Well, it's June 16th, 1997 and we're here at the Zen Center with Robert Aitken and Mel Weitzman, Joan Sutherland, Alan Sanaki, John Tarrant is inspected, Tom Aitken is sitting on the bed. And this is what Roshi was calling a Zadankai. Zadankai. Zadankai, which is informal discussion. Discussion, means to sit and discuss. Right. Sit and discuss meeting. Right. So this was inspired, it's something I've been thinking about for a while, and it was inspired a bit further by the exchange between Mel and Roshi at your retirement ceremony, when Mel asked, nothing special, say a word.

[01:03]

And this is a question of some urgency, I think, for many of us Zen students. I think from both the Diamond Sangha tradition and Suzuki Roshi's tradition, And my feeling is we can ask some questions and see what your respective thinking is, where it agrees, where it disagrees. And I feel that what I've heard over the last few years is, on the one hand, respectful agreement and mutual support, And on another hand, a kind of critique, sometimes spoken and sometimes unspoken. And I think it would be great for the two of you as long-time practitioners and people who we all respect to get to some of these issues and to

[02:15]

surface some what the critique is and see what happens. So on the one hand we have some questions that Joan and I can ask and John may prod along as well, but the main thing is discussion and that might well proceed on its own. So does that seem... that's about as much background I think I want to kind of I just want to ask questions and let the two of you go ahead. And Joan should also feel free to ask questions and chime in where you feel it needs to be moved. In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, Suzuki Roshi writes, So if you continue this practice, more and more you will acquire something. Nothing special, but nevertheless something.

[03:19]

So my question is, what is it? And this is a way of getting to uncover what these differences are. Joan, why don't you read that? That may be a place to start. You brought it up, so what do you mean by nothing special? I think that if you continue down the line that you started with Suzuki Roshi's comment, he says, it is special, but it's not special. It's like two faces of the one die. Special, not special, or two faces. And everything is, as you said, I said, nothing special. You said, everything's special, right? It's not the same thing. But it's the two faces. And what you acquire is yourself.

[04:23]

And when you don't have yourself, it seems special. And when you do have yourself, it feels normal. As Buddha said, what we want is the norm. Yes. I noticed that you brought along Nantran's ordinary mind is away here. Case 19 of the gateless barrier. Zhao Zhou asked Nantran, what is the Tao? Nantran said, ordinary mind is the Tao. This is what we're getting at. what is ordinary mind. To understand what Nam Chuan meant, we can skip to the end of that dialogue.

[05:29]

If you truly reach the genuine Tao, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space. How can this be discussed at the level of affirmation and negation? So obviously, this is using the term ordinary in a very extraordinary way. And when we look at the graphs that are used in the original, which we translate as ordinary, we find they can be translated as everyday. Everyday mind is the way, and some scholars do translate it in that way. But also, there is the implication of eternal there, unchanging.

[06:35]

Everyday implies unchanging or ordinary. regular, complies, unchanging. So that is the hidden meaning in prayer. This is not to be sneezed at, so to speak. And it is for this reason that Nanshuang was very critical of his brother monk. Changsha was very critical of his brother monk. That implies for me the notion that when you do have a glimpse or a touch of this unchanging Tao, by whatever name, that it is important that you not linger there.

[08:17]

Ordinary, as you say, is not the usual ordinary. And ordinary mind is true mind, or non-dual. The mind is not split off. one-sided, two-sided, but it's settled, the mind is settled within reality. What is the personal quality of that mind? How would you describe it? But it's the mind which I experience in Zazen, in deep Zazen.

[09:39]

What is there? I can't say what is there. Really, there is nothing that one can say. It is not dual. It is not non-dual. As Huang Po said, it is not green or yellow. It's also no special state of mind. Well, there is where we meet perhaps a disagreement.

[10:57]

And it may only be linguistic. I'm not sure. Countless masters have sweat blood And some of them have never succeeded. So I think it's dangerous to say that there's nothing special about it. Oh, I didn't say there's nothing special about it. I said it's not a special state of mind. There is no particular. It's not a particular. There is nothing particular in that state of mind. Yes. Yes.

[12:00]

Whatever. Isn't that a little general, a little abstract? It is. Yeah, it's a little abstract. Today the flies, yes, they form a kind of dancing mandala. But really, when the emperor asked

[13:36]

Not knowing. He didn't say not knowing. What did he say? Don't know. I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Yes. There's a lot of difference between not knowing and said, well, I understood this point. It's, I don't know. I said, you mean you have no idea? Well, yeah, but. So where do we go from there?

[14:42]

We go from right now? Yeah, from right now. Where do we go from there? We go from now to know. Again, isn't that a little abstract? No. It isn't? I don't think so. How can it be abstract? Where can we go? Ah, down to the corner for the morning paper. Of course. But isn't that a little abstract? Not at all. I see.

[16:22]

I'd like to look at this from another slant. According to the Avatamsaka Sutra, the Buddha said, now I see that all beings are the Tathagata, only their preoccupations and delusions keep them from appreciating that fact or testifying to that fact. All beings are Buddha-nature.

[17:34]

You know, I think there's no relationship. And that's the miracle of it. Another version of the Buddha's words, I and all beings have at this moment attained the way, that is the version that you find in the Dekaroku. It seems to me, That all beings are the Tathagata means all beings come forth as the Tathagata.

[18:57]

Fundamentally, there is no such thing were nothing to be called Buddha nature. So, what the Buddha is saying here, according to legend, in two different ways is, all beings are the Tathagata, or I and all beings have at this moment attained the way, is that each and every being is totally unique and independent and that we have all at this moment attained a way that we are all intimately linked

[20:05]

And these three, the Great Emptiness, the Great Independence, and the Great Network, are completely independent phenomena. They don't relate to each other. And yet they express the same thing. They are a three-part complementarity. But complementarity isn't that relationship? You have the wave theory and the particle theory of light. Those two theories are the same. The wave theory and the particle theory are the same. And yet, they are totally, mutually exclusive ways of explaining the phenomena of light. So, when you say that the Buddha meant that

[21:14]

All beings have buddha nature. Are buddha nature. Are buddha nature. Oh. It seems to me that you're glossing over the exclusive aspect. Oh, I don't think all beings are buddha nature means that they're all the same. They're the same and they're totally unique and different. You can't ever say one thing without implying the other. I think this is one of the problems we have with our words. When we say, nothing special doesn't mean... doesn't mean no. Doesn't not mean no. It means yes, no, whatever you want it to be. Oh, no, it can't be whatever you want it to be. No, it means whatever you want it, not what you want it to mean, excuse me, but it means whatever it means.

[22:24]

What is Mu? What is not Mu? Let's see. Provisionally, okay, but that really isn't very intimate and friendly. Maybe our facilitators have something they'd like to stick in here. Can I express one by asking a question? Because it's so difficult to talk about this everyday mind, can we talk about the effect of touching that everyday mind? And I'm interested in, for instance, Wu Man's comment to case one of the Wu Man Guan, when he talks about a very specific, definite, and quite joyous thing that happens when we touch that mind. He talks about entering a samadhi of frolic and play. And Hakuen speaks of, you know, never forget this practice will affect a complete transformation in your life.

[23:31]

And what can we talk about that effect in relationship to nothing special, something special? Well, we're talking about peak experience here. claim liberation as a result of this peak experience. Still, what it is, is a glimpse that one can pursue thereafter. It's a simplification, dangerous simplification, to just leave women's comment, for example, hanging out there without further comment.

[24:46]

Because, whereas there is, as I mentioned last night, the joy... Come in. Come in. I know. Well, Tom is waiting for you because he wants to ride back to Sonoma. Okay. He wants to arrange that. Okay. You were saying that you thought it was dangerous to leave a romance comment hanging out there without further comment. Yes. To go back a little bit to bring John up to speed here. So Hakuin's comment to the effect that seeing into this ordinary mind, which is really the mysterious, unchanging, is a transformational experience.

[26:12]

disquisition about transformation, and I want to make it in two parts. One is that it is a point in the practice that it is not a be-all and end-all experience. It is a very definite milestone, as I indicated last night. And speaking of the student who comes into the room with that certain gleam in her eye, which one recognizes immediately, but at the same time it is only a glimpse, it is only a peep, and actually can be allowed to just sit there. without further exploration, without further transformation, without real confirmation.

[27:27]

About the experience itself, it has, we might say, two aspects. and that it is a complete, if only for the moment, complete and absolute forgetting of the self, which is at the same time a confirmation by leaves and flowers and birds Stevens said, I am what is around me. He said that in a very early poem.

[28:41]

And explored that point as many, many, many facets for the rest of his life. It seems to me, this is something I've been thinking, maybe I'll turn this towards Mel, in this regard, if the point is, to me, I see the point as the transformation. That's what I understand to be the point of Buddhadharma. And what I see from hanging out with different people, long conversations, some meditational experience, is that there are different kinds and qualities of these kind of milestone experiences.

[30:02]

that to a degree are defined by the meditational system or the tradition that you're in. And it makes me slightly wary that basically you're setting up a system and setting up a kind of model of dropping off or of transformation, whatever, and then that model is confirmed by experience. And so the experiences, practicing with Mu, practicing with koans in your tradition, or your variant of the tradition, is one thing. practitioners have other experiences, Tibetan practitioners have other experiences, and perhaps more high bound Soto practitioners have other experiences.

[31:15]

In the end, after these, in the end, there's still the work of transformation. So I'm just, maybe you could respond to any piece of that. care to? It's a provocative question. Well, it's interesting because I remember when I was an art student in my 20s and I had no practice, I can remember several times when for no reason at all, boom, everything just dropped away and I was in this most incredible peak experience of my life for no reason. It was like grace, maybe, And to me, that was one of the real high points in my life, when that would happen. And that was kind of like the curtains opening, as you say. You didn't say, but as you implied, that you get a glimpse.

[32:19]

And for me, that was a glimpse that led me to look for this practice. And often we say, that realization, because of realization, practice follows. It looks like we're looking for something at the end, but actually because of our understanding, which we don't necessarily realize, we enter practice. And then, so, the practice, you know, Suzuki Roshi's way of understanding was, of course, there's enlightenment and practice, and that within practice is enlightenment, and within enlightenment is practice. Enlightenment is Dogen's understanding. So, he emphasized the practice side, rather than the gaining side of enlightenment.

[33:27]

It's not that he said, Enlightenment's no good, there's no enlightenment, blah, blah. Of course, enlightenment is what he talked about all the time, and what he presented, and what his way was, enlightened way, but emphasizing it as practice, not as something to get a hold of, not as a prize. And I remember one time he said, you should be careful about what you want. Because if you get enlightened, you may not like it. Which to me sounds like a very basic kind of no-nonsense statement. I'm not sure what you meant. Yeah. But, you know, going back to Alan's question, you're touching the the fundamental point, I think, that all paths do not lead necessarily to the top of the same mountain.

[34:34]

Not to the top? I think there are many mountains. Let one hundred mountains rise. But, more to your point, archetypal dreams. The setting is very important. And so, it is essential for the beginning student, it seems to me, to begin with the attitude at least set forth in the Diamond Sutra. And that there are no archetypes or beliefs or terms that don't self-destruct.

[35:53]

I think the closer we can come to that kind of setting for practice, the more genuine the outcome is going to be. Am I making sense? Yeah, you're making sense. And to get back to my original framing comment, you're making sense. I have no real qualms with that. And yet, there is this trickle of critique between these two approaches. And I'm trying to make trouble here.

[37:10]

There is a critique, if I have to say it, of our school as being somewhat soft and deficient in that kind of clarifying peak experience. And quite honestly, some of us feel that. There's a critique. that I've seen the other way of looking at students who have, who are passing through this particular system of koans, studying, who have passed the gate, and not feeling It depends on, we may be hung up on linguistics here, when you're talking about transformation, looking at how they act in the world, looking at how they move in the world, and not seeing apparent transformation.

[38:15]

So that's what I'm trying to get at. I remember speaking with Pat Hawke about the practice of character formation that all priests, speaking particularly of redemptorist priests, have to go through, and he acknowledged

[39:31]

tenure process, whatever it is, doesn't take with some. There are, of course, some egregious examples of people who have become Roshis. who have messed up pretty badly. I certainly want to acknowledge that. So, we were referring back, referring back to some It is possible in the multifaceted, multilayered potential of the human psyche to maneuver one's way through koan study.

[40:53]

It's possible. It's very important for the teacher to recognize genuineness in the 18-year-old student, as Nan Chuan recognized. I think that what Shishige Hiroshi meant by, you may not like it, is not that you wouldn't like it, but what he was talking about, if you get enlightened.

[41:57]

Oh, I have never used the word get enlightened. Well, he used that as a kind of... because this is the way people were thinking. He was addressing the way people were thinking. Meaning, if this is what you think is going to happen, you should do something else. If you think that if you're going for some prize that you think is going to be wonderful, what it is that you're doing. But you'll find that, you'll hear the same words in John Tarrant's teshoes and my teshoes. Of course. Foster's teshoes. Of course.

[43:00]

And I think that we also hear a lot of other things reflected in John's teshoes and your teshoes. I think sometimes were influenced by our teachers in many ways. I think we should see the good things and the not-such-good things about our teachers. And when I look at Suzuki Roshi, I remember just having a great experience and just wanting to rush to him and bow down. And at the same time, I could see his faults, of which he had a number of faults. And one of his greatest faults was picking a successor.

[44:08]

I mean, to be so keen. on the one hand, and blind on the other. And I think all of our teachers have that same quality. And I think it influences, what our teachers say, because we love them so much, really influences us a lot. And we absorb it all. And sometimes we're willing to sort it out, and sometimes we're not. But I try to be really careful. I think that some of that contributes to the way we think about each other's practices. Well, it seems to me that Alan laid out the two critiques specifically.

[45:15]

on the traditional modern Soto side, that the critique has been that there is something soft here, something without exacting definition, both in the words about For example, I have not met anybody out of this tradition who could be clear about most anything that our ancestors have said. And I get the response, well, there are all kinds of different interpretations of the old cases.

[46:38]

Which, of course, is true. It's like looking at a folk story and seeing the layers of interpretation that one can get from I find a psychological or historical response to those whole sayings and doings that don't touch any of the aspects.

[47:53]

Right. And when I read Suzuki Roshi's long writings, I find Well, they seemed crisp to me. They may not be what one would expect, but I find when I read his pay show on phones that they really grabbed me. And he says something in a very subtle way, but it's very deep and cutting.

[48:56]

I am reminded of my first then friend's remark about, this is R.H. different strokes for different folks, you know. And he was speaking in the days long before one even made the attempt to be inclusive in terms of gender. There's a man for every religion and a religion for every man, you know. So I want to acknowledge that that what can be completely concise and fulfilling and deep for you may not be for me and the other way around. The other way around. I want to acknowledge this. Thank you.

[50:05]

One of the things that I find Well, that's Tani Roshi's criticisms, which you probably... I don't know how you feel about them exactly, but I think his criticism of silent illumination, it makes it sound like silent illumination is something really bad. you know, as Mokusho Zen. Mokusho Zen, actually, not so bad, you know. And it's equated with, like, people are not thinking, you know, they're sitting in, like, blocks of wood and rice bags and all this, you know, as if that's what sound illumination is. So I think it's either a misunderstanding or an angry response to something that he's reacting to. But I think to broadcast that, and people say, oh yes, Mokusho is that, oh, really bad.

[51:11]

Silent Illumination, oh. So I think Silent Illumination is wonderful, and I think Mokusho Zen is really good for us. And I think that there is realization, or enlightenment, within enlightened, within Silent enlightenment. Silent illumination. Illumination is light. So, maybe we use different words if we want to talk about something deeper. Well, all of us successors of Yasutani Roshi acknowledge that much too sharp-tongued in his criticism of conventional Soto, came out of his own experience, it's a very personal kind of reaction, to what he considered to be bad teaching.

[52:34]

And his revelation upon coming to to her others. And the transformation that he experienced was the transformation of attitude toward and never expected anything from anybody.

[53:51]

But he was someone, as you can... Well, were you there in 1968? everybody a good talking to. He is fearless in this way and indiscreet, you might say, impolite. But he told it as it was for him. And I think we should look at his criticism, just as we in the Koan schools must look at the criticism that we are receiving.

[54:56]

It's very important that you take Yasutani Roshi's criticism to heart and see for all the rhetoric here, what's he getting at? But I think that he was addressing something. You know, we all know that Soto Zen in Japan was corrupt, or whatever you want to call it. And he was addressing what he knew and his background on that whole issue. But when Suzuki Roshi came to America, that's not what he was giving us. He was reforming the practice. He was redeeming the practice. For him to get that criticism, I think, and for his students to get that criticism, I think is unfounded. That's why I think that there's a lot of idea that goes into this kind of criticism from some other place.

[56:00]

But it's misplaced when it's directed at those people who are trying to make it actually genuine. Yeah. Well, of course, when we go to a foreign country, we are taking our own country with us, and so on. I remember at that experience at Tassajara, Soenroshi found a root, a tree root, that was placed, that was, he found it in front of the cottage where he was staying. And it was shaped like a dragon. You could see the dragon shape in it.

[57:03]

Oh, this wonderful thing that I have found, see, this dragon root. And I was finally able to persuade him that undoubtedly Suzuki Roshi had found that root and placed it there. Sainoshi was quite taken aback because he realized that he hadn't given his colleague any credit at all here. It was just a root that had fallen or something that had appeared from the ground. there in front of the cottage. And it was very deliberately placed there, you could see. And I knew because I had some sense of what was going on in Western Zen as well. He presumed that only in Japan could people have that sense of

[58:06]

metaphorical way. Well, all the Japanese priests that come from Japan have that same attitude. Yeah. And so you just kind of sit back and let them go through it. Yeah, that's right. Now, may I ask you a question that does come out of my experience with Soto practitioners here in Suzuki Roshi's line? I recently had a conversation with a longtime Soto practitioner who's become interested in koans. And she said that she realized as she was attracted to koans and thinking about wanting to do more with them, she had to confront a fear that she had about koan study. And that's about the 20th time I've had that conversation with someone who is practicing in the Soto line. So I'm curious if you can address what this fear might be. Beats me. Beats me. I don't know what, maybe it's just a personal fear. Except that I keep having this conversation. So maybe everybody has the same personal fear, but I wonder. I want to acknowledge that I don't sense any of that defensiveness from you, you know, in your gracious willingness to have Alan and others come and study with us.

[59:29]

But there is something for sure, because I have that same experience. And I think if John would speak up, he would acknowledge that. How would you describe it? I would say it's not only a fear, but it's a great defensiveness. A great defense, a great wall here. And this is true for for the Zen Center leaders that I've talked to. An attitude that, well, I know what Koan study is, I've given courses in it, you know, and so I can say there is, So it's just, there's no willingness to take it in.

[60:40]

Well, there's probably some barrier because it's a different, they're entering into a different mode of practice. But you see, they come to me and say, I want to work on Mu. Well, if they come up to you and say they want to work on Mu, then shouldn't we totally dive in? You tell them that. I will. All right, definitely. Great. Can I? Yeah, go ahead. I want to, maybe we can put the fearing back. I was very struck by, Alan's comment about the social construction of religious experience, and I just want to acknowledge that and say that

[61:45]

Also, I mean, people in the Soto tradition seem to have had that transforming experience, but it's handled really differently. And one way, I was talking to somebody who was a student of a Japanese, a very, very serious student of a Japanese teacher, a Soto teacher. The teacher's attitude was, whatever you get, plough it back under. Whatever you get, plough it back under. Whatever you get, plough it back under. With the assumption that it's like old wine. Whatever you get, plough it back under. I think that there's a point about Shikantaza.

[64:21]

When I read Yasutani Roshi's description of Shikantaza, I was really startled because it was such a totally narrow view of something that was presented to us as something so broad and inclusive. And a half hour of total absorption where the sweat pours off your body. I have to confess that I don't relate to that. Yeah. I have to confess. But you see, to us, that was the center of our practice. But at the same time, what I hear described as shikantaza from the students I get is a kind of modified vipassana, or or beginners, vipassana. Watching thoughts, watching feelings, tagging them, letting them go, and so on.

[65:27]

That's not shikantaza at all. If one is doing shikantaza, then that is also included in shikantaza. But one can do that without it being shikantaza. What is included? Watching thoughts? Watching feelings? Tagging them? Letting them go? Is that what you're saying? No. Shikantaza is Just this. Moment by moment. Just this.

[66:30]

Self-joyous, self-fulfilling samadhi. So, in all of our activity, not just in some special place? I think the special place is on your cushions, and it is That which you carry with you, you know, in standing up and sitting down and addressing the others.

[67:39]

But the quality, let's say, is quite a bit different. But if that's a special place, then what is this? Is that special or not special? Of course it's special. It's precious. Is this like sitting on the cushion or not? Are we sitting on the cushion or not? No, we're not sitting on the cushions. Cushions. What are we sitting on? Rocker. Plastic chair. So what's the difference between the two? It's clearly manifested. Justice!

[68:47]

Justice! Justice! I had a question from this and it's on the edge of my mind. Go back to the issue of transformation. and to conversations that I've had with Roshi. I've had conversations about a distinction between realization and character development.

[69:55]

And with John, I've had the same discussion, but the line is less clear in the discussion. You have slightly different viewpoints. And with Mel, I think it's a different viewpoint. So to my mind, what I would ask here is, if you're talking about, I feel that the understanding from, as I have learned it, is that there's not so much distinction between, I call character development, character transformation. And again, I want to get clear if we're talking about a linguistic difference or we're actually talking about a dharma difference. Because I think that if I look at my life, my life over the last 15 years is radically transformed.

[71:02]

And I can say it's radically transformed with not very many of those kinds of peak experiences, none that might in fact qualify to be honest. And yet all the circumstances of my life and some of the ways in which I move through it appear very different to me when I step back. When you're talking about just this, just this, and is there a distinction between sitting here in this chair and sitting in the cushion, then I come to this question about distinction between realization and character development, or character transformation, or not. So maybe that's something to throw out there. Maybe, Mel, how do you see it? No matter how brilliant a student is in their understanding, I always look at what they do, rather than what they say.

[72:09]

And there's something about our practice of Shikantaza, which makes one very sensitive to how others are behaving. Or, you know, like you say sometimes, A characteristic of our school is to really see where the student is, you should look at them from behind. You know, you get that feeling, how they walk. how they handle themselves, how they relate, how they are, rather than what they're... The student can be really brilliant and give you all the right answers, but it's how they actually perform in their life that shows where their understanding is.

[73:24]

So the understanding has to conform when it comes to that, trying to put the two together. I see it sometimes as a focus. Things are a little bit out of focus, a little blurry. And then when they're in focus, they're very clear and exact. And that's how I see where the student is, how focused they are in those characteristics. And so the character naturally should conform to the understanding. And whether a person's understanding, whether a person can actually express their understanding or not is one thing. But they may not be able to express their understanding. But when you ask them what their understanding is,

[74:29]

for they express their understanding in their life. And I think that we have to be able to see that. That someone, you may ask them what is such and such, and they may not be able to tell you. But the way they actually perform their life expresses that. I mostly look at, when I think about who are the advanced students through the way they act. It's a total being. Sometimes we have do anything right, and yet there's something, some quality that they have which is so admirable that it's a real teacher for everybody.

[75:48]

So it's hard to say who's the teachers and who are the students and who is right and who's not right and who's good and who's not so good. And I'm sure that you all have the same experience. Your question is very interesting. As I understand it, it's the how does realization experience relate to character development? What does it do for me? Yeah, from your respective points. OK. I like that Catholic-Turk character formation. It's very instructive because it implies for me the fact that the child is born with certain qualities.

[77:02]

the mother and father can see in their adult child the same qualities they saw when the child was an infant. However, qualities are of sectarian differences in understanding whether or not those qualities are neutral, or whether they are good or bad, so to speak, or destructive or constructive. The Christian has one point of view, the Confucian has another point of view, and the Buddhist has another. But assuming for the moment that they are neutral, The task of the parent, and then the task of the teacher, and the task of the individual himself, is to form a character which is true to those qualities, true to the very bottom.

[78:32]

So we have this complementarity of the unique and precious individual growing up, so to speak. Encountering the transformative experience that there is no self. Encountering the transformative experience that others make me up. Inevitably, with that upbringing, so to speak, of character formation from the time of infancy, with wise parents and a wise teacher, and wise friends and teachers, and given enough stuff, so to speak, in the individual, that experience, that, as I quoted by saying last night, I'm dust, that experience,

[80:11]

will inevitably bring further character formation. Inevitably. So long as there is that bodhicitta, that desire for wisdom and compassion that will carry through those experiences. And the teacher is there, and the Dharma friends are there to check any little intimation of pride. And surely, surely there is going to be further character formation. But John's work is with of this, as I understand it, is with this personal transformation as it unfolds from itself, so to speak.

[81:36]

And so, he's making a report of captivation. I think we all do that. I certainly think in the same way. My greatest joy is watching the transformations. Participating and helping without doing too much. Allowing the transformation. It's like watching children grow up. I think that's the satisfaction. You pointed to something very specific, a glint in the eye, as the satisfaction, but there are other satisfactions as well, which is watching the corn grow, you know, watching the crops, so toes-in, watching, tending to the crops. Well, I think that you find inevitable forces that are working with each other.

[84:04]

And I think we have to recognize what those are and work with them. And that's the wonderful challenge that we have, to recognize the challenge and deal with it. And sometimes it's abrasive. I also think that there is a sort of, there is a problem about, you know, we always inevitably make an error by leaning more to one side than the other and the other side gets dark. ordering the troops.

[85:10]

artist makes a contribution. Don't tell us it was a drug, but it benefited my life enormously. And the farmers host an ecstasy for the crazy other types. The farmers end is a very strong base. But you know, Prajna and Samadhi are not two different things. They're not. They're two aspects of the same thing. Well, in the Paramitas, they're two different things, and I think, you know, concentration, dharma, and prajna are different archetypal... If there are any two things in the world, I think, you can look at them as different. But even the way... It's a lamp and it's light. Even the way known did not say they're the same. No, but they're the lamp and it's light. Prajna is Prajna and Samadhi is Samadhi.

[86:55]

Great, of course. But when you point to the rafter of the house, you say, there's the house. Any part of the house is the whole house. After it's the house. I can't remember. I used to know these things. Oh, that's the whole... What you, what John was talking about, you know, there has been this kind of fruitful interaction between our two families over a long period of time.

[88:23]

And we turn to each other for different things. Last night's birthday celebration was expression on that. I'd be curious to hear maybe each of you say something about that. What is this turning? What do we have to offer each other? Well, personally, I must say that This is a very curious phenomena.

[89:31]

Why? And I don't know that I could say anything intelligent about it. But it's always been true, always been true since I first came to Bush Maybe it's because I don't feel any competition here. I'm very sensitive to competition.

[90:34]

I stay away from big conferences, generally, because of the very competitive spirit one finds there. Some people thrive in these big conferences. But I just feel very comfortable here. And I can really be myself. And I feel accepted as myself. And I have such dear friends here. But there may be, with all of the niceties, there's still room for the bite.

[92:08]

Oh yeah. We haven't played this one. So that's good. I personally don't like to avoid the challenges, whatever they are. I may get whipped to death, but I still will not avoid them. And I feel it's very healthy to have this, whatever it is that we have. And it doesn't come out in the open so much, It's there. It's there. Sure. Sure. As someone who's practiced in both traditions, I'm very clear about what the differences are in my own practice. And John, when you were talking about the hunter-gatherer and the farmer model, which we've talked about a lot, I feel that.

[93:12]

That's my experience. And I also get nervous about, like, Do I have to just be a hunter-gatherer? Because I can't imagine my own practice without having had both. Where did you study? At San San Isidro Mountain. That's very special. So, if it's so clear to me, how different the practices are, and if it is also so clear to me how essential each of those are, what do we say about that? What do we say about how it can be so different, and for those of us who've done both, how important both are? All roads may not lead to the same place, but some roads do. I don't know.

[94:21]

Maybe they don't lead to exactly the same place, but they go up the same mountain. I think we must banish that metaphor. I think Guru Swami has a lot to answer for. Roshi, can you address it just in terms of these two traditions, not everything else, but just these two? Is it a different noun? Are they different nouns? I really would like to... I feel uncomfortable with that metaphor. But they're valid in the sense that perspective and prospect and vista and all of those terms are useful.

[96:04]

I feel that Mel has, you have, presented the virtue of plowing it back. I really like John's expression, plowing it back. It's exactly that. Although I haven't heard that term before. system. I feel that you have plowed it back consistently over the years and decades and that your prospect and views and completely mellow personality are the

[97:17]

And people like Hoitsu-sama, for example, as different as he is from you, you know, it has that same quality. Certainly Suzuki Roshi did. And I see it in many. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to having Galen come. I'm tempted to say something that is stepping in a little further than I kind of want to do, but I'll say it.

[98:31]

And I'm not sure I say it. I'm trying to step back from a defensiveness about it, but I wouldn't be fooled by that mellowness. It's not mellow all the way to the bottom. All right. And that, I think, is a character. That's working on the kind of characterization of our school, I think. So I bring that up. It's kind of challenging, because... Yeah. Well, Mel is still young, you know. Give him a chance. But I think what Alan is saying is that he experiences it very differently. But I'll know that quality is there. Yeah, I'm not denying the quality. It's not the only quality. But I can't speak for my own side.

[99:37]

It's clearly not as distinguished. I mean, I'm sure many people, as they were talking last night, identify you as this Graceful, yeah, as a paragon and as this graceful, quiet old man wandering through the corridors. That ain't the truth either. No, that ain't the truth. I'm a crabby old man that gets on his high horse and causes a lot of trouble. Somebody asked me like that, what am I still working on? Well, I only spoke about half of it. The other half is I'm terrible in community organization. Absolutely terrible. I don't know where to begin.

[100:42]

I'm so awful. I wasn't trying to drag out criticisms or self-criticism. That's right. I'm glad to be able to say it. Yeah, it's okay. Well, so here we enter the realm of, you know, the archetypes and projections and transference and all that. Sometimes I think that the way we've told the old Zen stories have done us a great disservice in this regard. I mean, that they've set up a field right for the kinds of transference and projections that you're talking about, and that that's caused a lot of problems. not help the character formation and character development of students. Ah, yes. I think you're absolutely right. And for this reason, and for other reasons too, I'm sure, but for one reason, we've made the same mistake, not quite so egregiously,

[101:52]

But the same mistake as D.G. Suzuki, of extirpating these stories totally out of context and sort of run them together. As though, for one thing, there was no practice involved. And for another thing, that they were peak experiences. of that time and place. The fact is that one can't generalize from any of those stories. And we do all the time. Yeah. I think we have to be very careful. They're so one-dimensional. That's why the whole thing has to be tempered with our own practice and with a good teacher who knows what the everyday life of a Zen student is, not just a certain aspect of it.

[103:11]

To me, that was such a valuable thing about our practice. taking into consideration the stories, you know, and having all this lore and studying, but the practice is our own, and it's our everyday practice, and not focusing too much on something that takes us out of our everyday practice. I don't know what I'm saying. Maybe not exactly. I think through our own everyday practice, day in and day out, we actually get some picture of the old master's lives. You begin to see it all around you.

[104:22]

Peak experiences, I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, yes, we should have an enlightenment experience from moment to moment. Good luck. And he's hurrying up. And that in some sense we've thought, I think we've been very intolerant of the messy process of making character.

[105:58]

That you can't talk about character formation as if it's an industrial product. And we have. And we've talked about teachers as if they're an industrial product. When teachers, I think in some way we've over-focused perhaps on the pathologies of teachers because we hate leadership and culture in some way. And what we can do is crank them down a notch. You know, and not give them so much power, but somehow allow them more self-exploration, I think. I feel we've had quite unrealistic ideas about what a senior practitioner would be, or a senior student would be. Well, about this harmonious life, you know, The harmony of our life is totally being destroyed moment by moment. And we find ourselves in some situation and we have to harmonize it again.

[107:00]

We have to find our balance. Find our balance moment after moment. To me, that's our practice. Finding our balance moment after moment. Because it's always falling out. But I found that as our practice matures in our center, and as the members mature over a long period of time, that there's some wisdom that comes out of the Sangha. It's not so necessary to be leading all the time. And the Sangha takes on leadership by itself in some way that expresses whatever the practice is.

[108:08]

If it's an enlightened practice, then that's expressed through numbers in their attitudes and the way they do things. I think that's one of the important aspects of Sangha. Sangha is not so often, is not such a big part of the Zen lore. As a matter of fact, Sangha is usually denigrated in some way. You know, that the monks are all so stupid, you know. You never hear that all the monks are, you know, they're virtuous. I mean, they're false, right? And there's the master and the students. And the master is up here and the students are... And that model is... has some question. and then some of their people, their one's own senior people, and people you know you've loved and felt like a part of your family, and just something goes wrong with the transference and they're off and they're busily saying exactly the same thing about you, and they go off to the same teachers as the other people, and they're very happy, and there's something about having a

[110:09]

or even the arts or psychology. China people cross-trained between the Confucian system. But they do now. They do historically. But I think we still do hold to these sort of archetypes at the school level that we do at the personal level too. You know, you're farmers and we're hunters, and that's the way it is. Right, it's not exactly that way. It's not exactly that way. Especially when you look at it in terms of gender. Yes, that's really true. And it makes a difference. But I think to the extent that we do that, you know, it's like John was saying, what you don't accept for yourself, you put in the shadow, and then it comes out and it bites you in all kinds of ways. And I think we do that to each other. Yeah, we tend to stereotype. We stereotype, and we don't integrate that stuff, whatever we're perceiving as the other guy's stuff, we don't integrate that into our own practices, and our practices suffer as a result.

[111:28]

You know, it looks like this is Soto Zen, but Suzuki Roshi never thought of it as Soto Zen. It just was his tradition. And he was not stuck on it, or hung up on it, saying, we do the Soto way. Sometimes he would say that, but that was not at all But we just happen to have, this just happens to be Zen, that was his background, and as all teachers present as their background, right? And what they learned, and the way they learned it. And he was hoping that we wouldn't make the mistakes of our predecessors. But you have to have something to go with, right? So, yeah, you. You know, he was always hoping that Dick would go to Japan and reform the Soto sect. Good luck. Good luck. OK, so underneath all of that, what's the ground that we all stand on together?

[112:35]

Yeah, that's a good question. Maybe we don't. I'm willing to concede that we don't, actually. Maybe we do have different mountains. Maybe what you expect is one thing and what I would expect is something else. And I think that's true. But I respect what you expect. And I respect what I expect. And I respect what you expect. And I expect that that's... But then, there are people mucking about. on both mountains. And that, you know, not always so comfortable. I mean, Joan talked about one level of fear. I think there's a whole lot of different fears.

[113:37]

It's not one fear. It's certainly not all the fear that, I think Roshi was saying, of just like, well, I know these, you know, I've studied these, I've taught these. That's a very small part of it, to my estimation. I'm sure, I know it exists, but there is something happening here. It's happening with your disciples, looking for a kind of a confluence of some other, some enriching way of seeing. And something different is going to come out of that. A student right downstairs, part of his training period, was from Mare Zendo. Oh really? Oh yeah, Steve Thompson.

[114:37]

And he wasn't happy with his work there. Of course, the Mare Zendo is a floating zendo. It's here and there. for what he couldn't get in our own way. He looks very happy being here and I'm fortunate. I think we've been talking for a long time. I don't know that people are tired, but maybe we are. I just have one more thing to say. My resolution was to practice this simple way, what I call simple, not so simple, but this singular way, and just do it totally. And my faith has always been that by doing that totally, I would come to whatever understanding I was going to come to.

[115:47]

But sometimes, people that study with me, want to do something else. You know, they want to investigate. I'm ready to go on. All right? And that's fine. I mean, they're still my students. And this is broadening their education or whatever you want to call it. And if they want to become somebody else's student, that's fine. I've never held on to anybody in my life. But they still want to be my students. So they can have that broad education. But I feel that I get all my sustenance from this practice, which satisfies me, I feel like.

[116:51]

But if I'm not going to get it all, then I won't get it all. I'll say the same thing. Shall we end there? Is there any last comments? Any questions? If I may. I actually think, I think that not everybody has to, if there are different villages, Some people have to leave one village and go to the other, and vice versa, for both villages to stay alive, and some people probably have to stay within the village for both villages to stay alive. And so that would be a better metaphor for climbing up the mountain, maybe a more ecosystemic metaphor. And I have a clinical example. Your experience of, like, It's very common in our tradition, of course. In our tradition, in a certain sense, there often tends to be a sense of seeking that, or naming its attachment to it and stuff.

[118:05]

But then we have people who come to our tradition who just don't have that kind of experience. And they gradually get clearer without obvious bright points in our plan. And some of them, Sometimes, you know, you have to dish out from the people you've destroyed. I think of the people I respect the most, like Senzakusensei, who taught and used vocabulary

[119:25]

The one Theravada teacher that was in Los Angeles at that time to come and speak to our sangha, we heard him speak many, many times. And he would sing this Pali hymns to us, and so on, in his magnificent voice. I think Dogen Zenji would be mad that there is any distinction between sotona and sangha, very clearly. Yeah. Right. No sectarianism. At the same time, Dogen was very sectarian. Yeah. And in his own way, Senzaki was also. Right. So, we personalize that paradox, so to speak. Well, when you have your own place to stand, then you can appreciate everybody else. I have to say, whenever I want to study a case, I always go to Nyoge and Senzaki as the final authority.

[120:55]

There's no final authority. There's something about his manner of speaking that paraphrases a lot, but he uses the language in a way that's wonderful, totally wonderful, simple, and gets to something, to essence very quickly. Alan, I just want to thank you for organizing this. I think it was a great thing, and I walk away from it with a feeling that we touched on so many parts of a really big universe. that any one point, sort of like the koans, any one point, you could just walk through the gate all the way through and keep going for a long time. I don't know if it's possible to keep going, but I would like to see it happen in some way if it can. Because there's so much richness that we just touched on.

[121:57]

And we don't have to stick to this particular format. No. Well, I can tell you, as I think I mentioned, I had to sort of I had to be very tougher than I usually like to be. There were many people who wanted to sit in on the dialogue, and I felt that because I was aware of at least differences that have been expressed or semi-expressed, I wanted this to be fairly small and intimate. But I think that there's a larger dialogue to be had. I don't think there's anything that needs to be particularly secret. But I just wanted to create a feeling of comfort in the room to initiate a discussion. I have a lot more questions, but they're done for now. So we'll see maybe next time you come back.

[123:00]

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