having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept. I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Good evening. Well, it's really nice to be here tonight. I didn't think about it much, but I feel instantly a wonderful spirit in the room. I don't know why I didn't think about that, but it's a very good feeling in here. And it's been a long time since I've looked so

[01:06]

close up at this figure of Shakyamuni Buddha on the altar, which is such a beautiful figure. So, it is nice to be here. And I do want to give a Dharma talk, but really the main thing I want to do is kind of introduce myself to you, because I don't know most of you, and don't often come to give a talk here in the city. So I want to try to say something that will introduce you to me, and I'm going to give three talks, I think, in the next

[02:10]

few weeks to talk about some of my feelings and ideas about Dharma. I realize it's hard to get to know another person. It's even hard to get to know yourself in any way that you can communicate to another person. So I hope I don't have unrealistic expectations about what I might communicate to you, but I want to try to say something, to select something out of what anyone could say, so that I can feel that I've made contact with you. And one reason why I would like to do this is that, as many of you know, in about one month – today is the 4th of January – so in one month, on the 5th of February, in this

[03:15]

room, we'll have a mountain seat ceremony, and I will be installed on that day as an abbot of the Zen Center, so I want to come into a room full of friends. It'll be easier and nicer. So that's one good reason why I want to come and get to know you all, so that you'll say, oh yes, we know him, and isn't that nice that he's coming and stepping onto the mountain, instead of, who is this guy showing up here? It'll be much better for all of us. So that's another good reason. Anyway, so I hope that I won't go on too long so that we can have some dialogue. That's the most important part, because I want to make contact with you and let you hear who I am, but also I want to get to know you too, and hear who you are, what your concerns are. So my plan is not to go on endlessly, and hopefully

[04:17]

I won't talk all that long, just enough to give you food for thought. So we have, I'm from Green Gulch, as I'm sure you know, and we have an annual retreat over there, three days, usually right after New Year's. It's very busy over there all the time, people coming, and guests, and all kinds of people, so it kind of gets exhausting. So we think throughout three days a year we'll close down and just be by ourselves. We actually don't even have formal zazen those days, but we do have a schedule. It's evolved over the last few years where we bring in people to work with us in various ways so that we can get to know each other as a community in a different way from the way we usually know each other. So one of the things we did this year, yesterday actually, is we had Kaz Tanahashi,

[05:19]

the artist, and calligrapher, and translator, and political activist. He came over and gave us a calligraphy workshop, and I had never officially done calligraphy, so it was great fun. I'm interested in calligraphy, so it was a lot of fun to do that with him. And he started us off by doing, he just said, here's some paper, and here's a brush, and here's ink, just do whatever you want to do. And we did freestyle kind of just squiggles and drawings, and it was great fun. We talked about that, and then after we did that he said, now I want to show you how you're really supposed to hold a brush in East Asian calligraphy, and how you're supposed to have your posture, and so on. So he showed us that, and it was working with a brush in a traditional way is very, very difficult, I discovered. Because

[06:19]

you really can't control the brush, you know, it's really a living thing, and you can't, you know, the line's never going to come out the same way twice, so you have to have a tremendous amount of control, and calmness, and knowledge, and practice to guide the brush, but then in the end the brush has a mind of its own, and it kind of more or less goes the way that it's going to go. So you have to, it's this very delicate issue of cooperating with the brush. So that was interesting. He said that in East Asia, the way that calligraphers train themselves is by taking models of masterpieces, maybe one character, and copying that character over and over and over and over again, that one character, until they can come close to reproducing it, or reproduce it. So he had us do that. He gave us a little sheet with some characters on it, and we were to choose one character, and we spent a couple of hours

[07:23]

just trying to reproduce that character. Boy, it was that hard, you know, and frustrating. I found it really engaging, and I sat and tried to copy a single character for maybe a couple of hours, and in that few hours, I didn't even come close, not even close to being able to reproduce the character. Not only that, but I didn't even come close to being able to reproduce one line of the character. That's how difficult it was, at least for me. That's how much there is to it. So this was an exercise in frustration, in a way, but also it made me have a lot more respect for calligraphers who work with a brush. It's very, very difficult. There's a beautiful rhythm to it, and it takes a lot of practice.

[08:26]

It made me think about this East Asian method of study, because it's not only in calligraphy that one studies by copying and repeating over and over again, copying a model or copying a master, but in all the other Japanese arts, one practices in the same way, whether it's repetition and copying the master over and over and over again with sincerity and effort and frustration for years. It's definitely part of the method in Zen study. This is a method that I have a great deal of respect for and think is very important, and confess to you that this has not been my path too much in my life of Zen study. Over the years,

[09:33]

I've been very fortunate to have many teachers, many wonderful teachers whom I've learned a lot from, and many of them I still work with and still go to, and have enormous respect for all of them, living and dead. But I haven't really much done this practice of hanging around them and learning from them in that intimate way of repetition and copying. Probably the reason why I haven't done that is many reasons. One reason is I'm pretty stubborn and don't like to do that. Also, as an American male, all those of you in the room know that American males already know how to do everything anyway, so why would they want to copy anybody?

[10:34]

That's another reason why I probably didn't do it. But maybe a more important reason is the circumstances that I have had in my life. Early on in my practice, I had a family and little children, and even before I began practicing Zen, I was pretty seriously practicing the art of poetry. So all along, I had lots of other obligations and preferences that took me away from the possibility of spending a lot of time with my teachers in this way that you read about in the texts, and that's so intimate. So whether this is good or bad, I don't know, but this is the fact of how my training has been. And this is my particular conditioning and my particular karma. And the result of it is that it's given me a very

[11:41]

strong feeling that I need to be very self-reliant in my practice, and that each of us needs to be very self-reliant in our practice. This is not to say that we don't need Dharma friends and teachers, because I think we do. And practicing on one's own with books or something like that is not the same as practicing with Dharma brothers and sisters and with teachers, because some kind of alchemy happens, some kind of energy or understanding is transmitted in these relationships, and I recognize how important they are, and they've certainly been important to me. And yet, I really feel that each one of us has to be completely responsible for our own practice, and that furthermore, each one of us is the only one who really

[12:48]

understands our own path. Maybe we don't even understand it too well. So, people have different ideas about this matter, and you may agree with what I'm saying, or you may have different feelings about it, and just as with me, it depends on your conditioning and your karma and circumstances. And it's difficult to talk about this intimate study of Zen, but that's how it's been for me. And all my teachers, all the teachers that I've worked with in the most serious way, have been Westerners. And even though I have encountered and studied to some extent with Asian teachers, mostly I haven't met any

[13:55]

Westerners. I haven't done this enough to catch the spirit that I was referring to, the calligraphy, the repetition, the sincerity, the copying. So I have a feeling for it, and I respect it, but I haven't really done enough of it. So this is, I confess to you, my limitation in the Dharma, and one hopes, as with all our limitations, that they can also be advantages too. So I hope that that's so. When I was a very little boy, I remember being shocked and offended, really offended and affronted and upset when I heard about the idea of death. I thought it was terrible that there were no exceptions. Even if you were very good,

[14:58]

you know, there were still no exceptions. I thought that was grossly unfair. And it made me, as a little boy, become very disillusioned with life. What kind of a thing is this if it's so unfair that even if you do everything right, and so on and so forth, they're going to get you in the end, you know? I thought that was terrible, unfair, and a bad arrangement all the way around. Of course, you know, we get older and other things start happening and one forgets about these childish ideas. But when I was in my teens, I remember being in my twenties, this came back to me again very strongly. And I felt like I was a child

[16:01]

again almost. I felt like I had gone away from being a child and then I went back to being a child. And it was at that time in my life that I heard about Zen and I thought it was a great idea right away. I felt like it answered these concerns that I had had. And I felt immediately that I was a Zen person, even though I didn't know there was any such thing as practice of Zen. Except I knew that there had been at one time in Japan or Asia, but these places, to me, might as well have been the moon. But I did eventually hear about that there was such a thing as the practice of Zen that was actually, you could do it, and even you could do it in America. And when I heard about it, I actually moved to California so that I could practice Zen. It's hard to imagine this, but I was from the East Coast and I came from a lower class family and I had never really traveled anywhere in my life.

[17:03]

And I really didn't even know anybody who had traveled anywhere, you know, except to like Philadelphia. I had been myself to Philadelphia a number of times. But I never knew anybody who had been to like Boston or Chicago. I'd never met anybody. So California seemed like very, very far away. So it was a great adventure for me to go to California. So I did that and it was very exotic. It was, I guess, 1970 or so, and all this California stuff was going on, which bewildered me. But I did manage to, despite all my confusion, locate a phone book where I looked up the word Zen, you know, and I went in Berkeley, because I happened to be in Berkeley, and went to the Berkeley Zen Center. And I told this story before about how I first went there and encountered, in the old, not where the Berkeley Zen Center

[18:07]

is now, but where it used to be on Dwight Way, there was a small lawn with two trees, like a little stairway up to the house, and then a lawn on either side and one tree on each side. And the tree on the left was a monkey puzzle tree, and the tree on the right was a yucca tree. Trees that one could never, ever see in the East, and bizarre trees compared to, like, you know, a chestnut tree, or a maple tree, a monkey puzzle tree, you know, it was really weird, and a yucca tree, unheard of. So I walked up the steps and here on the left, the monkey puzzle tree, they dropped their puzzles now and then. So there was this prepossessing fellow underneath the monkey puzzle tree, raking up the puzzles. And I said to him, is this the Berkeley Zen, though, because it was very, didn't look like a Zen

[19:09]

place at all, just a regular house. And he said, yes it was. And I said, who's the Roshi? And he said, there's no Roshi, just a priest. So, and his schedule's on the door. So I went up and looked at the schedule, and then I came back for the next time I could get there to Zazen, and it turned out that the man raking the leaves was the priest, and it was Mel. And I was very surprised. So I began practicing there, and immediately thought it was a good thing. Zazen seemed very powerful, and the teachings that I heard seemed to be really true. So I didn't really think about it, I just kept doing it. And then one summer, soon after that, maybe within a year or so, that I went to Tassajara and became a guest student. And in those days, Tassajara was fairly undeveloped. There was

[20:13]

no greenery or plantings, and they were building stone walls, so there were stones scattered all over the place, gigantic stones. And again, I had never seen such a thing in my life, these giant boulders. But you see, in Tassajara, I had never seen anything like that. I was amazed by the beauty of them, the way that the river shapes them, all the different kinds of minerals that are in them, the colors. And I remember in the courtyard, it was very stark, it was very hot, and the sun was beating down. There was no relief, it was just sort of rocks and sun. And in the courtyard, there was nothing planted, there was only this arrangement of rocks that Suzuki Roshi had made. And I remember looking at those rocks and feeling something about Suzuki Roshi's spirit from looking at the rocks, probably entirely a fantasy, but it seemed very true at the time. And I felt like, well, I was going to go there

[21:19]

and throw away the key. This was really the only thing to do. And so I went back to Berkeley. And in those days, you had to have the money to do this. So I began doing various things, but also saving money to go to Tassajara. And I spent several years doing this, and finally had the money. But then, fortunately or unfortunately, I got married in the meantime. My wife didn't have a pot of money, so the money got cut in half, you know, because we both went to Tassajara. So I thought I'd stay a really long time on my money, but it was half as long. So we went. And while I was working on saving up the money, I started coming over here to this room and over to Green Gulch to hear talks by Richard Baker Roshi, who had recently returned from Japan and also stepped up on the mountain seat in 1971 to

[22:23]

become the second Abbot of Zen Center. Now, it's funny to think about this, but I was never, you know, seeking out or looking for a teacher. This was not my idea. I just wanted to do the practice, and I found it very inspiring and helpful and instructive to listen to Dharma talks. And when I heard someone who gave Dharma talks that were, you know, beneficial, I would go listen. I didn't really want anybody to tell me anything or give me any advice, or I didn't even want to get to know somebody who was a Zen person, particularly. But I found the talks, as I say, pretty useful, and Richard's talks particularly were really convincing and very entertaining. You got the idea that he was making it up as he went along and that he didn't quite know what he was saying, and it was very exciting. What was he talking about? And did he really know? And wasn't that profound? And did you understand it? No, I didn't understand it, but I knew it was something. But it was very, it was

[23:26]

quite exciting and wonderful, and in those days we all referred to him as Bekaroshi, and for many years I still think of him in that way. But now, but I still know him, and I've spoken with him recently, and I'm trying to train myself to call him Richard, which he doesn't mind that, and that's good. So I call him Richard. I like to go to his talks. And I also like to go to Mel's talks. I found them very, very inspiring. And for a while there, Ed Brown was taking care of the Zendo and Berkeley, and I went to his talks too, and I really enjoyed his talks, and remember some talks of all of those three people from that period. I was not too happy about the idea of sangha or community. I had no use for that, you know, at all. I felt it was a necessary evil. If you wanted to practice,

[24:29]

you know, you had to encounter these other people. So for a long time I would just go to Zazen and leave without saying a word to anybody, and eventually I, you know, talked to people, and finally I got used to the idea. So in 1979 or so, 78 or 79, I'd been at Tassajara for a few years, and I had only, although I had started practicing in 1970, most of the time between 1970 or so and 1976, I was either practicing in Berkeley or I would go off by myself somewhere in Northern California and sit on my own. So in 78 or 79, I'd been at Tassajara a few years, and only been at Zen Center a few years, but Richard called me in to Dokusan, and he said, well, I had twin sons, you know, and a wife, and we were

[25:30]

all at Tassajara together. And he said, you either have to leave Tassajara soon, or get ordained as a priest. This also was not my idea of a good time. I was not intending to get ordained as a priest. My theory was that I would just keep practicing until I was enlightened enough to be able to stand my life and then get out of there as soon as possible. So the idea of, you know, becoming a member of the Buddhist clergy was not something that I aspired to. But on the other hand, I was not ready to move on either, so I finally kind of found a place in my heart where I could get behind this idea. And with some reluctance I did say, yes, I'll get ordained. And that happened in 1980, and my wife also

[26:30]

was ordained at the same time. And then in 1983, the Zen Center had a great upheaval, as I'm sure all of you know about. And this didn't, I mean, it was upsetting to me, but it wasn't that bad. I didn't think it was all that bad. Maybe because I had never really been interested in having a teacher, a teacher wasn't so pivotal in my life. When Richard turned out to have troubles and so on, it wasn't devastating for me. But it was difficult in those days to be around Zen Center, because of tremendous confusion and grief and difficulty. And it was very sad and confusing, and we tried to figure it out. I always felt like, how come hundreds of people can't get together and contain and understand and deal with one person? I couldn't understand why that didn't seem possible. It seemed logically that you

[27:32]

could do that. Why wouldn't everybody just say, I'm going to fix this guy, let him get away with this, or we'll just straighten it out. And probably if hundreds of people could have agreed on something or understood something, that would have been okay, but it didn't seem possible, so it didn't work out. And Kathy, my wife and I, we tried our best to help hold down the fort at Green Gulch, but it got too hard, and so we said, let's go somewhere else. And so we went to the Zen community of New York, where Tetsugan Glassman is the teacher. And we were there for one year, and that was the beginning of our time of studying in a serious way with other teachers, because for many years we'd only studied here. Didn't really have any encounters at all with other Zen teachers. So besides studying with Tetsugan, which was very important for me, I always thought that I was unattached to Zen Center

[28:40]

in its various forms. And I felt that I was, compared to most of the people, but I found out that I was pretty attached to it, and he's very good at pulling the rug out from under anything all the time. That's his main practice. So that was good for me. And around that same time, I started seriously studying with Robert Aiken and going to Sesshin with Aiken Roshi, and this was of enormous importance to me, and he remains one of my most important teachers and someone that I am in touch with frequently and consult about things. During the same time, also, I had some important experiences with Thich Nhat Hanh and Kadagiri Roshi from Minnesota, who would come here and teach and was avid here for a while. And especially with Maureen Stewart Roshi, who was from Boston. And our whole family was very close to Maureen Stewart, and our connection with her was especially wonderful because

[29:47]

it involved not only the formal practice of Zen, but we saw how our whole life could be part of our practice, because our relationship with her was our whole life. She knew our family, and we had hung out with her, and she was a pianist, so she would play for us when we went to visit her in Boston or when she came and visited us. And she always was interested, you know, would I read my latest poems for her? And would Noah, one of my sons, show his latest artworks to her? So this was a very important relationship for us. And it was very sad, you know, when she died in 1990, sooner than she should have, really. She was quite a vital young woman, maybe in her late 60s. And she died right around the

[30:49]

same time that Kadagiri Roshi died, within a few days of each other, so this was a pretty sad time. And all of these people that I met and studied with, I was really ready to meet these teachers and to learn from them. And so my encounters with them were very important to me, and even crucial, I would say, crucial to my practice. And so I believe that it's a good time with one teacher to study with other teachers. It's a very old tradition, and I think very, very important for us. So I was really grateful to Zen Center for, it was one of those things that, how lucky, you know, that I could have a family and be allowed to do Zen practice full-time for a number of years. It was really great, and

[31:57]

I was grateful to Zen Center, and still am, for allowing this to happen. But by around 1986 or 87, it seemed like it was about 10 years, and it was time to go. And this is when Mel and Reb, our abbots, came and talked to me, and they said, well, maybe you shouldn't go quite yet, maybe you should do Dharma transmission ceremony. So in a way, this seemed like an odd sort of thing for them to ask me, to talk to me about, because I was aware of my shortcomings and I was not, you know, a highly developed Zen person. But on the other hand, it wasn't odd, because it seemed like we were deciding that different priests, when they were ready

[33:01]

and when they had trained for some period of time, would go through the Dharma transmission ceremony. And my policy for years had been, and is to this day, that I will say yes to whatever is the next step for me in my practice. This is how one grows and develops. You say yes and you go ahead. You may have misgivings and reasons why you want to hold back, but it doesn't really do any good to hold back. So I said yes, without really thinking about the consequences of this and the meaning of it too much. Maybe I should have thought about it more than I did, but I didn't think about it much. I didn't think about what a big burden of responsibility it is to be a carrier of the tradition and have the responsibility

[34:02]

of maintaining it and passing it on. To this day, I try not to think about it as much as possible. I don't think about it, but it's true. It is kind of a big responsibility. But I felt that this was something that I should do and went ahead. They told me that they invited me to do the ceremony with either one of them, and I had had a warm relationship and important relationships with both of them. But since I started with Mel, and we had been so intimate for a number of years in Berkeley, and he was my first teacher, it was not really hard to realize that I should return to him for that experience. And so, in October 25th at midnight, 1988, we had a dharma transmission ceremony completed at Tassajara. Very soon after that, I had a terrible crisis in my heart, because I was sort of innocently reading

[35:11]

a book by Thich Nhat Hanh. I read a lot of books by him and enjoyed them a lot. In one book he said something like, I have no idea which book it is, but he said something like, �You should find a true teacher. And if you don't find a true teacher, better not to have any teacher at all. Don't have any teacher.� So this shocked me, and I thought to myself, well geez, here I am an official, registered Zen teacher, although there is no registry, but you know what I mean. And I said to myself, well now, am I a true teacher? Should someone study the Dharma with me? And I said to myself, I answered myself, I don't think so. It doesn't feel like I'm a true teacher. So then I said to myself, well this is a problem. If you're supposed to find a true teacher, and one isn't a true teacher,

[36:14]

and then somebody tells you you're supposed to be a Zen teacher, what are you going to do? Should I give it up entirely or quit or what? And this plagued me for some time, and I decided that I would better go ask Thich Nhat Hanh about this. So it took a while, but I finally got to, it's very hard to ask Thich Nhat Hanh anything, but it was almost a miracle that I had the opportunity. So I asked him, and I told him exactly what the problem was, and I said, �So what do you think? Should I just give up the whole thing or what?� And he said something like, �Well, in the Dharma, the more experienced ones have to help the ones that are less experienced, and that's how we all keep practicing.� So I thought, well, that seems reasonable. So then I felt much better, and I felt as

[37:17]

if I could go on and do what I could to help other people to practice, and where I had more experience and could offer that, I would do that, and where I had less experience and needed guidance, I could accept that. So that seemed like a good idea, and that sort of helped me get over that crisis, and I was able to go on. Anyway, in some talks next time, I would like to talk about other things and how I would like to participate with you in Zen Center and different ideas and feelings that I have about Zen Center. But for tonight, I just wanted to say that much to tell you something

[38:18]

about myself and my own experience in the practice, and I hope I haven't behaved too long so that I think there's time. I'd like to spend time hearing from you and responding to your concerns and questions. It doesn't have to be about what I've said. If you want to ask me biographical questions or things about what I've said, I'm happy to entertain those, or other things are okay, too. If you ask me a question that I can't answer or that I don't feel like answering or that is embarrassing, I'll just say, I don't want to answer that. So you can ask me anything, and I'll say that if it's too hard for me. So please, what questions do you have? Yes, John? You didn't mention any shuso at all. Were you a shuso at Tassajara? No, I was the first shuso at Green Gulch in the first official Green Gulch practice period.

[39:21]

I think it was 1986, and I worked with the Rev. on that. We didn't used to have practice periods. I think we started them here around the same time or so. Remember when we started around the same time. But it used to be that only Tassajara was the only place that had practice periods. So when we did our first one, I was the shuso in 1986. So I've never been shuso down there. New media at Green Gulch? Yes, well, this is the interesting and somewhat confusing point, is that as it is now, there are two abbots of Zen Center, and they're both abbots of Zen Center. Even though Rev. lives at Green Gulch and mostly teaches at Green Gulch, and Mel lives in Berkeley and

[40:24]

teaches here and in Berkeley, both of them are abbots of the whole thing. So this is a little confusing, especially when you try to explain it to someone, especially someone who's not familiar with Zen Center. It doesn't make any sense, but... Would your relationship be the same with City Center, pretty much as it's been in the past? Well, that's the point. I hope to... I will feel more... You know, as Tanto at Green Gulch, I'm always interested in the City Center, but don't have any responsibility. But I feel now that there'll be other abbots, and all the abbots will have interest and responsibility for all the temples. So I would like to come over here sometimes, like tonight, and give a Dharma talk once in a while, and give a class once in a while, as I'm invited by the leaders here to do that. So I think I'll take more interest and participate more here, because of course in the past I participated not at all. So yeah, I want to do that. I'd

[41:25]

like to come over here once in a while and do something when there's time. But certainly a lot more at Green Gulch. And I'll go to Tassajara. Right now my plan is to go to Tassajara at least for the next year or so, each practice period, for a visit, so that I can keep in touch with people that I've practiced with at Green Gulch, or somewhere else. You know, and have interviews with them, and give a class, or something like that. So that's my plan. Would you comment a little bit on the teacher-student, student-teacher relationship? You know, students being very active in pursuing their relationship with the teacher, and building a solid office. How does the student further the relationship, and how does the teacher further the relationship? That's a wonderful question. Thanks. Well, as I was saying before,

[42:36]

I feel that each one of us is completely responsible for our own practice. So I don't think it's as if one needs to get something from the teacher. So you should get as much as you can from them as often as you can. I don't feel like that's an accurate description of what goes on in our study. Myself, I've always felt like whenever there's an opportunity to have doksan with a teacher, I do it. I don't have to have some burning question or something on my mind. I just do it. So if there's a sasheen, and there's an opportunity for doksan, I go. So I think that's a good way to do it, just to go whenever you can. But one doesn't have to go constantly. There's different styles. In some styles of Zen, there's frequent doksan, short doksans. In our style of Zen, they're not as frequent. So in other words, one doesn't have to force something or be chasing the teacher around or constantly popping up,

[43:36]

Hi, here I am. But still, you always go to the talk, and you always go to the sitting of the sasheen, and you always go to doksan, and you just, in a regular way, without forcing anything or without putting your life out of shape, you just keep at it in that way. And certainly, I've learned a lot from my various teachers in ways that, formal and informal ways. You watch the teacher do something, you see how they talk to someone else. Sometimes you learn from the way they talk to someone else or the way they do something that has nothing to do with you, and you happen to be in the vicinity. And sometimes it's not the teacher, it's somebody else that's in the mandala of the practice center that teaches you. So, there are, I think, such things as deep and very important and life-turning affinities

[44:38]

that we have between teachers and students. But you know, in my experience and in my opinion, these affinities are not dependent on how often we see the teacher, and they're not dependent even on naming them or mentioning them. Sometimes we just feel that, we just feel it. And that's real for us, we know it. And often between a teacher and student, just like when Buddha held up a flower, that wonderful story in our lineage, they didn't really have to say anything. In fact, Buddha afterwards acknowledged Mahakasyapa, but maybe he really didn't. Maybe they had to stick that part in so that the Zen lineage could go on. Maybe the story's better if Buddha never said anything and nobody noticed that Mahakasyapa smiled. But Buddha and Mahakasyapa, maybe they never said anything to each other. So there's that

[45:41]

way. So I have people that I work with who I don't see very often at all, but there's a very strong affinity. And there's the feeling of working together even though we don't necessarily do anything about it. Conversely, one could be hanging around somebody all the time. As a teacher, one could have a student that's there constantly or vice versa, and yet the affinity is not there. And even though it looks like all this stuff is going on, actually there's not so much that's going on. There's not much real inner turning going on. So it's all very mysterious, you know. And it's the kind of thing that we know in our hearts, and that's enough. We don't need to know it anywhere else. So, I don't know. I mean, I think that for me, you know, to have the fortunate or unfortunate karma to serve for a time as an abbot certainly will change my views and how I work with people. And so, I don't know.

[46:49]

Ask me again, you know, five years from now. But this is how I felt about it. What works best? Well, this is a big unknown. In my mind, I don't think of it as being too different from the way my life has been in the last five years. I don't imagine it's going to be all that different, but I don't know. The way that I do it now is I like to, I sort of shudder at the idea of being in a sort of inaccessible person, you know. If you want to talk to that person, you've got to talk to that person, you know. I don't like that much. And I'm not like that now. Now, at Green Gulch, if somebody wants to see me, the easiest time, of course, is during dhokhasana hours, which are basically during zazen. So I ask people to sign up with my assistant, and then that way I'm always there and it goes pretty easily. So I do it

[47:53]

that way mostly. But people call me up, and sometimes I talk to people that I work with from far away. They call me on the phone, and I do a lot of correspondence, you know, letters with people that I work with. And I meet with people informally. I see people around, you know, and just stop and talk. So I find that what I have to do is when it's not time to talk to people, I just barricade the door, turn off the phone, and don't leave the house. Because there's a joke in my family, you know, like if they send me to take the garbage out, they don't know when I'll come back. Because, I mean, this is not unusual, that while I'm taking the garbage out, John Goins shows up. And I haven't seen John in, you know, five years or something. And he used to live at Green Gulch. And I say, Hey, John, how are you doing? I mean, I can't just see John and wave at him and walk by, right? Because I haven't seen him in years. So I talk to him. And then while I'm talking to John,

[48:54]

Terry comes by, you know. This happens frequently. So that's why I have to be willing to not come back for hours if I leave the house. But I don't have to leave the house, you see. I put it in a, you know, I lay in some food, and I have a bed there, you know, and there's a toilet, so I could just stay in there. And that's what I actually hope. This may be quite unrealistic, but I'm determined to see whether I can do this. I actually want to have times when I actually do that. Because I think it's very important for me. You know, I'm a writer, really, you know. And so I find that if I write things, I clarify my thoughts, and it's important for me to study, too. And most of my studying is just for a class, but I'd like to be able to study in a more diffuse way, because sometimes you're studying something that has nothing to do with anything, and then you understand something. And that's beneficial, to be able

[49:58]

to share that with other people. So actually, I'm going to try to have time in my study where I'm not communicating with people at all. Even if it's only five or six hours a week, that would be a lot. And I know that our present advocates don't have the time to do that. They never do that. They say they have to go to Tassajara. So one would have to be very fierce and disciplined about it. But it is possible, and I'm going to see whether I can do that. My main thing, though, is to make it clear to everyone, including myself, that, why would anybody have to talk to me, in particular, right? Why don't they talk to somebody else? Because there's a lot of people here who are teachers. And so, this is the most important point, is that the concept that everybody has to talk to the Abbot as

[50:59]

if that were somehow... I mean, I'm living proof that somebody could come here and show up and then blah, blah, do this and that, and one day they become Abbot. Right? So the point is that there's no magic about that, and there's no magic about me. So hopefully I can be a good Dharma teacher. I hope so. And I hope that somebody would benefit by something that I might say or indicate in their direction. But I'm not the only one who can do that. So therefore, it's a good idea if people will... We have other Abbots, and we have Tantos, and we have people who have been Abbots, you know, and so on. So this is a new situation. I will be the first... I'm not the first Abbot who will serve with other Abbots, but I'll be the first Abbot who will serve with other Abbots while there are former Abbots still teaching.

[52:00]

Right? So I figure I might not have anything to do. Nobody will want to see me. That's good. Then I'll stay in my study and sit in my computer and I'll write a lot of poems, and that'll be good. So this is my hope, you know. But it could be a management problem, yes, and people are always telling me, you know, you need a good assistant. But you know what I was thinking, Bhaskara? Maybe I could get a fax machine, see? Then you and I... But if I had a fax machine, then Bhaskara could help me do things, see, and we could communicate that way. Because the idea of having a full-time person telling me where to have lunch seems, at this point, like not necessary. But we'll see. I mean, I'm sure it'll change. But this is my biggest thing that I think about and wonder about, you know.

[53:03]

Well, my sons barely notice, you know, one way or the other. To them it's, you know, what's he doing now, you know, kind of. So it's not a problem for them one way or the other. But it's a bit of a nightmare for Kathy, because it feels like, you know, the whole universe is converging on our house, even though people are very understanding and polite and not calling it all ours and all that. Still and all, there's enough of it that it makes her feel like she doesn't live anywhere, doesn't have a home. So our plan is actually to move off campus so that she can feel like she lives somewhere and has her own space, just like that's what Mel and Liz had to do, because it was getting... for exactly the same reason. So it's easier said than done, this idea. But this is what we have to do.

[54:12]

So it's a pretty bad deal, actually, to be married to somebody in this kind of a job, because it is, you know, I mean, because students do things like get married and they die and their families die, and that happens, you know, and that's not something that you can say, call me about that later, because they have to call you now or you have to respond to that now, and so that's really difficult. I'm also a little different from our present abbots in that they were both seasoned Buddhist priests when they married, so they already had established, you know, a way of teaching and being as Buddhist practitioners before they married, and their family life came into that. And for me, I was married before I was ordained, and I was ordained with my wife, and so for me, family is more... I don't

[55:15]

know, I can't speak for them, I don't know what their life is like, but I always imagine that it's different for me in that way. Family, my family is more a higher priority for me than my students or my... it is my practice, so I have to take care of that, very important, and I enjoy it too, I enjoy my family. So that's also a problem that we've... our family has been working on this, and already, you know, it's actually probably worse before it happens than after, I figure. The anticipation of it is worse, so we've been working on it and doing pretty well right now, but we'll see. Did you... you had a question, yes? I was wondering what has happened with your childhood feelings about the unfairness of death? Well, yes, they did. I don't feel that it's unfair. I feel that it's life. So, I

[56:25]

understand death and embrace it, and feel that we all have to embrace it. And changing from thinking that it was unfair or to be avoided is a big change, you know, to embracing it, and that's been a very important part of my practice, and I think it's true for all of us. I think this is an important part of Buddhist practice. It's exactly the feeling that made the Buddha leave his palace, right? That's why the Buddha left, just because of this feeling, and it was his quest to understand life and death, and how, you know, like in Zen texts, we don't say life and death. We say one word hyphenated, right? Life and death, birth and death. So to have an appreciation for this is one of the most important things that we're working on, and it's very liberating. I think this feeling that life is unfair because

[57:30]

we die is something that most of us have a feeling, don't you think? We don't maybe even know about it, that we have it, but we have that. So to embrace our life completely and our death is the path, and that's what we're all working on. So I have changed, I think. Thank you. Other questions? Comments or advice? Could use advice. Rest up. I do, I take vitamins, yes. Yes? Besides just showing up and doing each thing that you're asked to do, why do you

[58:35]

think that the community has asked you to be in Zen study? Well, I never thought of that. Just one of those things, I guess. Why when you are walking down the street and somebody's working on a building on the fourth floor, and they drop a hammer, does it fall on your head? Well, you just happen to be there at the time. I think that's probably why. I mean, people must think that I can more or less do it, so, and I'm sure it'll be all right. I think that I can more or less do it as well. But I'm sure that others can more or less do it, so the reason why me is I was just standing

[59:39]

there. And it's a good idea for me to know that, right? Don't you think? Do you have any thoughts on that, by the way? Yeah, yeah. I mean, did you have an answer to that question that you were fishing for? I guess it was perhaps another way of asking, maybe it was rather a weak way of asking, what does it mean to be you, but to be feminine, to be masculine. I think that if I were asked

[60:48]

to be able, I would have some idea of why I was asked to be able. And often, like, the reason that you came is that you just happened to be there, and you couldn't take the garbage out, and you were sort of standing there. Maybe I would feel that way, or maybe not. I was just wondering if you had any question to yourself at all. Yeah. I understand that you've been a school teacher, correct? Yes. And I was just wondering if you could say a few words on how you've been praised as a school teacher, and how that was, how you saw that relating to your practice. Well, I was doing Zen for many years before I got my teaching credential, and I didn't

[61:57]

teach for very long. So mostly, being a high school teacher was something that I did for a brief period of time along the course of my Zen practice. So just to be clear, it's not like I was teaching high school for many years or something, or I'm an expert high school teacher. But I did find when I did teach high school that I really enjoyed it, and I found that my practice was very helpful, and definitely it called forth everything that I had worked on in my meditation practice, and so on. So high school teaching is a very hard job. It's much harder than being a Zen priest, I think. Much more difficult, much more challenging, and calls forth more than ... Because when you teach Zen, mostly people are very receptive and accepting of what you're doing, or they wouldn't show up. But in high

[63:02]

school, they think you're dumb, and they don't like what you're doing, and so on and so forth, and you have to convince them and make them do it, even if they don't like to. So this is much more difficult, and you have to stretch your personality and your skills much more in order to do that. But I found it quite wonderful. I really enjoyed teaching high school and have some lingering regrets that I was not able to continue doing that, and I haven't even entirely given up. Maybe someday I can go back and do it again. I was talking to somebody last night, a Swiss woman who taught high school, and she said it was the worst experience of her life, and she just thought it was a terrible thing to do, and she was amazed that I said I had enjoyed it. And the reason why was because she found it intolerable to stand up in front of a room full of teenagers trying to tell them

[64:02]

something that they were completely uninterested in, and they were sort of real disrespectful, and so on and so forth, which is true. So you have to, first of all, you have to get their attention, get their respect, and then you have to listen to them and figure out what it is that they actually care about, and then you have to make what you're teaching them relevant to that. And then you also have to be very fast on your feet, because you don't know what's going to happen next. So I try to have a mixture of firmness and like you can't mess around with a real concern for the students, because I love my students. Teenage boys and girls are marvelous people, and they have such problems, and they're so interesting, you know, and so tender that I had 150 students every day, and I knew them all, and I liked all of them. So they got that idea, they understood that after a while,

[65:09]

and so that made it a lot easier. Anyway, I'm sort of, I don't know if I'm saying much, but that's my general feeling. I think education in general is a very exciting field right now, because there's so much new work being done on how to teach. And the work is based on research that is very interesting and new developments that are very humane. My wife also teaches school, and I always am happy when someone goes and gets a credential and decides to teach school. I think working with young people is one of the most important things to do, because even at my age, I'm not so old, but even at my age, I can see that, you know, I'm not going to solve the world's problems in my lifetime. But the young people,

[66:15]

it's going to be their problem. So one wants to turn around and make a contribution to their understanding and well-being. So I think teaching is really important. There was a teacher at Green Gulch recently for practice. She was there practicing, and she asked a question like this when I was giving a lecture, and I gave some response to her. And then later on, she came to talk to me, and we had a good conversation about teaching school, and she said, oh, you should do a retreat or something for teachers. And that gave me an idea. I think maybe we'll do that sometime in the summer when they have time. It would be interesting to do zazen and talk about issues for teachers, that they could talk themselves and be in an atmosphere where there's like-minded teachers, and we could see if there's anything in our experience or in the Dharma that would be helpful. So maybe we'll do that sometime. Was there something like specific you wanted to bring

[67:19]

up, or did I get anywhere with that answer? Yeah, you did. I guess one thing I was wondering was, did the students know that you were a priest, and how did that affect your relationship with them? Yes, they did know that, and I had kept my head shaved. They did know that, and every now and then, I would meditate with them, which was astonishing how effective that was. It was amazing, because most of the time when I did it would be when nothing else would work. I had two classes of freshmen, and the freshmen boys are young, and they're sitting there, and they can't stop. So there would be times when things would get rather chaotic, and nothing was happening, and you couldn't do anything. So I would say, okay, now everybody stop everything, and put your hands on your desk, and put your feet on the floor, and sit up straight, close your eyes, and be quiet. Now pay attention to your breathing, and all this stuff. And I'd do a little kind of mindfulness of breathing meditation, and it was astonishing. They would do it, I mean

[68:22]

I'd make them do it, but after they did it for like three or four minutes, the whole atmosphere was different, and you could start all over again, and then you could actually do something. So I did that. And there were times when they would say, come on, can't we meditate? We haven't meditated in a long time, can we do it? So I didn't do it every day. I was very shy to do it, because I was a first-year teacher, and I didn't want to come in there meditating all the time, because it didn't look good. I'd get fired or something. I mean, if I wasn't a Zen priest, I might have done it more. But because I was, it's very tricky in the schools, you don't want to have somebody accuse you of trying to force your religion off on the student body, you can't do that, so you have to be careful. And I did have some, I had a very interesting class that had a lot of very devout Christians in it, and it just so happened that we talked a lot about spirituality and spiritual practice, because the books that we were reading brought those issues up. And we took a field trip

[69:23]

over here, if you remember, I brought my class over here, because they wanted to. They said, can we go and find out more about what you do, see, what your practice is? And I said, okay, we can take a field trip. But then one of the parents got upset about it, because they were very devout Christians and wondered about the appropriateness of it. So I had a talk with her, and we had a good talk, and we parted friends, but you have to be careful. So I didn't do it as much as I could have done it. And I actually talked to the principal about going back to the school and giving a course in meditation for the teachers and any students who want to go. That I could do, that would be what it was. But as a teacher, I felt a little bit tender about it. But all the students knew, and some of them thought it was really cool. I think it gave me a certain amount of respect. It was interesting, kind of an unusual thing. Also, I'm a poet, and so they knew that, too,

[70:28]

and that was very good, being an English teacher, see, and being a poet. So I had a lot going for me. But if you don't have those things going for you, you make something up. So, anyway. What else? Other specific things? Yeah. Well, maybe we're just about finished, but before we say the final chat, I wonder if you could tell me, my plan is to come and give a couple of more talks, one next Wednesday night and another one, I think, on a Saturday. And could you just give me a few ideas about

[71:28]

what you think would be the most important things to bring up in these talks? Should I talk more about, you know, my ideas and visions, or should I just give Dharma talks and we don't need to hear about that? What do you think? Any ideas, any thoughts? Yeah? Other people think that? Okay. Anybody else have any thoughts about that? Well, I really appreciate your attention, and it's really nice to, I don't know that

[72:34]

I've ever given a talk over here on an evening. I've come a couple of times on a Saturday, and it's a different feeling then. So it's very pleasant, very enjoyable to meet with all of you, and if everything goes well, we'll see you next week. Thank you. Thank you.

[72:57]

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