How's that? How's that? How's that? Today I want to talk about our attitude toward precepts in our tradition. We often take our precepts as rules of behavior. In the old Theravada tradition, or traditions in that vein, the monks and nuns, well the monks observed 250 precepts and the nuns a little more. And they were kind of rules of behavior. I think a lot of them were probably rules of behavior for young men. you know, who kind of need rules of behavior.

[01:04]

Unlike us. But in Japan, Dogen and other teachers kind of reduced, contracted the precepts into 16 basic precepts. which is what we observe today, Buddha, the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, are actually precepts. And then the three pure precepts, don't do evil, do what is good, and devote yourself to saving beings. and then there's the 10 clear mind precepts which are often considered proclamatory precepts but they're also positive on the other side so I don't want to go through all that but those are the 16 and but there's really for Dogen and for Suzuki Roshi and the understanding of precepts is there's really just one precept that one precept is

[02:23]

Act like Buddha. And the rest are all commentary. How do you do that? Right? So, Suzuki Roshi followed Dogen's understanding and admonished us not to follow the precepts by rote. In other words, the precepts have a much larger understanding, much larger meaning, than simply following rules. So the precepts, which are major precepts, which are common to all Buddhism, mostly the ten clear mind precepts, or prohibitory precepts, and for lay people, five precepts.

[03:29]

And when we have ordination, we take the precepts, right? The ten clear mind, the sixteen precepts, basically. But there's something else called, what Dogi called, shingi. And shingi is like the monastic rules. And Dogen had a lot of monastic rules. But basically, they're all based on compassion. You can't hear. It's not you, it's the volume. They're all based on compassion. So, instead of thinking about rules, how do we act compassionately? Rules are kind of like in the background. They kind of hold the practice in a way. But if you simply base everything on a rule, you miss the actual.

[04:38]

In law, it's called the spirit and the letter. So the rules are kind of like the letter of the law, but actually we act out of the spirit of the law, which is more important, actually. But both are important. But when we think about precepts, we think about the letter. So Doge said, and Suzuki Roshi said, if you only think about the letter, that's heresy. It's a strong word, you know. That's heretical understanding. True understanding is to act out of compassion. even if you break the rules, but it looks like breaking the rules. So, Shingi is kind of like the spirit of practice. How you practice in that, and Dogen did a number of writings about the Shingi for Ehechi, his monastery.

[05:45]

I'll just give you some examples, a few little examples of Dogen's When he's talking about how the kanin, kanin in those days was like what we call the director today. And the director had a lot more duties than what the director would have in those days, or in these days. So the kanin would take care of the monks when they would come to the monastery. He says, the khan-in should rejoice in his heart each time he sees the faces of monks from the ten directions. That's the rule. And he refers to the Chan-Yuan-Kun-Wi, which is like the remnant of Pai-Chang's rules. Someone who does not have a broad capacity to accept people and a deep heart to love them is not appropriate for nurturing people in that role.

[06:53]

So that's the main thing, the main qualification actually for a person who takes on the role of the director or in any capacity actually. Whether you're in a capacity to of a so-called high-level or just ordinary person. So, Buddha said to Ananda, Bodhisattvas, Mahasattvas who live together should look on each other just as they look on the world-honored one, the Buddha. The reason is they are all my true company, just like riding on the same boat. their learning is my learning. So the abbot, the officers, the crew heads, the monks, and should all apply these words of the Buddha to their everyday activities. So, I think of Shingi as like the right attitude.

[08:02]

The attitude is the most important thing. How we actually mingle with each other. But our attitude is when we meet and when we address and when we think about each other. And when we think not just about people, but about things as well. How to treat tables and chairs with compassion. With that kind of attitude. How we treat our eating bowls. The wonderful thing about orioke, you know, is that we treat our eating bowls very compassionately. We laid them out, and it was just so, you know, respectful and careful. And the interaction between the server and the one that's being served, and the bowing to each other, to actually bow to each other, and not just bow and leave, as if the other didn't exist.

[09:08]

And the way we clean the bowls and everything is done right there. And it's a total wonderful act of devotion and love. And how we carry that attitude into the world is our practice. People always say, how do I practice in the world? You practice in the world in the same way you practice in the Zendo, hopefully. Treating everything that you meet with respect, compassion and love. So this is called the practice of selflessness, basically. So, there have been several occasions when I have had the opportunity to create a kind of Zen center Shingi, like the beginnings of a Shingi.

[10:24]

Suzuki Roshi said, you should create your own minor your own minor rules of behavior. Because the major precepts are pretty much, you know, everyone follows those. But those major precepts are generalities. The minor precepts are more particular to a situation. So Xingyi is more like minor precepts. How do you treat every situation? And if we only treat every situation according to rules, we miss the actual heart of the situation. So Xingyi is our attitude toward every situation.

[11:33]

moment by moment. This is called living precepts. Suzuki Roshi called acting by rote as dead precepts. Living precepts are how you actually address each situation according to a compassionate attitude. And it may not look like It may not look like what's written down as the precept. So I wrote some minor precepts. Given my observation of some of our behaviors which cause problems. to not create suffering.

[12:37]

So minor precepts are major precepts. They are a way for us to think about how not to create suffering. So I have a whole list of things. I've talked about this before. 1995. No, no. 2005. Almost six. And I think it's OK to talk about it again. Matter of fact, I think anything important we should talk about over and over and over again. Because how come you never talk about such and such a thing? Well, I did. Nineteen ninety five. So I'm just going to look at some of these. I gave these to Lori one time and she put them in the categories.

[14:02]

She put them in three categories. So one category is called dominance. Talk, talk. So be aware of strong emotions. When strong emotions arise and don't use them to feed a dominant position. So often we get charged, like in a conversation or when something doesn't go our way and we have a very strong emotion. And it seems like the tide is going against us. So in defense, in order to defend ourselves, put a charge behind our righteousness.

[15:03]

Righteousness is another problem for us. Having to be right all the time. So having to be right all the time, we create certain difficulties, right? Correct? Always having to be right and to dominate in that way and be able to accept that maybe someone else is correct. That's hard. It's very hard. These are really hard precepts to deal with and they come up all the time. To be able to see that someone else is right and we may not be right. So when this strong emotion comes up to dominate the conversation, we'll call it that, to know when to realize that that's what's happening.

[16:18]

to realize when we're actually doing that and if someone reminds us to be able to accept it. Another one is practicing letting go of the need to sum up. So when there's a talk or some kind of conversation and then a lot of elements and then you get to the end and someone has to have the last word. These are my precepts for me as well as for you. So catch yourself when you are doing that and just let the thing go. You don't have to sum up. Everybody understands already. When you sum it up then it gives you the position of being on top.

[17:21]

False position, of course. So in practice, not having to be the first, but being last. Or in the middle. Being in the middle is the hardest one. Because we get ego satisfaction from being the first, and we get ego satisfaction from being the last. To be in the middle. not so satisfying as the ego, just ordinary, right? How can we be ordinary and not stand out in some way to satisfy our self-centeredness? And then practicing humility. So I've told you many times my definition of humility is to just be who you really are. You're not more than you are, and you're not less than you are. It's just, this is who I am.

[18:23]

And I have, I feel fine about that. That's the hardest place to be. Because we always want to edge a little further or something. So, yeah, be content with who you really are. That's enlightenment. A true humility is really enlightenment. because it means just being exactly who you are. And don't treat people in a subservient manner. Sometimes, if you're in a position of authority, the person who is in a position of authority over you will think you're just wonderful because you act very nicely to that person, but then you may act very mean to people under your authority. This is very common. So, in a position of authority, be very careful about how we treat each other and not try to dominate and control everything.

[19:31]

You know, Dogen talks about turning and being turned. Practice is how you turn and how you allow yourself to be turned. If we're only turning, that's called dominance. And if we're only being turned, that's called passivity. So, how do you know when to be turned and when to turn? So, if you're turning things and being turned at the same time, then that's perfect balance. You're not being passive and you're not being dominant. You're simply being harmonious. How do you actually create a harmonious situation moment to moment? That's the practice. That's enlightened practice. How do you create a harmonious situation moment by moment without being dominant and without being passive?

[20:37]

And then there's a category called. Oh, here's another one. Don't walk around with an imperious attitude. I am a priest. And of course, don't show off. So the category of. center of attention, practice letting go of the need to be the center of attention, which means always drawing attention to yourself all the time. Every once in a while someone will come to practice, this is an extreme example of course, who has a big mental problem and they need a lot of attention and so they're always drawing a lot of attention to themselves. And people think, well, we should take care of this person out of compassion.

[21:44]

You know, they're sick, or something, which is true, and we should be compassionate for them. But if you allow that person to dominate, then all the attention of the desire goes to that person. And the person is just eating it up, eating up all that attention, and just drawing everybody into it. And we think we're being compassionate, That's simply being codependent. So we have to know the difference between being codependent and being compassionate. That's a big one. And then the practice of letting go of resentments. Oh, is there anything else to talk about? So, backbiting. Resentment leads to backbiting.

[22:48]

Someone said something to us, just the slightest little criticism. And it can stay with us for days and weeks. And you wake up thinking about this thing. And you walk around all day thinking about it. So, how do we let go of that? Well, forgiveness is a big one. Forgiveness is really important. And often people will, someone will come and say, how do I let go of my resentments or something? And I realize, you know, what am I doing that causes the person to say something to me that on the other side, but we don't always see our own part in having this happen. There's some reason why somebody said something that we don't like, that we've caused them to say.

[23:52]

But we don't see that, or we don't want to accept it, often. So, first is to be able to accept the fact that, or investigate, what did I do that caused this person to say that to me? And when we figure that out, it's easier to let go of our resentment and to apologize to ourself. And often we need to apologize to the person for feeling resentful. That's so hard. Because we lose our self-identity as a self-centered person. So forgiveness is a release. Forgiveness is how we release ourselves from resentment, basically. We think often that it means that, oh, now you're okay.

[25:02]

It doesn't mean that everything is okay now. It simply means that I am now separated from my suffering. So, the practice of returning to calm mind is very important. That's the major practice, is always staying within the calm mind. This is what Sri Guruji was in major teaching, among other major teachings, was always maintain your composure. by coming back to calm mind. We get hit, you know, and then we stagger around, but we calm down and come back to our calm mind. We can get hit verbally, emotionally, mentally, physically.

[26:04]

And then renunciation. Renunciation means dropping self-centeredness. That's all. It doesn't mean giving up all your worldly goods. If you need to give up all your worldly goods because they're dragging you down, which is where most people are, we don't realize that we're hauling all this stuff around with us. All worldly goods. If you have a table that doesn't have anything on it, come back in the morning. So, we have the problem of too many good, but renunciation is dropping our self-centeredness and returning to our calm mind and practicing humility. That's basically

[27:09]

renounce our false self. That's all. So then there's the practice of... well, control is kind of like dominance, but practice sitting back and letting others take the lead. Some of us always do that. And so if you can do that all the time, it's good to sometimes take the lead, actually. Otherwise, you're always being passive. And if we're too passive, we're only blaming somebody else. Often. Not always. We're often blaming somebody else for controlling us. Well, okay. You know. I'll do that. Okay. You're just controlling me. You know. Act. Take the lead. And then practice letting go of controlling people.

[28:15]

If you get into a position where it's easy to control people because they have a dominant position, how do you not control people? So easy. because you want people to do what you want. When we teach, teaching is not controlling, but sometimes we think it is. To allow people to find out something for themselves, that's the hardest thing. We're teaching because the teacher always wants to direct people, you know, make sure they do the right thing, and that's true for certain activities. But it's also important to let people find out for themselves.

[29:21]

So it's a kind of balance between doing the right thing and allowing people to do the wrong thing. Until it finally hits them. And then they know We learn something from the inside and not just from the outside. That's practice. Then there's the practice of no excuses. There's a difference between a reason and an excuse. The reason we went to war in Iraq was baloney. And the excuse we had for attacking Iraq was da-da-da-da-da. So it's quite different, an excuse and a reason.

[30:25]

And then the practice of no defensiveness. So hard. You know, when we're... The Zen practice is counterintuitive. in a way, because when we have an intrusion, our effort actually is not to retaliate. In Zazen, when we first start to practice, we have a lot of pain, and before we understand how to deal with that, We fight it. And then you realize it doesn't work to fight it because it just makes it worse. And this is, of course, the problem of the world. Reaction. So defensiveness is to let go of reaction.

[31:33]

Letting go of defensiveness is to let go of reaction and to know how to respond. Responsiveness is not the same as reactiveness. If we let go of our reaction, we can find a way to respond. But reaction blocks the response and is simply blind. Response is putting eyes into our activity, into our action. Then it is very difficult for someone over 50 to receive correction, but that's no excuse. Don't use excuses like, I am not good at that, or that's just the way I am.

[32:42]

This is like meal practice, right? I'm not going to go there. I just, I know how I am. I just do things this way. So this is like getting stuck in yourself. Really getting stuck in yourself. And when you find yourself getting stuck in yourself, to realize that, well maybe I could be good at that. Or okay. Maybe I can do that. Maybe that's not just the way I am. I just think that's the way I am. So this is like stopping things. Letting go of practice of self-righteousness. Don't walk around while eating or drinking or smoking.

[33:51]

People don't smoke. Well, people don't walk around smoking so much. But when you come to the work meeting, don't come with your coffee. Just come to the work meeting. And when you want to drink your coffee, sit down and drink your coffee. Just do that one act. Don't drink your coffee while you're doing something else. I'm waiting. When we come to the work meeting, our attention is on that. It's not on our cup of coffee. This is called one-act samadhi. Pichigyo Zamae. This is our practice. One-act samadhi. When you do one thing, you do that one thing. You don't kill two birds with one stone. You can do it easily, but it's not good practice. Good practice is you do one thing at a time. When we meet one action, we complete one action. People, you know, we're opening the door, and we're stepping out the door, and we don't even realize that, you know, what did we just do?

[34:57]

What was that action of opening the door? What was that action of putting your hand on the door handle, turning the door handle, opening the door, walking through the door, closing the door? That's a complete act with beginning, middle, and end. It has so many facets. But we're opening the door and we're already thinking about something else, you know, and reaching behind us to close the door in a utilitarian manner. So utilitarian takes over. We're so accustomed to utilitarian that we don't really pay attention to what's actually going on. We want to get from here to there, but we don't necessarily want to have to go through all the details or pay attention to all the details. So practice is paying attention to all the details.

[35:58]

It's okay to want to get from here to there, but paying attention to all the details of how we do that is more important. because otherwise we're missing our life. We miss our life because we live it too much in our head, in our desire, and in our resentments. All this is to relieve our suffering and get back into ourselves. Don't keep apologizing for doing the same thing over and over again.

[37:02]

Every time I do it, I can apologize. Oh, I'm so sorry. Oh, okay. Oh, I'm so sorry I forgot that. Oh, next day. Oh, I'm so sorry. And this becomes a kind of habit too. let go of what you promised you would do, because you can always say, oh, I'm so sorry, and then the self-effacingness becomes a kind of ego habit. So we have to be very careful of that. And then apologizing for doing the same thing over and over and over again. So if we can wake up from that, it really helps. So it's all about waking up. It's all about waking up and recognizing our own shortcomings. I don't want to call them false, but they fall short of what we really want to do.

[38:13]

So these are the particulars, some of the particulars of minor shortfalls, shortcomings. And to keep reminding ourself. The reminders. When we find ourselves doing something, how do I deal with that? So, maybe you have a question? Are these in the dominance category? All of these? No, no, I'm sorry. Dominance, center of attention and control. And then you went on to other categories. But they overlapped. They overlapped. Just curious. Back when you were explaining one way of forgiving people is by taking responsibility for what you may have done that caused them to do what they did that bothered you.

[39:20]

You said about that, I think you said about that, that when you do that, If you get in touch, you're no longer separated from your own suffering. And I didn't get the connection between that and... What you said was what I meant by preparation. That's preparation for forgiveness. To take responsibility. Yeah, when you take responsibility. And then, you know, it gives you the impetus. Yeah, that helps you to forgive. No, that alleviates you from your own suffering. Separates you from your own suffering. You're no longer suffering. Oh, if you forgive. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Peter? I'll try not to sum up. I'm just wondering if the flip side of some of these kundi could be expressed as

[40:34]

Don't turn away from waking, awakening. Well, yeah, of course. I keep thinking that there's something that you really want to do that you're not doing when you do these things. Right. Well, this is all this is, is awakening, staying awake, basically. Staying awake because Well, yeah, when we're doing these things, we're forgetting, right? Well, when we're having an emotional reaction, we think we're awake. Well, yeah. We're awake in a certain way, but we're not fully awake. It's a kind of substitute for being awake. This isn't part of the precepts that you talked about today, but this question often arises for me. Whenever the question of meat-eating comes up in here, you or somebody else might say that, well, we can't help killing.

[41:41]

Killing is part of life, life and death. And so somehow the problem of meat-eating goes away. Meat-eating. Meat-eating and vegetarianism versus vegetarianism. So I myself have gone back and forth, eating weed, giving up weed, eating it again. But I was never satisfied with that kind of answer that sometimes I think I hear from you and others, which is that if we think that do not kill means that you'll never kill, we're wrong, because we're involved in killing. And so somehow from there, there's a jump to, so it's okay to eat chicken. And then, I've never felt okay about that, because we have choices. And we would, maybe it would be okay, maybe we wouldn't mind stepping on an ant, but we would really try to avoid running over a dog.

[42:48]

And I just still don't see how it's really okay to choose to eat animals. I want a little more of an answer. Yeah, okay. I just want to talk about ants. We don't run over them on purpose. It's just that everything is running over everything else. Everything is eating everything else. Everything is being eaten and eating. And so we do the wrong thing. We do the wrong thing. by eating chicken and animals and so forth. But I'm asking you, if you have a choice, why do you choose to do the wrong thing? It's a hard habit to let go of. So you're just saying you eat meat because it's a hard habit and you haven't been able to break it? Well, I've gone back and forth.

[43:50]

Do you feel that it's better an expression of precepts to not eat meat? Yeah, better expression to not eat meat. OK. Hi there. You brought up the issue of resentments, which kind of raised a big laugh in the room. I thought that was interesting. Well, that's because we all have it. But I've found that in dealing with my own resentments, I've had to turn... I haven't found inside of Zen practices to help deal with that and to cultivate forgiveness. So I've actually turned sometimes to other traditions to use some of their practices which are more focused on these particular issues. Am I just missing something? You're missing something, but I think it's also okay to turn to the other practices. too open and scary for me sometimes when I'm actually grappling with a very strong issue.

[44:59]

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, if you turn more toward this practice, that might help. I don't see it that much. I'm still thinking about call. Calm mind. You used that word today. Yes. And I'm never sure what it is. But say a person has a dynamic mind and confronts a calm mind. And then it seems that the calm mind is a sluggish mind. No, no. That's a sluggish mind. Or is that a problem? Calm mind is dynamic. Okay. And where does aggression fit in? It doesn't fit in at all. These are just the drama that goes on with me.

[46:04]

This. Yes, it is. The drama that goes on with you. I know. It's me, but we love you anyway. I just wanted to maybe hope that this is a quick question or quick answer. Quick question. Well, in my community, it's really difficult to engage in ethical discourse with people and to relate our ideas of morality and how we act in the world. And there's a lot of fear around ethical discourse. What's a good way to cut through this fear of ethical discourse with other people? I think, what's your bottom line?

[47:06]

It's your questions. It's like, where do I come down? Where do I come from when I'm talking about this? If you think about it deeply, you realize it's about how to alleviate suffering. Ethical discourse should be about how to relieve suffering. Not so much about what we do here and there. How does what we do create suffering? And that's the basis. What is the basis of ethics? If you come down to what is the basis of ethics, then you have some place to stand. Otherwise you're just talking about your idea, my idea, and there's nothing. Who wants to talk about that? So it has to come down to the basis of what ethics is. And then being able to say, you know, like, My answer to Linda was, it's wrong to eat meat, but I can still eat meat.

[48:06]

I realize it's not right. Let's just be truthful, I think. OK, one more. The hand. I can't see your face, but I can see your hand. Hi. How does non-duality, the principle of non-duality, late to the statement that there's no place for aggression. There's no place for aggression. Oh, yeah. Yeah. OK. Yeah. What do I mean by that? Well, how does that relate to non-duality? It depends on what we mean by aggression.

[49:11]

What do you mean by aggression? Aggression. That's a force imposing itself in some way. It's dualistic. It's just dualistic. Because non-dualistic aggression, just by its nature, is divisive. Right? Oh no, actually. I'm sorry, but I think that it's just another experience. Another experience. It's just another part of life to be aware of. It is. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's right. Aggression arises. And then after aggression arises, you know, the feeling of aggression, then you have a choice of what to do with it.

[50:17]

And then you can treat it in various ways.

[50:22]

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