realm of... the heavenly realms are beckoning, becoming more accessible. And I think that in America, the practice that we started in the 60s is getting different flavor, going through a different phase. More older people, more professional people are beginning to practice, but more as laypeople. And I don't know how practice is going to develop in the future.

[30:13]

I think that most of the younger people are looking to the career as a way prosperity trying to create prosperity prosperity is fine I'm not saying that's wrong but less people are young people are searching deeply So I'm not sure how our practice will develop, or how we might have to accommodate to that level. What do you think? Do you have some idea, some question?

[31:31]

I think attraction, looking hand in mouth, is what it boils down to for me. and just sort of explore around, but not being confident actually just gets a little quicker a lot. You have to think so much about, can I do this, can I do that, these decisions. But after a while, it's taking up so much energy that they say it would be better to just have sufficient income so I don't have to be always shopping around for eggs and 7 cents a dozen or something, and just live a normal life. For me, that's the best way. Well, two things.

[32:43]

When Trungpa Rinpoche says, when he discusses the six realms, that in one of his books it was cutting through spiritual materialism, or the other one, he says, he talks about materialism from two points, like it should be spiritual materialism or it should be physical. So there's a possibility, although I felt that people were very clean and really had a lot of trying mind in the 60s and 70s, but there was that possibility that what they were looking for in their spiritual practice also contained some materialism that would lead them on to the Heaven's realm. And since they didn't find that, then they decided to try it another way, which is careers and jobs. And so, that's kind of the way I see it.

[33:45]

I think that's a good point. Since they couldn't find the materialism in the spiritual realm, they might find it in the material realm, where it belongs. I don't mean to turn this away from the Hindu universalist presence thing, but I would like to ask you, as I understand it, when you're speaking about the realms of existence, and then designating human existence as one of enlightenment. Did you mean that is because at the human stage you can transcend mentally all of these other less desirable realms that the human being is capable of transcending and that this would in a sense be enlightenment? I think of the Bodhisattva realm as being the realm of enlightenment, that's my question. There's a Bodhisattva in each realm, you know. You know, we don't... you can talk about it, you know, as if all those realms stick, you know, but actually they're all part of our life, even the... they're all, as I said, they're all part of our human life.

[34:57]

But if you look at the realm, the human realm, as distinct from the other realms, then you can talk about it in that way. It's not really distinct from those other realms. But it is, you know, those realms are all our human life. But when we say the human realm, it's the life that's not captivated by the other realms. In that sense, enlightened. In that sense, enlightened. The realm that's not, that's And so sometimes we're enlightened and sometimes we're not. You know, we say, well, this person's always enlightened. Maybe. But a person's not always enlightened. Sometimes a person's enlightened, sometimes they're not. One minute a Buddha, the next minute a demon. You know? I thought it was an absolute statement. Right. I thought so. But it's not, actually. Between the dharma wheel and the wheel of transmigration, or... Dharma wheel?

[36:05]

Yeah. When you say turning the dharma wheel... Yeah, there's a difference. Yeah, and it gives the Buddha realm and the human realm, separate, a difference. Buddha realm is the human realm. Not separate. And the dharma wheel is the wheel of the Buddha's law. turning the wheel of the Buddha's law, which is not the same as the wheel of transmigration. The Buddha's law, Buddha says, this is the Eightfold Path. The wheel of the Buddha, if you look at the wheel, it's got eight spokes, meaning the Eightfold Path. So you follow the Eightfold Path rather than the six realms of transmigration. is about poverty is part of that.

[37:23]

It's a big part of that. And other groups have done other things like showing print products for a lot of businesses for his group. I have one friend who used to be just an artist who worked at a daycare center. Now he's a CPA in Newark, Manhattan. And he's got a complete turnaround and it fits totally into do that. Everybody lives in their own house, and helps God in practice. So it is possible to have that and have a continuous practice. Yeah, I think that's true. And that's our householder practice, right? But I think that the monk, the priest, should always be poor. A priest can enjoy everyone else being wealthy, but the priest should always be poor.

[38:26]

Because if the priest gets wealthy too, then there's nobody to help at that base. But it's, you know, it's fine to be wealthy as long as you know how to be poor. But if you only know how to be wealthy, then you've got a problem, and it's not Buddhism. It's fine. to know, you know, to... Wealth is wealth. Some people can't help having it, you know. It's not the problem. The problem is to know who you are within that wealth. Well, I have difficulty with the practice of parental mind in relationship to business and wealth. That's a difficult thing for me to understand how those things... Because so much of the emphasis on business is sort of making yourself successful.

[39:31]

Yeah. It's hard to know how to have that. But it's possible. But I understand what you're saying. It's like when you're talking about sympathetic joy. which is something like that. And in sympathetic joy, you really feel empathy with someone else's success. But strictly speaking, it's their spiritual success, not so much their material success. You know, it's okay, you know, but the basis of that is Is it in a real way, in a deep way, you feel sympathy or parental for somebody's real spiritual progress, not just their accumulation of goods?

[40:38]

Fran? I see that... I'll go back to the... the alternation of the one minute a Buddha and one minute a demon. Because I think that that's an important key to what's happening in our culture. That our culture and most people don't know how to be one minute a Buddha and one minute a demon. So we have this kind of roller coaster of cycles. So in the 60s it was poverty and now it's prosperity. And most of us go through that in our lives. stage in our life where we do one thing and stage in our life where we do the opposite thing. And I think one of the things that came out of the 60s for me in studying Buddhism was the idea that it's possible to be balanced on this moment and not to have to balance one's life over the whole period of one's life, but that one could be

[41:44]

a parent and a dentist student, and a rich and poor at the same time, if one really understood the nature of things. So I think it's a little misleading. It's very hard to do, because we tend to... there's a lot of momentum in our life, and we keep going in one direction, and we don't realize until years later that we forgot about the other stuff. But I think the lessons of history repeating itself, is that if we look at what we're doing, moment by moment, we don't have to do that. Yeah. Well, I think that's the point, is that we have to... That's why it's not that you suddenly get to enlightenment and it's all over. But we have to practice continually. And when you're really practicing, then there's enlightenment. And when you're not, it's not there. It's not that you suddenly got this big thing and that you're always going to be enlightened. That may be.

[42:46]

It could be. It can be. I won't say it can't be, but for us ordinary mortals, you know, when we're doing something enlightened, then that's what we're doing. When we're doing something that's not enlightened, that's what we're doing. And, you know, and the more we practice and refine our practice, the more we can stay there. But we're not always there. I'm not always there, and you're not always there. But there's something that's there, you know, and we practice with it. And we help each other that way, you know. Do you know how many matches?

[43:57]

I remember in a sense that's how you started the Berkley Film Center. I mean, you opened your home to... Almost like that. Well, obviously, you were... Yeah, but that's the way... Right. You were more in that direction, but the beginning was really in your house. Right. And not that different from... Right. I think that's the way, a good way. You know, you just start from where you are. You said people were more concerned about Well, that's very true.

[45:35]

All that's very true. It's an effort to prevent what's probably a natural decline for quite a few years. You know, I don't blame anybody, you know, so much. I think that people are forced into this position. And, you know, rent, you know, $650 a month is nothing to pay for rent. When we first started the Berkley Center, we had this huge Victorian house for $130 a month. It is too bad. For that reason, it seems to me, I keep going back to this idea of the wheel.

[46:39]

I've noticed in my own practice lately, things have been pulling me out to the center, but in how we're going to do it for the future, it seems for those of us who want to keep some center, it's going to be very necessary to keep some kind of formal practice so that when you're... because it is possible to do what you're doing out on the hub, I mean on the rim of the wheel as practice, but the less you have the center of the formal practice to remind you, the more it pulls you away and you forget. You just forget that what you're doing in everything you do is practice and it's just I think very helpful and what people need and I just hope everybody can find is something that can keep pulling them to their center so that when they have to go out they'll have something stable there to remind them of what they're doing.

[47:46]

Yeah, I agree with that. It seems to be a kind of dichotomy, people tend to work you know, practice really all the time, you know, but then they leave and then they never practice again. There's this pull in those two directions, and things like the kind of lay practice put a strong base on daily practice of Zazen, but then working in the world also hasn't really taken root. Hansa hasn't. I'm asking even if it's lay people, but just living in a Zen center and being, that's the main thing that you do, or leaving and then just living like an ordinary life. Yeah, well, most people who have done intensive late monks practice, that's been the pattern.

[48:47]

You know, people at Zen center practice for years, you know, when they leave, that's it. They either there or they leave. But it would seem like in a lay practice, where you work and practice, that you'd have more stability in continuing a longer practice. But these are all questions that have lots of facets to them. social, so to speak, and how they got together, and you need to go through that, and then, you know, at some point we'll find there's something missing in that too, and we'll come back, and then we'll have that also. I think so. I think that there's, um, we were going on a little long, but a lot of the people that were hippies in the 60s and 70s are now married and have children and so forth, and so, and they didn't have much opportunity to live their life outside of the Zen practice,

[49:57]

So now they have to leave and kind of establish themselves. And I think some kind of rebound will come out of that. Because I know that there's a desire for them to practice, but not in a way so much that they know about. And it would be interesting. I think we really have to think about, keep our eyes open to how we can develop so that it will work for people. Because, you know, balance can shift suddenly and everything can just go down the drain. Or, we could keep a balance, be aware, and make it work. live in here, or if we're close, I seem like we're getting farther and farther away for some reason.

[51:19]

I mean, physically, not so much just living there. And I've tried to get back here, but it's always difficult. And then I found this place just a little bit prior over there from Chef Abby. This is where I run a corner practice from where I live. And I've been sitting there for the past year. And I find that the way they practice drives me back here. So then I'm pretty good at it. And I find that I can I find it's a natural agility, actually, using your tendo to support my daily sitting. But I find it really difficult to sit by myself. And when I go over there and they're not open, there's nobody there to assist at 5.30. And I have to go home and sit. And it's OK. I can do that. But I find it much easier to just go in there But I find more and more that because I've gone away and didn't feel so good about being separate and really out there on that rim of the wheel, that I'd rather be closer to the heart.

[52:24]

Yeah. Well, I think that we're reaching a new phase in our practice. And we need to look closely at how to make it work for the most people. It's always a problem. between wanting something strict and allowing something more watered down, you know, and keeping that balance. Part of the problem may be in seeing that one is more watered down than the other. It's not necessary to see it that way. It's a very difficult thing to do, to practice and to have fun and to work. It's a very difficult thing to do.

[53:25]

In a way, it may be easier to, you know, when you're 18, to go home and walk in a monastery and sit the rest of your life. I don't know. It's very difficult to be out there in the world and to carry your practice into that world. Bill? Well, as somebody who sits and has a family John, these things we've been talking about. It's not so hard. Best decision I had was mine. It's fun. Time. Thank you very much. Sensation beings are in the world.

[54:06]

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