Sunday, June 8, 2025

All right, and away we go. So just a quick small correction — I have to say okay to the bar that says it's being recorded. All right, cool. That helps.

So, small correction: my Dharma name is actually Daisho, just two syllables. And the only reason I get a little anxiety when people mess it up is because daiosho means something very different. I am not calling myself a great teacher. My full name is Myo Kan Daisho, and so myo shows up a lot and can mean wondrous or subtle. In this case, Jane didn't write it in English, so I'm going to go with "wondrous insight, great laugh" — sho could be joy or laugh. So yeah, I go by Daisho Chris Burnham, and I am not an ancestor.

So I've been a student of Peter and Jane Schneider since 2010. That's when I started practicing with them at Beginner's Mind Zen Center. And sort of from the get-go, I started hearing about Tassajara, and way earlier than any reasonable person should, I started thinking about ordination. But Peter was like, well, maybe give it some time. And enough time passed and I was still interested, and so Jane ordained me as a priest in 2023. Coming up on two years. It's wild.

All right. So there's some extra context here: Mark Fraser is also part of our sangha. He was one of our contingent to go to Tassajara for sangha week not too long ago, so he got a big helping of Zen forms recently. And that's what my talk is about. I just titled it, "What's So Great About Zen Forms?"

I think there's a decent chance that a lot of you have already noticed some of the things I want to talk about, so I just wanted to share some of my thoughts. But before I get too much into that, I wanted to say to all of you — the whole Santa Barbara Zen Sangha — thank you so much for inviting me to give a talk. I'm really honored and humbled by the opportunity. I also wanted to start off by thanking and acknowledging my teachers, Jane and Peter Schneider, who, as you heard, were the founders of Beginner's Mind Zen Center in Northridge, Los Angeles. And also, just to say, this talk is simply to encourage you in your practice. A special shout-out to Greg Fain, because he was my teacher for a while, and that's how he starts his talks. He said it was okay if I did it too.

So there are a lot of reasons why I think Zen forms are so great, and I'm going to try to succinctly discuss most or all of them. But every time I do a Zen form, it's like a new way to appreciate it. And that's one of the things I think is so great about them.

As I was saying, probably most of you are very familiar with Zen forms. We start learning about them with our very first visit to a Zen center. And just to make sure we're on the same page: when I say forms, I'm speaking of certain things we do and the way we do them. In the Navy, a salute would be like a Navy form — they call those customs and courtesies. The same sort of thing we do in Zen, we call forms, or so I've heard. It seems to be the going vocabulary word.

I think forms are a kind of underrated aspect of Zen practice, but they're actually a really big part of it. Examples would be how we hold our hands depending on what we're doing — if we're just walking, we might hold our hands in shashu, or when bowing, put our hands in gassho and lift them above our ears. Sometimes it's which foot we use when we enter a space, where do we bow, how do we bow, how do we offer incense, how do we move around the room — do we stay at right angles along the perimeter? Does that matter? It can vary from place to place. How we put on our robes, how we wear them, which robes you wear, and so on.

So one thing that I think makes forms so great is that they give shape to our activity and to the space and time that we're practicing in. In a very real way, I feel it's in no small part our practice through Zen forms that actually makes a room a zendo or a Buddha hall instead of a karate dojo or a yoga studio. A bundt cake is only a bundt cake, for instance, because the batter is poured into a bundt cake form for baking. Similarly, we collectively pour our activity into these forms while we are in these spaces, and thus we create a Zen temple.

Participating in the activity of a Zen temple is also pretty cool because of how old many of these forms are. When we offer incense, we are embodying the activity of countless monks who lived and practiced throughout the world over many hundreds of years. When we bow, it is as if we are connected to every Buddhist who has ever bowed. Our practice keeps these traditions alive and maintains a continuity all the way from our modern lives back to Shakyamuni himself.

In Zen, we place most emphasis on meditation, of course, but there's also plenty of textual study. And the forms are what give Zen its devotional aspect. At first glance, devotional practices might seem much less practical than zazen. Maybe they seem like little more than window dressing, or even mild superstition. A common question that comes up when folks are being introduced to Zen is: why do we bow? And really, when we're holding our hands a certain way, or when we bow and lift Buddha's feet above our heads, what are we actually doing? When we put our robe on top of our head for chanting the Okesa, what are we doing there? What's the point of any ritual?

Well, on top of everything else I've mentioned, devotional practices — forms — are the way we show respect to the spaces and the entire practice of Zen. Showing respect is a very good thing. To some extent, it conditions our attitude toward the spaces we use to practice and the practice itself, and this can help our motivation. If, whenever we go to the Zen center, we're focused and deferential and intentional, that conditions our attitude toward the space and toward the practice. I've noticed, at least for me, that has an effect on how I feel about doing it. It creates a place — physically and mentally — that I want to go to, especially when I've been out in the world, like at the grocery store. It's like, ah, I get some peace and some devotional activity for a little bit.

But also, showing respect is just the right thing to do. This practice is powerful and transformational, and it has been developed and passed down to us by many thousands who have gone before us and devoted their lives to transmitting the Dharma. The Noble Eightfold Path includes right action, and this respect definitely counts. In these and other ways, being reverent and showing respect is as beneficial to our spiritual growth as reflection and contemplation.

Now I'm getting to the points about forms that I think make them really great. Forms complement our sitting practice in two ways. First, we hold the forms; then the forms hold us. Depending on the temple, there could be a lot of forms or just a few. They might be practiced very rigorously or more relaxed, but in all cases they show us our minds as well as guide our minds to the present moment. When we are thinking about which foot to use, or listening to which bell is ringing and remembering to bow or not bow, or holding our hands in a certain mudra — we have to focus our attention on what we're doing in the present moment. If we mess up a form, maybe because we were daydreaming, our attention gets snapped back to the present moment. This exercise in intentional focus is a different way to do off the cushion what we are trying to do while on it: keep coming back to the present moment.

But then, when we have internalized the forms and know them well, they become more automatic. At that point, they offer us a container, so we can think less about what we are doing and just continue the effort of seated zazen even when we get off the cushion. We can let ourselves experience the present moment and enjoy that experience for what it is.

My last thought is just this: forms direct us toward and help hold us in the present moment — here, now, where our lives are. This is really nice for, among other reasons, the simple and important fact that we can't find any liberation or contentment anywhere besides here and now. Our intentional action, guided by the forms, shapes our momentary existence into something elegant, reverent, and peaceful. And this, in turn, makes the ground of our lives more fertile for cultivating awakening, practice-enlightenment, freedom, and joy.

Thank you very much for your kind attention, and please take very good care of yourselves.

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Facilitator: Thank you so much for that really helpful sharing with us this morning. I think before we open it up to questions and answers, it might be nice for you to get a sense of who's here, since we have a few new faces — or faces that aren't with us very often. So if it's okay with you, I'll have everyone in the room introduce themselves just by name, and then we'll open it up to questions and comments on your talk.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Yes, that would be great.

Facilitator: I'm going to try to be Steven Spielberg with this iPad here. Go ahead.

Juliana: Hi, I'm Juliana.

Dan: Dan.

Alan: Alan.

Elisa: Elisa. Hello.

Josephine: Josephine.

Brad: Brad.

Facilitator: I think that covers it — and I'm Dave. "Butcherer of names" is my Dharma name.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Well, you're in good company, so that's cool.

Facilitator: So take a deep breath and feel free to jump in with any questions or comments on Daisho's presentation this morning.

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Question: I'm a great believer in momentum. Hearing you talk about that connection — when we bow, we're connected with a tradition that goes back hundreds, if not thousands, of years, or lighting the incense — I hadn't thought in exactly these terms before, but when we engage in these forms in the temple, we put our body in a certain position, and then hopefully our mind comes along. So you're building momentum within yourself at that stage. And then couldn't there be a group momentum also? Others are dressed a certain way, you see them doing it. So ideally, are you trying to create an individual momentum, a group momentum, and then that connection to monks and practitioners who were doing these same traditions thousands of years ago? Is that a way that we can develop momentum to propel ourselves and get grounded in the now?

Daisho Chris Burnham: I would say absolutely yes. And I like what you pointed out about how — and I've heard this elaborated on through psychological studies, more in the hard sciences nowadays — showing the connection between what we call our mind and what we think of as just our body. I heard, and I'm not sure if this is really true or not, but I think I've tried it and seen it can be true, that making yourself smile — not sarcastically, but just trying to genuinely hold a smile — can actually have an influence. Just like how if I feel happy inside, the outside will smile, there can be a two-way street to that. So we put our body in the posture of a Buddha, and we're sort of helping guide our mind in that direction as well. I would definitely say that counts as momentum.

Then with the group aspect — it's like peer pressure, but in a good way. I have noticed that sitting in the zendo at Tassajara, I'm way more encouraged to sit still and not move at the slightest discomfort. When I'm alone, I'm much more prone to adjusting my posture if I feel a need. Whereas when I'm sitting with a group — not just at Tassajara, but at City Center or Beginner's Mind Zen Center or anywhere — the threshold for what qualifies as something worth moving to address is much higher. And that's definitely because I've got people to the right, people to the left, people behind me, all sitting still, and that encourages me.

I think that's part of what makes sangha the most precious of the Triple Treasures, or the Three Jewels — it's a hard thing to do what we're doing on our own. When we have other people doing it with us, that's a huge source of encouragement, a huge source of momentum. Every little bit helps. So definitely, thank you for your comment and question.

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Question: I'd like to contribute that when I think of forms, I contextualize it within choreography. Though I was never part of the military, I'm in awe of the precision forms they generate. And for a period of time I studied Tai Chi, and our teacher, Master Ni, would communicate that to practice these forms ten times is one thing, a hundred times much different, a thousand times much much different, ten thousand times much much much different. So the same forms being practiced over and over again generates something qualitatively within us. And when those forms are expressed within a group setting, what happens for me is that individual mind dissolves, and I am now participating in group mind — or group mindfulness — which is much, much different.

Daisho Chris Burnham: I concur. And it's funny, because both in Zen and in the Navy, I've noticed there's this sort of aversion based on some fear of losing individuality. When I told some friends I was going into the Navy, they were like, oh no, you're going to get brainwashed, yada yada. And I was also a little worried about that. Doing Zen practice, a similar fear came up — like, am I going to disappear, become a zombie or something? That hasn't come up for a while, but it definitely came up early on. And what a few teachers and my own experience have shown me is that it's impossible.

I think it's fair to say that as Zen students we are trying to loosen our attachment to our ideas of our small self — even, for me, this almost infatuated relationship I have with who I think I am. It's a natural thing, and in a sense a healthy thing, creating this kind of avatar to interact with the world as it arises seemingly separate from us. So when people say, "everything is one" — yes, but we still have these small selves, and their mere existence is not a hindrance to enlightenment. What can hinder practice, or our appreciation of what's also true, is the firm attachment to our stories about ourselves.

In Zen temples, as we do these practices with a lot of other people, and just in general as we sit zazen, that sort of naturally loosens up a little bit. But we never stop being individuals in the conventional sense — we just get a lot of help from the group participating in these activities together.

Same in the military, actually. It's funny, because how so not brainwashed everyone around me was — everyone had really big, strong personalities. There was a lot of resistance during boot camp to any kind of programming or whatever. And yet when it was time for graduation, we all stayed in line, we all did the thing at the same time. And it was like a really wonderful dance. I love the observation that it's like choreography.

For the military, the shedding of attachment to the individual self is for the greater good — you might have to jump on a grenade, in the most extreme case, or just go relieve the guy who's been on watch for five hours even though your bed feels comfortable. That's the practical aspect of forms as a way of training out our attachment to our individual small selves.

For Zen, it's a very similar thing but toward a different end. Realizing that our individual small selves are kind of a fiction is really helpful for understanding the rest of reality, for lack of a better word, because the conventional truth never stops being true — we just appreciate its limitations. There's so much more to everything. Anyway, I was told specifically to try not to lose the thread, so I'm going to stop there and ask the next person to say something.

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Question: Well, this will probably go off topic again. I'm guessing your day job is at Diablo Canyon — am I right? So thank you for your work producing carbon-free energy there. I think that's really important. But my question — or my feeling — is this: the environment is really important to me, and I came to Zen practice largely through its Daoist roots. When I was at Tassajara, just walking in the wilderness there impressed me much more than being in the zendo with the human forms. Nature — we can't match nature. It's just so magnificent in itself. And I've found that going on long backpacking trips has had a more profound effect on me than zazen. So the forms — I do them because I like to sit with Zen groups, and the formal meditation brings me closer to nature, but I always feel like I'm going through the motions, as if that's the price of admission for sitting with a group. I don't normally sit with this group, so don't hold my question against them.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Not at all. I haven't done a lot of long backpacking trips — I've never actually done any backpacking. But I certainly like to walk on trails, and I love sitting in nature. There's a particular rock at the top of Black Hill in Morro Bay, and every now and then I like to hike up to it. It's a very small hike — I'm almost embarrassed to call it a hike — but it's a short, delightful one. Going up there and sitting zazen on the rock is really nice. Being out in nature is really nice, and I get what you're saying: being in a room surrounded by people and things we've cut and shaped from wood or metal, or in a modern building with drywall and plaster and electricity — that's going to have a different feel than nature.

In those instances, one thought I have is that anywhere — not just holding a particular frame of mind at the grocery store or driving — but anywhere, what we can do is try to keep with us what we're cultivating in a zendo. Like in a karate dojo, we're practicing something we then take out into our lives. Similarly, there's formal Zen practice in a room with people, and that has very large value to it, and it doesn't need to be compared to other things, because it's all relevant.

I have had more interesting experiences outside of a zendo than inside of one. But I firmly believe that those experiences would not have come to fruition if it weren't for the hours and hours of sitting inside a zendo. So yeah, it's all part of the same team, all part of the same continuity.

In a way, I think one thing that makes zazen in a zendo valuable that being out in nature doesn't offer is that it's such a tight container. We really get down to the meat and potatoes of the training. And I 100% appreciate the notion of not going into zazen with a gaining idea, because that's counterproductive. But there is a reason why we're sitting and facing a wall for 30-minute chunks at a time, doing those chunks a lot over weeks and years and so on.

We can't train in nature the same way we train in a zendo. But out in nature is, I think, where we'll often see the fruits of that training. Getting to sit down on a rock at the top of Black Hill in Morro Bay and just appreciate it — that's not formal zazen training. I'm getting to use a zazen form in a natural setting and just enjoy the connection with nature. And I get to do that because of the time I've spent in a zendo.

That being said — I did a practice period at Tassajara back in 2019, and there was a week where every single day was just gray and rainy. It is what it is and has its own enjoyability. But then — I think it was the fifth day, and I think it might have been sesshin, I can't remember — one day had the most beautiful weather we'd had in a while. And I was a little bit bad. I decided to sign out of one of the periods of zazen. I signed out on the tanking pad — that's where, if you're sick and not going to be present, you put a note so they know why. My reason? I put "sun's out, monks out." And I went and sat zazen on a bench near the entry gate and just enjoyed looking at the ground and watching a squirrel out of the corner of my eye.

Is that good? Is it bad? Is it better? Is it worse? Honestly, I think my practice is better served if I just throw out all the comparing words and the impulse to compare, and instead look at that impulse and try to track it down rather than follow it. But yeah, I think it's all good. Thank you.

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Question: I first should start by saying I met Peter in 1973 in Kyoto, Japan. Peter helped me find a house to stay in and took care of me for the first few months I was out there. I didn't see much of them after that, but I kept hearing about them, so it goes back quite a while.

The second thing I was going to say is that because I was in Japan, I met the person who became my wife, who was Japanese, and she bows at everything. I realized that in Japanese culture it's also a cultural phenomenon — someone like my wife might say she's not religious, not a Buddhist, yet she bows at Buddhist shrines and bows at everything, including at the spot in the Central Valley where James Dean ran into a tree. When we first got to that area, I pointed out they'd put a kind of protective barrier around a tree — turns out it's not actually the tree he hit, but there's a little restaurant out there with a memorial to James Dean. I explained it to my wife, and then every time we drove that road going through the Central Valley, going 50 miles an hour, she would turn and bow. And she had no idea who James Dean was. Just a famous person.

There's a sensibility, I think, in Japanese culture that translates into Zen — not into Chinese Buddhism, which is different, neither one better than the other. There's something very Japanese about what we're doing. She bows on the telephone always. I pointed it out to her and she said, "Oh yeah, I guess so." It's just a natural expression of respect, not only for people, but for rocks and stones and nature — she'll bow to things out in the woods.

A final comment: in China, mountains become associated with Buddhist practice and pilgrimage, and the shape of the body is often represented as a mountain. The cycles of water and sun and wind are reflected through the forms of the body, and these create ritual patterns as well. On most sacred mountains in China, there are what are called meditation stones — like your place on Black Hill. They're beautiful big stones overlooking a valley, large enough for two or three people to sit on in zazen. They're scouted out and located — they weren't originally placed there, but they're pointed out, noted. So the Chinese also incorporate a lot of nature into their formal ritual practice. Nature becomes part of the ritual.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Thank you for sharing that. I could do well to try and be more like your wife — bowing simply as an expression of inner reverence, and nothing more. And I think that might be like the smile I mentioned earlier: bowing as a way to try to cultivate my mind, and then in other times, a mind that is currently experiencing reverence and respect will naturally pour out into a bow.

This connects to the earlier comment about Tai Chi — doing something ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times. I'm not immune to my mind wandering or being on autopilot, not by a long shot. But when I'm tuned in — whether because the forms got me there or for some other reason — it's just really cool to watch how any given bow is its own thing. And in a way, I can answer the question of why am I bowing just by bowing and just by watching.

That's one of the things that got me thinking about forms enough to want to do a talk about them: noticing how each bow is different, no matter how many times I've bowed. Have you heard the expression, "It's like drinking water and knowing for yourself if it's warm or cold"? That, but as an experience of bowing — it wouldn't say it's an answer to the question "why do we bow," but it's a way to understand why we bow. I think that's different from coming up with an answer, though I'm not entirely sure why I'm seeing a difference there.

There's a difference between answering a koan and just appreciating it or responding to it. Every single bow ends up being its own koan, where our participation in it shows us something — something we might think is worth seeing, maybe something we were looking for. So thank you for your comments.

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Question: I just had an epiphany on this. When I forget to bow, I engage in a completely different relationship to the things and people around me than when I remember to bow. I was thinking about an interaction with a judge on a Medi-Cal matter. When I engaged with her, I forgot to bow — and so the quality of the experience was very, very different than had I been in that more humble relationship. Not bowing, I was defensive. Bowing — surrendering to the moment.

Daisho Chris Burnham: I definitely feel like I would have a different attitude toward a customer service representative if, as soon as they said, "Hi, I'm so-and-so, how can I help you?" I started by saying, "Hello, thank you so much for taking my call." I think I would approach that situation way differently.

At Tassajara, one of the practices is that as you're walking around, if two people are approaching each other, they'll stop at some point, bow, and then move on. A lot of people who come there for a retreat aren't students, so while the students are asked to follow that form and all the others, visitors who come simply to be there — not part of the student apprenticeship — may or may not. People like me and Mark and Danny, we're following the forms because that's what we're there for. We're practicing the forms. Some visitors who are familiar with Zen will kind of do it, but you can't always tell unless you've been there for a while which category someone is in.

So sometimes you stop and bow to someone and they just keep walking — they didn't even know that form existed. Sometimes it's even a student who's looking off to the side and if you don't catch their eye, you might bow and they might miss it. And then you're just like, okay. Or if you're walking perpendicular to someone.

My point is: even within this form, sometimes forgetting it or not being sure about it creates its own wonderful human moments that may or may not include a bow, but are nonetheless a great example of how the form can connect us to our lives in the present and to other people in the present with us. Those are really fun moments. Yeah, I think I'm going to try the thing with the customer service representative.

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Question: Daisho, Chodo here. I wanted to pick up on that idea of learning the forms — or maybe getting forms wrong when you're learning them — and the opportunity there. Because I don't know about other zendos, but in ours, if you're asked to join the doan team or become jisha or take on a role, we don't sit someone down and give them a full outline and train them. It's kind of like: here's roughly how you should do this — jump in. And it's such a great chance to not be the competent person we like to present ourselves as being. So I wanted to ask if you had that same experience of the joy of embracing being incompetent at something.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Oh, definitely, definitely. I love the feeling of it — like an intense, activated curiosity, just paying attention when someone gives me a little bit of instruction and then throws me into it.

When I try to get people to do doan jobs at Beginner's Mind Zen Center, I'll offer them some tools, but a lot of times I like to just get them to start in exactly that way, because when it happened to me, it was great.

At Sangha Week, this was only my second time at Tassajara since ordination, and they let me be doshi — the officiating priest — for the service on three different occasions. It was a short service they do in the afternoon, but still I was thinking: okay, just remember, step back here... And actually the third time I was pretty turned around in my head, which was weird, because I was very much in my head and yet also very connected to the present. Being in my head wasn't taking me out of the present. I wasn't even sure if I was supposed to do this or that at a certain point, and I thought, I'll just watch the doan, and when she moves the striker to hit the bell, that's when I'll back up and get ready to bow. And then: oh wait, is she waiting on me? Oh wait — no, here's the part I remembered. Yay. And then I finished and realized I had missed a part. But the whole time was just this delightful, delightful ignorance and incompetence.

That's why, look — beginner's mind is sometimes available to you and sometimes not, because you're like, no, I know what's going on here. And there's no sin in that. But then when you get to be a beginner in a completely direct way that you have no control over, that can be a wonderful experience. The way that kind of thing enriches the practice in general — just appreciating it is a wonderful, delightful thing. So yeah, I definitely concur with your observation.

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Facilitator: Other comments or questions this morning? Yes, Elisa.

Question: I guess my question has to do with releasing attachment to forms, because every Zen center has different forms no matter how much they try to do the same thing. And being open or fluid enough to go with whatever is happening rather than what you think the Zen center should be doing — a great example was when you were being doshi and forgot something. So how did people react to this new way of doing it?

Daisho Chris Burnham: As far as I could tell, everyone was just rolling with it. And Tassajara is good about that. As for moments of "they're doing it wrong" arising in my mind — I've gotten in a good habit of laughing at those. The thoughts that come up, I don't really have control over. But the reaction to them I have more of an opportunity to choose.

So here's an anecdote I love. Greg Fain was at Tassajara for a very long time, and my first summer there in 2011, I was still pretty new and learning the forms. The engawa is the porch that goes completely around all four sides of the zendo. You don't wear shoes there — you take them off as you step onto it, put them on the shoe shelf, and then go in the front door if the han or the densho is ringing, or the back door if it's not. You're not supposed to talk on the engawa. You're supposed to hold your hands in shashu. And you're actually not supposed to bow to each other there — the bowing while passing each other is not a form for the engawa.

So I'm walking on the engawa and Greg Fain is walking in the other direction. He's the head of practice — he's the tanto. He stops and bows. And so reflexively I also stop and bow. But then I'm confused — I thought we weren't supposed to bow on the engawa. I'm trying to learn things, I'm the new guy. So I said, "I thought we weren't supposed to bow here." And he said, "You're not supposed to talk either."

I really love that. I'm not sure if he was trying to trip me up or just messing with me for fun. But joy — these forms are not a cudgel to beat yourself or other people into conformity. Awakening — and I don't mean some crazy big enlightenment experience, I just mean being here, practice-enlightenment, that kind of thing — joy is a huge component of that. I don't think anything in Zen is being done right if it's robbing a person of joy. Pain and discomfort are a real thing I've seen in the zendo, so that's not a 100% universal statement. But I definitely think forms are there in large part to help us cultivate joy. And when I notice myself being attached to a form — that's a warning light. Like: hey, where is your mind? Good point. Yeah, thank you.

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Question: Hi, thank you for your talk. Zen practice is so refined in so many ways and so intense, and I've loved it ever since I was about 18 or 19. Yoga practice came to me at the same time, so I've brought both of them along throughout my life, and the contrast is just amazing. I'll go from Tassajara or somewhere to a yoga ashram, and you've got all the bhakti — and aside from the asana practice, through the body and the presence of the body, it's just a beautiful practice. The sun salutation, all that bowing and prostration. And then when you get to the devotional element and the joy of just losing yourself and going into it — coming from Zen, sometimes I'm just like, oh my god, all the color and everything. This contrast was sometimes causing me difficulty — I loved both of them, but how to resolve them? As I've matured over the years, they definitely fit, because they're aiming at the same thing ultimately. It's just kind of fun.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Yeah, Zen definitely gets a lot of shade for everything being in black or dark colors and a plain white wall and the visual austerity of it all. I think that serves a very important purpose, and I'm also glad there are plenty of other places to go that are more colorful. And yeah, it's all good. Everything's on the same team — they're all trying to go to the same place. No argument from me.

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Question: I lived in Japan for a year, and one of my students took me to a Buddhist center in Matsushima Bay, near Sendai. There's a beautiful temple there. I went in, and it was this classic space — just beautiful. The grounds were fantastic. There was a small plaque, in Japanese and English. I was almost 50 when I read it, and it said — I won't paraphrase it exactly, but it said the people who built this understood there was a technology engaged in eliciting a certain response from the viewer. And there I am at 50, and I said, oh — so they didn't build this place to have lunch there. And it was obvious it had no practical function, and yet I was getting a tremendous response from this structure. And I said, I'm 50 years old and I'm just realizing this.

Then I turned to the left, and there was a view to the outside, with trees. And it was a very similar kind of response. Both of them complemented one another. I think that's something we're just beginning to understand. And I imagine, particularly now with AI — when we don't have to wash the dishes anymore — we'll have time to start thinking: what is that response we're eliciting? How does it work? How can we elicit within human beings these dramatically positive responses? And hopefully as we understand this better, we won't drive through yellow arches for the experience. We'll actually use this pursuit to spark the best of human beings. In the future, just like being on the top of Black Hill — that's a magic spot, and I get a quite similar response there as I did at the temple in Matsushima. Hopefully we'll focus that and bring our positive energy as a culture, and learn how to elicit it and realize what a treasure it is, and instead of trying to commodify it, we'll use our new technology and deeper understanding to increase the positive human experience in existence.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Thank you. I hope AI never takes over washing dishes. Washing dishes is a great way to come into the present. I think there might be a future Dharma talk on washing dishes — I've definitely been thinking about that one.

Again, thank you so much for your time and for all the questions and comments. And thank you for carrying on the practice in your temple. I'm really glad I got to be a part of that today with you. Thank you.

Facilitator: Daisho, I'm going to stop the recording. You're welcome to stay with us — we usually close with the Four Vows and then do some announcements. Really, really great to spend time with you.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Happy to be here. I'll stick around for the Four Vows and then probably bounce at that point.

Facilitator: To the bounce house?

Daisho Chris Burnham: No — back to my sister's house to hang out with my niece and nephew and my brother-in-law.

Facilitator: Enjoy your time in Santa Barbara.

Daisho Chris Burnham: Thank you very much.