My talk is always a work in progress, so when I'm entering Zen Do, facing the altar, I'm thinking, oh yeah! And then I forget what I'm doing. So please forgive me, it's not becoming a Zen teacher to be so absent-minded. Suzuki Roshi always talked about his own absent-mindedness. So I can't say that I inherited that from him. I've always been absent-minded, just like he was always absent-minded. So there's some affinity there. Maybe that's the only affinity you have. Today, this afternoon, we're having a lay ordination and I don't want to say you're all invited.

[01:20]

What I want to say is when great when everybody shows up for it to get support. So I'll leave that up to you. Four people, Linda Tanahashi, Troy Dufresne, Stephanie Seaborg and Joe Gaston. Joe is a student of Karen Dakotas in Montana. What's the name of that place?

[02:28]

Bozeman. It's a great place. I've been there two or three times. So that's happening. And then we had the Bodhisattva Ceremony a few minutes ago. So it's all about precepts today. So I'm going to give us a little more painful stuff about precepts. Suzuki Roshi talked about precepts. slave people and priests. And there are various divisions of precepts that we have to understand.

[03:32]

Precepts are not just rules or prohibitions or something like that. Precepts, according to our school, means following our way of life. So following our way of life, what does that mean? There's the way of life of the universe, and then there's the way of life of humans. So for humans, we have human rules made up by humans, but the universe has its own rules, which may or may not accord with our human rules, the way we idealize them. As a matter of fact, it really does. And so, this realm of suffering, as Shakyamuni put it, is caused by our being out of sync

[04:48]

rules of the universe. So the rules of the universe come first. So we have the 16 precepts And then there are the three pure precepts, to do no evil, to do what is good. These are dualistic precepts. And to devote our life to taking care of each other. The understanding of our school is that the first three refuges are called the indivisible three treasures.

[06:10]

Indivisible means undivided. Undivided means non-dualistic. In other words, the universe is one piece. So, there's only really one precept, and the one precept is not divided, even though it seems to be divided. It means not some person called Buddha, but in our true nature, in our true, undivided, indivisible nature. So, we say the true human body is the whole universe.

[07:14]

So Buddha nature covers the whole universe. And so Buddha is expressed as Dharma when it's taught and expressed as Sangha when there's harmony. So Sangha means harmony. Dharma means wisdom or practice, and Buddha means wholeness, completeness, oneness, indivisibility. It looks like Dharma and Sangha are divisions, but they're simply expressions and there's separation between each one of us and there's no separation between each one of us.

[09:00]

We are all one and we are also all two. So there's a talk by Suzuki Roshi. He gave quite a few talks about precepts. And he says, in the full lotus position, we cross the right leg over the left, and the left leg over the right. Symbolically, the right is activity, and the left is the opposite, or calmness of mind. If the left is wisdom, the right is practice. So even though we have two, symbolically we have oneness. Our posture is vertical without leaning right or left, backward or forward.

[10:02]

This is an expression of perfect understanding of the teaching that is beyond duality. So beyond duality includes duality. We say enlightenment and delusion, that's just a duality. We say I am enlightened, that's just something that's the opposite of delusion. It's just simply another form of delusion. So beyond means beyond our understanding. So this is, when I used to read this, I kind of understood it, but the more I delve into it, the more clear it becomes, this description of reality.

[11:16]

to Zazen as the perfect expression of the universal activity and the phenomenal activity as one. So in Zazen we let go of discriminative thinking, we let go of good and bad, right and wrong, like and dislike, and simply merge with the universal precept of just this. The basic precept is just this. This is the Buddha of Buddhadharma Saga. This is what all the koans point to. This is the basic understanding of Mahayana Buddhism.

[12:37]

Dazen is the perfect expression of no-self. The self of the universe is our true self. And then we have human precepts. Because we have empathy for each other and for ourselves, we create rules. Don't kill, don't steal, don't do all these things that are antisocial and which cause trouble in the world for ourselves and others. Those are human precepts. Here they are. not selling intoxicants as Buddhism, not praising ourselves and deprecating others, not dwelling on the faults of others, not withholding Dharma or things, material things, not harboring ill will, and not abandoning the three treasures.

[14:07]

So, very simple. The human precept. the world and around in our surroundings. So this is the dualistic precepts between doing good and not doing bad. So this is included. So on the basis of these ten used to be, well I would say used And they were reduced to 10, which covers pretty much basic human behavior. And then there are all the details of those precepts. So in the Vinaya, if there are 250 precepts, then there are categories of precepts.

[15:12]

Some are major, and others are minor. And then there are minor, minor, minor, minor. The minor presets have to do with when you pick up a rice ball, you don't shove it in your mouth and swish it all over your face. Yeah, that's a minor preset. So we don't need those minor presets. We have our own minor presets, which I have categorized, but I haven't formalized with you. So we should make our own minor presets. When we talk about the precepts in the old days, it's always in reference to the Vinaya that was assigned to the monks. Have you ever seen any precepts that were assigned to Buddha's lay followers? Yes. Five. The lay followers gave five precepts. The first five that we have. But when you're in the monastery... But then Buddha talked about how to behave yourself, too.

[16:16]

But I'm not sure if those were called precepts. And we don't know. When Buddha didn't make up a lot of rules, except that, monks would come to him and they'd say, you know, what about this? And what about that? Like someone, I've told you about this before, someone tickled the monk to death. A couple of guys, four or five guys, they tickled the monk to death. Oh, look at him, he's laughing. Even now he's crying. Don't do that. It's not funny. Don't do that. Don't do that. I mean, I'm full of rules because, you know, these monks were just guys. And the women were just women. I think that a lot Anyway, he was talking about it.

[17:38]

He said, man is more simple. And then he said, simpleton. Maybe I'm too much of a simpleton. That's a great little series of things he said, which is nice. lectures and so on, but actually the teaching comes through Zazen. And Zazen is the direct expression and the direct reception of precepts because we are totally immersed in Buddha nature. Even if we're Zazen teaches us what creates suffering, and it teaches us that there is such a thing as suffering, and it teaches us that there is a reason for that.

[19:01]

And then it teaches us that there is a way out of it, or a way to deal with it. And it's called learning the hard way, through experience. And it keeps us grounded in the Dharma. So there are three kinds of divisions and presets. One is called the indivisible preset, which is satsang. Oh yeah, of course, that's because you can't move around and you can't do anything. But that's not the reason. The reason is that we receive the precepts of non-division, the undivided precepts, which is hard to receive otherwise, because our minds are always dividing.

[20:16]

We're always discriminating. And when we're always discriminating, we can't experience oneness. We can't experience non-duality because thinking is division. Speaking is division. Compartmentalizing and separating. Discrimination means to separate. comes together. Then there is the collective pure precepts, which is called practice. The precepts of practice. And then there are the maintained pure precepts.

[21:22]

precepts that keep the precepts of human relations and relations with each other, how to maintain harmony. And then the maintained pure precepts harmony with surroundings, with our surroundings, like keeping the buildings in shape and relating to the neighbors and relating to what it takes to keep a practice going. So Suzuki Roshi likes to think that non-division, then we don't know.

[22:40]

We're just swimming in the realm of divisiveness and trying to keep things together through rules and regulations. You know, the Daoists had very nice Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu. When you start making up rules, then things start falling apart. Suzuki Roshi did not like rules. So when we have the understanding of the oneness of duality, then we know how to act in the realm of duality.

[23:42]

So to have the experience of non-duality, an indivisible precept, and to understand the prohibitory precepts or what we call the one-mind precepts, the precepts of not killing, not stealing, so when you understand that those precepts have a good understanding and an understanding of the non-divisibility takes place in between. That's the middle way. And our life is when you perform some activity, which we do moment to moment, we know the rules and we also know the non-duality of life itself.

[24:56]

So our life is just improvisation, moment to moment. We make a decision, but our decision is based on understanding the other two levels. So this is called the Bodhisattva's precept. It's improvising, deciding what to do on each moment, knowing that understanding that life's precepts are above human desire and at the same time realizing that there are rules that help us. Precepts, those precepts are not rules exactly, they're just reminders of how to stay out of trouble, how to stay out and how to maintain a clean life.

[26:04]

But improvising, we do that all the time. That's what our life is about. So when Suzuki Roshi says, our precepts are just about how we live our life, that's what he means. Without having too many preconceptions, we can improvise, because we meet circumstances with an empty mind. craving, without desire, without gaining, simply being open and empty. We may feel inadequate because we don't have something in our sleeve, but surprisingly when we if we trust ourselves.

[27:12]

But because we don't necessarily trust ourselves, we have various ways of relating which are stereotyped. So this is called having freedom. So then he says, when So this posture of zazen is not just a kind of training, but is the actual way of transmitting Buddha's teaching to us. Words by themselves are not good enough to actualize his teaching, so it is transmitted through activity or through human relationship. So we receive Buddha's teaching. And then we transmit it through our actions, through our activity.

[28:20]

Some people talk about it, like me. must choose the teacher, and then the teacher will accept the disciple, maybe. Though sometimes the teacher may recommend another teacher. Between teachers there should not be any conflict. So if a teacher thinks another is more qualified, that person may recommend him or her. So I think that's right. Once you become a disciple, First, as a disciple, you may wish to practice with a teacher, not because you want to study Buddhism, but for some other reason. But still, it doesn't matter. If you devote yourself completely to your teacher, you will understand. You will be your teacher's disciple, and you can transmit our way.

[29:23]

This realization between teacher and disciple is very important. And at the same time, it is difficult for both teacher and disciple to be teacher and disciple in its true sense. So they should both make their best effort. It's something very hard. like this morning. Then with our ears we listen to others, but with our mouths we practice our own practice.

[30:34]

And here we have complete egolessness in this true sense. So when we do service, the point is not so much to Try to understand what we're chanting, but it's how we practice chanting together that is our training. It's how we harmonize with each other. Rituals are like how we harmonize with each other, how we let go of our self-centeredness. a vehicle for helping us to let go. So, the meaning of the sutra is in the way we chant it. If you want to know the real meaning of the sutra, you can read a lot of books, but if you chant wholeheartedly and make a big effort to harmonize, letting go, that's the meaning of

[31:47]

It's like music. When you play music with people, you have to let go of your own ego to really make it work well. And then you are a voice with all the other voices, and it's one piece. So egolessness does not mean you give up your own individual practice. true egolessness has forgotten about egolessness. As long as you believe my practice is egoless, this means you stick to ego, because you stick to giving up egocentric This is the oneness of precepts, the one indivisible precept.

[33:07]

Of course you have ego, but your ego is submitted to the activity, and then it works. So we each need a strong ego. But the ego is submitted and it helps us, helps people, rather than makes us outstanding. So no ego means ego that is diversified. So this is also the true observation of precepts. If you try to observe the precepts, that is not true observation of precepts. When you observe the precepts without trying to observe the precepts, that is true observation of precepts.

[34:11]

Our inmost nature can help us. When we understand the precepts as an expression of our inmost nature, that is the way as it is. then there are no precepts. When we are expressing our inmost nature, no precepts are necessary, so we are not observing any precepts. On the other hand, we have the opposite nature, so we want to observe our precepts. Does this sound contradictory? It does, but it's not. We feel that of precepts, one negative and the other positive. Also, when we do not feel that we can observe all the precepts, then we can choose the ones that we feel we can work with.

[35:19]

So that's the opposite side. So precepts are not rules set up by someone. The Pacific Hiroshi expressed that rules come from our innate nature. They're not something imposed on us. So in a true sense, precepts come from ourself. and precepts. We keep all the precepts. The basic precept, the basic way to express precepts without choosing things is compassion.

[36:31]

If we are grounded mind. It means identity action, basically. We identify and have sympathy for all beings, including things. We are respectful for things. Dogen, when he talked about objects, always gave them an honorific title. This robe is called the Kesa, but he called it the O-Kesa. So, O is a respectful way of speaking about something. So, respecting all the objects that are around us is the same way that we would respect each other.

[37:37]

system of compassion. The zendo, zendo is usually on the upper floor, there's more than one, but we had to put the zendo on the bottom floor and the kitchen on the top floor because of the configuration of the building. back to the chair. You're just treating them like objects. Well, they are objects, aren't they?

[38:46]

You know, they're not just objects. The chair is made by the universe. The chair is a piece of buddha-nature. The floor is a piece of buddha-nature. It takes the whole universe to make a chair. And it takes the whole universe to create the floor. And so we treat the true nature. A chair has chair nature. The floor has floor nature. I'll answer your question later. So when you move the chair, you move the chair with respect. And you treat the floor with respect. And you don't sit on the table. But you should treat the table with respect.

[39:51]

It's a table. You know, during our... I don't know. Sometimes we have meals, and we just slide things across the table to each other. It's totally disrespectful to the table, to the object, and to ourselves, actually, because we're not being mindful. We're not being aware of what we're doing. Mostly, we create havoc in the world because we're not aware of what we're doing. So, there's not a precept about how you move a chair. There's not a precept about not sitting at a table, but it's our way of life. So the precept comes out of our way of life of respect for things and for compassion for each other.

[40:58]

That's the basic thing. That's the basic precept. You don't need the rules. The chair is not separate. When we pull the chair, then you're separate. You think you're attached to it, but you're just separate. But when you take care of it, you and the chair are one. And you are one with the universe. You're creating harmony in the universe. This is how you merge with the bowl, become one with the bowl.

[42:21]

When you drink tea, you use both hands. Especially when we're in the zendo, with both hands. Because you become one with the bowl, one with the tea. That's our practice. And when you're disrespectful, it's not our practice. So, real precepts are beyond rules. It's attitude. Presence, attitude, and the rules help us, you know, remind us about our attitude. Don't speak ill of others. It's a precept, but it's really an attitude. And the precept reminds us of our attitude. So there's a lot more we must get on. I think we have one more minute. Suzuki Roshi, you know, we didn't have any lay ordinations until 1970.

[43:24]

Except for the first one, which is when Suzuki Roshi first came, he had Bishop Yamada, who was at Los Angeles, and he sent Shinji to come up and do a lay ordination. And then in 1970 he started doing lay ordinations. I never did have a lay ordination because I was ordained in 1969 as a priest. So he says, I'm grateful to have this lay ordination ceremony for you, our old students. special. According to the Bodhisattva way, all sentient beings are Bodhisattvas.

[44:27]

Whether they are aware of it or not, they are actually disciples of Buddha. But the time has come to strive for more sincerity to help others. As we have so many students here, inside and outside of Zen Center, that's when a lot of students really came Because all of us are lay Buddhists, actually. This is not a conceited idea. It is the spirit transmitted from Buddha to us. Accordingly, our way is like that of Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. When he wants to save women, he takes the form of women. And for boys, he takes the form of boys. For fishermen, he will be a fisherman. A more sophisticated without any idea of discrimination, and we can help others in a true sense without any idea of special teaching or material.

[45:37]

This is the Bodhisattva's way. And how we actually have this kind of freedom from everything, in this kind You have the point of Zazen, and the point of practice, and the point of helping others. And this is why we have lay ordination, for us and for including the various great teachers. The great teachers are all there, witnessing your ordination.

[46:39]

And the ordination comes through the teacher. It's not the teacher. The teacher is just a vehicle for the ordination. without anything, just being with people will be enough. Sewing your robe in spite of your busy everyday activity is a good example of Buddhist practice, I think. Even though we are busy, there is some way to practice the most formal

[47:25]

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