I vow to teach the truth of the departed as it were. Good morning. This morning, I'm going to talk about the tenth of the Clear Mind Precepts, which is not to abuse or disparage the three treasures. It says, not to abuse or disparage the three treasures, but respecting the Buddha, unfolding the Dharma, and nourishing the Sangha.

[01:07]

So the first part, not disparaging, you know, the term abuse, I don't know if, abuse, but that's not bad. In other words, don't put down the three treasures. Don't speak ill of the three treasures. So, what are the three treasures? I think in order to understand this, we have to understand the true meaning of what we mean by three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are really at the center of Buddhist practice and understanding. So here it says, respecting the Buddha, that's a very mild term, it's a very innocuous term, respecting, I pay respect to you, that's very good, but actually

[02:17]

When we understand what Buddha is, respect is good, but it's a very innocuous term. So, Buddha has many aspects. We say Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya. These are the three bodies of Buddha. the three aspects of Buddha. Dharmakaya is the unconditioned Buddha nature. Unconditioned means that it's beyond the realm of birth and death. The conditioned world is the world of birth and death. the world of transformations.

[03:20]

So Sambhogakaya and Nirmanakaya are in the realm of transformations, the realm of what we call birth and death. Dharmakaya is the true nature. of everything, which has no special shape or form, and therefore any shape and form and transformation is an expression of dharmakaya. So dharmakaya is our true nature, our fundamental nature. The sixth ancestor calls it essence of mind. our original face, the nature that pervades everything. So every manifestation in this world is an expression of dharmakaya.

[04:33]

So this is Buddha. And then the expressions of dharmakaya are sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. Nirmanakaya is the personification or the person. Shakyamuni Buddha was the nirmanakaya Buddha, the Buddha who walked around and spoke and did meditation. Shakyamuni. Sambhogakaya is the wisdom body of Buddha. So the sixth ancestor says, dharmakaya is our nature, sambhogakaya is our wisdom, and nirmanakaya is our deeds. So this is three bodies of Buddha.

[05:42]

But there are other ways of expressing. We can say dharmakaya is enlightenment. Sambhogakaya is truth or dharma. And nirmanakaya is harmonious relationships. or Sangha. So there are many ways to express the same thing, depending on how we talk about it. So each one of us embodies the three bodies of Buddha. We have inherent enlightenment as our Dharmakaya. And our study, our wisdom, or the truth is the Dharma.

[06:51]

And our human relationships with each other and with everything is Sangha. So in a narrow sense we say Sangha are the folks that we practice with, But we actually practice with everything. So, in a wider sense, Sangha is the whole universe. The interconnected, mutually supporting elements of the universe is Sangha. And Dharma is the understanding of that. And dharmakaya is the fundamental nature. So, you know, we have words like respect and then there are words like worship.

[08:00]

Most religions have worship as the basis. because dharmakaya is not something that we can understand, it's simply something that we can offer ourselves to. So that's called devotion. Devote, votive, means like vow. vote, vow, votive candles, or devotional offerings. We don't usually talk about devotion or worship in Zen, although in Buddhism it's not uncommon to use those terms. But worship means to see worth.

[09:03]

It just means worthiness, simply. But the connotations of worship go far beyond the literal meaning. But we can worship various things. We can worship cars. We can worship athletes. We can worship money. We can worship all kinds of possessions. And we do. In Judaism, it's called setting up the golden cow, the golden calf. So to see worth in our Buddha nature, it's actually appropriate to say worship. So we put something above ourself. When we worship, we put something... Actually, when we bow, we lift up Buddha's feet above our head.

[10:10]

So that's a kind of worship, actually. We don't usually say that. People are usually turned off by terms like worship and devotion. But actually, they're there. To devote means to do something, to give yourself completely without reservation. That's devotion. There are three types of people who practice. One person is an intellectual type. who understands dharma through study, through enjoying the logical arguments of Nagarjuna and the dissertations and arguments of the Buddhist philosophers.

[11:22]

And then there's the person who comes to practice through intuition. The intuitive type, when they meet the Dharma, connect with it right away through a different center. through the intuitive center which bypasses the intellect. Intuition is directly touching without the intermediary of thinking of the thought process. And then there's the devotional type of person who may not understand intellectually but usually has some intuition and their whole practice is simply giving and devotion.

[12:34]

So it's wonderful if we have all three of those qualities. If we have all three of those qualities, then we can understand through the intellect, we can connect through our intuition, and we can offer ourselves through devotion, and then we have a complete practice. So, one very important factor for practice for understanding Buddha is to have faith in our true nature. Sometimes faith is equated with enlightenment. Actually, if we have enlightenment, then we naturally have faith. And if we have faith, faith brings forth enlightenment.

[13:36]

We may not have realization, but we still have enlightenment. In our basic conscious mind, which is called the seed consciousness or the seed bed, the alaya-vijnana, there is a according to Buddhist understanding, a bed, seed bed, called the Tathagatagarbha. Tathagatagarbha means the womb of the Tathagata, the womb of Buddha. It's where our Buddha is born. It holds the seeds or the the seeds of Buddhahood, actually.

[14:43]

And when our way-seeking mind stimulates the seeds in the Tathagatagarbha, then those seeds sprout. And those are the seeds of enlightenment which are already latent in our own mind. That's why we can say we already saved. were already enlightened, but we don't necessarily bring that enlightenment forward or stimulate it. So, if you think about it, it's kind of like the male and the female meeting and giving birth. In this womb of the Tathagata, where our Buddha nature comes forth.

[15:46]

But as Dogen says, it needs stimulation. Unless we practice, it doesn't come forth. Unless we do something, unless we rub it, there's no spark. So, this is why practice is so important. We don't practice to become Buddha. We practice because we are Buddha. But unless we do practice, we don't realize it. So it says, respecting the Buddha, unfolding the Dharma.

[16:57]

I like the word unfolding because unfolding means that something is coming forth which is already innate within us. The Dharma is not something we get from outside. The Dharma is something that's brought forth. The word education means to bring forth. your inherent knowledge. That's the true meaning of education. But sometimes education means forcing something down your throat, some knowledge down your throat. So the most important kind of knowledge or understanding is already right here within us. We all have the capability of understanding ourself, our true nature, touching the original face.

[17:59]

So this process is called unfolding. unfolding the Dharma, unfolding our original knowledge and understanding, stimulating our knowledge and understanding. This is why in Zen practice, you know, we don't really teach people anything. We do, you know, but it's simply, the teaching is simply to stimulate You should not take Zen teaching in a literal way. If you take it literally, you'd be very discouraged because you read the koans in the Blue Cliff Record and you say, this is nonsense. It doesn't conform to my usual way of thinking logically. That's right. It totally blasts your usual logical way of thinking.

[19:09]

It stimulates something else. So the koan is a ball that you swallow that stimulates your organs, your dharma organ, to come up with what's latent there. So, dharmakaya, you know, is the non-dual truth or reality. And we get stuck in duality. We get stuck in right and wrong, good and bad. Not that that's not right. It is right, but it's only the phenomenal side. So nourishing the Sangha is very important.

[20:16]

Nourishing the Sangha, you know, I remember someone asked a question of a teacher one time and said, how can I let go of all my pain and heartache and problems And the teacher said, well just take care of someone else that's suffering. So, you know, often we become self-absorbed. it's very easy to become self-absorbed. Always thinking about our own problems, thinking about ourself, worrying, isolating ourself from our surroundings, isolating ourselves from other people, and simply doing all of our activity for our own benefit.

[21:39]

And when we do that, we get very narrow and small and can't figure out why we have so many problems. But when we let go of ourself and pay attention to the people around us and work for the benefit of the people around us as well as for ourself, It's amazing how so many of our problems disappear and how many of our problems are simply obsessions. The busiest people are always the ones who take the responsibility. People that have the most to take care of are usually the ones that everybody asks to take care of things. And they go, okay, okay, okay. And often, people who can never take responsibilities are the ones that are worrying so much and have the most problems.

[22:49]

If we can only let go of our self-obsession, and simply see what's going on around us and devoting ourselves to each other. We lose all that problem. If the world, if people in the world would actually take care of each other get rid of a lot of the problems. But that's hard. That won't happen. There's a book that came out recently called Shoes at the Door, which people are beginning to read. It's a book

[23:53]

that was published last year, I think, about the former abbot, one of the former abbots of Zen Center, and how he was kind of self-corrupted, and how he did a lot of scandalous behavior and kind of created a big problem for the Zen Center. An enormous problem. So, this book, people read this book And sometimes they come up to me and they say, I'm very discouraged.

[24:57]

You know, this period, how can somebody, you know, how can Suzuki Roshi's successor act in such a way that almost brought the Zen Center to disaster? And how can we trust? the Dharma. Problems with money, problems with sex, problems with power and manipulation and so forth, which is all true. You know, when this author came to me and he said, I'd like to write a book about Zen Center, about this episode in Zen Center. And I was not the abbot at the time, that was after I was abbot.

[26:01]

So I referred him to the abbot of Zen Center and I said, well, they have to decide. So, you know, everybody said, okay, write the book. And he wrote the book. And it's an expose about how that former abbot conducted himself. So, a lot of people lost faith in the three treasures. A lot of people lost faith in the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. A lot of people didn't. And so, you know, my task later on was to kind of rebuild Zen Center. In the aftermath of that, which was not so easy, but we did get it going again.

[27:07]

and people have faith in Zen Center and in the practice again. But upholding the Three Treasures, if you have a position of responsibility, the main thing is to really uphold the Three Treasures, because this is what people have faith in. And if you are given this authority, and you lose that, then so many people are affected, and the Dharma itself is doubted. But, you know, this is the history of religion, and it's the history in Buddhism, it's the history in Zen. In Dogen's time, after Dogen died,

[28:08]

All of his disciples were arguing with each other and did not have an easy time. And one of them, Tetsugikai, was this kind of scandalous person. Nevertheless, he still became the abbot of Eheji. But this is normal behavior. You think everybody who is a priest or everybody who has some position is naturally okay, will not do anything wrong. But people are human, half good and half bad. And sometimes the good part dominates and sometimes the bad part dominates. And it can go either way. The Dharma is the Dharma, but the Dharma is personified by those people who practice.

[29:19]

So disparaging the Dharma doesn't, you know, the Dharma is not hurt, but our perceptions are hurt. Our perceptions are a lot, because trust and faith is at the basis. It's really incumbent on everyone who practices to, when we do something, to realize that we either encourage people or discourage them through our actions. If we really are devoted to the three treasures, that means

[30:26]

letting go or dropping personal ambition. Dropping personal ambition and not cultivating a gaining mind. Not manipulating people. Not hoarding up treasure. not being fascinated by objects. So, Suzuki Roshi, you know, was this wonderful model of practice. When he was the founder of Zen Center, everyone had tremendous faith in the Dharma, in the Three Treasures, simply through this person's integrity. Not only the people who practiced, but in some unseen way, people all over the country somehow had great confidence in Zen Center.

[31:46]

And then when his successor took over, A lot of people were a little bit scared. And he just got to the point where he was so ambitious that his ambition totally corrupted him. And that's the basis of this book. So But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't trust in the Dharma, or that we shouldn't trust in the Three Treasures. We should learn something from this problem. If we know how to use a problem in order to avoid a problem, then there's also a good side.

[32:55]

And I think that it's important to do that. I think it's probably important to read the book even though it makes me nauseous when I look at it. Still, it's all true. It was, you know, people's testimony. So, we should learn from this and be careful not to make the same mistakes. Do you have any questions? From the way in the talk you mentioned the two terms realization and enlightenment. What's the difference between them? Well, enlightenment is our true nature.

[34:00]

And realization is to realize it. So, even though enlightenment is our true nature, we don't necessarily realize it. So, realization, we use realization in that sense. Dolly? Yes, Sarjan, I wonder if you could comment on this fact that the former abbot of whom you've been speaking and the testimony of those who were part of the events, as to his ambition and the damage. Oh, what do you mean, like the particulars? No, on the contrary. What I would like to hear from you is some comment about the positive aspects of his advocacy. Oh, yeah. The building of something that may have happened without him. That's right. So, it's a...

[35:04]

very complex situation, very brilliant person, who actually built, you know, had the chutzpah and the will and ability to build up Zen Center. Well, we bought the building at Page Street before Richard became Abbott. But then, he was instrumental in getting Tassajara, and then later in getting Green Gulch. So these three, as people say, prime California pieces of real estate, which they seemed expensive at that time, and now they seem dirt cheap.

[36:22]

So he made a great effort to build up the Sangha. Which he did. And, I mean, he was up 24 hours a day, working constantly. And he had friends in high places and so forth. You know, always bragging about his friends who were the best of this, the best of that. But they helped him. People helped him. People had a lot of faith in him. You know, and people with money had a lot of faith in him, and he got people to finance, and he was building, you know, we had the bakery in San Francisco, and then we had the printing press, and then we had the greens restaurant, and he was going to build this big cafe, bookstore, and so forth. The problem is that the students were doing all this work and I thought it was a good idea that the students were doing the work as their practice and they were being supported as practitioners but they got to be more exploited and exploited and pretty soon they weren't sitting Zazen anymore and they were just working and they were getting a little stipend

[37:51]

which would have been okay if it had been more of a practice situation. But what happened, it became more of an empire-building situation to aggrandize the founder, I mean the abbot, so he could impress his Harvard buddies. He was living in a very, you know, luxurious way. Big apartment here, and apartment there, and big bank account, and wanting to get a big BMW, and all the students were getting poorer and poorer, and he was getting richer, and the gap was getting wider and wider between him and everybody else. and then exploiting people and manipulating people.

[38:56]

I mean, in other words, he just kept getting more and more out there and there was no one to stop him. See, I think this is Suzuki Roshi's big mistake. His big mistake was that, you know, like in Japan, if you're an abbot or if you're somebody's successor, then you have a lot of power." And he kind of went with that. He said, this is my successor and, you know, please help him. But he didn't say, let's form a group to work with the abbot. So the abbot simply eliminated everybody that he didn't like, or who wasn't, you know, doing what he wanted, or who was competitive with him in any way.

[40:01]

He just forced everybody out. Except me. I said, you can't force me out, to myself. Anyway. So, It just got to be very outrageous, you know, more and more outrageous. And the problem is that he was so successful, it was like he had the meatiest touch. Everything he touched turned to gold. And so he was so successful that it was hard to counter that success. And people just kept going more and more with him, even though, you know, There was some doubt in their mind, you know, but the doubt was always, you know, in the background, never in the foreground for most of those people.

[41:05]

It's hard to, you know, so more and more success until finally the whole thing got so tap heavy and it just took a little thing like an affair which he was having a lot of. But that, you know, people say, oh, well, he was toppled because he had an affair. No. People can forgive you for having an affair, you know, depending on the circumstances. But that was just a little thing that that caused the whole thing to collapse. But Don't Abuse the Three Treasures, if you were to read that in Dave Koresh or I always spoke out.

[42:15]

But I see what you're saying. It could be used that way. Yeah, anything can be used in a perverse way. But when it comes to better than Pope, Church? It's not the same. Yeah. Yeah, in a sense, you know, like, he set himself up as Buddha. Don't, that's right, don't argue with me. I mean, don't, you know, I have the final authority. That's right. I have the authority. I have the knowledge. And as far as Sangha goes, as long as you do what I say, there'll be harmony.

[43:19]

Yeah, I think that's right. It's a kind of perversion of the Three Treasures. He set himself up as the Pope. Nobody has any authority over me. So is Buddha... do we ever see Buddha? That's all we ever see. Buddha is not some outside authority. Dharma is not some made-up laws. Right here?

[44:24]

I mean, this room? It does. That's right. And our practices? Each one of us is Buddha. Our wisdom is Dharma. Our practice is Sangha. It's all right here. All you have to do is put it into motion. Yeah, I think what that question was about was... What question is that? Mark's question? Yeah, sorry. We're here because we don't feel that we see or have perfect understanding.

[45:33]

And we hope to have more and more sense of that. But the importance of teachers is, however they become a teacher, is that they give people a sense of, well, first of all, an example. hopefully continually clarifying what this is really about, you know, not buildings and power relationships, but something else. But it's disturbing when, you know, it is disturbing, I think, and you said the most upsetting thing, well, it was how could Suzuki Bushi not see, you know, what what the personality seeds, if you were, were there. Some other people maybe had more of a sense of it. But it's our tendency to give up our authority, I think, to others who we want.

[46:45]

Maybe we don't trust our own sense of right and wrong. We want to have faith in someone completely and not question. So we kind of give up some of our common sense and the peer pressure of going along with this saga. And people, I get want to belong and they want to trust. And there are people who come practice because they, I mean, not everyone, but there are people who have been hurt in ways that don't enable them to see when someone's taking advantage and they don't have the inner strength to stand up. But I think it's something that is

[47:49]

Well, something the Buddha said was if you have, if by chance, you have a teacher who's not right, who's gone wrong in some way, he's compared it to having someone sitting on your chest with a nine-figure throat. And so, that's what, at least one of the sutras is very important that you that you be critical or find the right teacher. Yeah, so let me just answer your question. How do you know whether a teacher is okay or not, right? Well, there are certain signs, right? One is, the first sign is, the teacher doesn't want you. You have to do something in order to make some contact. And then the teacher, you make a connection, but then the teacher is not attached to you.

[48:58]

The teacher is not cultivating you. The teacher is not asking you something, right? So there's no sitting on your chest. You know, you have to make the effort to come to the teacher. The teacher doesn't come out to you. Because when the teacher comes out to you, then the teacher wants something. As long as the teacher wants something, then you should be suspicious. When you have a relationship, well naturally you expect something from the student, right? But that's when you have a settled relationship. I never ask people to do things unless we really have a settled relationship and we understand each other. So, if you meet a teacher who wants something, then you should be a little careful. Sometimes the students say, well, you know, he doesn't care much about me, which is not true.

[50:01]

The teacher is always concerned about you, but very careful not to cultivate you or to want something. If the teacher wants a lot of students and creates a situation of enticement, that should be a warning. You know, Shakyamuni said, you know, I don't know how I'm going to do this, I'm not going to, you know, and then he was asked three times before he started doing anything, you know. So he would just as soon have been off by himself, but through his, you know, because people request he does something. So what else? Well, that's pretty good right there. Another abuse of the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha was the position of the Zen clergy in Japan during the war.

[51:14]

And how they turned the Dharma into something that had to do with the superiority of the Japanese. country and that's really amazing because it makes no sense at all hearing those texts and they are very disturbing. Let me say something, you know, like recently there was a book that came out about how the Zen establishment in Japan during the war, you know, was favoring the government and, you know, went along with the government. If you were in Japan in 1939, 1940, 1941, under a government that had been taken over by the military, and if you dissented, you got killed. So, you know, there are two sides to this thing, you know. Like, do you speak out and get your head chopped off?

[52:21]

Or do you kind of go along with things in order to write out the... It's a big problem, you know. How do you make that decision? And so, you know, like there's this expose, you know, of all these things that these teachers said. But who knows what the real, actual circumstances that made them say these things were. I don't say one way or the other. Maybe they were all just warmongers. Or maybe they were just all kind of coerced into saving their skin in some way. Or maybe some combination. But I withhold judgment on that. because we're in this nice, wonderful, safe country where we can say what we want, but pretty soon we won't be able to. But if you were in Japan at that time, you would be very hesitant to say anything that you thought that was counter to what was going on.

[53:33]

So, you know, I don't know what to say about that, but I would withhold judgment. Those things happened, but I would withhold judgment. And a lot of those teachers came over here and gave a lot. What they really wanted to do was give the best of Japan to us, and not the worst. was so ashamed of Japan, you know, that he just wanted to come over here and give us what he felt was the real, you know, heart of Japan. There is an article in The Last Turning Wheel, there are letters from Zen teachers now who apologize for the behavior of the Zen Fushis. Yes, that's right. And in the Zen Quarterly, before it changed, there was, you know, this great apology, you know, for all this.

[54:37]

And so you wonder about the apologies, you know, because I think a lot of those people would apologize even if they didn't do anything. They would apologize for just what happened and take it on themselves to do that. I think they would do that. I remember the book, I think a few people did speak up. Some people did, yes. And they got killed. They got killed. Yeah. They were put in jail. I have a different view.

[55:52]

Yeah. I don't think the problem is religion. I don't think the problem is organized religion. I think the problem is people. When something gets too big, then it's unwieldy. And then also when it becomes spread out, it becomes watered down. And when it becomes watered down, it becomes all kinds of different things. The watering down is necessary, even though we don't like it, so that it touches people. Not everybody can do the monastic training. The monastic training is for the few you know, people are really devoted in a very strict way. And then it comes down, down, down. So naturally, you know, it gets distorted. But the problem is people.

[56:56]

What's the problem with the government? We say, well, there shouldn't be any government, you know? Some people say that. The government's too big. Let's get rid of the government. And then we have the corporations take over. And then they become the government, you know? But the problem is not the government. The problem is the people. You know, it's like saying, well, when, when, in Sin Center, when Dick had his fall, A lot of people said, well, maybe we shouldn't have an abbot because, you know, the abbot is the problem. But no, the person is the problem. It's like saying, well, maybe we shouldn't have a president because, you know, the president is corrupt. But no, the person is the problem, not the office. So the effort is to make things work. that are fighting each other.

[58:20]

Yes, well that's a problem. That's people. It's people. It's not the problem of the religions, although the religions have problems. The problem is the people. People's attitudes. So, you know, a Christian who fights, who makes a religious war, or a Muslim who makes a religious war, is not following the religion. It's not the religion's fault. It's the people's fault. They're just not doing the religion. If everybody was actually doing it correctly, there wouldn't be a problem. I mean, there'd be problems, but it wouldn't be a problem that it is. That's my view. So let's not blame it on the system. We always want to blame systems, even a despot. If a despot is really benevolent, then there's nothing wrong with the system.

[59:25]

But because despots are selfish, which is kind of like, you know, the meaning of despot, Because they're selfish, everybody suffers. But if they're not, then everybody's feeling okay. When we had a corporation soul, Zen Center was incorporated as a corporation soul, which meant that the chief abbot, the head abbot, had complete control of everything. And so when Suzuki Hiroshi was abbot, nobody even cared about that. It didn't mean anything, because Everybody prospered. But then when Dick became avid, he used the corporation soul to mean, I am it. And then everything fell apart. I mean, everything got corrupt. So you can use anything you want, either this way or that way. If you use it this way, everything works. If you use it that way, nothing works. It doesn't work.

[60:28]

So it's not the system. It's the people. Alan? We'll keep sense then. Yeah, how we accept our own responsibility and others' apologies.

[61:51]

That's right. That's right. So, yeah, that's another talk. Yeah. I just wanted to say that my understanding of reading the book, I just wanted to quickly acknowledge that It seems as if you personally, as a person, maintained your integrity and your practice, and I just want to say thank you. Oh, you're welcome. Those were hard years. But even though those were hard years, I appreciated them because that difficulty matured me. So there was that good side to it.

[62:43]

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