started last time talking about, uh, certain bodhisattva practices, and to look at, look at them, and, um, again, I'd like to start with the overview, which is, for example, you know, in the Enmei Juku Kanan-gyo, it says, Kan-de-an, but, uh, It's actually an abbreviation for namu kanzehan. Say kanzehan, and we say namu butsu. That's an abbreviation for namu kanzehan namu butsu. Namu means I pay homage. And pay homage means that you praise something, I suppose, but also that you wish to become like that. or you wish that to become you.

[01:06]

So, when we look at this list of renunciation, compassion, and right view, paying homage to Avalokiteshvara means I wish to become right view and compassion. I wish to become, or I wish Avalokiteshvara would become my life. This is my supreme teacher, Avalokiteshvara. So, Avalokiteshvara is the one who sees that all the aggregates are empty and thus relieves all sufferings. Seeing the aggregates as empty relieves all suffering.

[02:09]

That's Avalokiteshvara. Seeing emptiness of all phenomena and thus, by that vision, saving all beings. I wish I'd be like that. And, you know, when we bow, we bow to everything. We respect everything. But when we do a full bow, we gassho to everything. But when we do a full bow, that's a formal way of saying, I want to be like that. This is my ideal. So strictly speaking, in Zen temples, there's a tradition, which I don't say is universal, but we gassho and bow, standing bow to our hearts. but we do full prostrations with bodhisattvas. Arhats are very superior beings, and we honor them, and we want their help.

[03:21]

We pray for their help, actually. We ask for their help in the third echo. But we actually, as in the Mahayana, we do not wish to become arhats. He used to become Avalokiteshvara and other bodhisattvas. Now, if becoming an arhat would be of any use to anyone, we would definitely do it. We would definitely take that form. But we're not interested. We don't have, like, I want to be an arhat kind of attitude. We have, I want to be a Buddha. Now, it turns out Buddha is an arhat also. So that comes with the territory, but we don't want arhatship for ourselves. Buddha would like us to realize arhatship or bodhisattvahood. And Buddha made arhats. Shakyamuni Buddha made arhats.

[04:23]

So Buddha wants to make people enlightened like arhats, and Buddha wants to encourage people to be bodhisattvas. The bodhisattvas are primarily interested not in themselves becoming bright, shining, pure monks. They want to help other people become bright, shining, pure monks. If that's appropriate for those, if those people want that, bodhisattvas want to help them. And if they want to be bodhisattvas, bodhisattvas want to help them. So Avalokiteshvara, we bow, we do a full bow to Avalokiteshvara and we do a standing bow to the arhats. Now the arhats probably wouldn't bow back to us, because they don't bow to bodhisattvas, unless bodhisattvas are monks, or pure saints. Arhat is a Buddhist saint who actually understands selflessness of the person.

[05:30]

And it's possible that, you know... Anyway, they understand the self, selflessness of the person. So, in the early Buddhist teachings, there was, they understood what was called puttgala nairatnya, the emptiness, the lack of self of the person, or the personality. That was... What they understood that was one of the main philosophical realizations. Our hearts fully understood that and were liberated from suffering. And are free, would be free from rebirth. And that's what I was... And the other aspect of what they realized or what they understood was, one way to put it is... Skanda, matra, vata.

[06:38]

One way to put it. In other words, Vatami, it's a school, a philosophy, that only the skandhas exist. But they actually thought they existed. That there was an existence to the aggregates. There was no existence to the person. There was an existence to the aggregates. The aggregates The phenomena that dependently co-arise, they exist. So they didn't realize what is realized later, and which is the cornerstone of Mahayana, which is puttala nairavanya, the lack of selfhood of the person, and dhamma nairavanya, the lack of self of phenomena. So the five skandhas are empty. for the bodhisattva. Well, hopefully the bodhisattva finally realizes this, that not only is a person empty, but the skandhas are empty, the dharmas are empty. Now, in order to actually fully realize that second kind of, the second level, the deepest level of emptiness, of selflessness, it's necessary to be a bodhisattva.

[07:51]

First? No. You have to realize one stage, then the next, but you don't have to be an arhat to be first stage. You have to understand as well as the arhats to move beyond them. But you don't have to be an arhat, because an arhat is someone who is interested in personal liberation. going to take that role. The Buddha was a bodhisattva for a long time before the Buddha became an arhat. In the Buddha's last life, the Buddha became an arhat. Before that, the Buddha was a bodhisattva all that time. And the Buddha got predictions before that that he'd be a Buddha. So the Buddha had to go to the arhat stage. at the end, but not along the way. Yes? So the mythology of the Zen school is that they were arhats who were bodhisattvas.

[09:15]

They were monks, but they weren't arhats. They were bodhisattvas. But In early Buddhism, they would be listed among the ahas, like Mahakasyapa and Ananda. Well, it's okay to be a bodhisattva and then become an ahas. But we're saying that they were kinder, that they had things that they were bodhisattvas. So what's your question? What's your question? We consider them bodhisattvas. Or maybe we don't. But anyway, we could. I mean, you could consider them bodhisattvas who took our heart form. But their motivation was the bodhisattva motivation. And they took our heart form. Does that make sense?

[10:19]

Well, does it make sense? Yes. Yes. They definitely help people. I mean, yeah, definitely helpful. Which is the question of, are they actually intending to become Buddhists? And if they're not, if they're satisfied with the state of understanding that they have, the state of understanding they have, if they are personally free of suffering, they are liberated from delusion. Personally. But they do not wish to acquire the skillful devices which one needs to do the Buddha's work. And not being interested in acquiring those skillful means one can't become a Buddha. So to take an ahat's understanding and then to use that as a basis for doing all kinds of bodhisattva practices with the intention of developing through those practices the opportunity to realize Buddhahood, that would be to shift from the apparent attainment that you have to a whole new

[11:41]

whole new career. But prior to switching to that career, you're very helpful. You can even help bodhisattvas. And bodhisattvas are actually praying to you and your friends to help them, like we do. We ask the arhats to help us. We ask them to help us. They can help us. Living arhats and dead arhats can help us. They probably do want to help us. What problem would they have in helping us? But they themselves may not wish to do certain things which might promote their becoming Buddha. Like, for example, not giving up the monk form. Does that make sense? Giving up the monk, huh? For example, giving up the monk form in our heart might not wish to do that. They might think, I think basically, I think for right now, for my last lifetime, I think I'll just stay a monk.

[12:43]

I think that's most helpful. And I guess if it was most helpful, they probably should stay. But if it were more helpful, and they chose to stay in Arhat, then their priorities would be Arhatship over Bodhisattva. But they still would be very helpful to Eve. And they could help the bodhisattvas who are giving up their monkhood in order to help Eve. They could help them. They probably would like to. Why would they? Anything they can do from their position would be fine. But they might be somewhat limited by their position. Now, I think... that I brought this up, but I'd like to move on and just say once more that Adalokiteshvara is the one who sees that all dharmas lack existence, lack coming and going, and makes single-hearted effort to do the good for sentient beings.

[13:52]

Adalokiteshvara doesn't see any sentient beings, but speaks of sentient beings in order to ripen sentient beings. Excuse me, Avalokiteshvara doesn't see any own being to sentient beings, but then Avalokiteshvara uses those whole devices while talking about sentient beings in order to ripen these beings that she doesn't see that own being of. So, I'm talking about this relationship between seeing emptiness and practicing skill and need practicing skill and means and seeing emptiness and the way to enter this cycle of how skill and means which attract beings to practice and attract beings to you and give you challenges those skillful devices that attract beings and convert beings who you're practicing with and vision of emptiness these two cycle around and the way of entering that is renunciation So now I'd like to turn towards the precepts as one of the skillful devices of Bodhisattva's precept practice, which is the second perfection.

[15:06]

And talk about how that practice, how that perfection, how that virtue is practiced. Let me stop like that. She said, talking about aha could be a skillful means, as using imagination in a skillful way to help people. So I guess I'd just like to start with Zen and then go backwards a little bit. First of all, I think it's true of not just Zen, but to Zen, I think particularly Japanese Zen. The precepts are transmitted from teacher to student, but it's kind of like

[16:16]

There's, especially in Soto Zen, the feeling that here are these precepts. First of all, the student says, would you please give me the precepts? And the teacher says, okay, here are the precepts. Will you take care of them? The student says, yes. Really? Yeah. Is it a promise? Yeah. Okay, here. And then they just give them. They just give them. But At some point in the way, they don't exactly take them back, but they just say, please don't think that you can practice these on your own. Please don't think that now that you have this teaching called the precepts, which if you practice will bring great virtue and benefit the beings and will attract the beings to practice. Don't think that you can practice these precepts in isolation according to your own idea about what the precepts ask. The meaning of these precepts is not decided by you. It's not decided by me either, the teacher says.

[17:22]

But... You need to include the precept of the teacher with the precepts that you received, the teachings of the precepts, the preceptual teachings. You need the teaching of the teacher to go with them. The teaching of the teacher can point out to you, you're practicing these precepts, but you seem to be clinging to them. You seem to be practicing them according to your idea. You seem to be tensing around the precepts which you have received. So I gave you the precepts and I wanted you to take care of them. And you are taking care of them, but actually you're taking care of them in a little bit too tight a way. You're actually strangling these precepts. Would you please loosen up a little bit on the precepts? Or would you please give me all your understandings of the precepts, please? And I'll take care of your understandings of the precepts. And would you practice precepts according to my understanding for a few minutes?

[18:24]

How about one minute? Would you open to my understanding of precepts? Or not even mine, just a different one, which isn't even mine, but it's not mine, but it's really different from yours. And I would like to see you just relax with that one, because that will help you relax with yours. So give me all your understanding of the precepts. So in this way, the student received the precepts, but they did not know what they mean when they received them. Like, you received the precepts of, well, in our school, you received the first three precepts of refuge in the triple treasure. So you have some idea of what you say, okay, I received it, I'll take care of it. But you have some idea of what that means. Well, please give up your idea of what it means. not throw it in the garbage can, just give it to me for a little while, put it on the shelf, and let's look at what that might mean. So together, in that relationship, struggling in that relationship, in that context of that relationship, the meaning of the precept is bilaterally realized, not selfishly, one-sidedly, unilaterally determined.

[19:39]

So the key factors of receiving these precepts of compassion. You receive them and you practice renunciation. In the ceremony, you practice renunciation before you receive them. But then after the ceremony, you continue to practice renunciation by freeing your understanding of the precept practice and showing your understanding of the precept practice, particularly to the person who gave you the precepts, if possible. And then that person can say, boy, you're really doing a great job on those precepts. you can think, yeah, I really am, aren't I? And then you can say, wow, what was that about? And so on. Or you're really like doing a lobby job in those places. You can think, boy, this guy is really crazy. Or sick. I'm getting a new teacher. One that approves of the way I practice the research. Because this is not fun to criticize this way.

[20:41]

So Another possibility is I just stop practicing the precepts because this guy has some authority in the matter, so I'll just go through some other practice where he can't say anything. Like, you don't know anything about piano playing, do you? So a teacher may know something about the practice, but that's not what's really important. The important is that they have another perspective. And the You gave them the opportunity to question you about your understanding of this practice, this bodhisattva practice of ethical precepts, of teachings on compassionate relationships. You asked them to give them to you and you asked them to guide you in the practice of them. So that's the main thing. That keeps the renunciation cutting through precepts all the time.

[21:43]

Like I was saying to somebody yesterday, one of my favorite stories, favorite Taoist stories, it's from Zhuangzi. I think it's about Emperor King Wen's first butcher. I think that's what it was. So King Wen's butcher had a knife that never got dull. I asked him, how come it never gets dull? He said, well, I cut through the entrance. Cut through the space in the animal. And therefore, I just cut through a very nice, My blade never gets dull. So in the relationship between preceptor that gives you the precepts and the preceptor's teaching about the precepts, you can keep getting tested to see if you're cutting through your view of the precepts. That's the main thing. And there's two main areas that we have trouble with the precepts. One is we cling to them, we grasp them, In other words, we grasp our understanding of it.

[22:45]

If you have no understanding of the precepts, of course, you can't grasp. But if you have an understanding of the precepts, you pretty much already grasped them. Whatever you think they are, it's probably a sign that you're grasping them. If you do think they're something, you probably already caught them. And the other aspect that we get stuck in the precept practice is to practice them, seeking to gain something. gain something. Gain something for ourselves, of course, is really awesome. Remarkable what's happened. But even doing it to gain something for someone else is awesome. Of course we want beings to be benefited by this practice, that's the whole point of it. But we don't have to see it in terms of gain, of seeking. So hopefully the teacher can help you become aware that you're grasping the practice, grasping the virtue of practice. or seeking something. So again, the spirit of practicing these precepts, like for example, you practice not killing and that's it.

[23:53]

You don't practice not killing with some expectation. You just practice not killing. What was it? You don't even know what that is. But you practice it anyway. The public test part doesn't know what it is either. But practice it anyway. That's the basic situation And you probably have some questions about that which you could ask me for the rest of your life. I mean, I hope you do, because that's what life is like, to wonder about what these precepts are in relationship. They're actually, they're precepts about relationship. So to wonder with, in relationship, to wonder with other beings what they are, to see if you take a position, you know what they are, other people don't, Or other people know what they are and you don't. Or you both don't know, or you both do know. What is the situation here with these precepts? And of course there's other variations like, I'm not interested in these precepts.

[24:58]

Or these precepts make me get very angry. Well, I don't mind the precepts so much. I hate people who are practicing. They are such creeps. I like people who aren't practicing better because they're not self-righteous and so on. This is the realm of practicing the precepts. So now, historically speaking, a couple points I want to make, 2,500 years of history, just wanted to make a couple points. One is, and I think I can do this without the book. So I'll do it without the book, and then maybe later I'll do it with the book. The book means the vineyard. I don't have the vineyard memorized. which was good for you and sometimes bad. But anyway, I have not been to Albania. But I did look at it here and there a few times. And one of the places I was looking at Albania immediately was a conversation between, I believe it was between Shariputra,

[26:01]

That same one who Avalokiteshvara is talking about in Bhaktisiddhara, this time Shai Buddha is talking to Buddha. And I think Shai Buddha said something to the Buddha about something like, either he says, you know those six Buddhas that were before you? How did things go for them? Did their teachings last a long time or a short time? Or another version of the question would be, Just tell me about those six Buddhas before you . And then Buddha says, Buddha tells him that, in fact, . Their teachings didn't last very long. . But pūrasaṁ bhuttu dāyāśo, kūṇāgaṁ muni bhuttu dāyāśo, and kaśo bhuttu dāyāśo, their kītus did last a long time.

[27:09]

This is what it says in the Vinaya. It's just like, you know, to me, I was kind of like interested to see that, because here we are, we're Zen people, we're into those six food, as we say, set food, now Shakyamuni had before himself. That this is something that the Buddha talked about in the Vinaya. And in other places, Buddha talks about these six Buddhas before the Buddha. I want to mention something about Buddha before Buddha later. So then Buddha explains how come. The first three Buddhas before him didn't have teachings that were offered at all times. And basically, he said that those Buddhas did not, they didn't do, you know, and then he listed 12 types of teachings, which Shakyamuni Buddha did.

[28:15]

You know, the verse teachings, the verse and prose teachings, the previous life stories, these inspirational talks, the sutras, and so on. Twelve different categories of teachings which Shakyamuni gives. So they didn't teach those twelve words. They also didn't set up disciplines for the monks. And they didn't set up parimoksha. Parimoksha includes the disciplines for the monks, but also has to do with how to relate in the community of monks. They didn't set those things up. And then he uses, I think he uses this image of, it's kind of like you've got a bunch of flowers and you put them in a vase or something, but you don't tie them together and they get blown all over the place. So I think that, I thought this would be interesting to point out, that not giving precepts, not giving regulations for the

[29:25]

personal discipline, which includes, also, regulations about having a teacher figure out what those mean, and setting up policies and regulations for the community's relationship. If you don't set that up, Buddha said, the teaching doesn't last very long. It gets kind of dispersed. But he called these people perfected ones. And how did they teach? They were still Buddhas. How did they teach? What they did, basically, is they read each student's mind. And more or less by means of celebrity, they gave him the Dharma. And the students, and they had all these students, and the students became enlightened and liberated. So they liberated all these different people, which is great, because there are Buddhists, they could do that. Isn't that amazing? This is what Shakyamuni Buddha apparently said to Shariputra in the Vinaya. There were these Buddhists, they were Buddhists, and they could enlighten people just by like, boom, [...] just walking around, boom, boom.

[30:29]

But because they didn't say, oh, by the way, I've got these priests, do you want to take care of them? And I have a friend, you know, and he used to be a Zen monk, and he's, you know, he was like taken over by this bodhicitta a while ago, and it's like the most important thing in his life, for sure. And he does teach. But because he stopped being a monk, he doesn't have these precepts to give people. So he doesn't have any stuff to give people for them to play with in certain ways. He can help them with their life situation, but then he just helps them, which is fine, and that's it. But if you help people with their life situation and give them these precepts, this tends to give them something to give to someone and cause the teaching to go on. Yes? I'll talk about that later.

[31:38]

Then he says, the next three Buddhas before him, they did give all these different kinds of teachings. And they gave the discipline rules for the monks and the padimoksha. And their teachings didn't last long. And he said, it's like having a bouquet of flowers, tying it together, putting it in the face, and it doesn't blow apart. And then, I think Shri Buddha said, And the priest Shari Putra says, well, now's the time. Let's have it. If you want your teachings to last, now's the time to give the disciplines and set up the pranamotra. And I might be wrong. Might have been Ananda said it. Okay, Lord, now's the time.

[32:39]

Now's the time. Let's do it now. This is good. Let's have these precepts. And the priest said, wait, Shari Putra, wait. The perfected one will decide when we'll begin. I also thought it was nice that he said, in this case, he said, the perfected one will decide, rather than I. The perfected one will decide. And then he said, I don't know if he said these or I'll put these in parentheses. He says, no problem. We don't need any precepts. If there's no forces of, what do you call it, erosion or second law thermodynamics acting on our practice, we don't have to have any precepts. We're doing fine. Aren't we happy campers? Yes, Lord. Isn't everybody here like pure and shining? Yes. Let's just wait then. Now, if some tanks or tankers appear in this community, they start disturbing the situation. Then we'll give a teaching for that problem.

[33:40]

So that's how they set up the rules. When problems arose, he said, what's the problem? He said, well, let's do this. Now the problem arose, he said, what's the problem? We'll do that. And that's one of the comments that Dogen made on the rules which Buddha set up. He said, he must have had a really bad group for people to be having all kinds of situations. He had to make those kind of rules. So when they first asked, they said, no problem. But then I think, oh, he also said what I thought was very interesting. He said, certain problems will come up when certain conditions arise. Like, for example, when the group gets bigger. You'll have some, we don't have some, that's a little group now. When our group gets bigger, we're going to have some problems we don't have. When your group gets richer, when people make more donations to us, and so on. As the organization thrives and grows, we're going to have some problems we don't have now.

[34:45]

And so the group did grow, and they did get those problems, and they set up the rules. So some of the rules that were set up were not set up right away. They were set up later. And then some of them were set up after Buddha died because something developed after Buddha died that Buddha couldn't say anything about because it hadn't arisen yet. So now we have rules about, you know, drugs. They used to have, they didn't have drugs before. They just had alcohols, and now we have rules about drugs. And so on. And probably eventually get some new stuff that we haven't heard of later to help make policy about that. So the point I'm trying to make is that it was meeting each thing and giving the teaching. Meeting each thing and explaining. Meeting each thing and elucidating and telling what to be done. He didn't have this set of rules. He didn't get enlightenment from a set of rules in him. He became enlightened and became a Buddha at the same time.

[35:49]

People came to him. He told them that, you know, they were interested to know how come some dharmas last a long time and sometimes don't. They say, well, we don't because of that. We do because of that. And so if you guys want dharma to last a long time, we'll set up a precept. But we won't do it until we see what you people need. There's no need to have extra precepts that don't apply to you. then the precepts came. But it was an appropriate response. It wasn't like some thing he had. So that's, I just want to point out, the beginning of our tradition. That's how it seems to have arisen. Precepts just meeting each case. Not a set of laws. The implication of the laws, or at least the principle that gives rise to the laws, is there before they came. And the other thing I would like to point out from early Buddhism, and also early, is one of the sort of wrong views.

[36:53]

And it's called . means precepts. means to grip or cling to, and I would say, conventional understandings of ethics. conventional understanding of business. Now, there's different understandings of this term. One understanding is what they mean is that it's to adhere to the rules of ethics outside of Buddhism. To observe the ceremonies, actually, and the regulations of non-Buddhist religion. That's one understanding. But it's interesting that it's the ceremonies and talk about the ceremonies and regulations because that's what we talk about too.

[37:54]

Another understanding would be that you cling to your understanding, your understanding of the conventional understanding of these regulations, of these precepts. So this considerable debate now could be possible about what does that precept mean. But the key factor for me is the clinging to these precepts. That's the problem. Whether it's clinging to the rituals and regulations of the caste system and Brahmanic rituals, whether it's clinging to Gnostic rules or whatever. It's clinging to the rules. It interferes. It causes uproar. Okay, now I'd like to jump over to China and Dogen. And this talk, again, is an example of trying to bring to you

[39:02]

equipment to practice renunciation in the practice of virtue called precepts. My motivation is to talk to you about this and give you information but also give you some leads of ways you can study and think about these things so that you and all your Dharma brothers and sisters can interact and discuss and try to find the middle way in the midst of the practice of the virtue called the Bodhisattva precepts. Does that make sense? So the history part of what might help you sort of, in some ways, loosen up and open up to what these precepts are about. In other words, loosen up to some understanding of we have the best precepts, or we have the worst precepts, Somebody else has better precepts. We're pure. We're dirty. We're whatever. All these different perspectives on these practices, if you like, loosen up. Open up and loosen up around them.

[40:05]

And in that place, you might be able to find the balance in which you can actually understand this practice. OK. Shall we go on, or do you want to stop? Run. So one place, the history of the precepts in China is, of course, 2,000 years long. It's still Buddhist practice in China, apparently. It looks like it is. It's certainly big temples. And there's still precept ceremonies. Anyway, the history is long history. And Dogen, the time that Dogen went to China, and the time that Saicho, founder of Tendai in Japan went to China. At the time that Saito went, Saito was the founder of Tendai in Japan. But when he went to China, Buddhism had been in China almost 800 years.

[41:08]

By the time Dogen had gone, it had been almost 1,200 years. So it was a long history before they got there. But certainly by the time Dogen got there, and even by the time that Saito went, and you'll see later why I bring up Saito, I think. The Chinese had kind of worked through and come to some agreement about how to work with the precepts. It was currently pretty uniform in most of the controversies settled. And at the time that I'm not sure about when Saito went, but by the time Dogen went, the situation was this, that the precept process treated lay people and monks differently. And that the order of initiation was to receive lay precepts, to receive novice precepts, to receive full monks precepts, and then to receive bodhisattvas.

[42:22]

That was the full ordination schedule in Mahayana Buddhism. Does that make sense? Did you get that? So the normal Mahayana... By the way, China was basically a Mahayana Buddhist country. Everybody wanted to be a bodhisattva. So the course of ordination, the course of precept initiation for bodhisattvas in China by the time the Sung Dynasty was... The lay precepts and novice precepts, then the whole monks precepts, then the whole Catholic precepts. And the lay precepts, there's five. Novice is ten. The novice ten include the both ways. Include the first five of the lay. And then four nations of men is 250 and 348 for women. And the school, the type of Vinaya that was more popular in China, was the one of the Dharmavukta school.

[43:32]

And it was then that the precepts came, and precepts were called the four-part Vinaya. The four-part Vinaya had lay precepts in it, novice precepts, and four-month precepts. They use that four-part linea, the Dhamma Gupta Sutta. And then the Bodhisattva precepts. And the Bodhisattva precepts that they wound up mostly using by that time in history was the Bodhisattva precepts found in the Brahmacala Sutra. There's two Brahmacala Sutras. There's one, Pali, which really doesn't have to do with precepts. It has to do with meditation progress and the behavior of a monk, but it's not really about ethical precepts. Brahmajala Sutra in Chinese is a sutra in which a set of precepts is found.

[44:40]

It's a set of 58 precepts, 10 major and 48 minor. Some of you probably see the 48-minute, actually 58 precepts on the wall in English. Probably, isn't it supposed to be here in place? So you can see those 58 precepts of the Brahmajala Sutra. Chinese is called Fan Wang Ji. Japanese, Boni Mo Chok. Fan means Brahma. So that would be what had been worked out by, you know, the 13th century. Okay, is that clear? The China, huh? The first precepts of ordination, lay, novice, and pole, those precepts,

[45:44]

For those initiations, the precepts of the four-part Vinaya were precepts, originally precepts of the vehicle of the listener, which are practices which are primarily having to do with personal conduct. So they're practices of personal purification. So lay people and novice monks and nuns, full monks and nuns, all received, in China, received these precepts about personal conduct, which is the Indian Sravakayana transmission, the individual vehicle, practices about yourself, your conduct, your, I should say, your behavior, actually. but not so much talking about in relationship to others.

[46:50]

Bodhisattva precepts are not so much those Brahmajala sutras precepts, especially the first ten. The major orientation is primarily about how to develop compassionate relationships with beings. It's not so much about my behavior. It's more about my compassionate relationships. our compassion relationships, how to develop them. So it's a supplement to a Mahayana ordination. It makes a full Mahayana ordination. So this thing happened around 800. a Japanese monk who had received four-part Vinaya for Ignatian. And I don't know if I can remember if he received bodhisattva initiation in Japan or not.

[47:56]

But I don't know if he did. But anyway, he went to China. His name was Saito. And he came back. And he learned some things in China about esoteric Buddhism. And he also learned some other things, he said, about precepts, about Zen. The Tendai school in China was actually considered to a great extent by itself to be a school of Zen. In other words, the founder of Tendai was called Jiri Chanshi, which means Zen master, Jiri. So the titles of their patriarchs or their ancestors was Zen master. It isn't what led to the famous Zen school, but that they used the same term early on, way before the Zen school formed. So Saicho went there and learned Zen from the Tendai school, and learned Tantric Buddhism too. He went back to Japan and used his Tantric Buddhism, and he became extremely, became the most powerful and well-known monk in Japan.

[49:05]

Aristophanes thought he was, like, fabulous. And again, just a brief thing to say that then this other Japanese monk, who also received four-part lineage ordination in Japan, went to China and studied tantric Buddhism also. Saicho studied tantric Buddhism for, anybody know, eight months? Six months. He studied tantric Buddhism for six months. And he brought back some sutta texts and some ritual objects. But Kukai, the Japanese monk who went to China, he studied for almost four years and got much better education than Thang Phu Phu. So when he came back, Saito heard about him. So Saito, by the time Kukai came back, these have to be contemporaries. These two major figures overlapped. When Saito... had become the most important and powerful well-known monk in Japan.

[50:10]

And he knew about Kukai. And even so, he asked Kukai and addressed Kukai as his teacher and asked Kukai to teach him these esoteric teachings. Kukai basically wouldn't do it. He told him. And he asked him to give him all his books. He bought a huge library of tantric texts and boatloads full of vajras and stuff. Anyway, he really, he was, he set up the esoteric school of Japan, and he asked, he asked, Saito asked Kukai to teach him esoteric Buddhism, Kukai says, to try to get the Dharma from his books. It's like stealing the Dharma. So he wouldn't teach him, basically. Thought him a little, but not much. So then, and so Kukai's authority as the tantric master of Japan was pretty much over. Saito's, yeah. Kugai hadn't, like, still had never, you know, didn't become as dominant. But Sai took a seat. His time was running short.

[51:13]

He soon would have to admit, people would know, word would get out, that this guy would be the master of what he was now, if he had been Japanese master. Is that clear? So he went through some transformation, a wonderful transformation. I don't know exactly what happened, but it's nice to look at it from the scholar's point of view. His former tantric master suddenly decided to become more associated with the Tendai school, which is something else he spoke about, about China. But that wasn't what turned the Japanese people on, so he didn't bring out the Tendai teaching much, the Zen teaching. And the Zen teaching he brought out was very closely related to Bodhisattva precepts. In particular, the one-mind precepts. This is the teaching. This is really great teaching. This is the Zen teaching, the direct meaning of the Bodhisattva Precepts through Bodhidharma.

[52:17]

Again, making a long story short, given a certain tilt because of that, right towards the end of his life, he petitioned the government to let him set up a Bodhisattva initiation institution, a platform. where he could give bodhisattva precepts, where people could get ordained to become monks by receiving only the bodhisattva precepts, that he said, somehow he came to the view that these four-part Vinaya were actually antithetical to Mahayana Buddhism. It's his idea. Chinese people, not too much, such opinion was very rare or non-existent in China. Probably somebody had it. But anyway, he came upon it and asked the government to please let him set up this ordination platform where people could get ordained and become Bodhisattva monks. And then they would train as Bodhisattva monks. And after that, the Bodhisattva trained them to go out into society and say, be.

[53:24]

Very nice idea. And the government considered it. At the very stage of the petition, they didn't pay attention. They didn't pay attention. They didn't pay attention. And at some point, anyway, they paid attention. I forgot what it was, and they got their interest. In other words, they responded. They got together a bunch of monks from the precept school. People transmitted the fourth part of Vinyak to comment on it. Basically, they put him down. They said he's really off base here. to think that you can ordain people to distribute bodhisattva precepts and no vinnia precepts. In other words, ordain people with precepts about compassionate relationships, but not backed up or underpinned by precepts about personal conduct. So they shot him down. He died right after that, or very shortly. There was no apparent reason that it wasn't necessarily connected. He was getting old. Then this thing happened, which somebody gave the interpretation that William Badaford makes, or he heard about, is that the place where his temple was was in the northeast corner of Kyoto.

[54:39]

Kyoto is surrounded on northeast and west side by mountains. The front side opens onto a plain, which goes down to Osaka. And then over in the northeast corner, there's a space in the mountains where you can go through. It's not a very big space, but it's definitely like, so if it really comes down flat, you don't have to go over the mountains to get through. If you're placed down, you have to go over some mountains to get through. And that hole there is where the malevolent spirits, any kind of malevolent energy, comes into the capital, according to Chinese geomancy. And that's where Saito's temple is. So Saito asked the government, would you please let me do this? And they said, no. And then he died. So Saito's spirit and his establishments up there on the hill there, see, he was still the most powerful monk in Japan. And the government had been supporting him for a long time. And after supporting, what do you call it?

[55:43]

They had a chair. And Adama, every year the government brought me monks to join his order and train with him. So it was quite an establishment up there at that time. And so he died. And there was a root, what I heard anyway, is that they felt, there was a feeling that if they didn't grant Saicho's request, there might be some malevolent spiritual backlash on the capital. So after he died, not too long ago, like months after he died, they granted his request and let his school do independent bodhisattva ordinations. This happened in 822. He died in 822, and it happened like he died in April, and this happened in August or something. So now you have this new thing, which I don't, there may be no previous example in China, or even of a Bodhisattva initiation by itself without the earlier Vinaya initiation leading up to it.

[56:49]

Okay, is that clear? This is like a major thing, and this is like a major, major thing that Japanese Buddhism has happened. And one of these reasons, which I think is, spiritually speaking, very appealing for setting this up, was that this institution of the four-part Vinaya ordination In Japan. What time? it limited the bodhisattva activity. And his idea was you just give these people bodhisattva precepts and then you train them monastically for a while. But it's these precepts that they use, so then they can leave the monastery and go out among the people and be free of all the big institutional limitations of yoga and so on. So it's kind of an idea to make these bodhisattvas, you know, that they give monastic training, but then they're free to help people, to be free of the big, heavy institutional power structures. Sounds good. Part of the irony of the whole situation is that for whatever reason, once this Bodhisattva initiation platform was set up, gradually, almost all the ordinations in Japan started to be Bodhisattva initiations.

[58:03]

And the Vinaya initiations still went on, but became less, became finer compared to Bodhisattva initiations. And the Tendai school became this enormous, a powerful institution. Mount Hiei, on the east side of Kyoto, has 30,000 temples on it. That might be wrong. And it might be only 3,000 temples. So let's say 3 divided by 10. But it wasn't 300. It was 3,000 or 30,000. Anyways, maybe 30,000 monks. A lot, a lot of monks up there. And it was a powerful institution and At certain points in the history of the Japanese Tendai, founded by Saito, they had armies up there. They had armies of monks. And if they didn't like what the government was doing, they would just send thousands of monks down to the capital to make a statement. And they would not just be followed by monks, but with spears.

[59:08]

They didn't have helmets and scarves, maybe they did, but they wore their Buddhist robes and had spears instead of their walking scarves, or they had sharp things on the end of their walking scarves. And these are like professional soldiers, highly trained, disciplined. Anyway, that happened. So when Dogen was born, he was born in the time when the Tendai schools were had to come. the antithesis in some sense of what the point of setting up the Bodhisattva platform was. It was a big institution which was controlling everything. When Dogen became a monk, he became a Tendai monk. He received ordination on that mountain, so he got Bodhisattva initiation on that mountain. He received... So the Bodhisattva initiation he got from the Tendai school was the 48 precepts. That was the precepts. and major, and 48, I said 48, 58 precepts of the Brahmajala Sutra, which is what he received in his ordination, although he didn't say in any of his writings that he received those precepts at that time.

[60:15]

That's what everybody on that mountain received that day. And that, in the Tendai ceremony that happened at that time, There would be different phases. One phase, you're supposed to receive the three refuges, and you see the three pure precepts, make the Bodhisattva bowels, and then you receive the 58 precepts. It would be different phases in ordination. So he went through that. Okay? Then when he got older, he went, he left Makie, went down to Kyoto and studied at Keninji, which is a temple, which was a Rinzai Zen temple, but it's also the founder of the temple was a Tendai monk. So it wasn't really a Rinzai Zen temple, but it was a temple. founder of which was a Tendai monk who also received those Bodhisattva precepts, Mount Tendai, Mount Hiei.

[61:17]

And he left Mount Hiei, went to China. And in China, he said he learned three things. He got Rinzai Zen transmission. He got the Four-Part Vinny, which he had not received before. As far as I know. But anyway, he got the Four-Part Vinny, and he got the Bodhisattva precepts. which he had already received. He learned more about the Bodhisattva precepts, he said, in China. He came back, he started a temple, and the temple was a Tendai-Zen temple. It was a Tendai temple infused with transmission from Chinese Rinza, Chinese Linji. He didn't say what precepts he got to the Linji gate, but probable, but what he got was that the Linji people in China, they probably did this, you know, Fort Park Vinaya and Bodhisattva Precepts. Probably what they got. So what he got was Fort Park Vinaya. So when he went back, he started a Zen temple, and the Zen temple had Bodhisattva Precepts and the Fort Park Vinaya.

[62:20]

And Dogen went to that temple after Eisai died and studied with Eisai's main student, Myozen. And from Myozen, he received the Bodhisattva precepts. But it looks like he did not receive the four-part video for whatever reason. Pardon? What? Yes. And his student was at Kenenji when Dogen went there to study. Dogen left Hieizan, went down the hill, not very far, went to southern Kyoto, went, entered his temple, studied with Myozen, liked Myozen, liked Eisai, what he knew about, and became Myozen's disciple in Rinzai Zen Bodhisattva precept lineage. But he didn't get, didn't get, what do you call it, four-part VINIA ordination, which makes sense because although Eisai went to China and received these, learned about the four-part VINIA, he didn't necessarily become a four-part VINIA transmitter.

[63:35]

Four-part VINIA transmitters were down south in Japan and Nara. They're the ones who had the official power to do that. So, as far as I know, Eisai did not become a transmitter of the Four Parts of Dini. To receive them, to become a regular monk does not mean you're a preceptor of that. So, he... I don't know how Myozen got the Four Parts of Dini, but I think he did, somehow. He might have gone to Nara. His teacher, Eisai, probably would have let him go down to Nara and get the Four Parts of Dini. Because Eisai thought the Four Parts of Dini were good. the Shravaka personal practice precepts were good. And Dogen was in that milieu. First of all, in the Bodhisattva precepts only milieu, and he went into the Kenenji milieu, where he was exposed to a respect for the four-part milieu and the Bodhisattva precepts. So this is Dogen before he goes to China. So is that, like, real clear so far? So then he goes to China. travels around, and as far as we can tell, he met this Zen teacher named Lu Jing.

[64:45]

And it seems likely that Lu Jing was ordained into the precepts the way I just described, that he received novice ordination, full ordination in bodhisattva precepts at some phases of practice. And then on top of that basic ordination for a Mahayana Buddhist, for a Bodhisattva monk, which is a four-part Vinaya, 250 precepts, and the Bodhisattva precepts on top of that, he studied them and then became a successor of this lineage of teachings called Zen. But there was this basic monk thing that he was doing, Bodhisattva monk thing he was doing, probably. There's no sign that he didn't do that, and almost everybody seems to have done it. And you needed actually these documents that specified that you received the four-part Vinaya and the Bodhisattva precepts to get into the monastery. So since he was the head of the monastery, a number of monasteries, he probably went through that same gate. But we don't know.

[65:47]

This paper shows his ordination stuff. Dogen came and met him, liked him a lot. He liked Dogen. They hit it off in a big way. He became one of Dogen's successors, and Dogen inherited, according to Dogen, the Bodhisattva precepts from Rujing. Bodhisattva precept lineage from Rujing. He did not say anywhere in any of his records, and none of his disciples say, that he received the four-part Vinaya from Rujing. And also, once again, Rujing may not have been somebody who transmitted the four-part Vinaya. It's possible he didn't do that anyway. If Dogen wanted to receive the Fort Park Vinny in China, he would have sent him to a precept master. Some Zen masters could give him, but anyway, Dogen didn't say that he got the Fort Park Vinny in China. Ruchi? Okay, is all still clear? Yes. This is, again, not completely clear, but when they got to China, Miao Zeng got off the boat right away, and Dogen had to stay on the boat for three months.

[66:56]

Is that right? Anybody remember? Stayed on the boat for a while. And one theory about why he stayed on the boat is because he didn't have the monk's ordination certificate. China wouldn't let him get off the boat because what are you doing? Do you have Bodhisattva initiation only? What's that? Are you a spy? So if you've got a monk's ordination paper, they've got your social security number and everything. They've got your credit cards. So they know who you are. They know where you got ordained. They know who your family was. It's all written down, the dates and all that. This is part of government control at the customs. They let him off the boat, and I don't, but, and so we're not clear. Did he do something, some kind of like forged documents or what? Saying he did get it? Anyway, somehow, by whatever, he was an aristocrat. Somehow he got off the boat. But there's no record that he got that ordination.

[67:57]

Maybe he did, maybe that's what he had to do to get off the boat. And maybe, if he did do that, maybe he did that just to get off the boat. Because maybe in his heart thought, I don't like these precepts. Maybe already he's kind of like, maybe when he was a little boy on Mount Tien Tai, on Mount Hiei, in that Tendai environment, maybe he kind of thought, yeah, the Fort Park Indian really is like antithetical to the progress towards Buddhahood. I don't like it. Their tongue sort of bought it when he was a little kid, 13 years old, right? I want to be a bodhisattva monk. I don't want to get into, like, promoting my own perfection. Maybe that's what happened. So when he got China, maybe he did some deal, made some compromise to get off the boat. But apparently he never stood up and wrote down a piece of paper that we have saying, I love the four-part Vinaya.

[69:00]

I received it. This is my thing. But he did say Bodhisattva precepts are big-time helpful. Lots of merit there. And he also, as I mentioned over and over, he did say that four-part Vinaya really was a big mistake for Bodhisattvas. It's of some merit. But first class of Buddha's disciples are 47. They receive those precepts. And they don't get involved in the four-part thing if you said that. It appears in The Merit of Leaving Home, and it appears in the 37 Wings of Enlightenment. Shukke Tokudo, and there's a I think they did. But they had a different, they do the lay precessions.

[70:10]

That was their ordination. There's two parties. But it was different. So the monks would do the other one. So lay and priest, lay and monk in China were different. But in Japan, if I didn't mention this, in Japan, Bodhisattva precepts, same precepts to the monks and the lay people. Same precepts. And precepts were 58 precepts. Amongst the 58 precepts were lay people. The difference was that, according to the Tendai school in Japan, the difference was The monks, after, at the time of receiving the precepts, shaved their heads, put on the robe, and entered the monastery. And they trained monastically. Supposed to have trained for 12 years, monastically. But they did not have the Fort Park Binion to help their training. And they did not have, which we'll bring up later, the monastic regulations of Sung Dynasty Zen monasteries to help them practice. You have thousands of monks up there training monastics, but no rules for their, no specific rules for their conduct, personally, just rules for how to be compassionate.

[71:31]

So, and then they tried, you know, Saito said, no, for Pardvenia, do not let that place, you cannot do that here. And this is, to some extent, you could interpret this as a power trip, because down the road at Nara is where they give those precepts. They wanted to have their own precepts so they could have their own school. And I'd like to point out again, Dr. Shakyamuni, if you don't put out precepts, your teaching tends to disperse. When you put out the four-part Vinaya, it makes a long-lasting teaching still going on. Put out the Bodhisattva precepts, Saito put it out there, very powerful. It made a new school. All the other schools, pretty soon the Rinzai people had to go to, the Rinzai Zen people had to go to Mount Hiei to get the Bodhisattva precepts. So it became this very powerful school because they had precepts. You'll see one more step of this. And so he said, no, Fort Park, Guinea here, because there would be a dependency on the place where they had a real tradition in Fort Park, Guinea.

[72:39]

So they wouldn't let them into Mount Hiei. So they couldn't use, and that had authority. That had tradition from India, China, and hundreds of years of Japan, Fort Park, Guinea. Is that clear? The liaison didn't want that poor practice. They wanted independence. Okay? Which they got. And then they took over. And then the monks there, they were practicing with these boys up at the priesthood, but no monastic regulation and so on. So then they realized there was some problems here. Like, for example, armies of monks. I mean, some of the people in those armies probably thought, what am I doing? Can you imagine what else those armies of monks did besides carry those spears? Do you think maybe they stopped the mutants, perhaps? What else do you think they did when they got down the hill into the city with all that interesting stuff down there? They probably did some other stuff, but there's no precepts against it, clearly. Like bodhisattvas should not misuse sexuality.

[73:40]

The Brahmajala Sutra does not say, no sex. It says, no greedy sex. So as you go down the hill into the city and you're going by the house of prostitution, say, I'm totally relaxed now. I'll leave this in my spirit. And here I go with like enhancing you, bringing blessings to this environment. Whereas the four or five minutes, it actually specifies, do not go into houses of prostitution. Do not do that. Do not. Do you promise to take care of the precept? Yes, I do. And you can be, like, relaxed about this, but that's the precept. And your teacher says, I understand you went into houses of prostitution yesterday. What was your understanding of that? We have a policy against that, right? Well, there's not even a policy, and if you don't even bring it up. So anyway, they also want, so they try to make up some new rules, and they did, but they never stuck because they were like just made up on the spot, and they were arguing about the China.

[74:45]

They didn't have a tradition, so they tried at various times to set up training things for their monks, but it was a weak thing for them. It was weak. So that became a big weakness of Kendai, the big reason why Esai left Makiye. and liked China because he liked that he actually had some monastic regulations to work with. And also, when Dogen went to China, he also liked the monastic regulations. He didn't like the Fort Park Vineyard, but he loved the monastic regulations. And in fact, when Eisai came back and Dogen came back, Eisai came back to the Fort Park Vineyard, Dogen came back with monastic regulations, both of those schools became strong four precepts, and they transmitted the Bodhisattva precepts, but there was heat in the Bodhisattva precepts because of the matriculation. They were grounded in dealing with specifics. So you couldn't just, like, you could be held to account.

[75:50]

Anyway, Dogen went there, met Ru Jing, received transmission, went back to Japan, and somewhere along the way, he started to give Bodhisattva precepts. The Bodhisattva precepts he gave have not been seen anywhere else on the planet so far. Now someone may dig up some archaeology and find them under deep down into Raja Peak, the Vulture Peak, in Raja Giriha. They may find it there, these 16 Bodhisattva precepts, and that would be like a big deal for us, right? At last, we are the truest school. All this other stuff is derivative. But anyway, the way he, the Bodhisattva precepts, as he transmitted 16 great Bodhisattva precepts, there's no other place to see them in the history of Buddhism, and that's our school. And what are the 16 Bodhisattva precepts?

[76:56]

They are three refuges, which are part of all the other ordination processes, probably, throughout Buddhism. So when you receive the four-part Vinaya transmission, either as a lay person or as a priest, before you would receive these precepts, you would receive the three refuges. And you probably would receive the three pure precepts. And if you're in an ayana environment, you probably receive bodhisattva vows. Okay? And then you receive precepts. But no place that I've seen so far are those fundamental, in some sense, the fundamental precepts of Buddhism, are they called part of the precept package. But in Sutta Zen, shortly after, around, during time, or right after, those three Fundamental things of Buddhism become the first three of our Bodhisattva precepts. This is not seen anyplace else. The next three Bodhisattva precepts are the three pure precepts, which are seen all over China and India.

[77:59]

And we're in Japan, too. But again, those first, those in India, they're way back in the, you see the roots way back in Dhammapada. Although they're there in the Buddhist teaching, they were not part of the Vinaya. They weren't part of the four-part community in particular. But before you received the four-part community, you would receive those three pure precepts possibly as 10 different schools that had different proceedings. Is this clear so far? And then come the 10 what we call grade prohibitory precepts, the heavy prohibitory precepts. And those 10 are the 10 major precepts of the Brahma, Jal, and Sutra. So among the 58 precepts that Dogen received and that the Tendai monks received, he took the first 10. Actually, I'm not saying he took it. But our thing takes the first 10. So that's the 47 precepts part we have. So we add those up, we get six feet. This set of precepts is unprecedented as far as we know so far.

[79:03]

We do not know where they came from, various theories. But what I'd like to say at this point, which I think is really important, is because of this unusual precept package, there is this thing called Soto Zen. The teachings of Soto Zen have gone on, and are still going on, because they had their own precepts. If they didn't have their own precepts, if Dogen students would have gone to Hieizan to get the Bodhisattva precepts, which were good enough for him, And then he would have been just a very, whatever, kind of innovative teacher who had a Rinzai, who had a Soto transmission in China. But the institution of Soto Zen probably would never have lasted because he didn't have these precepts. And his precepts, if they were the same as some other thing, even if he gave them, so that's, like it, dislike it, have questions with it or not, you can see that maybe this is one of the key factors in the vitality of this,

[80:11]

individual wordings. It's kind of like a mutation that makes a new species of religion and allows it a clear, like, skeleton to hold up the other. Yeah. I have a question about the pre-cure precepts. In China, they knew about the pre-cure precepts. There's different interpretations. In India, the Bodhisattva, they have these three ethical principles. One was called Pratimoksha Samgara Shiva. So Pratimoksha are these, actually like these rules for personal conduct in a community. Pratimoksha. That which is conducive to enlightenment. The fourth part, Vinaya, is a Pratimoksha. So that's Pratimoksha, Sambhara, the discipline of that kind of regulations and ceremonies, regulations and ceremonies for personal conduct.

[81:22]

So the precepts of discipline in regulations and ceremonies. That's the first pure precept in Gaudi Mahayana in India. And it's exactly what we have in Soto Zen for our first three precepts. Okay? The second one is Kusala Dharma Sangraha Siva. Or even Kusala... dharma, samgraha, sambhara, but I can't believe sambhara. So kushala means wholesome dharma, things. Samgraha, gathering together the wholesome things. Precept of gathering together all the wholesome things. Okay? That's the second one. The third one is I think either sattva or sarva sattva. Kriya. Shiva.

[82:27]

In other words, all Sattva beings create, maturing or developing Shiva, the precept of maturing all beings. So that doesn't sound the same as avoid evil, practice good, purify the mind. But within Mahayana Buddhism, it's more or less parallel because this is a pod, this is a disciplinary, this is a perceptual way of relating to avoiding evil. Rather than say avoid evil, you say do these practices. If you practice these rituals and ceremonies, these regulations and ceremonies, you will avoid evil, as you've noticed, right? And as soon as you don't practice those precepts, you are questioning about me. Right? And so the second one sounds exactly the same, doing all good. The third one, for a bodhisattva, the way to purify your mind is to serve beings. So, those three, they're very closely related, except the way we put them, the way they were put in Mahayana Buddhism,

[83:36]

So there was a Dhammapada, and the way they were putting Mahayana Buddhism in treatises by a Sangha and Bhaktivinoda and so on, and the way that they were transmitted to the Zen school in China. If you look at the Sixth Ancestor, that's the way he talked about those three. And then in Soto Zen, in our precept thing, it doesn't, it says, in Japanese it says, it says, litsu gi kai, Ritsu, Gi, Kai, Setsu. Setsu, Ritsu, Gi, Kai, Ritsu, Gi, Kai, Setsu, Setsu, Gi, Kai. So Ritsu means the basic laws, the regulations. And then Kai is like the precepts. Excuse me, isn't Kai? Excuse me. It really is like the regulations. Gi is a ceremony, a ritual.

[84:39]

Like, you know, mudras and other ritual practices like mudras, like the mudra of sitting meditation, the mudra of gassho, the mudra of bowing, the mudra of orioke, the mudra of entramizando, the mudra of all the different shapes and forms that we take in our rituals in the monastery. But also any non-monastic situations, the rituals and ceremonies you go through, that's the gi. So it's ritu, the regulations, gi, the ceremonies, kai, the precepts. The precepts are rituals and ceremonies. Or the precept, the shila, of pratyamoksha. Pratyamoksha is, part of pratyamoksha is regulations for conduct, and another part of pratyamoksha is ceremonies. like the way you wear your robes, the way you cross your legs, the ceremonial conduct of a yogi. And then the other part of the Vinaya, or the Patimoksha, I should say, is regulations, like don't steal, don't kill, and so on.

[85:46]

Does that make sense? Are you waning? Huh? Anyway, so Vinny doesn't mean precepts. Vinny is like the whole literature, which contains the list of precepts. But Vinny also has stories, like I just told you, about how these precepts were set up, how the precepts grew, things like that. Did I answer your question? Yeah. And Amy asked a question, which I think is important. So your question was, what does it mean to receive the precepts, or something like that? Pardon? What's your question? Well, it can be a lot of things. It could be a seeking, greedy act, trying to get power. It could be an act of selfless giving.

[86:46]

It could be anything. But ideally, I think the point is that precepts is down a parameter. It's giving. It's a process of giving where there's no sense of anything being given. And the thing is that really there's no sense of being given. It's the precepts. Is there some question that I need to address? It's basically giving, and it's giving of this thing called precepts. And I think in the Buddhist, in the enlightened sense, it is this appropriate response. So you don't give precepts to people who aren't ready for them. So the Buddha can tell when somebody is ready for the precept. But yeah, it happens. So it's in the response between being. But again, I don't know if that answers your question. He became ordained as a Zen monk by his intuition, received the precepts, but then decided to grow his hair out and not wear the robe anymore and, you know, try to help people as a businessman and as a musician.

[88:21]

But his spirit is still, I think, he still sees it as basically this is like he's still working for the welfare and salvation of beings. But having lunch with him one time, he said... kind of said, but I really don't have anything to give to people. So, like, the nice thing about precepts is you've given this thing which they can take care of, and you can actually give it to them and help them understand how to take care of it. So this, the material culture of Buddhism It's very important for the last part of the material culture is like verbal expression and whipping down documents about personal conduct and relationships. These things become things that you can build a community around. And in fact, the core of the community is the precepts issue. And he didn't have that in him. to give. So he's still trying to help people, but it's kind of amorphous. And if he helps people, it's like the early Buddhas, they enlightened these people, but that was it.

[89:26]

Those people didn't know how to enlighten anybody else. Because he didn't give them any kind of exercise program. He just did the thing and it was over. Everybody's happy. Let's go have lunch. Let's do this. Does that make sense? It looks like it does. Yeah. Right, so that's the advantage of giving precepts. Being a precept giver, the thing you give is something that the person can take care of. They have something that is concrete to work with. Yeah, that's the question. big question. So again, like I said, I'm not trying to talk you all into being priests and monks, but the advantage of becoming a person who receives these precepts, it takes care of them, it transmits them to somebody who will take care of them.

[90:32]

The advantage of that is it tends to make the teaching go on. And in some sense, like if you look at the priests of early Chinese culture were the people who took care of the bronze pots that they made. They took, you know, the height of their culture, the thing which lasts the longest besides a few phones and stuff, has these bronze supplements, bronze vessels, virtual vessels that they made 3,000 years ago. And so some people took care of those pots. They took care of how to make them. They transmitted the way to make them to other people. They were the priests of that culture. There's a culture of how to do those things. And now we have these, we have our precepts which are like that. So, some people feel, I know some people who are lay people who feel like if nobody else was transmitting the precepts, I would become a priest to make sure that they were transmitted because I think they're very important for our teaching.

[91:34]

But since so many other people are doing such a nice job, I don't have to do that. I'll just practice with the precepts and read people's minds and enlighten them. Unless somebody else holds religion together by taking care of these precepts. So, see, so we got, I think we got to a major point here, and that is understanding our ordination, our Bodhisattva precepts, are a particular Bodhisattva precept. So the book where it says, Zen Meditation, Bodhisattva Precept, really it should be Zen Meditation and Bodhisattva Precepts, the Japanese Soto Zen lineage. It's not Bodhisattva Precepts throughout China. Millions of Chinese people receive Bodhisattva Precepts, which are not the Bodhisattva Precepts. They take refuges, they take the Free Free Precepts, and they receive the refuges and receive the Free Free Precepts, but their Borisov initiation is 10 plus 48. And when we were in China recently, as far as I could tell, from the ordination situation we saw there, they're still doing this.

[92:39]

lay novice full ordination followed by bodhisattva precepts in three phases. And actually, when I believe it was one monetary visit that they would first do the lay ones and then do the full ones. No, they first do the novice ones. They have a novice, these people would come and it would be the novice ceremony. And they would do, then they would do the full ceremony. They would do novice vinaya precepts, full vinaya precepts, and then bodhisattva precepts. And you would do that in a month. Thank you.

[93:10]

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