Listen, listen to my heart song Listen, listen to my heart song I will never forget you I will never forsake you I will never forget you I will never forsake you Listen, listen to my heart song One day the World Honored One got up on the seat.

[01:25]

Manjushri, this great bodhisattva in the middle of this room, Manjushri struck the gavel and said, clearly observe the Dharma of the King of Dharma. The Dharma of the King of Dharma is thus. And the World Honored One got down from the seat. This story has been for us here in this room for the last seven days.

[02:46]

Today, those of you who have come here, just come in this morning from outside of Green Gulch, how does it seem in here to you? Does it seem like ordinary Sunday morning, or no? It doesn't? How does it seem? How is it different? What do you sense here? What do you feel? You do? What do you feel? Uh-huh. You had a hint. Did most people notice the close sign? And you came in anyway. Well, to come in, when you come to a Zen center and it says, closed, and you come in anyway, you're a good student.

[04:37]

When we say, go away, we mean stay. We never want to say, go away. I think today is an unusual day. And a lot to do with it is that sign that says, closed up there. Because closing the door is the way you train your potential. That's what it says, actually, in the introduction to this story I just told you. Closing the door and going to sleep is the way to deal with those of highest potential. Today is a day when many of you come here from all over the Bay Area. And also today, the sun's out. And also today is the seventh day

[05:53]

of a seven-day sitting. This room, some of you, some of the people among you have been sitting here for seven days, experiencing a lot of things. And also today, tonight, we have these people sitting here and over here, are going to enter, go through a gate, go through another entrance and be initiated as bodhisattvas and receive a new name and new clothing which they made themselves and receive sixteen great enlightening being precepts and receive a blood lineage of this precepts and then and then go on with their life but actually also start over be born again as baby baby initiates little sprouts of green

[07:26]

green enlightened spirit. The ceremony begins well, I don't know when it begins, but at a certain point, the initiates walk around the temple in a circle. And they come, and then everybody else comes in, and then they come in the room and offer incense and bow to the Manjushri Bodhisattva. and they sit down and we invoke the presence and compassion of the Buddhas and ancestors.

[08:44]

What does it mean to invoke Presence and compassion of the Buddhas and ancestors to you. Yeah. To get on a great wave of strength and hope. Okay, that's good. So they get on a great wave of strength and hope and start riding along. Another thing that comes up there is, where are the Buddha's ancestors? And how will it help us?

[10:01]

When I say, when I say, where are the Buddhist ancestors? At that very moment, the Buddhist ancestors respond. Where are the Buddha's ancestors? It's not that later in a minute they respond, a little bit later. At the exact same moment that I say, where are the Buddha's ancestors? Exactly at the same time. You can't say, where are the Buddhism ancestors, and then look to see where they are. Well, you can look to see where they are, but that's another thing you're doing.

[11:11]

And when you look, they're right there as you look. That's what I think. I have scriptural support, too. Inquiry and response come up together. It's a different way of thinking about things. Usually we think, you go like this, you go, and somebody says, yes, that's fine. But in this particular case, the response is right there. That's the response. In other words, don't look for them to... Buddha's ancestors, don't look someplace else for them. Look for them right in this. They're present right there.

[12:13]

If that's true, they cannot be not here. Except there's one way they cannot be here. for us, how would that be? No inquiry. If you don't knock, they won't be there for you. But as soon as you go, they're there. As soon as you say, where are you? Right there. Where are you? They're there. I was probably... as strange and religious as any other little kid. But, you know, I almost never prayed to anybody for help. I never said, you know, God, would you please protect my mom and dad, or would you give me a new Christmas present? I asked Santa Claus for things, but I didn't ask God for any favors. I never got into that.

[13:28]

It wasn't a family tradition in my house. I did wonder sometimes. I used to wonder. I had a nice room when I was about eight years old. When I was about eight or nine, I had a nice room all to myself with windows on three sides, and it was a second-story window. And I used to wonder at night if Jesus was standing in midair out my window and said, come here, out there. Anyway, I never asked for help. But recently I've been thinking about doing that. Help. And when I ask for help, not to help someplace else, but help in the help. I mean, help in the saying help is the help.

[14:32]

Not somebody's going to come and do something for me, but if I'm willing to say help, I'm instantly that. Like today, it's difficult for me to know what to do here because there's so many things happening, so many different types of situations converging in this one place. What can I do? But if I say help, I immediately feel okay. I'm not okay, but better. But I don't feel, that's not when I say help like somebody help me, somebody do my job for me. No. To become the person who says help, to become the person who can say that, that seems to help. That's the instant, the simultaneous arising of my ask for help and my help and helping me. But I can't get a hold of that although I benefit by that way of being, I can't tell you what it is.

[15:38]

I can't prove, I can't show you by the way I feel, I guess, when I say it. So the beginning of the ceremony is to say the names of these Buddhas and ancestors. To say their name. And when we say their name, they're there. They're there before we say their name. But now we feel it because we call inwardly. And they're there. So we tune in all that help at the beginning of the ceremony with that understanding, not grasping somebody else to do our job for us, but remembering, reassembling. The next thing we do is... The initiates confess their ancient, twisted, kinky action.

[16:47]

From beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through their body, postures, and their thoughts, they confess them all Not specifically, generally, boundlessly, beginninglessly they confess. And again, simultaneous with that energy, with that confession, they are forgiven. Then we sprinkle some water on them. And this water is... It's regular water to start with. At the beginning of the ceremony, it's regular water. And then we touch the water with our life.

[17:56]

And the water... And then we sprinkle the living water on the purified initiates. And what that water does is it makes them new. It makes them fresh. It moves them on. And they keep moving then through the ceremony. Fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh. They keep dying and being reborn all through the ceremony. And then we give them the 16 great precepts. These 16 precepts are what we call the three refuges. And then the next is the three pure precepts. And the next are called ten heavy precepts, or concrete precepts.

[19:04]

Sometimes they translate as prohibitory because they've got a bunch of don'ts in them, or do not, or I won't. But literally, it's concrete. So those are the 16, which we give, and then they chant them. There is a, what do you call it, there is a term in Buddhism which means, which not means, but it's a Sanskrit word, which means to hold on to a conventional view of reality, a conventional view of ethics or a conventional view of morality, to hold on to it.

[20:11]

And it's considered to be a way that you demoralize yourself. By holding on to some conventional idea of morality, you demoralize yourself. Now, what does conventional idea of morality mean? Basically it means, I think it means, whatever you think morality is, that's a conventional idea of morality. Now you may say, well no, I'm rather unconventional. Well that's fine, but that's not what I mean. I mean whatever you think morality is, whatever you think ethics is, whatever you think right and wrong is, that's conventional for you. That's your convention. you adopt that convention.

[21:15]

And you may change it tomorrow, but then you adopt a new convention. Or you have a convention of changing it all the time. Anyway, it's your idea of right and wrong. And if you receive these 16 precepts, if these people receive these 16 precepts, they, each of them, will have some understanding of what these 16 precepts mean. Which is fine. There's no way to avoid having some understanding. You can say, okay, I'm not going to have understanding. Well, that's your understanding. You can say, I'll have the opposite understanding from what I usually have. Well, fine. But still, that's your understanding. And for the moment anyway, it's perfectly conventional for you. Don't say, and we're not saying, don't have an idea about what things, about right and wrong, or good and bad, or ethical conduct. The point is, don't hold on to it. Remember that it's just your current idea of what these terms mean.

[22:21]

Without a current idea, you're not really in the human race. You're not really sharing the life of human beings. So go ahead, have an idea, have an understanding, just don't hold on to it. In other words, study these, receive these precepts and then spend the rest of your life trying to understand what they mean. Now, again, when you receive these precepts, you can say, okay, I have to spend the rest of my life trying to understand what they mean. But it is also possible to just have a succession of personal understandings of what these precepts mean. In other words, today I understand they mean this, and the next day you think they mean that.

[23:27]

So you go from one of your ideas to another idea, or sometimes you may have the same idea two days in a row. Or maybe the same idea for a week, I don't know. But anyway, you have a succession of your own personal ideas. That will happen anyway. But in order to understand them, you need a succession of your personal ideas of what these mean in the context of what other people think they mean. Because even if you say, well, I'm not really attached to my personal idea of what these mean, still, if all you're dealing with is your own personal idea, inadvertently, you're stuck in it. But if you bring your idea of these precepts into contact with people who also, well, bring it in contact with other people who may have never even heard of them, and put your idea out there, and invite them to give comment on your understanding, and commit yourself to them,

[24:41]

Not to switch your idea to their idea. For example, you might say, the first of the grave precepts is not to kill. You might understand not to kill to mean not to squash a bug. They might have a different understanding. they might think you can squash bugs. Or they might think you can squash some bugs, but not others. Now, when they tell you that, you can say, well, I think you can squash no bugs, and you think you can only squash cockroaches. Now, I think you can squash no bugs, but you think you can at least squash cockroaches for some reason. Well, you know, you might think, well, that's ridiculous. Your opinion. You might think it's ridiculous, but actually to put your truth, make your truth available to be influenced by their weirdness, this is part of the way that you might set about to protect yourself from holding on to your own idea of right and wrong.

[25:56]

In the marriage ceremony, I think in the Christian marriage ceremony, maybe it's Jewish too, I don't know, but there's an expression, I plight thee my troth. Troth is truth. I plight thee my truth. I put my truth in plight to thee. Here's my truth. And I say to you too this morning, even though I'm not Wow, maybe I can, am I ready to do this? Yeah, I'll do it and see what happens. Plight thee, all of thee, my troth. The truth I'm putting out here to you, I put it in plight to you. I put my truth in danger to you. In other words, the truth I'm offering, I will listen. And I will listen in such a way that my truth could change upon hearing what you think of my truth.

[27:09]

It isn't that, again, that I'll change my truth to your truth. It isn't even that I'll agree with you. But that what you say to me in regard to the truth that I put out there, what you say to me will affect it, could affect it, and I don't know how. Also, to say how it will affect it, that wouldn't also be putting it in flight. If I'd say, well, I'll just switch to yours, that wouldn't put it in flight. I could control that, too. And that would not work very well, as you might be able to imagine. But to put my truth out, to put it out there for you to see, to feel it and be honest about it and put it out there for you to see, and then to ask you to comment and let that change, my understanding. That I recommend in conjunction with these precepts. That I recommend in, you know, whether you receive them today or not, to put your truth out among other beings and invite them to

[28:31]

Comment. And also invite them to tell you their truth and offer your comment. But I guess they should invite you. Seems kind of heavy in here now. Is it? How is it? Is it okay? It's a lot to think about. it's like birds tweeting doesn't sound too heavy thank you open the door the doors should we open the door yeah could you open the door give it up you have to a loud noise may now occur Hmm.

[30:04]

Exactly. You put your truth out among other human beings and animals. Put your truth out there. Hold it up. Not to get them to agree with you. Not to get them to change you. But just because that's your job is to hold your truth up in this world. as honestly and as clearly and as calmly and so on as you can. And then, you're not supposed... I'm not saying that you should then... And also ask other people to... And then we don't give in to their... We don't submit to their truth or rebel to their truth. And we don't ask them to submit or rebel to ours. We try to meet in truth. Same thing. Feel the heaviness of their commitment coming?

[31:26]

Do you guys feel heavy? Huh? A little heavy? So heavy they can't talk. How about over here? How are you feeling? Not so good? Not so heavy. Not so heavy. Some of the people said they feel like they're getting married. They're a little nervous. Is there anything you want me to talk about? Hmm? No? What?

[32:31]

Okie doke. So, of the 16 precepts, it's called Three Refuges. And Does anybody here know Sanskrit pretty well? Is a Sanskrit scholar in the house? No? Well, I was going to call a Sanskrit scholar actually last night and ask him a question about this very word. Anyway, in Sanskrit you say buddham saranam gacchami. That's the first of the refuges. And saranam means, I think means refuge. I don't know what gacchami means. I think, huh?

[33:33]

Yeah. I think gacchami maybe means to walk. I think maybe, I'm not sure, but I think maybe saranam means refuge and gacchami means to return. I think. The reason why I think that is because in Chinese, when they translate the refuges, they say... Oh, the three refuges, by the way, are in Sanskrit called Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Okay? And in Chinese, the way they translate refuge is to depend on or to rely on, and to return to. Two characters. And the English word refuge is a very nice word because it actually, if you look up the definition, and I think the connotation for most people of refuge is shelter, right, or protection, or protection.

[34:41]

Something that you can find safety in. Is that right? For most people? Yeah. So that's the part that means that's the sadhanam part or the relying on or depending on. So you depend on Buddha. You depend on the perfect enlightenment. You depend on the teaching, the truth. And you depend on the community. Okay? But the etymological, the etymology... of the etymology of refuge is re-fuge, or re-fugare, fugere. And fugere means to fly or to flee. And re means to go back. So the etymology of refuge means to flee back, to return. So refuge means, in the Buddhist sense, and also if you look at the etymology and the definition of English, it means to rely on something and also to something that you go back to.

[35:54]

It's not like you rely on something you go to for the first time. You go back to Buddha and rely on it. Or you rely by returning. Okay? So what is Buddha? What is Dharma and Sangha? There is a teaching of there's three aspects or three kinds of three refuges or three jewels. They're also called three jewels. One kind of three refuges is One kind of refuge is called the essential body or the one body of the precepts, of the refuges. The next kind is called the actually manifesting three refuges.

[37:04]

Literally manifesting in front. And the third kind is called abiding and maintaining three refuges. The one body, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, is that Buddha, the complete perfect enlightenment, is Buddha, under the heading of the essential three refuges. The essential body, three treasures. Complete, perfect enlightenment is Buddha. Or the highest state. Or the highest, the most wonderful thing for human beings. You don't have to call it Buddha, but anyway, whatever the most wonderful, highest thing for our life is, that's the Buddha.

[38:08]

Buddha. Then, under that same type of refuges, the purity, the genuineness is dharma, is the truth. And then, harmony is the sangha, is the community. This is the essential one body refuges perfect enlightenment genuineness and purity and harmony okay the next three refuges the next way to look at these three refuges is as they actually manifest in front right here in front of us the buddha is manifested as

[39:08]

Through a person. Through a person who manifests this perfect enlightenment. The Dharma is manifested right in front of us through the truth that such a person realizes in their life. the person and the truth they realize. And the Sangha is the persons who are studying that truth, who examine it. That's the triple treasure as it manifests right in front of us. Sort of right here. The first, the one-body triple treasures you can't see.

[40:12]

Oh, I guess that's one to see it. The first one is the one-body triple treasure. It's the triple treasure, three refuges, that are so close to your body that you can't see them. And what is a triple treasure? It's the perfect enlightenment. It's genuineness, complete, pure genuineness and harmony. That's the triple treasure, so close you can't get a distance on it. Then if you push it out a little bit, right in front of you, but far enough away so you can see it, then that's how it manifests. And then the next triple treasure is called the triple treasure of abiding and maintaining. How do you live in it? How do you take care of it? That abiding and maintaining, by the way, is the name for an abbot. To abide someplace and take care of it. So, how do you... So, first of all, it's the thing that's stuck to you so close you can't see it.

[41:31]

Then, what does it appear like when you first can see it? And then, how do you take care of it? So, the triple treasure in terms of abiding and maintaining is Buddha is one who teaches. The Dharma is the stuff that appears in the world as scriptures and whatever seems to be helpful to people as a means for teaching. And the Sangha is the ones who are released from suffering and beyond the world. that maintains and that abides in the triple treasure and maintains it. Next comes the three pure precepts.

[43:11]

And they are, the first one is, Buddhism, the way Buddha said it was, don't do bad, avoid all bad, all evil action, do all good action, and purify the mind. Those are three cumulative pure precepts. In later Buddhism, they changed it to do, don't avoid all evil, do all good, purify all beings. Actually, literally is purify all beings. So in later Buddhism, in Mahayana Buddhism, they changed it from purifying your mind to purifying all living beings.

[44:16]

So that shows you that the way you work at purifying your mind is not just by purifying what you think your mind is, but purifying the minds of all living beings. Which refers back to what I was saying before, is that you purify your mind through meeting living beings. meeting with them. Because you can't purify your mind if somebody else's mind isn't purified. And they also can't purify theirs if yours isn't. So you have to meet in that purification process. So those are the three. Precepts don't just refer to avoiding evil, in this case. They also refer to things which actually have nothing to do with avoiding evil, which are simply just positive good. So those three aspects. And the way we're chanting them now tonight is, I vow to embrace and sustain right conduct, for the first one.

[45:29]

I vow to embrace and sustain all good. I vow to embrace and sustain all beings. And again, embrace and sustain doesn't mean I embrace and sustain you and you don't embrace and sustain me. That would be, I don't know what that would be. Embracing and sustaining all beings means they do the same for you. Which means I vow to be embraced and sustained by all beings. And I also vow to embrace and sustain them. I'm going to meet them in this practice, purifying all beings. And also that's purifying my mind from attachment to my idea of what it means to be good or be helpful. Does that make sense?

[46:34]

Okay. Then comes a ten. Not killing. Not stealing. Not lying. Not intoxicating your body or mind. And not intoxicating other bodies and mind. Not slandering. And slander means smear. Slander means slander. One meaning of slander is that you say something about someone, some bad thing that's not true. They don't talk about saying good things that aren't true. It's okay to say good things that aren't true about people. That's one mistake that's easily forgiven. But even to say something that you think is true about the person, that smears them or hurts them through your words, not even that.

[47:35]

To praise yourself is okay. It's okay to say, if you get up in the morning for meditation, it's okay to say, that was good. That was good. It's okay. That's no problem. But if you're standing next to someone who didn't get up for meditation and you say, I got up for meditation this morning and that was good, Well, maybe you'd be careful of that because you might be putting them down if they didn't get up. So in that case, you can just maybe don't say anything. You might feel kind of good inside, but not say it out loud because you might indirectly be putting them down. So it's okay to praise yourself. The precept is don't praise yourself while putting them down. Don't say, you know, you can think of examples. That's a tough one. Unless you never say anything good about yourself. Or even think anything good about yourself. Or your action, I should say.

[48:37]

Next is don't be possessive of things. Don't selfishly possess things. You can possess things, but unselfishly. In other words, all of you have your clothes on now. So you're possessing them. Nine-tenths of the law is on your side. But if somebody, you know, comes up to you and needs your clothes, well, maybe give it to them. Maybe. You should probably check with your family first and see if they want them. And the next one is don't harbor ill will. It doesn't say exactly don't get angry. Getting angry is not good, but it's pretty hard to vow not to get angry. You can do it, but it's not so realistic. But it is pretty easy, actually.

[49:39]

It's pretty easy to not harbor ill will. It's relatively easy. In other words, not to sort of make a little harbor where you put your ill will there and let it stay there. That's not necessary, really. It's pretty easy to stop. One of the easiest things to do is to stop harboring the ill will. And the last one is not to abuse, mistreat, whatever, the three refuges, the triple treasure. Those are the ten heavy ones. Those are heavy. They're kind of grave. When you're dealing with life and death, you're dealing with meeting people And to decide how to practice these is something that you really need to decide with people. You can't, for example, to not take what is not given, you've got to figure out whether things are given or not. And you can't... Some people actually do that.

[50:41]

They say, they take things from people and they don't ask them if the person says it's okay. And the person doesn't say it's not okay. They're kind of afraid, maybe. Like... Big strong people sometimes go up to small people and take things and the small people don't say a word. Well, they didn't say anything. It was given. And you might ask them, you might say, you want to give this to me? And they might say, sure. And you might say, well, is the reason why you're saying that is because I'm bigger than you and you think I might, you know, push you around? And you might say, well, sort of, yeah. As a matter of fact, if I tell you the truth, you promise not to hurt me? So you have to work out all these precepts with others. You can't decide for yourself what they mean because all of them have to... Now you might think, what about the one of intoxicating yourself?

[51:45]

Well, it also, aside from the part about intoxicating others, if you intoxicate yourself, it affects others. If you intoxicate yourself and drive a car, it affects others. If you intoxicate yourself and hang around people in the wee hours of the night, it affects others. You lose your... Then when you're intoxicated, you can't really hear them as well sometimes. Sometimes you say, can I have that? And they say, hmm. You say, oh, thank you. Because you don't really hear because you're intoxicated. So some really nice people who have really... All the other precepts are pretty clear. They have very strong vows. But when they become intoxicated, they lose their vows. So all these have to do with relationship. So the key thing is meeting people, is sharing truth, coming to the conclusion of truth with others. And then these precepts are not laws in the sense of rules that you follow like you do them.

[52:48]

The precepts, the refuges, the pure precepts and the grave precepts, they're like a trellis. And etymologically, the Latin word regula, I believe, is related to a Greek word, which, canon, which means a trellis. And a trellis, if you watch a wisteria or some other plant that grows on a trellis, or a, what do you call it, or a tomato plant that grows on a trellis, Wouldn't it be terrible if tomatoes were shaped just like the trellis? And if wisteria stuck right, went exactly along the lines of the trellis. They don't. They touch the trellis. They hold on to the trellis as a point of departure, and then they swing in free space and make beautiful shapes. The wisteria plant is not like the trellis, but it needs the trellis to grow. So none of us are exactly these precepts. A Buddha is not these precepts, but these precepts come from the Buddha, and the Buddha grows on them.

[53:56]

So you don't try to make your life the same as a precept. You always think about the precepts and relate to the precepts with others, and then you grow into this whatever. And then after the precepts are received, we give the people a new name. Is that right? They get new names. And then after the new names, they receive their new clothing that they made. And then they receive... lineage papers, which have all the names of the Buddhas and ancestors down to them. They join the lineage of the Buddhas and ancestors. They receive the lineage, and the lineage comes down through all the Indian ancestors, all the Indian masters, down through all the Chinese Zen masters and Japanese Zen masters to this person.

[55:10]

And then the line, the blood line, the red line, goes back up to Buddha. It goes round and round that way. And then we say thank you to all the people that helped, and that's a ceremony that we do. It's a lot of work to do, but it's a wonderful thing to be forced into. I intend this talk this morning with you to be a song. I hope you felt the song in this talk. I'd like to conclude by singing a song, one of the songs, a regular song that you're more familiar with.

[56:19]

You can sing along with me if you'd like. Old Man River, that Old Man River. He must know something, but he don't say nothing. He just keeps rolling. He keeps on rolling along. He don't plant taters, he don't plant them. And them that plant some is soon forgotten. But old man River, he just keeps rolling along. You and me, we sweat and strain, body all aching and wracked with pain.

[57:34]

Tote that barge, lift the sail, get a little drunk and you land in jail. I get weary. Let's try that again now. I get weary and sick of trying. I'm tired of living and scared of dying. Old Man River, he just keeps rolling along. They are in tension.

[58:44]

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