I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. It's going to be a long time before Sushina's over. Maybe an hour and a half. Anyway. I appreciated Leslie's tribute to me yesterday and today. That was really funny. That was today. And Leslie's always been very forthright with me. And so that's one reason why we've been able to get along pretty well. But she's always pointed out things to me.

[01:02]

You know, like what you said in that meeting wasn't really right or true or you got the wrong story or something like that. And so I know that she's always been honest with me. It's a big help. And. Well, we've been through quite a lot together over a long period of time. And.

[02:03]

So. I think that she's the one person who has been the most stable. And. Person at Tassajara for such a long time. And the wonderful thing is her ability to take any position. She'll be the Tanto. She'll be the director. She'll be the treasurer. She'll be. Drive people over the road. Work in the kitchen if she has to. Do whatever needs to be done. And not in a hierarchical order. So. This flexibility.

[03:10]

It's really been a wonderful. It's really a good example, I think, for everyone. Flexibility and. I never really heard her complain about anything. So. My tribute to you. As. Every day, something new comes up. And. The new things to explore. And talk about. And. It's really hard to take care of all that. There are things that I think people would like to have addressed. And also. Insights that I see from. Talking to people.

[04:13]

One subject, I think, that. Is of interest to people. Is what we call. Racism. I don't know if I call it racism. Maybe. I don't know if that's the right name. Matter of fact, I don't like the word at all. But. I think of it more as. Levels of. Power. And levels of. Distinction. We take these, you know, use labels. And then the labels. Create some kind of meaning. But. If we don't use labels, it makes it easier. To actually look at. What the problems are.

[05:16]

Seriously. Use a label. Creates a problem. And then we start talking about the label. Instead of the thing. In itself. There's a name for this in Buddhism. I'm trying to think of what it is. It's the signlessness. Sign. Signlessness is. One of the. One of the. Freedoms in Buddhism. Signlessness means. Not being caught by signs. A sign is racism. A sign is a word or a designation that stands for something.

[06:19]

The wish list. The sign list. It's. Seeing, you know. As soon as we name something. It's very convenient to name things. And we need to do that. On a dualistic level, but. When we assign names to things. Then we get caught by thinking. That the thing is the same as the sign. And then we conveniently. Don't have to think or deal with the thing anymore. We can just deal with the sign. And we have these great arguments. Over signs. And we never get to the real meaning of things. Or it keeps us from getting to the real meaning of things. So, you know, endless arguments. Endless speculations. So, when we use the word racism. It stops us.

[07:27]

From actually dealing with the real problem. And. And we wonder. How come we never solve this problem? As much as we want to solve this problem. How come we never solve this problem? How come we never can really get anywhere. Really, with this problem. Even though we have these seminars. And these meetings. And talking. Why do we never get anywhere? Well, I don't know if we can ever get anywhere. And I don't know if I want to continue. This particular subject. Unless you want me to. I have some. My own signs. My own ideas. About why we never get anywhere.

[08:29]

So, I'll share some of those ideas with you. You know. When we say. We. Who is we? To begin with. In. There's this. I don't know. Understanding. That people have. Zen center. Is made up of. White. Anglo-Saxon. Middle class. People. But. And I think that. There's some truth to that. But that's not. I don't think that that's. That's another.

[09:36]

Signature. Another sign. I don't think that. That's. What. That's the population of Zen center. I think that. If we started looking at everyone's background. In Zen center. Every single person. And every single person. Told a story. About what their background. Of their family. Life was. Or where they. Where they came from. And the history. Of their family. You'd find such a variety. Varied story. Varied stories. That would be totally surprising. To everyone. I think. There are people. From wealthy backgrounds. People from middle class backgrounds. People from poor backgrounds. There are people.

[10:42]

Who seem to be. From the white race. People that seem to be. From Asian races. Or dark races. And so forth. But. Those are just obvious. The subtle makeup. Of. People's backgrounds. Is. Largely. Undiscernible. You know. We know. That there's only one race. And that's the human race. And then there are variants. Of that one race. To me. The most interesting. Thing. With. People. Is. The variety.

[11:44]

Of racial characteristics. Of everyone. Whenever I look at somebody. Whenever I meet somebody. I don't care who it is. I look at people. All the time. Anybody I look at. I always try to figure out. What racial. Characteristics. Or what racial variant characteristics. This person has. That's the most interesting thing. About a person to me. Every single person I meet. I think about that. And I keep looking. Into their backgrounds. I remember. One time. When I was. In my 20s. And I was experimenting. Marijuana and stuff. Like that. We used to do all kinds of things. Like smoke. I mean like sniff nasalator. Stuff like that. One of the things we did.

[12:45]

Was sniff ether. And I was with my friends. And when you sniff ether. It's like. And then. There's this big hammer. That goes boom, boom, boom. In your head. And then you come down. And when you come down. That's the high. And when I would come down. I looked at people. And I was looking at my one friend. And I could see. In his face. The whole history. Going back generations. And generations. Of grandfathers. And grandmothers. And aunts. Like the whole makeup. Of how this person. Came to be this person. And how this person. Is made up of all these. Contributions.

[13:48]

From way. Way back there. The most interesting thing I ever saw. And. Having seen that. I. Can still do that. Maybe not as clearly. But. I can still see that. People. And I always look. See well. What. Sometimes I look at the male. And the female side. And I think. This woman. What is the male side. Of this woman's makeup. Going back generations. Or if I see a man. What is the female side. Of this person's makeup. Going back generations. So. The variety. To me the variety. Characteristics of people. Is the most interesting thing. So.

[14:50]

And when I see people. From different countries. And meet people from different. Backgrounds that are so distant. From my own. It's always the most interesting thing. I don't know why. We. Are afraid of that. I think what we should be doing. Is celebrating the variety. Celebrating the variety of. Differences. Well that's one aspect. That's my personal aspect. My personal feeling. One of the reasons I think. That. We never get anywhere. In amalgamating or accepting. The differences. Is because. There are levels. Of power in society. And it seems like.

[15:56]

White people. So to speak. Have a certain. Power. Through. Education and knowledge. And wealth. And. So this is the. Societal level. That has the most. Clout. The most power. And. In order. The Asian and darker races. To become. Aspects of race. To become. Part of. Share that power. It's. Very difficult. So. When we look at. An individual. This power. Elite says. Well you can be part of our.

[17:01]

You can be part of our. Culture. Now if you look at that. You can be part of our culture. It means that. This our culture is superior. To your culture. And in order for you. And it's okay for you. Who are inferior. To be part of our superior culture. So. That means. If I am down here. And the superior culture is up there. That makes me. Feel. Like a lesser. Value. Because. I have to come up to your culture. You can. Come up. As an individual. But. Your. Race or your. People who are.

[18:05]

Part of your racial makeup. Can't do that. But you can do that. So in order for you. To come. To this. Fairly so called superior. Level. You have to leave behind. Your own. Racial. Base. So. It's a kind of. You have to be. Somewhat disloyal. Maybe feeling disloyal. To your. Racial base. In order to. Be accepted. Into. The so called. Higher ranks. So. Who wants to do that. It means. I'm always inferior anyway. Because since you don't accept my background.

[19:08]

And you only accept me. It's not. There's something. Untrue about it. You know. In. I've been dealing with. Japanese. Soto Shu for many. Many years. And for the Soto Shu to accept. Us as. Equals. Is. Almost impossible. Almost impossible. Because. The Soto Shu. Makes overtures. To us. For acceptance. And it looks like. It's really going somewhere. But. They always take the superior position. And we're in the inferior position. Because they're accepting us. So.

[20:11]

Being in the inferior position. Means that. We have to do what they say. Even though they say. We don't. We don't want to control you. We don't want to do that. But they can't help it. Because. They feel they're in the superior position. Unconsciously. Consciously or unconsciously. So. We get to a certain point. It looks like. We're accepted. By them as equals. But they always throw something in the way. Because. We will never be Japanese. That's the last hold out. As much as they will accept us. We're not Japanese. So. That little thing. The little tail. That makes it never work.

[21:11]

Which is okay. Because we don't need to be Japanese. We don't feel inferior. Because we don't need that. If we needed it. We would feel inferior. So. There's always this. Feeling of. Yes. But. This thing is making a lot of noise. Thank you. Yes. But. So. It's always a problem. Even though. You know. We say well. We don't feel racist.

[22:12]

We don't feel. They don't like to use that word. We feel accepting. And inclusive of people. You know. And it's true. That mostly. People in Zen Center. Feel inclusive of. Other. Not other but. What other? Of. Who is it that's feeling. Who is it. That's feeling accepting of others. Of everyone. Except that. It never works. Rarely works. Um. I had this thought.

[23:14]

It keeps being elusive. Um. Um. It's always. That someone has to come up. Come up. We never. Can go down. And if we go down. To. That means that. Um. Uh. We lose the feeling of superiority. So. Then the question is. Well. So. Is your. No.

[24:18]

There's. Uh. Is your thing. Better than ours. Whose thing is the best. So. That makes. Creates. A problem. Um. I'll give you an example. I have. Had a student. A black student. A woman. Who had been. My student for 30 years. Um. And. Uh. I learned from her. An awful lot. Uh. When I first saw her I thought. This is. A very powerful person. And. She was always a very powerful person. Uh. And. Make. Hating the whites. But making effort. She wanted to study then.

[25:22]

For 10 years. She didn't know anybody's name. Because. Um. All white people look the same. Very interesting. And. She just had all these ideas about people. But. It was all fantasy. And. We were very close. Uh. We really loved each other. And we still do. But. As. As much as she would try to get close. She couldn't do it. Because. What's so much better about your stuff. Than our stuff. If I. Become like a white person. If I join your white society. I'm only doing it. To gain some prestige or something. Because actually. Our race.

[26:25]

My race. Is more interesting and enjoyable. Than the white race. But you think. That your race is the one that everyone should. Look up to. White people are so stiff. So. They can't jump, right? You know. Who wants to associate with white people. Because they're so stiff. And intellectual. You know. There's no joy there. It's true. So. Uh. As much as she tried to. Make that effort. Make that leap. It's impossible. Also. She felt. That to leave. Her black race.

[27:28]

And join the white race. Was to betray. Her roots. Betrayal. Like I'm up here with the whites. And you guys are still down there. Coming up. Coming up. We all think that coming up is a good idea. But I'm not sure that coming up is a good idea. I mean. What's really so good about the white race. That people should want to come up to it. It's a big problem. And to be the token. Black. In. A white society. You're just doing this because you need a black person.

[28:29]

In order to show off. I'm not going to be your black. Token black person. You're going to show off. See look at. We have a black person. In our saga. But then I say. Well someone has to be the token. Someone has to have the guts to do that. So that other people. Will. Feel okay too. But. This. Runs very deep. Big emotional problems. But I think we should just celebrate. Everybody's diversity. So that we're. All on the same level. It's not like.

[29:30]

People have to come up to the white society. Or whites have to come down. Come down to. Black society. Just. Be on a horizontal level. I know that's what we like. And hard to do. Just. Celebrate diversity. So that we can. Really. Enjoy it. How many. You know. People. Who come from. So-called minorities. Are able to actually express themselves. The way that. They feel comfortable. Not so many. But.

[30:36]

I do think. That in. People make an effort. The other point is. The point that I really want to make is. That there's also. Reverse racism. I don't want to use that word. But I will. Because. I hate you white guys. I hate racism. In reverse. So. And. This person. This black student of mine. Says. You know. It's your problem. To solve. Your problem to solve. But it's not. It's everybody's problem to solve. It's like. Not taking responsibility. Even though. You're in the low position. Someone else is in the high position.

[31:37]

And well we think. Well the person in the high position. That's their problem to solve. But even though. You're in the. In the bottom position. It's your problem to solve as well. Unless both sides. Or both constituents. Make the same effort. It won't work. So. The person who feels that they're. Locked out. Because of race. Has to make the same effort. As the person who. Is in the dominant position. Otherwise it can't work. So. Everybody has to. Lay down their resentments. And take. It's so difficult. Lay down their resentments.

[32:39]

Lay down their prejudices. Lay down their ideas. Their fears. Just. Participate together. And not accuse each other of something. And not project on each other. Try to see everything. Just clearly. Do you have. Any. Richard. What made me think of it.

[33:46]

Well what brought it to mind. I think about it a lot. But what brought it to mind. Was when I was giving my talk. The other day. And I said. I was talking about. Japanese. Cab drivers. Looking like farmers. I have to say that. I think Japanese farmers. Are the salt of the earth. No one. No farmer in the world. Can come up to the Japanese farmer. True. But. Japanese farmers also drive taxis. To. On the side. To supplement their income. Just because they're good farmers. Doesn't make them wealthy. So. I used. I talked about Japanese farmers. As taxi drivers. The taxi drivers. All look like Japanese farmers. Because.

[34:47]

To me. They did. I couldn't tell one apart from the other. Because I didn't know them. But I wasn't talking about. Making a point about. Japanese taxi drivers. I was making a point about my confusion. So. But. I think it could have been taken. As a racial. Slur or something. But I did not mean it that way at all. So. That kind of brought it up for me. But also. It's been something that's going on. That other people have been talking about. In a different way. Lately. So both of those things. Coming together. Thank you. I want to. Sort of. Maybe add in a couple words. To the discussion.

[35:48]

I think it's useful. To talk about the word privilege. Yeah. Privilege. And then the way we talk about it in race. Is white privilege. Those of us who are. Accepted by the mainstream society. As being white. Have other opportunities. For housing. Employment. And so on. And you know. The numbers are shocking. When you look at education levels. Or how much is spent on students. Or housing opportunities. Or so on. Or how much groceries cost in your neighborhood. Those are all examples of white privilege. So it's interesting. You talked about people from. The other word. I think. Is oppression. I think that. Racism. Usually is a word. That connotes. An oppressive. Type of relationship. And I think.

[36:50]

When you were talking. About people of color. Feeling like joining. White society. Made them traitors. It's interesting to think about what it might mean. To be a traitor to white privilege. What it might mean for us. To try to look at our privilege. For those of us without it. Is there a way that I can live. Where I'm not trading off of. My white privilege. And I don't think that. That the prejudice. Inherent in. You know the reverse situation. Is necessarily an oppressive. Relationship. If there's a person. That has the privilege. Based on their race. And they make decisions based on race. They have a power over somebody. Who maybe. Is making decisions based on race. As a survival method. Which is a different. I think it's a totally different power dynamic. So I think. It's really dangerous.

[37:54]

To start talking about reverse discrimination. On race. Because it becomes. A sort of false refuge. For white people. To hold on to their privilege. Oh well. Blacks think the same about me. As I think about them. It's just different. It's just different colors. Yeah. That can be construed that way. And there are. You know. All kinds of variations. On that. Description. But in the way I'm talking about it. I don't think I'm talking about it. In that sense. That. I'm talking about it. In the sense of. Well I think you know. In the sense I'm talking about it. By. The way.

[38:55]

Like resentment. Basically. And the feeling of oppression. Frustration. And. I'm not saying that. It's not. Just. You know. There's justification for it. So. It's just. And that's what comes up for people. Out of frustration. And resentment. And powerlessness. And it's.

[39:57]

Part of the reason. Why. It's so difficult to bring. These factions together. It stands in the way of bringing. Bringing things together. And so it's not a question of. Whether or not they have to work harder. On solving sexism. So I wonder whether or not. There's anything. That black people could do. Differently. That would make much of a difference. As long as white people continue to want to hold on to white power. I don't know.

[41:04]

You know when you're talking about it. In a big picture. Generalities. That's one thing. But when we're talking about it. You know. In this kind of context. I think it's different. Yeah. Like in a place like Zen Center. Where we're actually trying to make some. Trying to make some difference. Make an effort to make some difference. Not just you know. Trying to hold on to power. We're not doing that. We're not. What we're trying to do is. Find out. Trying to understand. How to make. Things come together. But looking at what some of the. Problems are. The big problems are. And doing it. And to look at it. From not just one side. Because if we say.

[42:08]

Well you know. If we minimize. The fact that. There's all this resentment. And that's. The reverse discrimination. If we ignore that. Then we're ignoring something. That's very powerful. And I. Since we don't like that idea. We tend to not. Look at it. So clearly. But. And then. We think well. We go back to think well. It's all our responsibility. We need to take full responsibility. But everyone has to take full responsibility. Can't work otherwise. Richard.

[43:13]

I wanted to say. My daughter. Schooled Berkeley. Which is. I'm not quite sure. I think a quarter of the school. You have to talk loud so everybody can hear you. A quarter of the school is white. And the other three quarters are other. Racial groups. And so I overheard. These two twelve year old black boys. Talking to each other. I was trying to go do my homework. And the other guy is saying. Stop paraphrasing. Why are you doing that? That's a white thing to do. Yeah. When I heard that. I said oh my God. This problem is big. It's a huge problem. Yeah. Very big problem. And we're not going to solve it tonight. I appreciate. What everybody said.

[44:15]

One more. Joe. I wanted to say. There's an author. She wrote a book. Called the margin center. The sociologist. Who also is African American. And a Buddhist practitioner. And echoes a lot of what you said. About in terms of her experience. In having to deal with this. Coming up. And loyalty issues. The whole thing. Really. Well. Written thought out. And. The other question I was wondering about. Whether. The whole idea. Of coming up. And therefore the white society being. Above all the other lower societies. If you could explain a little bit more. About whether or not you're saying. That's just kind of. Part of our. Storehouse consciousness. That we all share.

[45:25]

This kind of collective idea. Or. I don't really understand. What you were saying. By making the distinction. That there is. The upper white society. That we expect them all to come up. Again. Again.

[46:42]

Again. You

[49:06]

Well I'll give you an example that's happening right now, it's called spreading democracy around the world. That means using power to subjugate the world. Using false signs, one of which is called democracy, as an excuse to dominate the world and create slave nations. I spent about nine months on the Center for Diversity and Multiculturalism Committee,

[50:12]

and it was very interesting to me because there were so many issues in the room. There were race issues, and class issues, and sex issues, and all sorts of issues. I find it kind of interesting that when race gets talked about, it almost automatically becomes white and black, when we're doing this sort of Asian practice, and the only real minorities we have in this room are Asians, other than sex Asians. One thing I found really interesting as I got more involved with this work was, there's this whole people of color sangha movement going on. I thought, well, that's okay because it's nice for people to be able to practice together, but as I started reading the literature, it's like, you had to be a person of color to go. I thought, well, how wonderful would it be for me to have the experience to be the minority

[51:14]

in a practice setting, but there is no opportunity for that unless I go to a Chinese Buddhist place or something like that. So I'm not really, I sort of agree with you that I don't know what we can do about it, but it seems like the separate but equal strategy hasn't worked in this country very well for education or helping or anything, and I'm not sure it's a good model for practice, and I think, you know, San Francisco, I mean, I've lived near K Street, and I've seen the transformation in that neighborhood, and been to a lot of diversity meetings around it, and I just, you know, I'm not sure exactly what even the problem is, but when you hear that people say, you know, you've talked many times about people going to K Street and not feeling welcomed, and that's been even more so for minorities, and, you know, as a gay person, I experienced that rampantly in the 80s when I went there.

[52:16]

It was very cold beyond just, you know, it wasn't welcoming or inviting. And so, I'm not really sure that people are actually willing to look at the root causes of, you know, opening themselves and making practice available to everyone without setting up little practice groups that only reflect you and your specific issue. So, I don't know. Yeah. Well, it's a big subject. Oh. Um. Steven. When you were talking about hierarchy, you talked about hierarchy. Yeah. And also, in the last time you appeared before this one, there was some thought of everyone filling their Dharma position. Mm-hmm.

[53:17]

And when talking in the vertical, there is hierarchy. Mm-hmm. There are power positions. Mm-hmm. And in practice, we turn towards a teacher. Mm-hmm. For example. Mm-hmm. The way it's been handed down, we turn toward our leadership or our teachers. Mm-hmm. And model ourselves after behavior. Mm-hmm. You talked about drunk clubs and drinking and students drinking. And I think it's a pretty good thing to try, not their drinking, but trying to be like the teachers. So, for me, I'm wondering about with the leadership, you know, if the leadership is showing their interest in you, committed to you. Mm-hmm. And it will make a difference. I think it's true all of us have to do our part. Mm-hmm. But what if it's all of us? Each one of us has to do our part.

[54:18]

Mm-hmm. But I think it's really important that we see that the leadership is dedicated to them. And I was wondering along those lines about inclusivity, you know, it's pretty hard to fathom how we're going to live together, practice together, and make it real when it's like really hard to handle how our neighbor taxes the hospital. And this is among dedicated practitioners, you know. I was wondering in the early days, I used to see old tapes where there were outside deaf speakers from different traditions and things, and talk here as a speaker. I don't see that now. I was wondering if you could say something about that.

[55:20]

Oh, I can't tell you about what you don't see now. But I agree, the leadership has to show some example. The leadership has to show that they're sincerely interested. And that this is an important subject. Then that will open things up more. But I've seen, you know, this going on for a long time, and I am not interested in all the things, in most of the methods that I've seen in the past. I don't say they don't work, but I think there has to be some better, the main thing

[56:30]

is understanding. And I'm not sure that people yet on either side understand very well. I really don't know that people on either side understand very well. If you want to look at sides, I don't like to think of it in terms of the sides. You know, that's another whole thing. It's like we think in terms of your side and my side, this side and that side. And it's the way we think that creates the standoff. It really is the way we think that makes it that way. So our thinking has to change radically. Just the way we think, the lines of thought, the language we use.

[57:32]

This side and that side. There are no sides. Anyway, let's sit a little bit of Zazen before, to end the Sashin. Zazen. May I mention...

[58:00]

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