The third grave precept, not misusing sex. The original title of this precept is no unrighteous lewdness, a kind of tautology, which in Chinese and in older English too is simply a strong expression, double negative. Lewdness has rather a quaint ring in modern English, but its derivation is instructive. It comes from an old English word meaning unlearned, implying boorish, no boorish sex.

[01:11]

That's a good precept for us all. What did our Zen Buddhist ancestors say about sex? In my directory of some 5,500 koans, I find no entry for this subject in the elaborate index. I do know one pertinent koan, however, and although it is tainted by stereotyped views toward women, it also rebukes the puritanical attitudes commonly associated with religion East and West. In ancient days, an old woman made offerings to a monk, to a hermit, over a period of 20

[02:18]

years. One day she sent her 16-year-old niece to take food to the hermit, telling her to make advances to him to see what he would do. The girl laid her head on the hermit's lap and said, how's this? The hermit said, the withered tree is rooted in an ancient rock in bitter cold. During winter months, there is no warmth, no life. The girl reported this to her aunt. The old woman said, that vulgarian, to think that I have made offerings to him for 20 years. She drove away the hermit and burned down his cottage.

[03:23]

While we may question the use of the niece as bait to test the monk's realization, it is clear by the final response of the aunt that fundamentally she too disapproves of the misuse of sex. The hermit was not responding to the human being who laid her head in his lap. He was using her to express his own ascetic position. So the aunt calls him a vulgarian, a boor. Lewdness is boorish. Asceticism can be and often is boorish. Boorishness is just thinking of oneself.

[04:31]

She drives him off and burns down his cottage. Fire is a dream symbol for sex. You don't belong here. Sex belongs here, or at least acknowledgment of it. Back tracing this koan in my directory, I found that it is listed in the index under offerings to monks. The lack of any classification for sex is in keeping with the curtain that is drawn over the subject generally in Zen practice. After a careful search of the literature, you can find cautions by Doge and Zenji to

[05:37]

avoid sexual gossip, but that is about all except for this precept and its brief commentaries. I'm speaking here, of course, of the Zen tradition within the Mahayana. In the Zen monastery, food, sleep, zazen, work, and even going to the toilet are organized and scheduled, but it is as if sex does not exist. I am not so naive as to suppose that this could be possible, but I must say that the mildest kind of homosexual fooling around among young monks was all the sexual activity I observed in several months of residence in a Zen Buddhist monastery.

[06:42]

The case of the ant and the hermit is not included in the anthologies of koans chosen for Zen study by Harada Dai Unyoshi, the founder of the Sambo Kyodan school to which I belong, but it is generally a part of the Rinzai curriculum. Even so, I wonder how students can apply its teaching. In Japanese Zen monasteries today, women are admitted for sesshin only as a general rule. They sit in a separate room and only join the men for meals, sutras, and the teishos, and even then they are grouped together. And here I am speaking from my experience in Rinzai monasteries.

[07:52]

I am not so familiar with the Soto monasteries, but I must say, visiting Eheji, I have no reason to suppose that the situation is that much different there. Anyway, in the Rinzai monasteries at Teisho time, the laymen sit with the monks, and the women sit on the other side of the room with guests who just come in to hear the roshi speak. The message is clearly, Zazen is for men. Japanese generally place the onus of sexual distraction upon women. At least until very recently, Japanese boys and girls mingled very little in their teenage years. And the monk who went off at 18 to train in the monastery simply would not be able to

[09:01]

handle the presence of a woman in the dojo. Her appearance would prompt long-suppressed sexual urges to take over his Zazen. Mu would disappear, and the result would be failure in the doksan room and disruption of the monastic routine. The roshi sitting at the heart of the Zen training program is not likely to be interested in trying to make over the society that presents him with this problem. Within his own milieu, he solves it in the only way that seems to him to be possible, by excluding and segregating the immediate, quote, cause, close quote. This is a negative model for us in Western Zen, and as such, it can be very instructive.

[10:07]

Senzaki sensei liked the story of Eshun, and maybe you remember this from Zen Flesh Zen Bones. Eshun, it seems, did practice with a sangha of monks. Twenty monks and one nun, who was named Eshun, were practicing meditation under a certain Zen master. Eshun was very pretty, even though her head was shaved and her dress plain. Several monks secretly fell in love with her, and one of them wrote her a love letter, insisting on a private meeting. Eshun did not reply. The following day, the master gave a teisho to the group, and when it was over, Eshun stood and faced the monk who had written her and said, If you really love me so much, come and embrace me now. One of my students remarked that Eshun's action was self-righteous.

[11:19]

I'm not so sure. In her context, perhaps it was quite appropriate. In modern circumstances, we seek to be open in such matters and can appreciate her intention. In any case, if you were the monk, how would you respond? In discussing this matter with students, I said that I would go over to her and make a bow, or in our society, offer to shake her hand. Well done. One student said, If I were the monk, I'd go over and embrace her. This is a Zen-like response, but also very modern and Western. So far as I know, all the Zen centers in the United States today accommodate both men and women. This arrangement, like ordinary life away from the center,

[12:26]

brings a stream of crises that hinge on sex. In the Doksan room, you may be asked about the aunt and the hermit. The question is, in that situation, how would you respond as the hermit to the niece? Like all good koans, this one has only one sort of response. Doesn't mean you have to give the exact words, but only one sort of response is possible. However, the acid test of the mime in the Doksan room is the act itself thereafter. Here you are in your friend's apartment. The circumstances are thus and so. How do you respond at such a time and place with this person?

[13:32]

No dithering allowed. The acid test is also found in the Western Zen Buddhist training center, where men and women not only sit side by side in the dojo, but also eat together, work together, sometimes at some centers, even bathe together. How do such arrangements affect their Zen training? How is their Zen training applied in these circumstances? Though there are many problems, I think the overall effect of such proximity is beneficial to the practice. There is an experience of wholeness in having the other sex in close association throughout the day. Fantasies about sex are still present,

[14:35]

but surely they are less fierce than they might be if there were no chance to experience the humanity of the other in the give and take of cooking, gardening, and re-roofing together. At such a level, one is better able to accept the thoughts as normal and natural and permit them to pass. There are tensions in the co-ed community, but so are there tensions in celibate communities. People in combination produce tensions. Tensions can be used creatively or one can be used by them. In the broader community, we in the Western Hemisphere have gone through many changes

[15:39]

in sexual behavior over the past 65 or so years, particularly in the decades of the 1920s and the 1960s. Young people today may go through a period of sleeping with partners who might have been just steady dates at an earlier time. I have the feeling that these new mores are healthier than the courting games of my youth. People emerge from these early years of playing at six with a better sense of bedroom theater than we of an earlier generation could possibly attain with our preoccupations about making the grade or walking down the aisle.

[16:44]

There are deeper implications in this change. The sexual drive is part of the human path of self-realization. When our mores are relatively permissive, we have increased opportunity to explore our human nature through sexual relationships. At the same time, of course, there is more opportunity for self-centered people to use sex as a means of personal power. The path you choose rises from your fundamental purpose. Why are you here? The Roshi in charge of a monastery who avoids difficulties simply by dividing humanity in half had his counterpart in Western Victorian society

[17:50]

where exclusion and segregation were used as a means of control. With the help of our evolving Western cultural attitudes, we in the Zen movement can use sex in our practice rather than trying to exclude it. I don't mean that we should be experimenting with Tantra, but simply that we must acknowledge sexual energy as part of the Sangha treasure. Certainly, we cannot justify rejecting sex and accepting the other human drives such as anger, fear, hunger, and the need for sleep. All we have learned on our cushions proves that physical and mental conditions,

[18:52]

the will and emotions are human elements to be integrated into our daily life practice and our Zazen practice. For all its ecstatic nature, for all its power, sex is just another human drive. If we avoid it just because it is more difficult to integrate than anger or fear, then we are simply saying that when the chips are down, we cannot follow our own practice. According to the Gnostic gospel of Thomas, Jesus said, If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.

[19:56]

In the past 20 years in the West, homosexuals have taken this truth to heart. On this subject again, we are on our own. If the old teachers were relatively quiet on the subject of conventional sex, they were altogether silent about the unconventional. A Japanese Zen monk of my acquaintance became a Roshi, and a few months later, looking back on the counseling sessions he had been holding informally with his students, both lay people and monks, he remarked to me, I had no idea that homosexuality was so widespread. I thought it was just a very occasional problem. Well, homosexuality is a problem if society and the individuals involved view it as a problem.

[21:03]

My feeling is that with the encouragement of teacher and sangha, the individual member has a chance for personal maturity and realization through Zen practice, whatever his or her sexual orientation might be. Buddha nature is not heterosexual or homosexual. Buddha nature is, in fact, the essence and quality of energy, including the human energy of sex. Bodhidharma said, self-nature is subtle and mysterious in the realm of the ungilded dharma, not creating a veneer of attachment is called the precept of not misusing sex.

[22:08]

Bodhidharma was celibate, of course, and his words were directed to his celibate followers. Celibacy is an appropriate path for some Zen students today, but celibate or not, we can all of us find guidance in Bodhidharma's words. The non-attachment of suchness is the Tao of all the Buddhas. Sasaki Joshu Roshi has said, when you are completely one with your lover, you don't know whether you are doing something good or bad, or attached or non-attached, I would add. Dogen Zenji said, the three wheels are pure and clear. When you have nothing to desire,

[23:11]

you follow the way of all Buddhas. The three wheels are the actor, the action, and the thing acted upon. The lovers and their act of love are intrinsically pure and clear. There is no attainment at all. The celibate too, fully realized, finds Buddha nature, pervades the whole universe. Bodhidharma and Dogen Zenji shine light on our path, and if little is said about sex in any direct way in the rest of Zen Buddhist teaching, we can nonetheless use the more general doctrines of purity and compassion as guides.

[24:14]

When there is an easy drawing together, a new love relationship can be conducive to deeper practice for the partners and for the Sangha. A difficult relationship can also be a field for practice. However, practice can be disruptive, disrupted by actions that Sangha members perceive as boorish sex. If there is a wolf among the lambs, the practice may be overwhelmed throughout the dojo, as though someone had left the television going during session. And what if the teacher is the wolf? The words of Bodhidharma and Dogen Zenji are simply profound expressions of common morality.

[25:19]

It is up to the Zen teacher and his or her senior followers to build a solid road of example and zazen that will link the wisdom of our ancestors to the exigencies of ordinary living. I am especially concerned about the effect of inappropriate sexual affairs in the Buddha Sangha. There have been grave upsets in American Zen Buddhist centers recently, which followed upon affairs of teachers with their students. These cases seem to reveal blind spots in the minds of the teachers and indeed to reflect blind spots in Zen Buddhism itself. The teacher of religious practice occupies an archetypal place in the psyches of the students.

[26:26]

He or she continues to teach in their dreams. This is a factor that must be worked with in teacher-student relations. On the one hand, it is important for the teacher to be responsible for this power and to encourage the students to use its influence and to speak out when they think they are being used. On the other hand, it is important for students to avoid blind allegiance. For example, I once challenged a student about sexist and anti-Semitic statements made by his teacher. He replied, It is true. He is sexist and anti-Semitic, but he is the guru. That won't do, I think.

[27:30]

The function of the teacher is to teach just as the function of the mother or father is to be a parent or the function of the psychologist is to counsel. All of these roles set up archetypal responses and at best, such responses are positive and productive. When the teacher in the role of teacher confronts a student sexually, the archetype is violated and the student is deeply confused and disturbed. This is a law as irrevocable as the law of gravity proved in the suffering of earnest Zen students and their sanghas today. In the everyday world, sexual laws operate at an archetypal level.

[28:36]

The carapace... You know, my students in reading this all complained about my use of the word carapace. You know what the carapace is? It's the shell of the turtle. Turtle shell. Okay, I'm using it metaphorically here. Shell of the turtle. Yeah. The carapace must be removed in safety. The distinguished husband takes off his hairpiece. The beautiful wife takes off her foam padding. Each trusts a vulnerable self to the other for the intimate ancient dance. Mutually taking refuge in this way brings liberation that is fully protected. But the couple cannot create this protection by themselves.

[29:44]

Dante relates how Paolo and Francesca persuaded each other that mutual attraction alone could justify their affair. And they carried this conviction into the inferno. True partnership is freedom within a publicly expressed commitment. And of such expressions, marriage provides the safest environment. Without marriage, there can still be an agreement to establish a relationship and to work on it. Many people have been harmed by ill-advised marriages or know others who have been harmed and so shy away from an ultimate kind of commitment that has a religious foundation and would be hard to break.

[30:47]

They form relationships, often successfully, but the lack of ultimate commitment is always a factor and may prove to be the opening that permits a decision to separate when the relationship becomes difficult. Commitment in a relationship is the agreement to establish a practice together. The couple reaches a mutual understanding. It is not so much that we agree to love and honor each other, though that is an important part of it, but that we agree to love and honor our practice. We are two people involved in creating a work of art together. In marriage, man and woman cultivate a harmony

[31:51]

with their vastly different psyches, each completing the other, each finding the other in the self, the self in the other, the yin and yang of the universe at play in a single household. Consenting to any sexual affair will involve this dynamism of male and female to some degree. If the intention is directed toward establishing a practice, then the game can move toward liberation. But if other spouses and children are left behind, then the affair can be the source of acute misery. And if deception is involved, then the lives of those concerned are poisoned and the Zen practice, if any, is out the window.

[32:52]

Depending on character and circumstances, all this suffering either cannot be healed or it can be the whetstone for bringing new life. I am familiar with the argument that sex is fulfilling only when it breaks the established pattern that human beings are not essentially monogamous. This is the view of people who cultivate power to attract others, very different from the compassionate spirit of reaching out to them. Saving all beings is our practice, and in the home, this can be just the simple act of doing the dishes or helping with homework,

[33:57]

or it can be having a party when the kids are in bed. The dance of sex, the dance of life in all circumstances, requires forgetting the self and giving over to the dance. Sexual intercourse is the dancing nucleus of our home, generating all beings at climax, bringing rest and renewal. We reveal to ourselves the vanity of fulfillment as a goal when we daydream about sex. How much time have you wasted in the arms of your lover, perhaps a true lover of the past, perhaps a lover that never was, while you sit there on your cushions,

[34:58]

your back bent slightly forward at your waistline, your eyelids two-thirds lowered, immobile as a stone Buddha in mock zazen? How much time have you wasted as a zendo resident, fooling around in sexual games? The three wheels are pure. Can you realize this? As the Buddha said, we cannot testify to such facts because of our delusions and attachments. It is time to see through all those empty clouds and enter the source once and for all. There is no misuse of sex at the source,

[36:01]

no need to prove anything, no boorish self-centeredness at all. Namo Buddhaya Sangha

[37:04]

Namo Buddhaya Sangha [...]

[38:16]

Sangha [...] At some intellectual level, I sort of agree with you, but on an emotional level, I have a very deep feeling for Venerable Roshi, and I feel for you to come here and talk about it. And I think I'm correct in saying we're talking about Venerable Roshi. For you to come here and talk this way is very offensive to me, and in a sense, a longstanding deep feeling that I've had in my relationship with him. Yes, the talk was revised a little

[39:23]

after the recent events at Zen Center, but basically my remarks about the affairs of Zen teachers with their students or Buddhist teachers generally with their students was written as long ago as six years. But I did revise a little at this essay, and so you are correct that some of it was the result of recent events here. I regret that it was offensive to you. I see a point. I guess I've said it all. Thank you. Okay, yes. Krishnamurti has said that all methods are traps

[40:26]

and all disciplines are traps, and I was hoping you might comment on that. Yes, I'm very fond of Krishnamurti, and Anne Aitken and I taught at the Happy Valley School in Ojai, she for many years and I for a few years, and we both heard him speak and we've read his books and known many followers of Krishnamurti. And I firmly believe that there is a person for every religion and a religion for every person, and so I can only speak for myself with regard to Krishnamurti's path of no path.

[41:28]

And that is that for me it lacks a certain definition and it's very difficult for me to follow him beyond a certain point. And I have known, we have both of us known, followers of Krishnamurti who were lost... Yes. Okay. Yes. [...]

[42:58]

Yes. Yes. It's no easy, there are no easy answers to that. It would seem to me that sharing meetings in small groups to enable people to express their feelings and reach some sort of consensus among themselves and good communication between these smaller groups and the leadership is very important. I think that it is important to be concerned about the welfare of Bekar Oshi and I think that it is also important

[44:05]

to look at contingency plans. Yes. Yes. What if, and what if, and what if, and what if. So that when the present state of everyone waiting comes to a natural end we will see our way more clearly, how we may go, depending upon how the present period of waiting does end. I would hope that we could think along these lines rather than just holding everything in limbo and waiting to see what would happen and then having to decide, but to visualize various possibilities

[45:12]

and think about various contingency plans. I can't suggest anything more exact than that at this point. Yes. Thank you, Marsha. Stretching the metaphor of sex, I hope not too far. I'm interested in the seductive power of some type of magic or vision that holds the community together. I want to know what your view is of the proper use of such magical power. I think the use of the term magical power is very interesting

[46:18]

because the power of community cannot be explained. And so the use of such a term is valid, I think, if we can use it dispassionately and not in any superstitious way. We all sense the power of community. I sense this power in this community. And I know from talking with you individually and listening to your questions that you feel this also. It is the power of Sangha, the sense that we reflect each other, that we interpenetrate each other, that we intercontain each other, if I may use that expression.

[47:21]

This realization is expressed philosophically in the Huayen, in the Neta Vindra, where all beings, not only human beings, but all beings, not only animate beings, but the so-called inanimate too, are jewels in a multidimensional net, perfectly reflecting and containing each other, each jewel containing all others. And this doctrine is indeed being developed on an intellectual level in the field of physics. We become especially conscious of this, doing zazen together and going through the same experiences together, particularly deeply troubling experiences, somehow can help to bring a Sangha together.

[48:26]

It seems like one of the tasks of Buddhism has to do with dispelling some of the magic. On the other hand, to keep the community together requires generating magic. Mm-hm. Well, there you're using magic in two different ways, I think, good magic and bad magic, or something like that. Certainly, it is possible that some kind of false euphoria might develop in a community that wasn't real or that would not be appropriate or productive.

[49:33]

And I think that it is important at all times to keep a cool head and not be carried away by what one writer has called the madness of crowds, where some kind of organism, irrational kind of organism, seems to occur in which all the individual human beings are mindless elements. You know, I think that we should keep an eye out for that, but I'm not hearing much risk of that here at this time. I think it's important to do what we can to encourage unity. Yes? Don't decide it's a one-on-one relationship.

[50:40]

And don't. And don't. It's similar to a love with somebody sexually. It seems to encrypt it from me. It encrypts it from me. And the kind of loyalty and that kind of bond doesn't... isn't determined by the details of somebody. It doesn't seem to be entirely... It isn't even at all. It's even on the character of whoever you're in love with. Maybe. Maybe it's... Drop it. It's certainly true that the doksan, that the relationship that is developed in doksan

[51:44]

is an intimate bond. In the sense that all human relations have sexual implications, then I would agree that there is sexual overtone or quality. That's not what I mean. What I mean is that the loyalty that develops is so real that a person that's in love with somebody that betrays them is just as much in love with somebody that doesn't betray them. I see. And a bond is a bond. And whatever somebody does, the bond is very real. Like your bed. You may hate them, but when they're sick or in danger...

[52:47]

Yes, yes. ...it's always immobile. Yes, I think so. I think that this community will always feel a bond with Bekaroshi. Yes. I think that's correct. But, you know, I have been concerned on this subject since 1964. You know, that's 19 and a half years. It has preyed on my mind. And the monk who became Edo Roshi fell into the trap of using his natural charisma in a sexual way.

[53:49]

And two of the women in our sangha had nervous breakdowns. And this was the way, kind of accidentally finding out through medical records of the hospital cases that I learned of his behavior. And he left Hawaii under a cloud, this cloud, and went to New York. And I was not able to persuade people in New York that this was not a true teacher, because he had already made good contacts there. And I was not able to persuade the people who were then my teachers in Japan that this guy was a raman.

[54:51]

And I have watched his career with a lot of concern over the years. And it was with him in mind that I said some of the critical things I did in the original draft of this taisho. I want really to open my heart to you on this subject. I have felt very responsible for the suffering of many, many people by the fact that I was Edo Roshi's original sponsor in this country. And so, I don't know, I can hear your resentment and anger,

[56:02]

and I want to give it space. And I appreciate very much your loyalty, you know. Grief. Pardon? Grief. I beg your pardon? Grief. Grief. Your grief. Yes. Yes. Yes. What is your sense of the hope of this community producing teachers from within this community? I think that is a matter of time. A matter of time. Yes. Yes. A matter of growth and maturity. Do you think it's essential that we all stay together here?

[57:02]

Well, I certainly wouldn't want to make a judgment on that, you know. I think that people should be responsive to their own deepest motives. And that what I'm hearing from a lot of people is, I want to stay here and support the Sangha. I'm hearing this from many, many people. But that will produce a strong Sangha, will a strong Sangha produce strong teachers? Sure. But, you know, I think that our vision should be very long, like 10,000 years. And it may be that in the interim, other teachers will be brought in.

[58:05]

I don't know. It's very difficult for me as a guest teacher to try to second-guess what might be decided here. But certainly, in time, leaders can emerge from this Sangha. Yes. The lecture this evening, particularly the aspect of dealing with archetypes, and first of all, I think our translation of this precept is, do not misuse the senses. Do not misuse the senses? Boy, it says sex, plain and clear, in the original Chinese. Yeah, Maezumi Hiroshi's translation is, do not be ignorant.

[59:11]

But it also, in archetypes, senses, and brings in another precept, which is to say, do not sell intoxicants. My translation of that is, do not give or take drugs. And drugs being a kind of general term that would include liquor. Well, something I feel formulated in me is some relationship to this archetype idea, and people's projection onto this image. The formulation of the community around specific archetypes, that this Buddha Hall is set up so that there's somebody in the center of the room. That the Zen Do is set up so that there's somebody facing out, and often in the center of the Zen Do, facing the Buddha. Teishos are given with somebody facing the Buddha. Yeah. How is someone prepared to deal with the power of the focus of a community on them,

[60:23]

as they are the center of this community? And how is someone at this community, any community? And this seems to me to involve all the precepts, but particularly this idea of not misusing the senses, intoxication, magic, holding a certain Sangha or community together in some way. It seems to me that the Roshi must be completely settled in that place where there is no coming or going, where there is no birth and no death, where there is no good and no bad, if you will. Completely settled there, at ease there.

[61:32]

And... Are you there? No, not yet. Okay. And then, because he or she is freed from that kind of... from the kind of personal suffering and delusions and attachments and all those things, then is open and can hear the sounds of suffering of the world and can come forth in a discriminating way, you see, and say, I will do this and I will not do that, very clearly. In the Diamond Sutra it says,

[62:36]

dwell nowhere and bring forth that mind. Dwell nowhere and bring forth that mind. When you're dwelling nowhere, you are speaking from the place of true peace and you bring forth that mind. When you bring forth that mind, then you are bringing forth the mind of harmony in the world of samsara. Now, good point, you see. I'm not there. My teacher has a hot temper, you see. The teacher must be at a place where he or she is harmonious enough within so that there is a willingness to listen from outside. I say in another place in the book here that the teacher must be ready to hear that he is a male chauvinist.

[63:40]

You see. I've been told by my own students. You know, that we're all in process and there's a saying in Zen that Shakyamuni is only halfway there. Yes. So, but nonetheless, there is a certain milestone. Yeah, go ahead. Let me finish. I wasn't talking about you at all. But you see, I think there is a whole situation that, like, if you wake up in the morning, you go to Zendo and then you go to a job, which is the same group, and you come to a lecture, and you only dwell in one little circle, I think, I think you can become very idealistic. And then when something happens, you're so dependent on that structure that you build up with such care. You know, it's like he was saying. It hurts him because he had this great trust built up over him.

[64:46]

I think it's the process of becoming overly idealistic. I think if you have your respect out a little bit more, you won't be hurt so much, like I'm not hurt that much because I do a lot of things. No, I see your point. Yes. And that's why, when you were saying about how he has to be perfect, I know that the thought of him has to be perfect. That's why I don't feel so bad. I mean, it's unfortunate, but I know that the thought of him is a perfect man. I knew that he was just a man. Yeah, well, I wasn't really thinking so much of Bekar Ossi there in response to your question. But I think there is, without reference to anybody, I think that there is a certain milestone that one passes after which one is really ready to listen and is relatively harmonious inside.

[65:51]

And the value of these archetypes, such as Buddha, such as Kanjizai or Kanzeon and so on, is that they shine light on our path. And as to the archetype of a teacher, as I said, that's a heavy responsibility on the teacher. Now, we've gone around a little bit since your question. How are we doing? I think we're doing okay. I'd like to take it a step further. Okay. I came to Zen practice, other than Confucian, in a sense that I was interested in religion,

[66:56]

but all the religious systems I saw functioned in such a way that the power was always sent away to some central place. I became attracted to Zen because it seemed more iconoclastic. And I can see the value of a number of the ceremonial practices we do here, the mandalic structure of the community in relation to the Buddha Hall and the monastery and so on. In developing energy and maintaining, containing, and allowing energy to develop and being able to experience it and express it, and the use of structure in that way. At the same time, there's this incredible potential for that structure and people within that structure

[67:57]

to take energy into the center and never recycle it back out. And that, in fact, people who are on the periphery or just sort of extras in the group who are not finding, are not tapping into this, and are not finding personal, specific, individuated participation in this energy. And I find that that's what I used to call religion, or that's what I identified as religion already existing. And how does one use a system, develop a system, and not allow the system to steal from people? Yeah, yeah. And how do we know when it's happening and when not?

[69:00]

Well... I didn't expect an answer. Yeah. We need Hanshan or Basho or somebody equivalent to appear in the back of a hall, you know, and call it, and then leave. Or we need to look at the Diamond Sutra once in a while, you know. It says the Buddha is not the Buddha. Tathagata is not the Tathagata. The Buddha does not have 32 characteristic marks, therefore he's called the Buddha, or she. We need to recognize, as I think you were saying,

[70:06]

that our idealism is conceptual, and that we really must wipe away our concepts, really, really, once and for all. It's a beautiful thing about the Koan Mu, because it has no meaning. As someone who represents and has embraced the lay lineage, what do you think your views are about priesthood, usefulness of priesthood here in America? I don't know. I haven't figured that one out. I can tell you the problems of a lay center, you know,

[71:11]

the lack of continuity, the lack of a core group, the fact that at our last session we didn't even have a tanto, a full time, that is. Three people came in and sat in that seat one time or another, and sometimes that seat was empty. There is a kind of person who is a monk, you know. I think this is a valid calling. And I wish a couple would show up.

[72:15]

They don't have to be ordained or anything. Okay. We talked the first night I spoke about what can be seen as the laicization of Buddhism from pre-Mahayana times through the Mahayana to the Kamakura Reformation and down through the Topogawa period to the time when Zen monks were getting married in the late 19th century to the movement of Zen to America where the line between monk and layperson is quite fuzzy. And all we need to do is to get an idea

[73:23]

of how this contrasts with the old ways is to look at the Sino-American Buddhist Association. I was speaking this afternoon in the discussion group about this. They recently published their first issue of their journal True Dharma Seal with a big article entitled The Laity is Not the Sangha. And for them, a monk is one who has taken the 250 classical precepts and the 10 big precepts and the 48 little precepts and lives in a community with three other monks and the nun is one who has gone through a similar path only taking 348 vows and so on.

[74:26]

Big contrast, see. They represent a stream that hasn't changed and we represent... this community represents a stream that has changed to a big degree and Diamond Sangha represents a stream that has changed to a radical degree. But I think there is a general movement away from monastic Buddhism. The monastery walls are down and we have to feel our way to find out. It's as though we're in the middle of the French Revolution, you know. There's a lot of chaos and we can't really see exactly what the terms of that chaos are. It's only when we distance ourselves a little in time that we'll be able to understand just what we have been going through during this period. But I think there is a process of rapid change.

[75:33]

Nekin Roshi, I suppose I could have said what I'm going to say as we walk back to your place but I wanted to say it publicly. One of the things I think is happening in Tencent now is an awareness about speech that we haven't had before. And we have a lot of seminars and a lot of energy and expense put into teaching us... teaching ourselves how to communicate with each other. So while I'm sorry that maybe... I don't disagree with what John said I do want to make a public statement of gratitude for a demonstration of direct speech because I don't think it's easy to talk about precepts. I mean, in history, as you point out, nobody's done it or people haven't done it very often. And I think specifically to come into a situation where there's apparently been breaches of precepts

[76:38]

and, you know, it's not as if it's a secret from us. Sorry. I'll finish now. I wanted to thank you for a demonstration of that kind of speech. Thank you. Yes. I'm a little confused by your statement that monasticism may be a problem or monasticism may be on the way. My experience at Penn Center is that Tassajar is a very encouraging place for us and always has been in some ways. It works very well relative to the other complexities of creating a sangha on this scale. At least here on the other, I experience a lot of confusion for myself and see a lot around me. People who are training for roles that we don't seem to be fulfilling in a sense.

[77:39]

I've been around, I have many peers who have been around Zen Center for more than 10 years and we're not functioning as teachers, or perhaps I should say counselors. We are a support group and administrators to some degree. That's a very excruciating situation. It may be very hurtful. For me, the confusion is much more in that area than the question of monasticism as a model or practice. It seems my experience at Zen Center has been a very helpful and compact experiment. I don't understand what you mean when you say monasticism is a problem.

[78:41]

Maybe that's not what you're saying. I didn't say it's a problem, but what I tried to observe is that down through the centuries, we can see a movement away from the very strict concept of the Buddha Sangha consisting entirely of monks with a very problematic place for nuns. That there is a certain elitist spirit in the old way of regarding the Buddha Sangha as the entire support, really, of the Buddha Dharma

[79:45]

with the laity contributing to that main stream of expression in the hope that in some future time they might themselves be a part of that elite group. We're getting away from that, that old-fashioned idea of the priesthood as an elite group. I wasn't thinking in terms specifically of any particular center, but just over the centuries we can see these changes. It would be unheard of even to this day of a Theravada monk getting married. Unheard of. But it's commonplace for us that a priest or a monk marries.

[80:51]

So I was just trying to look at the kind of historical overview that there definitely are changes. And just as the Sino-American Buddhist Association shows one element, I mean, they could say, well, look at us, things have never changed. So there are things that you can say generally about this historical, specifically about this historical movement. But I think generally you can see an overall laicization of the Dharma. Yes? It seems to me that in some of the cases in your remarks at one point, well, when you were talking about it being healthier,

[81:54]

perhaps, to have men and women living together, I wonder if that might discourage fascism or correct fascism in some way. Make it easier to handle. Yeah. The implication I wonder might be there, if you were expressing some I don't know if I can say this. But you seem to have some ideal of men and women living together. Oh, heck no, I don't. No, no, I don't. No. No, I think that's unreal. Yes. So I think, as I said, that inevitably there will be an easy drawing together of a couple in training circumstances.

[82:59]

And when this is easy and natural, then their practice is enhanced and the practice of the Sangha is enhanced. You know, all the world loves a lover. Makes everybody feel better. Celibacy is a special trip. And it can take place in a co-ed community or a celibate community. Certainly, as I said earlier, you know, there is a sexual component to our give and take right now. So let's use it, you know, openly and frankly. To be aware of that energy is very good. Remember what Thich Nhat Hanh said about awareness. You know, it's like the sun.

[84:01]

When it shines on things, then everything changes. When we are aware of this, this, this, the quality of sex in our human energy, then our relationship becomes somehow open and, in a sense, purified. Yes. I have a question. I hope you can speak to it. It's related to what Thich Nhat Hanh was saying. And that's that although we seem to have to express an idea about participating in a community with a kind of cooperative form of our community in which we share responsibilities in some sort of way,

[85:03]

at the same time, it seems to me that there, at Cincinnati, there has also long been a sort of fascination with charisma or a real desire to, I don't know how to express it, but there's some desire to have someone else solve my problems. Yes, yes. And there's, I think, something very deep and very human, you know, related to make the age-old institution of kingship, which we don't really think of as American, but it seems like there's something real there, you know, that's also going on here at Cincinnati. I think part of the reason that the Sangha is so powerful and part of the reason that we're all here

[86:06]

and that there's so many people at lecture and so few people at thought meetings is that we're somehow fascinated by this, this, I don't know whether it's an archetype to use the term archetype, but fascinated with this notion or this feeling that somebody else can lead us or guide us or tell us, you know. Do you understand the point? Exactly. There's really different things going on there. We both have some strength to them. Yes. So, I think it's very important, again, that we be conscious of this pull that we all of us have for passive dependency, to have some figure tell us what's what.

[87:07]

And this is why I appreciated, you know, the first question. That's the kind of action that we want, you know, a challenge. And what makes for real community health and not a kind of sticky cohesion, but real community health is the feeling that he's the teacher, all right, or she's the teacher, all right, but it's my responsibility to keep that person the teacher. In other words, to check that person. See? What you said right there made me really mad, you know, to call it and to try to work it out,

[88:10]

because in that kind of mondo, in that kind of dialogue, emerges a synthesis that neither could achieve alone. Neither the teacher nor the Sangha could achieve alone. So there must be challenge. The students must be ready to use the teaching and, again, not be used by it. The joshu, you know, great joshu said, a monk asked him, How may I use the 24 hours? He said, You are used by the 24 hours. I use the 24 hours. There's a big difference there.

[89:11]

See? How do you hear my words? Do you use my words or are you used by them? So, when we catch ourselves falling into this kind of passive dependency, then it's important to sort of summon up the essential gumption and speak out. The person who said to me, Yes, this was not a Buddhist teacher, by the way, Yes, my teacher is sexist and anti-Semitic, but he's the guru. See? I really am appalled by that kind of attitude. I think it's very harmful and dangerous. You see it in the worst examples,

[90:19]

you know, in the monies and people like that. How's that? Yeah, I think we have some institutions here, like, for example, the race platform that often the teacher lectures on, which, on the one hand, is designed to help the teacher and to reinforce that sense of authority, but, on the other hand, it's kind of hard when they're out there and you're down here to really assert yourself. Well, I can see that it would be awkward to speak out in a group unless you're really kind of worked up, but it's certainly possible to corner the teacher afterwards and say, Hey, you know, when you said that in lecture, I didn't really understand, or whatever you want to say about it, you know. I thought it was a mistake, or whatever you want to say. I don't speak on one of these

[91:25]

in the Diamond Sangha. I sit in a chair, but the reason for that is so I can see everybody and everybody can see me.

[91:31]

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