I'm very happy to be here. I look forward to this series of talks. They will consist of an introduction to the precepts, and then each of the first five of the precepts will be taken up in turn, tonight, tomorrow night and Friday night, and then next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. And each of these talks will be followed by a short break, during which time those of you who need to go may go, and then we will have a discussion, question and answer here

[01:05]

in this room. These talks are from a book tentatively titled, The Way of the Bodhisattva, which is tentatively scheduled to be published next spring, maybe a different title, I don't know. So I will be reading much of the material. Please bear with me. Please sit comfortably. I will try to enliven the reading as well as I can. I should also add that I am speaking from a particular point of view.

[02:07]

As a teacher in the Sambho-Kyodan line of Soto Zen Buddhism, the Harada-Yasutani line, a lay stream of Zen Buddhism, so certain parts you will need to listen to with a sort of ecumenical ear, because I will be referring to a practice that is strictly lay, now and then. The sixteen bodhisattva precepts form the final steps in koan study in the Harada-Yasutani line of Zen Buddhism. Like other precepts, they are succinct, like other koans I should say, these precepts are

[03:14]

succinct presentations of the way of the bodhisattva, the practice of doing the work of the world as an enlightened being, freed from personal suffering, all the way up if you have, yes, good. All Buddhist precepts can be traced to the Vinaya, or monastic rules, which formed one of the three collections of literature in earliest Buddhism. As the Mahayana tradition developed, so did the idea of morality already perfected, and though the sixteen bodhisattva precepts, seen by their titles to be simply guides and vows for good behavior, in fact each of them sets forth a facet of what essentially we really are. Getting at that essence is the nature of our koan study on our cushions in zazen and in

[04:25]

the world, our koan study and our koan practice. The truth experienced in koan study, including the precepts, is set forth philosophically in two great compendiums of the Mahayana, the Prajnaparamita, and the Huayen. The Heart Sutra, which sums up the Prajnaparamita in just a couple of pages, begins with the words, as you know, Avalokiteshvara, doing the Prajnaparamita, clearly saw that all five skandhas are empty, transforming, suffering and distress. Avalokiteshvara is the bodhisattva of mercy, who by his or her very name expresses the

[05:26]

fact that the truth not merely sets you free, but also brings you into compassion with others. Literally the name means the one who perceives the essential self at rest. A very difficult name to translate. Kan means to see into. Jizai means free, at ease, at rest. And so naturally the name is open to a certain misunderstanding, which I hope can be cleared up as we go along. Kanjizai. Kanzeon is another translation of Avalokiteshvara, the one who perceives the sounds of the world.

[06:30]

Now the one who perceives the self at rest clearly sees that all phenomena and our perceptions of them are without substance. This is the truth that liberates and transforms. The one who perceives the sounds of the world in this setting of empty infinity is totally free of self-preoccupation and so is tuned to the suffering of others. These two insightful beings, Kanjizai and Kanzeon, are the one bodhisattva of mercy. Now the Hoian sutras present the doctrine of interpenetration and intercontainment, that I and all beings perfectly reflect and indeed are all people, animals, plants, things, and so on.

[07:41]

This theory is brought home intimately in Zen study, beginning with our examination of the Buddha's own experience on seeing the morning star. I and all beings have at this moment attained the way. You are at ease with yourself when Kanjizai sits on your cushions. You are at ease with the world when Kanzeon listens through the hairs of your ears. You are open to the song of the thrush and to the curse of the harlot like Blake who knew intimately the interpenetration of things. I wander through each chartered street near where the chartered Thames does flow and mark in every face I meet marks of weakness, marks of woe.

[08:49]

In every cry of every man, in every infant's cry of fear, in every voice, in every band, the mind-forged manacles I hear. How the chimney-sweepers cry, every blackening church appalls, and a hapless soldier's sigh runs in blood down palace walls. But most through midnight streets I hear how the youthful harlot's curse blasts the newborn infant's tear and blights with plagues the marriage hearse. With each sigh of each hapless soldier a new flow of blood runs down the walls of the White House and the equally hapless whore poisons the bride and blinds her infant. Not only is no man an island, each man, woman, animal, stone, cloud, tree is the universe itself.

[10:03]

This is the basis of the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts. I need a little penetration of water. And as Blake wrote so passionately, what a mess we have made of the precious net of interrelationships. Catch the eye of a deer in the forest and beneath the conditioned pain imposed by centuries of despoilers you will discern unused curiosity. Up to your old tricks are you, Johnny Human, she seems to be asking, before she bonds away, knowing very well she must not risk lingering to find out. The mind-forged manacles maintain suffering and distress by confining us to fixed concepts of I and you,

[11:08]

we and it, birth and death, being and time. When you can see that all phenomena are transparent, ephemeral and indeed altogether void, then the thrush will sing in your heart and you can reach out to the whore. Historically, the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts derive from the Brahmanet Bodhisattva Sutra, attributed to classic Indian sources, but actually probably of Chinese origin sometime after Kumarajiva who flourished in the early fifth century. The title identifies the sutra with Huayen literature since the Brahmanet is the net of Indra, the multidimensional web of jewels with each of them

[12:14]

fully reflecting all others, the central Huayen metaphor. Dogen Kiganzenji used the Brahmanet Bodhisattva Sutra and its commentaries in formulating the Kyoju Kaimon, a basis for the study of the precepts in the Soto tradition since his time. The first three precepts are vows of refuge in the three treasures, the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, realization, truth and harmony. The function of these vows in daily life is then set forth as the three pure precepts to avoid evil, to practice good and to save the many beings. Thank you. These in turn are actualized in a more detailed way

[13:25]

in the final ten called the ten grave precepts which set forth specifically the ways the Bodhisattva maintains the Tao of purity and teaches it in the world. Another book, the Isshin Kaimon, the precepts of one mind attributed to Bodhidharma is studied by Soto Zen students. This work takes up only the ten grave precepts. In the Rinzai school, Isshin Kaimon is the sole basis for the study of precepts as koans. The three treasures and the three pure precepts are not taken up in the Rinzai koan curriculum though they are familiar in other contexts. The development of the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts is an integral part of the development of Mahayana Buddhism.

[14:26]

The vows of refuge in the three treasures are virtually the same in classical and in Far Eastern Buddhism. But the three pure precepts show a change. They are derived from a gatha in the Dhammapada and other early Buddhist books. Renounce all evil, practice all good, keep your mind pure, thus all the Buddhas taught. In the Mahayana, these lines underwent a change reflecting the shift from the arhat ideal of personal purity to the Bodhisattva ideal of oneness with all beings. The last line was dropped and the third one rewritten to make the three pure precepts. Renounce all evil, practice all good, save the many beings.

[15:31]

The ten grave precepts which then explicate these more general vows are not killing, not stealing, not misusing sex, not lying, not giving or taking drugs, not discussing faults of others, not praising yourself while abusing others, not sparing the Dharma assets, not indulging in anger, and not defaming the three treasures. Classical Buddhism also used ten as a basic number for the precepts. The first five are the same, at least in the subjects of their concern. In all of Buddhism, Mahayana, Theravada, Vajrayana, and they are even found in Southeast Asian secular law. Beyond the first five, they differ completely from those in the Mahayana.

[16:40]

Modern Theravada lists number six through ten as not eating afternoon, not watching dancing, singing, and shows, not sleeping in a high bed, oh, let's see, did I read, not adorning oneself with garlands, perfumes, and ornaments, and not accepting gold and silver. I got those a little out of order. These seem to be special rules for the mendicant, while the second five for the Mahayana Buddhists seem designed generally for layperson and monk alike. The lay follower of Theravada takes refuge in the three treasures and accepts the first five precepts, while the lay follower of Mahayana accepts all ten precepts, plus, in Soto Zen practice, the six vows. The Bodhisattva precepts are central to the Jukai ceremony,

[17:49]

initiating Zen Buddhists into their religion and to weddings, ordinations, and funerals. However, they are studied intensively, only in private with the Roshi at the end of koan training. So far as I know, they are not taken up in teishos or discussed in detail in Zen commentaries. I think the reason for this esotericism is the fear of misunderstanding. When Bodhidharma says that in self-nature there is no thought of killing, as he does in his comment on the first grave precept, this was his way of saving all beings. When Dogen Zenji says that you should forget yourself, as he does throughout his writings, this was his way of teaching openness to the peace and harmony of the universe.

[18:52]

However, it seems that teachers worry that if such comments are baldly presented in a public way, people may take the words of Bodhidharma and Dogen Zenji to mean they have license to do as they wish. In my opinion, the risk of causing arrogant, misplaced confidence lies not in publishing the words of Bodhidharma and Dogen Zenji, but in saying mistaken things when interpreting their words. See, for example, Takuan Soho Zenji's instructions to a samurai. The uplifted sword has no will of its own. It is all of emptiness. It is like a flash of lightning. The man who is about to be struck down

[19:54]

is also of emptiness, as is the one who wields the sword. Do not get your mind stopped with the sword you raise. Forget about what you are doing and strike the enemy. Do not keep your mind on the persons before you. They are all of emptiness. But beware of your mind being caught in emptiness. This is a quotation from D.T. Suzuki's Zen in Japanese Culture. Well, what do you think of that? The devil can quote scripture and Mara can quote the Abhidhamma. The fallacy of the way of the samurai is similar to the fallacy of the code of the crusader. Both distort a universal view to partisan warfare. The Catholic charity of the Holy See

[20:57]

did not include people it called the pagans. The vow of Takuan Zenji to save all beings did not encompass the one he called the enemy. Certain teachings of Zen and certain elements of its practice can be abstracted and used for secular purposes. Some of them benign, such as achievement in sports. Some nefarious, such as murder for hire. The Buddha Dharma with its integration of wisdom and compassion must be taught in its fullness. Otherwise its parts can be poisoned when they are abused. It is important at the outset to understand that Bodhidharma and Dogen Zenji hold fast to the essential point of view in their comments on the precepts.

[21:58]

This view, as Yamada Koun Roshi has said, is that everything is infinitely empty and also full of possibilities. The personal dimension of emptiness is peace and the potential of peace is its unfolding as harmony among all people, creatures and things. The precepts formulate that peace showing how the absence of killing, stealing and so on is the very condition in which one saves others. Great appropriate action is one of the four wisdoms of the Buddha. Mahayana Buddhism is the middle way and with regard to the precepts the middle way is suitable action which is neither perfectionist nor hedonist.

[23:02]

Perfectionism is the trap of literal attachment to concepts. A priest from Southeast Asia explained to us at Cocoan many years ago that his practice consisted solely of reciting his precepts, hundreds and hundreds of them. To make his trip to the United States he had to receive special dispensation to handle money and to talk to women. Surely this was a case of perfectionism. Hedonism, on the other hand, is the trap of ego indulgence which will not permit any kind of sensory, overt or internal, to interfere with self-gratification. The sociopath guided only by strategy to get his or her own way is the extreme model of such a person.

[24:06]

Certain walks of life are full of sociopaths but all of us can relate to that condition. Notice how often you manipulate other people. Where is your compassion? In the study of the precepts, compassion is seen to have two aspects, benevolence and reverence. Benevolence, when stripped of its patronizing connotations, is simply our love for those who need our love. Reverence, when stripped of its patronizing connotations, is simply our love for those who express their love to us.

[25:10]

The model of benevolence would be the love of parent toward child. The model of reverence would be the love of child toward parent. However, a child may feel benevolence toward parents and a parent's reverence toward children. Between husband and wife or friend and friend, these models of compassion are always in flux, sometimes mixed, sometimes exchanged. Seeing compassion in this detail enables us to understand how a love as it is, the expression of deepest consciousness directed in an appropriate manner. Mumon uses the expression, the sword that kills, the sword that gives life. On the one hand, there is the love that says, don't do that. And on the other hand, there is the love that says,

[26:14]

do as you think best. It is the same love now killing, quote, unquote, now giving life. To one friend, you may say, that's fine. To another, you may say, that won't do. The two actions involved might be precisely the same. But in your wisdom, perhaps you can discern when to wield the negative and when the positive. The sword that kills, this is the ten grave precepts. With our love, we say, cut that out. But the sword that gives life, this is also the ten grave precepts. The precepts are the middle way, the single sword of the realized mind. Without this single realized mind,

[27:15]

corruption can appear. I am thinking of a teacher from India who is currently very popular. I know nothing about him except his many books. His writings sparkle with genuine insight, and yet something is awry. There are sordid patches of anti-Semitism and sexism. Moreover, he does not seem to caution his students about cause and effect in daily life. What went wrong? I think he chose a shortcut to teaching. My impression is that he underwent a genuine religious experience, but missed the vital step-by-step training which in Zen Buddhist tradition comes after realization. He missed the reinforcement which the human creature needs

[28:17]

to make a deep experience truly intimate. One of my students taught me the Latin maxim, incorruptio optimum pessima. In corruption, the best becomes the worst. For the teacher of religious practice, the opportunity to exploit students increases with his or her charisma and power of expression. Students become more and more open and trusting. The fall of such a teacher is thus a catastrophe that can bring social and psychological breakdown in the Sangha. The risk of antinomianism is not to be taken lightly. Incidentally, you may be thinking I wrote that in relation to the crisis you're going through now, but actually these early taishos were written six years ago.

[29:17]

I had in mind somebody on the other side of the continent. Okay. The integration of the precepts taken with Zazen and Sangha practice is the way to assure bodhisattva behavior whatever the circumstances. The function of emptiness, if such an expression is possible, is the creation of forms. The phenomenal world is the void precipitated as a vast dynamic system of interrelated beings. The bodhisattva personifies himself or herself as one jewel of this cosmic network, alone and independent as a star and yet interpenetrating and being interpenetrated by every other jewel.

[30:22]

My life and yours are the unfolding realization of total aloneness and total intimacy. The self is completely autonomous yet exists only in resonance with all other selves. The bodhisattva engages in this realization presenting dignity and harmony among fellow beings and the peace of the void which underlies and infuses all things. Mumon said medicine and sickness mutually correspond. The whole universe is medicine. What is the self? I know of no koan that points more directly to the net of Indra. Unmon is engaged in the unfolding of universal realization

[31:26]

showing the interchange of self and other as a process of universal health. To see this clearly you must come to answer Unmon's question What is the self? Do you say there's no such thing? Who is saying that after all? How do you account for the individuality of your manner and the uniqueness of your face? The sixteen bodhisattva precepts bring Unmon's question into focus and give it context. Context is fundamentally not outside and the self is not bound by the skin. Here in the West our context has a special tone and color. Monastery walls do not protect us from secular influences

[32:32]

nor does a viable social philosophy like Confucianism guide our behavior. Our very archetypes have died out. I don't dream about the president anymore and when I talk to my friends I find they don't either. The great leader is a hollow man. The law of the market cannot prove itself and the nation state mocks its own values. I believe that now more than ever it is important to find a source that is deeper than concepts and images a place of rest and peace from which you and I can come forth with actions and words that are appropriate to circumstances. There is no such specific place, of course, yet it is everywhere. The Zen teacher, Siong-san, calls it the don't-know mind.

[33:38]

He and I and all people who write and talk about Buddhism and use Buddhist words and personages to identify that place yet such presentations continually fall in upon themselves and disappear. We take our inspiration from the Diamond Sutra and other sutras in the Prajnaparamita tradition which stress the importance of not clinging to concepts not even of Buddhahood, maybe especially of Buddhahood. Goso said, Shakyamuni and Maitreya are servants of another. I want to ask you, he continued, who is that other? After you examine yourself for an answer to this question you might want the Buddha and his colleagues

[34:43]

to stay around and lend a hand. Perhaps they can inspire your dreams and their words express your deepest aspirations but if they are true servants they will vanish any time they get in the way. We need archetypes as our dreams tell us integrating the purity represented by the priesthood elsewhere so I say here, represented by the priesthood here we follow as lay Buddhists in the footsteps of a few great lay personages from Vimalakirti to our own Yamadaroshi who manifest and maintain the Dharmakaya, the Dharma body in the dimension of nurturing a family. This is not easy. In a lay setting where even the residents of a training center

[35:48]

have close ties with conventional society the organization of ritual and zazen may not be sufficient to provide everyone with a natural way to internalize the precepts. The student may then try to set up artificial monastery walls and divide Zen practice from everyday life. In this way Zen Buddhism becomes a kind of hobby or sideline and is made to fit the needs of the ordinary ego. The Zen Buddhist training center in turn becomes a sanctuary a place of peace to which people can retreat. The true Zen Buddhist center is not like this. The true Zen Buddhist center is a source of powerful energy flowing naturally to the larger community. The 16 Bodhisattva precepts of Mahayana Buddhism

[36:54]

are excellent upaya or skillful means to generate this vitality. They are not commandments engraved in stone but expressions of inspiration written in something more fluid than water. Comments by Bodhidharma and Dogen Zenji are studied as koans but our everyday life is a great multifaceted koan that we resolve at every moment and yet never completely resolve. Thank you very much. The three refuges being the basic or original precepts.

[37:59]

Yes. Could you talk a little more about that? Yes. Truly internalizing and making one's own of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is the act of becoming responsible as a Buddhist and in maintaining and teaching at least by manner the way of the Buddha. I take up this a little more in detail in the tenth grade precept not defaming the three treasures but in brief the Buddha is not merely Shakyamuni Buddha of course

[39:01]

but the Enlightened One and as we know from the Buddha's own words when he realized his own essential nature all beings are the Tathagata. So really internalizing the Buddha is the realization that fundamentally from the very beginning I am all right and I must continue to polish that realization and continually to make it more and more true if we can say that and to make it more and more true in the world and to encourage others and enable others as best we can to realize that for themselves. When Joshua responded to the question

[40:13]

about the Buddha nature of the dog he said, Moo he was showing Buddha nature at that time but he was also acknowledging that there is a step-by-step process to realize what has been true from the beginning. So acceptance of the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha realization, the teaching or the Tao, the way of the world reality in its deepest sense and the Sangha, the harmony of all beings internalizing that is necessarily the foundation of all precepts which then are expressed in more detail in the three pure precepts and then in the ten great precepts. So the Jukai ceremony is very important

[41:14]

accepting the three great precepts the three pure precepts the three refuges and the three pure precepts and the ten great precepts. Yes? You used the word transformation in relation to the precepts. Could you talk more about transformation from the point of view of common genes? How do they... The idea that when Kanjizai was practicing deep prajnaparamita he or she saw clearly that all five skandhas are empty. The five skandhas are the world of form and the four kinds of perception of that world including one's own self. This is the... as the sutra says

[42:16]

this is the insight that transforms suffering and distress. We have in English from the Greek the word gnosis an adjective for gnostic meaning knowledge that transforms. That's really what it means. The spiritual knowledge that transforms. When I can see that my preoccupations my personal concerns are really transparent I am freed from them. Now, there is a certain risk here which all of us got to face clearly and incidentally in the last Ten Directions there's a very interesting article called Oneness, Pernicious or Valid?

[43:17]

Something like that. I'm not sure of the exact title. There is such a thing as pernicious oneness. Yamada Roshi is always using that very expression in English. You know, the idea it's all God it's all karma or whatever. We all of us have a tendency to live in Zen land, you know. To build a kind of floor and above that floor it's all peace and harmony but what's under the floor? You know, spiders and other things. And so it's important really to see that these skandhas are empty not merely to accept the concept. It's only when you can really see that they are empty

[44:18]

that you are transformed. Until then you're faking it. You're winging it. You don't maybe know that you are but you are. And so I am all for counseling. Sometimes in tandem with Zazen and sometimes giving up Zazen for a while. Because I'm all too familiar with people passing their first gate in koan practice and going ta-dum, ta-dum, ta-dum along their koans but still there's something wrong. Something deeply wrong. And after a while the student begins to recognize this herself or himself. Hey, you know, I'm...

[45:20]

Well, one student said to me something very interesting and I think I stuck it in in one of the teishos I'll be reading. I feel as though I have learned the language but have not yet visited the country. It's a very interesting expression. I feel as though I have learned the language and she's good in her koan study, you see. But she feels, you know, something is missing here. Something I haven't gotten at yet. And so we say, you know, Shakyamuni is only halfway there. Popular expression in Zen Buddhism. Sometimes quoted the way Takao Anzenji quoted all that business about emptiness, you know, as justification. But it is very important. Once I heard a Theravada teacher from Thailand

[46:20]

give a keynote address at East-West Philosophers Conference at the University of Hawaii. And after his talk there was a question period and someone asked him, How does one become a teacher in your tradition? And he said, You practice 40 years and then you teach if you dare. So, transformation is a matter of milestones and there are milestones after milestones. Okay? Oh, let's see. There was another hand back here. Yes. Yes. Thinking of a lay tradition and a monk's tradition. Yes. And it seems that when we think of monk's tradition today the lifestyle is so much like lay lifestyle. In the West.

[47:21]

In the West and in Japan too. Ah, in Japan too, yes. Yes. Priest Mary, a great number of ladies. Yeah. They have bank accounts. They drive around on the motorcycle. They drink beer. They drink beer. Beer. They do all of them. They go around in Hawaiian sports shirts. They do almost everything that a layman does except they shave their heads. They wear old-fashioned clothes. They don't have ordinary kinds of jobs. What's the difference? Well, now here many of you will want to listen with ecumenical ears, you know, because I'm speaking as a lay Buddhist in a lay tradition. But in my view there has been a process of laicization.

[48:23]

Is that the way you pronounce it? L-A-I-C-I-Z-A-T-I-N. Laicization of becoming lay in Buddhism from the beginning of the Mahayana. In China all monks took the 250 Hinayana precepts and all nuns took the 348 Hinayana precepts. And then they also took the Bodhisattva precepts. When Saicho returned to Japan as the founder of Tendai he introduced the Bodhisattva precepts.

[49:24]

Previous to that there was only Hinayana ordination in Japan. And it could only be held at the ordination centers of that sect that specialized in this, in Davinia. There was a great battle in which even the imperial house was involved in establishing the Bodhisattva precepts back there in the 9th century. To this day the Hinayana precepts are taken by by Chinese monks. I don't know about Japanese monks. Do you take those? 250? No. Huh? Yes. In the Sino-American Buddhist Association here in San Francisco

[50:29]

they take the works, you see. And the result is they have a rather elite kind of setup to the degree that in their July issue of a new journal called Proper Dharma Seal there's a long article entitled The Laity is Not the Sangha. Well, if you graph this you see they're continuing along the straight line and the rest of us are going downhill, so to speak, or maybe uphill, I'm not sure which direction, but it's a different direction toward Laodicea. And there is more of that evident in the West than there is in Asia because there is still in Japan

[51:30]

despite the differences that you can see I mean, despite the similarities you can see between monks and laypeople especially priests and laypeople still the nuns don't marry you know and still the monks when they're in training don't marry or if they already have a wife she's back there in the temple and he's here at the monastery. So there are still distinctions which we don't follow so much here. And when I would come in years past to Zen Center or to ZCLA one of the questions that people would always ask me what is lay Zen? Well, I don't know what lay Zen is it's just like a fish in the water you ask the fish what's it like down there? Well, you can't say. But I've gradually come

[52:33]

through the study of precepts come to an understanding of what is happening here a gradual, gradual shift big shift in the Kamakura period when the Pure Land School was established and Shinran Shonin married big step big shift began there which continued right down through Japanese history to the restoration of the emperor in 1868 and permission given to to do what they were already doing really. And in Korea also when Japan occupied Korea then the government insisted that the monks, the priests could marry so about half of them did about half of them did. Now there's this big split in Korean Buddhism

[53:35]

between those that want to go the old way and those that want to follow the new way. So I don't know what it all means you know what was it like in the middle of the American Revolution? I imagine that there were some people that didn't even know what was going on they could just tell there was some kind of confusion you know it's hard to put your finger on what was happening at the time or the so-called Industrial Revolution that's a clearer example you know things are changing rapidly but just what the terms of those changes are you can't tell well things are changing rapidly I think with regard to to ordination and the role of the monk and so on but I can't really say what it is or what it looks like leisization generally. Yes? I've heard that too but I sometimes get the impression that it's like the downhill that people feel that way about it. Yeah well you know this is an important thing

[54:36]

at the Diamond Sangha we're handicapped because we have no core group see we've got one full-time head resident that's his or her title at each of our two centers at Koko Anzando we have one quarter-time oh we have two quarter-time publications people that's all the staff we have and so we've got this great problem of running things as entirely a volunteer organization which anybody who has ever been involved in volunteer organizations knows what it is problem of continuity problem of reliability and all of these things that is to me the real problem and

[55:40]

the other things that you might be referring to the seriousness with which one accepts the precepts the seriousness that one accepts one's role as a Buddhist is a kind of thing that we're really working on it and we're really trying to make it happen through sharing meetings and through the teishos and doksans and so on and when there is a flurry over something that happens in the sangha you know someone gets into trouble through some violation really if we can call it that of the precept there is general concern and

[56:41]

it's not written off it's usually this the cautions don't come from me but there is the members in the old Quaker expression labor with this person or with these persons you know sit down and talk with them help them talk them out, talk it out and if necessary encourage them to get help formal psychological help we're all human and we all have problems and especially in groups there are these problems but I I think that when there is an egalitarian spirit we are all of us responsible for everybody else not in any kind of missionizing sense

[57:44]

but in the sense that when brother or sister you know gets in a jam we are all concerned and so we try to work through these things and I think this is possible our head residents are are asked to follow up when somebody doesn't doesn't show up you know somebody doesn't show up well the head resident may call and the person say well I'm doing this with Yogi Bhajan now or something like that well that's fine, you see at least we know what's happening but if they've broken a leg or something you know, we want to know so it needn't it needn't go downhill in the way you imply somebody over here yes um um

[58:46]

go ahead you talked about people taking it and the person who said that they probably had learned the language but they'd never been to your country uh-huh and I was wondering if you could be more specific it sounds like everyone has to go through taking it and more specific about how to how to do that oh yeah all right I can resonate to that question it's a very important point um uh you see what what I do when I recognize that um uh I haven't been adequate in a certain situation is try to acknowledge that

[59:46]

and uh at least to myself if not to other people that are involved uh to say I blew it and I'm going to do better next time uh the ideal is out there the ideal is a light that's on our path and we follow that light as best we can um but the one who is faking it is the holier than thou type you see who really isn't practicing I think that's the difference the um practice like the word perfection has two meanings even the word bodhisattva has two meanings as uh one of my friends pointed out to me the other day uh a Chinese Buddhist scholar you know who doesn't do zazen at all says bodhisattva has two meanings one is enlightened being and the other is the being

[60:47]

on his or her way to enlightenment so practice is the act of doing it and it's the act of doing it in order to see in order to be better so to speak to practice it the way you'd practice Mozart when you practice Mozart you're doing it and you're also getting better see it's it's uh like a doctor practicing medicine or a lawyer practicing law uh and perfection that's another one um Yamada Roshi says the the practice of zen is the perfection of character that he means the step-by-step perfection uh so uh there's a there's a world of difference between this spirit and the holier-than-thou spirit Roshi

[61:50]

yeah, okay good yes Roshi, so I'm hearing excuse me I'm hearing the precept can be used as a basis for judging the practice specifically judging the medical practice yeah it seems to me that that is beginning beginning to give it an absolute yeah, it's beginning to smell yes yes it's beginning to smell and uh and so when this happens um let's break it up a little and uh uh uh I for example um one of the most angry men I've ever known was my own teacher Yastani Roshi the the ninth precept says not indulging in anger but um I heard him at the at the podium of of Tassajara land-based

[62:52]

what he considered to be false teaching in his own school so um uh I'll let's see what happened to my bookie my book did it go? no, it's here I'll read something to you since I won't get to number nine in this series I'll read this thank you this facial cloth by the way is uh is Gendo Roshi's calligraphy long life long life is like perfection you see it's not only uh step by step long life into eternity but long life right here and now

[63:52]

thank you okay now to the old boss I hear there are fellows who are called professors in Buddhist universities who indiscriminately pour coarse tea into Dogen's Dharma cheating and bewildering beginners and long practicing Zen people as well they are an unforgivable gang of devils great thieves of heaven and earth who should be termed vermin in the body of the lion they do not realize that they are pitiable people slandering the three treasures and they must fall into hell after their death that is because that is because they do not go to true masters for guidance and are ruined by mistaken

[65:00]

scholastic interpretations of Zen we cannot regret this too much and he goes on I go on to say I picture the old Roshi writing this out his brush slashing over the paper his mouth stern and his eyes glinting he was like Fudo Myo-o the unmovable king of subtle wisdom in the Buddhist pantheon sitting in the midst of flames red in the face his eyes bulging with the fiercest expression imaginable in the iconography of Buddhism Fudo is the reflex of Kanzeon the incarnation of mercy and compassion Fudo and Kanzeon have the same function as did Yasutani Roshi to save all beings so and there is one more reference I think to Yasutani Roshi here in number six six my own teacher

[66:10]

Yasutani Roshi had a hot temper looking at his life story I can see how this anger must have been built into his psyche from earliest childhood he was deposited in a in a Zen in a Zen temple when he was four years old he didn't like that we may be sure that in his youth it caused him suffering that is his anger but as a Zen teacher he channeled this passion most effectively he felt betrayed by the Soto Zen hierarchy which could not provide a teacher to guide him at least this is what he thought after he found Harada Dayun Roshi he broke away from the Soto Zen structure and founded his own Dharma path he never stopped pointing out specific errors of contemporary priests and his fierce words awakened many people to their own errors people would ask him aren't you

[67:10]

violating the sixth precept by talking about the Soto hierarchy in this way he would reply we must correct mistaken and haphazard Dharma teaching if we do neglect to do this we are violating the precept the Roshi used his passion to uphold the Dharma saying in effect I am pointing to specific errors in the most appropriate manner I can this is not discussing faults of others but indeed it is fulfilling the intention of all the precepts to clarify the Buddha Da so you see there are times that I can I suppose we can say even violation of the first precept is appropriate in upholding the Buddha Da of not killing and certainly none of them can be applied literally I'm sure and so

[68:11]

when you come to the place where you say look man you're violating the precept there you're violating one of your own you know because you're judging it's important to work with people and to recognize that to take the crudest example I can think of I myself am building that to acknowledge that and I'll steal a story from tomorrow night okay I won't I'll tell it tomorrow well it's a story about a group that went to see a military went to see a military officer and didn't know what to say to him so I'll tell you what they told him they didn't

[69:13]

accuse him of anything did that did that speak to your question? yes good yes how to examine the precepts with an appropriate spirit so that we don't fall into the one-sided that is really a matter of grounding isn't it because if you're on that if you're on that floor and there are all kinds of nasty things underneath then it's those things that are responding sometimes not always but sometimes so it's it's very important to do one's best with what one's with what one has but at the same time to acknowledge that maybe I'm not completely grounded here and I might be misjudging we've had flare-ups

[70:13]

in the sangha that disturbed me and students have come to me afterwards and said you know did you really talk to that other person about this you know and I pick up on that and I think well maybe I just got one side I talk to the other side and get a different picture in Hawaii there is the expression in the dialect cool head is the main thing and the cool head is what goes with being grounded yes I don't really know much about it but I gather that monsters and parties written texts are studied rather systematically systematically? yes oh I don't know

[71:15]

about that at Ryutaka-ji of course I'm speaking now of a Rinzai experience they took all their books out of the locked storeroom once a year to air them all the monks had a few texts you know like the the mumonkan hekigan roku and so on which they which they studied for koan purposes and a few other books and that's about all very very little study now in Soto this might be different I'm not sure and certainly in in sects like Tendai there is a whole tradition for scholarship but a Zen scholar is almost a contradiction in terms in the Far East almost so someone like

[72:16]

like Are-sensei for example is very unusual a man who both practices Zazen and studies it Nakagawa Soenroshi once said to me if I were to take a text a test in conventional Buddhism I would flunk and this is a weakness I think this is a weakness I think that that we all of us should have metaphysical grasp of our religion we should all of us know what the Hoa Yen is we should know what the Diamond Sutra is by the way lots of good translations are coming out now of the Hoa Yen Tom Cleary has one published by the University of Hawaii just last month his big translation is going to be published by Shambhala very soon and there are others there's a thing called

[73:17]

Hoa Yen and the Process Philosophy which is a story a study of Korean Hoa Yen and Whitehead very interesting and Luis Gomez is doing interesting things and there's a collection of essays on the Hoa Yen also being published by University of Hawaii Press soon that's that's a text that's worth studying we know almost nothing about it really in the West it comes from the Avatamsaka I suppose you know but it's not a it's not a translation of the Avatamsaka it's inspired by the Avatamsaka there was a great efflorescence of sutra writing in China after Kumarajiva the so-called Chinese Sarangama for example it uses

[74:20]

all those Sanskrit words and all those Sanskrit names and everything but it was composed right there in China and the so-called Engaku Sutra you know the Complete Enlightenment Sutra is another there are many of them give me the high sign okay more questions? yes yes it can't help but be there is a collective energy generated in in the Sangha in the Buddha Sangha of people who are sincerely practicing and touching the mind touching the mind the mind is

[75:20]

as Dogen Zenji said the mountains rivers and great earth the sun the moon and the stars the mind is not something bound by the skull and when there is this tremendous release of personal preoccupation then naturally Kanzeon gets to work the Bodhisattva of compassion and mercy gets to work and when the people are intimate close friends they are going to say what can we do? and so you have your your table of literature out there and you have your your your restaurant and you have your grocery store and and so on just working in the community and your your group in the in the Sangha who is that is doing peace work the group in the Sangha that's doing work about

[76:21]

cruelty to animals and so on not to mention the propagation of the Dharma okay thank you very much everybody no killing tomorrow night

[76:54]

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