I vow to taste the truth of the Tartarus words. We just finished a bodhisattva ceremony, a ceremony of acknowledging our ancient twisted karma and renewing our effort.

[01:12]

First we acknowledge our ancient twisted karma, then we pay homage to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and then we renew our intentions. So, it's kind of a wonderful ceremony. We can start all over again from this point, without anything sticking to us. Do you feel that there's anything sticking to you? No. Well, actually, there isn't. But be careful. Karma is the action that we, the various actions that we do.

[02:16]

And there's good karma, bad karma, and neutral karma, and no karma. But no karma is very difficult to have. So we usually have bad karma or good karma. In zazen, we have almost no karma. because our actions are not good or bad. We're not doing something, some kind of action in zazen which creates a bad state or a good state. But we do create some karma. It's mostly neutral karma. Not good, not bad. Just karma of suchness.

[03:22]

So it doesn't lead to anything. And we're used to having our actions lead to something. We say, what am I doing this for? Why am I doing this? What will happen? That question arises from expectation that when we do something, something else follows. But in Zazen, our action is just to do something without expecting a result. So we call it non-dualistic activity. Activity that doesn't fall into good or bad. Doesn't polarize. Today is the first day of our study period, one month study period.

[04:32]

And during this study period, our attention will be focused on hindrances to practice. What is it that hinders practice? And what is it that enhances practice or makes it possible? That was that question. those two sides. There's also a synthesis to those two sides, but we have to deal with them in a dualistic way, what's good for us and what's bad for us. Of course, good and bad are relative. Sometimes a good thing is a bad thing, and sometimes a bad thing is a good thing. Good is not always good and bad is not always bad, they're relative. And we call them good and bad according to our standpoint, according to where we're standing.

[05:41]

And when something seems really bad, it's really bad, no doubt, no denial. And when something seems very good, it's very good, no denial. But nevertheless, good and bad are relative. And they're good or bad according to how we decide, how we feel about it. So karma, is our volition, volitional action. There's lots of activity in the world. And we call one part of the side of activity is the activity that we create through our desire or volition or will. And the other side is what we meet.

[06:50]

the activity, which we call activity outside, inside and outside. And all of it is based on action, activity. But karma, strictly speaking, is our willful act. Sometimes we're not conscious that we're doing something that will cause, that will create an effect. We're not always conscious of the effect of our willfulness. And so we tend to say sometimes, I don't know why that happened to me. I wasn't intending such and such a thing. But the effect of our act of our action creates an effect and the effect is reflected back on ourself.

[07:59]

So we say, well I don't know why such and such a thing happened because we're not so aware of the consequences of our acts. So the more we understand karma the law of cause and effect, the more careful we are about what we say and what we do and how we think. Karma is born from body, speech, and mind. That's a little bit in reverse because usually we think first. And then we either speak or act. In Buddhadharma, we say every activity is born through mind. So mind is very important. How we think is how we speak and how we act.

[09:05]

So even though we may not act or speak, what we think is also willful and creates various states of mind, which even though we may not act on them, at some point they come out. You know, we call that subconscious thinking. Subconscious thinking, we may feel that even though we're not acting out our thought, If someplace else our activity comes out through the thought, because of the thought, and we don't know why we're doing certain things sometimes. So thinking is very powerful and so we need to be careful about our thinking to be mindful of our thoughts, of what's going on in our mind.

[10:13]

And then to listen to ourself when we're talking. And to be careful what kind of bodily action we do. My speech, sometimes I hear Daniel talking, and I hear the way I talk reflected back to me in his mannerisms and the things he says, and the way he says them. He's only three. So when I hear that, really made consciously aware of how I'm saying something and what it sounds like. Music is the same way.

[11:16]

If you play music, it's good to be careful to listen to what you're actually playing. Sometimes you can play music, but you don't hear it. So to be able to hear what you're actually saying and what's actually coming out of your mouth and the way that you say something, very important. So everything we say or think or do has some consequence. This is why Buddha looked down on frivolous talk because we lose ourselves in gossip or speculation or perverted views or partial views.

[12:21]

we lose sight of the totality of reality. So when I say we're going to study the hindrances and what hinders practice and what makes it possible, all comes under the heading of studying Buddhism. And Dogen Zenji says, to study Buddhism is to study the self. And to study the self is to forget the self. And to forget the self is to be enlightened by all dharmas. To study the self is to forget the self.

[13:31]

What does forgetting the self mean? What does he mean by to forget the self? This little thing that he says, you can see it in sequence. To study Buddhism is to study the Self. It means that the entire universe is the Self, is Buddhism. The entire universe is Buddhism. It's Buddhadharma. To study Buddhadharma is to forget me and mine. and find out, well, what am I? So the basic question is, who am I?

[14:34]

And how do I forget myself? If I forget myself, what will happen to me? This is our biggest fear. This is the problem of life and death, birth and death. If I forget the self, what will happen to me? This is at the core of our practice, of our study. And its number one hindrance is my idea of myself. If we want to deal with hindrances, we should know what is the basic hindrance. Basic hindrance is my idea of myself, who I think I am. and what I belong to. Where do I belong? And then he says to forget the self is to be enlightened by all the dharmas.

[15:50]

Now in Buddhism we don't talk about a self. We talk about a self is a kind of convenience. When we want to make some definition of this body and mind, we say, well, this is myself. So that's a convenient way of talking, because we don't have another way of doing it. But for Buddhists, In Buddhist understanding, this self neither exists nor doesn't exist. You can say, well, it's here, you know, two hands, two feet, heart. You can go enumerate the whole thing. 300 bones or something.

[16:52]

So you can say, yes, it exists. But on the other hand, where did it come from? And where did it go? And where is it? And where is it going? What's happening to it? Something's happening to this collection of skandhas. So if you look at it in a bigger sense, it doesn't really exist in a firm way. Only moment by moment can we attest to our existence as a person, as a personality. From moment to moment, there's a personality. But that personality is not the same from moment to moment. And each moment, there's a different person.

[17:59]

Looks pretty much the same, and there's some consistency. But if you look carefully, yesterday's person is not today's person, completely. Last moment's person is not this moment's person completely. So what am I? Who's taking care of this? Some people say that we ask to be born. In Buddhadharma, there's a theory of rebirth that the life force has some consciousness and zeroes in on its parents, chooses its parents, and enters into the life force when it's being transferred through its parents.

[19:18]

I don't know about that theory, but That is a Buddhist theory. But strictly speaking, you can't remember asking to be born. And no matter how hard you try, you can't stop this change from occurring. You can't stop the changing of your body and mind from one year to the next. Pretty soon, we all disappear. Each one of us, one at a time, we disappear. Where did we go? Where did we come from? What are we doing? These are big questions. So in Buddhism, there are three fundamental marks.

[20:26]

Anatta, Anika, and Dukkha. All Buddhists should have some understanding of Anatta, Anika, and Dukkha. Anatta means there's no self. Even though there is what appears to be a self, There's no separate self. There's some independent, independency, but no self that exists independently. So it's called no soul. Most religions can't stand the idea that we die. So they have the idea of a soul which continues and new births or a heaven where we all reside after we die. But in Buddhism, Buddha says no soul.

[21:33]

If you take the person apart, piece by piece, there's nothing in the middle, nothing that is indestructible or that lasts. There's just energy. Energy continues. And that's called rebirth. The energy which continues through karma, through cause and effect, is called rebirth energy. But it's not the same as reincarnation. Reincarnation is a little different. So these terms sometimes get mixed up. And so anatta is no soul, no self nature.

[22:35]

And the second one is that everything is impermanent. Second mark is that everything is impermanent. Nothing, not one thing. lasts. Everything that appears in the world disappears. And the third mark is that the natural condition of this world is unsatisfactoriness or suffering because of the first two. In the chant that we do, Bodhisattva Ceremony, Repentance Ceremony it's called, we say, all my ancient karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion.

[23:50]

Ancient karma can mean since I was born, or it can mean since beginningless beginning. So this beginningless beginning has to do with rebirth. The energy that life energy or our life which is And life energy, which is created by our karma, is continually renewing itself in some way. And personality doesn't continue, but the energy is supposed to be continuous and never gets lost. This is also, I think, a physical law, that energy doesn't get lost and finds its way

[24:52]

somehow becomes reborn as the human race continues. I don't know what the process is. But this accounts for Buddhist theory of continuous ancient karma. And sometimes we say, Buddhists says, the effect of karma can be immediate. If you hit your hand with a hammer, then you immediately feel the effect of the karma. And then there's karma which you feel the effect at a later date. You may cheat somebody out of something, and they don't find out about it immediately, but later they do. And they do something about that one way or another and you feel the effect of what you did when they present you with it or in some way when you're caught.

[26:13]

And the third one is karma which matures in another lifetime. So we feel the effect of something that we don't feel that we did. But the karmic maturity comes much, much later, so that we don't know why things are happening. But we can see that happening in a logical way, actually. We say, I didn't ask to be born into this world in the way it is. If I had had my choice, I wouldn't have had the world be this way. But who's choosing? Who's making the world the way it is? We say, well, our ancestors made the world the way it is. Because of their karma, we're suffering the effects of their karma, which we are.

[27:17]

In the Bible, you know, it says the children will feel the effects up to the fifth generation or seventh generation, fifth, seventh generation, you know, of their parents' misdeeds. So how we handle ourselves, how we deal with our actions is very, very important. And we usually don't start to practice. People usually don't start to practice until they start feeling the effects of their karma so badly. that they want to do something about it, although we don't realize that that's why we do start to practice, necessarily.

[28:23]

But we're suffering some problem and we're suffering. And so we're kind of led to practice because we want some to find out something, want to do something about it. So if we want to turn things around, best way to turn things around is through understanding the law of cause and effect. Having some understanding of the law of cause and effect and practicing according to that law. But it's very hard to turn ourselves around. So we need each other to help to do that.

[29:25]

We need a supportive practice and the support of other people to help us to turn that karma, because karma is very heavy, very difficult to turn. So this kind of ceremony, in this ceremony you drop yourself. In the repentance ceremony, you drop the self. And you don't know who you are according to your old idea. You know who you are, but it's hard to maintain our bigger self.

[30:30]

So zazen helps. In zazen we can maintain our bigger self. You know, the precepts, ten prohibitory precepts, are not so important when we're sitting zazen. We have sixteen precepts. The first three are Be One with Buddha, Be One with Dharma, Be One with Sangha. Those are the first three presets. And the second three presets are to take a path which leads to a path of good karma. And the second one is to not take a path of bad karma, which leads to bad karma. which creates bad karma. And the third one is to help everyone to do that. Those are the three pure precepts. And then there are the 10 prohibitory precepts.

[31:39]

Don't kill, don't steal, don't take liquor or intoxicants and so forth. The 10 prohibitory precepts are easy to practice. in Zazen. Those precepts are more for when you're not sitting and you're out in the world. But the main precept is be one with Buddha. And all the other precepts are commentaries on that precept or ways to keep that precept. So in zazen, how do we be one with Buddha in zazen? It means that we stop dividing our mind. When we stop dividing our mind, that's called nirvana.

[32:51]

or no self. Divided mind is mind of self-centeredness. It's simple, very simple. Not complicated, but difficult. Even though it's not complicated, it's difficult. to just sit with a not divided mind, non-discriminated mind. Discriminate means to cut into pieces, chop up into pieces. You can cut in half, you know, good and bad. That's the first order of discrimination, to discriminate, to cut up. In Zazen, Bring it all together. Don't cut up your mind. Then that's body and mind dropped off.

[33:55]

Even though there is a body and mind sitting there, it's dropped off. Nothing outside, nothing inside. No inside or outside. Whatever happens, we don't say, this is good or this is bad. If you have disagreeable things, we don't say, this is bad.

[35:00]

And if you have wonderful things, don't say, this is good. Right there in the middle. You're right there in the middle. Right at the center of everything. Good and bad, come and go. So biggest hindrance is dividing the mind. And everything follows from that. In the Bible, in the first story, well, the story about Adam and Eve, The problem that they had when they ate the apple was that they ate the apple of the knowledge of good and bad.

[36:10]

Same thing. So, you don't have to know anything. Just sit, zazen, and unify your mind. You don't have to know anything. You can drop your knowing. and exchange it for another kind of knowing. So when we study in our study period, when we have our classes, we'll be studying what are the wholesome dharmas and what are the unwholesome dharmas in a more dualistic way, which is okay.

[38:23]

But we should be careful not to get carried off by our dualistic understanding. So during Sashin, let's please make our effort to unify our mind, drop our mind, forget ourself and unify our mind.

[39:01]

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