This morning we chanted a vow written by a student of the Dharma who lived in Japan in the 13th century. He wrote that vow and he actually said, before he started writing that vow, he wrote, even if you've wasted a lot of time up till now, you can make this vow as follows, I vow from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma, and

[01:09]

so on. So that was written by a student of the Dharma who people also call a Zen master. They call him the founder of the Soto Zen tradition in Japan. And that was the vow he wrote, but also he recommended that we could make that vow even if we've wasted a lot of time up till now. And then we just chanted another vow written by another student of the Dharma who says, when I, a student of the Dharma, so this is another important Zen teacher in the history of Japan named Tore, Zen master Tore. This was his vow that he made over and over. So when you recited that, I don't know how you felt, I'm always amazed

[02:16]

every time we recite it, that somebody would talk like that. In a way it sounds like someone might say, what an idealistic person to say that when someone treats you badly, you're going to treat them with respect and say, here's an opportunity to listen to the Dharma. That was his vow. So this particular person who some people might say is crazy or unrealistic or idealistic was again one of the great teachers in Japanese history. So maybe the great teachers are the crazy ones that have these really bizarre thoughts like, no matter how bad it

[03:17]

gets, no matter how badly people teach you, respect them and be compassionate to them and offer your life to them. Or at least vow to learn to do that. But still it's amazing to even think that. And you have thought it because you said it. And then afterwards you might say, well, I'm glad that's over. I'm impressed by that vow. Every time I hear it, I go, wow.

[04:17]

And he wants all beings to realize maturity in Buddha's wisdom. So in the great vehicle of the Bodhisattvas, there is the teaching that's what Buddhas want. Buddhas have Buddha's wisdom. They've realized that they are Buddha's wisdom. Buddhas are Buddha's wisdom. And they wish that all beings will enter Buddha's wisdom because then they would be free of suffering and also they could help other people be free of suffering because their wisdom liberates everybody. But again, it's just an amazing thought that we would enter into a wisdom wherein everybody is liberated from suffering, which is similar to everyone is liberated from delusion. And one definition of delusion is to carry yourself around and then act from

[05:38]

that self, to practice from the self. That's delusion. And then there's another way is for practice to be carried to you and then you're born in the coming of the practice. That's enlightenment. So earlier I was talking about being turned about in the stream of words. So to practice and confirm all things while carrying a self is delusion. For all things to practice and confirm and realize you is enlightenment. So those words turn us. If you can stay upright, you can turn from I'm practicing Buddhism to Buddhism is practicing me. I'm practicing kindness, kindness is practicing me. I'm devoted

[06:40]

to these people and these people are devoted to me. You can make that turn and not be stuck in either position, just keep turning. And this situation is so amazing and wonderful that some habits might come forth and assert themselves more strongly than usual to prevent us from living in that radiant turning point. And those habits are sometimes called demons. And I've recently been contemplating the teachings or the poetic expressions of a French poet

[07:47]

named Charles Baudelaire. And the first poem of his masterpiece which is called Flowers of Evil, Fleurs de Mal, Les Fleurs de Mal, the first poem is called To the Reader. And in that poem basically he says, you know, our habits are stubborn and our confession and repentance wimpy. And if by any chance we overcome the grosser habits of greed, hate and delusion, then the most powerful habit, the most powerful demon, the most powerful habit comes, which is boredom. To dislodge us from living without habits.

[08:47]

This morning when I was talking, I had a dream that everybody understood me really well. And therefore there were almost no questions. But if there's anything you'd like to say or bring up in our remaining time together here today, please do. We wish to remind you of Mr. Green. Thank you. Mr. Green. I think that was his name, Mr. Green. Once upon a time I was taking a walk at Green Gulch with Mr. Green. We walked up in the hills of Green Gulch and then we walked back down to the valley of Green Gulch. And we came to the office, which has been transformed into emptiness. But anyway

[09:59]

we stood outside the office and after this nice long walk and talk, and he was talking to me, he continued to talk to me. And I was kind of feeling like I had talked to him long enough. Like I wanted to rest from talking to him. I wanted to rest also from listening to him, because he was talking and I was listening. And he kept talking, and I kept trying to rest or get a break from listening to him talking to me. And I think he sensed maybe as he was talking to me that I was trying to get away from him, so I could rest from

[10:59]

the listening practice. And the more I tried to find some way to get away from him, the more he talked in such a way as to not give me a chance to get away. And the more I wanted to get away but couldn't get away, and the more he kept me from getting away, the weaker I got. I was like, you know, they sometimes say, I was dying. And this is a really nice guy, this Mr. Green. And then from within me there came a voice which said, I love you, Mr. Rebi. And then I said to Mr. Green, it's been great talking to you, see you later. And I walked away. I heard that voice, you know, and that voice showed me a way to take

[12:12]

a break. So resting is part of heroic effort, and there is a voice inside you which says, I love you, whatever your name is. And when you hear that, then you can sort of maybe realize that you're being requested to rest. Or, you know, say goodbye or whatever. Anyway, wake up. Thank you for reminding me. Yes? I've been turning something around. You've been turning something around? Yes, in my mind. Has something been turning you around? Yes. Sinning paradox. There's the teaching, not picking and choosing. Would you say that louder?

[13:13]

There's the teaching, not picking and choosing. And I've also heard it said, not discriminating. And I wonder sometimes how to reconcile these teachings with vowing to live in accordance, to practice, to train according to the precepts, which seems often to involve quite a bit of discriminative thinking. And I recently read in a book that Fu loaned me just before she left. Would you speak up please? You recently read, louder, say it louder. I recently read in a book that was loaned to me by Fu just before she left, The Ceasing of All Emotions, a commentary that the Buddhas have no standards. Did you say the Buddhas?

[14:17]

It said the Buddhas. I paused and wondered myself about that. So there's this question that arises for me sometimes, how to reconcile this not picking and choosing with what seems to me sometimes to be the standards implied by the precepts, and a certain self-consciousness and discriminative thinking involved. I get the picture. We only have 15 minutes, so can we stop and respond to that? The Buddhas do not have standards. The Buddhas do not have anything. The Buddhas do not have enlightenment. The Buddhas are enlightenment.

[15:21]

The Buddhas are ethical standards. The Buddhas are the Bodhisattva precepts. That's what they are. But they don't have them. And being these Bodhisattva precepts, they sometimes speak them, and they sometimes say to their students who ask them to give the teaching, they sometimes say, avoid evil, do good. They give standards to their students without picking and choosing and without having any standards. And the students then train at practicing with, for example, these standards. The students train in order to learn how to practice the standards without abiding in them.

[16:33]

But when the students start, they usually don't know how to do that, because they have not yet realized Buddhahood. But if they would learn how to practice these standards without abiding in them, then they would become Buddhas at that moment. Discrimination between good and bad is involved in practicing the standards. Make sense? That's what you thought, right? I agree. But to learn how to practice these Buddha precepts, we need to learn how to make discriminations without blanking the discrimination. What's in the blank? We need to learn how to blank these discriminations. Fill in the blank, please. Without abiding in them.

[17:38]

We have to know abode the standards. But that's something we have to learn, we don't know how to do that. We have to train at that, we have to be taught how to do that. So like, I heard Siddhartha Kaur say, non-discrimination is not not to discriminate. It's to study everything. So, when a demon comes to you, when an enemy comes to you, already there is discrimination. Pardon? Already there is discrimination. As soon as an enemy appears, there is discrimination. As soon as a friend appears, there is discrimination.

[18:40]

As soon as a man appears, there is discrimination. As soon as pain appears, there is discrimination. What's non-discrimination? What did Siddhartha Kaur say non-discrimination was? What did I say? No, he said that wasn't it. Non-discrimination about these things appearing to you, non-discrimination about discrimination, is not to not discriminate, because you are discriminating. You are discriminating already, whenever anything appears. Non-discrimination means you study everything. You study man, woman, good, evil. If you study evil and study good, no matter how it appears, that's non-discrimination. And that non-discriminating study of good and evil is the Buddha way.

[19:46]

That's also studying yourself. So, we naturally discriminate. And the teaching says, you can say the teaching says don't pick and choose, but another way to say it is the teaching says that the great way is easy, is not difficult, if you don't pick and choose. But the person who is quoting that, in the second case of the Blue Cliff Record says, I do not abide in purity. In other words, he doesn't abide in not picking and choosing. He abides in nothing. And whatever he meets, when picking and choosing arises, he studies it. When evil arises, he studies it. When good arises, he studies it. He meditates on the teaching of dependent co-arising, because everything is a dependent co-arising.

[20:47]

But in fact, if you didn't discriminate, the great way would not be difficult. But we do discriminate. And we don't, and the great teachers do not abide in the easy way. And they don't abide in the difficult way. They don't abide in avoiding discrimination, which would make life pretty easy. For example, you wouldn't discriminate between pain and pleasure. Between freedom and bondage. Then the great way would be quite easy. Fine. But what about the people who are discriminating? What are you going to do for them? Well, you could teach them how to deal with being a human being. And the Buddha did. The great teachers do teach people how to discriminate without abiding in the discrimination.

[21:50]

But it's true that there is no discrimination. Life is pretty easy. But Bodhisattvas are not looking for the easy life, they are looking for the life which frees all beings from suffering, which frees all beings from discriminations. So, actually, I haven't heard the teaching that says, don't discriminate. I didn't say don't discriminate, I said not discriminating. You said not picking and choosing. You said don't pick and choose, I thought. I was going to ask, I have a certain understanding of that, I was going to ask if it was correct, a way of reconciling that was to think of not discriminating as a kind of compassion practice, as the willingness to... No, I don't think so. Compassion is to embrace discrimination.

[22:52]

Compassion doesn't avoid discrimination, it embraces it without abiding in it. Compassion doesn't move away from the discriminators. Discriminators move away from discriminators. Compassion is open to discriminators, and so open that there is no abiding in them. And that non-abiding in discrimination is called non-discrimination. It's not not discriminating. It's not discriminating. It's like, can we bring you some discriminations now? Yes, please do. And then discriminators say, well, we're here now, would you like to abide in us?

[23:57]

You say, do you want me to? And they say, yeah. You say, okay, I will. And then they say, but you're not abiding in us. You said you would, but you're not. I say, oh, sorry, I don't know how. Because this is a Buddha here. Buddhas do not know how to abide. But they're willing to do it if you ask them. Because they're your servant. And they want to show you how not to abide in anything. Discrimination or absence of it. And I don't even have a discrimination about whether you understood anything I said or not. But if I did, I wouldn't want to abide in it. But I just don't happen to have one. Yes? I noticed one thing I discriminated. Your seat is different than it was this morning. Yes? So I wanted to ask you if you would tell us about that.

[24:58]

Well, these things were given to us. And they were down in the, what do you call it, in the garage. So I've been watching for a number of years, wondering where to put them at no abode. So I asked Charlie what about putting them there. He thought it would be a good idea. So there they are. Thank you. You're welcome. They were probably part of this altar in some way, but I couldn't figure out how to do it. Yes? I've got to say, I kind of don't like them. You kind of don't like them? It feels like a little much to me. Well? I don't know. I'm sitting here wondering how everybody else in the room feels about them. I like it. It feels a little grandiose. I don't like the simplicity of it before. Well, I hear you. Since you put them on, you can take them off.

[26:03]

What? I wouldn't want to be the one to make that decision. Well, but you were the one to make the decision to put them on. I asked you about putting them on. You said fine. I said go ahead. I asked you what you thought. You thought it was cool. You put them on, so you can take them off. I thought it might be cool. Since you put them on, it seems like you're in a good position to take them off. I mean, if you'd like to. If other people have opinions, I'm open to that too. Well, yeah, but... It's really hard work. It's up to you. I put the idea to you. I said, what do you think of it? It sounded cool. And you did it. It's kind of an experiment, right? This altar is an experiment too. Somebody said, we got this altar. And they put it up over the Buddhist community and nobody wanted it.

[27:06]

I mean, nobody thought they could find a place for it. And I went and looked down and said, I think I see a place for it. And here it is. And it is grandiose. But, I didn't want this to not have a home. So here it is. It's got a home. So I said the same to you. What do you think of this? You thought, cool. You tried it out. You think not cool. So if you'd like to take it off, you have my support. Yeah, you might do it. Yeah. And if some other people, after he takes it off, want to put it back on, let me know. They'll be in the garage. You can put them on if you want. No, they're just sitting there. I painted them a little bit. I like it. I think it integrates the... It looks more vivid without it.

[28:13]

More simple. Simple. Is it the same height as it was? Huh? Is it the same height as it was? A long time ago? We raised it a few months ago. Oh, a few months ago. It's the same height. It's approximately the same height it was earlier today. So here are these things. So it's easy to... That's a lot of work to take them off. Easy to take them off. It can also be used for a bookshelf. To put some books in there. What do you think about them? I'm trying to find a home for them. Also, some other things that came with the altar were these panels of green dragons. So I was thinking some place to put them, you know, at an abode. And somebody made some nice panel for them

[29:17]

and painted them and fixed them. So I was thinking of putting them outside. But then someone also thought it's a little too much to have these panels. So then I asked Green Gulch if Green Gulch wanted them. And Green Gulch people said yes. So then they put them up in a sort of panel at the top of Cloud Hall. And then when they started to re-venerate, re-numerate Cloud Hall, they took them down. And they might go back up. So I'm just trying to put to use all this artwork that's coming my way. Yeah? They can remind me of birthday candles. They remind you of birthday candles, right. Is there any reason that birthday candles might be appropriate? Yeah, because today is my 44th birthday.

[30:17]

As a priest, I'm 44 years old today. There's a picture of the ordination on the wall inside. That picture was taken on August 9th, 1970. And the numerology for my birth as a priest and the numerology for my biological birth are the same. If you add 10, 7, 43 and 8, 9, 70, you make the same number. And what was born? What was born? Non-attachment. Non-attachment. Both at birth and at priest ordination.

[31:23]

That's actually what's born is non-abiding. So again, they asked me, what should we name this place? So I said, how about No Abode? This is a kind of theme park. Oh man, it's an e-ticket ride. Well, we do various experiments. Thank you all for making this, for your contributions to the world of this day. Thank you. May our intention equally extend to every being and place

[32:29]

with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[33:06]

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