their identity. It was not a description of historical reality from a sociologist's perspective, but it was a description of their religious experience. And that was the story that I was most interested in. And so I wanted to know where did these women today in Japan, Soto Zen nuns today, where did they get this positive view of themselves? And in a book that they, it says it's edited by this man, but the people who actually did the work were the nuns. This is not an unfamiliar story, but the people who did the work to compile the material in the book called the Nisoshi were the nuns. And they recount history as they see it. And it begins with the part of history that's not included in most historical

[01:02]

texts dealing with the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, which is that the first ordained Buddhists in Japan were women. In 584 CE, the first woman ordained, her ordination name was Zenshin-ni. And I have to apologize. You've gotten this handout. And I came prepared to do one thing with some embellishments. And then after I got here, I realized what would be more valuable. And I started scribbling. I'm not sure my scribbles help much. And I'll write on the board for anything that's not clear. The first handwriting, Zenshin-ni, just so I have the spelling there, she's the first ordained Buddhist, not the first ordained nun, first ordained Buddhist in Japan, Japanese. And later was followed by two other nuns,

[02:03]

Zenzo-ni and Ezen-ni. The three of them went off. So this is where the Soto Zen nuns in Japan start, if you want to call it. They didn't use these terms, but this is where they start their lineage with the first ordained Buddhist nuns in Japan, first ordained Buddhists in Japan being nuns. And they went to what is now Korea to get the full Vinaya and Bhiksuni ordination. As you perhaps know, you need a quorum of 10. And they came back just a quorum of three. And so they could not pass on the lineage directly to women in Japan. But Japanese Buddhists, male and female alike, because of the Japanese worldview, attention to Vinaya regulations, and that's often the determining factor of what lineage you're

[03:04]

in, where did you get your Vinaya regulations from, which line of Vinaya regulations. This has not been a very important aspect of Japanese Buddhism for men and women. So nuns, Buddhist nuns in other traditions sometimes don't even recognize Japanese Buddhist nuns as Bhiksuni. It's not such a big problem. And the fact that the first ordained Buddhists were women is also, that is not an anomaly for Japanese Buddhist history. Because women during that time period in Japanese culture were at the center of the religious sphere. The religious and political sphere was not clearly distinguished. The words in English are very clear, but the

[04:09]

words in Japanese, the person with the power is a religious person and was usually a shamanist. So that the first ordained Buddhists are women is just to recognize that to choose a woman to be ordained was natural for this time period. It would have been more unusual if the first person had been a man, actually, from what I could tell from the history. But then to make a long story short, the male influence coming, I think, from Confucianism, coming over from China, men started not recognizing women as having higher power than them or even having equivalent power to them. As was referred to earlier, they were not allowed up to the main monastery where the ordination platform was held in Tendai Buddhism on Mount

[05:15]

Hiei. And this was another clue. What little there has been on Japanese Buddhist, history of Japanese Buddhist nuns have interpreted this. Well, the fact that the nuns could not go, they could not, women could not go up and get ordained at this temple tells us they were inferior. And they, but some scholars have recognized that they had a form of ordination called Bosatsukai-ni or Bodhisattva vow nun, which is 16 vows. And this is something that men also started doing at the time. And they cite this as proof that women are inferior. But I look at that same data and see it's proof that they were creative, that they were not going to let the male-dominated institution tell them, you can't get ordained. And so you, they developed the Bosatsukai-ni ordination and did their own practices. And here, this

[06:20]

is a poem that I think suggests the attitude of women from this time period. This is, we're talking 10th, 11th century. With the scent of just one flower as my guide, won't I too see all the numberless Buddhas? So this attitude of not seeing obstacles, but seeing opportunities, being creative in responding to the situation, but not letting the situation take away their power. And then I'm jumping now to the 13th century with Dogen, the nuns under Dogen. You can see on your sheet here where it gets into the typing. This is from the book. He had several disciples, female disciples. And the first of his disciples, her name is Ryonen-ni, Ryonen. And

[07:29]

she's attributed with being the primary influence on Dogen's most explicit teaching on the equality of male and female practitioners in the fascicle, the Bendowa. And she became his disciple a month before he wrote this fascicle. And other writings that he gave, you can tell me, do you want to hear the names of all these texts that are proof? You want to? Okay. So he writes in the Eihei Kouroku Daihachi Hougo, you're really sure you want to hear all these? Okay. That she was a nun who was, she was a person deeply devoted to the great way of the Buddhas, and that she had peerless bodhicitta. In the Eihei Kouroku, in the 10th chapter, we also find that he's written a poem upon her death with a reference to snow suggesting she must have died in the

[08:35]

winter. The fact that he would stop to write a poem about her also tells us that she was an important disciple. Menzan Zenji also writes in the Teihou Kenzeiki Kouroku Soseki, that Dogen had a disciple called Ryonen-bikuni, which he used the full ordination title. She was apparently an elderly woman when she came under his tutelage, and is remembered for practicing intensely and making great strides in her understanding of the Dharma. She's said to have known the Zen from the marrow of her bones, and was compared to a prominent nun that Dogen had heard about in China, Masan Ryonen-ni. They were both highly respected in their own spheres, and serve as proof that

[09:37]

women are capable of realizing ultimate enlightenment. And there are interpretations of Dogen that suggest he changed his mind about women once he moved to Eiheiji, that are from all that I can determine, are supported on a text, the Shukkei Kudoku, in one line, towards the end of the text, that all these same scholars agree has been edited after Dogen's death. A text that, I had it counted out before, I don't remember now, but has numerous references early throughout the whole text about positive views of women, even citing vow, I don't know, 103 or something of Shakyamuni, if a woman, if someone interferes, is an obstacle to a woman's practice, blah-de-blah, and then at the

[10:38]

very end, there's a sentence that says that enlightenment in a female body is not the true enlightenment. Now, I don't think it takes a sleuth to imagine that if you're going to try and edit a text and try and assert that someone thought something differently than was in the text, the easiest thing to do, perhaps stupid, but the easiest thing to do is just to tag it on the end. It does not, it's not at all integrated in the whole text, which is very positive about women, Dogen's views of women, and this is the basis for scholars saying that women, Dogen changed his mind about women's ability to practice and attain enlightenment, and the Soto Zen nuns today do not buy this at all. And there's another nun, her name is Shogaku Zen Ni, who we find her recorded in the

[11:47]

Eihei Sanso Gyo Gyoki, and she, there were many female patrons, and she donated the funds to construct the Dharma Hall at Kosho-ji, Dogen's first monastery, and this is, she was ordained on September 3rd in 1225, and when I visited Kosho-ji, I haven't gone back to check, maybe someone knows, they have, in addition to all the people in the lineage, they also add the people specific to that temple who've been very important in the morning services, and her name is not there, and so I asked why her name was not there, since she was the one who provided the initial funds. Granted, the temple has burned down since then, and the actual building is not the same one from, you know, the 1200s. They were a little bit embarrassed, but I don't know if they've fixed that. Another nun who is under the discipleship of Dogen is Eshin Bikuni, we find her in Volume 2 of the Eihei Kodoku,

[12:58]

and in this section where she's mentioned, he's written, Dogen's written about death in general, and apparently gave a service in memory of her father. Also, this tells us something that Dogen was not as anti-ritual or against memorial services as sometimes it has been suggested. Then another nun, Egini, was originally a Darumashu nun, and was a disciple of Kakuwan, who was a disciple of Dainichi Noni, the founder of the Darumashu. She first met Dogen in 1234 at Kosho-ji, and remained under his tutelage, moving with him to Echizen, again proving that Dogen did not change his mind upon moving over to Eihei-ji. Also cited in Volume 5 of the Eihei Kodoku,

[14:01]

and the reason I went through and got all these, I don't like this kind of research where you've got a tit-for-tat, this text, and all these little details, but the Soto Zen scholarship, of course, in order to hear the voice of these women, even with all this data, Zen Buddhist scholars, on the whole, are reluctant to admit, both in Japan and the U.S., Dogen was so involved in supporting women's practice. But in any case, in Volume 5 of the Eihei Kodoku, perhaps on an occasion where there was a memorial service for Dogen's mother, he cites her being present, and Egini was the Dharma sister of Ekan, Ejo, and Esho, and you probably know at least Ejo. This makes her the Dharma aunt of Gikai. She spent 20 years with Dogen, and near the end, served as the person to take care of him when he was ill,

[15:20]

which some have suggested, oh yes, that's women's work. I was at a conference, and a scholar said that, and clearly did not know the dynamics within a monastery, that the master, people are competing to be close to the master, and for someone to see the master in a very vulnerable condition, being very ill, is not something you just regulate to a woman, but is reserved for a person that the master trusts and is competent. So I don't see the fact of her serving at a sickbed as another suggestion of him not respecting women, but as more proof that he trusted Egini. She remained an important figure in Soto-zen throughout the next generation, being the Dharma sister of Ejo, the next heir. Then moving on to Keizan, there are other nuns here, but I want to jump to Keizan.

[16:35]

Keizan, who had many female disciples, his inspiration for having so many female disciples was his mother. Her name is Ekan Daishi, dying circa 1314, and he says that he learned his religious devotion from his mother, and records indicate that she was the abbess of a temple called Jojo-ji in 1309, and then in 1323, Keizan built a temple in honor of his mother, an Amadera, or nun's temple, called Ho-o-ji, H-o-o, two long O's, Ho-o-ji, and this is recognized as the first Soto sect Amadera, the first official nun's temple in the Soto sect. In 1323, he appointed his mother's niece, his cousin, Keizan's cousin,

[17:43]

Myoshin-ni, as the abbess of this temple, and then again on May 23rd, 1325, at this point Keizan is 58, he vowed to help women in the three worlds and ten directions in memory of his mother, Ekan Daishi, and in the Jokin Hatsuganmon, Keizan, this is quote, praised Ekan, his mother, for having dedicated her life to teaching Buddhism to women. Keizan inherited her dedication. His disciple, Ekyu, was the first nun known to have received a Soto Dharma transmission. The other nuns were actually more affiliated with Dharmasu, even though they were under Dogen. To help her overcome the difficulties of Chinese, Keizan rewrote Dogen's explanation of the precepts in the Japanese phonetic syllabary, and records indicate that Keizan had about 30 nuns under his leadership, and I don't have the full details of all of the nuns, some of the names though, I'll talk about two in particular, Sonin-ni and Shinmyo-ni, but there's also, I mentioned Ekyu-ni, there's Myosho-ni,

[19:06]

Ninkai-ni, Shinsho-ni, Jounin-ni, Ennin-ni, so if you want to include all these in the lineage, I don't have the whole list of 30, but perhaps I can help dig them out. The nun Sonin-ni, and this may be of interest to you, Keizan, he spoke about a kind of Shukke of the heart versus Shukke of the body. Dogen did not accept this distinction. Shukke of the body referring to being celibate, and Shukke of the heart, leaving the home in your heart, but you could still have a family. And he ordained Sonin-ni with her husband in 1312, Keizan that is, ordained them.

[20:11]

And then on January 14th of 1322, another husband and wife took ordination under Keizan at Yoko-ji, and this nun is named Shinmyo-ni. It suggests that she was at an advanced age when she took ordination. It mentions her husband's age at the time, which was 83. So Keizan, the Soto Zen nuns today recognize Keizan as a major figure in their own history in supporting women and demonstrating the equality of men and women in practice. So there's a fondness about Keizan that the Soto Zen nuns have today. Then jumping to the Tokugawa period, we're now in late 1600s, 1700s. There's a nun named Eshun-ni, which I didn't get on your photocopy, I don't think, which is probably hard to read anyways.

[21:25]

But Eshun-ni is an example of a nun in the Tokugawa period, a feudalistic time period. Lots of strictures put on lots of people, not just women. And there's a temple in Odawara, just outside of Tokyo called Saiko-ji, or more commonly known as Daiyuzan. And there's a statue of her that people worship. The story is that she wanted to get ordained, but her brothers forbid her because of her peerless beauty. But unflinching in her resolve to commit her life to the Dharma, she again, you know, a Western feminist would be appalled at her method.

[22:27]

But it was effective at getting the final goal, which was what was important to her, is she burned her face in a hibachi stove. And then they let her get ordained uncontested. Again, her dates, 17th century. I have the specific dates somewhere, but not here. You can go and light a candle and incense to her in Odawara at Daiyuzan. It's a beautiful, beautiful temple in the mountains with lots of great cedar trees and mist. And the image to her is, it's a stone carving where you see the outline of a nun and then flames coming out from her. Of course, referring to her act of burning. No, there's more than one nun who's burned her face. Yeah. And then jumping up to the 20th century or just before it, women find themselves in a lot of strictures.

[23:49]

The regulations are very unfair. The highest level that a nun can attain is lower than lowest monks, which also then keeps nuns from entering their at least three different levels of temples. And nuns can't even get into the temple level. They're in what were called hermitages or an. They couldn't even get, you know, a G, the temple level. They could only wear black robes, which are the robes of novices, regardless of their amount of time practice or their attainments. They were not supported at all in formal sodos or monasteries, keeping them out of getting higher levels of education. And they couldn't study at any of the Buddhist universities. That's where they started. And let me tell you about the first nun in this history that goes from this complete inequality structurally to complete parity, at least on paper, structurally.

[25:04]

There's a nun called Kanko Nii, and she lived in Kyoto. And she is the teacher of the four women who founded the nunnery in Nagoya, the Aichi Senmo Nisodo that some of you have visited, where the abbess is Aoyama Shundo, the author of Zen Seeds. Kanko Nii, she did something, aside from raising great disciples, she did something that I think was very insightful. There is a ritual, and again this tells us more about the Japanese women's way of negotiating through difficulties. Kanko Nii looked into a ritual that had not been practiced called the Anankoshiki. Ananda is the man that the legend says women, Mahaprajapati, spoke to and he intervened on behalf of the women to Shakyamuni to allow women to be ordained.

[26:18]

And Aoyama Sensei's take on this is that when Ananda invoked that, although Mahaprajapati was his stepmother, she still was nonetheless the person who raised him, her interpretation is the final reason why in the legend Shakyamuni Buddha gives in to Ananda's plea to allow women to be ordained is that he invokes that she is your mother and you need to respect her. And that tells us perhaps something historically, although I don't completely buy this story, the legend, but it tells us something at least about what Aoyama Sensei thinks is important, how the role of mothers in Buddhist practice. Now this Anankoshiki ceremony, I'm going to show a little bit of a short version of it called the Anantan tomorrow and I'll give you more analytical explanation of it and how it's worked in the nun's history,

[27:30]

but in short, I think it's no coincidence that the nun who revitalized this ceremony is the teacher of the nun who was actively founding an institution for nuns to practice in. Even before the sect administration acknowledged these efforts, they decided to take their own practice and education into their own hands. The ritual is a ritual of gratitude and in short, the way I see it functioning is it sounds very Indian to Japanese ears and perhaps to your ears, you can hear tomorrow. Tell me what you think. And so it transports you back to India where Mahaprajapati and Shakyamuni and Ananda lived and what that does is it establishes the lineage connection between the women at that time or whenever they're doing it today even, the women today and the first ordained Buddhist woman.

[28:44]

The ritual has that power to do that. So any question of legitimacy or authenticity evaporate because the women have established in the power of the ritual their connection and it involves esoteric chanting that even the most advanced people can't understand. If you want to see, you can see some of that part of the ritual too. It's in the long ritual, not the short one. And what that does is it demonstrates the women don't have to say we're advanced, we can handle these complicated things. It just demonstrates that they have this power and therefore for them to claim authority is just a natural step. It's all done in the guise of gratitude. Oh, thank you Ananda. So they don't go out and say we deserve this. They just bow and say thank you. And this has been the MO of these Buddhist nuns as I can see them.

[29:54]

They find non-combative ways to get exactly what they want in a very short order of time. And in so doing, they don't lose the sight of their Buddhist path. The whole issue of nuns getting egalitarian status within the sect regulations was not a really contentious battle. The woman who is responsible for dealing with... I've only got five minutes left. You have more. I have more? Good. How many more? That will affect how many stories I tell. Okay. The woman who is responsible for dealing with the nuts and bolts of getting the regulations changed in the Soto sect administration, her name is Kojima Kendo. She's down there. Third line of the hand scribbling. Third line, second person in. Her dates are 1898 to 1995. Yes, that we slept side by side. She was giggling.

[31:09]

She would ride, to give you a sense of what she was like, she would ride the trains between Nagoya and Tokyo all night long standing. This is, we're talking, even by Shinkansen today it's a two hour ride. She was basically standing all night long in a crowded train. Of course, standing because there's no seating room. All night long to get to a Soto sect administration meeting. And she told me how sometimes she was embarrassed, but not really. She just had to say she was embarrassed. That she would find herself pounding on the tables and realize that here she was the only woman in the room of all these very high ranking monks. And she was the first, among the first nuns to enroll at Komazawa University, the main Soto sect university. Basically her life story, which I outline in the book, is a story of how in this middle generation of the 20th century, how the nuns got the rights to do all the things that they wanted to do, but they used the language of reclaiming their rights, which I thought was very interesting.

[32:42]

They don't see that they're just getting it new. They really believe, and the historical documentation suggests from Dogen, that they are just trying to institute what Dogen said that the nuns should have. And they have a very clear vision of this. And I think having that clarity and being able to articulate it is what helped make the Soto sect administration succumb to their every demand. And there is a nun, though, when you're talking about lineage, again, like Mary was saying, to branch out. They're the nuns in the official public lineage, but I would hope also to include the nuns who never held an official post that made it possible for those other women to be out riding the trains and pounding the tables. And one very important nun through the 20th century, through most of the 20th century, who supported Kojima Kendo-sensei and another teacher, the abbess of Aichi-senmon Nisodo for many years in the middle of the century here, Kato-sensei is her name.

[33:59]

There was a nun who kind of held down the fort, never took a title. Her name was Nogami Senyo. And she lived in this little temple in Nagoya, living the teachings of Dogen with her entire body when she swept the floor or picked the weeds from the white stone garden. And she would chant the phrase, Zadatsu Ryubo, die sitting, die standing. And the nun who told me this, Kuriki-sensei, would say that she said this all the time to everybody, but it was clear that she was most strict about herself. And when she said it, she meant that to do everything to perfection, to the best of your ability, Zadatsu Ryubo, die sitting, die standing. And perhaps many of you know how the death posture has sometimes been used to recognize someone, whether they were fully enlightened or not.

[35:05]

The two favorite postures are dying in full lotus and dying standing. Not too many stories of people dying standing in the literature. This nun in 1980, which I had been studying these nuns for a while, I went to this temple twice a week for seven months. This nun knew I was working on a book on their history. It was only just before I left that she told me this story, which told me how they're not out trying to impress people with their own accomplishments in history, and that it took so much involvement to get the story of how Nogami Senyo, she was 97 years old, still just wearing black cotton robes, entirely non-pretentious. Never taking any titles. And she was walking to the hondo, to where the Buddha hall where there's a Buddha, Shakyamuni Buddha image sitting in full lotus, and she shouted Zadatsu Ryubo.

[36:21]

And Kuriki Sensei, the teacher, her disciple, went running, thinking that this sounds different than usual, in time to see that she finished evening out her feet to be together and died facing the Buddha. And Kuriki Sensei just held her and shouted Omedetou, or congratulations. You did it. You died standing. And I can't help but think how, you know, why didn't they tell me this story when I first got there? It's because they're more interested in the practice than in the external bells and whistles. And in the current Soto Zen, which I suppose, I don't know, do they ever put you in a lineage if you're still alive?

[37:27]

Anyways, the two other nuns that are in this lineage that are carrying it on now, the person in front, in public, in a bigger way than any other, perhaps any other Japanese nun in history has been, is Aoyama Shundo Sensei, who's written, I don't, I've lost track of how many books she's written. And speaking to places all over the country all the time, not just to Dharma groups, but she was even, she tells a story of, she was asked to speak at the cosmetic company Shiseido. And they asked her, you know, what's the secret to her beauty? And she said, waking up early and washing my face with water. Exactly what a cosmetic company wants to hear. She's on the television, she's on the radio, she is all over the place. And there are several teachers in the monastery, Aji-Samo Nisodo, who are in the background, that are holding down the fort.

[38:36]

And my favorite one is Kido Shunko Sensei. She is the one that I met in India. I was a bit cynical of Buddhism in Japan, I'll admit, before I met her. And because of what's called funeral Buddhism, there's so much money to be made in doing funeral rituals, and I was disappointed. And then when I met her, I was, that there's someone still really, really concerned with living the Buddhist teachings. You know, I was sure that there were many others, I just hadn't met them. And then I met her, and she lived the teachings. She's, you know, has a way of making you feel comfortable and welcome, no matter who you are, what you're wearing, what you're doing. She knows how to be with you and comfort you, make you laugh, and she's always in the background.

[39:44]

But I also learned that in the nunnery, when the abbess is there and not there, it makes a huge difference. When she's there, everyone is much more disciplined, and when she leaves, that's when everything starts to leak. But because when she's not there, though, the other teachers come in to stay the night. And I didn't realize this for a long time, because once it's lights out, I thought you couldn't leave the room. And then I discovered that you could. And that what the nuns were doing were lining up to go talk to this teacher when she came to visit with all their problems. And so behind the scenes, the making of all these nuns is through this great abbess. But also these other teachers who would get left off even a lineage charge, including women,

[40:48]

because they're not in formal positions, that these women are essential to training the nuns. And I'll leave you with the image I have of her, and this is the image the nuns hold out for themselves, and that is of a plum blossom. Plum blossoms bloom in the winter, the end of winter. And so oftentimes, the snow will still fall, and they're very delicate, little, pretty blossoms. And this is their image, to be strong enough to be gentle in harsh conditions. Thank you. I really appreciate it. Utterly entertaining. So it's interesting.

[41:50]

I mean, you can contrast it with, I think, Ananda. Ananda had this vision. The woman who was supposed to have the drop to her baby, got it well, and decided to spread her shoulders. And there's also all these stories about Ananda having used his feet to teach all these women by repelling their desire. So women would follow Ananda all the time. And Ananda would sort of show them how their desire was emptied for them. And I thought he could pass it out effortlessly, going into a monastery where she was desirable. He had to burn her face, but she was no longer desirable. And I think that says a lot about whose desire is important and whose isn't. And also, on a contrast, maybe who can control theirs and who can't. And I think it's really interesting that where Ananda's beauty was an instrument of teaching and was encouraged, and people have told the stories about how great that is, Ashwini's beauty was problematic and threatening and difficult.

[42:52]

And really, I've always thought that those two stories contrast each other. I'm very sorry, I don't remember the scholar's name. Someone who did a careful analysis, the Therigata and Terigata. And she shows how the same metaphor is used for men and women, how women use it differently. And she comes up with these figures that 9% of the men in the Therigata have attained enlightenment. And guess how many percent of the women? She comes up with 23%. That there's something about turning it in on yourself, not blaming, not putting a condition out there. That women in the Therigata are always seen as the snare, Mara's snare. And they're the bait and they're the reasons why the men have problems. But the women turn it on saying, yes, I am the bait and I was wrong. And in so doing, that furthers their practice.

[43:57]

They get rid of their ego. And so I hear what you're saying. But again, when I take the perspective of if you take the woman seriously in her practice, her goals, and that she has found methods. Yes, it's a statement about the external culture and why she had to do it that way. But that's not the end of the story. She didn't let it stop her. And that's what I keep wanting to point out. I understand what you mean. I find myself in two minds here. One mind is, as a Buddhist, saying, okay, here's a woman who's willing to just give it all up. Okay, I'm a beautiful woman, great. I'll give that up. I don't have an attachment to that. I'm willing to let go of that, and I admire that. But on the other hand, the part of me that's a feminist goes, how could you pander to them that way?

[44:58]

Or why is it that it's that way? And even as a Buddhist or as a feminist, I want to honor both of those. And that's why the story I started out by saying, I think, is a really important story. When it gives you a rise, there's something there. There really is a lot there. I wanted to say more about that issue of desire. Because in a certain way, even... Women being the object of desire, which Dovin addresses in Reinhardt, that whoever said this was not, you know, look at yourself. But there's the, that Patricia Pfister, in her work about women, women, artisans, I think you can cite her in your own books. She did work, and she said, before the 9th century in Japan, women had more power. Not the women who came back who were ordained, who came through Korea. But by the time Buddhism was brought into Japan around the 9th century,

[46:04]

women's power was decreased because of the attitude of Buddhism itself. That women were objects of desire, and should be kept away from the practice. This is the men's perspective of the women, not the women's perspective of themselves. But that's the Buddhism that came from China, that pushed the power of the women down. And then from the 9th century on, then they had to contend with being these semi-principals. And both sides are so important. Because while we can do something, which is to practice ourselves, you know, I am the object of desire, I can cause you problems, and so on. And that's important. We can also change the system. We can also work on the virus. And the 20th century is a wonderful demonstration of how the nuns took it upon themselves and changed the entire system. The woman who died standing up, she said something, you said it in Japanese, I think.

[47:09]

Die sitting, die standing. Oh, but she interrupted, she said that in Japanese. Zabatsuryu-bo. Die sitting, die standing. Yeah. Yeah. She didn't make it up. Paula, I came across, and maybe others of you have seen this, this sutra for... menstruation, sort of like against menstruation, or to protect you for the rebirth in menstrual blood and all this. And I was wondering if you came across that, if that's at all operating. I asked about that. And so the nun Kuriki-sensei, who's now in her 80s, she said that when she was young, it was going out of circulation. So early 1900s.

[48:11]

Early 1900s. Throughout history, has there been any documentation of men in their role as our allies to lift the suffering that women have gone through? I'm sure there had to have been men in the Soto sect administration who were supportive. There, one major Zen master who was supportive of nuns was the abbot of Daiyuzan. There have been men... Keizan Zenji, yeah. So I didn't stop to get all their names together, but they are there and they're probably more than I know of because the voting members in the Soto sect are primarily men. And so they had to... More specifically, what kinds of spiritual paths are talked about?

[49:18]

We're talking in terms of insight, compassion, open-heartedness. From the men's perspective in their roles, what are some of those paths that they're working on to help ease... I don't know. Can you speak louder, please? Well, Carol Lee Linders wrote this wonderful book called At the Root of His Longing that describes women in spirituality. I found it very inspiring. And one thing she addressed in that was this notion of women as objects of desire, pointing out that there's a deep disrespect for men in that they're somehow unable to control themselves, which doesn't characterize men on the path at all, really.

[50:19]

So she was careful to point out the way that it affects those people, the way that it doesn't... it isn't respectful of them in those lessons, to look at them as hurting only one party. Yeah, yeah. Good point. Thank you. I found that when I was in Japan in 1992 and again in 1998, that as an ordained tourist in America, that I was treated with very real respect by almost all of the men, all of them. I was not anticipating it. I was quite surprised by it. I felt it was quite real. As a matter of fact, there's a whole thing.

[51:21]

Part of that is your age and the fact that you have a teacher. There's a range of experiences, and they definitely did respect you, do respect you. They highly respect you. But I don't know if that's a universal experience. Because when you started practicing, you were only six. Yeah, but I mean, I don't think it was a universal experience, just because you were at an institution. Thank you all very much. Tomorrow at 1.30. Thank you, Paula. And Paula, if there are any books here you'd like to buy...

[52:00]

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