Well, first of all, thank you all for being here. And for those of you who are taking the precepts, deciding to and being willing to take the precepts. And those of you who are friends of those taking the precepts, thanks for supporting them. Yeah. Lots of thank yous, right? Two more. Thank you for joining the many others who have taken the precepts in the Dharma Sangha. Thank you for joining the many, many persons

[01:01]

who have taken the precepts for the last 2,500 years. Now, what is it to take the precepts? I'd like to speak this morning about the practice of the precepts and the definitions of the precepts. For these are, the precepts are definitions of potential definitions of our behavior. And a way to explore our behavior through these definitions. Now, the ceremony will occur in the English language today. Sorry.

[02:29]

And it will also occur because she will translate much of it and it will be in your experience and it will be in German, too. I'm saying that because, you know, Because it exists in our... I'm speaking in one of our European languages. And the idea of precepts and things exists in our culture. And I am trying to say something about the precepts.

[03:32]

But mostly you will discover the precepts through taking them. But maybe I can say something about what it means to take the precepts. Although mostly it's going to be your discovery. Your intentional discovery. But I'm... see if I can get us started on the right foot forward or backwards. Okay. Now the... where do the precepts happen?

[04:36]

Happen? Where do they happen? They happen in your activity. in whatever present you have. But the present assumed by the Buddhist precepts is a presence which doesn't exist or a present which only has duration in your experience. So let's, I don't know, we have to have some kind of sign for it today. Let's call it, as I often do, the immediacy of the present. Okay, now how do the precepts function in an immediacy that's Actually, your experience.

[05:43]

Well, they're not rules. And a rule, in English at least, I can only, you know, work with what I've got. In English, a rule is a straight stick. Now what good is a straight stick in an immediacy that's always folded and unfolding? And it comes from the word to rule. To rule others and to rule yourself. And regular.

[06:44]

To be regular. Are we regular? No, none of us are regular. Normal. I've given kind of three approximate explanations. And to be irregular literally means, traditionally, to deviate from the rules of the church. So the precepts are not rules. And you don't rule yourself with rules. And you don't follow them by will.

[07:45]

I mean, there's some things we do by will. If you're allergic to peanuts, you better not eat them. You better have a rule. But in the... present Buddhism imagines and experiences, and that we will, mostly will, through the practice of meditation, what functions best is willingness They did a study a while ago and they got a whole bunch of people to say, I will take these tests.

[08:57]

I like the way these sociologists are always thinking up things to do and getting money to do it and so forth. Let's get some money to do Buddhism. I know it. I never thought I would get a sociological grant to study the effects of precepts. No, no. Well, they get this other group of people to all say, I'm willing to take the test. Guess who did much better on the test? The ones who were willing to take the tests. They were much more flexible and open and so forth.

[10:00]

Receptive. Do you hear the sept in receptive? And it's the same sept as in precept. So in English it means something like to prepare to Precept is to prepare, pre as before, to prepare to be receptive. And sept means to hold. But more subtly it means to receive and to be capable of receiving. So if you're taking the precepts, what I would like you to do is to be capable of receiving the present.

[11:19]

Last year I gave a talk like this before our ordination, our lay ordinations and priest ordination. And I said the present is not something given to us. Or if it is given to us, it's given to us all wrapped up. And we have to, you know, if practice is to unwrap it. And the precepts are useful instructions about unwrapping the first book. So when you look carefully at the present, it's all wrapped up in newspapers. And the newspapers are all stories about yourself. And So it's, you know, you unwrap the stories about yourself, the newspapers, and what's underneath?

[12:59]

Lots of newspapers that haven't been written yet. With future stories about you. And you can't even see this because in Japan they have a candy which has a clear wrapper on it that you can't pull off and you just eat it. So mostly we don't see the invisible wrappings around the present. We take it as the future. But how to find yourself in the immediacy of the present? Now, I think the precept we can look at most carefully and usefully Because the translation makes clear the difference.

[14:15]

Okay, so the second precept is do not take that which is not given. And it used to be translated in the old days as do not steal. Now what's the difference between the two? If these are about boundaries, what belongs to you and what belongs to me. And there are probably tribal definitions from ancient times. Clans and bands own everything together. They wouldn't have the same definitions.

[15:17]

So these are ancient rules, societal rules, tribal societal rules, and Buddhist rules. What are the boundaries between you and others? And if you don't pay attention to the boundaries, sometimes you end up with boundaries in jail. Because it's a serious business what belongs to others and what belongs to you. Nowadays, at least. But it's also a subtle... If I decide I'm not going to steal, which is, you know, I've made that decision, I have to decide what belongs to others and to me.

[16:36]

But if I practice more subtly, do not take that which is not given, I have to let others decide what is given. I have to let the situation decide what's given. So I enter a situation, always entering situations, the immediacy, as the immediacy of the present. And you're willing, willing to learn from the situation. Willing to be capable of unwrapping the present. Yeah, willing to discover the present. Yeah.

[18:02]

What is given? And what's not given? So you're entering the situation really not knowing. Now, the painter I used to know slightly in New York, some friends, Ich kannte einen Maler durch Freunde in New York. Who's named Agnes Martin. Ihr Name ist Agnes Martin. She's someone Paul likes a lot, her painting and thinking. Sie ist jemand, deren Gemälde und Zeichnungen Paul sehr gerne mag. And later I knew her slightly in New Mexico because we both lived in New Mexico. And because she had a deep interest in Zen and a personal practice of Zen.

[19:09]

And when people asked her about how she decided what she was going to paint, In effect, she said, I wait for my unknown and unknowable mind to tell me. Yeah, she waited for a kind of music, visual music that her unknown mind would sing to her. unbekannte visuelle Musik die ihr Geist singen würde sounded good so if you enter the present ready to willing to learn from the present

[20:26]

And you're holding this precept. Do not take that which is not given. You can only be there with a kind of unstructured mind. Or an unknowable mind, in Agnes Martin's word. And see what is presented. What is given at each moment. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And that attitude calls forth your own unknowable mind.

[21:31]

That reaches deeply into situations. So the precepts in a way open us to our unknowable mind. Because the precepts emphasize the willingness to know the present through the precepts. The willingness to know the present through the precept. Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're also just common sense, ordinary human, they're not even Buddhist, they're just common social, societal sense.

[22:41]

Yes, so that you are confident in your certain basic confidence in how you are existing with others in this society. You want to feel that way so that you can practice. You're starting from where everyone else starts. But then the practice of them is, the content is not exactly Buddhist, but the practice of them is Buddhist. You bring them into each situation. Now, when you do zazen, this is an example, generally you don't Zazen isn't very satisfactory if you think all the time.

[24:03]

And as I've often defined Zazen, which for some of you, Zazen means sitting absorption, Now I define this sitting absorption as a posture that you can fill with attention and the concept don't move. Hmm. Very good translation. Okay. Don't move. Otherwise the posture doesn't work.

[25:05]

But how do you make don't move work? Well, normally, usually we define ourselves through moving. Through the moving body and the moving mind. And when you sit Zazen in the beginning you want to get up and do something. Because nobody seems to be sitting there and that's kind of boring. So you want to get up and do something to become the person you are about, etc., etc. And if you decide not to move, it's surprising how many itches there are that you didn't know existed. Things that desperately need to be scratched or something.

[26:13]

And then there's the thinking. Okay. You all know this. But you can only do it when you start defining yourself through your breath. And when you bring attention to your breath rather than your thinking, you're actually shifting your definition of yourself to your breath. You're getting used to defining yourself through the breath of life. And you're getting used to defining yourself through stillness. Okay, now, why am I talking about this?

[27:14]

Because once you have the feeling of this from zazen, it can be very present in ordinary circumstances. You're in a doctor's office or something. And you have to wait. Well, if you wait with a sense of stillness and defining yourself through your breath, that's very different than Well, he should be here and why isn't he here yet? And you say he's at the hospital, etc. That's trying to take what's not given. What's given is the doctor isn't there. This isn't about stealing the doctor.

[28:48]

This is just about he's not there. So you just stand there. You go sit down. And you don't make it too obvious that you're doing Zazen. It will make the other people in the waiting room nervous. But the fact that you don't need to take what's not given becomes a little inactimate ritual. wird so ein kleines Darstellungsritual, that can and will and often affects the whole office, affects the whole office. the staff and the other people waiting and so forth.

[29:54]

And what you're communicating to everyone in the office or in the grocery store queue is the precept do not take that which is not given. So all of the precepts you can explore in this way. Do not kill. Should I not wear leather shoes? Are animals killed for their skins? Is it too strange to always wear cloth shoes when you work in a bank? Or maybe you decide, I'll wear leather shoes. But maybe you won't wear a leather jacket. Unless you really love leather jackets.

[30:58]

So you're negotiating. You're trying to see what does it mean not to kill. And when you act more important than someone else, are you sort of killing someone else? Yeah, so the precepts are practiced in this way. Being preceptive. Receptive. Yeah, like that. though it's surprising and true, that if you feel the exploration of a precept in the midst of your circumstances, the feel of your doing this is felt by others.

[32:26]

And the circumstances reveal themselves more fully. Because in a durative, personally durative, present as immediacy past and present circumstances situation are all folded in various ways together and the precepts really help us unfold the immediacy of the present Und diese Anweisungen helfen uns wirklich, die Unmittelbarkeit der Gegenwart auszuwickeln.

[33:35]

We have to start somewhere and these are good places to start. Irgendwo müssen wir ja anfangen und das ist ein guter Ort, wo man anfangen kann. To learn and explore, to learn from and to explore the present. Von der Gegenwart zu lernen und sie zu erforschen. And discover our relationships with each other and with the world. and to discover our relationships with each other and with the world. These are the instructions. Thank you very much.

[34:06]

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