I vow to taste the truth of the Tantra's words. Morning. Morning. It's really nice to be here with all of you. And when When someone first asked me if I could come and talk today, he said, maybe you could talk about women in Buddhism. Well, here we are. We're all women here. And we're all sitting in the lap of Buddha. So what more is there to say about women in Buddhism? We're doing it. And we have been doing it for all these 2,500 years.

[01:10]

And the most common thread throughout all the wide variety of Buddhist traditions that have grown up in those 2,500 years is... It's hard to know how to say it. Taking refuge has a feeling of reaching out for something that's not already here. Going for refuge has a feeling of going somewhere that you're not. The meaning actually of refuge is to return to, to return to your true home. Re-fuge, to fly back. And this flying back to the three jewels or three treasures

[02:27]

of Buddhism, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, is perhaps the most common hallmark of all practitioners of Buddhism. I thought I'd begin a moment about what is this What are these three treasures, these three jewels, which we return to, which we settle down in? This Buddha, we can think of as the person, the teacher, the founder of this particular practice that we enjoy today.

[03:36]

But after all, we are not taking refuge in someone who lived and died 2,500 years ago. When we think of taking refuge, I think it's more helpful to think of this moment In this moment, we are returning to this vast Buddha mind, which we have never left. Kanchen Rinpoche used to sometimes say, Buddha is the spirit of the universe. But when we're thinking of taking refuge, it has some much bigger meaning than the person who lived and woke up to our life as it really is and taught and died 2,500 years ago.

[05:02]

Because what we're taking refuge in is very much alive. And it is alive in us. And through us. It is the very life of our lives. When... I see that Mel is preparing some kichinyaku, some lineage papers called the blood veins. There must be a Jukai happening here sometime soon. And the form of this document is the names begins with an empty circle and then there are the names of all of the ancestors through the current teacher and the new disciple and there's a red line which connects every name back to the empty circle at the top.

[06:11]

The empty circle at the top is you practicing now, standing on the head of Shakyamuni Buddha. The red line is the blood vein which connects all of us through the centuries who have practiced that cultivated this mind of Buddha. This word which we translate as practice means literally to cultivate, as a farmer cultivates a field. What we call practicing is cultivating this mind of Buddha. The life of the Buddha now, at this moment, is in each of us who are cultivating this good will, who are sitting, trying to let go of whatever extra impediments there are to us fully manifesting in this moment.

[07:32]

possibility of our life. And this Dharma, the second of the three jewels, sometimes we say is the teaching of the Buddha, or the teaching of awakening. And, Kadagiri Roshi says, it's the teaching of the universe. I like Kadagiri Roshi's expressions, they have a big wide field, an all-inclusive field, because the nature of the awakening of the Buddha and the nature of the mind of awakening is awakening to everything as it is, to the entire universe as it is.

[08:42]

And the Sangha Jewel, I want to talk a little bit about today. Here today is a Sangha. Here today what happens to be a Sangha of women. a group of people who are dedicated to cultivating this mind of awakening, to waking up to the fullness of our life, which includes everything. And a sashimi such as we're doing today, it really requires a Sangha. Sashin is something which no one of us can do alone.

[09:51]

We could go off in the woods somewhere and sit in meditation by ourselves. But there is a feeling of mutual support, a gathering together of the energy and intention of many people, which adds power to the practice of session. This practice in general is one which is done by groups since the earliest times. Although there may be solitary monks, from time to time. Still, even the most solitary of monks comes together with a group twice a month on the new moon and the full moon to renew their vows together and express their intention to cultivate the mind of awakening and to support and encourage

[11:04]

And a session such as this requires each one of us making it happen. Each one of us has to contribute our part to make it happen for all of us. And this practice is always like that. It's something that we can't do alone, and yet only we can do our practice. A lot of sashimi requires people to plant and organize it. It requires people to shop for the food and prepare menus. It requires people to cook the food, to serve the food, to clean up afterwards, to clean the zendo, to light the altars, to sift the ashes, to all of those little things that happen during the battles. do our part to make this session for one another.

[12:14]

And so when we bow to one another we can truly appreciate that I have you to thank for this possibility of practice. Although it is my effort, I still benefit from your effort in making this practice possible. So when we bow to one another, it's not just Buddha bowing to Buddha. It's also appreciating that we each bring this practice alive for each other. So there is a possibility of very strong bonding with Sashin even though

[13:24]

So in this effort which only we can make for ourselves, even though we are greatly supported by one another, what is this effort? Dōgen Senshi, the founder of this stream of Zen in Japan, says something like, effort without desire is a realization. It's always been a puzzle. without a goal, and yet, since I first stepped in the door of this practice, I've heard these two things, that this practice is constant effort, and that there's nothing to gain.

[15:07]

No gain in anything. No goals in anything. Constant effort. This is a great koan for me. And so it doesn't surprise me when Dogen-senji says, to understand that koan is realization itself. To be able to make effort without desire is realization itself. Realizing your vast Buddha mind. The vast Buddha mind. And Suzuki Roshi in Zen Mind Beginner's Mind, in the very beginning when he's talking about a beginner's mind, actually the very opening sentence of the book, he says, people say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why.

[16:14]

It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross-legged position or to attain enlightenment. That's not difficult. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense. This pure is not something which is contrasted with impure. This pure is just to keep our mind open and clear, just as it is, without any idea of adding something extra to it. It says in the section on right effort, the most important point in our practice is to have right or perfect effort. Right effort directed in the right direction is necessary.

[17:18]

If your effort is headed in the wrong direction, especially if you're not aware of this, it is diluted effort. Our effort and our practice should be directed from achievement to non-achievement. Usually when you do something, you want to achieve something, you attach to some result. From achievement to non-achievement means to be rid of the unnecessary and bad result of effort. When you're involved in some dualistic idea, it means your practice is not pure.

[18:21]

By purity, we do not mean to polish something, trying to make something impure, pure. By purity, we just mean things as they are. When something is added, that is impure. When something becomes dualistic, that is not pure. If you think you will get something from practicing Zazen, already you are involved in impure practice. It is alright to say there is practice and there is enlightenment, but we should not be caught by the statement. You should not be tainted by it. When you practice Zazen, just practice Zazen. If enlightenment comes, it just comes. we should not attach to the attainment. The true quality of Zazen is always there even if you're not aware of it. So forget all about what you think you may have gained from it.

[19:24]

Just do it. The quality of Zazen will express itself. Then you will have it. There is this idea that we often get that there is something we need that we don't have. This whole idea of having, getting, adding something, is endless. Stephen Batchelor, alone with others, says this idea of having sets up this field, this horizontal field that reaches infinitely, there's always something else out there to reach for. There's having material things, there's having states of mind, there's having love, there's having enlightenment, there's having a good mind, as if it's something we could have

[20:42]

of ourselves as being complete, in this moment, always, right here, being fully complete, with nothing to add, just as it is in this moment, this perfect moment. And the struggles that we have to to try to get something that we think we don't have, or to get rid of something that we don't want, is the struggle that causes us suffering in our life. And just settling into being as we are in each moment and appreciating the vastness of that, the completeness of that, is the mind of this practice.

[22:02]

Just to be very practical about sitting zazen, for example, if we're sitting with some mind of striving, we may find a lot of tenseness in our body. We may have some image of how we ought to look and try to fit ourselves to that image, some ideal posture that we try to fit ourselves to, looking at it from the outside. But actually, the best posture in Zazen is really the posture of ease. It's really the most comfortable posture. I don't mean that you just go slump and collapse. That's actually not so comfortable.

[23:12]

But what we look for as we sit is where is there tension in my body? Where is there constriction of breath in the body? We sit with paying more and more attention to balance and ease and openness and softness and allowing our muscles to lengthen to their full, uncontracted length.

[24:16]

So that while our attention is very much with breath and posture. It's not trying to make breath and posture fit some preconception of how it ought to be. But more it's becoming more and more aware and alert to what our actual experience is of body and mind and breath in this moment. For example, if we are slumped over,

[25:28]

we may notice that breath hits a barrier here, and it doesn't move quite freely throughout our body. So that if we can just, with our breath, open up the passageways to allow it to move more freely, we will find ourselves more at ease, in a more open feeling. If our head is out in front of the body like this, then there's much more tension in the neck and shoulder and upper back muscles to support the weight. So we look for the place where the weight of the head can be balanced on the spine, and the spine can just carry all the weight right down through our sitting bones and into the air.

[26:43]

If the chin is up in the air, the same thing happens. There's tension in our neck. daydreaming, fantasizing, lots of mental activity kind of posture. So we bring it down and find the point where we feel balanced, where we feel alert. If we're leaning forward, the whole torso tenses up to cataract gravity, so we don't fall over. If we are paying attention very subtly to balance, we can, little by little, find a place where we're remaining neither right nor left, neither forward nor back.

[27:46]

And the weight is quite balanced and going right down through the hips. And the whole torso can be quite soft. So we begin to find that the posture with the most ease and comfort, if you look at it, sounds like the description in Fulcrum Sansevier. Raise up the shoulders, leaning either right or left. The shoulders are just hanging softly, easily, on the support of the spine. There's an open feeling to the arms and to the hands.

[28:47]

and to attend to posture and breath in that way from your actual experience of it. Allowing yourself to settle where you are. Allowing yourself to see if you are carrying some striving feeling in your posture and if that's extra see if you can relinquish it and just settle more and more where you are as you are not trying to fit some special idea of what's good That's a good way to find your own posture.

[30:11]

It's a good way to find your own life. To settle into where you are as you are and open up to rather than setting up goals and hurdles and striving to attain them or jump over them. This full appreciation of our own being as it is Awakening is a full appreciation of each being as it is, and of all being as it is. And when difficulties arise, as they surely will, we are more able to be open to them and meet them with some

[31:58]

we have our best chance of being able to respond appropriately. So this effort to be here, moment after moment, is just to be here as fully awake and alert and alive.

[34:00]

and to appreciate each thing as it is, and dance with it. So, is there anything anyone would like to Thank you very much for your lecture. I had some problems with the film, especially with the opening. Your statement was that we're women sitting in the lap of Buddha, and there's not a lot else to say. And yet, I sit in this room, all male anyway.

[35:13]

on the altar, and I wonder where my place is in this practice. It seems like it's so much like it is outside the Zen dome where men predominate, and I have to find my way in that. And I wonder how different it would be in this practice for everyone if Buddha was female, or if instead of Agnokite's And I wonder about being in a practice where Ananda had to convince Shakyamuni Buddha to let women be in the practice. Ananda had to talk Shakyamuni Buddha into letting his mother, Shakyamuni Buddha's mother, be a nun. So I think that to dispense with women in those practices were merely, or not merely, but that were women sitting in the lap of Buddha, isn't enough for me.

[36:20]

And I think this practice would have such a different quality if we did have female images. And when we talk about not being attached to striving, I see so much of that as being kind of a male way of looking at the world that I have to fit into, reinterpret into my own life. I think one of the hardest things for women is to claim their place in this culture, in this practice, and in their lives. And it'd be too easy for many of us to sink into not wanting anything. And I can understand not being attached to wanting. But I also think that women too easily accept the place of deprivation, of being less than, or not acquiring what they need. So I have a big issue with that. you know, just in general in this practice. For me, sitting in the lap of Buddha, this Buddha that I'm talking about sitting in the lap of is certainly gender free.

[37:33]

I'm sorry, but it's not male or female. This is what I say, we're not taking refuge in a person who lived and died 2,500 years ago. We're taking refuge in the mind of awakening, which has not got anything to do with shadow. Yeah, I can understand that in an intellectual way, but in a heartfelt way, all I see are male images. And it's probably not... Well, honey, put a female image up here, you know? That would be great. We found a tarot figure and a number of women got together at Zen Center in San Francisco A number of us got together and we bought it and we put it in the Buddha Hall. You know? Do it! If you would like to have a tarot image in the zenko, find one, present it to the zenko, you know, to the Berkeley zenko, and put it on the altar somewhere. Fine. I'm all for it.

[38:35]

On my own personal altar, I have the tarot. Most of the figures I find myself attracted to for my own personal use have some feminine characteristic to them. I mean, like the Samantabhadra I have, although Samantabhadra, I guess, is that it was male. The Samantabhadra I have is a Chinese figure and it's a very feminine figure. It has very feminine qualities to it. It's actually pretty gender free, but has very feminine qualities to it. Most of the Avalokiteshvara you see have very feminine qualities too. Through the centuries, many of the figures that have developed in various cultures have come to have very I guess, androgynous or often feminine characters.

[39:45]

Like the earliest figure known from China, which is over in the Asian Museum, the Brondwich. I love, it's this little seated figure. It's, it's, it's a wonderful little figure. I don't know if we've got the picture, the postcards of it. Do you know the one I'm talking about? Have you been over to the DM? I've been there many times. There's this one figure that's said to be the earliest known figure from China. It's a wonderful androgynous Buddha figure that I love. I always look for rather androgynous looking figures. That's the quality appreciate when I'm looking for something for an altar. But I encourage you to find one that you like and see if your sisters want to pitch in and get it.

[40:50]

Put it on the altar. I think the Zen Center should pay for it. But I don't want this to be like a personal thing. And it isn't just about images. When you get your lineage papers, are there any women in there? Well, when my disciples get their lineage papers, there will be. You know, can I interject something? It occurs to me that the reason there aren't women in the lineage, and I think one of the reasons there aren't women in the lineage is that historically women have not had a big place in the outer world. So the history of our tradition, of our practice, is similar to just the history of the world in general. And that now, in this time, women are beginning to make their presence felt and begin to be more out in the world. And so we're making our places.

[41:52]

I mean, you ask, where is your place? Well, we're making it now. Somebody isn't going to give us some place and say, well, here's your place right here. We're making our places. This is a creative thing that we're doing. And that's happening for us now. You know, for me, that's part of what this practice is about. Well, I really agree with that. I think that things change when we claim our place on this planet. I do disagree with the fact that this is the history of the world. It's certainly not the history of the world. The history of the world was written by men. There were female cultures long before Shakyamuni Buddha appeared on the scene. That's where Avalokiteśvara and Tara come from. They come from pre-Shakyamuni Buddha times. And there were women's religions about at that time. And yes, things will change. Maybe not fast enough for me, but I'd still like to see some more women, more practice.

[42:57]

I appreciate very much your your feelings. I have to... I guess, from my own experience, I think I need to recount a couple of things because certainly my own personal emotional history has taken me through a very militant kind of identification with myself as a woman in a very... identifying myself as a woman, i.e. not a man. That kind of identification as a woman. And at a certain point

[44:02]

in practice, for me, I had some experience that that kind of identification was limiting me to less than being fully all that I am. When I drop that, there is an experience of more inclusiveness, of this experience here. Certainly I'm a woman, but there is something about the way in which I was identifying myself up to that point experience for me to see that that was only one way of experiencing myself and that I did not have to limit myself to that.

[45:16]

I mean, I remember a time when we had a women's meeting at Zen Center probably 15 years ago. 20 years ago, something like that. And I was making some discussion about there's only one woman on the board and there need to be more women on the board. And I remember getting up and saying, I don't care about that kind of power. I don't care who's on the board. I want dharma power. When the leaders of the practice get up and walk out of the sendo first, I want women to be walking out of there. That's what, you know, and it was a real good time. And I can remember that feeling of intensity. And somewhere between then and now I dropped that.

[46:20]

But guess what? When the leaders of the practice at Zen Center get up and walk out first, I'm one of them. You know? That's why I'm here. And it isn't because I was pursuing that that it arrived at this point. It was actually because I dropped that and said, what is here that's bigger than that way of understanding my life? What is there that's more inclusive than that way of understanding my life? Yes, I understand that you are leading women to attend a practicing period in the Hiroshi's temple in Japan. Yes. And I'm wondering, I mean, here, what I have experienced up here, I don't know.

[47:32]

It's also men and women. My stress, I mean, what Suzuki sensei is trying to do is following the Japanese tradition of segregating male and female. I mean, this time, a group of women were invited. I'm just wondering, is there any, you think, some kind of impact? Or maybe that's not the right word. Some feeling. Do you know why this is a mixed group? Do you know why this group is all women? It's because the women who wanted to go wanted to be all women. Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi said this could be a mixed group. And the women who wanted to go wanted it to be all women.

[48:34]

So I said, OK. But if I take another group after this, it will be a mixed group. That was kind of in reaction to the first group who went over there was all men. And I think he didn't have any idea how this small village where the temple is, would accept a group of foreigners coming to live in the temple for a month. And I think he was being a little cautious. But they thought it was wonderful to have foreigners coming back to Japan. Okay, I'll stop in just a minute. Don't stop me. So he said, it's fine having this group. But by that time, there were women who said, no, we couldn't go last time. So now, you know, like I have one girl who's, excuse me, one woman who's planning this who says, can we call ourselves the cowgirls?

[49:41]

We don't have to tell. We know. So there's a little bit of that. I mean, wouldn't it be great just to have a bunch of women hanging out together? It did not originate in Japan, in Sotoshu. But it's true. Sotoshu was very interesting. We had a Sotoshu session at Tassahara, headed up by the International Department of Sotoshu in October. And some of the foreign teachers were giving lectures and some of the other women noticed that the ones who were giving lectures were all men and they went to the Soto Shu organizers and they said, hey, how come they're all men? And somebody came around and said, could you give a lecture to one of them? So, they were at Tassajara where men and women are practicing together and it was pretty interesting to me.

[50:48]

And they are developing, they are actually, some women who are training in Japan now are being trained in the special training ongos for teachers. One woman completed it last year and another woman is doing it this year. So, through cracks. It will take some time, but there's some change happening.

[51:31]

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