May all beings realize the emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and kyu-saku. I remember Suzuki Roshi saying, when we use the kyu-saku correctly, there's no one who hits, no one who receives, and no stick. He really loved using the kyu-saku. When I first came to Zen Center, 1964, I remember sitting down and I heard this whack, and I thought, who's hitting

[01:22]

the floor with a stick? It never occurred to me that somebody was hitting somebody else. Who hit the floor with a stick? And then I found out that somebody hit somebody else. And I thought, oh, this must be something. When I heard the floor hit with a stick, it had a feeling to it. I thought, what is that? Why are they doing that? Why are they doing that? So I know that when we hear the stick, the first time it's always a surprise. And Suzuki Roshi always carried the stick. He had a short stick. Karagiri sensei at the time carried the stick too. Eventually, all of us carried the stick. Everybody

[02:34]

who was a regular member carried the stick. And so we just took it for granted that we used the stick. It was just part of our everyday practice. And people loved when Suzuki Roshi would hit them with a stick. I never heard anybody complain about the stick, ever, that I can remember. They loved to be hit by Suzuki Roshi. He would hit you twice on each shoulder. Bam, bam. Bam, bam. And everybody would wake up. It was very sweet, actually. I remember one time, Page Street, where we were having sashimi. And I was the wake-up person. And somehow, we had a ... anyway, I won't go into detail of how this happened,

[03:48]

but I woke up an hour early and started to ring the wake-up bell, running through the building ringing the wake-up bell. And everybody started to come out of their rooms. And people were looking at their watches and saying, Hey, wait a minute. It's an hour early. And Suzuki Roshi came out of his room. And people were starting to go back to their rooms. And he said, Wait a minute. Where are you going? He said, The bell rang. When the bell rings, you go to the zendo. That's all. And he took his stick and he started telling everybody to get down to the zendo. The bell rang. Go down to the zendo. So everybody went down to the zendo. And then he went around the zendo and hit everybody. Bam, bam, [...] bam. Everybody loved it. It was the most wonderful thing they ever experienced.

[04:52]

There's a kind of wonderful communication. We have various ideas about what it means to be hit with a stick. But these are just our ideas. With Suzuki Roshi, it was love. And it wasn't tough love. It was just love. Nothing tough about it. But we had various personalities. Some were more rough than others. But generally speaking, everybody did their best. When Richard Baker was abbot, there were a lot of students. And he kind of upped the ante. The zendo was always very full.

[06:10]

And we had two junkos. People who carried a stick are called junko. Two junkos, every period, walking up and down. And they would hit everybody, whoever they felt was sleeping or whatever. But then people didn't like that. So at some point, we said, just hit people who asked for it. Okay. So that worked for a long time. But everybody in turn carried the stick. It wasn't just a few people or some select group. Everybody eventually carried the stick who felt that they could or wanted to.

[07:15]

And sometimes there were complaints. I remember one guy who liked to hit people really hard. And he hit this one person whose name I won't mention. And the guy grabbed the stick and pulled him over. But in Japan, I talked about this in my class, in Japan, in the Rinzai monasteries, there are a lot of young boys, young men. And they have a huge keisaku, which is, we use the kiyosaku, they use the keisaku. Keisaku is much heavier and broader and longer than our stick. And they use it full force. And they don't care where they hit you. And I think that's a kind of travesty on using this wonderful instrument. And so that gives it a kind of bad name. They try to see who can break the most sticks over each other. But that's not our attitude at all in using the keisaku.

[08:37]

It's interesting. Some people like it and some people don't. So we always gave people the choice. If you like it, you can have it. If you don't like it, it's okay. But allow those people who like it to use it. There's an old saying, when Jill drinks wine, Jack gets drunk. The person that receives the stick feels fine, but somebody else feels hurt, who doesn't use the stick, who doesn't receive the stick. That's kind of interesting. My question is, where does it hurt? Sometimes the stick hurts when you receive it, but the junk goes, did I hurt you? And the person says, oh, a little bit, but it's okay. That's usual. Maybe you were a little off.

[10:06]

You hit my shoulder blade, but it's okay. So it's not a big deal, usually. But if you receive the stick and you didn't ask for it, then you can make a big deal out of something. So when you receive the stick and you bow and you ask, we enter into an agreement. I will help you because you're open to me and I'll do my best to accommodate you. I call the kiyosaku the wake-up stick. I think I'm the only person that calls it that. We just call it the stick. But I call it the wake-up stick because you can understand why we use it.

[11:12]

If I say wake-up stick, you're feeling sleepy or we get kind of tensed up during zazen. Our shoulders get sore and we feel some tension. It's hard to let go of that. So we ask for a little help and the stick kind of opens you up. It's like you can start all over again. So it's a little aid from your friend who's willing to help you out. There's nothing, even though it sounds aggressive, there's really nothing aggressive about it at all. It's, as Suzuki Roshi said, when the hit is just right, the person who hits, the person who receives it, and the stick all disappear.

[12:46]

And we wake up in emptiness. Dogen says, if you want to experience enlightenment, you can experience it when you have a big sneeze. Achoo! You disappear. The world disappears. It's just sneeze. And then you come back. The same thing with a snake, with a stick. It's like a big sneeze. Achoo! Whack! Thank you very much. And then you settle back into where you were, sleeping. I remember there were always people who indulged themselves in the stick. Every time you'd walk by, they would want the stick.

[13:56]

And then we sometimes just ignore the person the second time, because it's too much like candy. So, sometimes, I remember people sometimes would say, well, it's like, you know, my father used to hit me with, beat me with a stick. So every time I hear the stick, I get that feeling. And it makes me tense, or whatever. And we appreciate those kinds of feelings. And there are other kinds of feelings that are similar to that. And at some point, there were people who voiced these concerns. And so, at some point, at Zen Center, we stopped using the stick. Pekiyo Saku. And then, I remember, my father always used to threaten me with the strap.

[15:08]

The strap. See, I'm old enough that my father used to use a straight razor and a razor strap. When I was a little kid, razors, you know, before they had safety razors, men used straight razors. And there was a leather strap. You'd sharpen the razor on the leather strap, like barbers used to do. And then you'd shave. So every time you shaved, you'd sharpen the razor on the leather strap, on the big, heavy leather strap. And so my father would always say, I'm going to get the strap on you. He never hit me with the strap, though. He hit me with a coat hanger. It's a coat hanger. But when I heard the Pekiyo Saku, it didn't remind me of the coat hanger or the strap or anything. It's just the Pekiyo Saku. Kind of understood what it was. Also, my feeling is if you have some fear of something, it's good to face that fear. Best way to get out of your fear or to let go of your fear is to turn around and shine the light on what the fear is.

[16:20]

Just go into it. We can't always do that, of course, but it's a good way. So my feeling about the stick is that it's rather benign, but it can give you, it can bring up things for you which seem like aggression. In Berkeley, people, you know, the idea of the stick keeps coming up. Can we have the stick sometime? People ask this question. Mostly women. And in my experience, can we have the stick again? So it came up again in Berkeley some years ago, and we had this big powwow about the stick.

[17:28]

And what we came out with was, during Sashin, we use the stick, but sparingly. We won't carry it all the time, but there's certain periods where we'll carry the stick. I think that's what we said. I can't remember exactly, but even though there were people that didn't want the stick, they agreed that it was okay to use it. I have a little problem with being ruled by the minority. A little problem with the tail wagging the dog. There will always be someone who doesn't want to do what everyone else wants to do, or what the majority wants to do, and that's quite legitimate. But, you know, an entrenched minority can stop things from happening.

[18:43]

You know, sometimes when we have a meal, we kind of all eat at a similar pace in order to get finished at the same time. So some people like to eat fast, some people like to eat slowly, but when we get involved in practice, the slow people have to come up and the fast people have to come down so there's a kind of agreement at the pace of the meal. So we don't like to have things kind of drag on. So sometimes there's somebody that really likes to eat slowly, and they're eating very slowly, and they're not aware that everybody else is finished. They just keep eating the meal. And the soku is waiting for that person to get done. So everybody's waiting for that person to get done. So that one person is controlling the tempo of the meal.

[19:57]

But if the soku has good understanding, the soku just starts the servers, or the cleanup, with that person eating. And then that person has to hurry up and finish. So that's how we gather everybody together. The slow ones, the slowest ones, have to move faster, even though they like eating slowly. I chew everything. When I eat, I chew everything. But I try not to be slow and hold everybody up. So when we began the practice period, several people asked if we could have the stick. And I said, yeah, let's have the stick, which hasn't happened much at Tassajara for a long time.

[21:11]

And so we started using the stick. So that's the history of our stick, the short history of our stick. So I want to ask you, if you have any questions or would like to say something, and not feel that you inhibited to say anything you want to say, because everything you say is appreciated. Richard? You have to really speak up so all these people can hear you. One time this morning, I think Greg went around without the stick. What was happening then? I asked him. He adjusted somebody's posture. So then he went to sit down and said, well, why don't you just go around and adjust posture? Also, I noticed in Berkeley, when we have the stick, just about everybody wants it.

[22:14]

I would say two-thirds. Two-thirds. Yeah. So a lot of people like to use it. Greg? I was not one of the people who asked if we were going to have the stick this practice period. And it came as a surprise to me, actually. I think it actually was the Eno's announcement in Westerville that I was going to be... That you would be carrying it. Yes. Well, she knew that Myo, a former Tantor here, used to carry the stick sometimes. He trained myself and Eric, my dharma brother, and Shoho, another priest of Shogun, where he left. Just because he was interested in sharing that understanding and that practice with a lot of people. So I guess I meant to say yesterday, I forgot.

[23:19]

I was going to put it in the talk. But I just wanted to apologize for my learning curve. Your curved ball sticks. I think I'm not 100% effective right away. Mostly it's been reticence and holding back. Like that, just erring on the side of caution with a couple of fires. I haven't hurt anybody yet. That you know of. That I know of. Well, yes, we chose myself and you and Leslie to use the stick. It's not necessary to be limited to that. But the three of us have experience with the stick. And since we haven't used it for so long, people don't have experience carrying it.

[24:23]

And we usually train people to use it. How to manage, how to hold it, how to hit someone correctly. I was very impressed with Leslie. I watched her use the stick and I was just totally blown away by her ability to use it. You know, the main thing is you listen for the sound. When people are wearing a lot of clothes, you know, fuck. But everyone's back or shoulders are a little different. But this whack, the crack, you know, there's two ways, two techniques. One is to quickly, to snap it and quickly lift off like whack, like that. So you really don't feel so much, but you get this charge.

[25:25]

And the other way is to just go bam. Like that. I've done it both ways. But my way is to go bam. And Leslie's way is to go bam, like that. And both ways are effective. But we're always thinking, you know, where is exactly the right place to hit somebody? And, you know, Junko can feel where is your shoulder blade. During the winter, you know, people wear a lot of clothes. So it's hard sometimes to see exactly where that place is. And then if you wear a scarf around your neck, you know, the whole shoulder scarf, that whole area, neck, shoulder and back, it's a guess. So in that case, you should bend way over and have the stick on your back. That's really a very effective way, anyway, to bend way over and have the stick on your back.

[26:31]

And you're less likely to get off that way because you have a pretty broad target. Yes. If I'm present and hearing loud, the stick is just the noise and the sensation. It's not, it doesn't have a whole lot of other baggage. Right, because there's not something behind it. It's not, but if I'm not present, that's when that old stuff comes up. So if I can be present and open to the sensation that that creates in the muscle groups, I feel a lot of tension in the muscles. My shoulders get really tight from the stick. That sharp movement on my shoulders can be very helpful. Yes, I think that's the point. We do a lot of hitting here.

[27:36]

We hit the arms, we hit the bellows, we hit the groins. We do a lot of hitting. I heard you, yeah. And I feel, for me it's like, I can think of myself as being a bell or being a drum. Being hit, as you say, the awakening, the wake-up stick. We talk, you know, the bell. We wake up the bell or we wake up the drum, like, with the movement. And I actually think, why not a live human skin instead of a dead cow? Laughter All right. I was part of the instrument in this conversation. Thank you for addressing me. I felt like I wasn't alone.

[28:39]

I wanted to be sure that anybody that felt like I did had the opportunity to have a choice. I appreciate the intention of the stick. Actually, I don't like the stick myself, like I said yesterday, but I also have a mixed feeling because the sound echoes something from the past which is deeply ingrained into me and it's hard to avoid that. I think that maybe there are people in the room that have the same experience. I spoke to... She served with me. And he had asked me yesterday when I walked out of the room during what was happening. It caused some tension in my chest. I get released when it hits me, but then the rest of the time I get a tension in my chest. So I walked out of the room, and he asked me yesterday,

[29:39]

did you practice with us? I didn't know that he asked me yesterday, but this morning I told him, yes I will practice with us. Anyway, I'm just glad that you addressed me. I hope everybody does. Thank you for practicing with me. I appreciate that. Your willingness to go ahead in some way that we have some doubt. We have some other people here. I'm curious, when you were first starting to use the stick back in the past, what was coming up for you as the hitter as opposed to being hit? What was coming up? Well, you know, we were all just having fun. It was like, you know, not fun exactly, but it was just something that it gave us a way to relate to each other.

[30:39]

I just felt, you know, I'll help you, you help me. That's what I thought. We were just engaged in this together. And it gave us some way of relating. I was going to mention that when I was living in City Center, Michael Wenger used it during a session. And there was someone that was having a lot of apprehension around it. And what he suggested was that during the period while he was using it, she phased out. So instead of just hearing smacking, she got to see a human being walking behind, leading someone over, feeling, you know, the spot on their back. That's the most appropriate spot and what it looks like. And motivated humanity behind it instead of just the sound. And I think that seemed to be a little bit helpful. Yeah, that's nice. I like that idea. You know, Suzuki Roshi saying, when we sit and face the wall, our back is facing Buddha.

[31:48]

And we're totally trusting. You know, we sit and we face the wall, but our back we're totally vulnerable in our back. And so whatever happens, you know, we just trust. So we do have to have a lot of trust. And we trust each other. We have to be able to trust each other. That whatever we do behind, whatever happens behind us will not be harmful to us, especially in this end up. Steve. I just wanted to share a brief relationship that I have with the stick. The first time I received it in Berkeley, I think was during a session. And I've been sitting morning and evenings there.

[32:52]

And every morning Roshi does a Judo. And we all put our hands in Gassho. And he was walking around the Zendo. And I didn't know he was carrying a stick. I thought it was just a Judo. I put my hands up in Gassho. And he stopped and he grabbed my shoulder and said, oh, he's going to adjust my posture. Well, this is interesting. And just before it happened, I thought, I'm going to get hit. He grabbed me, turned me the other way. Came up and it was just like a zing. And I sat there and I went, oh, that was pretty cool. And I never let it go by again. For years, even after coming here, I never let it go by again. And then maybe in my third or fourth practice period, it wasn't effective anymore. It didn't do anything for me. And I stopped asking for it. And I didn't ask for it the first two days.

[33:55]

I didn't ask for it until yesterday morning when it was coming around. I was feeling a little bit sleepy. And I said, hmm, perhaps it's time to ask for it again. And I got it yesterday morning and it woke me right up. I was awake. And then this morning it came around and I didn't feel I needed it. But I asked for it anyway. And were you carrying it this morning? Yeah. So he hit me with it and I didn't even feel it. All I heard was the sound. I didn't even feel it. And I came back up and I went, hmm, I guess I took that one for all beings. And that's it. That's all I wanted. I'm going to get these guys. Yes. Danny? I'm enjoying getting hit by the stick. It's a little challenging just hearing so many people getting hit. It's disturbing. Anyway, it's not because of emotion.

[34:56]

It's kind of hard to concentrate. Or come back to my breath or whatever. I just, you know, for 20 minutes, 15, 20 minutes. Just whack after whack after whack. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. I was suggested by Vicki Austin that the stick would be very beneficial for a tight block shoulder situation I have. To loosen block shoulders? Pardon? To loosen your tight shoulders? Yeah. It's like training them. You never train them. But I found it very beneficial thus far. Yeah. It's very helpful. I was wondering if when the stick is in this position, if there's any, based on the posture of the person who is receiving it, the difference in the approach, how hard to put your arm on the pad.

[36:01]

Oh, yeah. Well, you put yourself in a position and then that's where the person hits you. You tell the person where to hit you by the way you position yourself. So, you know, you're like this. And then you say, shoulder. Or you say, back. So you put, you give the person the best position. And then there's no problem. But sometimes people are hesitant. They say, please hit me, but don't. That happens. And then, you know, the person will show you. And then as soon as you start to swing, they change. Like, I changed my mind. You know, that happens too. So, there are these little problems. But, you, you, um, um, prepare yourself.

[37:04]

You present the place where you want the person to hit you. And then that's the easiest. So, you can, you can make your own selection. I was wondering if sometime during the practice period, if you or, if you so, or Leslie would be willing to give a short workshop on how to use it. That's a good idea. So the tradition doesn't die out. Well, you know, this is all sounding very positive. But I know that there's also some negative, um, you know, people who don't, who would rather not have this. And I'm not hearing from them, but I know that they exist. That you exist out there. So, um, but I, I, I agree with your idea. I think it's very good. Huh? I should probably say something since I brought it up yesterday. I think I should probably say something since I kind of brought it up yesterday.

[38:08]

And I wanted to apologize for the delay. Maybe it wasn't so appropriate. Um, I don't have any trouble with the way it was scripted. And, like, the fact that yesterday there was this great set to be considered and, and it woke me up. I have some questions about whether or not we, what I want to say is more cautionary. Like, we should maybe be cautious about relying on something outside ourselves. Well, yeah. You know, a stick is not something we rely on. It's something that helps us. You know. And, uh, it's a kind of mercy. What? We don't rely. I mean, we can do without it. We can sit okay without it, right? But it's, it's, um, uh, kind of a merciful little help. Yeah. I'm sure there are. You know, I don't want to kind of say this, you know.

[39:13]

There was someone who gave a lecture in fact, right there where you are. I'm trying to remember who it was. There was a lecture he gave. I can't remember who it was. Right at the latch. And where he said that they had no stick. When the stick was in use regularly, it's insane. People were falling asleep more. And after, without it being used, it seemed to them that there was less use for it. And what they, whatever they were doing, I can't say. And they were saying that they felt like people were taking it as their own responsibility to wake up so they could figure out how, okay, I'm tired so I don't need to wake up. Oh, the stick will come by. Well, I don't think that people do that. This was just their, what they expected. I don't, I don't think, I wouldn't say, well, I'm going to fall asleep. You know, the stick will come by pretty soon and I'll just wake up when the stick comes by. I don't think anybody does that. I really don't. It's hard to wake up by yourself.

[40:16]

You know, early in the morning, it's just, you're trying to wake up and you're trying to wake up and you just keep falling and it's really hard to hold your back up. And then, you know, thank you for helping me. That's the way I see it. No. I mean, it's, why, you know, why not get a little help? You know, although, you know, we should, you know, pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, right? But, you know, we should also allow for a little weakness. So we're bound to be tired in real life. Bound to be. We're bound to be tired in real life. And we might as well let it go. Well, I'll allow you that. I am one of those people that come from a past where there was a lot of beating and hitting and throwing things in the house and stuff.

[41:18]

And especially, you know, there was four of us. And when I would hear somebody else getting smacked or something, it always made my hair stand up. Oh, no, my neck, you know. Get out of the way. And the stick was used at City Center by Michael Langer, as he said. And I remember it was such a novel thing that it was a real wake rubber and it was a real thing. But we didn't use it very often. And since we started using it here at this practice period, I noticed that I have a few memories of those childhood things. But they're light. And the stick is waking me up in mind as well. And that's, as long as it's doing that, I'm all for it. And it certainly wakes me up physically, too. And I find that baggage, or whatever it is, is just drifting along and becoming part of the experience. And it's on its way out. And as long as it's productive, I'll keep asking for it. Okay. I want to say goodbye to the kitchen. Thank you for leaving.

[42:22]

And I want us to end on time. Greg. So, in Berkeley, during sessions, some periods, sparingly, when people carry the stick, they usually say, I'll be carrying the stick now. Well, you know, that's me. I say that. Because we use it so seldom. That I want people to know what's happening. If we use it all the time, then people know it's coming. They expect it. But because they didn't expect it, I say so. I would suggest that sometimes that first sound, if someone doesn't know that the stick is going around, the first time they hear it, it's kind of, can be kind of... Oh, I see. You mean to give people some warning. Hmm. Maybe. So, I was thinking, you know, my dad, he used to hit on me a little bit, not too much.

[43:30]

But it made me think of something. Don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. That, you know, he did it, and that was his shit that he hit me with. And this is different. You said with love. It's just nice to learn that someone can hit me with a stick and love me. And I enjoy it. And it's not punishment. And it's just, it's re-education. Instead of avoiding this shit, I'm going to die. And maybe open up to something that used to be painful, but now can actually be a little bodhisattva. Thank you very much for that. I want to sound one other cautionary note, which is sort of outside of our sangha right here. You know, people tend towards sensational sorts of things. And the idea of the Rinzai model of people breaking sticks over each other is kind of a little game that people, you know, kind of, well, it'd be really easy for people to get the wrong idea about Zen Center

[44:33]

when they start hearing about, you know, people going around with sticks. Because all of this discussion we've had around compassion and love and waking up and giver and receiving and the emptiness of it is not what comes to mind for most people when they hear Zen stick hit. And so, we have enough war toys in our society and we have enough militant, you know, energy that I think we need to be really careful about the way the use of the stick leaves this room. I agree with you. We should be very careful. Do you have to really speak up? I just want to say something to Dion about the question that you brought up, Dion, about, you know, we don't have to be after a stick, you know, waking us up. I really find that being here at Takahara is such a support for my practice that just having a window and having a wake up bell and having a schedule, those are all supports for waking up, for me.

[45:37]

So, I don't know if that helps in thinking of it that way. And the other thing is that I think the person who you're speaking about giving the lecture, I think they were referring to times when the stick was used without being accepted. Is that right, Michael? Yes, that's correct. Do you have a point? Continuously. When people would fall asleep, more often than not, that was when the stick was carried without being requested, so people would receive it without being… I think if somebody gets this right… No, no, no. There's a text book that has a bunch of different articles about this. Of course. I just think about the kind of stick, I just think about the support of practice,

[46:41]

that again, you know, see that the support is teaching us how to be okay in ourselves, without wanting to do something else. I mean, Koshio said he wants to keep his eyes and his window open because when we're outside our eyes are open. When we're outside, you know, work day, when I'm getting sleepy, someone might hit me, so I'm sleepy, so it seems to me I'm weak, and I'm not adjusting, and I'm weak, and my practice is not showing. Okay, this is the last one. Linda. Sometimes I think of it as kind of chiropractic work, you know, you get an adjustment and then you learn how to move in that direction, so all the forms of support here, the whole range of it, is helping me to learn a particular way of being, and then when I'm not in that situation, my body and mind has been trained a little bit to go there. Leslie.

[47:48]

Maybe you're going to say this, but just in case you aren't, I think this is a pretty hard place if someone does have difficult feelings about the stick, this conversation would have been a pretty difficult place to bring them up. Yes. It's been so positive and supportive, and I would really request if people do have an experience of the stick that they don't want to practice with now, and they don't feel it's useful for them to practice with, that you do talk to Mel about it, because it really is at his discretion that we're using it this practice period, and he needs the best information that he can get to make that decision about whether that's a good thing for us or not. Please do. Yes, please do. Thank you. They are an intention.

[48:48]

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