Notes from class Lost Coin June 20, 2011


June 25th retreat:Question from student: Are we doing a
ceremony?Usually full moon. Should we?  If we don't do it Saturday,
we'll do it another time.Another day, we'll do a separate gathering to
do ceremony, ritual, service, etc.With schedule, it seems too much to
squeeze in.  Can talk about it and maybe do it another time.This is
the only service that has a melody.In October, 2011- Shuke Tokudo for
Annette, making a monk.Elements of practice:It's a good thing to cover
and understand in depth.  The practice is simple and deep.What is
SHOKEN:  one thing difficult to understand about the practice
particularly for Westerns is that there is nothing original about the
practice.  Doen doesn't try to teach in a different way than he
learned.  He'll have to because of his temperament but he's not trying
to.It's cascading water from cup to cup.  You want to bring forth the
same water.Last retreat, Caryn said she liked Doen's demeanor, but
that is because when really deep in, we're seeing the demeanor of the
teachers he had.  Doen's job is to continue that, but the student must
get her cup under his and line it up and OPEN UP.  This process is
openness, intimacy, receptiveness.  It demands something of the
student that they generally haven't had to do in their life before.You
might think you have but Doen thinks probably not.This is as he was
saying before, you cannot fool him.  You can present facts but you
cannot fool him about your openness or how much you're really learning
the practice.When learning from Doen, you're learning from Maezumi,
Yurati, Yasutani Roshi- the lineage.  Story of Maezumi, Bob Thurman,
and Doen.  Maezumi asked Bob, what do you think the future of Buddhism
will be in America.  Bob said BLAH BLAH whatever.  Maezumi says, I
don't think so.  Go through this process a number of times and Bob is
getting more and more mad and Maezumi getting more and more aggressive
about it.  Maezumi then asked Doen and Doen said, Sex, drugs and
rock-in-roll and Maezumi said, Yes, good.  Wanted to piss of bob and
make him see he was being pretentious and know it all-ish.SHOKENthe
student teacher relationship.  It's done in a ritual but if you don't
get the inner movement, you don't get the whole thing.  Could be years
after that you really get it.  Sometimes you get it at the time.What
is the student teacher bond?  It's not an easy thing.  It's a deep
thing and is an incredible STRETCH.  It's deep, really open.  There is
no reason you would have done this in your life in the pass.The
student/teacher relationship is "I teach, you learn"- the Karate Kid
movie says.  Autocratic but accurate.How do you learn this?  You form
the relationship and Doen becomes the door to the lineage.  It is not
on the same level as ANYTHING else that happens in life.Fear and
dishonesty stop us.What are you opening the door to?Not to Daniel
Silberberg bio d/o/b, etc etc.  But to the teacher who is an
embodiment of the lineage.What does the lineage say to you?  Forget
the self.  Forget the one who you slave and are so frightened to let
go of.  Become the Buddha nature.When you die, where does your story
go?  Where is your story now?  Where are you now?  If Doen asks "where
are you now?" we actually rapidly reconstruct things.  We don't need
to.  It didn't hurt to let it go.  Clinging to the self hurts a
lot.Master Dogen was dying and wrote a poem upon his end.  Gleefully,
I leap into hell (or something along those lines).  Where was he now?
Then? after?What does it take?  Faith in the practice.  Faith in
yourself.  Devotion to what you want.  Nothing to high up there.  Not
faith in a being.  Faith in the practice and our ability as humans to
forget and transcend the self.  To discover what we are which is so
much more.  Doen says, at this point in his life, he's tired of being
himself and would like a new game in town.To forget the self is to
forget the thoughts that we have.  The thoughts we have are very
negative. Why would we want to hold on to them?  because we are scared
to hell to do anything else.  The known horror is preferred.Do the
practice.  Appreciate it.  Devote yourself to yourself.  Get serious
with yourself and with Doen.  Don't separate from the teacher.  Don't
separate from yourself.  and don't separate from the Sangha.  That's
not so easy.  Requires a brave person- a lion, a dragon.  You are that
person.