Good morning everyone. Can you hear me? Okay, so this morning I'm going to talk about our Bodhisattva precepts, three different aspects of them. Dale, can you hear me? Anyway, but before that, a couple different things I wanted to talk about before I start the Dharma talk. First of all, we had a little bit of excitement this morning because our website was down, but you all managed to get here anyway. So I wanted to thank people who helped with that. David Ray, Wade, and Mike, who are not here. Hougetsu, thank you. Jason, Douglas. Anyway, well, here we are. The other thing I wanted to talk about before I start the Dharma talk is Sogen Mel Weissman Roshi, who is transitioning. He's 91 years old and is in his last stages.

[01:15]

He's in hospice care, not expected to make it till next year. So I wanted to say a little bit about him. We will do a well-being service and dedication for him and others at the end of this morning program, but Mel is a very important person in our Suzuki Roshi lineage. He founded the Berkeley Zen Center in 1967. He was a disciple of Suzuki Roshi, ordained by Suzuki Roshi, and many of the San Francisco Zen Center leaders came to the Berkeley Zen Center and drew Mel. Paul, I think you're one of them. He ordained and transmitted many

[02:23]

important people in our lineage. I think he has 20 transmitted disciples, more or less, probably more, including people like Norman Fisher and Zen Cape Lange-Hartman. We should have many more themselves. So Mel was a very important person in our lineage and kind of a humble person. Not, you know, just a very steady person and kept the Berkeley Zen Center going this year. He had his stepping down ceremony as Abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center just last month. My old friend Alan Sanaki will become the new Abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center at the end of January. Zengyu, I don't know if you would like to say a little bit about Mel, just a little bit

[03:27]

before the talk. I'm probably not the best person to talk about Mel, because in our youth, we saw things a little differently as far as East-West went. He was one of the leading people that wanted to make Buddhism Zen American, and I was so steeped in the Japanese tradition. So there was always sort of a little bit of a difference there, but his voice was very powerful, and it was very important for many people. And I would say one of the best Buddhist experiences I ever had was taking care of the Berkeley Zen Center, taking care of his group for nine months while he was at Atasahara Bishuso. It was a wonderful group, a wonderful setting,

[04:29]

and a very special place, and it was due to him. He was kind of a beatnik and an artist when he started. He was not a scholar. He was not an athlete. He was more of a creative soul, and very much into people and the creative process. As Tai gets us, he was very steady, and Zen Center is very fortunate to have had him in its fold. Thank you. Thank you, Paul. So anyway, Sojin Melroshi is still with us, but not for very long, so I just wanted to acknowledge that. And part of what I want to talk about today in terms of the precepts is what

[05:33]

Zangi was just referring to, the East-West divide. So I'm going to talk about three aspects that come up around the precepts, our Bodhisattva precepts. First of all, Zen's connection to the Bodhisattva tradition through the precepts. Second, the kind of, we might say, the ultimate aspect, the universal aspect of the precepts, the initiation or confirmation aspect of the precepts, which is really what's important in Japanese Soto Zen. And then I want to talk about the precepts as ethical guidelines, which is more important actually in the Western approach to the precepts. So to start off, we have in our tradition, in the Soto tradition, 16 Bodhisattva precepts which we follow.

[06:37]

David Ray, could you screen share those, please? So I'll just read through them for you all. Some of you know these very well, some of you who are new or may not, but these 16 precepts are from Ehe Do Gen Zenji, who lived, is the founder of Soto Zen, lived in the 13th century, 1200 to 1253. All of these go back further, but he put together this particular combination of the precepts, and these are the precepts that we still say in our precept ceremony here at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate. I take refuge in Buddha, I take refuge in Dharma, I take refuge in Sangha, the three refuges, very traditional. Then there's three pure precepts. I vow to embrace and sustain right conduct, and I teach attention. Ebenezer Roshi sometimes translates this as, I vow to embrace and sustain rites or rituals and conduct. Then I vow to embrace and sustain all

[07:41]

good. And third, I vow to embrace and sustain all beings. Very important that this is a practice of inclusion of all beings, not even just human beings. But then the 10 grave precepts, and I'll be talking about these later, and well, I'll say much more later, but these are not, they sound like the 10 commandments, but they're not. So the way we say them, and there are various different renditions now in modern Soto Zen, but the disciple of Buddha does not kill. The disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. A disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexuality. A disciple of Buddha does not lie. A disciple of Buddha does not intoxicate mind or body of self or others. A disciple of Buddha does not speak of the faults of others. A disciple of does not praise self at the expense of others. A disciple of Buddha is not possessive of anything.

[08:47]

A disciple of Buddha does not harbor ill will. A disciple of Buddha does not disparage the three treasures, which are Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So again, I'll come back to these 10 later in the talk. So David, you can take away the screen share. We'll bring it back later. So I want to talk about these in a few different ways. First of all, just a little bit on the history of this. All these precepts are derived from the tradition of precepts going back to India and Vinaya. There was in mainland Asia monastic precepts, which are a much larger number and much stricter in some ways. But our precepts owe a lot to Tendai Buddhism,

[09:48]

which is a school of Japanese precepts, Japanese Buddhism that predates Zen. Tendai comes from the Chinese Shintai school, but was founded by Saicho in the 800s in Japan. Saicho wanted to especially embrace Bodhisattva precepts. So that's what we are doing, these Bodhisattva precepts. So all of these of our 16 come from the Tendai in some ways. And our ceremony of Bodhisattva, our ceremony, our Jukai lay ordination ceremony, and free-storm ordination ceremony, owe a lot to the Tendai ceremony. And Dogen, who founded Soto Zen, initially was a Tendai monk. Tendai was centered on Mount Yei,

[10:54]

the mountain at the northeastern side of Kyoto, near where I lived when I lived in Kyoto for a while. Dogen is very much connected to the whole Mahayana Bodhisattva tradition in Japan and in Asia. Dogen was a Tendai monk before he went to China. Well, actually, he started practicing Zen in Japan before that, in the Rinzai Monastery. But most of Dogen's disciples, his important disciples especially, had been Tendai monks. So sometimes I think in America there's some idea of Zen as something separate from Buddhism. Maybe people who've been at Ancient Dragon a while don't think this way, but Dogen himself said that he was not teaching Zen. And he was certainly not

[11:58]

teaching Soto Zen, although the tradition that comes from him that we follow is known as Soto Zen. But Dogen said what he was teaching was just Buddhism. So I wanted to start by just expressing how our practice, our, you know, we could call it Soto Zen practice, this practice from Suzuki Roshi lineage, is Bodhisattva Mahayana Buddhism. And this is reflected in these precepts and the precept ceremony that we do. And this is also very much true for me personally. When I was 20 years old, I, through causes and conditions, had the opportunity to spend three months traveling around to Buddhist temples, not just Zen temples, in

[13:00]

Kyoto and Nara. And I knew a little bit about Buddhism before that. I'd read Gary Snyder a little bit, and I'd read Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, maybe the only really good Zen book available then. But I was really influenced, transformed, by seeing all these Buddhist temples and statues of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and also Zen rock gardens. But that was a very powerful experience for me. I didn't know that I could have anything to do with it, although actually the year before, I had heard something about some monastery, some Zen monastery east of Big Sur, and I actually, the year before, was the first time I was ever in California, and I was driving down around Big Sur and looked for a road to go east to some of these mythical Zen monasteries. I didn't find it. It was many years later that I got to Tassajara. But

[14:05]

anyway, those three months were very important. And to me, it was about Bodhisattvas and Buddhas and these Buddhist figures. So four years after that, I ended up coming back to the States and going back to college. And four years later, I met my first teacher, a Japanese Soto Zen priest in New York City. So for me personally also, this Zen practice is not separate from the Bodhisattva tradition in Asia and Japan and going back to China. So that's the first point I wanted to make, that these precepts connect us to this long Bodhisattva tradition in Japan and China and Korea and going back to India. So the second thing I want to talk about is, and we will have time for discussion,

[15:07]

but about the ceremony itself. So we have a, it's called a Jukai ceremony. Jukai means to accept the precepts, to receive and accept the precepts, as we call it also lay ordination. But actually, it's the same precepts for priest ordination. And this is a ceremony that we do that involves studying the precepts with me or now with other teachers at Ancient Dragons Zen Gang. And it also includes sewing a raksu, one of these, with our sewing teacher, Hogetsu, who is trained in, through Blanche, in how this practice of sewing a raksu, which is a symbolic priest robe. We also do our own, sew our own okases, the priest robes, the larger priest robes.

[16:14]

And there's a study of the precepts that's involved, but also that ceremony involves a kind of initiation into a particular lineage. There's a lineage paper that connects the person receiving it, doing that ceremony with the person giving the ceremony, myself or Nyozan, oration, and then going back through this lineage, all the way back to Shakyamuni, and then coming around back up to Shakyamuni. So it's an initiation ceremony. And it's a confirmation ceremony of Buddha nature. And actually in Japan now, and I think pretty much going back to Dogen's time, it was understood more in terms of that than in terms of a ceremony to study ethical guidelines.

[17:15]

So in some ways, this is just about the first of those 16 precepts, I take refuge in Buddha. In some ways, all of those precepts are just expressions of that first precept, taking refuge in Buddha. This is something that, you know, the numbers of the people here have done that ceremony, as laypeople or as priests, taking refuge in Buddha, returning to Buddha, returning home to Buddha. But this is also our practice, our Zazen practice. So whether or not you do that formal ceremony of initiation, those precepts are part of our Zazen. Our Zazen practice is to just sit like Buddha, to sit upright, to be present in this body, your body, to find what is Buddha, what is uprightness,

[18:23]

what is clarity and awareness for each one of us. So each one of us expresses Buddha in our own way. And Zazen is our practice. And the way we do Zazen was the way that Dogen emphasized it when he brought it back from China, to just sit upright, to inhale and exhale, to be present and aware with whatever is happening, to find and deepen that awareness in our sitting. But then how do we express that in our life? And that's where these precepts come in, their guidelines to that. But really, just to the confirmation of this Buddha nature, this Buddha quality in your body-mind, on your seat. So these precepts unfold as expressions

[19:26]

of taking refuge in Buddha. And then, of course, taking refuge in Buddha is to take refuge in Dharma, the teaching, the reality, the truth of our life. And in Sangha, because this happens in community, together with all the people in our life. So these precepts, you know, as I say, in Japan, anyway, the emphasis was more just this initiation, this confirmation. They did this ceremony, they took these 16 precepts, but it wasn't so much as we think about it as ethical guidelines, but just to really settle into Buddha. However, for us in the West, and Paul was talking about this difference between the way things are understood in Japan and the way things are understood in the West,

[20:31]

you know, it's been now 60 years since Suzuki Roshi came from Japan to California. Next year, it'll be 50 years since Suzuki Roshi passed away. So we have been evolving, in some ways, for better or worse, this American Western Soto Zen tradition. And we still have a lot to learn, I would say, from the old Asian Mahayana Bodhisattva tradition. But also, in some ways, I think it's appropriate that we have our own way of practicing this. So Zen in the West has integrated with many aspects of our Western culture, certainly Western psychology,

[21:37]

psychological insight and awareness, Western spiritual traditions, Western sense of social engagement, very different from the way people saw society in the feudal society that was the background of Asian Buddhism. So we need to look at how that is for us here. And one way that this is different is in terms of the precepts. So I think for all of us as Westerners, when we take lay ordination, priesthood ordination, we tend to emphasize more than the confirmation aspect, more than the initiation aspect,

[22:41]

we emphasize the ethical guidelines in these ten precepts. And I think it would be good for us to reaffirm the initiation aspect, the confirmation aspect, the refuge in Buddha aspect. But also, we do have these ethical guidelines. So I think it's not inappropriate that we pay attention to them, but I think it's easy for us to misunderstand them. And this is partly because of our Western context and Western view of morality. So I want to bring this up and then have some discussion. So David Ray, would you please put the precepts up again? And I want to look at these in terms of these ten grave precepts. Each one of these,

[23:42]

again, they may sound like the Ten Commandments, but in Buddhism and in East Asian culture, ethics and morality are seen very differently than in our context. So even if we're not, so I don't know if you can, David, if you can get rid of that. There we go. But we tend to think of, in the West, because of the Abrahamic Judeo-Christian tradition, we tend to think of ethics and morality in terms of absolutes, moral absolutes. Don't kill is a moral absolute. Don't steal. So we think in terms of good and bad and right and wrong. So this is our cultural context, whether or not we ever

[24:48]

practiced Judeo-Christian religions as before we came to Buddhism. That's our culture. However, I would suggest that East Asian culture has a different ethical base, and I could call it Confucian ethics. It's not officially Confucianism, but it's the background of East Asian culture, of all of East Asian culture, Chinese and Japanese, and it's more situational than absolute. So I want to give examples and talk about this, because it gives us a different sense of what ethical guidelines are about, inasmuch as, for us as Westerners now, we look at the precepts more in terms of ethical guidelines. They're not rules. They're not

[25:56]

thou shalt not. They're more koans. They're guidelines. They're reminders. So when one does the Jukai ceremony, it doesn't mean that one has perfected all these things at all. These are reminders that come up when we feel like we're having some issue with these. So when people do this formal ceremony with me, I ask them to look at one or two or three of these and study it during the week and during their everyday experience and see how it comes up. So these are ways of just reminding us how we express Buddha in our everyday activity, and this is very important, maybe particularly in our Sotusan tradition. The point isn't to reach some ultimate state of perfection, but to get some sense through extended practice of showing up for Zazen and

[27:05]

some sense of something deeper, some ultimate, some universal reality. But then how do we bring it into our everyday activity? What do we do when we get up from our Zazen, when we go out from our Sangha experience and live in our life, in our everyday activity in the world? And these are reminders of how to express Refuge in Buddha in our life. And again, they're not absolutes, they're situational. And actually, in the Rinzai koan system, these precepts are one of the later stages of the koans. But let me give you an example. The disciple of Buddha does not intoxicate mind or body of self or others. So some translations just say, disciple of Buddha does not sell wine. That would be a kind of literalist, fundamentalist interpretation of this. But we know that intoxicants are not just alcohol or drugs.

[28:19]

Many things can intoxicate us. The internet can intoxicate us. Politics can intoxicate us. Even Zazen can intoxicate us if we get too attached to it. It's hard for that to happen in a non-residential lay context, but if you're up in the mountains in a monastery, maybe that could happen. But I want to talk about the situationality of it. But actually, first, before I talk about that, we have to understand these as not just a disciple of Buddha does not kill, but also a disciple of Buddha helps others not to kill. And there's also a positive aspect of each of them. So a disciple of Buddha does not kill means a disciple of Buddha supports life. Disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given also means a disciple of Buddha accepts what is given, receives what is given. Disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexuality. We could see that as a disciple of Buddha

[29:25]

uses sexuality respectfully and wholesomely. A disciple of Buddha does not lie also means a disciple of Buddha speaks truth, whatever that means. Now these are, as I said, these are all koans. These are challenges to how we live in the world. So coming back to a disciple of Buddha does not intoxicate mind or body of self or others. That's a good one for seeing how these situational ethics work. I have a good friend who I started Zen practice with back in New York, long time ago, who is an alcoholic. And he hasn't touched a drop of alcohol in, I don't know, 40 or 50 years. But he still considers himself an alcoholic and goes to AA meetings. For some people, this precept means not to drink any alcohol, period. For example,

[30:32]

for other people, having a glass of wine socially might be just fine. So it's not an absolute. It's not a moral absolute. It's a question of what is intoxicating and what fosters awareness. So the opposite of this precept would be a disciple of Buddha supports awareness of mind or body of self and others. How do we encourage awareness rather than addiction or intoxication? So at Ancient Dragons Zen Gate still we have a Tuesday evening recovery group to look at these things. So to say that ethics is situational is again, it's not one rule fits all. So I could talk more about each of these 10. Maybe I'll mention a couple of others. A disciple of Buddha does not speak of the faults of others. That's a tricky one. I think,

[31:38]

so as I understand it now, and each of these precepts is something that we grow with, that we try and work with, that, you know, we might have different understandings of, but it doesn't mean that we can't talk about situations of harm in our life or in the society or world around us. But how do we do it without name-calling, without speaking of others' particular, you know, fault-finding? This is very challenging. How do we speak of situations of harm without, you know, calling some people whatever, bad names, but actually talking about how to, if we see somebody in our life causing harm, how do we think about how to help them to be helpful, for example? So there's a subtlety to each of these 10. So one of the precepts that many people look at is a disciple of Buddha does not harbor ill will.

[32:49]

This is the precept about anger. Some translations of this, some more literal translations say disciple of Buddha does not get angry. Well, we're electromagnetic creatures, we have attractions and aversions. I like the disciple of Buddha does not harbor ill will because it we don't hold on to anger. We don't turn anger into grudge or resentment. We don't turn anger into hatred. How do we, all of these precepts have that quality, and whether or not you take the formal ceremony of lay ordination or taking refuge, these are guidelines that you can use, all of us. How do you use anger constructively? So there's one traditional commentary about this precept that says if you don't have anger when it's appropriate, that's a violation of this precept.

[33:52]

But it's not angry because of somebody else. It's your anger. How do you use that energy constructively? To see clearly what's happening, to resolve, to respond appropriately, to be helpful in the situation that allows you to feel your anger rather than turning it into resentment and grudge against some so-called other person. So each of these precepts is like that. Each of these precepts is a something to look at, to look at situationally, to look at in terms of positive and negative, in terms of yourself and others, to help to try and help to express this refuge in Buddha in your life. So I think in the West we look at these more as ethical guidelines in this way, but I think we can, I think if we're going to look at them

[34:59]

as ethical guidelines, we need to see them as skillful means, not as some moral absolute that if you don't follow this precept you're evil or bad or wrong. So this is a kind of subtlety that if we're going to take these on as ethical guidelines, we need to get again return to. So David, maybe you can take the screen share away. How do we see these precepts in the context of initiation and confirmation into the lineage of just expressing Buddha and our Sazen practice of finding, deepening our experience of Buddha as we sit over time and deepen our awareness of something deeper? So, just to say again, these precepts go back to our Buddhist tradition, and Zen is not

[36:12]

separate from the whole Mahayana Bodhisattva tradition, and people who've been around a while understand this, and we chant the four Bodhisattva vows at the end of our events. But also, I want to emphasize that it's not just about learning some ethical guidelines. It's also about some deep connection to returning home to Buddha, some connection to Buddha's lineage, to Buddha's practice, to our own uprightness and expression of Buddha. And then, in the way that I think more in the West than in Asia, we look at these ethical guidelines, but to look at them not

[37:17]

in terms of some absolute right or wrong, but in terms of how can we look at them subtly as ethical guidelines, as skillful means that we have to apply in a subtle way in a particular situation. So, I'm interested in your responses, your comments, your questions. Please feel free, for those of you who we can't see David Ray, maybe you can help me call on people. You can go to the participants link on the bottom and raise your hand. There's a raise hand link at the bottom. So, please, I welcome your comments and responses. Thank you. Again, I have a question.

[38:22]

David. Thank you. My question is about initiation, what that might mean in the Buddhist tradition. And the reason that I ask is that some Western monotheistic traditions, I know some really sort of absolutist versions of how initiation works, like the sacrament of baptism, which is supposed to change your soul. But what does it mean that taking the precepts is the kind of initiation? Is it initiation into something, into a membership? Well, it's specifically into a lineage. So, if you do that here at Ancient Dragon Zen Gate, or in any of Tsuki Roshi lineage, then you're initiated into a particular lineage, whether it's a lineage that connects to Tsuki Roshi. So, there's a lineage paper, Kijin Yaku in Japanese, which has names of a bunch of people in India, a bunch of people in China,

[39:27]

a bunch of people in Japan, now people in America. And then your name will be at the bottom, your new name. So, part of that ceremony is that you can get a new Dharma name. So, Nyozan means suchness mountain. That's the name I gave him. And my name, Taigen Shizan, was the name that I was given by my teacher, Tenshin Nobendishin. So, you get a new name, as well as this Roktsu that you saw yourself with Hoguetsu's guidance. And you also get this lineage paper that connects you literally to this lineage of people who kept alive this tradition in India, China, and Japan. And then at the bottom, up below your name, there's a line that goes back up to the top and back up to Shakyamuni, because it's a circle. It's alive. This is an initiation into how to keep alive this tradition, this particular tradition of keeping alive

[40:30]

the Buddha's teaching and practice. And, you know, it's not that one lineage is, you know, I mean, part of what I like about Ancient Dragons Zen Gate, I've said this many times before, is that people here have practiced in other lineages and other traditions. And that's great. You know, I think we have a breadth of, I think one of the gifts of American Zen is that there's a range of traditions were sort of eclectic. So you, when you do this initiation, you're initiated into one lineage. But we also are informed by, as I was saying, Western psychology, Western spirituality, and so forth. So having people here who have practiced in other lineages or in other traditions is kind of a gift. It gives us

[41:35]

kind of maturity. There's also people who've just started here at Ancient Dragons Zen Gate. So there's a range, and I think that's a good thing. It's not, you know, about my, it's not about having, you know, being sectarian in the sense that my lineage is better than your lineage, you know. So I'm not in Sojin Mel's lineage. I'm in his Dharma brother, Tenshin Rabindranath's lineage. But I have so many good friends who are from Mel's lineage. We're cousins, we're all related, and that's part of it. How are we all related in Buddha's family? So one of the things that sutras talk about is sons and daughters of good family. It means anybody who's a follower of Buddha, but this initiation is an initiation into that family. So thank you for your question. I see Dylan Sands is up. Dylan.

[42:41]

Good morning, Sagan. Good morning, everybody. I was listening to the Dharma talk from last week on anti-racism, and I heard just in my own voice, like, just this really deep existential anger, as well as anger at myself, which I'll keep, you know, I've been studying and I'll keep studying. So I'm just interested, Sagan, on your thoughts on both of those sides, I guess. On the existential anger side of it, I think there's, I feel this anger about, like, just the persistence and scale of suffering, you know? Like, how to be calm or

[43:45]

how to be settled about that, you know? And then, I mean, I don't know how much of the, on the personal side, I think that's just more, you know, more of the courage for me to be honest with myself and learn how to be compassionate with myself. But just your thoughts on either of those sides of it, or maybe they're the same thing, I don't know, or different sides of the same thing. Well, the precept says to not harbor ill will. So, with all of these precepts, they come alive, and you realize that when you see, oh, I'm holding on to some ill will, or, you know, whatever, I'm not being completely truthful. Well, what is that about? Or, um, I am speaking the faults of others, or I am, um, attaching to self, you know? And so, the precept comes up when we, when we feel like we have some problem with that. So, um,

[44:58]

maybe it's, maybe, uh, there are situations. So, the first noble truth is that there is suffering, and it's a noble truth because we can face it. So, when you see suffering, in some ways, being angry about it may be, may be your way of realizing it, but it's a little bit extra. I mean, maybe you need to go through that. Maybe it's one of the stages of grief or something, but to feel the sadness about the suffering of people around us, and there's plenty of that this year, in so many ways, may be necessary, but then how do you help? So, Dylan, you have helped by, uh, in terms of the suffering of racism, by having the Friday Morning Group that allows people, allows us to discuss this and look at it and see it in ourselves and in each other and in the world, but, you know, labeling some people

[46:04]

as racist and some people as anti-racist and some people as, you know, different classifications, that's not so helpful, I think. It's what do we actually do to help the suffering that's, that happens as a result of this and to see it in all, in terms of causes and conditions and karma and the, the legacy of our country, uh, in so much being founded economically on slavery and, and the whole history of that and, uh, we're still living with that. So, to look at that without, um, you know, getting excited with harboring some, some ill will, well, it may be difficult. Maybe you need to look at your, the pattern of how you hold on to that anger, but it's a good thing that you're seeing that. And then how do you actually, uh, be helpful rather than just holding on to these intense feelings? It's difficult. And I, I, and that's just my, that's just my off-the-cuff

[47:09]

response. I don't, it's, it's, it takes, this is work. This is the work of just looking at ourselves. So, Dogen says to study the ways of studying the self. So, we have to look at ourselves when these things come up. And then what do we do? And there's not, there's not one right answer. That's what I mean by saying it's not a moral absolute. It's such, it, it, it's shifting the situation. How, how racism gets expressed, for example, in Chicago and in our society shifts and in our own hearts. And we have to look at that. So, so just to take, just to take one position of raging at whomever is, is actually to, to run away from actually facing the suffering. It's a noble truth because we can just be upright and

[48:10]

face it and not just divert to ill will. But this is a challenge for, for our whole culture now. So, thank you for raising that. Xinyi, you had your hand up. Hi, Taigen. Thank you for your talk. And also, thank you for Dogen's question and Taigen's answer. It reminds me of the instruction of turning the Dharma eye inward. And I really appreciate that. And I have never taken the Zhukai ceremony. So I am curious about why you chose to take the Zhukai ceremony. And is it in, I know that's like, in terms of

[49:15]

like ceremony or formality, it will be perhaps like in studying session. But like practically speaking, are you sort of taking that precept, quote unquote, every day? And I guess it's sort of a continual process. Yeah, thank you for your question. Yeah, it's a continual process. It's just once you, whether or not you do the formal ceremony, one can remember taking refuge in Buddha and Dharma and Sangha. And you can recite those every day. And you can recite the 16 every day. But they're particularly relevant when they come up, when you see some situation where you have some question about your own conduct. They're still unjust expressed. So, and I just, I did Zhukai first, my first year of practicing with my Japanese Soto priest teacher in New York, and then I did it again with my teacher, Tenshin

[50:19]

Tenshi Hiroshi. And so there's a number of people here who've done that ceremony here, who had done it previously with other in other places, and that's okay. But it's not necessary to do that ceremony. But you know, but we have it is available. Actually, there's a question now in terms of the practicalities of sewing and when we can gather and do the ceremony, and how to do it, whether or not we can do it on Zoom. And we're, I'll announce later, we're going to have an all-day sitting in January on Zoom and in person. And it's very exciting. And we have this Zoom situation, which is something we're going to be experimenting with this year and evolving with. But anyway, I'm not sure when we're going to be able to actually do that ceremony formally now. But there are people who are preparing for it.

[51:20]

But you don't have to do that ceremony. It's not that it's required. But for me, it was something I wanted to do at the end of the first year of my practice. So, again, you can get copies of those 16 precepts if you want from me, and just remember them and see how you can use them in practice. So, I don't know, if you have a follow-up question. Yes, I would be curious about, like, did something go through your mind? Like, was there any particular reason that you feel compelled? Or is it just a coming-of-situation that you decided to take this Zhukai ceremony? And I don't know if I'm thinking in the right direction. And also, maybe, what is the effect of the Zhukai ceremony on your practice?

[52:26]

Well, it's an encouragement, you know. I mean, the people who wear these raksus or wear lokiokes, it's not necessarily that their practice is better than somebody else's. It's just, in some ways, it's a support. It's an encouragement. I think my wanting to do it had something to do with what I saw when I was going around to Buddhist temples for three months, you know, four years before I started practice. So, anyway, just something I wanted to connect with. I think it's different for different people, people who want to do this. Again, it's not necessary to do it. But if you want to, it's something that we offer here. And, you know, hopefully the pandemic will be over at some point in the coming year, and we'll be able to do that ceremony. Can't hear you. You need to unmute. Can't hear you.

[53:46]

Okay, sorry, having trouble with my little teeny phone icon. I can hear you now. Good. Just two comments. The first of which is that over the years, I have come to think of the grave precepts as themselves a kind of refuge. Things that offer at least the opportunity of not continually becoming ever more deeply enmeshed in my ancient twisted karma. And I also have come to think of the relationships to the three refuges, and particularly with regard to taking refuge in Sangha. And they kind of, you know, most,

[54:51]

many of the grave precepts are inherently social. They talk about how we relate to each other. And so they particularly illuminate that refuge. And then the second point is that, you know, you talked about the different sort of approach to Jukai in sort of more traditional Japanese way, and what's happening in here. And you alluded to the sort of Confucian underpinnings of, I guess we could say, ethical life in more traditional societies. For better or worse, in a place like Japan, which is sort of underlying very strong Confucian ethic, relationships between people and how they interact with each other are somewhat

[55:55]

more defined than in a place like the United States. And in the United States, they're much more negotiable, much more processual, however that word is said. And that, I think, in itself, when we bring consideration of the precepts into these very, very, you know, to our nations or our world's ancient twisted karma, you know, there's a liberatory potential there. There's a flexibility that if we're skillful, we can actually perhaps affect some improvement in the way, not just that we relate to sangha in the sense of like a group like ours, but also

[57:00]

in our relationship to the broader sanghas, however broadly we want to take that. You know, I recommend taking it as far as you can. But, you know, I just think there's a real liberatory potential there if we take it seriously. Thank you. Yes. Thank you, Taigen. My offering is to suggest that the precepts and accepting the precepts is a way of honoring our original teacher, our original nature, and that this teaching it has a lineage. So the initiatory aspect that Taigen was emphasizing has to do with learning how to express that which we are being taught in this whole process. So,

[58:13]

you know, I mean, literally we all have teachers. And when we encounter a teacher in a particular tradition and we find gratitude, enormous gratitude for this teaching, then we express that gratitude by following in that tradition, receiving that tradition as a gift, and then offering it in turn, perhaps in somewhat of a transformed way. But that's how I understand being in a lineage in this particular tradition of Buddhism. So I hope that's helpful. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Part of this is wanting to share in something that has value for us. And there's lots of ways to do that. And again, I want to say that you do not need to do this ceremony to do that. But how do you express

[59:20]

the settledness, the clarity, calm, the insight that starts to develop as you do this practice regularly? And how do you express that in a way that is helpful to others? That's a big part of what our practice is about. So it's not just a self-help practice. And of course, we do benefit from doing this practice ourselves, but we're not just ourselves. We're connected with, you know, as Nyozan was saying, with many sanghas, with many people, with many different communities. How is our expression of this awareness supportive to people? That's the question, that's what Fushun was speaking to. Eve has her hand up. Hi, Eve.

[60:24]

Yeah. So I just was wondering and wanted you to talk a little bit more about when you were 20 and you were going in Kyoto and Mara. So what was it? Can you say more about what you saw and what moved you? Sure. Yeah, I didn't. I had to be there because parents were living in Tokyo. My father was on sabbatical there. I had dropped out of school for one of a number of times. And anyway, I was able to go there and I just went to Kyoto without any particular plan. I just went there and started going around to these temples. And it was many things, but the Buddhist statuary, the guardian figures, the bodhisattvas, the Buddha figures, just really very powerful for

[61:35]

me. And of course, also the temple architecture that Paul is an expert in now. Beautiful temples, Zen gardens. I don't know what to say about it. It's not necessary that Americans and students go and practice in Japan, but I know some people from Ancient Dragon have gone and I have recommended particular places to go, just not as not to practice particularly, although that's possible if you want to go for a longer period. But just to see these, it's like pilgrimage, to see places where people have been doing bodhisattva practice for a long time. And there's something about the ground there that is like sacred places, you know, that has some power. So, I ended up 20 years

[62:38]

later going back to live in Kyoto for a couple of years or so, because I just felt like for me, I needed to do that. Again, it's not that everybody needs to do that. You can practice in Chicago, you can practice in California, you can practice in many places in the United States. Dogen says, why go wander around aimlessly to the dusty realms of other lands? You know, it's right here, right now. But for people who, you know, so it's not about, you know, some of those temples are now famous tourist sites. And some of the ones that are famous as tourist sites are, you know, not so impressive to me in terms of, from the point of view of a practitioner. Although they're, you know, they have some, there's something lovely about them. But there were places that are not famous tourist sites that were very powerful to me. Some of the famous tourist sites, Ryoanji in Kyoto, for example, the famous, most famous rock

[63:39]

garden, there are many of them, is a place where you go and there are hordes of Japanese tourists wandering through. And you have to get there early or just wait till there's a break in the, all the people wandering through to actually appreciate what's there. At any rate, it just had this powerful effect on me. And yet I did not, I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know that there was some way that I could be part of that. Or, you know, that there was some way that I could practice with that. So I just came back to the States and went back to school. And it was four years later that I met my first teacher. There's a fellow who, Tom Kirchner, who's a really good fellow, who's a Rinzai Zen monk and translator now, who is my age and went there the same time. And I somehow, he figured out that he could go into the Soto and Keninji and stay there and became

[64:43]

a Rinzai monk. So anyway, where is karma? Anyway, it was, I think it was the Buddhist statues that affected me. It impacted me most. Initially, there's a guy named Unkei, U-N-K-E-I. Probably none of you have heard of him. Maybe Paul has heard of him. But he's, all Japanese people think of him as the Japanese Michelangelo, and he really is. He was a Buddhist sculptor of Buddha and Bodhisattva and guardian statues. And his sculpture is fantastic. It's just, you know, he's great. And actually, he comes from a lineage of Buddhist sculptors, and he had several sons who were, they were associated with the temples. And some of his sons also did amazing Buddhist statues.

[65:46]

So, anyway, that's a little... But Buddhist statues, so they're not just of Gautama Buddha, there are other Bodhisattvas? Oh, no, no. Bodhisattvas and fierce guardian figures, and there's a whole range of esoteric, so-called, Buddha figures that are part of Japanese Buddhism. And just amazing statues. So, Google Unkei and look at some of his... So what do we Google? U-N-K-E-I. Mike Gillis, you have your hand up? Yeah, thank you for the talk. It was really enlightening. I hadn't really heard much about the precepts, so it was really nice to hear that. Something Nyozon said about the capacity of Western culture to bend, and how that could be liberatory, really resonated with me. And I was curious if you could expand on that a little. The thing I was thinking about earlier

[66:55]

was kind of the tightrope that you walk with any philosophical or religious precepts between dogmatism and not really caring about them at all. And I think coming from a Western secular perspective, I have much more of a tendency to kind of wave my hands away at precepts, or any kind of tenets. And I'm more likely to kind of explain them away and think, well, in this particular situation, they don't really apply, or I have an explanation for how they would apply. And so I'm just curious, kind of, how you personally experience using a precept in a particular situation, and how you can kind of sort through whether

[68:03]

you're being dogmatic, which I think to me might feel more like a karmic impulse, like it's history being passed down, and you're not really being non-reactive, or experiencing the current moment. Or on the other hand, you know, just kind of waving it away and not even taking the spirit of the precept into account in the moment. Thank you, that's a really important, very helpful question. I think, well, you know, there's a range, you know, the people here and the people at Ancient Dragon have a range of backgrounds about quote-unquote religion, you know. There are people who are good Zen students who remained Christian or Jewish or whatever else, you know, that's possible. There are many people who come to, and particularly in the early days, I think, people who came to Zen in America who were reacting against traditional Western religion, and exactly what you're talking about,

[69:08]

that kind of dogmatism, fundamentalism. So I think that's a danger of religion. And again, religion means something different in Western religion than Japanese and in Eastern religion, generally. So it's a complicated question, actually, but being literalist or fundamentalist about any religious tenets is a kind of, I think, a kind of problem, can be a problem, being dogmatic about it, and certainly trying to convert people. You know, you have to believe this way, you have to believe that way. So again, these precepts are not thou shalt not, thou shalt, they're not dogmas, they are questions. They're suggestions, they're things that one might consider in terms of everyday activity.

[70:10]

So not to hold on to them too tightly, but to really use them as a way of looking at your life. So that's a short answer, I could go on, but maybe that's enough. But I appreciate you raising that. Paul, let's just go, let's just end up, please. I think you've hit on the crux of our Zen practice. Dogen says, flowers die with our attachment and weeds grow with our neglect. It's how to find a path between those two, either overattachment to an exacting principle or libertine neglect of all principles. There's a path in between there, and how to find that is what our Zen practice is about. And once you find that path, then you can stroll freely without having to worry about falling off into either one, but it's very difficult. It's not difficult,

[71:13]

it just takes a lot of practice to find that path, and that is why we sit in our Zen. So that is the important, you asked the important question, how one is too tight and one is too loose, and what should we actually do? Thank you for that, Paul. Yes, very good. Maybe one more question, Jokai? Hi, good morning. I wanted to ask about the precept of not praising oneself and blaming others. The way I've worked on it is, I think, not placing oneself above others. And so, I was wondering if you could help me understand how that would come up in our daily practice. Yeah, not praising oneself at the expense of others. I think that goes back to something that Dogen says in Genjo Koan, to carry yourself forward and experience all the myriad things is

[72:16]

delusion, that everything comes up together is awakening. Everything coming up together includes yourself, but if you're seeing everything in terms of your self-ideas, that's what's called delusion. Now, it's not, Dogen goes on to say that there's delusion and there's awakening. It's not about getting rid of delusion. So naturally, I mean, I think maybe most of us, when we're trained as adolescents to have an ego, we do carry ourselves forward. But liberation, as Paul was talking about, is about getting over it, not seeing everything in terms of our ideas and our needs and our, you know, me, [...] my, me, me, mine, whatever. So John Lennon is fine about that. Anyway, Anyway, so we have to study that.

[73:17]

We have to study the self and we have to study how we carry ourself forward. And it's subtle. And it's not that you, you know, there's dropping away body mind and there's letting go of aspects of self maybe. But in some ways it's an endless process to see how we are caught by our own ideas of things and our own processes. And again, it's very subtle. So this, you know, Doggett talks about Buddha going beyond Buddha. It's not that you reach some magical state and then everything's perfect and you've got all the precepts and, you know, wahoo, you know, it's, this is an endless process of paying attention to the situation of yourself and the world. But there's this reminder not to put yourself forward in front of everything else.

[74:20]

That to realize that reality is that we're all in it together. That everything, all people, all beings, the trees and the mountains and the plains and the lakes and, you know, all the different kinds of Sangha are all, we're all part of this together. And then our practice is how do we take care of that? You know, how do we support that? How can we each in our own way from our own place be helpful to that? And this is a difficult practice. And so Buddha going beyond Buddha means that we realize something, but then we have to keep going. It's an endless process. So thank you for that question. So we're going to, there's a bunch of announcements and things coming in January. And so I'm looking forward so much to this next year

[75:25]

and all the things, all the adventures we will have together.

[75:28]

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