Is there any housekeeping to do before or? Well, besides the community room cleaner, vacuum the floor so we have a nice clean space to sit in. Those who haven't paid, if you can give me checks or cash at the end of class, that would be good. And if you didn't bring it this week, the next week would be good. Thank you. It's $30. Any other announcements before we start? Good, well, welcome to this series of classes on the precepts. I'm happy that you all can do it, and I'm happy that I can do it. This evening, a lot of this class will be interactive, but maybe not so much tonight, because I'd like to give you a fair amount of background and also some context for thinking about the precepts.

[01:07]

But there will hopefully be time for discussion and questions. If anything comes up as we go along, please ask a question on the spot if there's something you don't understand, and I'll do my best explain it. There's a lot to do here in the next few weeks, and some of this material is, not surprisingly, beyond my experience. I do the best I can to practice with it and understand it as I think all of you do. But what we're doing is something that we'll explore together. So I hope you'll excuse my lapses. And if there's something I can study up on in between classes, I'll do what I can.

[02:15]

But this is kind of what I've come to, for the moment anyway. So, I was reading some lectures by Suzuki Roshi, and there was a quotation that says, the real meaning of precepts is not just rules, but is rather our way of life. When we organize our life There we see something like rules. As soon as you get up, to wake up completely, you wash your face. And washing your face is a precept. So how you keep your precept is how you organize your life. And how you organize your life is how you practice zazen. If you think, I have to observe this precept and that precept, all these ten precepts one by one, And that's the wrong practice. It's heresy. That's the word that he used.

[03:16]

It's a pretty strong word. It's heresy. Precepts should be observed without any idea of observing. In short, when you observe precepts in the same way as you practice zazen, that is perfect precepts transmitted from Buddha to us. So already, as far as I'm concerned, we're in deep water here. And, as I said, over the next six weeks, we can test these waters together and feel around with our toes to find some way of understanding these Bodhisattva precepts that expresses both the formal side, the rule side, and the emptiness side, which is the Absolute, Buddhadharma. But thinking about form and emptiness in relationship to the precepts, I also think about something else that I always remember Mel said, quoting Suzuki Roshi, who described us as having Hinayana practice with Mahayana mind.

[04:29]

And it took me a long time to have some sense of what he meant by that. What I think he meant is that our practice is very simple. It's not easy, but it's simple. It's just awareness of our breath and posture, and it's very much as you would be taught in a Theravadan or Hinayana training center or monastery. And in that context, for meditation, nothing else is necessary. But the Mahayana dimension is at the heart of our practice and that our intention is for the benefit of all beings. That's a way that we can think of the precepts. If we have a Hinayana or a Theravada practice of precepts, then there are some rules to guide us and there are some forms.

[05:32]

But if we practice the Dharma really thoroughly, not thinking about whether we're practicing the great vehicle, Mahayana, or the lesser vehicle, Hinayana, if we practice it thoroughly, then we are practicing precepts in a way that is rooted in emptiness. And that emptiness is something, to me, that's another word for complete interdependence. And when we have a glimpse of our involvement with all of life, then what seems to naturally come up is the desire to live compassionately for the benefit of all beings. And that's the Mahayana side. And that's the side that you find again and again in Suzuki Roshi's lectures. And in fact, in the study that I've been doing, which has been sort of wide-ranging in some of the Tibetan commentaries and also Soto and Rinzai and Theravadan.

[06:43]

Even in the Theravadan, you'll find this notion of living for the benefit of all beings to be very strong. And I think that that's the root of precepts. But in the Rinzai tradition, which most of you probably know is kind of the other living lineage of Zen these days, where they do a lot of koan training. They don't really practice with the precepts. There is no teaching about the precepts until the very last stage of training. You don't talk about them in dokasana until the end. And I think that the concern there is that if a student has an incomplete understanding of these precepts, they'll fall into duality, which could be very dangerous for them and for people around them.

[07:54]

My personal feeling is that this actually doesn't work very well here in the West. And we have, from the traditions that we are born into, that some of us still follow and respect, that some of us are maybe doing our best to escape from, however it is, it's still with us. We have a deep ethical background that is at the heart of a Judeo-Christian spiritual tradition. So in the Zen that we do here, we tend to plunge right into these deep waters with a beginner's mind. We chant the precepts at the time of each full moon. We take them to our hearts during lay ordination and during priest ordination. And even as some of you have been to or have had a Buddhist wedding ceremony, the taking of precepts is the center of that ceremony.

[09:12]

At the end of each day of Seshin, here, we take the three refuges in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. And these refuges are, they're also at the, they sort of precede the precepts. The precepts are a fleshing out of the refuges that we take, just throwing ourselves into the house of the Buddha completely. So I can say at this point, sometimes I have some small glimpse into the depths of the transformation that's available. Mostly, I feel like I have a long way to go to see it. I think all of us have a small glimpse of it, to stand there at the end of a day of Seshin, with our legs aching but our minds really clear,

[10:20]

It's very powerful to take refuge. It's a very emotional kind of thing. And as we sit zazen, year after year, we repeat these vows, and we repeat these precepts, and little by little, we sort of incorporate them, and forget about, as Suzuki Roshi said, forget about observing them, but just live them. Now, some of you are sewing rakusus. How many people are sewing right now? Some of you are sewing rakusus, and others of you have some. This is a rakusu, which is a It's Buddha's robe. It's constructed along the same lines as a priest's robe, in sort of the form of rice fields. And when we have lay ordination, we receive a Buddhist name, and we receive a rakasu that we've sewn ourselves.

[11:33]

And we take refuge with, as we sow, we take refuge with every stitch. We take refuge in Buddha. I don't know, how are you taught? Namukie Butsu. Just Butsu, not... Namukie Butsu. Right, but just take refuge in Buddha. Yeah, yeah. So you take refuge with every stitch. So it has a lot of meaning. To me it's a really precious thing. And you also receive a lineage paper, which is called a kechimiyaku, which translates as bloodline. I thought I would show you mine. You may not have seen one. Usually these things aren't shown around. This might be a heresy in itself. Right, this part, the wrapper, says, let's see, how do you read it?

[12:45]

Where do you start reading? From the outside. Thank you very much. Bodhisattva's Guru. Great Precepts. Yeah, it's the Great Precepts. Bodhisattvas and Buddha's ancestors rightly transmitted great precepts. So in this lineage paper, it begins with Shakyamuni Buddha up here, Shakyamuni Buddha's head, and then it leads down This is why we need one of the easels. My charming assistant. No Vanawati. It leads through the Indian ancestors and then it leads down through, on this side, the Rinzai lineage and on this side the Soto lineage and then it comes back up here to Dogen and then leads down through our lineage to Suzuki Roshi and then his son Hoitsu Suzuki Roshi and then Mel and then me

[14:07]

in this case, you in other cases, and then the line leads back around up to Buddha's head. And this is something that Mel, this is the traditional way of doing it, and this is his handiwork. You know, should I pass this around? Just as an aside, there's a block print of a bloodline from, I think, the 15th century. That's beautiful. You might want to look at it if you're at Greenville sometime. Where is it? It's hanging on the wall outside room one, the Guyton. Oh. We're not allowed in there anymore. Well, cheat. You're not allowed in there? You are allowed in there. No, not in the Guyton anymore. It's considered residence, private. Oh. But I think you could go in there. Well, anyway. The text below this, which is why I brought it up, the text below this, that Mel copied out, reads, part of it reads, it was revealed to Myozen Daisho, who was one of Dogen's two teachers, that, quote, the perceptual vein of the Bodhisattvas is the single great condition, the single great causal condition of the Zen gate.

[15:37]

So even if we don't talk about the precepts so much, and actually, if you read Dogen, he doesn't talk about them very much. And yet, it's there behind everything. And if you neglect it, then you're really missing something very essential in the practice of Zen. And it reminds us again and again of living for the benefit of all beings. So tonight, in this first class, I'm going to give you some historical background, which I hope won't get too boring or technical. And please stop me if you have questions. And I'll leave time for discussion a little later. And we'll talk a little later also, well, actually, I'll talk now about how I can see structuring the next five weeks. And people can think about it and make suggestions we can talk about at the end of the class. I'd like to begin each class here reading the Berkeley Zen Center version of the Bodhisattva Precepts.

[16:46]

And we'll pass them out. I have some copies, and we'll pass them out either later or at the beginning of the next class. And then, quickly, we'll break into small groups. There'll be four groups. And we'll break into these groups for about a half an hour or so, a half hour to 40 minutes of discussion that are based on your individual experience with the precepts that we've been working with. So this week, Towards the end of this class, I'll talk a little about the precept of not killing and the precept of not stealing. And next week, when we come back, as a group, as in the small groups, people can talk about that and talk about their actual experience. And I'll give you some framework of questions to look at. And you might want to keep a notebook or something. And then there'll be a facilitator for each group.

[17:50]

And I've asked Rebecca. Andrea, Judy, and myself to facilitate these groups, and maybe we'll stay in these groups for the course of the next six weeks. And after you've had discussion in the small group, people can come back and report back, and we can have both some brief reports and also some discussion in the large group. And then towards the end of the class, I can make some remarks, give you a context of precepts to think about for the next week. So that's what I've been thinking about. And maybe let's talk about this a little at the end of the class and see how it sits. There's going to be a lot that's going to go undiscussed.

[18:51]

There's going to be a lot that's going to not get, there won't be time to have it reported back from the small groups, but we'll just do our best and accept that as a fact of life. We can still have some good discussions and deepen our understanding. I also thought, if it really looks like our time is not working out, like there just isn't time to do all the things that we want to do on a given day, we can think about this after next time. If people are amenable to either starting 15 minutes earlier or going 15 minutes later, we can add some time. But let's start by assuming that this time will work and will We'll see how it goes. So far, any questions? Did everyone get one of the handouts? There were some on the Zendo shoe rack.

[19:58]

I took the remainder and brought them here and left them and people took them as they came in. It's an amazing phenomenon, the passing out of papers. I made 55 of these. There were like 36 or 37 people. This always happens and one wonders, where did these other ones go? Well, I'll make a couple more. Let's find out how many we need by the end. So, I'm going to talk about background before we talk about the Bodhisattva precepts themselves. In the time of Shakyamuni Buddha, in the early days of the Sangha, the orders of monks were made up of arhats, which were nearly perfectly enlightened beings, and others who lived, they lived very pure lives, and they tended to live in small groups or alone, life, hermit's life in the forest.

[21:20]

and actually of the first five hundred monks ordained by Buddha, the lowest order of them was what's called a stream winner, which is somebody who clearly, who was already on the fast track to Buddhahood, and he had to go through a couple of other incarnations, and then he would be a once-returner, I think is next, and then once-returner, once he returned one more, then he, you know, he would be able to leave the wheel of karma. and not have to return to this grueling life. So they were pretty accomplished. And there was little need for rules or regulations. What became what we know of as the Vinaya Pitaka. The Tripitaka is the basic works, spoken works, theoretically, of Buddha, and it falls into the Sutra Pitaka.

[22:32]

Pitaka means basket. The Sutra basket, the Vinaya, which is the basket of rules and regulations, and the Avadharma Pitaka, which is a basket of commentary on the sutras. So there was no need for that. And the Buddha didn't lay down any fixed code in his original talks. But little by little, circumstances came up and a flexible set of regulations that became known as the Patimokkha came into being. And actually the commentaries say it was twenty years from Buddha's enlightenment before there was a need for the monks to come together and discuss a case, a questionable action. But these rules did arise after 20 years, and you might be curious about them.

[23:34]

The first four precepts, and I won't go over all of them because they're, by common counting these days, there are 227. But the first four, which are called parājika, means, that word translates, a Pali word that translates as defeat. And breaking any of these rules calls for expulsion from the order of monks without any process of reconciliation or reinstatement. So these rules were, should any bhikkhu or monk engage in sexual intercourse, even with a female animal, he is defeated and no more in communion. The second rule is, should any bhikkhu with intent to steal, take from an inhabited area or from the forest what is not given, he is defeated and no more in communion.

[24:44]

The third rule is, should any bhikkhu purposely deprive a human being of life, or recommend advantages in death, or encourage one to kill himself, he is defeated in the war in communion. And the fourth Parajika precept is, should any bhikkhu, while having no acquaintance of it, suggest that some superior state worthy of the Noble One, of the Buddha's knowledge and vision, is present in himself, saying, I know thus, or I see thus, unless it were through overestimation, in other words, unless he didn't know what he was doing, then he is defeated and no more in communion. Is that one clear? And those are in reverse order of seriousness.

[25:47]

In other words, ascribing to yourself spiritual powers was the most serious breach and then murder and so on. And those were the four strongest rules that were laid out from very early on. If not from the time of the Buddha, they were certainly codified very quickly after his death. What follows in the Patimoksha is a series of very specific regulations that govern a monk's life. There are regulations about how one can take food, where one can sleep, under what circumstances one can receive robes. It's very, very detailed. And if you want, I'll return the books to the library.

[26:50]

There's a couple of books that have these all spelled out, and it's pretty interesting. if you like that kind of thing. It's interesting to me, anyway. And you would find, in fact, that the monks who live down the block are still living by those rules. almost entirely, although they've had to handle money. They have to handle money. They ride on the bus. Today I saw two of them walking back from school, accompanying two women, which is not unheard of, but it's still unusual. You wouldn't see that so much in Thailand. but they've had to adjust somewhat in the West because in the West, there's not a culture that supports them to be able to do that, to live amongst life in the same way.

[27:52]

I mean, the Thai community does pretty well in taking care of them as in traditional form, but still living in the West, there are adjustments you have to make. Anyway, to get back to Suzuki Roshi, He said, the real meaning of the precepts, as I read before, is not just rules, but is rather our way of life. And I think there, he didn't mean any criticism. of a monk's life in Southeast Asia. Because actually, for those monks, there's no gap between the rules and their way of life. They're completely involved in that way of life, and their culture is completely involved in that way of life. And it's really different from how we live ours. It might be interesting sometime to invite one of the monks from down the block to come and talk about

[28:53]

the kind of life that they lead. I found it quite eye-opening when I was in Thailand, and I think that we would come away with a lot of respect. It's a difficult life, it's a difficult choice, but we'd probably come away with a lot of respect, rather than think this is necessarily rigid, or just observing rules mechanically. But if you look at these patimokkha rules, there's something that's different from the precepts. In those, if you got the handouts, there were Bodhidharma's precepts and Dogon's precepts. And there's something different there. The Theravada precepts talk about, they prohibit particular actions. They don't prohibit states of mind. There's a kind of assumption that the states of mind, anger, greediness, lust, are going to arise while you're in human form.

[30:04]

They're going to arise even for a well-seasoned monk. So the rules of the Vinaya prohibit actions that might flow from these states of mind. Whereas our precepts, like the Bodhidharma precepts, are known as one-mind precepts that point directly to the mind as the source of suffering and also as a source of enlightenment. And I think that's a major distinction and we'll come back to it when we begin to look at each precept. I said, it took me a while to catch on to it as I was reading the Vinaya. I said, there's something different here. And it's just that each action was prescribed, but individual states of mind were not proscribed. And I think that's a telling dimension. And it makes our precepts, even though we don't have so many rules,

[31:06]

to have to really pay attention to your states of mind and take responsibility for them is also very difficult. So as the years went by, the Buddha allowed his, he allowed disciples gradually to do, to perform ordination ceremonies, rather than him directly ordaining people himself. And not surprisingly, as he delegated the ordination, there came to be people with, individuals with problems who were monks, people with various kinds of personality disorders and all kinds of things like that. And so as the problems arose and they were codified, there also developed appropriate ceremonies of repentance and purification. And the Buddhist order adopted, as I understand it, older Indian traditions, Vedic traditions, for their own purposes.

[32:12]

So twice a month, at the time of the new moon and the full moon, the monks would gather and they would recite the rules together. They'd gather in a circle no more than an arm's length apart from each other. And together they would recite all of these monks' rules. And if, in fact, you had broken one of the rules in the previous months, you weren't allowed to sit in that circle unless you had confessed breaking that rule either, depending on what rule it was, either confessed it privately to another monk or publicly to a group of monks, but you had to be purified in order to sit in that circle. And again, if you went down the block to our neighbors at the time of the full moon or the new moon, you could hear this ceremony, this Upasata ceremony, where the monks recite the Patimokkha.

[33:23]

And that's still very much a living practice. But unlike our Bodhisattva ceremony, this ceremony is only for the monks. And I don't think, as far as I know, that there is a parallel right for laypeople in the Theravadan tradition, although I could be wrong about that. For laypeople, lay people did take the three refuges, and if they counted themselves as Buddhists, for the most part, they would take five precepts, which are pretty familiar to us. They're precepts of not to kill, not to steal, not to commit adultery, not to lie, and not to use intoxicants. But again, our tradition has a certain, particularly here, has a strong lay component. And the precepts were not just, the Bodhisattva precepts were not just for, not just for the monks.

[34:29]

So in 543 BC, the Buddha took ill and went to his deathbed. And almost at the point of nirvana, He was talking with Ananda, and he left the last instruction for the monks. And he said, Ananda, after my nirvana, if the sangha asks for the nullification of some articles of the petty-vinaya, I give you permission to nullify them. So he gave Ananda permission to nullify the minor precepts. And three months after the Buddha's death... There are 227 priests. Is it the ones after the 16th? I'm getting to that. Three months after the Buddha's death, they had the first council of 500 arhats. And it was held at Rajagraha. And Ananda submitted to Tathagata's words his permission to nullify the Peri-vidya rules.

[35:38]

And not surprisingly, the Sangha asked Ananda, well, which are the minor rules? And which rules did the Buddha consider to be petty? But unfortunately, Ananda had neglected to ask that question. And after many arguments, Mahakasyapa, who was leading the council, suggested that since all the rules of the Vinaya were designed to protect the monks from sin, and they didn't know which one the Buddha considered to be minor, none should be nullified. And so, this is a very political event, and they passed a resolution, and this Vinaya, consisting of 227 rules, as we tend to know it today in the Theravada tradition, was fixed. Now, a hundred years later, at Vaisali, the Second Council of the Order met, and, again, these arguments arose over which are these petty Vinaya rules.

[36:48]

And, without going into more boring details, it was actually this dispute that split the Order into what has what has become the Mahayana and Theravada traditions. And then it was the Mahasanghika. But still, regardless of what the split is, it's still important to understand that our precepts have these roots. Now, by the way, you might be wondering about where the women were in all of this. In Buddha's time, and for hundreds of years following, with some reluctance, as I read it, Buddha agreed to ordain women. And there were, from his time, there was an order of bhikkhuni, or nuns. But, not so surprisingly, in an era and region of patriarchy, the bhikkhuni had more rules.

[37:56]

They had something like 350 rules. And some of the core ones were actually recognizing the superiority of every bhikkhu to even a hundred-year-old bhikkhuni. And there's more like that, and I don't want to get sidetracked in it, but this is another interesting discussion, interesting thing to explore. After several hundred years, well, many hundred years, I think. It might have been as late as 800 or 900 AD. the Theravada lineage, which was transmitted from person to person of Bhikkhuni, was lost. In other words, there was no face-to-face transmission. So that lineage was discontinued. But in the Mahayana traditions, it was continued in China, where it continues even today.

[39:01]

One of the things that's going on in Chinese Buddhism, in Taiwan and Hong Kong, I think that there's an increased leadership from the women. I think more of them are drawn towards the life of practice at this point in time. Now, as I said, this could be a very interesting discussion. I have a couple of books on this if you're interested, and I'm hoping that a friend... I met a woman who was a Chinese nun last year who was studying at the Institute of Buddhist Studies, and she was very busy with her studies, and I thought it would be nice to actually have her come by and talk about her life. Anyway, let's sidestep this for the moment and we'll skip ahead about 800 years, which is good because we don't have all night, traveling north and east several thousand miles into China.

[40:08]

Now in most respects the Mahayana monastic rules are not all that different from the Theravada rules. There were several different levels of rules for Chinese monastic life. At the lowest and most basic level, there were rules for each specific temple, and that would be equivalent here, say, to when we come in the door, we bow to the altar, and when we leave, we bow in Shashu at the door. That's just the style, the wind of the temple, how things are done. Or, another example is that here, at meals during Sashin, we can eat our seconds immediately after being served them. Other places, you would wait until they were all served. Something like that. These are not major things. Then the next level would be regulations known as Shingi, which were set up for all Zen temples by the great teacher Baizhang, or Yakujo, around 800 AD.

[41:16]

You might remember him from the koan that Mel has lectured on, Yakujo and the Fox. and he was responsible for really making the first order of creating all these rules for how monastic life was governed, and also for restructuring the economics of Chinese Zen by introducing a regimen of labor, which was not, you know, hitherto the monks had supported themselves by begging. But given the climate and the economics, that wasn't That was a very, very marginal life. And it gradually made sense for them to do work. And his admonishment, a day without work is a day without food, is still ringing in our ears. And even today, Baijong's rules are still the standards that shape monastic practice in the Zen world.

[42:24]

Now, the third level of rules is the Vinaya, as we've been hearing about, but there's something new added on. There was a Mahayana sutra called the Sutra of Brahma's Net. And, at last, in the Sutra of Brahma's Net, we have the statement of the ten grave bodhisattva precepts, and they are included along with forty-eight minor bodhisattva precepts, which I have in another book you can look at. Those seem to have gotten lost along the way, but you can see why if you read them. but the Bodhisattva precepts were added to those earlier Vinaya precepts at the time as part of the monks' vows and ordination. In content or in style, the Brahmanet Sutra's language is not so different from

[43:30]

how precepts are stated in the Theravadan tradition, but they begin to deal with, or they deal very, very focussedly with the karmic implications of states of mind. The states of mind that underlie particular actions, rather than just the actions themselves. And so for the next few weeks, we can approach these from both directions. As I said, from the form side, the side of the rule, and the emptiness side, which is the side that keeps pointing back to our zazen mind. So this might be a good place to come up for air for a few minutes before plunging into precepts. Are there questions? What was the politics of the second convocation?

[44:34]

Who was on what side? I can't really say. Is there anyone who can? I mean, it's politics in the very, it's, you know, it's kind of church politics. I can't say whose interest one was rather than the other. You know, there were just people who believed one set of things, and I'm not sure what the, if there was underlying social forces or linguistic differences. were more concerned about what? Why was there this renewal? Well, let's see. I might be able to tell you quickly. If it's in here, which I think it is.

[45:38]

In this session, a demand for the nullification of the Ten Articles of the Pettivinya was heatedly discussed by a Sanskrit bhikkhu and a Magadha bhikkhu who presided at the meeting. The Sanskrit followers claimed that since the Lord Buddha himself had, just before attaining his nirvana, permitted the nullification of the Pettivinya, this should be respected and regarded as the Lord Buddha's last directive commands. and the Magadha followers relied on the First Resolution of the Resolution of the First Council. So, you know, one side is saying, well, it's disrespectful to the Buddha to not follow his command. The other side is saying, it's disrespectful. Since we don't understand what the Buddha meant, we should keep them all. But I'm not sure. To my mind, I'm not sure. within the group.

[46:50]

There could be factions, I can think of a few examples, where this issue still comes up. Right. I think what's interesting and slightly discouraging to me is that you have the order of Buddhist followers, not so long after his death, already falling into factionalism, which just shows how deeply, and these were, you know, well, the first council was a council of all arhats, and still there was some ego there. There was some clinging to opinions, but they came on a decision. By the time a couple hundred years had passed, It was easier to fall into factionalism. So one might think, ideally, that the Buddha did this on purpose as a teaching device. Well, perhaps.

[47:52]

I mean, why did he forget, you know? Ananda was the one who never forgot anything that was said to him. But you don't know what he forgot that wasn't said to him. Now, are you saying that you don't know whether it was the side which wanted to keep all the priests? That was the Theravadan side. Okay, that makes sense. Because I thought that fundamentally, a strict adherence to the letter, kind of like a literalist interpretation of the Dharma is more of a Theravadan kind of approach. that courses of actions that arise from an attitude of mind would be more of a Mahayana?

[49:10]

Well, roughly that might be true, but actually in this case, the difference is very small, because it was only ten rules out of 227, and all the rest of the rules were left standing. And we might... I'm hard put to see why x number of rules of these, why ten rules were just defined as petty. I mean, it would be, you know, we would talk to a scholar or something. Maybe it's linguistic culturalism because you They were bifurcated on the basis of language. Right, right. Also the book that I'm reading here is called the Mahayana Vinaya. So it already has some bias. I don't think we need to get stuck in this. No, they didn't.

[50:18]

They decided. These are the ten. The ten were not to receive by himself or by any other person in his favor or keep for him any gold or silver, not to eat when visiting a village any food without a previous invitation to do so, not to eat in the afternoon until the next morning. not to mix salt which has been kept in a horn with edible things and eat them as food, not to drink after stated times the five stages of milk, and so on. How about not to use an oversized bowing cloth? Now, that has some cultural meaning that I don't understand. It's like pointed shoes. It's the same thing. It's not keeping any gold or silver. It doesn't seem petty. It doesn't seem petty. I know. Right. So, it's kind of mixed. This is a precept question, but you made reference to that the lineage or the line of direct transmission continued in the Mahayana tradition, but in the Theravada it died out.

[51:31]

Of the Kuni. Only women. No, the men's lineage was continued. And this is a matter of great controversy now because there are people in some of the South Asian countries who want to reinstate a woman's lineage for women. And the conservative elders are basically saying, no, it's been lost, we can't do it. And others in certain countries, they're actually bringing in Chinese because the lineage was continued and they recognized it's been continued, having Chinese women do ordination. So this is actually a current hot topic. And it caused, when I was at the International Network of Engaged Buddhists conference, it caused a great deal of controversy and consternation. And we'll see where it goes in the next couple of years.

[52:33]

Is it the same as in Catholicism that nuns are not decision makers? They exist in support of the men? Yes, but I don't think it's true in this situation where there are... I don't think you had women who were patriarchs. Excuse the expression. Or matriarchs. But I think that... that a lot of the monastic institutions are pretty independent. And so you would have institutions entirely of women. You wouldn't have so many mixed institutions. You'd have institutions entirely women, so they wouldn't be existing to take care of the men, they would be just taking care of the Dharma. But they're still subservient to the men. In terms of their precepts, yes. You notice none of us are clamoring to start the Bhikkhunis back up. I have noticed that.

[53:37]

You also notice in our order and in the Zen order, but more in the West, we have very strong women leadership. And there's no difference in the status of an ordained woman from an ordained man. Nominally, that's true in Japan, but not functionally. And I think that's one of the things that's opening eyes in the Japanese tradition. I got lost here. You were talking about Shingui and Baizhan, who introduced this regiment of labor. And then you start talking about the Sutra of Promise Net, That's the third level. There were three levels of rules. The rules for the temple, the rules for all temples, and then the rules for all Mahayana monastics, their precepts that they took with ordination.

[54:41]

So there was the 48 and then the 10 bodhisattva? plus the 200x, you know, 200 and something, 217 or 220. So that's 237 plus 40, okay. Right, plus. In the end of this book, they have all kinds of different numerical schemes for how many precepts there are. Well, I'd like to move on to actually the grave precepts, and we can find some other time to talk about some of this. Bodhidharma's one-mind precepts. I vow not to kill. Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the everlasting Dharma, not giving rise to concepts of killing is called the precept of not killing. Dogen's precept, do not kill. No life can be cut off.

[55:41]

The life of Buddha is increasing. continue the life of Buddha, do not kill Buddha. That's very close to... Actually, we can hand these out now. That's very close to... The version that Mel uses is his own kind of reworking of Dogen. And he says, by not killing life, the Buddha seed grows. Transmit the life of Buddha and do not kill. So the first grave precept of not killing, to my way of thinking, includes all of the precepts. If you think about all ten of them, you can see that, in a sense, each one of them urges us not to cut off life, not to kill a feeling or a thought or an actual being, not to diminish them in any way. and it encouraged us to cherish all beings, because all beings are mutually dependent on each other.

[56:49]

And here, again, I'm not talking about just our lovers, or our dharma buddies, or our neighbors, or whole nations, or even rocks, trees, and air. There are also countless beings in our own minds. With there, I don't know, for you, at least for me, there are also thugs and murderers in there. So the question of this precept as well is, are you willing to do harm to yourself? That's actually taking life. And it also affects every one of us deeply. If I walk around the grounds here with a scowl on my face, which I'm sure I've done. Actually, right now, it's half a scowl.

[57:54]

I have Bell's Palsy, so half of my face is kind of paralyzed, which is kind of weird. It goes away, fortunately. So if I walk around with a scowl on my face, You can't really know what I'm thinking, and probably it has nothing to do with you. But in fact, it'll have some impact, and it'll create some disharmony in your mind, and in the mind of the community, and in that sense will take away life. So this is just one way to think about not killing. But actually I'd like to give you a context, the precepts, you can think of the precepts on three. again on three levels. And it took me a while to figure out that this was actually a traditional Zen way of looking at them, although the terminology may vary a bit.

[58:54]

Suzuki Roshi talks about them this way, and I've been reading a commentary by Yasutani Roshi, he talks about them this way, and if you look at Eiken Roshi's book, he talks about them this way. And in a brand new, hot off the press, issue of Turning Wheel, there's a very challenging talk by Reb Anderson, and he alludes to this as well. These three levels are, there's a literal level, which is sometimes known as the Hinayana level, which means just refraining from taking life of even the smallest insect. of taking any life. It's a very hard and fast rule. In Indian tradition, as I understand it, the Jain people would filter water still, I think, so as not to harm even a microbe.

[60:01]

Now, clearly we can't take this precept completely and still stay alive. In one of Aitken Roshi's books, there was a quotation from Alan Watts, who was asked why he was a vegetarian, and he replied, because cows scream louder than carrots. And I think the operative word there is louder, because all living things have some sensation. They turn towards light or they turn away from a perceived danger or a climatic harshness. They try to take care of their life. So at this level we do the best we can just in the face of the reality of life. And there's a way of looking at this rule in the positive sense.

[61:07]

At each meal in the zendo, we chant innumerable labors brought us this food. May we know how it comes to us. So this includes the labors of truck drivers and supermarket clerks, produce buyers, farmers, the growing things themselves, worms, compost, weather, and so on. And we can't, there's no way we can live without these labors. And there's no way that we can live without the death of other beings. So the best that we can do is to constantly acknowledge and recognize the debt that we owe to those beings and celebrate their life and be as kind as we can. So that's the literal level. Now the second level is the Mahayana level or the compassionate level. And to paraphrase Bodhidharma, He says, Buddhadharma, or compassion, is subtle and mysterious.

[62:15]

So where the literal interpretation stresses the prohibitive or negative side, the compassionate level brings up the positive, the side that protects life and acts in its behalf. So we were called on to discern right and wrong. We're called on to discern right and wrong, and here we could talk about Bosnia or Somalia or Cambodia. Is there a right side? Maybe there is. I'm not sure what it is. And here is where Zazen is our model and our support in living this compassionate precept of not killing.

[63:18]

When we sit, we practice this immobile sitting and we accept the thoughts and the pains and anything that arises in our body and mind. We train ourselves to listen and see as We kind of model ourselves in that respect after Avalokitesvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. And we do this, again, day in, day out, and when we're sort of thrust into the middle of deep suffering, we have this training that we can lean on. And leaving the zendo, as the years go by, and this is why we bow in Shashu, as we leave the Zendo, we don't make a deep bow, because actually we're carrying our Zazen with us out of the Zendo, and we're carrying the Zazen into the world at large, without even trying, just carrying that sense of harmony with us.

[64:29]

So this is a way in which practicing zazen and practicing the precept of not killing are one. Sometimes we actually do see right and wrong clearly, and we might act decisively. If someone were screaming out in the street right now, I'm sure that one or more of us would run out, and we would very quickly have an idea of what was going on, and we would act. We wouldn't necessarily wait to act. It would be an emergency case, and we would know what to do. And at times, reading this compassionate version of the precept, we might even have to raise a sword to protect many beings. But when we raise the sword or even we raise harsh words or hard words, even if our motive is pure, which it can be, we also have to be prepared to accept the negative consequences of that act.

[65:46]

we might actually have to sacrifice our own ease, or our sense of well-being, for the benefit of other beings. So this is the... It's the positive side, the compassionate side, is the acting... I hate using this word. It's the proactive side. There are times when right and wrong seem clear, but in choosing one, I'm not sure that I'm upholding the precept of not killing. It's a real problem in the world. Last year when I went to Burma, I had a clear idea of which side seemed to be right. Now I'm not naive enough to think that all the good guys were, you know, pulling for democracy and all the bad guys were in the military junta.

[66:48]

It doesn't work. It doesn't work that way. But still, I felt like my support had to be for this coalition of monks and students and farmers and ethnic people. And yet these people themselves in their daily life are forced to take up weapons and they are forced to kill. And this is a real problem. How do I live a life of not harming and a life without judging? and still act, not just stand back and wipe my hands of it because it violates a rule that I might have. It's very difficult. I think that we should avoid being too rigid about who we will or will not work with, and yet we constantly have to look at what we're doing and look at our motivation.

[67:52]

So this is just, these are all by way of, I'm just giving you this by way of introduction, and next week you'll get to talk about your own experience of these things. So the third level is called the Buddha mind or the Buddha nature level of precepts. And this is what Bodhidharma is pointing to when he says, in the realm of everlasting dharma, not giving rise to concepts of killing is called the precept of not killing. Let me read that again. In the realm of the everlasting Dharma, not giving rise to concepts of killing is called the precept of not killing. In Dogen's version of the first precept, his very first praise states this kind of absolute vision of Buddha nature. He says, no life can be cut off. And then, being the kindly grandmother that he is, though sometimes I'm not so sure, Dogen gives us some help in the last words by saying, do not kill.

[69:09]

So, while stating the Absolute up front, he offers us a rule to live by that leads to the Absolute. In a sense, he's offering a kind of step-by-step practice. This is the way I read it, that he feels, I feel like he's saying, by saying, do not kill, by practicing do not kill, we can come to the mind that understands that no life can be cut off. So does that mean, Alan, at that level that the thought of not killing wouldn't enter the mind? Right. That's exactly what it means. And that goes back to... Again, I'll take it back to Zazen. And that's really the way that was handed down to us by Dogen and Suzuki Roshi and Mel. In Zazen, when I follow my breath and I hold my mudra and sit upright and flexible, usually there is no thought of killing or not killing.

[70:22]

So, in a sense, this is already practicing emptiness. And the concerns that I mentioned earlier of the Rinzai lineage of not teaching you these precepts until you're completely enlightened and have this big awakening experience, this is not the way we practice. We practice enlightenment from the beginning, from beginner's mind, just sitting. And when we're sitting, We're just sitting in emptiness and the thought of killing or not killing doesn't arise. Right. That's right. That's the flip side. These murderous thoughts arise and we may be a million miles away from acting on it. I mean, chances are we're not going to kill the person breathing hard next to us in this endo.

[71:31]

Although after four or five days, we might wish them to expire of their own volition or, you know, spontaneous combustion. But when we think of this, whether we act on it or not, we violated this precept. in its absolute sense. What do you think about the possibility that the ways of looking at these precepts are not fixed and that we kind of go through looking at them from all three places at different times in a given moment or day? That's exactly what I would recommend. It sounds like what Susan might have been alluding to is that killing arises, or no thought of intoxicants arises, or what have you. But I think, actually, it's at different times, different things are going on.

[72:35]

That's the point that I was trying to make about Dogen's version of the precept, that I think that he, on the one hand, he states the Absolute, and he states it up front, because he's always putting Buddhadharma first, but he's also giving He's not saying that the rule is unimportant or inconsequential and this is why I also I recommend I have actually If people are interested in Copies of ribs talk I have a box of new turning wheels and Revs talk is very interesting. They're very challenging. It's a lot it comes from this absolute side and I'd be curious to hear what you what you think of it and But I think that you have to see them all interacting. That's the way that I would suggest. I think that each side, the literal, the compassionate, and the absolute, is incomplete by itself.

[73:36]

Because we're not actually capable of living any one of them. Because, in a sense, they're all absolute. I mean, not to kill, just as a rule, it's impossible. To be completely compassionate, what does that mean? I'm not sure. And to live in Buddhadharma, it's, on the one hand, the way we would choose to live, but who is there? Who's living there? Right now, right this minute. So I see, you know, these murderous thoughts definitely arise. If I ride my bicycle down Adeline and a car brushes by me really close, a murderous thought arises along with a kind of flood of adrenaline. And so as I violate, let me just finish this slide, as I violate this one aspect of the precept by having this murderous thought arise, I also have the chance

[74:43]

to practice the second aspect, which is to practice the compassionate life-saving precept, and to practice it for myself. to save the life of my own mind, and perhaps if I caught up with that car at the next traffic light, the life and being of the person who may have brushed by me. you have that chance. As one violation arises, you have an opportunity to practice that precept and save your own life again. I'm just wondering why you do it. It's a murderous thought. For me, it would be just irritation. I think it's not a strong statement to make when you say, You might.

[75:46]

You might be more mild-mannered than some of us. Some of us are. Some of us are. Don't you think there's any difference? Yeah, I'm not sure there's all that much difference. That's why I'm saying that Because I'm not going to put this into action, this act of murder. That's why I was saying that this precept contains all the other precepts. There's a precept not to harbor ill will, there are other precepts, there's a number of precepts about correct speech, and this may fall more appropriately or more precisely in that territory, depending on the strength of your feeling. But, you know, I do know people who've gone just about bonkers sitting next to somebody at a sashim, you know, and it goes way beyond irritation, I think.

[76:55]

And, in fact, I've seen people just about come to blows over these things in the Zindo. It's funny, but it's terrible, and it's true. And why does this happen? But you can see why people kill each other, actually. What? You get a good glimpse of how people can come to the point of killing one another. Right. When you can just get extremely enraged over the way someone uses their ladle when they're giving you soup or something, you know what I mean? Right. It's terrible, and this is not even, this is not, you know, if you think of places where there is real killing, involved, where there's a history, if you think of someplace, you know, Bosnia and Serbia, where there's over a long period of time, or Oakland.

[78:00]

Well, no, Oakland, I'm talking about where over a long period of time, there's been historical wrongs done from generation to generation, and people harbor these things, and then the weapons are put into their hands. Without the weapons being in their hands, they might not actually kill. With the weapons, it becomes simple. I think it's also cultural, you know, this feeling of rage when somebody brushes by you in the Zindoor on Adeline, that that's a cultural thing too, that there's just the way weapons have been kept to express it, some of the rage or the permission for the rage is culturally acceptable in one place and not another. I think that's true, but it all... I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm saying that when you said it goes from down generations, I think that's true too. I think that some cultures permit themselves to express that rage even in their minds, in their words, let alone without weapons or with weapons.

[79:05]

But I wonder, Alan, if your point is not this umbrella that the first precept throws over the rest of the precepts, in that it points out that life is just this moment. And this attitude of being irritated does as much damage as the sword in that moment. It can, you know. It can. It kills that other me in that moment. Yeah, I mean, if it's unspoken, it kills you. It kills you. Right. But I'm not always, I'm not just saying here, I'm also, there is a a real physical killing that's possible as well. And all of us have seen disharmonies in the Sangha over what might be seen outside as relatively small things. This is the making, this is what our minds do of it. Our minds can move to action, but it's not just You know, action has one set of consequences, but thoughts and feelings also have consequences.

[80:14]

Let me move on, because we can go a few minutes over if that's okay, but I want to say a little about stealing. So, Bodhidharma says, I vow not to take what is not given. Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the unattainable dharma, not having thoughts of gaining is called the precept of not stealing. So, in the realm of the unattainable dharma, not having thoughts of gaining is called the precept of not stealing. Dogon's precept is, do not steal. The mind and its objects are one. The gateway to enlightenment stands open, which is quite beautiful to me. So this precept is also called not taking what is not given, which maybe gives us a little wider view. There was another one that I really liked, a different translation that said, honor the gift not yet given.

[81:20]

It was a nice one. That is nice. Where was that? At Tassajara, that's one that we do. Well, when I was in college, and for a short while after, from time to time I would steal small things. Maybe like some choice item from the supermarket, or a book from a bookstore. And around that time it was not all that unusual for people in my supposedly political circle to register for food stamps. even though we were young, healthy, educated, and some of us had some resources. And I suppose there was some political rationalization for this. It doesn't hold up to scrutiny very closely. And while I don't think I was about to embark on a life of crime,

[82:23]

to live that way, I think, is to embark on a life of denial. And denying whatever kind of, what the root of suffering was that was causing me to steal something. This petty theft. And I didn't, for a long time I didn't, it made me uncomfortable, but I didn't want to look at it very closely. And even though I wasn't sure why I was doing this, and I can't... Well, I could give you a lot of reasons why I was doing it, I suppose. But I feel that I was fortunate in that ultimately I wasn't able to avoid looking at it. I had to keep looking at it until it made no sense at all. It seemed dishonorable. And I'm sharing this story with you. I'm not sure why, or I'm not exactly clear what point I'm making. Maybe it's just an act of confession.

[83:31]

But the Brahma-Net Sutra says a disciple of the Buddha must not even steal the possessions of ghosts or spirits. One should not even steal a needle or a blade of grass. Another dimension of this that Akinroshi points out is that we can even steal time from ourselves. It's like, how many times have I sat in the zendo? I've come to the zendo with the intention to sit and breathe, and I found myself cutting small deals with myself on the cushion. Like, I'll just, you know, I'll just think about this for a little while, and then I'll come back and follow my breath, because really there's a lot of time left in this period. Now, I'm sure nobody else has done that. That's deceptive, though, because on the bell, then all of a sudden it rings. Right, exactly. And then all of a sudden the bell rings, and another period is gone, and you've wasted time.

[84:34]

You know, you've wasted the opportunity to practice emptiness, and the kind of thinking that you do, usually you can find some other time to do it. So, in this way, I'm stealing composure from myself, and by virtue of interdependence, stealing it from all beings. It seems like foolish behavior if, as Dogen says, the gate of enlightenment stands wide open. Why don't we just walk through it? But the habits, unlike these precepts, habits are hard to break. So I want to look at these three levels quickly, the literal, the compassionate, and the Buddha nature in terms of stealing. And you can look at this more closely during next week. Literally, not stealing means don't take anything that's not offered to you. Have you ever taken a stamp or some

[85:36]

office supplies or something from your job, or has anyone ever taken a cookie from the stash of cookies in the community room? These are really small things, but they call for a lot of awareness, and they call for us to be very strict with ourselves, and to look at ourselves when we're doing that. It's really easy to cut a corner. And I'm not trying to be moralistic here, I'm just trying to, because chances are we're going to do things like this, but we ought to look at it when we're doing it, and think about why we're doing that. and think about the desire that might be driving us when we want that cookie or when we think it's just easy to take this stamp or make this telephone call. Now, Theravada monks are offered their food and drink. You won't ever find them, at least in my experience, rummaging through a refrigerator at night.

[86:39]

And in fact, they have to be offered their robes and their shelter in a very particular way. There are a lot of regulations governing how a monk can receive robes and what the robes are made of. And he can't just ask somebody to make him a set of robes. They have to be offered. So that's just a little on the literal side. On the compassionate side of this precept, I think of the compassionate side of this precept as dana paramita, the perfection of giving. It applies our generosity in the face of suffering, and our kindness is called for even towards ourselves. But most particularly, it means giving dharma. And it relates directly to the eighth precept, which I'll talk about later, which is not to be greedy or avaricious. Buddha taught, in the teaching of mutual causation, because there is this, there is that.

[87:43]

Because some of us live in warm homes with decent jobs, there are people living in the rain and cold huddled all day in a doorway. Now this is not the only possible balance that can be struck in a given society. But when we see this kind of suffering, we can consider our relationship to it. Are we taking, in that sense, is there a sense in which we're taking something that's not given? Natural resources or material goods or self-righteousness, things of that sort. But we can also, on the positive side, consider that because we have Buddha ancestors, and because we've been fortunate to have good teachers, and we have this strong practice here, we have a stable Zen center that has a small but efficient kitchen, we're able to, right now, we're able to help people prepare food each day that then gets served in people's park.

[88:56]

And that is also the positive side. That's the Dharamparamita, the positive side of not stealing. So that's just a perspective on that. The Buddha nature precept would say there is no obtaining and nothing to obtain. So how could there be stealing? The way Bodhidharma puts it, in the realm of the unattainable Dharma, not having thoughts of gaining is called the precept of not-stealing. So not-stealing is being content with things just as they are, with no gaining idea of enlightenment, no longing for wealth or fame. again, I return to Zazen, where each moment is complete and, in a sense, unattainable. If you have a wonderful moment, can you hold it? You might think or you might try to create a particular state of mind, but you'll always find that if you do that, you'll get either more or less than you bargained for.

[90:02]

Now, Dogen says, the self and objects are two, yet one. The self is your subjective mind, the mind that suffers and desires, and the objects are the 10,000 dharmas that interpenetrate everything, even including our mind. So we often feel, again, I speak for myself, I often feel that I'm outside watching things, that I'm standing back watching how things are unfolding. And that might, in a sense, be construed as stealing. But in the... I'm just wondering how waste works into this stealing. You know, there's government waste, there's community waste, there's individual waste. In a sense, it seems like it's stealing.

[91:09]

It is stealing. It's taking for your own purposes what you don't need and not returning it where it can be used, I think. It's not giving it to others. It's not giving it to others. It's basically taking something for your own purpose and then just throwing it away, not making it available to others. I think this is something that we can explore when we get into discussion more next week. But what I wanted to say, by just standing outside of things, I'm construing that as feeling, in the big mind of Buddha, there is no way to be outside of things. these things that you're standing back from also encompass yourself. So in that sense, there can't be any stealing. It's better just to relax and let the self and these objects enjoy each other. Dogen says, the gate of liberation stands open.

[92:13]

And in our four vows, we chant that the Dharma gates are innumerable. there isn't only one, there are thousands and thousands. And each of those gates is always wide open. So, it's too bad that we have so much trouble walking in these gates that are open. But we do. And that's part of what we'll explore. I think this has gone on long enough, we're a little over time. I believe as we sit together and inquire together, we can deepen our understanding. I'd like to ask you just quickly, does that format that I laid out for the next couple of weeks, as I've seen, okay? Let me ask you some questions that you can think of, just to keep in mind. You can examine, again, examine your own experience of not killing and not stealing this week, in whatever sense you want, but examine it from those three levels, from the level of the literal, and the compassionate, and the absolute,

[93:31]

Buddha mind. Yeah, if you like.

[93:36]

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