And we're going to talk about concentration and meditation. And next week we'll talk about wisdom, or Grace will talk about wisdom, or prajna. So these are like three, like a tripod, three pillars of practice. I have put a few handouts on the shoe rack, but I also have more here. For next week. Do you want to hand them out now? Yeah. Let's see how they go around here and then I know there's some there too. And the way we'll do it tonight is like we've done the last two times.

[01:12]

I'll start off talking about precepts and what we read last week. And then we'll have a discussion. And that'll take the first half of the class. And then we'll talk about meditation, the practice of meditation. And then we'll have a discussion. So kind of two parts to the class with two discussions. And Grace will lead the discussions. So first of all, is there anything, any carryover from last week, any questions or thoughts that you might have had? Well, I thought Michael's questions were important ones, and I felt like the discussion may have been somewhat incomplete or misleading. And as far as I know, unless something has changed, Buddhism relates more to science than it does any kind of theology or idea of authority of another or God creating us.

[02:16]

And that we're self-created, and self and object arise together, and that's creation. And that as far as now soul goes, And there's various principles that support these realities, such as the law of causality, which is a real fundamental principle of Buddhism, which states that there is no soul and there is no being that lives after we die and then kind of falls into another body and that what actually what it's about is that we have all these influences on things around us and forms that are created

[03:32]

after us. Well, action influence or karma. I mean, there's just a lot of... I mean, I know we don't want to get into the whole... I mean, we could have whole classes on what we have before about the Alaya Vishnana or the ideation store, all these things. It's like so complicated. Anyway, I just wanted to say something. about that or talk about it more in that way, at some point. I agree. I felt the same way. And I wanted to say so, if I just remind you, Mike brought up the question in relation to his mom. He had to explain to her, well, what does Buddhism think about God? And what was the other one? Was it about the soul? About the soul. About the soul. And so he wasn't quite sure what he should tell her. The one thing is when they talk about, when Buddhists talk about God in the way that the Christians think about it, they use the word creator God.

[04:42]

Because in Buddhism there are a lot of gods who are kind of like spirits and there's a whole god realm of beings who are gods, who don't exactly have bodies but they have spirits. Don't ask me to go into more detail about it. But there are many gods in the god realm in Buddhism, but in the Christian sense, it's a little different. In Buddhism, they call it a creator god. And as far as I can tell, Buddha never said that there is no such thing as God. All he said was that there's nothing that had been presented to him that would make him think that there was such a thing. There had to be, yeah. Right. So it's kind of a crafty way of handling the problem. He doesn't say no, but he offers several arguments why it might be misleading to think that there is such a thing. And you can look in the sutras and you can find those.

[05:44]

But he never comes flat out and says there is no such thing as a creator-god. And the same thing with the soul. He never comes flat out, as far as I know, and I may be wrong, but he never says there is no such thing as a soul. He just says, I certainly can't find one, can you? And that's the gist of what his teaching is. But what he says in the first sermon about, I remember when I was a man in such and such a time, in such and such a life, is also confusing to what follows later, because what he's talking about, to me, and I don't think I'm the only one who hears this, is transmigration of the soul from one existence to another. He says, I was a man in such and such a place, and I had such and such a karma, and then I was reborn here, and I was reborn there. It's in the First Sermon, it's in the handout. So, while the soul in some way is empty, always changing.

[06:46]

He also uses it in a way that was conventionally used at the time in his first sermon. So it's a little bit neither here nor there. But talking about transmigration of a soul, I'm not the misleading part of it. Well, what does he say in that first sermon? I mean, we've got it here in the first hand now. Well, remember what I said at the beginning was that their definition of a soul and the way they're using the word soul is something which is unchanging and permanent. That was what people, when they used the word soul, meant. And nowadays, we don't necessarily think like that when we use the word soul. So, like Mike's mother says, the word soul, she may not be thinking in those terms. And so, when Buddha was going through various lifetimes and remembering various lifetimes, there was a kind of, in a sense, you could say there was a kind of continuity in that one lifetime affected another and it affected another, but it wasn't exactly the same.

[07:47]

It wasn't like this kind of essence which remained the same, it just was in a different body. And I think that's the really, you know, critical part. Yeah, I think one of the things is, in seeing it in historical context, had to do with what the idea of the soul was at the time in India was that it had a particular caste, you know, and it was reborn to that same caste, So he was saying, I remember being a man in such and such a caste, in such and such a clan, and then I was here, and then I was there, so in a certain way refuting that, and yet buying in, in some way, to the idea that there was something that continued or affected. So it's very difficult. I think it's one of the, for me personally, one of the most difficult ideas to get clear on in the whole shmigega here and the whole deal we've got it's because I have some sense I mean my own personal outside of Buddhism senses I have some sense of life after life you know when I read those things I have some sense oh yeah that makes sense I could see that happening but I'm not sure what stays or what continues or if it's empty or if it's not it doesn't matter

[08:58]

But I'm not convinced that it doesn't happen either, and I don't know that anyone... I mean, we can argue about it in terms of Buddhist logic, but who comes back and tells us? So for that reason, as far as I can tell, he's never said there is no such thing. But he's certainly asked some pretty hard questions. Yeah. And also, it's like, so what if there were? Well, that would make a big difference, because it would mean that there was something that was just permanent. And this whole teaching is based on the idea that things are composited constantly, that there is nothing that you can just sort of pin down and say, this is it. Well, I don't know that it would mean that there's something permanent, because, for example, a soul could have various lifetimes and then end. It doesn't necessarily mean it's permanent. Yes, I think this word unchanging is really a little strong, because a child may go through stages from being an infant to an adolescent to an adult, and you say, well, that's Ron Nestor.

[10:02]

I, oh, no, no, no, Ron Nestor must be unchanging. Well, no. I mean, you change, but there's still a wrong nesting. But the definition, I'm just, you know, we have to sort of stay clear with it. Simple like indestructible. I understand what you're saying, but traditionally, going back to Buddhist time, what they meant when they used the word soul was something which doesn't change, and doesn't mean it doesn't change after three lifetimes, it just doesn't change at all, period. Yeah, okay, well we can say that we don't, you know, a Buddhist Definitions don't support that. They definitely do not support that concept of the soul. So on God then, on God he says that there is no creator. He doesn't say that. But a lot of people don't think of God necessarily as a creator. A lot of Christians don't think of it necessarily as a creator. They think of it more as a continuing force that sort of everything relates to. Well, then that's a different question.

[11:04]

The only thing I was talking about is the kind of the way that the word is usually and, you know, popularly used is it has a sense of a creator. But you're right, you know, you can have a different understanding and then that's a different question. So, okay, so to go back to that, he does say that there is no creator? He doesn't say that. He just says he... He can't find any reason to believe that there is. But he doesn't say that there isn't. We don't need to depend on the notion of a creator to understand our existence. We can understand our existence without it. But if you'd like to have one, if you look at dependent origination, to some people that's a pretty good notion of God, that all things arise in some way and are dependent on one another. Okay, let's move on to the next.

[12:08]

We're going to be thoroughly mucked up. Let's go. No, it's good. It's good. I still feel like it's not so clear. You still feel it? Yeah. I feel like it's not so clear. What you're gracing is that, yes, there is a soul. Or, yes, there might be a soul, but that's not... I don't know. I just... I'm going to wait and find out. I have trouble with the... It's like... somehow it creates some sort of schism with faith and these particular principles that we're studying here. Well, could it ever be clear? It's just a co-op. Could it ever be clear? It's a question. We can be clear on what the Buddha's teaching was. That's what we can be clear on. Maybe we don't understand it so well, but at least we can kind of try to understand what the teaching as presented to us is. Except for that digression in that first sermon. Well, but see that... It depends on how you look at it.

[13:11]

It's not necessarily digression. He's talking about rebirth, which is not necessarily reincarnation, which is not reincarnation, for that reason. Yeah, but if you took that out of all that we're studying, it would look different. That's true. And with it in there, it adds a little more. Yeah, so he may have been appealing at that time to the popular notions and using it. Yeah. It's true. It reminds me of the story about the man who came to Buda with, I think, ten or twelve questions about life after death, is there a soul, a lot of big theological questions. He wouldn't answer and told the story about a man who comes to a doctor with an arrow through him saying, cure me. But before you take the arrow out, I need to know who made the arrow, why it was shot, what it's made out of, where the tree grew, all these other things.

[14:15]

So Andrea's word, scientific, seemed apropos because his point seems to be that these questions don't lead to the diminishing of suffering. And that sort of gets back to the precepts. Nancy Schroeder used that image, the one you just brought up in her lecture on Saturday. About the person asking questions about the arrow. Yeah, Bob brought it up on Monday, too. But he also allows people to have their belief in God. Maybe it was Bob. Excuse me. It allows people to have their idea in God, if they would like to. And it does not exclude them from practicing Buddhism. And maybe that's where he leaves it open. And I don't know why we need to not do that.

[15:15]

No, we don't need to do that. the role as a lollipop now, it's the same and it's also different. And I think everyone here could think of experiences they had as themselves doing a similar thing, just sitting on a cushion, and how similar it feels, and also how different it feels. And that's, I think, addressing the basic principle in Buddhism that moment after moment we're creating, a universe is created, and a universe is dropped away.

[16:19]

You know, birth and death happen moment after moment. Alma, let us know how your mother takes all of that. You can give her the tape. Okay, so let's move on to the precepts. I picked this translation of the precepts because Fran used this last year, and I had it, and I like it because Kezan Benji presents the precepts in a way that's very non-dualistic. That's really what he's aiming at in the presentation of these precepts. Kezan, I have to admit, I didn't do my homework, and I was hoping maybe somebody, maybe Ross knows. Kezan was a, came after Dogen. in a lineage, but I don't know much more about him. Is anybody just briefly familiar with Kazon?

[17:21]

He may be the one who's in that Shikantaza book. Throw Yourself into the Grape, Komiyo's Ozomai, I think he might have written that, and maybe the only thing he wrote, other than maybe documenting things. He was one or two generations after Ozomai. I think he came right after him, and I think that that may be the one thing that he's known for, is that translation that we have in that book, Shikan Taza. something about the burning fire in the sky and throwing yourself into the great Komi Ozozuma. It's a wonderful, it's in that book Shikantaza. You know, you know who wrote that book. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he, well he did come right after Doug and he came a few generations after and he popularized then in Japan and that's So he put this together, and, you know, in looking at the precepts, you know, the first way they appear when you look at a list of them is like the rules, and you can look at them as rules, and, like, I shouldn't do this, or I should do that, as almost like kind of an external system,

[19:01]

And then you can also look at them as a practice. Don't kill. You can look at, you know, you could just tell yourself, don't kill, don't kill. But also you could ask yourself, maybe not verbally, but you could ask yourself, what does it mean? What does killing really mean in all the aspects of your life? And in all the subtle ways that it could happen every day, and not just like stepping on an insect, but more subtle forms. Maybe criticizing somebody in a way that sort of destroys something that they were presenting, or some feeling that they were presenting. There's various ways that you could look at the precepts in a more subtle way, according to your own life. So, you know, the precepts are kind of like a basis, you know, a basis of behavior, a kind of a framework that we can work within, and kind of like a set of guidelines.

[20:21]

And again, you can start off with these guidelines as rules, but you can take those rules deeper so that it becomes an actual practice itself. And I don't want to, you know, basically the precepts that are presented here are the three pure precepts and the ten great precepts or the ten prohibitory precepts. These are the basic ones that we work with, that we mostly come into contact with. And I don't, it's not really, I don't feel a necessity to go over each one of them in class. What I want to do more is just kind of present them as a body. And in a way they're kind of self-evident. They're self-evident until you go into them more deeply for your, personally.

[21:25]

And then, you know, questions arise. How do they work in your actual life? So what's interesting about the way that these are presented, and we use a version of this in our Bodhisattva ceremony once a month, is that what he's really doing is he's trying to get away from the point of view of, this is bad and this is good, and you should do this and you shouldn't do that. And he's trying to make it more less of an external force and more of an internal force, more something that's a product of your own relationship with your world around you rather than an external system that you're trying to adhere to. Which is not to say that that's necessarily bad, you know, you could have an external system which is helpful, but he's just going, he's taking it one step further.

[22:29]

So, for instance, do not steal. So the mind and its object are one. So he's basically saying, what is there to steal? If you're setting up yourself as being separate from the things around you, then there's a question of stealing. If you see how the things around you are just interrelated with yourself, then there's not really a question of stealing. So that's his solution. And if you look at each one of these little lines, that's what he's doing. For instance,

[23:34]

do not sell the wine of delusion, which is kind of a sophisticated way of saying don't become intoxicated. He's saying, you know, don't even set up the distinction between being wise and being deluded. There's nothing outside of yourself, so, you know, what is there to be deluded about? That's the kind of thing that he's doing. This is like the Zen approach to precepts, or the modern Soto Zen approach to precepts. I thought I'd read you the other side of it, which is the very strict approach to precepts. You know, there's a whole body of work called the Vinaya, which is an elaborate set of precepts and rules that were used for the monks from Buddhist time.

[24:46]

And people put a tremendous amount of energy and time into developing these and maintaining them and refining them and keeping track of them. And this is a work called the Pratimoksa Precepts, and in this work they divide the precepts into different categories according to seriousness. So the most important ones, such as Don't Kill, would be something like a bhikshu who kills a human being either with his own hands or by his instructions or at his instigation, or who is an accessory to the killing act, is said to commit a parajika sin. And then they go through that with the sexual misconduct, stealing, lying, actually those four.

[25:50]

And then the punishment These are the most serious classes of sins, these four. A monk, a bhikṣu is a monk, is an actual monk. And a bhikṣuṇī is a female monk, a nun. So the punishment for that class, if you violate those particular precepts, is the transgressor is as a needle without an eye, a broken stone which cannot be untied, a tree cut in two which cannot live, or a dead man. He is said to be completely defeated by the Buddhist religion and becomes a discomforter in all his lifetime. A bhiksu who commits a parajika sin involves his exclusion from the community. He is not permitted to re-ordinate in the Buddhist religion." So, basically, if a monk were to violate any of those precepts, he's out, or she's out.

[26:59]

That's very strict and very severe, and these are for monks. And then the next class of precepts which are less serious are such like, a bhikshu, I'll just read a couple of them, a bhikshu who acts as a matchmaker to arrange a marriage either legally in public or secretly in lewdness is said to commit asanga-vesa, sin. A bhiksu who builds his cell with the support of a donor is allowed to build it over and above the stated size, but he must first obtain permission from the abbot or sangha, and he has to build it at a place that has been indicated to him. If he does not do so, he is said to commit a sangha-vesa sin. So, for this category of transgression, number one, the transgressor has to confess his sin before his fellow bhikshus, not less than twenty in number, otherwise it is said that he is not absolved of his sin.

[28:09]

And two, the transgressor has to perform a manatha, a term of penance, to sit alone in a solitary place and to recite the prayer of repentance for seeking forgiveness for six whole nights. And then they go into a whole slew of, you know, very small type details. Could you give us like one example of some real minor thing? Yeah. Just to talk about how detailed they got. Oh yeah. If a bhikshu makes his bedstead or sleeping bench, he should make its legs stand eight inches in height, measuring from the beams to which the planks of a bedstead or a sleeping bench are nailed. If he makes the legs of his bedstead or sleeping bench higher than that, he is said to commit a prasikita sin. What do they do to make up for that?

[29:18]

that this prayasakita sin may be forgiven on confession in the assembly or before another or other bhiksu so that the transgressor may be purified. So just sort of saying that you did it is good enough. If a bhiksu sees a thing fall on the ground and keeps it for his own use, or gives it to another person, he is said to commit a sin. If a thing fell on the ground of the monastery or in a cell, he should keep it in order to give it back to the owner of whom he knows." And they also had interesting... I can't find it, but an interesting one was... that a monk should not go, if you hear a loud noise or a loud commotion, you shouldn't go track it down and see what it is. And also you should stay away from large herds of sheep or pigs. They're like the fire engines of that day, you know, interesting. Stay out of trouble. Yeah.

[30:23]

Don't do anything. Don't come near women. Yeah, I didn't read some of them. Yeah. That's true. There's a whole A lot of them have to do with men and women getting along together. I'd just like to read one more thing. This is from Ru Jing. This was Dogen's teacher. And Ru Jing's interpretation of the precepts was pretty... I mean, he saw it both ways. But he was pretty strict and also pretty detailed as he was running this large monastery.

[31:27]

Here's one. Do not go to hear clamoring and deafening noise or to see herds of pigs and sheep. Do not go to see large fish, the ocean, bad pictures, hunchbacks and the like. Or the ocean. Yeah, he didn't even want you to go see the ocean. That would be too exciting. What a thrill. It's sort of like not looking around at Sashimi. Forever. You must always watch green mountains and water in a deep gorge. You ragged monks who sit in meditation to pursue the way, you ought to keep your feet washed at all times. Well, we could have a lot of fun with this guy's obsessions. Okay. It would be interesting if Buddha had been, or Shakyamuni had been born in India. He might have had somewhat different teachings. Well, did you read, is that, you may have subconsciously been, there's actually that example in one of the books, I think it's,

[32:35]

Raul, what the Buddha taught maybe, or one of the books, I'm not sure, but he says just exactly that. That if we were to take this too literally, it would mean that the Eskimos would have to wear just saffron robes, and that they would be committing a sin if they were to put on furs. So that was the example I used. And lastly, I'd just like to comment on Rev's talk in here. This is interesting because this kind of brings it closer to home. And basically what Rev is saying is that In Zen centers, in modern American Zen centers, we've tended to downplay the precepts in favor of Zazen, meditation, and some amount of study. I don't know if it's a result of that, but it's sort of dying down now, but in the last ten years we've had waves of problems with ethics in Zen centers, mostly around sexual issues, but not only that.

[33:52]

And often, usually involving teachers. So, what he's saying in here is that we've tended to downplay that aspect of it. My own feeling is just because we find actually, we find precepts kind of constraining and kind of rule-oriented. They seem a little, at least the people who are interested in practicing Zen, it occurs to me that precepts seem a little dull, a little, like I said, constricting, not as sort of transcendental or liberating as sitting. That's what we think. And so we've tended to sort of not pay that much attention to them. And so he says in here that he begins to realize that actually they're really critical, and they're very important, and that we've missed something. And if we have that kind of understanding, if we make the precepts like second class to sitting,

[34:58]

Or if we think that just sitting will somehow encompass all the precepts automatically, and that we don't need to make a particular effort in the realm of precepts or morality, that we're really mistaken. I don't want to read too many quotes, but oftentimes teachers will say something like, In order to establish concentration, you should hold the precepts well. If you want to really understand concentration, you have to be able to have the stability, and I don't know what's the right word, sobriety or stability, that comes from keeping the precepts. So that's all I have to say if you want to say something about it. Let's refer questions to Grace.

[36:01]

So there seem to be different versions of the precepts. Is this the one here that we should particularly look to in learning precepts? Did you have another set that you preferred? No, I just thought, wasn't he reading from different precepts there? Isn't there another precept? I thought there was one that says something like, don't misuse sexuality. Yeah, we have many printed versions and it might be interesting to study as many as you could find and see which one speaks to you. Oh, okay. It could drive you crazy as well. Are they just different translations of the same thing, or are they different things? No, they're the same thing, but as they've traveled. I think as they've traveled, and also in Theravadan there are some that have been specifically for monks, and we've adapted them to lay life as well. So where you found them, you know, different translations and where they were historically and in what country.

[37:05]

But they were given the precepts. years of religious history and that a lot of the different things that might be selected out of that long history come from very different cultural traditions and very different times and some at the very beginning don't have the, and some at the end have a whole lot of changes that have been wrought on them as a result of all the passage of time. So, I mean, this is not... I think that one thing I'm interesting about sitting in this class is, you know, to study Buddhism sort of like as a... without really looking at the historical dimension, because the historical dimension just, I think, is really important. This practice has changed incredibly, and it's a...

[38:09]

And what we're doing presently in our practice is a product of this history. It was something that Mel really emphasized. Was it in the last session when you talked about it? I can't remember. But he said that when we get together with our Japanese ancestors, our practices become so different than theirs. It's like the ship has left the shore, and there's no way that they can be the same again. And one example he gave was the fact that men and women practice together, and the fact that in that practicing together, the women have positions above men, which could just never happen. So it has evolved, but there are some things that are fundamental then and now. And the precepts, basic precepts, still hold up pretty well. one student, we sometimes have this notion that our practice is derived directly from Shakyamuni Buddha or something like that.

[39:22]

And I think that the fact of the matter is that There have been many ebbs and flows in Buddhist history and much has been discarded and new elements have been added. I think there's sort of like a dispute going on between what you would call maybe academic perception, you know, kind of like a historical discussion of Buddhism, and what I would call, in this maybe argument, like a pious discussion of Buddhism, like discussion between a historian and a practitioner, and how it's viewed differently. Well, it's always been the case with Buddhism, and that's been one of the most wonderful things about it, that as it has traveled, it has changed, and there's always been this dialogue like, you know, an iceberg in the water, exchange, wherever it went. So I don't see, you know, what we're involved in as any different than what it was in the time of Buddha, when they would have these big meetings, you know, and sit down and really work out what really matters to us, what should we practice.

[40:30]

Let's give somebody else a chance to talk. I have a particular question about Kaizan's comment on do not be angry, which I've never really understood. There is no retiring, no going, no truth, no violence, a brilliant sea of So it seems like there's some beliefs that are necessary to encourage anger, which is that we're getting somewhere and there's something in our way. So if we look at there is no retiring, no going, there is no truth, no lie, then it's really hard to generate anger. What are you fighting? Does that make sense? Yeah, what about the clouds? I've wanted to ask this for months. I'll tell you what I do with it. I don't know if he meant it. It may be symbolical.

[41:31]

It may have been code for something else. But what I do with it is I just imagine a sea of clouds. If you're flying in a plane and you look down and you see these vast clouds, I just get that image in my mind. And being angry, against the backdrop of a huge panoramic of clouds just seems totally ridiculous. But I don't know if that's what they meant. Isn't that something to do with impermanence, too? Impermanence, yeah. Yeah, I think, too, and I also think about it's sort of clouds are an intersection between air and water. I mean, it's about changing form as well. You know, the impermanence and form. I mean, that's an image that comes to me, but I think that it would be interesting to really study what the translation You know, with the various translations. Yeah, because I think we say ornamented in the Bodhisattva system. We used to say something else. Somber. Yeah, it's one of those ones that we just can't quite get in English. One of the Bodhidharma's precepts is interesting.

[42:36]

I have it here. Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the selfless Dharma, not contriving reality for the self. It's called the precept of not indulging in anger. Can you read that again? Self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the selfless Dharma, not contriving reality for the self is called the precept of not indulging in anger. Yeah, if you create your own truth, then you have something to fight for. I just want to mention that Lois is reading Bodhidharma's version of the precepts are also very non-dualistic and light caisons and very good. Take a look at them if you get a chance. Where are those from? What book in the library? I don't know. Do you know this? Do you want to just, do you want to have a copy?

[43:54]

No, I have a copy, I've just been curious about where it's taken from. Are you going to say something, Grace? Well, yes, I was just going to say, I was brought up, I think, by most people that you can talk about actions, but we don't necessarily have much control over our emotions. So, you can say, do not kill, do not steal. But if you say, do not be angry, or do not covet, you're in a different realm. And, well, that's the way a lot of us were brought up. If you are not very enlightened and such, you may suffer from anger. And that's no excuse for killing someone or doing something bad. you're going to be a miserable sort of person if you keep berating yourself for having inappropriate emotions. Yeah. So there's been a big movement.

[44:56]

That's also a precept. Don't berate yourself. Yeah. I mean, they mix these up, the ones that are internal and the ones that are external. I do think that what they're saying is not that you need to suppress this emotion, but If you practice these ways, they won't arise in the same way. And if you follow these beliefs, and you do this practice, they won't arise in the same way. But there isn't anything in here that says, if you have this, you're a bad person. But I'd like to pick up on one thing. I mean, it seems to me the precepts are rather boring. And that's why people don't talk about them. I mean, it's not as saying, you shall not eat chocolate. That would really touch people. But if you say, be good, you say, how can I be good? And it's like the Ten Commandments.

[45:58]

Well, that was going to be my question, actually, for the discussion, is how are they different from the Ten Commandments? And I personally think one of the reasons we have so many issues is that some of us, many of us, come from a tradition that has presented this Ten Commandments to us, and we say, well, this is the same as what we left. And so I don't want this part, but I want the other part. But I don't know that I don't feel the same way about them as being the Ten Commandments. And I think when we study these three parts of Buddhism, morality, meditation and wisdom, the life, blood of morality, it becomes manifest to us. And the precepts arise from the practice of meditation and the wisdom that ensues, and then they all become linked. But when you look at them, your meditation can become more deep. And when you meditate and it becomes more deep, the wisdom that ensues, fosters the arising of the morality naturally.

[47:04]

It naturally comes forth. And so, as they come together, then it's more interesting. What's the approach that's different from, say, the Judeo-Christian? Thou shalt not. Yeah, it's Thou shalt not. Yeah. Yeah, the difference. Well, I thought this was pretty... Do not steal. Yeah. I mean, that's... Yeah, it's almost as strong. verify the ocean of ornamented clouds, all the second lines of all these precepts.

[48:12]

And that isn't, at least in conventional teaching of Judaism and Christianity, what's presented to us. We're only given the first line. And in studying Zen and your God, then your life functions in a more whole way, and you're just going with it rather than having this external force, which Ron was talking about at the beginning, this external thing beating down on you for watching. Yeah, I think with enlightenment as your teacher, there's something of both the meditation and the wisdom there. The wisdom involves that we all exist as one, so why would you hurt anything?

[49:14]

So out of the wisdom comes your understanding of how these make sense. But if you study them apart from that, then it sounds like the other. So I think the difference between this and the Ten Commandments is you've given the Ten Commandments and said, do this and believe this. And in Buddhism you're told, sit down, and practice, and you don't have to believe anything. You can figure these things out. You can experience these things. You ready to start? with. I've been sitting Zen for some time, but before I sat Zen, I was in fundamental Christianity for many years. And the whole idea of the Ten Commandments, even within Christianity, there was a fundamental split between the Ten Commandments and living in a different realm, which in that view of the

[50:26]

the spirit directing their lives. And it's interesting to me that I think if one separates either apart and looks at them individually, there is a potential danger there of not really seeing what it is. And when I read Rep's speech, I immediately flipped over into the, wait a minute, kind of a reaction because I had seen people who focused tremendously on the laws after having experienced the spirit side of things and somehow lost touch with the spirit and were trying to enact the laws. It doesn't matter if you're reading the precepts or if you're reading the Ten Commandments. I'm sure every day if we sit down and go through them there's numerous transgressions for every one of us. And I'm still very interested in how to carry on my meditation practice and yet bring the aliveness of the precepts into them so that I can balance the two off because I'm

[51:43]

I'm painfully aware on some level of what happens if you go off on either end. And for a long time I resisted studying in Buddhism because of that. And I'd like to know more as we go on, what comes out of your own personal practice, because it would be instructive to me. Yeah, I think that's how we're moving. I am interested in words. I'm not actually very comfortable with words, but I... partly because I'm too aware of them. But I'm interested in words and their meaning and how people use them. And they're often indicative of... they can teach you a lot.

[52:51]

Why words are as they are. So I thought I'd just start with some words, these words meditation, zazen, zen. The word meditation, the English word meditation usually is used in the sense of like to ponder, like to ponder something. The definition I found was something like, a definite focusing of one's thoughts upon something so as to understand it deeply. So that's what, in the West, when we use the word meditation, that's technically what's meant, is that you're focusing on something and contemplating it and becoming really familiar with it. And that's a little different than what we do.

[53:55]

because we don't necessarily have an object of focus. We can have a method. We can follow our breathing. There's other methods that we can use. You could have a koan. But it's not the same. It's not as if you're not trying to solve It's not like taking a particular subject and investigating it. Although, there is Buddhist meditation that does incorporate that, and we'll talk about that. It's not out of the question. But in the kind of meditation that we do here, when we talk about zazen, that's not what we're talking about. It's not that we have a subject and we're investigating the subject. It's more like our entire experience is the subject. And we may have a method of concentration, but we're not fixed on a particular subject. And traditionally, when the word meditation is used in the West, that's what they mean.

[55:00]

So, in Buddhism, the original word that meant meditation, that was used, well, this word Bhavana means something like mental culture or mental development. That's maybe the closest. Not so much like you have a project. that you're making, not like you're turning your mind into a project, but development in the sense of growing or enriching, cultivating. Cultivation might be a good way of saying it. In India, the word jhana, which we talked about the jhanas, jhana meant absorption. And that's a word they used for meditation, for zazen. And from the word jhana, which meant absorption, in China, that became Chan.

[56:13]

And when Chan went to Japan, that became Zen. Just a progression of words. And so now to Zen America, we have to come up with something. So it has to be something that sounds a little bit like Zen. but that has the feeling, you know, that has some kind of the feeling of what Sangha Center Meditation is about. So, I thought maybe we should call it ON. ON? O-N? Yeah, ON. ON, O-N. So it would be Jhana, Chan, Zen, ON. It seems like there's a relatively good progression there. And it's nice. It's got a nice rhythm. So we could be at the Berkeley On Center. Yeah. To be turned on. Yeah. Yeah, it's a little dualistic, you know, when you think about being on.

[57:16]

Well, on means to be in contact with, so that's a good, be in contact with. So, anyway, that's my suggestion for American Zen. A new movement is arising. Remember that you heard it here. First. Send in 695. Also we use the word shikantaza, which is the meaning of just sitting. And this is a particular Soto Zen approach. The meaning of it is just sitting. Just sitting without without trying to accomplish something. It's just sitting. And technically speaking, Shikantaza would mean not even using a method.

[58:20]

In other words, if you're following your breath, you know, and you're counting your breath, technically that's not really Shikantaza. Shikantaza is just sitting and Concentration maybe on posture would be about it, but it's just sitting without anything extra, without any particular method other than just your posture. And the literal translation of Shikantaza means only taking care of upright sitting or single-minded intense sitting. And this is what Dogen was promoting. And from Dogen's... Do you all know who Dogen is? Am I assuming? I'm sorry. Master Dogen lived from about 1200 to 1265, I believe. And he was the... 1263? He died of tuberculosis.

[59:37]

It was sad. Anyway, he was only 53. And he was responsible for bringing the form of Zen that we practice from China to Japan and then spreading it through Japan and establishing it there. And really, the practice that we practice is in Dogen's lineage, Master Dogen's lineage. So he's kind of the person that we most immediately look back to as establishing the format and the kind of approach that we use. And Master Dogen's big thing was dropping off body and mind. That was his kind of mantra. It was dropping body and mind. So that's a good way to understand Shikantaza.

[60:40]

Just sitting. It isn't dropping. Dropping your body and dropping your mind. Just sitting. Pretty messy, isn't it? No, you're supposed to drop off your body and mind at the dry cleaners. You don't need them in Uganda. It would be very beautiful, though, if Lozendo was full of all these bodies and minds, just on the floor. That would be kind of nice. I remember in my day, I saw a cartoon, like, Larson once, and it was this ranch, and it was the boneless chicken ranch. All these chickens were flocking around on the ground. Well, what a time the Jikitos were to have. Cleaning them off. So, going back to the handout, the points that Rahula makes, just from what the Buddha taught, are that meditation is not an escape, and that its emphasis is on our daily life, which is what we practice here.

[62:02]

And it's true, we can use Mike's mother as the archetypical example of the person that wants to know what Zen is all about, but they don't really know. If you bring up the word meditation to somebody in this culture and they don't know anything about it, they feel it's a little weird. It's almost like they don't quite want to talk about it, because they think it may be something kind of strange. and otherworldly and maybe that it's, you know, you do strange ritualistic things and they're not included somehow. So I always enjoy talking about meditation to people that don't know anything about it, just as to show them that it's completely harmless and really very basic kind of life activity and not something that's a cult. But that is a standard kind of an approach. And as time goes on, I think that it actually, you know, if you use the word meditation now, especially in California, compared to like 30 years ago, it's a very different situation.

[63:11]

And we'll see what happens to the rest of the country. Also, he makes the point that it's not a matter of developing special powers, which you could look at, and also many people have in the past. We don't get into that so much here. But there are people, and there have been times in history when people have just been intent on using meditation as a way of developing power. Wasn't this the Hindu tradition, the yogis? Yeah, and that's partly what Buddha was getting at in that first, when his first sermon, I believe it was, when he was talking about his enlightenment, just he had, he left, that's what they were engaged in partly, the ascetics, was they were developing mental powers, but it wasn't enough. There's a quotation in Zen, I forget who the teacher was, but somebody asked this teacher who was sort of like a hermit type, who was a very well-known and very famous teacher, what are your special powers?

[64:13]

What are your special powers and what special powers have you developed after a lifetime of Zen? And he said, my special powers lie in carrying water and gathering firewood. Then Rahula sort of goes off and starts talking about cleansing, which may be a little uncomfortable. The Buddhist bhavana, properly speaking, is mental. It aims at cleansing the mind of impurities and disturbances. such as lustful desires, hatred, ill will, and so forth. So this, you know, you can't, I wouldn't say that that's untrue necessarily, but the feeling that that creates is one of, we're trying to get very pure and get rid of all the bad stuff and make ourselves real clean. And that always presents a problem. You're back in the same old trap of you know, getting rid of the bad and trying to get the good.

[65:16]

And your mind is, you're just trapped in your mind's version of what you think is good and what you think is bad. But, if you can just get beyond that, there is a refining, there is a purification that happens in sitting. One of the books by one of the Japanese teachers is called Refining Your Life. It's true. There is refining in life. It's just that we don't need to be too worried. We don't have to be afraid or scorn the dirt as we do our refining. Yeah, it occurs on its own. The refining occurs. It's like meditation is a refining. So we don't have to make it be that. I have to say that's all that it is. I'm looking confused because you said there's a popular notion that people who are practicing meditation are in some sense trying to become pure or holy.

[66:31]

Did I mishear you? A little bit. I said the popular notion is they're not quite sure what you're trying to do. They just know that it's a little bit odd or funny. No, but then more recently. The way that Waruula was presenting it here. Yeah, and people have approached it like that. But isn't that exactly what we've just said with the precepts? That that's what the precepts are for? Well, it depends. It's not so much that it doesn't occur, that it's not so much that there isn't a purification process or a refining process, it's that How do you look at that process? Do you look at it as we're going to cleanse ourselves of all the bad stuff, and that's bad stuff we want to push away, and we only want the good stuff? Well, those are your words, but I mean, there are these precepts we've just been talking about, and they more or less say, be good.

[67:33]

That's true. Now, that's very different from traditions which say, get to know yourself dirt and all and don't try and repudiate your dark side be aware that you are a mess and you are part good if you like and part bad that you will have lusts and you mustn't be trying to get away from that or you will covet So, I mean, I think we have some very different traditions. Some are going for purity and others are going for knowledge. But they occur within our tradition. Both occur. The precepts are given. And I think one of the reasons is because there are so many Dharmagates. Some people enter our practice looking for a way to practice morality. and others are interested in a more transcendent.

[68:34]

And so there's these various ways to enter, but they do come together. But there are places where a tradition does say just what you said, and it also says, you know, don't slander. So that's part of what we're doing is looking at them in a part and also together. Okay, but I was just trying to say that it seems to me the popular notion that you were just studying is pretty accurate. It's not a caricature, really. But it's only a piece of the elephant, you know. Yeah, it's accurate at some points or not. I wouldn't say it's accurate for our practice here, but there are places... I mean, Buddhism, just like any other religion, encompasses a vast array of different approaches. So there are places where There is that attitude, and here, not so much. Actually, that's Mel's big point.

[69:39]

Don't try to screen out the bad and separate the good out over here and the bad over here. It just won't work. But isn't there a huge difference between knowing your covetousness and not coveting? The precepts don't say, know your covetousness. Well, it depends whose version of the precepts you're reading, too. Okay, well, the ones we've read today. Well, they do say that. They do say that. When they talk about not stealing, they say, you know, with your mind, if you know that all is one, why would you do that? So it's about knowing. But I think Kathy had her hand up again. It may be that it's been said that, well, Buddhism will cleanse you of these tendencies.

[71:04]

But I think that Buddhism won't cleanse you of these unethical or immoral acts by simply prohibiting them. Buddhism provides a practice, a method, a way in which, when true nature or reality to these practices or breaking these precepts. And I think that's one of the... I think that a lot of things like, you know, people, like it says here, some people have practiced in order to be able to see out of their ears, you know, some people have practiced in order to be able to levitate. I mean, people practice TM, for example, Transcendental Meditation, because in order to be able to levitate. People have all sorts of follow them, I think that it's more like this is what emerges from your practice, from your self-training.

[72:36]

Let's keep on going. Just keep on going? No, let's keep on going. You're hearing with your eyes and seeing with your ears. I think, just to get the last word in there, that what you're saying is true. It's just that there are, within Buddhism, there are a wide variety of approaches. And as long as you can see that there's these different kinds of approaches, then I feel comfortable. And what you're saying applies to some of those approaches, but not to others. And that's just my feeling about it.

[73:47]

So, also we come up against the word concentration. Concentration, as you understand, I'm sure, is focusing on one thing, single-minded focus, state of being firmly fixed, one-pointedness of mind. And the jhanas are really traditionally, in traditional Buddhism, in the oldest forms of Buddhism, the jhanas are the epitome of concentration practice. And they had... various techniques that they could use to develop concentration. The one we use mostly is just following breath. But they had a whole slew of techniques that they could use. The most well-known one was they would draw little colored circles with different colored clay on the ground and then they would stare at that piece of clay and they would have

[75:04]

It's almost like TM, like they'd get their own particular color of clay depending on their personality, you know, like you get your own mantra depending on what kind of person you are. So then you'd get your own kind of color of clay and you'd sort of look at it and stare at it and that would be your way of developing concentration. You can divide meditation up into two different aspects. Also, when we use the word samadhi, we mean concentration. When you say somebody's in samadhi, a state of samadhi, it's a totally concentrated state. Not having experienced it, I can't speak from experience, but as I read, it's a state where It's a oneness, a state of oneness.

[76:09]

Hard to talk about because we're talking with dualistic words, but if you say somebody's in samadhi, it's a state of perfect concentration where there's not an observer. Usually we have some sense of the observer, but in the state of samadhi, apparently, there is not a sense of the observer. The observer dissolves. So you can look at meditation in terms of two aspects. One is the concentration aspect, and the other is the insight aspect. And this is not how we practice it here. This is more like the pasana practice. But I think it's important to know and understand, and actually we do, although we don't describe our practice in this way, it's what actually happens, that the insight

[77:24]

part of meditation. Grace will talk about this more next week. But the insight part of meditation is seeing reality in your sitting. If you keep, if you're obsessing about something, if you're, something just won't, you can't let go of something, it keeps coming up over and over again for years and years, to see, to at least have a sense of how that's working, how you're creating that, how it's creating suffering in yourself. To see that process, even though it's still, you're consumed by the process, at the same time to be able to have an awareness of that process, to see how that process is creating suffering in you, that involves insight. or if you feel some sadness because you've lost somebody that you loved. You may feel very sad and depressed. At the same time, you could have some awareness of how that's part of that things change, and this is part of life.

[78:32]

And you could see that aspect in that feeling of depression and loss. So, these are two aspects of meditation practice. There are kinds of meditation practice where you can focus on subjects of insight, you can meditate on impermanence, or you can meditate on suffering, and we don't do that. But somehow it seeps in. We don't focus on that. It's a part of our experience. We can't help it. And I think it's just helpful, it's interesting to see meditation or to see zazen in those two aspects and see how they kind of go together. In here, this is like, he takes the kind of more traditional uh... status quo kind of view which is that uh... first you need to establish concentration and then you that out of concentration arises insight and there's some logic to that but the way we approach it is

[79:55]

is that they both go together. That's just our particular approach to that. In the Platform Sutra about the Sixth Patriarch, he has a whole chapter about that. I'll just read you a small part of it. First of all, this is by Master Wa in San Francisco, Gold Mountain Temple. So this is a quote from the sutra. The master instructed the assembly, good-knowing advisors, this Dharma door of mine takes concentration and wisdom, or insight, as its foundation. Great assembly, do not be confused and say that concentration and wisdom are different. Concentration and wisdom are one substance, not two. Concentration is a substance of wisdom. Wisdom is the function of concentration.

[80:59]

I'll read that again. Concentration is the substance of wisdom. And wisdom is the function of concentration. Where there is wisdom, concentration is in the wisdom. And where there is concentration, wisdom is in the concentration. If you understand this principle, you understand the balanced study of concentration and wisdom. And so wisdom, in the way we talk about it, has some complexities, and I'll leave that for Grace next week. But we're just talking about wisdom in the sense of insight here, and those dual aspects of concentration and insight going together. Part of insight practice is the practice of mindfulness, and mindfulness is paying attention.

[82:13]

And this last part of the handout is the Satipatthana Sutra, and maybe you should write... I should have titled it, but I didn't, so maybe you might write this on the top. of page 9 to say Satipatthana Sutra. What are we going to say? You don't know Sanskrit? No. They call it Sutra. What? I know. We're going to say Sutra. So we're going to say what? We're going to say Sutra. S-A-T-I. It's on page 7. Is it? Yeah. Satipatthana. We say sutra, but sutra is a palanquin. So that's what this is on this last page.

[83:19]

This is the Satipatthana Sutra on page 9. And it's a sutra of mindfulness. This is something, you know, we're always saying, well, I understand zazen and sitting in the zendo, but what do I do when I go out in the world? Well, this is what you do when you go out in the world. And you can also do this in the zendo, only in a more subtle way. And this is really an important sutra to read. Everybody should know this, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh has a a good translation and there are other translations in the library. We sell it on the table after tea. And just basically what it means is paying attention. And they divide up our life into four parts, four foundations of mindfulness.

[84:22]

And the first part is your body, which kind of corresponds to the first skanda, which is form. So just to be aware of your body, and how does your body feel? And what's your body doing? I'm very, because my profession, I'm a massage therapist, and it's my profession to relate to bodies, I am very aware of bodies. Particularly in supermarkets, I like to watch how people, what they do with their bodies. Some people, because it's like a little ant hive, so many people are compacted in this little space trying to get things. It's interesting to watch how some people are aware of what their bodies are doing, and other people just have no sense of where they are. They're just, they'll stand in the middle of an aisle, they'll block an aisle.

[85:24]

They just don't think of where their body is. So mindfulness of the body means, you know, we won't go into more, you don't have time to go into much detail, and you can read the sutra. But basically, really noticing what's happening with your body. If your shoulders are tense, you feel that happening. The second foundation, we're at nine o'clock and I'll just run over just a couple of minutes here. If you need to go, it's okay. I need to turn on my beeper still. Okay, you can turn on your beeper. The second foundation of mindfulness is feelings, which is again like the second skanda. And feelings in this sense are just not so much emotions, but just feeling of whether you like something or whether you don't like something, or whether you feel ambivalent about it. So mindfulness of feelings would be when, you know, and this happens in microseconds, I mean it's happening all the time.

[86:28]

depending on how subtle you care to get with it. But whenever a feeling comes up of you like, you look at a cookie and it makes you feel good, or you look at your watch and it makes you feel bad, you see that happening. You perceive that happening in yourself instead of just taking it for granted. But you actually are aware of that process happening in yourself. It's paying attention. When you say being aware of it, for me that conjures up, oh, I'm aware of it. Or, oh, you know, it's just kind of like this other observer standing back. It's an important question and point, but let's talk about it next week. It's OK. But remember it, and bring it up again, because that's one of the critical points. And the third foundation of mindfulness is mental states, which is like the fourth skanda, samskara skanda.

[87:38]

Mental states, all the stuff that goes on in our mind, all the thoughts, and this gets us into the realm of the emotions, thoughts, images, memories, all that, being aware of that as well. And then the fourth foundation of mindfulness is dharmas. And this would be more like an insight practice itself of, say for instance, like a dharma. We haven't talked about dharmas yet. And we won't right now. But the elements of reality, particularly from a Buddhist perspective. So for instance, like what we've already talked about in permanence. So mindfulness of dharmas would be seeing seeing your life as you go through your life in terms of the dharmas. What's an example? It's not really so much the skandhas.

[88:43]

This isn't like one of the skandhas. Well, yeah, for instance, skandhas, you're right. You could see, as you pick up a cup, that here's form, and then here's perception. I know it's a cup. And feeling, well, it's empty, so I feel bad. And mental state, well, I kind of like this cup, you know, because I like the shape and I like the color. And the consciousness is kind of making me aware that the whole thing is happening. So yeah, seeing that whole process, the skandic process working, is mindfulness of the dharmas. The fourth foundation is based on internal and external, too. You recognize the dharma within yourself, and then the environmental aspects of external. That's how the Theravadins break it down, internal, external, dharma. Which is the only darkness, obviously, but it gets really intense. Yeah, it can get extremely elaborate. But basically that's the gist of it. And we can talk about it.

[89:47]

Cut into Grace's time next week a little bit. We can talk about it. Well, unless there's a burning question.

[90:00]

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