Well, we just did the Bodhisattva ceremony. The Bodhisattva ceremony is actually called, in Japanese, ryaku fusatsu. And fusatsu means something like repentance, but not in the usual sense. And ryaku means abbreviated, or short. Traditionally, twice a month, monks in the Theravada tradition would have a twice-monthly recitation of the precepts, 350 precepts or so, and recite each one. And then when someone had transgressed, they would come forward and say what their transgression was, and then that would be dealt with.

[01:13]

according to the seriousness of the transgression. But, for Sots, it's different than that. Even though we say this is a kind of repentance ceremony, it's a repentance ceremony in which individual transgressions are not enumerated. So it's a non-dualistic way of dealing with your avowal of karma and confession. So, you know, the first part we say, all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, born through the body, sleep, each in mind, I now fully avow.

[02:28]

So this is avowal. And avowal means to bring forth and to recognize and to admit. And then the rest of the ceremony is renewal with homage to all of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and to take our vows again and to re-establish ourselves in our practice. I want to read you some quote from Katagiri Roshi. I used to be a little bit puzzled by this ceremony. And Katagiri Roshi always used to say, well, I used to say, well, why don't we talk about our transgressions?

[03:37]

And he said, that would be dualistic. because we're dividing the good from the bad and the right from the wrong and making distinctions. This is a little bit difficult for us who don't, who have been brought up thinking in a dualistic way about good and bad and right and wrong. So he says, in a ritual of formless repentance, called formless repentance, the following verse is chanted. All the karma ever created by me, since of old, through greed, anger, and self-delusion, which has no beginning, born of my body, speech, and thought, I now make full open confession of it.

[04:51]

In Buddhism, Repentance does not mean to apologize to someone for an error or a mistake. The ritual of repentance is not to ask forgiveness from someone for what one has done. Repentance is not a preliminary stage to enter the Buddha's world or to become a good person. If repentance is understood in this way, we fall very naturally into the trap of dualism. A big gap is created between us and whatever we try to make repentance to, and that will always cause some confusion. And real peace cannot be found in dualism. Repentance in Buddhism is to lead us to be present right in the middle of peace and harmony. It is the perfect openness of our hearts that allows us to hear the voice of the universe beyond the irritation of our consciousness.

[05:55]

It's an interesting word. Repentance itself makes our life perfectly peaceful. When completing the significance of repentance in Zen Buddhism, there are three conditions to consider. One is that we should realize the world of the compassionate heart. And two, that the self must readily accept the compassion of Buddha's world. And three, that we must set in motion the interactive communion between us and the universe. And then he says, repentance is to realize exactly the oneness of merging all sentient beings and Buddha. Delusion and enlightenment. All sentient beings are allowed to live and are from the beginning forgiven for living their lives in the world. In Christianity, one is born sinful.

[07:01]

And according to this, in Buddhism, one is born forgiven already. I haven't thought too deeply on this, but you can see the pitfalls. But if you think about it, he says, repentance is to realize exactly the oneness of merging all sentient beings and Buddha's delusion and enlightenment. All sentient beings are allowed to live and are allowed to live and are from the beginning forgiven for living their lives in the world. Everything, whatever it is, has some reason why it exists. evil, good, even something neither evil nor good. You cannot destroy devils just because you don't like them. Even though you don't like monsters, still there is some reason why they exist.

[08:04]

Everything is entitled to live in this world in peace and harmony beyond our judgment or our evaluation. This is the first condition we have to realize. Everything is Buddha. This is very hard to swallow. Because, did we say about evil, Buddha? Yes. So, repentance is to rise beyond, above good and evil. As long as we're fighting the battles of good and evil, they will never be satisfied. This brings up some very deep questions.

[09:08]

It brings up the question of justice, and the question of vengeance, and the question of equality, and harmfulness, and forgiveness. These questions are perennial questions. And no matter how finely you try to define justice, it's really difficult to find what is justice on a dualistic level. He says, repentance does not mean to apologize to someone for an error or a mistake, although we do apologize for our errors and our mistakes, but in the realm of a vow of karma, to recognize

[10:35]

our mistakes is first, to recognize our errors is first, and after recognizing and vowing to do something about it. So we say in the Sixth Ancestor, when he talks about repentance in the Platform Sutra, he says, To repent is to realize our fault, our transgression, or where the path veers off, or where we veer off the path. And when we see that, to turn around and get on the path again. That's truly repentance. You may apologize to someone. That may help them in some way, and help you, because it helps you in your admission and humbleness makes you humble.

[11:40]

But to actually create a harmonious situation in your life. This is why Zazen is called repentance. Because when we to Zazen, when we sit in Zazen, we leave the dualistic realm and we harmonize ourselves with Buddha and with right and wrong, good and bad. They're all equated in Zazen. So Zazen is actually called, it's a great repentance. Repentance is actually to leave the dualistic realm and harmonize all things.

[12:50]

Then one is not doing right or wrong or good or bad. We tend to, our tendency is to do good. and to eliminate bad but actually each one of us is good and bad and to just let go of the bad or try to push the bad away and just take what is good is impossible because as soon as you become good on that side you also become bad It's like, you know, a sword has two sides, two edges. Sisyphus used to talk about the two-edged sword. He said, although you want to hit something on this side, when you bring the sword back, you kill the person in back of you.

[13:53]

Just like when you're driving down the street, And somebody stops for somebody waiting to cross the street. And the person waiting to cross the street is just waiting for the cars to go by. But this person stops so that person can walk across the street. But everybody in back has to come to a screeching halt. So, you know, what we think is good is in front of our eyes. But there's something behind us. No matter how good we are, there is a dark side. So to harmonize both sides or all sides of our being is repentance. Last weekend we had a reunion of Suzuki Roshi's ordained disciples.

[15:05]

Tsukiroshi, our teacher, our old teacher, he ordained maybe, it's hard to say exactly how many people here, 16, 17, 18, some of his first ordained disciples ran away. This is very common. This is very common with the Japanese teachers in America. When they first came, almost every one of them ordained somebody who ran away. They realize, well, what am I doing? But we count maybe 15 who are, or should have. And this is the first reunion that we ever had since. You know, Suzuki Roshi came in 1959, for all practical purposes, 1960.

[16:08]

And he started ordaining priests around 62 or 63. Maybe later, 64. I was ordained in 69. And then he died in 1971. And then his successor, Baker Roshi became abbot. And when he became abbot, a lot of the priests that the Tsuki Roshi ordained had to leave. And some of them stayed and became his disciples. But there was never any unity among his priests. because of the way Baker Oshi conducted his teaching.

[17:18]

And often he made divisions between everyone so that there was no real feeling of unity. It was very divisive actually. And then when he lost his position as abbot of the Zen Center, all the priests were even more scattered. And I always felt that there should be a unity between the priests, because they all represent some aspect of Suzuki Roshin, of a teacher. And people in Zen Center, you know, wonder What kind of practice is this, where these priests don't have any interaction between them? What kind of Zen practice is that?

[18:20]

But that's very common in Zen practice, as a matter of fact. When the main teacher dies or leaves, the students bicker among themselves. Very common. Or leave, or do something. But there had been meetings recently, in recent years, where the students of Baker Roshi joined with him in a meeting, and then they told him what the kind of problems they'd had with him. You know, more a kind of blaming and getting it off their chest. But this reunion, I thought that we should just have a reunion of Suzuki Roshi's ordained disciples, just to have a reunion. Not to put anybody in the center as a focus, but just to check in what we've been doing, where we are, and to talk about Suzuki Roshi's stories, share the stories of that

[19:34]

our experience with our old teacher. So we did this in the community room for two days. And it was quite wonderful because it was, you know, I always felt that Richard Baker should repent. I thought this for 15, 20 years. But it's very difficult for him to see his problem. Very difficult. It's like, you know, I can't see my problem. And so this meeting, I felt, if we have a meeting where everyone is equal, usually these meetings always focus on this person, you know, where he's just one of the people, one of us, and there's

[20:40]

It's just the meeting of peers. And we all share equally. And this allows, this is, without saying, this is repentance. Just leveling the field. And not putting anyone on the defensive, no matter how you feel about the person. Just allowing this kind of free association is kind of like suspending earthly life and ascending to a higher level for a certain period of time where there's no contention, no blame, no calling to accounts, no jabs.

[21:46]

And in that space, all kinds of things can come forth which in another, in an earthly realm, can't come forth because they're not allowed to, there's too much fear. So to create the situation where there's no fear and no anxiety, no blame, really allowed for a kind of healing to happen. Which doesn't mean that, you know, I talked about forgiveness a few weeks ago. Forgiveness, this is a kind of forgiveness without forgiving. It's a natural forgiveness, which means that you let go of your agenda. And this allows everyone to see their own problems and their own faults and to recognize that without having to be told.

[22:52]

Everyone realized who they were and what their problems are and how they offended each other and so forth without anybody saying anything because The free space just allowed that to happen. So that was quite wonderful, and I felt that that was a real repentance. But that doesn't mean that there aren't issues that people are accountable for. But I think it helps the process of accountability much more so than trying to make somebody... It's just like dealing with kids. I realized the more you try to manipulate the situation, the further away they retreat. The more you want to get something done or something happened, the further away they go. So it's very hard because you have to expand all your expectations and just let things work naturally.

[24:09]

But in a harmonious situation, where you're not creating a duality between right and wrong, good and bad, that flow will move things, make them happen. And everybody wanted to do this again as soon as possible. So I'm very happy about that. To me, that was a kind of informal Riyaka Prasad. And Riyaka Prasad is something we do once a month. But it's not a special ceremony. It's special because it's a ceremony. But it should be, or I don't want to say should, to carry that attitude as our practice in our life from day to day, that's really our practice.

[25:24]

To create that kind of harmonious situation, non-dualistic situation wherever we are, is really how to bring peace into the world. But, you know, our tendency is to react and to blame, and to want justice, and to want accountability, and so forth, and to want things to go our way, and to want to err on the side of good. Suzuki Roshi used to say, each one of us is good and bad. good and bad. And as much as, as I was saying, as much as we try to be good, no matter how good we are, we still are half bad. And if we can accept that, people say, when I was talking about forgiveness a few weeks ago, I did mention self-forgiveness, but a lot of people said, how come we didn't talk about self-forgiveness?

[26:42]

And that's very important. Self-forgiveness, I think, is recognizing that we will always be half good and half bad. And to actually accept what we think is our bad side. We try to hide the bad side and present the good side. Which is, you know, I'm glad that you didn't let me do that. But, that other side, we see anyway, you know, no matter how nicely we present ourselves. It's the other side we can see, you know. We all see it. So, I accept your bad side and your good side. And you should accept my bad side and my good side that way, and I should be able to accept my bad side and my good side.

[27:51]

So it's not exactly forgiveness, but it's unity. It's like understanding. People come to me all the time, so worried about something bad about themselves. This is also kind of egotistical. Wanting to be good has an egotistical edge. Wanting to be bad, I mean, thinking that we're always bad, thinking that we're always bad, also has an egotistical edge to it. Oh, I'm so bad, I can never do anything right. Oh, this is very egotistical, very self-promoting. So, what we want to do is get the world just right the way we want it to be.

[28:54]

But it will never be that way. The only way the world will be right is if we recognize the way it is and to move and harmonize with the way it is. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make things better. I'm not saying that. That's another issue. But within the world as it is, we have to be able to see it as it is. As it is, is enlightenment. To see the world as it is, to be one with the world as it is, is enlightenment. That's what our practice is. So there's always this problem of the good and the bad. So they actually exist on two levels.

[29:57]

There is the good and the bad and, you know, we want the good to prevail. But the good and the bad are always there. And no matter how good it gets, That good will turn into good and bad. And no matter how bad it gets, that bad will turn into good and bad. Right and wrong. Up and down. So, change will come about. Through our practice of Zazen, we don't try to change anything.

[31:07]

But change happens. Change will happen by itself. If we practice in this non-dual way, change will happen by itself, and things will go the way they're supposed to go. If you practice for a long time, sincerely, at some point you'll begin to see, you'll begin to realize how things do change. the inevitability of how something comes around. You'd be able to see that. You'd be able to see the sequence of events. And I don't say predict.

[32:09]

I don't like the word, you know. I don't want to get mystical. But you'd be able to see the inevitability of how things work. and how they come around and you don't have to do anything except go the right way at the right moment take the opportunity that's presented and go with that and things will work we can't be just passive we have to be active go with things and then have things go with us. It's called turning and being turned. Turning the practice and the practice turning us. Turning our life and life turning us. It's this wonderful wheel of co-operation.

[33:12]

And if we realize that everything has a reason, even though we don't understand the reason for things, we are more able to accept things, even things we don't like. As Kali Giriraj says, there's some reason for monsters, even though we don't like them. They're monsters because we don't like them. Remember E.T.? E.T. is a kind of monster, but we like him, so he's not a monster. But if we didn't like him, we'd say, oh, that little monster. But anyway, it's difficult, difficult to live in a world where there are many things that we don't like and will kill us and will hurt us and so forth.

[34:44]

But if our mind and our practice and our body is focused on unifying and harmonizing, we'll begin to understand how things work. And we'll be grateful. for whatever it is that happens. We tend to think of our lives as isolated, in isolation. But our lives are not in isolation. As he says, we are allowed to live. And whatever situation we find ourselves in, being allowed to live, This is the situation that we are allowed to live in, whether we like it or not.

[36:03]

And how do we deal with that situation? So each one of us is given this problem. This is the situation that I'm allowed to live in, in my life. How do I deal with this problem? That's our life problem. Our koan. That's our genjogoan. How do we do that without falling into the deep pit of greed, hate and delusion? Mostly delusion. And we like to escape from our problems and we find different ways to do it. And we get to a point where we say, I'm between a rock and a hard place. What should I do? Just be there.

[37:11]

That's the place to be. Do you have a question, David? Sometimes I think the reason there are monsters is because we don't say no to them. actually promote monstrosity? I wouldn't call that non-dualistic. We have our yes and we have our no.

[38:14]

So, I think I need to say something about dualism and non-dualism. We live in a dualistic world and the dualistic world is based on non-duality. So on the basis of a unified world, we have the dualistic realm. And the dualistic realm is a creation of our mind. Because actually, the world is not dualistic, but our minds are dualistic. And somebody said, well, how come? of whether, how come or not, that's the way it is. This is called, actually, the dualistic mind is called the fall from grace.

[39:20]

And the story of the Garden of Eden is actually more of a Buddhist story than a Christian story. No, it's not because it's Jewish. It's the division of the mind into knowing and not knowing, into intellectualization, into objectification, into discriminating mind. So, originally, our mind is not dualistic, but as we become educated to this world, our mind divides itself into right and wrong, good and bad, monsters and saints.

[40:23]

And so, within the dualistic realm, we have to be able to say yes and no. We have to be able to do that. Every moment you have to make a decision. Every moment. What shall I do now? What creates a self is desire. Without desire there is no self. without wanting something for ourself. There's no self. So discriminating, there are two levels of discrimination. One is to discriminate in favor of ourself, which creates a self. And the other sense of discrimination is just to see what needs to be done without being self-centered.

[41:34]

And that's discrimination based on non-discrimination. So, when a monster arises, you do something if it needs to be done. Whatever needs to be done, you respond immediately. You're always ready to respond to whatever needs to be done. But your discriminating activity is based on non-discriminating mind or non-dualistic mind. I don't know if that makes sense. Andrea first. Well, I think this is a really interesting topic and we were kind of talking about it on Monday. Monday morning, too, when Mayday was talking about injustices.

[42:38]

And there's all these different aspects of it. And it's just really interesting. And for example, if someone is sitting before you and saying, oh, I'm such a bad person, I mean, the last thing they want you to do is say, yeah, you really are a bad person. They want you to say, oh, no, you're great. Or people are really good people. And if you say, you're a really good person, they go, oh, no, I'm not. It's just really funny. That's right. ...thing that happens and, you know, in my relationship, the worst place for me is taking all the blame or not taking any blame. Say, I didn't do it, you did it. And then, you know, Tim will say, I did not, you know, you did it. And when we're both like on either side and not sharing it, it's really, it gets to be a really hard place. Because we get pushed into, you know, this happens all the time. we get pushed into a divided mind.

[43:40]

So it's interesting, in the Jewish Day of Atonement, everybody runs through this litany of transgressions, and everybody says, I'm guilty of this, even though they're not. Whether they did something or not, they all say, I'm guilty of this, because you're part of the whole world, and you're identifying with the world. So, often, if someone blames you for something, say, I'm sorry, whether you did it or not. That's non-dualistic. Because if you say, I didn't do it, then you're taking one side. So, there are various ways to deal with that.

[44:42]

You can say, I'll take the blame, I didn't do it, but I'm sorry I did, I'm sorry, or something. Some way, if you are practicing in that way, then you'll think of some way to deal with that in a non-dualistic way. That's really our practice and we get caught by reacting all the time instead of responding. Reacting means to come back relying on our ego, relying on our sense of self instead of how do I respond to this without creating a self on this moment? And so it's this genjo koan, coming up moment after moment. And we get caught all the time, you know, especially in the close relationships, in the family relationships, you know, with the kid, with the wife and the husband and so forth, you know, reacting all the time.

[45:58]

Well, I don't remember saying that, but I'm glad that I did. But, you know, the character for heart and mind is the same. Although we tend to think of the mind as being the intellect, and the heart as being deep feeling, a deep connection They're really connected. They're really two aspects of the same vitality. So, keep an open mind and an open heart. Which means not to have an opinion. Not to hang on to an opinion, excuse me. We can have opinions, but not to be attached to our opinions. So that we're always open to seeing things aside from our opinions. because our opinions are always biased.

[47:29]

So how to approach a situation in an unbiased way is very difficult. So open means not biased, not having a set idea about how something is or will be. Or, of course we do anyway, you know, we have some idea, but not be attached to that idea. Allow for something else. So when we see how a person is saying, oh, I know who you are, I know how that works. But we only know from a certain biased, awake standpoint. And to actually understand that person deeply, thoroughly, It takes an open mind. And we see a person a hundred times and we say each time, oh, here comes so-and-so again.

[48:34]

That's a biased mind because we get to know each other. We think we know, but we only know what our biased mind will tell us. And to be able to see that person for the hundredth time and not have an idea about that person Very difficult. So, the practice is to totally, continuously unburden ourselves of opinions and partiality. Yes? At any given moment when we are called on to make a decision, don't we have to call on We call on our past experience and our opinion, but at the same time, to be open to the situation.

[49:37]

So, as I said, we do have that when we meet a situation, but the difference is whether or not we're attached to our idea or our opinion. So, yes, we meet a situation, we have our experience, and we know how we've done it in other times, and so forth, and so we have some way to go, right? Of course, there are many variations, but I'm not exactly talking about that. I'm talking about a fundamental way of... understanding or accepting and relating to the world around us and ourself. You mentioned earlier about universal repentance.

[50:41]

About what? Universal repentance. Universal repentance. as far as accepting everybody? Oh, I see what you're saying, yes. Unconditionally. I think what you mean is unconditional. What happens if, you know, if someone's bothering you and you want to tell them off? Or is there some aspect that is blatantly bad that you need to go about it, you know? Like, shouldn't you stick out? It looks like you shouldn't do anything. I'm not talking about being passive. It's not about being passive. It's about being open. When you're only being aggressive, then you're not really being open. You're only exhibiting one half. So being passive is being partial.

[51:44]

being aggressive is being partial. There has to be some unity and balance. Sometimes, you know, there's only anger and you act quickly, and that can be good or bad. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, mostly it's bad, but sometimes it's good. I've been reading in the recent years of my daughter's school. So there are lots of monsters. And I sort of, in my effort to understand how to relate to the monsters in my own life, I've sort of been taken by the fact that it's really the heroes and the heroines are the people who basically respond in a skillful way to the monsters in order to get

[52:45]

what they needed to proceed on the path that the monster was walking. And the princess and the frog, right, is the way to go. And also, the monster and the saint, you know, are two sides of each one of us. So the stories are all about the two sides of each one of us. And fighting the dragon, you know, and all this. and fighting the angel. Those stories are all about those two sides that exist in each one of us. And so the battle is here and also the reconciliation is here. And that's all we have time for.

[53:40]

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