Yay. And can you hear me there? Good. Welcome, everyone. This is a very blustery morning. The bluster has just kicked in somehow in the last hour. So I suppose I'm going to add to the bluster, I'm afraid. So.

[01:02]

For some reason, for the last week or so, I've been thinking and studying about karma. And that a bit and feel like I'm really just scratching the surface here, but lay out some perspectives and some questions that we've just completed. our monthly bodhisattva ceremony. And that ceremony begins with the avowal of all of our ancient tangled karma and the act of confession and repentance and renewal. And the essence of the renewal is the renewal of the bodhisattva precepts.

[02:07]

And it's impossible to talk about karma without talking about the precepts. When we have an ordination ceremony, literally ordination or priest ordination, along with the rakasura robe, we receive a document, the bloodline, which leads from Shakyamuni Buddha down through all the Indian ancestors and the Chinese ancestors, the Japanese ancestors, down to Suzuki Roshi and to the next generation teacher. And to you. And there's a red line that runs like a thread through all those names and then runs back up to the top.

[03:16]

It's circular. In essence, it runs back up to the top of Shakyamuni Buddha's head. And there's a text at the bottom of the of the document that says. The preceptual vein of the ancestors is a great causal condition of the Buddha way. So it's the precepts, our moral activity, our moral life that runs through the entire tradition. In fact, generates the tradition. And it's also... that moral activity, that perceptual activity that determines karma, which determines our circumstance in the world.

[04:21]

So this question of karma is also inextricably linked from with notions of rebirth, with difficult matter for us. I tell the story, I have a new book, by the way, which we'll advertise sooner or later. It's published on Tuesday. It's called Turning Words. It's formative encounters with Buddhist teachers comes out Shambhala put it out. And one of the stories they talk about, it's a book of stories. And one of the stories talks about just hearing Katagiri Roshi at a session. And one evening in his talk, he said, tomorrow, I'm going to tell you all about rebirth.

[05:29]

And we were really looking forward to getting the dope on this, you know. Comes next day in lecture and he starts and he kind of rambles on for about five minutes and then kind of throws up his hands and say, I can't talk about this. The problem is I believe and you don't. That's true for many of us. I'm sure there are people here who do believe in rebirth. I think when I asked Sotun Roshi about this, when he spoke about it, he would often say, I don't remember. You know, which that's a good answer. You know, it's like one of those science fiction movies where

[06:30]

Your your memory gets wiped at the beginning of your next life. So you can't quite recall what may have happened in the previous, you know, previous in a previous birth. Anyway, it's difficult. And. In the course of I'm going to tell you. That. pertains, and also I'll sing you a song at the end, and then we can entertain questions. But this is a big question for Dogen as well. And it's interesting because actually wrote about this koan that I'm going to tell you, he wrote about it in detail in twice. Once kind of earlier in his life, And then once towards the end of his life, in another recension, Shobo Genzo, his Treasury of the True Dharma, and in those two, those two tellings, in his two interpretations, he takes completely the opposite view each time.

[07:54]

And I'll tell you. go investigate for yourself. It's very interesting. So I'm going to read you case two in the Mumon Khan, which is a very famous and also very complicated case. And we're not going to be able to go into all the ramifications. But this is the case of Yakujo and the Fox, which you probably have heard quite a few times. And I think that its location in the Mu Munkan is significant. It's the second case. It's the case that Joshu's dog, the Mu Kwan. So the first case really is talking about is a presentation of Buddha nature.

[08:57]

And the second case is a presentation about karma, the absolute and the relative. So it's great. It's important. So let me tell you that. Oh, I'm going to say something about Yakujo. So Yakujo, the early Tang Dynasty ancestors, He was a student of the great master Basso or Matsu. And Yakujo was the name of his in the story. And Yakujo is given credit for kind of the creation of the Chinese monastic system and the Chinese monastic rule. And he's a very . And the whole, I think the Rinzai lineage really descends through him.

[10:08]

And those regulations are still, regulations that he, in Yakujo's Shingi, regulations are still pretty much the foundation of our monastic systems. So here's the story. Once Yakujo was delivering some lectures, Zen lectures, and an old man attended who was first unseen. At the end of each talk, all the monks left and so did this old man. One day he remained after the other monks had gone. And Yakujo asked him, who are you? He wasn't a member of the regular congregation. The old man replied, I am not a human being. But I was a human being when Kasyapa Buddha preached in the world.

[11:16]

Kasyapa Buddha was one of those before Shakyamuni Buddha. And so that's one of those indeterminably long times ago. I was a Zen master and I lived on this mountain. So he was also would have been called Yapujo. Oh, just wait a second. Listen to the... There's nothing more beautiful than hearing the rain while you're sitting. So he said, I was a Zen master.

[12:25]

I lived on this mountain. At one time, one of my young students asked me whether an enlightened person is subject to the law of causation, to the law of cause. is an enlightened person subject to karma? I answered him, the enlightened person is not subject to the law of causation, which is perhaps the orthodox response of the early Buddhist tradition. When the Buddha and his disciples were awakened. Often the way that was described is what must be done has been done. And the message is that those beings are no longer subject to cause and effect.

[13:29]

They still have a body. But anyway, that's this old man's answer. Cohen says, for this evidence, evidencing a clinging to absoluteness, I was born, I became born as a fox for several hundred years. And I'm still a fox. To be born as a fox is not an auspicious birth. Fox in Japanese tradition, as in indigenous traditions in the Americas. Fox is a trickster. A fox is, can be mean, nasty, a thief.

[14:33]

And The sultan was very interested in the fox cult in Japan. And there's a little fox on his altar, which I've left there. But the thing about the foxes, it's not like a offerings that are made to foxes are not to honor them. The offerings that are made in Japanese tradition to foxes are to propitiate them and make sure, okay, we're feeding you, so please stay away. Don't muck about. And that's the kind of reputation that the fox has. So I became a fox for 500 rebirths and I'm still a fox. Will you save me from this condition with a turning word, which is my first encounter with

[15:37]

expression turning word, which I borrowed from this title, and let me get out of this fox's body. Now, let me ask you, the old man is asking the new Yakujo, is an enlightened person subject to cause and effect? Yakujo said, the enlightened person does not ignore cause and effect. And at those words, the old man was enlightened. He said, I am emancipated. And he made deep. I'm no more a fox, but I have to leave my body in a dwelling place behind the mountain. Please perform my funeral as a funeral for a monk. And then he disappeared. The next day, Yakujo gave an order to the chief monk, head monk of the temple to prepare and attend the funeral of a monk.

[16:49]

And the other monks wondered, they said, well, nobody was in the infirmary, sick here. What is this funeral going to be? Who's it going to be for? After dinner, Yakucho led the monks out and he led them out and around the mountain. And in a cave, he poked out the corpse of an old fox and then performed a cremation ceremony. That evening, Yakucho gave a talk to the monks and told the soul, cause and effect. Let me get to the last part, which bears a whole lecture in itself, but I'll tell you it, but I'm not going to touch on it that much. So in the congregation, there was a promising monk by the name of Obaku.

[18:01]

And Obaku, hearing the story, asked Yakujo, I understand that long time ago because a certain person gave a wrong Zen answer. He became a father in a hundred rebirths. Now, I was to ask if some modern master has asked many questions and he always gives the right answer, what will become of him? Yakujo. said to Obaku, he said, come here and I'll tell you. And Yakujo approached, and before Obaku approached, sorry, before Yakujo could reach out and whop him with his stick, Obaku, who was seven feet tall, Obaku was a big guy, seven feet tall,

[19:06]

He reached out and slapped Yakujo on the cheek. And... And Yakujo clapped his hands and laughed. And he said, I thought a barbarian had a red beard. And now I know a barbarian who has a red beard. Saying to Obak who was, the red bearded barbarian is a way of depicting Bodhidharma who's sitting back on the wall behind you, yes. And you know what he's saying to Obak, you've got the essence of Bodhidharma and is celebrating that.

[20:09]

So Mumman's comment is, the enlightened man is not subject. How can this answer make the monk a fox? The enlightened man is one with the law of causation. How can this answer make the fox emancipated? And clearly, one has to have just one eye. And then Mumman offered this verse. Controlled or not controlled? The same dice shows two faces. Not controlled or controlled? both are a grievous error. So in a sense, you could say that the old, the old man who became a fox, offers his young monk words that represent

[21:33]

the absolute, an absolute position. And one can speculate that that was not the right response for that Dharma moment. Moment. Each moment of our lives is a different Dharma moment than a different Dharma position. And what may be true in one moment, what may be useful in one moment, may not be in another and may in fact be dangerous. When I was speaking with Laurie about this koan yesterday, She reminded me that one of our teachers that to come from the position of the so-called absolute without really having in mind, without having embodied the practice and life of the precepts is very dangerous.

[23:03]

And we've seen that, we've seen that historically. We've seen that and sometimes we've seen it in our own life. So in the circumstance of the old Yakujo offering a turning word to the young monk, the person who gets turned is the old yakuja bear the circumstance of being reborn for all those years as a fox, which is not a pleasant fate. And yet we can see in this story He has not lost the spark of wayseeking mind.

[24:06]

That wayseeking mind is really deeply planted in him. And even in 500, he still has the wish to be free. He's not lost that. And so he's looking for the turning word that applies to him. The new Yakujo, the historical Yakujo, sees the circumstance and reads it and gives him the word, frees the old man, the foxhole man from from these rebirths. The funeral of a priest, actually any funeral that we have in a ritual sense incorporates the rebirth of the person who's died

[25:31]

in the Pure Land. So for a layperson, a layperson's funeral in the Siltro tradition, if that person has not received the precepts, they receive the precepts, basically the funeral ceremony for a layperson is an ordination ceremony. You know, what the fox was asking for, an ordination so that upon death, you will be reborn in the pure land. And the, or the funeral ceremony for the affirmation of that Dharma position that, Having lived out one's life in this realm, one is reborn in the so-called pure land.

[26:37]

You may believe in this, you may not believe in this. This is a challenge for all of us. One thing I would say about my understanding of karma, of Buddhist karma, is that we often think of karma as just, we can think of it as fate. It's like, oh, if I did this, this is going to happen inevitably. It's kind of a mechanistic unfolding of our life. That's not it. What was really amazing and new and liberating about Buddhist karma is that it allowed you to determine, the Dharma allows you to determine

[28:01]

what your next dharma position is going to be. In other words, if something happens to you, or there's some circumstance in your life that is difficult or unpleasant, or if you that's harmful to someone, then a correct understanding of karma is to allow you to think Okay, what am I going to do next? How can I offer a turning word? Irrespective of the circumstance that has unfolded. I remember speaking to a young man who had a Buddhist practice at Stanford. giving a class there.

[29:02]

And he had a very difficult stutter. And he came up to me after class and said, what is the, what karma has happened or has, what karma do I carry that that causes this stutter. And, you know, I said, I don't have any idea, but I don't think that's the right question. You know, the question is, you know, first of all, look at your circumstance. Yes, you have this, you have this, this what people would count as a disability. You know, the question of karma is, where will I make my next step?

[30:08]

What will I do next? This is the question of our whole lives. This is everybody's question in this room. And my question, what will I do next? So, I also want to say that Karma in the traditional way is not the only form of causation. You can find conflicting views even in early Buddhism. There are places in the early Pali Sutras where it would be said, the Buddha will supposedly say, you know, everything that happens to you is a result of karma. And there are other places in the sutras and in the commentaries where he lays out a range of causations that we experience, of which karma is just, you know, there's, these are called the Niyamas, N-I-Y-A-M-A-S.

[31:28]

and one is the constraint of the seasons that the seasons unfold a question of karma it's a question of uh natural science and similarly uh there's bija niyama which is the constraint of seeds means that a seed produces its own kind. So barley seed produces barley, a grass seed produces grass, a human seed produces a human, and they don't produce something else. This is a form of causation that's biological. And there are others. There's causation, there's Geological causation.

[32:29]

You know, there's no moral, an earthquake is not a moral activity generally. Nowadays, the Anthropocene, we are doing things that affect actually the planet. So we, you know, we actually are affecting the weather. You know, if we're doing, if we're fracking intensively, we could actually cause earthquakes. there are other forms of causation which are not about human agency. Causation, as we're talking about here, is about, is determined by volitional action, whether that's conscious volitional action. So, I would just say that turn you back to looking at this fox koan, one way that you can look at this koan, and actually a way that you can look at any koan is similar to kind of instruction that you would get if you're doing certain kinds of dream work, which is

[33:57]

Imagine yourself, put yourself in the place of each character in the koan. Of the old man, of the student, of the new Yakujo, of the fox, of Obaku, you know. What does the world look like from their perspective, from their point of view? This is how we train ourselves actually. to not be caught on our self-centered point of view. We do our best to be broadly inclusive of all perspectives. Imaginatively, it's an act of imagination because of course we can't exactly what anyone else is doing or thinking.

[35:02]

And, you know, it's hard enough to know what we're thinking. But that's an act of imagination. That is a fundamental human capacity. Marvelous to place yourself in those positions. And finally, I think this would be matter for further investigation. How do we recognize, first, karma is just karma. It's not necessarily my karma.

[36:05]

as soon as you own it and put the label of yourself on it, that's already a karmic action. How do you see cause and effect as simply the unfolding of our interdependent actions? And then that leads to a really controversial question about is there such a thing as systemic karma? You know, what does it mean? Some of the ills that we see in the world of discrimination and prejudice and types seem to be the enactment of groups of people that may fall on other groups of people.

[37:15]

And that may nonetheless, whether there is such a thing as systemic karma or not, what I would propose is that every one of us is responsible for the workings of the entire world. It's not a question of what group of people you're in or what your identity is. It's like, how do you remake the world that you live in? How do you take complete responsibility for it? That's the bodhisattva vow. Beings are numberless, I vow to save them. That is taking complete responsibility for all that happens. at the same time. So that's maybe an absolute position. I'm recognizing that we're all in this together.

[38:25]

That we're not alone. We have countless sisters and brothers around us who can cooperate. That's a larger vision, very complex vision of karma. Hey, before I close and sing you a song, if this is interesting to you. So the two fascicles of Dogen, One is called Daishugyo, the earlier one, Great Practice. And the position that he takes in Great Practice is the position that I hinted at was that both those

[39:39]

we're relating a truth from two positions. And that to fall into one or to fall into other, to the other is itself an error to raise one, to raise the position of an enlightened person, being subject to cause and effect, any other position. Enlightened person is, does not ignore cause and effect. These are both true according to, again, as I was saying, according to the Dharma position in the moment, and we should attend to that. Peter, towards the end of his life, in a fascicle called

[40:43]

Shinjin Inga, which was part of, late in his life, he constructed a 12 fascicle recension of, and at least some scholars. So that was when he was at Eheiji. I think it had just been named Eheiji, but he was in Echizen province and he was training novices and at least the supposition is that the position that he takes there, let's see, do not be unclear about cause and effect, evidently the deep belief in cause and effect. And this is how a listener gets rid of bad states.

[41:47]

We should not wonder about this, and we should not doubt it. So the supposition is that those he was training were not fully immersed in the Dharma yet, and they really needed, what they needed was this message, reinforcing moral activity. So, I'm going to leave that open question, and those of you who are interested, investigate, think about what the circumstances were that Dogen was proposing in each of those different moments. So I'm gonna sing you a song and then we're gonna open up. Let's see if I can do this without causing technical damage.

[42:57]

So this is a song that I've rewritten. It comes from the African American gospel tradition. The recording that I know of was by a man named Blind Willie Johnson, one of the deepest singers of all time, just really, really deep. And then it was also a version of this was recorded by the Staples singers, the Staples family, or some. And the Christian version of this is nobody's fault but mine. And it's about learning the scriptures and reading the Bible and I've changed it a little bit. Nobody's fault but mine.

[44:13]

Nobody's fault but mine. If I can't see my own true face, it's nobody's fault but mine. Why don't you try that? Nobody's fault but mine. Well, nobody's fault but mine. If I can't see my own true face, it's nobody's fault but mine. Nobody's fault but mine. Well, nobody's fault but mine. Nobody's fault but mine. If I can't see my own true face, it's nobody's fault but mine. I got trouble in my mind. I got trouble in my mind.

[45:16]

If I need... It's nobody's fault but mine. Nobody's fault but mine. Well, nobody's fault but mine. If I can't see my own true face, it's nobody's fault but mine. There's a wheel in the middle of the air. It's turning in the middle of the air. If I'm reborn on that wheel of life It's nobody's fault but mine I said nobody's fault but mine have a few minutes.

[47:11]

If you have some comments, questions in the room, please let's address them. Floor is open. Yes. Good to see you, by the way. single, the one eye? Yes. What is, what is that kind of refer to you? What's the thing behind it? That's the treasure. That's the true. Oh, I'm sorry. Yes. Thank you. Uh, Raghav's asking in Muman's comment, he speaks about, uh, let me use a line exactly here. Cause it's interesting. Uh, says to understand clearly, one has to have just one eye. That one eye is the true Dharma eye.

[48:20]

I think that's what he's referring to. Yeah, thank you. Ken? Hi, Hosan. Thank you. You mentioned that the dangers of speaking from an absolute perspective without a firm grounding in the relative, I think is what you said, leads to dangers. And I wondered if you could just elaborate on that a little bit. Well, I think it's a kind of what we might call spiritual bypass. You know, it's leaping over the actual circumstances, moving to some position that, you know, for example, the absolute position are there are no beings.

[49:34]

which is something, you know, it's something that you read in the Diamond Sutra and in some of the Prajnaparamita literature. And to take that as the absolute truth, what that, in historical times, to the justification of killing. If there are no beings, and there are no beings that can be killed, then it's okay to kill them. That's an absolute position. But I think it comes down in kind of finer ways in aspects of our life. Does that make sense? It does. Strikes me to say that an absolute position is that there are no beings and then to take a knife and kill someone seems like deluded.

[50:51]

It seems like not understanding your own actions. Well, just say, for example, in the Mahavamsa, which is a... respected texts in the Theravada tradition. There's stories, and one of the stories, there's stories that are part of an epic in, located in Sri Lanka, you know, in ancient, ancient times. And There's a war. One of the generals who purports to be a Buddhist, who's killed hundreds of thousands of people, goes to a teacher and, you know, in great remorse.

[51:57]

And the teacher says, well, don't worry, you only killed one and a half people. You know, you killed one person who had taken the refuges and the five precepts, and another person who had just taken the refuges. Other than that, they weren't Buddhists, and so they weren't real beings. That, you know, at least that's, in a legendary sense, that's a historical perspective. And it's, you know, you find this, this is a historical perspective that was manifest in Buddhism in Japan in the early part of the 20th century. So it's not so far-fetched. And what it misses is the interpenetration of the relative and the absolute. You can't posit the absolute without it being created from

[53:02]

the elements of the relative. And so they're inseparable. I don't know if that's a criticism or . I hope you're okay with this. Thank you. Someone else. I can't see if there's anyone online. I'm not seeing any other hands. Lori? Okay, so I think you can just have avoiding all the incredibly fraught terrain in you. You know, so carbon effect is what happened. So it's about what caused what happened. Right. Karma is an idea that whatever happened to me is based on a past action that I did.

[54:08]

And it's also, I don't even know my question, but it's like we think what goes around and so it's a reason to behave properly because you can have bad consequences if you don't. And so it's to check on people. And I think that, you know, Robert Thurman says that You have to believe in future lives or you will have no reason to behave ethically. We see people who do not, it doesn't come around. I mean, we see people doing bad stuff and nothing bad seems to happen to them. So, I mean, and that's what I meant about being flat. I mean, how can we think about, and you know, when you said, no, this is the fault of mine. I mean, not everything that happens to someone is their fault. Right. the most powerful position to take to make that it is your fault no you can take it as just what happened just just us just what it was nobody did you know no one person did it but because it comes from the long chain all the way but but i mean this is just so anyway i guess what i'm doing you didn't really open the cameras and

[55:28]

I shouldn't have opened it either. Okay, so that was just a long critical screed by my wife, which is appropriate. What she's saying was I didn't fully unpack and answer the question. She's saying that cause and effect is just what happens. I was saying was, when I say nobody's fault by mine, that's the position of taking full responsibility for everything that happens. And that's just the position. That's just one looking at it. And we're always just looking at it from one from one angle. So we tried to be all sided. There's something else that you said.

[56:33]

You said a lot. So there's something that I wanted to underscore what you're saying. And I'm not remembering it right now. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to get into that. So Robert Thurman, you know, there's an argument years ago between Robert Thurman and Stephen Batchelor. And Robert Thurman's position was if you don't believe in rebirth, then what's the motivation for moral activity? You know, and Stephen Batchelor was saying essentially, believe in rebirth, then, you know, you're always going to get another chance to, to correct it. It's just like, This is too theoretical for me. This just doesn't work as a motivation.

[57:36]

The question to me is, and I think our understanding of karma, at least was presented by Sojin and by Suzuki Roshi, is that that rebirth happens moment by moment, that we are constantly, according to our actions. And that is relevant to me. So when we talk about the Buddhist cosmology of, you know, the six realms, which are really just symbolic of, you know, countless realms, six realms, human, God, fighting demon, hungry ghost, hell being, I think that's it, right? Moment-by-moment rebirth means we're born in those realms with each activity in each moment.

[58:37]

We're born in the realm. And the responsibility to it, the responsibility to karma is to take care of, to move forward in a way so that we don't make things worse. So that's what I would say. I know we're almost, we're almost, So there's two questions here, which we'll end with, but please be brief, okay? So, Kurt? Give me a bit. There you go. Yeah, thanks for that talk. One part I really enjoy, and one part that I like is when the student asks, you know, what if he didn't make a mistake, right? What if somebody was always right? And then the answer was, I'm going to hit you with the stick. Because that, it kind of frees us up a little bit, or at least it frees me up.

[59:37]

So on the way, do whatever, because you think you're beyond cause and effect. But on the other hand, you can't expect, in the Cohen-Yamada translation, I think Moomin's comment sort of ends with not obscuring, not falling, 10,000 mistakes. That notion of being kind and recognizing that life is a mistake in a way. I don't know if you would speak on that. Well, I think you've just spoken on it and Obaku's, Yakujo's, if he had gotten to hit Obaku, it would have been a love tap. And that was Obaku, to hit your teacher is a big deal. But in this case, it was an act of intimacy.

[60:41]

It was an act of connection. And, you know, it's not an act of violence or punishment. Thank you. So, Ken, you have the last question. I'm actually going to pass. I think my question is longer than we have time for, and I will talk to you later. Okay. Thank you. Well, thank you, everyone, and enjoy this weather, and we'll see each other very soon. Beings are numberless. to awaken with them. Illusions are inexhaustible.

[61:33]

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