morning what I want to talk about is the Bodhisattva ceremony and the precepts which we just we just had the Bodhisattva ceremony and but I'm going to sing you a song first I haven't done a song in here for for quite a while and I just was I was moved by all of your voices by the chanting and the bells and the our collective recitation of the precepts in the bodhisattva ceremony. So it leads me to want to sing a song. I hope that's okay. Let's see if I can manage all of the stuff. The song that I'm going to sing is a meditation instruction that was offered to us by the great singer and songster Ledbetter.

[02:35]

And he was from Louisiana and Texas and was just an incredible musician. growing up in the African-American musical tradition in the South and I discovered his music I think like 62 years ago. They had some of his recordings in the library when I was growing up and just he's been a major figure in my musical life since then so I'm gonna sing a song of his. It's called Relax Your Mind. And I'll start with the chorus and you can sing it along with me. I'll sing it once and then I'll sing it again and then I'll do the rest of the song.

[03:46]

I can't even find my sleeve here. This is not as easy as it looks, you know. Years of professional training. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. It'll make you feel so fine. Sometimes, well, you've got to relax your mind. So you can sing that. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. It'll make you feel so fine.

[04:52]

Sometimes, you've got to relax your mind. That's good. When that light turns green, you gotta push down all the gasoline. Sometimes, you got to relax your mind. Relax your mind, relax your mind. It'll make you feel so fine. Sometimes, you got to relax your mind. So this is meditation instruction. drive or edit at the same time. When that light turns red, you better push down on the brakes instead. Sometimes you've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind, relax your mind. It will make you feel so fine.

[05:54]

Sometimes you've got to relax your mind. out that windshield. Sometimes no texting. You've got to relax your mind. Relax your mind. Relax your mind. It'll make you feel so fine. Sometimes you've got to relax your mind. Once a man crossed the railroad track. forgot to relax. That was one time you know he should have relaxed his mind.

[06:59]

Relax your mind, relax your mind, it'll make you feel so fine. Sometimes you've got to relax your mind. It'll make you feel so fine. this morning we had the bodhisattva ceremony and for some of you this is the first time but did we have we done it recently i can't remember i don't think everybody was chanting were they anyway we're going to begin our regular recitation of this monthly now which is great

[08:34]

And I noticed just, you know, with the passage of time, the last time I did this, I could do all the bows. And now I have to let go of that for the moment. Maybe it'll, maybe I'll be able to do it again. And maybe not, maybe not, but that's okay. It's the spirit and the energy that we put into our activities, which is the most important. So this bodhisattva ceremony, the form of it, is ancient in our Zen tradition and goes back before that. In the Zen tradition, if you read the Platform Sutra, which goes back to 8th century China, in the middle of that there's what's often called formless repentance ceremony, which is this. It's very familiar. Once you read through it, you'll see pretty much the same thing.

[09:39]

And this is one of our, you know, this is one of our one-size-fits-all ceremonies. So if you have lay ordination or priest ordination, basically we do all of these parts of the ceremony. It's there, embedded in it. If you get married, it's embedded in it. When you die, if you're a layperson, the heart of the funeral for a layperson is the same thing. It's the ordination ceremony. It's the bodhisattva ceremony. So in each of these ceremonies, these ordinations, wedding, funeral, the precepts are recited and transmitted to us. doing this ceremony is a kind of affirmation of our vows, our vows to practice.

[10:45]

And I just want to, because it was new to quite a number of you, how many of you were doing it for the first time? Yeah, a number. So we do this monthly and it has, let me just, lay out what the parts of it are. It begins with confession. Oh, I should say, and we'll get into this more, this is what's known as the... This is, in Japanese, it's called the Riyaku Fusatsu. It's the abbreviated ceremony of repentance and renewal. And so it begins with confession and repentance. all my ancient tangled karma from beginningless greed and delusion, I now fully avow." So you own, we own what our karma has been, we own what missteps we may have made, or in what ways we haven't been able to maintain the precepts.

[11:56]

And we sort of clear the deck at the beginning of the ceremony. I think, in a sense, the abbreviated part is that we're not particularizing or saying what our errors have been in the previous month, which is saying all my ancient technical comment, not just in the previous month, but from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion. So, going back through time. I now fully avow. So it begins with repentance, begins with confession and repentance, and then the rest of it is the renewal of those vows. So the next section is the homages. We pay homage to the Buddhas before Buddha,

[13:02]

the bodhisattvas and all of the unknown Buddhas and bodhisattvas, some of whom may be personal to us. And having paid our respects, we then recite the bodhisattva vows. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. And of course, as I said, I think the other day, there's a built-in conundrum in all those bodhisattva vows because they're vast. Beings are numberless. I can't even count them, but I'm going to save them all.

[14:05]

Well, how do you do that? Delusions are inexhaustible. One continuous mistake. That's what our lives are. But I vow to end them and so forth. Each one of them is positing something. Each one of the Bodhisattva vows posits something incredibly vast And yet, we embrace it and direct our lives towards each of these vows, towards the accomplishment of each of them. And what we have to do then, we have in the recitation of what has evolved as the 16 bodhisattva precepts.

[15:05]

And that breaks down into three groups. The first considered precepts are the refuges, where we go for safety in our practice, in our arts, in our lives, with each other. Refuge in the Buddha, our enlightened nature. Refuge in the Dharma, which you could call the teachings. You could also call the Dharma natural law. You could call the Dharma the way it is. So take refuge in Buddha, take refuge in Dharma, and take refuge in Sangha. Sangha is what supports us.

[16:07]

It is this community, it's the community of all beings, and perhaps it's the community of all, of all beings and things. Thich Nhat Hanh famously said that the next Buddha will be the Sangha. And actually, as I was studying this week, in our tradition, you know, we have this perception of warm hand to warm hand. So we have a perception that the Buddha transmitted the Dharma to Mahakashapa and then to each ancestor up until ourselves.

[17:18]

In other records, particularly in the early Pali records, The Buddha does not have a successor. You know, he had disciples, he had enlightened disciples, but he didn't pass, in that record, he didn't pass the particular authority to any one person. So what was the authority? The authority was the whole community of people who were holding the precepts. So the precepts were actually the authority. When I received Dharma transmission from Sojin Roshi in, boy, 25 years ago, 1998,

[18:24]

And you'll see a version of it, those of you who have had the ordination, there's a document that we receive called the Ketchimyaku. It's a bloodline. And there's a text at the bottom. On the text that Sojin wrote to me, it says, on the 15th day of September in the year of 1998 of the Common Era, monk in the inner room of Zen Shinji, which is Dasahara, affirmed and revealed to me that the perceptual vein of the Buddha is the one great causal condition of our lineage gate. So the precepts are the essential authority. So going back historically, we see that what seemed like a radical statement by Thich Nhat Hanh that the next Buddha would be Sangha is actually kind of the re-articulation of a historical fact.

[19:41]

So, we recite the refuges, refuge in Buddha, refuge in Dharma, refuge in Sangha. Then we recite the pure precepts, I vow to avoid all evil. I vow to do all good. I vow to save all beings. Those are very, those are sort of broad framing of the precepts. And then we recite the ten pure mind precepts or grave precepts. vow not to kill, not to steal, not to misuse sexuality, and so forth. And then we've completed our recitation of the 16 precepts, and of course, as we do with all of our services, we dedicate merit at the end.

[20:48]

We dedicate the merit of our chanting, the merit of our practice. to all sentient beings. So, that's the form of the ceremony. There's a lot of bowing, there's a lot of repetition and chanting. And it stands, when you look at Suzuki Roshi, Suzuki Roshi my understanding did not really teach the precepts in a very detailed way. He had a broad embrace of the precepts. He wasn't in any contradiction to them. But what Suzuki Roshi said was, The real meaning of precepts is not just rules, but it's rather our way of life.

[21:57]

When we organize our life, there we see something like rules. So as soon as you get up, to wake up completely, you watch your face. This is a precept. So how you keep your precepts is how you organize your life. and how you organize your life, he says, is how you practice zazen. If you think, I have to observe this precept and that precept, ten precepts, one by one, that is wrong practice. Precepts should be observed without any idea of observing. In short, when you observe precepts in the same way as you practice zazen, that is perfect precepts transmitted by Buddha from Buddha to us.

[23:02]

I think that's something at the heart of his teaching and his faith in zazen and we can be deeply encouraged by that. And yet, perhaps, we do need some guidelines and rules. You know, by extension, for example, there have been active discussions, you know, we have a lot of, we represent center and a lot of places have documents with ethical guidelines and procedures for when those guidelines have been transgressed. And at least in some of the discussions that I've been party to, you know, people would say, well, the precepts are enough.

[24:07]

Evidently not. So just as Suzuki Roshi's encouragement that the heart of our spirit of our zazen is our sufficient expression of the precepts we find it really helpful to have the articulation of what we did in the bodhisattva ceremony and this goes back to the earliest days of buddha of the sangha At least monthly, in the early Sangha, there was what was called the Upasata, day of observance of the precepts, the Vinaya. And it's a day for cleansing of the mind, which results in inner calm and joy. And it took place often at the new moon and the full moon, and almost always at the full moon.

[25:17]

And it's still happening. monks and nuns gather and they recite what's called the patimoka and the patimoka is is this collection of vinaya precepts vinaya is a collection of rules in sort of graduated importance from the most serious ones, which would entail expulsion from the sangha, to ones that have to be confessed, repented, and sort of cleansed in order to sit in the circle of sangha. And this word vinaya, which is what we translate as precepts, one of the words we translate as precepts, the root of it means

[26:21]

to lead away. Ni means to lead and vi means away so it's leading away from from ignorance and from passion and hatred. We often translate it as discipline but it's really leading away from those things towards a wholesome life. Now The origin of the Buddha's precepts is wonderful to consider. In the first short period of the Sangha, when the disciples that came forth to Buddha, each one of them was identified as an arhat. you know, as a being who has accomplished all of, who has purified his, I will say his mind, because they were all men.

[27:32]

That's a whole other question. But shortly after, as more people were admitted to the Sangha, and also as more people were ordained by senior by senior monks and then senior nuns, these rules emerged. And the rules were... there were a lot of them. In Southeast Asia, in the Theravada lineage, which carries one of the collections of precepts, there's 227 rules for monks and 311 rules for nuns. That's okay. And one raspberry. I don't think that happened in the sangha, but maybe it did.

[28:41]

It probably did happen someplace, but quietly. So the way these rules came about is like, For example, somebody would come to the Buddha and would say, Judy is piling up her food and make it into a great mound that looks like a mountain. And the Buddha would say, don't do that. Write that one down. You know, or... oh, you see that monk, he's having sex with a knothole in a tree. And we would think, oh, please, don't do that. Write that one down. And there were a lot of them. And some of them are logical, and some of them we can see maybe don't apply now, but...

[29:49]

they accumulated. And then when the Buddha died, when the Buddha died, they called on his attendant, Ananda, to recite the precepts and also to recite all the suttas, because he had a photographic memory. And When he came in to recite the precepts, he said, before he started, he said, well, the Buddha said that after he was gone, we should only keep the major precepts. And then he, you know, they asked him, oh, which are the major precepts? And Ananda said, I forgot to ask him.

[30:53]

um and so they decided in the first council they were going to keep them all and the precepts that we have uh the vinaya precepts were in the uh full or theravada ordination school they have all those they have all these precepts um so then the buddha came and the buddhism came to china There was another text. There are two texts called the Brahmajala, the Brahmanet Sutra. One is a Theravadan, one is an early Pali Sutra, which delineates the precepts, and the other is a Mahayana one, which delineates precepts from a Mahayana perspective. And these were translated around the year 400 in the Common Era. And In the Mahayana Brahmajala Sutra, there are 10 major and 48 minor precepts, which are seen as bodhisattva vows.

[32:06]

And usually what happened, at least in China, was that at ordination, you receive a full vinaya ordination, and you also took these 58 bodhisattva precepts. So he received both streams, both ethical streams. When Buddhism came to Japan, this was about during the late 8th century, particularly with the founding of the Tendai school in Kyoto, by Saicho. Saicho argued that his monks should only use the 58 Mahayana precepts of the Buddha, of the Brahmajala Sutra.

[33:07]

And part of his motivation was to free his order and free his monks from the authority of other powerful Buddhist schools in Nara, which was in the capital. And it's interesting that his commitment to the full Vinaya was that after 12 years of practice, of Tendai practice at their monastery on Mount Hiei, then the monks would receive all the Vinaya precepts. But this never became sort of crystallized. It was very strong. I want to read you something from Sideshow. From now on, we will not follow Shravaka ways.

[34:16]

Shravaka is the way of the hearers, the way he was characterizing uh uh monks who took the full vinaya precepts we will turn away forever from from indiana which is a pejorative term meaning small vehicle dignity i vow that i will henceforth abandon the 250 uh vinaya precepts since then these bodhisattva precepts have been transmitted from teacher to teacher and he he describes the lineage which is often the case that they would this is the way they authorized we created authority or authenticity by designating a lineage he says I have read the buddhist teachings and I know there are strictures on dignity for both bodhisattva monks

[35:21]

and the Bodhisattva, and that there are pure Mahayana and pure Dinayana teachings. Now the students of my school shall study Mahayana precepts, meditation and wisdom, and they shall abandon inferior Inayana precepts, practices forever." And this is, as I've been speaking in other contexts, it's like this is part of the politics of buddhist power so to characterize the other schools as inferior we don't have to do that please don't do that you should respect everyone well actually you should respect everyone as a buddha and you certainly can't think of those thai monks who are down the block as in any way inferior to us. We should learn from them and see how actually wonderful their day-to-day practice is.

[36:31]

So at some point when Dogen arrived on the scene, from Saichou's teachings, he designed, he stripped it down and streamlined it to these 16 Bodhisattva precepts that we take. And the refuges, the pure precepts, and the grave precepts and major precepts. And we do this ceremony every month of Riyaku Fusats. So I want to just finish and leave time for discussion with something from a lecture by Suzuki Roshi speaking of the Bodhisattva ceremony.

[37:41]

Before the Buddha, with this kind of observance, they tried to protect themselves from evil spirits. So they had ceremonies like this even before Buddhism. After Buddha, They also gathered lay people, monks and nuns, and recited the precepts. And those who had failed to observe the precepts would make confession. As I mentioned in passing, even today, so every twice a month, the Theravada Sangha, they have a circle and they recite the whole Vinaya. And if you have not maintained a precept, before you can sit in that circle, you have to make confession to an elder and clarify your karma and then you can join the circle for recitation.

[38:43]

Suzuki Roshi says, the nature of precepts is to encourage and continue good practice and to end diluted practice. This is the idea of precepts. Fusatsu. Fusa means to do something, to continue something good, and to stop something bad, or to stop some bad karma from arising. Ryaku means abbreviated observance, Ryaku Fusats. So in Japan, we just observe this once a month. So I want to leave time for discussion. I think there was some questions that arose in this context. So the floor is open. If you are online, please raise your digital hand.

[39:51]

I will see you. There's too many for me to see it once. And also, I've been asked, and I'm going to try to do this, I'm going to repeat the question as best I understand it, because there's some difficulty in hearing the questions clearly when you're online. So I'll try to do that. So the floor is open. Yes, Anna. With the atonement aspect of Fusatsu, I've found it to be helpful to think about the particulars, though I know that's not maybe the instruction, and I also find it difficult to hold the vastness of atonement without thinking about the particulars, so I guess I'm wondering... So Anna is saying that it's helpful to her to think about the particularity of whatever it is that she's confessing and atoning for, and that, in a sense, that that's helpful, particularly given the vastness of that framing, all my ancient terms.

[41:19]

Is that correct? So some places, sometimes when we do this ceremony, and we did this, when we had ordained for a while, when he was abbot, Norman Fisher was convening all of the priests for San Francisco's end center system, and we would get together, I think, every few months and do this ceremony. But before the ceremony, we would have small groups, and we would sit in a circle, and people would make a straightforward confession. And some places they do that. I actually think that's a lovely practice. And this is something that we can do together, but I also

[42:20]

I'm thinking about it, you know, I'm thinking about whether the particularities mean something and they're also bound to, you know, whatever yours or my particular acts of confession might be, they will, whatever any of ours are, they will resonate with each other and also create a kind of tie not with any compulsion to confess something, but it might be a really helpful process. So I think that would be something to think about, how to do that. Thank you. I see Ken and Katie. When you were talking about ceremony and accountability and relationship, it just brought up for me questions about how much can any particular community or relationship hold?

[43:49]

the repair process and what that means for eval. So to be concrete, a young man I know transgressed against his classmates and a very difficult situation. And the community came up with, or the school administrators came up with a very good repair process, but the school community just couldn't hold it. you know, the other students couldn't hold it and he is going to have some kind of repair process and he's going to leave that school and go to another because it's just every day being in the midst of that is much too difficult. And I've seen that in other contexts as well. And then I think about my own experience of vows and I think, you know, my most rich slash annoying experience experience of vow is with Ken and how we bump up against each other every day and have to hold each other accountable if we're going to stay in relationship.

[44:58]

And so far, our relationship has been able to hold our transgressions and we've been able to repair. I guess I'm not sure what my question is, but I guess just thinking about how we hold these vows and hold the precepts. When we're not being held directly accountable, when we are, is there a difference? I think that there's a difference, and I also think that there's a context. The context, for example, with you and Ken, is that you have both received the precepts. They have been transmitted to both of you, and by our recitation, by our receiving the precepts, there is what I think of as a kind of an ontological shift within our being that there's something changed in us because we have we have received these precepts and so in the simplest sense we have something to return to we have a wholesome principle to return to to you know to lead away

[46:17]

in the sense of an ayat from wrong action, delusion. And so we've just done that this morning. The whole community here has recited and taken into ourselves, each one of us, the precepts, which means if something if there's a transgression, which invariably there will be, we have a place of refuge to return to. In the wider community, like a school, it's like everybody's not in the same, they haven't made the same agreements. It's just like having communication agreements, which we do often for our meetings or processes, So we know we've agreed on this, so if something goes wrong, we have something to return to.

[47:22]

But if you haven't made these agreements, you cannot, it's pointless to try to close the barn door after the ship has left the harbor. It's just that kind of mixed metaphor. Oh, thank you. Mary. extending that question and based on the premise that relationships are based on the ability to repair, it does seem to me that there's a skill set involved, even when there's a shared context, about how to repair and how to begin anew. And it may go beyond I guess this is my question. Doesn't it go beyond confession? Yes. So Mary is saying that there's, you know, in the case of difficulty, there's a skill set involved in bringing about harmony.

[48:35]

Is that the correct way to... And some resolve. And some resolution. Right. And... we are imperfect, our systems are imperfect, but this is, you know, this is what the Buddha was trying to do with the Vinaya, was he created an entire framework that was very, very inclusive, you know, and really touched on almost all aspects of life. So you had a structure a pretty horizontal structure, not an authority structure, to rely on. And if you read the Vinaya texts and the Pali suttas, they had methodologies for resolving conflict. And so we would dwell to learn from that and also to devise methods that are

[49:42]

that are suitable for our time and place. Ed? Hi. I'm just curious about what role forgiveness plays in the Bodhisattva ceremony. What role forgiveness plays in the Bodhisattva ceremony? The confession I would make to you is... I guess I have some difficulty with forgiveness. And it's interesting, because actually Sojan Roshi really believed in forgiveness. And it's not that I don't believe in it or that I don't see it as necessary. I think forgiveness is... my responsibility.

[50:45]

It's something that I have to bring forth in myself as an openness of spirit. And sometimes I can do it, often I can do it, and sometimes I realize I'm not exactly ready yet. But I think it's implicit in this ritual that The act of confession and repentance and renewal is an expression of forgiveness that says, yes, we are all in this together. And we've done what we can, we've done our confession, and we begin again. We begin anew based on these principles.

[51:48]

So, I mean, I think that's ideally that would be the case. Sue. Thank you. Wonderful talk and song. That was really helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I think I almost hit the notes getting closer. Yeah, I almost hit them myself. Yeah. I guess when people come up to me and apologize profusely, and they're often women, men don't do that. We don't apologize ever? No. I'm sorry. No, that's not fair. I'm really sorry. would do what? Say, I'm really, I'm so sorry, like they caused harm.

[52:49]

And they didn't. And it's like, how do you calm them down and say, you know, it's like it's okay and see it. I mean, what do you say when someone is profusely apologizing and cringing before you? There's something that I don't get it. Right. So Sue is asking, when someone just comes up and she cringingly apologizes before you. I just want to hold him and say you're okay. You want to hold him and say you're okay. What I would say is I want to know what you're apologizing for. I want to know what you think you're apologizing for, not for what you think I think. There you go. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it's like this is What I love about this ceremony that we're doing is, it's your confession. It's not, you know, it's not transactional with another person giving them what you think they want to hear.

[53:57]

It's actually your reflection on yourself and how you want to go forward. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm going to take... We have to be quick. Yes, I can't see who that is. I'm Salvador. Ah, yeah. That's exactly what I wanted to bring up from the last person who was on Zoom. Within the act of confession and the precepts, where is the acknowledgement of forgiveness, compassion, and understanding? Because I just personally don't know if it's implicit within this practice. I feel like it's there. But I just don't... I'm feeling it and seeing it and hearing it now like never before, honestly. But as I've moved through my life, you know, I've never really felt or heard the conversation of forgiveness and compassion and understanding.

[55:06]

So what is it? What's your name again? Salvador. Salvador is saying is in this practice he hasn't been hearing the expression of forgiveness, compassion, and understanding that we're touching on today. Is that correct? Yeah, of oneself and others. I'm sorry? Of oneself and others. Has oneself and others. Of oneself. Wait, I'm sorry. Of oneself and others. Forgiveness of ourselves. Forgiveness of ourselves and others? Okay. All right, now I get it. Yes. You know, some of you were at Byakaren Judith Ragier's talk yesterday afternoon. I don't know if you were there, Salvador. I think what she was saying is

[56:10]

we need to articulate that more clearly as an element of our practice. That there needs to be self-forgiveness, self-compassion. And my feeling is that's a starting place. It's also true that another dimension, and this opens a whole other issue, is that there are places where words are not sufficient, where apologies are not sufficient. We're sitting down together to agree, not sufficient. And I will say, you know, at the risk of kind of opening this can of worms, If one is in a circumstance where there is a pretty significant imbalance of power, that's not subject to words necessarily.

[57:26]

Words may help, but there actually has to be something, there has to be action that rebalances that in order to, so that one person is not powerful, privileged over another. And that involves self-reflection on everyone's part. So maybe I'm sort of taking this and running in a slightly different direction, but I think we need to be talking about what you were talking about. And I think that actually those conversations are happening more and more in the community. So it's time to end. We really need to end.

[58:13]

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