Well, a theme that surfaced last week, which I didn't exactly expect would so quickly, which is, you might say, the issue of the spirit versus the letter of the law or the precepts. And I did mention that the Buddhist precepts do not come from one high, exactly, but rather emerged gradually or situationally, or as the situation demanded, as the early, quite informal gathering of renunciants or recluses around the great teacher began to take shape

[01:07]

as some kind of community, religious community. And even at that, the simple rules which they set up were not really in any way, in and of themselves, unique to Buddhism. You might say that the major ones were, for the most part, the basic guidelines of how to live that were pretty much established in Indian religious culture, at least the religious culture of the Aryan culture, the invader culture, which was the dominant culture of the area where the Buddha taught.

[02:08]

So, what really is explicitly Buddhist about the precepts is the understanding of karma, which is one of the Buddha's great contributions to religious teaching, particularly to the religious teaching of that time. He really was, his insight into the nature and consequence of human activity really was not at all in agreement with or in the mainstream of Indian religious philosophy or teaching up to that time. You can see this in the number of dialogues in the early sutras in which the Buddha speaks

[03:14]

with or has a dialogue with many of the disciples or actually, you know, leaders of other movements. And of course, given that it's a Buddha sutra, he always convinces them rather than the other way around. But still, it's clear that he has rather different ideas about things, and in particular about the nature of the source of our behavior or activity and what to do about it or how to cope with it. And this is all summarized under the heading of karma, which like many words in Buddhism is a word that has a long history, long before it was picked up by the Buddha. It's one of the big words. There's, you know, eight or ten big words in Buddhism that have so much, they cover so much territory that it's very hard to even use the word as a word. It almost is a topic heading or a title of a teaching, a body of teaching.

[04:21]

And in and of itself, the word doesn't carry enough to cover all of what is meant by it. So the word karma is one of these big words and means, in its simplest form, it means what you do, it means action. That's its, you know, dictionary meaning, that's what the word means in the language. But the underlying religious question that began the Buddha on his spiritual path was the question, why do people do what they do? What's the underlying reason for the human world as we perceive it?

[05:27]

Which results in suffering and unhappiness and frustrated existence. This fundamental religious question, you know, is where all of us start in a way, one way or another. Once we open ourselves to that question, we have to look both into ourselves and look at others and try to get some handle on what fundamentally motivates human beings to do what they do. And very quickly we come to the issue of, is our activity a matter of choice? Do we freely choose it? Or is it determined by the past, or by our birth, or by the gods,

[06:41]

by impersonal natural forces? Is it some combination of these things? Is there no rhyme nor reason to any activity? Is it kind of a random, absurd, and on the whole futile and unruled or unruly kind of event? These issues were looked at in a whole variety of ways by the predecessors of the Buddha. And, you know, also in Western philosophy there are various kinds of thinking about this. Characteristically, being in the milieu that he was, the Buddha's solution was to practice yogic meditation to find out. This was, in a sense, the science or the proof or the investigated means to determining the answer to this question. So he started out by practicing all the standard yogic techniques, which were available to

[07:49]

him at the time, most of which had to do with alteration of states of consciousness, in which one entered a state of psychic and physical stasis or calm, in which the activity, mental activity, was very much reduced, if not entirely stopped. This is a very sound approach, in a way, because if what you want to look at is the source or wellspring of what we do, of our activity, it would be good to stop doing it for a while and try to catch the point at which it happens again. The Buddha's own conclusion is that just by altering your state of consciousness or temporarily

[08:55]

stopping the process and then trying to watch it start again was not really thorough-going enough. Somehow he felt like he was missing the actual source of it. And so, in the great mythic event of sitting down under the Bodhi tree or the bow tree, he decides to practice somewhat differently. And it may be that if we come around to this theme again at the end of the class, we could talk to some extent about the relationship between the kind of precepts we have and the kind of meditation practice that we do, because there is some relationship there. Anyway, the conclusion of the Buddha, as you all know, is that what we are is a result or consequence of what we have done, and what we will be is

[10:16]

a consequence of what we are going to do right now. And that this nexus or cusp of activity should be the focus of our effort always in spiritual practice. So, karma for the Buddha, for Buddhism, means intentional action of body, speech, or mind in the present moment. So, intentional action of body, speech, or mind in the present is what we mean by karma.

[11:27]

And the precepts are focused on that, focused on intentional action of body, speech, and mind in the present moment. That's what the precepts refer to, is what you're doing right now, consciously and intentionally. Now, this question of intention is fairly tricky to look at or to organize, and I'd like to take a little time to do that, because immediately the first question that would come to mind is, well, what is intentional action? And we could think of some examples of borderline cases. What makes this complicated is that, of course, our activity falls into certain regular habitual

[12:50]

patterns. For instance, a good example of that is smoking. A lot of us smoke, and for most people who smoke a long time, smoking is pretty habitual. You hardly even notice exactly that you're reaching for a cigarette or whatever. It seems to be rather unintentional almost. You don't exactly make a conscious choice to do it. But, nevertheless, each time you do it, some intention is there. So, intentional doesn't mean so clearly intentional that it's obvious to you that it's intentional. It may be intentional. Well, let's put it this way. With regard to something habitual or repetitive that you do, the intention to do it may be

[13:50]

of the nature of giving a slight kick to a potter's wheel that's already turning. The basic energy is quite big, and the intention maybe to maintain it at that level might be quite tiny. So, a great deal of our most important intentional actions are of that nature, because they're running in the habit patterns that we've built up over a long period of time. For Buddhists, we would say many lifetimes even. So, we may not any longer be consciously aware of our intentional kick or intentional spark in the activity, because most of the energy may be coming from what we call the fruit of previous action. So, actually, our activity is some combination or some coming together of what we call habit energy or fruit energy of all that we have done, combined with some willingness to do

[14:54]

it yet one more time or to go along with it again. Of course, occasionally, we actually make a choice or a decision which is something quite fresh and new, and all the energy of it is coming from your conscious intention, like the decision to change jobs or to go to a movie or something like that. We don't have much doubt in our minds that, yes, in fact, this is intentional and we do have a choice and so forth. But interestingly enough, those kinds of choices, because you have so much control over them, are actually not really where the problem of our life on the whole lies. So, interestingly enough, when you have some choice that's very clear to you, it's in fact quite easy on the whole to know what to do. And what really is the problem for us is the choices we're making that we're not even aware

[16:00]

that we're making. And this is where the question of precepts, I think, really has its primary applicability. It's not some artificial situation where the choices are so clear that you have no sense of ambivalence or ambiguity at all. You know, well, I'm going to do this or do that. You may have some agonizing about those things, but still, what is the primary motive energy of our life are things that are on the whole rather hidden from us. And the real value of meditation practice for us, for Buddhists, is not so much to develop or investigate unusual states of mind, particularly.

[17:01]

That's maybe a sideline for us, but primarily to get access to the fundamental level of our intentions, which particularly are habitual intentions. And what's interesting about the insight of Buddhism about these is that our most fundamental level of intention is not unique to us, but in fact is shared by everyone. Or to put it another way, at our most fundamental working level of our spiritual life, human beings are very much the same all over. There's not a great deal of difference.

[18:05]

So one of the, maybe when you think about it, rather obvious, but one of the interesting points of Buddhist understanding of human life is that it is rather a universal understanding. The way it's put forward is a kind of universal ethics or universal psychology of human beings. Or to put it another way, you might say the yogic insight of the Buddha is at a sufficiently primary or deep level that it doesn't involve culture or the specifics of upbringing or background too much.

[19:11]

And I think that's been, at the time of the Buddha, I would say that was a hypothesis. But I think given the fact that Buddhism has spread and effectively spread throughout the world and gone into many different cultures with lots of different value systems, conflicting value systems, and managed to find a way to apply itself to those situations, I think is to a large extent proved the point. I think Buddhism has stood up as an understanding of how human beings are and act, which is pretty universal. This is one of the, you might say, articles of faith of Buddhism actually, which is that all beings are fundamentally the same,

[20:12]

or have Buddha nature, we say. And not just all human beings, but all beings, all life. However, the particular teachings and practice of Buddhism are directed primarily to beings like ourselves, namely human beings. The underlying understanding of how karma works applies to all beings, but there is a specific teaching for the kind of beings that we are. And these precepts that we have are, you know, precepts for human beings.

[21:21]

Animals might have to follow different kind of precepts. I don't think a tiger could follow the precept not to kill very easily, because it's designed to kill. That's the nature of a tiger. It doesn't survive any other way. But in a way, animals don't need precepts in quite the same way as human beings, because what makes human kind of consciousness rather unique in the six worlds, the six different, broadly based different kinds of sentient beings, is that we have this ability to change and adjust how we are, who we are, all the time. We have this ability to develop our consciousness and change it within our lifetime.

[22:23]

Other kinds of beings have much more fixed kind of consciousness. There's not much flexibility in an animal's consciousness. You know, the Buddhist idea of the cosmos includes various celestial, rarefied beings like angels or gods and so forth. And they too have a rather fixed kind of consciousness. They can't adjust or change who they are very much. So you might say, in other kinds of realms, other than the human realm, the intentional life is not there, or is there much, much less. This is why human birth is supposed to be, considered to be in Buddhism, the best, most favorable kind of birth. Because as a human being, you can not only be born with the nature of a Buddha, of an awakened one, but you can choose to become one and then actualize that choice by practice.

[23:40]

This is the unique gift of human life. And Buddhism, with its rather broad vision of the interpenetration and going back and forth in various kinds of life, likens the rarity of human birth. This is a charming little metaphor. Human birth is like a tortoise, a turtle. Turtles are the ones that are in the water, is that right? A turtle with an eye, a particular kind of turtle that has an eye in its stomach, with a very deep desire to see the sky. However, this turtle, you know, turtles don't usually, are able to rely on their back in the water, usually they are the other way, so that usually the eye is pointed down.

[24:44]

And this turtle requires a board floating in the water with a hole cut right in the middle of it, that's just designed for the eye to be there. So when he grabs the board with his feet, the eye is looking up and can see. So the rarity of human birth is like a turtle swimming in the ocean, finding a board designed like that, floating by and being able to get up there and grab it and see. And can, you know, be satisfied, his spiritual yearning can be satisfied. So one of the big choices that in traditional Buddhism is considered to happen is the choice to take human birth, it's considered to be a choice. I don't want to go too much into this aspect of things because it's not really on the topic of the class, but there's some idea that in some deep way we want this life form and that's why we're in it.

[25:48]

And in a way it's important because it means that a lot of us think, well here I am, you know, I didn't do this, it just sort of happened and I suddenly found myself here. Buddhism has the idea that you're responsible for being here in some way, or at least you should take responsibility as though you chose to be here, at least that much. You should think of your being here as you are, as something that you're responsible for as a choice. And whether the explanations of Buddhism having to do with reincarnation and rebirth and so forth are metaphorical or literal or some combination of the two is not really so much the point of this discussion. The point is that precepts begin with some, however vague, sense that you might have that first of all the fact that you're here at all is something you're responsible for

[27:00]

and certainly now that you're here what you do with it is your responsibility, is your choice. So maybe to make it more graphic, for those of you behind the board who can't see so well, I'll maybe say what I'm drawing as I'm doing so. If you think of all that has happened, all that you have done as a kind of triangle or pyramid coming to a point in this present moment, and the opening of the cone of possibilities emanating from this moment as being an inverted triangle which opens out from this moment, this picture is always our picture. In every moment this is the picture. It's a different, you know, the contents above and below are different.

[28:03]

For instance, at the moment of your birth, your physical birth, there's a great deal below the line and not a great deal above the line. You haven't done anything yet, you've just come out, that's all. Maybe you cried, that was all, that was your first choice. Maybe that isn't even so much a choice, it's just not so intentional, you know, the doctor slapped you and you cried. From then on this starts to fill up, you know, with things. But this is always the picture and this is not, the part of it below the line is not accessible to you, it's already happened. It no longer can be adjusted and it coalesces, all of it coalesces right now. And also what will happen to you in the future is not accessible because it hasn't happened yet.

[29:08]

What is accessible is always what you are choosing to do right now. And the spark of choice ignites the present moment and completes everything that has come to you, which is not karma. Although the word karma in English is often used for this stuff below the line. We say, oh, it was my karma, as though it's our fate in some predestined way to trip over a stone or something. Oh, it's my karma, or whatever it may be. There are many, many passages in the Buddhist scriptures in which the Buddha is asked about fate or destiny and consistently he denies that this is his understanding. This is too narrow or constricted an understanding of events

[30:10]

and doesn't give enough credence to the fact that the critical point in this picture of our active or ethical reality is this point of the present. That what you do with the luggage or baggage that you're carrying from beginningless past is the critical point. And that opportunity is always there. This is the special feature of human consciousness. So, there are really two words we have to remember. One is karma, which means action. And the other word is vipaka, which means fruit, the fruit of your action.

[31:12]

And fruit and action are interacting in every moment. So, the fruit of all your past deeds comes together in the present moment and the fruit of what you are now doing will reverberate into the future. So, the interaction is very much like the waves in a pond. You know, there's some kind of waves going on all the time. Some of the waves are left over from previous flappings and some of them are going to be produced by flapping that you're going to do now. And the ordinary person's effort to deal with the problems of their life is something like if you can imagine yourself as a little frog in the middle of a pond on a lily pad,

[32:22]

you're buffeted by these waves in the pond and kicking the waves to try to make them stop. This is the ordinary person's effort. Of course, without realizing it, you're perpetuating the whole process. So, these waves in the pond are like our individual and collective past. We're buffeted not only by our own deeds, but the deeds of everyone, which in our society and so forth, it's not just, you know, we don't live in some... Each of us do not live in some separate pond. We all live in the same pond. So many of the waves that buffet us have to do with things that really are not under our control at all. The critical point is not that the waves are there, because the point in Buddhism is the waves will always be there. As Suzuki Roshi says, waves are the nature of water.

[33:24]

So, some kind of karma or activity is the nature of life and the nature of human beings. And there's no way to stop it unless we all, you know, die or we don't exist anymore. On the moon, there are no waves like this. There's no life. But here on earth, there's waves. The issue is, what are we going to do in response? Are we going to kick and create more waves and exacerbate the whole process, all the while feeling quite righteous that we are doing something effective? You know, kicking these waves, we feel as we must do this. And without realizing it, perpetuate the process, or in some way, do something to change or alter or stop these waves. So, in the Buddhist understanding of karma, there's two basic kinds.

[34:29]

We could say good and bad, but that's not... Those words in English are a little too stark. And what's more accurate, actually, is to use the words wholesome and unwholesome. Wholesome karma is simply that kind of action or choice which produces a favorable result for yourself and others, a favorable fruit. And unwholesome is that which produces an unfavorable fruit. And there's a very precise definition of these two.

[35:40]

Again, to reiterate, the Buddhist understanding of the source of human activity is... You know, it's at the very basic level of human beings. So, it's pretty universal, and the observation of the Buddha, which, again, seems to be borne out by experience, is that unwholesome activity seems to be characterized by one of three modes. And this is something you've all heard many times, I think. We often say greed, hate, and delusion. It's a little unfortunate that we say that. But a lot of these terms that you find that become our standard vocabulary in Buddhism came out of early books, early translations by people that often did not...

[36:44]

You know, they did their best, but the terms they used were not the best. And these terms are not really too accurate. So, I'd like to explain for a minute what these words mean, greed, hate, and delusion. More accurate words would be something like desire or attraction. Aversion and confusion would be much better words. Now, if we say it that way, you can understand that what we're referring to here is your relationship to another, to something that you think is outside of yourself, and a description of the dynamic mode of your relationship to that thing. So, here is this glass of water, for instance.

[37:45]

There are three basic possibilities, simple possibilities, in which I can relate to this glass of water. One is that I can be attracted to it, I can want it. I can want it to satisfy some desire that I have. So, in a sense, my dynamics with it are I want to draw it closer to me, I want to bring it in, I want it. So, I reach out, either literally or figuratively, I reach out and draw it closer. So, I reach out... Actually, I'm thirsty right now. I reach out and drink the water, and then I feel better, I feel satisfied. So, this is one possibility of dynamics with something. This is desire. Its opposite possibility, of course, is that I don't like it,

[38:52]

and I want it to go away, I want to push it away from me. This is aversion. And... Within aversion we have all the emotions that go with this basic dynamic, like anger, ill will, jealousy, envy, stinginess, and so forth. The negative side of our emotional life. Is some version of the dynamic of aversion. You don't want the object to be around. You want it to push it away. Now, both of these are based on having an object clearly in view.

[39:55]

I see the glass of water, or whatever it may be, another human being, or the enemy, or something. I have a very precise, focused picture of the object. Another whole possibility is that, because my mind is quite distracted, I can't get the object clearly into focus. And this is the third possibility, which we call confusion. So confusion is characterized by, unlike the other two, which are opposite poles of focus, this is opposite from that, which is unfocused. You're not focused enough to be able to decide whether you like it or don't like it. So this is the third big possibility. And these are the broadest categories of what we call unwholesome karma, or unwholesome action. Yes?

[40:58]

Well, is it unwholesome then to be thirsty? Oh, I knew someone would ask that. There's a famous phrase in Zen, when hungry I eat, when tired I sleep. And it's been bandied about ever since the 30s, when D.T. Suzuki first published his essays. And it's actually quite a profound statement, and it might be worth our coming back to that a little later. Because, of course, one's response, if you're honest, is, well, what's so great about that? It's what everybody does, right? And in fact, there is a dialogue that's taken from a dialogue, which is sort of a koan in Zen, in which the response of the teacher who said that is, I'm sorry, that's not what everybody does. You know, hunger and sleep, in this sense, refer to the entire range of the possibilities of our desires and so forth.

[42:03]

It means all of human life, really, all the things that we do. It means karma. And to say, when hungry I eat and when tired I sleep, is, you might say, a very succinct expression of awakened ethics. But it doesn't mean, you know, some kind of naive spontaneity at all. It means a state of purity, or a state beyond purity, which has been reached by much hard work. You might say it describes a state of consciousness which is quite thoroughly cleansed of karmic hindrances. So this is a rather profound point that we have to come back to, because taken out of context, a statement like that would imply that,

[43:05]

well, you know, just take it easy and eat when you're hungry and sleep when you're tired and so forth. So you might say it's a statement which is in code, to some extent. It's a kind of succinct utterance which expresses a great deal. So, of course, it's not unwholesome to drink when you're thirsty. But what's the difference, is the point. What's the difference between some legitimate sense of satisfying your basic needs and something which is not that? A lot of the early precepts in Buddhism had to do with refining that kind of distinction. And I just came across in my research something interesting that I didn't know before, which is that, on the whole, it looks like the monastic or monkish rules were, for the most part, designed to simplify your life sufficiently

[44:05]

so that you could practice meditation in an unhindered fashion. Anything beyond that was considered unnecessary, if not actually deleterious to practice. And as Brother David and I discussed earlier in the week, there is a tradition in Buddhism of the ascetic practices, like never lying down and only eating a very small amount and living under trees and things like that. And these, on the whole, were not considered necessary for monks. And Devadatta, who is the mythic schism-maker in Buddhism, I recently found out in studying, one of the proposals that he tried to split from the Buddha was on this matter of special ascetic practices. He felt that monks should be very, very ascetic and do these special things.

[45:06]

And the Buddha did not agree that it was necessary. And some of Devadatta's points seem to have been incorporated. Particularly, it mentions having to do with vegetarianism. It may not be known to you that the earliest Buddhists were not strictly vegetarians. There were certain categories in which it was okay to eat meat that are laid out in the sutras. Later on, Buddhism becomes strictly vegetarian. That was one of Devadatta's schismatic points, as he felt the monk should always refrain from fish and meat under every circumstance. And this, apparently, was not the Buddha's own teaching. He felt that under certain circumstances it was okay. That would be an interesting point to come back to. I think the issue of whether or not to eat meat is one of the practical points

[46:09]

that we can discuss in the class to some extent, is just what's behind that and what are the various arguments about it. As you know, in Zen Center, our kitchens are entirely vegetarian. We don't even use fish stock. But I would say there's hardly anyone in Zen Center who absolutely refrains from all fish and meat under every circumstance. And Suzuki Roshi himself ate meat from time to time. I say, why do you want to drink soda? He says, well, I'm thirsty. Okay, fine, let's have some water. He says, water, yuck. He wants to have a soda because, you know, it's sweet and bubbly and it stimulates you in some way. As we all know, water is probably better for you than soda with all of its sugar and junk and everything. We go through this with him all the time. Maybe to make the question more vivid,

[47:11]

we should put out in front of you four or five different glasses with different things in it, and then see, given the fact that you're thirsty, what is it that you choose to drink? Do you drink Calistoga water? Or some good vintage wine? Or some soda? And so forth. If we actually tested you without anybody around to watch, we might be very surprised. It's kind of a joke here in Zen Center that many people here have quite, on the surface, quite strict and pure ideas about what they should eat. Sugar is bad for you, and no chocolate, and so on and so forth. But everyone knows that if the kitchen makes a big bowl of chocolate chip cookies and puts them out... We all know that the ones who, as long as nobody's watching, the ones who rush in first are the very ones who have some very publicly stated preferences

[48:14]

about what's right, and not only for themselves, but for others, what they should eat. So the psychology of all of this is rather complex, as we all know. And let me just finish my exposition here about wholesome and unwholesome karma. The description of wholesome karma would be the opposite of these three things. That is to say, wholesome karma means that one has the underlying root. These are called the three roots of wholesome or three roots of unwholesome behavior. And the roots of wholesome behavior are non-greed, or generosity, giving, sense of giving, non-aversion, or friendliness, or goodwill, and non-confusion, or clarity. So this is the acid test.

[49:19]

This is how you can tell whether some action is wholesome or unwholesome. And, as I said, wholesome action produces a wholesome result, and unwholesome action produces an unwholesome result. Now, what do we mean by a wholesome or unwholesome result? Buddhist idea of karma is almost like something akin to a natural law. That is to say, if you act in an unwholesome manner, it produces a wave which persists indefinitely and affects your future. This upper pyramid is colored, or in one school of Buddhism they use the image of perfuming or fragrance, which is a little less tangible than a wave. It's more like when you get angry at someone,

[50:20]

for instance, it produces a kind of spiritual odor which permeates your spiritual body, so to speak, or your consciousness. And it becomes then part of the bottom pyramid and affects your next time. The more that you allow yourself to act in an angry, aversive fashion, the more likely it will be in the future, the more charge there will be, the more habituated leaning there will be to go that way. And this is just an observational fact. It isn't some kind of great spiritual insight that's hidden from most ordinary people. I think that if you walk down Market Street and see some of these people who are always shouting imprecations at everyone, walking down the street with bags and so forth,

[51:22]

and you look at their face, their face is lined with this emotion that they're experiencing because they've been doing it for so long it's actually become physically evident in their flesh. We all know, in fact, we actually, I think, judge each other and relate to each other on the basis of our face, you know, a lot more than we generally admit. And the face that we show to people is our karma. It does express what we've chosen to, how we've chosen to be over a long period of time. So we talk about worry lines, you know, in our face and so forth, or laugh lines. So a wholesome or unwholesome result means that this action will affect how you will be.

[52:26]

And, strangely enough, it bounces back in a rather unpredictable fashion. It doesn't always, you know, come back to you immediately. There's various divisions of how rapidly the effect of what you do bounces back. It somewhat depends on how severe the action is. But the idea is, sooner or later, there will be some bouncing back or consequence or echo of what you do, always. And, in fact, this is happening all the time. Most of us don't notice it. One of the first practices that you do in a monastery is you practice mindfulness. And one of the first effects of practicing mindfulness is that you start to notice that,

[53:48]

at least in small ways, how rapidly the effects of what you do come back to you. For instance, just to give you a kind of trivial example, most of the time when you trip over something or bite your tongue or stub your toe, you don't think of it as something that you chose to do. But when you practice mindfulness and when you have some experience of meditation, very often you will discover that just prior to the event of stubbing your toe or biting your tongue or tripping over something or tearing your robe or something like that, dropping your shoe, you will have had some distracted or disturbing thought. And immediately there is some consequence. So part of the validity of this insight into karma is revealed only when you can develop enough clarity

[54:53]

or precision in your perceptions to notice these things. So a great deal of the problem, of course, is that people just don't notice the large and small effects of their actions. Perhaps I should stop. There's about ten more minutes to the class and allow you to bring up any area of what I've said that does not seem clear or cogent to you. I may have gone a little rapidly over this. I want to get, as soon as possible, into some practical discussion of these precepts. But this is practical, too, and I think it's the underlying insight which all the precepts derive from. Do you have anything to add or comment upon?

[55:59]

Yes, Mark? Devadatta. Devadatta. You can call him David for short, but... Devadatta. He was the Buddha's first cousin, you know, in the legends. And he was very, very bad, as they say. He did. There are five deadly crimes that are the most serious thing a Buddhist can do and which, in many schools of Buddhism, prevent you from taking ordination. And they are harming a Buddha, killing your mother, killing your father, killing an arhat, an enlightened person. And the fifth one is causing a schism in the sangha. Devadatta did three.

[57:00]

He tried to roll a big rock down on a Buddha out of jealousy. You know, the actual stories are probably made up, but probably there was such a person. It's quite likely. There often is, you know, around some great teacher. And what happened was one of the great guardian kings of the celestial heavens saw this happening and reached out his, whatever, hand or something, you know, and stopped the rock. The Buddha is very well protected in these stories. But one little chip gets through and strikes the Buddha's toe and causes it to bleed. And so he is... Devadatta is guilty of harming a Buddha's body. Now, it's interesting that also in the story some of the monks are dismayed that a Buddha could come to any harm at all and inquire of the Buddha how it is

[58:01]

that he could be bleeding from his toe. And he says, it is, oh monks, because of past deeds that now I have to reap the karmic fruit of something I did in the past, which, you know, still, even though I'm the Buddha, persists and I have to absorb the fruit of that this time. So they often say things like that, you know. So he's not creating more karma, but he's still experiencing the karmic fruit of past experiences. That's the exact difference between a Buddha and an ordinary person. A Buddha is someone who has learned not to be kicking at the waves anymore, but has also learned to accept the waves that still come. And those things are the same, actually. If you can completely accept it and not respond in any way that creates new problems, then you're free from karma. And this is what it means to be a Buddha, actually,

[59:03]

technically speaking, from the standpoint of karma. And these precepts, which we're going to study, are the practical description of the behavior of such a person. So the precepts are clues to how you would need to behave in order not to be producing new waves. And Devadatta fell immediately into the deepest level of hell at the time of his death due to his great crimes. But according to Dogen, reading some text, just as he was about to die, he began to recite the triple treasure, I take refuge in the Buddha, as it says on your sheet there. He began to, in a sense, repent. And Dogen says, how unfortunate he wasn't able to complete the formula. Because the fact that he only said one-third of it cut his time in half,

[60:05]

according to Dogen. You know, a lot of these later writings elaborated quite freely on these early legends to make points. And so they're making some point about the tremendous value of repenting or thinking better of what you did, which is a very powerful intentional act. And again, these things are not just made up. I think that by experience you can observe how powerful, how powerfully someone can change their life by a true act of repentance. Like someone who's been an alcoholic for 20, 30 years can come to a point where they can actually change and never drink again. And I think all of us have seen that kind of change in people. And I think that when you have a spiritual community and you have people coming to the community all the time, you see this happening, or not happening, as the case may be.

[61:06]

Sometimes a person thinks they've repented, but you see that actually it hasn't happened because they continue to go about it, or that they have. And historically, I think, throughout Buddhist history there have been instances of the Buddhist Sangha taking in murderers and people that have done quite terrible things, but they have actually somehow repented of it and it's neutralized the karmic wave of what they've done. And so this possibility exists. That's why in our full moon ceremony the first verse that we chant is a verse of a vow. We say a vow of repentance. You avow all of your ancient karma that you've ever done. You admit it. And this is supposed to have a very important, powerful effect on you.

[62:09]

Something else? Yes? Oh, karma, I say action, and vipaka is fruit or consequence. Well, vipaka would be in both, actually. Vipaka would be here. That is to say, the fruits of all that you have done which come to you in this moment. And you might put vipaka in parentheses up here because this may be the fruits that emanate from what you are doing right now. And karma would be right just at this point of the present only. So the fruits of the past and the future come in both directions,

[63:15]

come from the past and open out into the future. What we mean by karma, this is a particularly Buddhist usage of the word karma. It's not the use of karma in Hinduism or some other related tradition. I mean, you have to remember that this use is a particular use for Buddhism because Buddhism emphasizes the possibility of dramatic and permanent change in your karmic stream by practice. That is to say that you can be liberated from karma or from human suffering in this life. It's the basic liberative or optimistic message of Buddhism. We are not bound by our destiny or by our fate or by what we have done in the past or what others have done in the past. Yeah, so that's it.

[64:20]

Yes? Is confession felt to be important at all? I know you said last week that people used to confess in the full moon ceremony but we don't do it anymore. Is that because of some change in Zen about the attitude towards confession? Well, in this way I'm talking, I think confession and repentance are almost the same. The difference is that we don't have... Someone mentioned to me, it was Julie, wasn't it? Julie said last week after the class that Lama Govinda has commented to her frequently, he used to be a Theravadan monk, about the rules, the pratimoksha precepts. He said they always find ways to get around them. And this relates to the idea of do you have many small rules that try to cover all the possibilities

[65:21]

or do you have a few very big rules that convey to you the spirit of your activity and then leave it to your own responsibility to figure out what to do. Because, of course, every choice is a new event. There's no actual precedent that tells you exactly what to do. So it's true that if you have a large body of minuscule rules that you go through one by one and say, now, has anybody actually... Please confess, has anybody done this or not? What I meant was, actually, is it important to tell someone what you did or is it just enough within yourself to repent? Do you need to bring another person into it? When I said confess, that's what I meant. Oh, I see. It's important to bring someone else into it. But I still think what I was saying also applies,

[66:25]

which is that when you revert more to the basic spirit of all the precepts, you would not have time to confess everything. You might say that your activity is a constant confession because the idea is you have infinite lifetimes to take care of from the infinite past. Which one interpretation of that is the infinite past of humanity? All the instances of greed, hate and delusion which have occurred. If you say, well, that wasn't me, that was Nero or that was Genghis Khan, it wasn't me. But that's not exactly enough because Genghis Khan and you are not all that separate. You're human and Genghis Khan was human and given the circumstances, you might very well have gone that way. It doesn't necessarily mean that you personally

[67:27]

have been reincarnated in all these lifetimes. Exactly. It may equally well mean that human beings have done these things and you are a human being. It isn't enough to say, well, I was born in 1947, so anything before that. Don't talk to me about World War II. That isn't quite enough. So from the broader perspective of the bodhisattva vow, which is our practice, there's not time to possibly incorporate everything. So we have more of a sense of ongoing confession and ongoing effort to follow the precepts. But we'll have to talk about that more. It's a kind of difficult point to talk about very well. Yes, Vicky. There's been this myth or this thing about symbolism

[68:28]

that Devadatta was first cousin to the Buddha. It seems to be the same sort of thing. Am I making too much up here? I mean, he was a bad man. He was very, very bad. The Buddha was the Buddha, but they were first cousins. I think they probably were first cousins historically. You know, one of the things that we may tend to go too far in the direction of thinking all these things must be myths, because in an oral culture, I think they actually, certain things they convey very accurately. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if that particular part of it was historically true. And it would also be psychologically understandable that members of your own family may have the most... Yeah, yeah. The Buddha had quite a large family. I mean, he was the prince of a clan, the crown prince of a clan. And he abandoned the whole family to do this spiritual thing.

[69:32]

And they weren't at all happy about it. It actually caused some problems, I think, for the family. So there may be something to that. Anyway, there were assuredly people... Whenever you are set up as a teacher, there are always people that will criticize you, particularly people that knew you when you were young. Yes, Bill. I find the distinction between intention and action subtle and slippery. I think it has... We'll probably be talking more about that in terms of spirit and letter. For example, to put it in a silly way, what if Devadatta had rolled his rock at the Buddha and missed altogether, not even the splinter it got through, would Devadatta still have scored his hat-trick? Or would he not, in fact, have harmed the Buddha

[70:34]

in the way that exempted him from the deepest trouble in hell, even though he intended to quite thoroughly? No, he would have, although it wouldn't have been quite as serious, you see. They have this distinction, which I believe also exists, doesn't it, Brother David, in Catholicism between body, speech and mind, or thought, word and deed? Isn't there that distinction? You know, the karma of the body is the most serious. If you think... For instance, in our culture, if you think, I'd like to kill that so-and-so, that's not even a crime legally. We have the freedom to think that. From a Buddhist point of view, it already is killing at some level. And if you say it, that's, again, of course, much more impact, and it has a much larger wave to contend with, because someone will hear it and it will have some effect on that person

[71:34]

and they'll tell other people. If somebody walks into here at Green Gulch and starts saying they're going to kill people, we're going to take it quite seriously. But it may be that lots of people think it. And then if they do it, of course, then it's a whole exponential level greater. But from the standpoint of practice, the most important one is that you thought it, because that's the source of the other two. So intention means a thought with an arrow on it, a thought with a direction, and that's the main arena of your work, because the other two derive from that. And until you can have access to the source of your thoughts, you can't actually be free in your activity. Of course, practically speaking, the first level of our work in precepts

[72:36]

is to restrain our body from what we're thinking of doing. And that's where we begin, because the body is the place where we have the most access. So, in a sense, practice begins with the body and works in. You can't have access to your thoughts directly very easily. The way to have access is by starting to notice what your body is doing, which is a big effort in and of itself, often, and then gradually try to increase the clarity of your awareness until you can notice the thoughts which are inducing that action. So, does that make sense? So, precepts really are ultimately about your thoughts, but practically they begin with your body

[73:37]

and with your voice, of course. What you say is a part of that. So your speech and your physical action are where you begin in practice, and for most of us, speech is a very good place to begin, actually, because speech and thought, of course, are very close. And practicing right speech is... We could have a whole couple of classes just discussing right speech, because right speech is a very good place to put into practice all of these precepts. And if you notice on the list, about five of them explicitly are about right speech, out of the ten prohibitory precepts have to do with what you say. So, we work in. But zazen practice works with your whole body.

[74:39]

And in particular, it shuts down the main...

[74:46]

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