We vow with all beings from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dhamma. Upon hearing it, no doubt will arise a sense of holy light and faith that by the year we shall renounce worldly affrayings and retain the Buddha Dhamma. We are one, we're like one ancestor. They ain't going on and they are going to be on and because they stand there flashing to the screen without them being able to see the world when they are getting there for each other.

[01:26]

Master wouldn't be upset, but his past lives would not be like, will not be like. His life saved by the ages of freedom. For many hours, people focused, enlightened, they were the same as we. The light and people of today are exactly as those of old. All right, they explored the fine restrictions of these causes and conditions. This is the exact transmission of what we are fine with, investing and maintaining this way when we're faced to receive profound help from God. of all Buddhas and Narasimhas, by revealing and disclosing our lack of faith and practice before the Buddha. We are to break through the transgressions by the power of our confession and repentance. This is the pure and simple power of true practice. To put your mind to faith, but to do the body of faith.

[02:26]

Two more people have joined the group, so could you give us your name? My name is Shep. Shep? Shep. And John, right? Sometimes the practice in the Buddhist tradition is presented in terms of three areas of study. One being, in Sanskrit, they say shila, samadhi, and prajna, or ethical discipline, concentration discipline, and wisdom discipline. In this retreat I've been starting with the middle one, the samadhi practice, or the concentration practice.

[04:08]

And suggesting to you that the key to entering into samadhi is relaxation. But again, it's not just relaxation, it's meeting whatever comes. with relaxation. It's not just relaxation, it's relaxation with what's happening. So there's a... It's not just going to sleep, it's an actual relaxed way of meeting your experience. So there is this presence with what's happening, but it's a relaxed presence. It's a soft presence. It's a flexible presence. It's a non-grasping and non-seeking presence. And this way we enter into samadhi.

[05:12]

We enter into a state where the body and mind are flexible, light, bright, and calm. And in this state, we're ready to play with the things we meet. And in playing with them, we enter into the wisdom discipline. We enter into understanding the teachings of, the wisdom teachings, the teachings of reality. the teachings of the Buddha saying, teaching the middle way, and the Buddha teaching that all things are interdependent, that all things are dependently co-arisen. So, but I just thought, Nalasa said that the samadhi practice is the way of meeting everything, but in particular I thought I might go back and look now at the precept practice.

[06:24]

the ethical discipline practice. If you take on some ethical discipline, some ethical discipline that comes into your life, and you say, yes, I want to meet that, I would like to commit to practicing these precepts, and you're initiated into the discipline of some set of precepts, then the next step is to practice samadhi.

[07:27]

In other words, you relax with the precepts. You've taken on these disciplines. And again, I mentioned to you that the word discipline, I think in Latin it's disciplina. Disciplina. And disciplina means instruction or something like that. And it comes from disipulis, which is the root of the word disciple. It means pupil or student. And disipulis comes from disere, which means to learn. So disciplines are for people who are trying to learn something. But I think discipline also has come to have the meaning of punishment or something, right? But really its root is, it's a form to help you learn something.

[08:34]

So like we actually have now some disciplines in this room. A schedule is a kind of discipline. But it's not just to help you be able to follow the schedule. It's to help you learn something. So part of the precepts is to work with things like schedules That's part of the Buddhist precepts. But the reason to work with the things... It's not so that you learn how to follow a schedule and so after practicing for several years you can get to events on time and leave on time. It's not that purpose. Purpose is, first of all, that you receive this discipline like a schedule and then you relax with it. But relax with it means you meet it. It isn't that you relax with it means that you just go away from it. It's that you meet the schedule. You know how today there's a schedule of meditation periods and then you meet that schedule and relax with it.

[09:39]

And actually you play with it. And then you understand it. Now, What usually happens for most of us is that when we take on a discipline and we receive some precepts which are trying to help us learn something, like learn wisdom and learn samadhi, usually we do tense up in relationship to it somewhat. and then we feel kind of bad. Or we might feel quite good in a certain sense, like we might feel like... One way to tense up with some discipline is to, you know, practice it, really with the intention of practicing your best, and then practice it in such a way that you're practicing it better than anybody else is.

[10:53]

So you feel good because you're the best at the discipline in the room, and maybe even the disciplinarian tells you that you're the best, and then you notice that all the other people hate you. So you feel pretty good in a way that you're better than them, but you don't like them hating you, and maybe they actually may kick you out, or something like that, or poison your food. But also you may feel like, I didn't come here to get hated by everybody. That wasn't the reason why I came to practice Zen. And yet now everyone hates me because I'm the best at practicing it. So that's a certain kind of not relaxing with the schedule is to be best at it. Now you might say, well, I couldn't help that I was best. And then someone might say, well, yeah, it's true.

[11:58]

Are you relaxed with being best? If so, maybe you are the best. But if you're relaxed with it, if you're not possessing your title as the best student, then people won't hate you so much. They'll hate you a little, but not so much. Someone, I get the feeling that Pittsburgh is a town where Catholicism is strong. A number of you have either Catholicism in your background, Roman Catholicism in your background, or certainly know a lot of people that do. Is that right, that Pittsburgh's got a lot of Catholic churches and So some of you have told me that you have Catholic background and one of you told me that, first of all, that you wanted to learn how to calm the mind.

[13:04]

And then there was some mention of Catholic background and how in a Catholic situation this person felt like he was trained to be able to stand up in a group and to know the prayer, the appropriate prayer to do under any circumstance. And when I heard that I thought, that's cool. That'd be good to know. But this person referred to that in a kind of, with a painful feeling, because and referred to Buddhism as a situation where you didn't have to like stand up in a group and know the proper prayer. But in a way in Buddhism that would be good too. We don't necessarily teach people exactly the proper prayer, but we sort of do. But the person felt good about Buddhism because he didn't know that Buddhism would teach us that too.

[14:08]

So he felt some relief in the Buddhist context because he wasn't taught he wasn't taught these things. So since he wasn't taught them, he didn't have to worry about them. So it wasn't so much, so I felt that it wasn't so much the teaching of how to know the right prayer to do at a particular time in a group, but it's the lack of relaxation with that practice that makes you really worried and anxious in the group. Because actually it is good to know a good prayer under all circumstances. And if you look at Buddhist literature you'll find also teachings of they go through various life situations in certain scriptures, like when you're crossing a bridge, when you're opening a door, when you're going to the toilet, when you're eating, when you're meeting a friend, when you're putting your robe on, when you're taking your robe off, when you're washing your face, when you're going to sleep, when you're getting up, when you're climbing a hill, when you're going down a hill.

[15:23]

All these different situations, and then they give you prayers to do in every situation. Like when you're crossing a bridge, or now as I'm crossing a bridge, I vow with all sentient beings to help all beings cross over from suffering into freedom. Things like that. So to be able to make a nice prayer in every situation is cool. But, and that's the kind of discipline you might learn, but if you tense around it, it's antithetical to the point. Because you just wanted to, you just vowed to help beings cross over and you just went back into hell by attaching to the discipline of helping beings cross over. So, whatever the precepts are, for me now, the way the precepts are for me now are a function of my understanding.

[16:27]

And if you receive the precepts at some point in your practice, unless you really understand what they are, you don't understand what they are. And we don't understand what they are until we have perfect wisdom. So anyway, whatever level of our understanding, that's the understanding we have of the precepts, we receive them. Okay, now that's my understanding. Now it's time to relax with my understanding of the precepts, which is the same as relaxing with the precepts, because what I think the precepts are is my understanding of the precepts. It's not what the precepts are really, but anyway, it's what they appear to me to be. So whatever they are, now I start to relax with them.

[17:32]

In other words, I bring samadhi to the precept practice. Then, if I can bring samadhi to the precept practice, then there can be playfulness with the precepts. And if there can be playfulness with the precepts, then I find other people who are practicing the precepts and see if I can find some other people who are bringing samadhi to their precept practice. And then two or more of us get together and practice the precepts in samadhi. And then our understanding of the precepts starts changing, starts evolving, starts opening up. And then we will be able to go into a group and say the right prayer. But the right prayer may not be a prayer that we learned before. Or it may be, but it may not be.

[18:34]

It will be something that will spontaneously arise in the creativity of our working together with these precepts. In the fourth paragraph of this

[19:37]

little discourse on the self-receiving and self-employing samadhi. It says, because such broad awakening resonates back to you and helps you inconceivably, you will in zazen unmistakably drop away body and mind, cutting off the various defiled thoughts from the past and realize essential Buddha dharma. Now, in the previous paragraph, it talked about this broad awakening. And the broad awakening was when even for a moment you expressed the Buddha's seal. And the seal, the word there actually is a word, a Chinese character which translates mudra. And mudra means seal or circle. or form. So when you impress the Buddha's circle or the Buddha form on your three activities, in other words, on your body, speech and mind, by sitting upright in samadhi, and I would tentatively cross out sitting and just say, when you're upright in samadhi, you impress the Buddha's seal

[21:02]

on your body, speech, and thought, or your bodily movements, your bodily speech, and your mental thoughts. The Buddhist seal. How do you impress the Buddhist seal on your posture? Is it by crossing your legs and sitting upright? Could be. Is it by standing? Could be. Is it by sitting in a chair? Could be. Is it by lying down? Could be. But those are just postures. Those are just body postures. What's the Buddhist seal? The Buddhist seal is... What is it? Yeah. You put relaxation onto the postures. That's what makes the posture upright. So you can be lying down and be upright. When you meet that, you're not just sleeping there, you're meeting that reclining posture with relaxation, you're relaxed in that posture.

[22:07]

Then the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha's Seer. Then everything relaxes with you, and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. Because of this, all the Buddha Tathagatas, as their original source, increase their dharma bliss and renew the magnificence of their awakening in the way. Furthermore, all beings in the ten directions in the six realms, including the three lower realms, had once obtained pure body and mind and realized the state of great emancipation and manifest the original face. All that happens when you, relax in whatever posture you're in. And while you're speaking, that your speech, that you meet your own speech with relaxation. You speak with no grasping or seeking. You speak with no involvement in your speaking. You are speaking, though, but there's no involvement there.

[23:14]

There's no clinging, sticking. When you speak that way, the entire world is impressed by that way of speaking, and the entire sky turns into enlightenment, and all these wonderful things happen. And this kind of awakening that happens resonates back to you, and your body and mind drops off. You don't do this by yourself. When I speak by myself, I'm not relaxed. As I relax, I understand that my speech is not due just to me. My voice would not be like this if it wasn't for gravity. Do you understand? I guess that if we were like in a spaceship, my voice wouldn't sound like this.

[24:17]

Certain things in my throat wouldn't be pulled downward. My voice would sound different. The way I am, the way I speak, is not due just to me. It's due to all of you and many other things. When there's relaxation here, it resonates out and it resonates back. because of such broad awakening resonates back to you and helps you inconceivably. So when you're sitting in a relaxed way, that relaxation goes out and comes back, goes out and comes back. This resonance is going on all the time. But when you relax, you stop resisting it.

[25:26]

And if you're not relaxed, then you have this other document here, which tells you, by revealing and disclosing your lack of relaxation before the Buddha, you melt away the root of this resistance to this resonance. I'm resisting this resonance. Nothing's resonating off me, and nothing's resonating back. I'm not resonating in a Buddhist seal all over the universe, and it's not resonating back to me. I'm not being inconceivably helped. I'm not even being conceivably helped. I'm just here all by myself, tight and isolated. But if I reveal and disclose this tightness and isolation, in other words, lack of faith, in this great resonance among us, this broad awakening that we're sharing, if I reveal and disclose my lack of faith in that and my lack of practice in that, that melts away the root of this kind of resistance.

[26:40]

So we don't do this all by ourselves, this practice, this samadhi. And we don't even resist it by ourselves. Even our resistance is not totally by our own power. There's many, many reasons, many, many conditions, many, many supports for our resistance. And some people maybe emphasize too much the reasons other than themselves for why they're resistant. Like they blame other people. They blame their culture for why they're so uptight. And our culture is somewhat responsible for us feeling like we have to cling and grab onto everything. It's part of the conditions. Our parents giving us a human body is part of the conditions.

[28:04]

They're partly responsible for our bad habits. And their parents too. So there's many conditions. But we can start, you know, with what we are. Namely, being quite attached and tense and etc. We can start here. and we can start relaxing this setup that we've got. This is a good time to start. Do you have any feedback for me? Want to stand up in the group and do a prayer? Put just the right one for now. There we go.

[29:11]

Pardon? I'm counting on you to know the prayer. What did you say? I'm counting on you to know the prayer. Wasn't that a prayer you just did just now? That was a good prayer. That's fine. Do you have a prayer? There's a prayer. May someone else be president. See, that was from that appropriate prayer for the situation where he... He... Don throws in the ball, the president ball. So somebody else want to be president? President probably related to the word preside, right?

[30:15]

President presides. What does preside mean? Be here. Huh? Be here. Be here? Yeah. Wouldn't that be nice? Confession is a kind of prayer. Even before you say, you know, may I be forgiven, the first part of the prayer is to say what you want to be forgiven. Blah, blah, blah, may I be forgiven. But the blah, blah, blah is a big part of the prayer. So we say, you know, all my ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate and delusion, body, speech and mind, I now fully confess.

[31:28]

There's a confession. But then, may I be forgiven and may I be released from all this karma. May all these karmic hindrances be washed away, be fully resolved. I'm still living in yesterday, in the past. Did you hear her? I'm still living in yesterday, in the past. May she be forgiven. Yes. For living in the past. May she be forgiven.

[32:29]

Again, it's okay. I mean, there is a past, right? I mean, we've got this past. Not that there shouldn't be a past, except we should relax with the past. Can you relax with the past? All these bad things you've done to me. Huh? You can't? No. Can you relax with no? Yes. I reveal and disclose that I'm going through emotions in my practice. You reveal and disclose? I'm just going through emotions in my practice. That you're just going through the emotions in your practice? Yeah, you forget that. What is it like going through the emotions that you went through the year before? What's the problem going through the emotions? I'm not feeling passionate. What's wrong with not feeling passionate about this? What's wrong with that?

[33:43]

What's wrong? What error is there? What mistake is there? If you don't have passion, that's only something to forgive you for. She feels something. She feels a lot of passion, would you say? She feels like a passion, but to me, that's the day to say it out loud. You say it out loud, and I don't get it. I don't get this now.

[34:44]

If she feels so wrong, what would be wrong with a lot of passion? What's wrong with that? I don't even have a clue. You see, part of the way he thought he was wrong was, what's wrong with a lot of passion? I'm not being tough. Choose what you want to practice. You have to be sure of what you're doing. Why are you not so sure about what you want to practice? Why is it not true that you don't like what you want to practice? Because you're passionate about what you want to practice. What do you think you're forgiven for if you're not really sure about what you want to practice? So when you say, there's some dishonest about it. That's what you want me to do, dishonest. If you're just a passionate person, I'm not going to forgive you for it.

[35:47]

If he says what he says, I confess that I'm a woman. If he says what, what do you mean? Having no passion, if you didn't have passion, you probably wouldn't even be here anymore. If you feel that strong, then it's not true that you didn't have passion. It's not true to you. Someone should, I think, want forgiveness for it. It's not being true to yourself. Somehow you're resisting your passion. And you can be forgiven for resisting compassion. So a lot of us resist compassion. Easy for us to forgive. But it's scary. So you're forgiven for resisting compassion, for not being relaxed with your compassion, your compassionate compassion. You're forgiven for not realizing it.

[36:49]

So how do you realize it? You need to conform. Because you feel it's not true. It's not true even to not have passion. You do have passion. You forget what you give yourself to the Spirit. And what do you give yourself to the Spirit? How do you steer your attention? So sometimes falling asleep is just not meeting. Closing your eyes to it. If you open your eyes to it, then maybe you tense up. So one way to

[37:50]

avoid our passions, go to sleep. The other way is to tense up. And the other way, actually, is to indulge in it too much. It's another way to miss it. So you can resist a precept by overdoing it and underdoing it. There's a little resistance. Do you have prayers or anything? I have a parade of judgments and distinctions. You have a parade of judgments and distinctions? Again, that's not something to be forgiven for. Judgments and distinctions are like sweat. Judgments and distinctions are like secretions. allow the human mind.

[38:56]

That's what I was dealing with the other day. It's the clinging to them that's the problem. So if I dig a valley of someone, That's okay if I relax with that. If a piece of paper was sitting in the middle of the floor that said something and the judge would hear something, and nobody picks it up, you only have to take the facts. So I picked it up and said, this is true in the original way. Then this person, to the map that should be forgiven. If you confess to him, I'm rigid about this.

[40:00]

I think this is true. I'm not going to get plagued by law because this person really is bad. This person really is bad. But I think this person is bad. But, you know, just my opinion. Help me with that. Help me not be to think about this. So, can you relax with this, can you lead this parade? Objection by objection, distinction by distinction, if relaxation is being had, or ask this parade, or seek another parade. Is that just to be very humble? To be what? To be very humble. Humble? I think this works towards humility. Or like, another way to put it is, I will be humble by seeing that I have traits like this in my mind.

[41:03]

That I, you know, that I would have, I'm not going to be up too, you know, humble is related to humans, isn't it? I think, I think it's related to humans. But I will meet it like down in the ground. So if you start living off the ground and thinking that you have this really pure mind and heart, it's okay to have a pure mind and heart if you don't live off the ground. If you're down on the ground with people who don't have pure minds and thoughts, and you have them, you're just at the same level, so it's okay to be in a chapel where they don't have any nasty judgments. You're not above the people who have nasty judgments. But if you start lifting off the ground, you're a little higher than the other people. And when the NASA jet was coming through your mind, then you break that down.

[42:04]

But if you attach to them, you bring yourself into some special position in the ground. I'm worse than other people or something. So it's more like the recognition of this kind of stuff going through your mind does humble us. Humble you. Get you down to the ground with me. Then if you can relax with me, then we can interact here on the ground. Did those people just go to the Nick Lynch activity? Well, I... I hesitate to go on too much longer since I left. Is there anything that you'd like to bring up new about this?

[43:06]

It all of a sudden just occurred to me. This is a very valuable question that I need to answer really quickly. Do you feel that confessing is a good thing for Sangha, or would you not recommend it without teaching? Well, I don't see a problem in doing the . of the kind of professional use of all my needs and twisted common from the beginning to the end of the world. I see, okay, it didn't improve our teaching because nobody's sticking their neck out too far. We're all saying basically the same thing. Each of us, each of our minds has some particular thing we need to realize. But... I think that's time.

[44:16]

To make specific confessions of the group or to confess to individuals is probably good to have some kind of experience confessing. So if you're confessing, you decided to confess to each other, I would suggest that you don't believe in the group. Because it's possible that some people in the group might not be ready to hear our confession. Some people might be able to ascertain who we feel is ready to hear your confession, and whose confession you're ready to hear. And maybe that some of you are willing to confess to some of you. But not all of us. Some of us are not related to the testimony. But I think the general one is a pretty good thing to do as part of your liturgy.

[45:25]

So usually, as I said, in the morning, we do a group confession, and then we take questions every day. that people, specific confessions, are usually meant to a teacher or to a close friend. Basically, when I confess to somebody, they're supposed to encourage me to continue the practice. Some people, when they hear your confession, the way they hear it, you think you want to . Basically, you want to keep yourself more at ease in the process because it is a little risky. It's risky . You're definitely in big trouble if you don't .

[46:29]

And you might get a sum from what you do. That's just a question, but actually the question is the direction of liberation. This is the direction of understanding yourself. And when you ask any questions to yourself, just do it here. Just do yourself, just be there, be right there. If you're dealing with somebody else, that's another dimension. Reflection. To start. Care is still. I didn't really feel it. It's just a passionate person. It's okay. She thinks that's not true. She thought it was not true. It's the not true part that should be invested. That's the problem. She feels that it's not true. So if you feel like you're going through your life, if you're going through the motions of your life, It's not true, because you know that you could care about your life.

[47:32]

That's what life is, life cares. It's funny. Some things being disguised, still. Do you want to bring it to it now? Oh, yes, yes. I have a struggle with the chef. Chef. Chef. I have trouble matching the concepts or getting a chart to my experience with meditation. And I wonder about the circles. Yeah, the circles, but not just those circles. Much of the magnetic concept that I read about states of samadhi or states of meditation and descriptions of different levels. What do you mean I'm stepping in? The reason for regular circles is they're pretty much confined. You can lock in just about anybody in a secure space. You can tell them off and lock in yourself one day.

[48:33]

Yes? Can I try what you just suggested about having a personal confessor? I'd like to respond to Angus if that's okay with you. Are you going to be a confession? Are you going to be a confession to you? Are you ready to be her confessor? She doesn't have to. Certainly you could be a very counselor on your side. Yes, please. So I've been struggling with sitting on a chair when everybody else is sitting on a cushion. And there's a lot of shame about that. And one of the things that that brought me to that I be sure that I suffer a lot while I'm sitting there, so as to be in the sense of not being okay.

[50:06]

So that brought me to be attached to suffering. I would like to address that question in my own sense. What do you say to this? It's brilliant at heart. June's face is very emotional. Well, I think it's connecting me. It's hard also to, every day, see something out here. I feel like I suffer simply every day. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I thought I heard you say it.

[51:22]

Maybe you couldn't hear. She said that when she's sitting in a chair, and she called Shane sitting in a chair, And then I thought you said that you thought maybe you were feeling shame for sitting in a chair such as suffering. My understanding was that it was important for her to suffer while sitting in a chair to relieve the guilt. Yeah, right. Or the shame. Shame and guilt. And... So part of the shame is that most of the other people are sitting on the floor.

[52:24]

You're not like in the truce and student clustered. Is that part of it? Yes, that's part. I have a piece of that. I can do what I can do to get in. I'll do it. And so what's part of the shame is that you're not in a true Zen student classroom. What's the other part of the shame? That I make it to an occasion to suffer physically. So that's the result of the shame. you make the sitting an occasion to suffer, to absolve the shame? Yes. Oh, I see. Yes. So, if you're ashamed, but you feel pain about the shame, then maybe the pain about the shame absolves the shame.

[53:32]

Is that maybe the way your mind works? So maybe you're confessing that your mind works that way. Yes. And yes, you can be forgiven for that. But excuse me, one other thing is that you're kind of like not relaxed about it. You don't just report that. Or rather, if you do report that in a relaxed way, if now you see what you're doing, and you report that in a relaxed way, then you've already forgiven. If you report it in a tense way, then you need to be forgiven the tension you have around that particular knot, that complex that you just described. Complex means knot, right? So you just describe a knot, the way the mind works. Like you said, you like to scratch our poison oak.

[54:38]

You got a rash and you like to scratch it, right? So you got a pain, you got a shame, so you feel better if you can have a pain about it too, rather than just face the shame and relax. You look at the shame and scratch it. Gives us some sense of control, right? So you're confessing that, And confessing doesn't also, some things you confess, but you can also confess and feel good. No, but you can confess. You can confess to being good, you can confess to being bad. So you confess to a certain pattern, and then the question, did you have any tension around that pattern? Did you? And that you can be forgiven for it. And if you can say that, if you can express that now, just straightforwardly, you can express your forgiveness, and you can show, and now you can relax with that. Can you relax with that? Thank you.

[55:42]

Is there any playfulness in this? Maybe that's just a jingle. to give you this, to give you this prayerful edge any day by saying something, how did I twist the karma today? You know that? It was a jingle. Well, I don't know. It has been ringing in my head. He said, how did I twist my karma today? And then she twisted her ankle. Right? Did she twist her ankle in your knee which led to this difficulty with your sitting? Yes, that's true. That's karma too. Every step you take is time. Every step you take is time.

[57:12]

And sometimes when you take a step you need to Can confession be common? Yeah, confession can be common too. I'd like to make a confession, but I'm afraid it's a chronic one instead. I've been trumped. What should I do? I hate it when your confession trumpets. My confession bridge. Well, I would suggest, you know, that you... I would suggest if you can find some relaxation, and then if in relaxation this thing emerges, maybe it doesn't have to be done by you. So if you can find some relaxation, see what happens. Can you do it now? Can you do it? Can you do it now?

[58:15]

I got a tint to get free of my session. Can you tell what it is? I want to confess. Okay. I said let me look around here. I want to confess that I want everyone to go to Douglas. If someone has not given me their name, I think it's wonderful. I can't seem to recognize this. Please, you're talking to me. All the answer to this is thinking that I'm in charge of it. I thought you might know who I was, but... It's not strong enough. Yeah. You're forgetting. I hope so. Would anyone like to say anything or do anything?

[59:20]

I'd just like to encourage Catherine that it is her fault because she doesn't have a clumber jingle like that. But I have a little piece of paper and a pen. I go first that I have clumber jingles to mask my tightness. I'm sorry to ask you, but life is old times. That was the best one. The end of prayers, our confessions.

[60:28]

May God bless you. May we penetrate every being and place. May the truth be in heaven. May God bless you. Being in South Carolina on the 6th, I don't want to think that the definitions of existence are in about 15 minutes, but I think it is somewhat nice. I want to do that. This morning I mentioned about receiving the precepts and then practicing samadhi or receiving the precepts.

[61:48]

and practicing the precepts with relaxation. And before I said that, I thought something, and afterwards I thought something, but I didn't mention it, and that is, there's a little voice that might arise in the mind, like receiving the precepts, you know, and vowing to practice them, And I think we may feel like some little voice may say, you can't relax with these things. These are really important, right? You can't relax with avoiding evil or you can't relax with practicing good. This is very serious. So there may be a voice like that. And so I'm kind of saying that that's, I think that's actually a voice of the devil.

[62:51]

It's saying, you know, you got to be really uptight about these rules. These are very important. You better not break them. This is the devil talking. It's almost less of a devil to say these precepts are not important. They don't matter. That's kind of a devil too, but it's actually not as effective. Because actually people don't need to hear that. They already feel that way. Enough. And they also feel that these precepts are really important. So anyway, I'm saying that you may feel, there may be a little voice in your ear too that says, you can't really relax with these things. They're just Maybe I could, but other people will get me if I do. I'll be punished if I would tell anybody that I'm kind of relaxed about them. I mean, I think they're a good idea, but I'm kind of relaxed with the goodness of them.

[64:01]

Like I said to somebody about the precepts, I said something like, you don't have to be absolutely sure about these precepts in order to practice them. And the reason why I said that is because I think a lot of people feel like when they're doing some ethical precept, they feel like, I'm absolutely sure this is good. And part of the reason they feel that way is because they're kind of insecure about trying to practice it unless they're absolutely sure. They're afraid that if they weren't sure that they might not practice it. So I said to this person, he said, yeah, but don't you have to be absolutely, aren't you absolutely sure that murder or killing is bad, and don't you have to be absolutely sure about that? And I said, I don't think so. I think you could just feel like, I don't think, I think, you know, I think killing is bad.

[65:05]

I don't want to do it. No, you've got to have more compression on it, otherwise you might kill someone. But if you really don't want to, and you really think it's not a bad idea, why put all that pressure on it? If you're really pretty sure, like, you know, if you don't like eggplant, do you have to be absolutely sure that you don't like eggplant? You know, will that help you to be really absolutely sure? Like somebody's going to say, OK, we have some eggplant here. Would you please eat it? I don't like eggplant. Now eat it. Well, I don't like eggplant. Eat the eggplant. You want me to eat the eggplant even though I don't like it? Yeah. Well, what's going on? I don't understand. What's the matter? What's the harm in me not eating eggplant?

[66:09]

No, no, no. Now, if you're absolutely sure that you don't have egg on the eggplant, then I think kind of like, you know, maybe you're getting in a fight with the person. But if you just don't want to, and, you know, you're not getting to absolutely sure, you just don't understand what the problem is. You know, you're just like, you're more flexible, right? You just don't want to. But, I mean, you could eat it if it really was going to help. Is this going to, like, Is it, you know, if I eat this eggplant, is it the war going to end or something? I mean, what's so important about me eating the eggplant? If it's really that helpful, I'll eat it. I don't like it. But you don't change your mind. You don't forget that you don't like it. The other person might say, the reason why I want you to eat it is because it's been prepared in a different way. And we think if you eat this that, you know, you might change your mind about eggplant. You might say, okay, I'll eat it. Let's try it.

[67:09]

You're right. It is good. I mention that because I don't like eggplant. But I went to Japan one time, and they had the eggplants there are long and short or smaller, and they're thin. They're not the big, ball-less ones. And the way they cooked it with miso paste on it and thin slips, thin pieces, you know, grilled. It was actually good. I actually liked it. So anyway, to be absolutely sure of these precepts, is a hindrance to realizing that. Because the point of these precepts is not that you become perfect. The point of these precepts is not that you're perfect at these precepts and somebody else isn't. The point of these precepts is to love people. That's what they're about. And if you're absolutely sure about the precepts, that's going to interfere with you loving people. But the precepts will help you. They're quite helpful.

[68:11]

Not killing is a good advice to you if you want to have a loving relationship. Not taking what's not given is actually a good principle in a relationship. Not lying is a good principle. Not misusing sexuality is a good principle. Not slandering is a good principle. Not praising yourself at the expense of others. These are all good teachings about having loving relationships. But if you become absolutely sure about them, They all backfire and hurt your relationships, I say. But if you just sort of say, hey, I like these precepts. I want to practice them. I mean, I basically want to practice them. I notice I don't sometimes, but still I think they're good precepts and I want to practice them. That's where I'm at. But if you're absolutely sure, also then if you violate them, then you're going to have to go into denial, probably. because there's a dark side of the absolute sureness, is that you probably, since you're absolutely sure, then of course you could not break them, right?

[69:24]

Because you're absolutely sure, so there's no way you can break it. So then if you break them, then you've got to like say, I didn't break them. And I know some people who said, well, I've never broken any of the precepts. And I said to this person, I said, I think you and me are quite similar. I think we're both dangerous people. But the difference between us is I think I'm dangerous and you don't. I think you're dangerous. But you're equally dangerous or more dangerous than me. I don't know, more dangerous. But anyway, you're as dangerous as me, I'm pretty sure. But you don't think you are. And that person actually told me that he never violated a precept. So that's a problem of being rigid about them, is that you get yourself in a position where you have to deny or hide. If you're relaxed about them, you also can be somewhat relaxed about making the mistake, so then you can be somewhat relaxed about confessing the mistake, so then you can learn.

[70:35]

So I just want to amplify that a little bit. Does that make sense? Do you know what I mean about that little voice that says, you can't relax about these? That's the devil. I used to, when I was a kid, I thought the devil was sort of a light, you know, a life-sized person, you know, somewhere between five and seven feet tall. But then I found out that in medieval times, devils were, like, really little, and they're small so they can fit in your ear and talk to you. They have direct, you know, direct... access to your eardrum. There's a whole bunch of them that can fit around there. Just the one that's suitable for them. So that's why you should know a prayer for the right situation to meet the devil who's telling you the bad advice for each situation.

[71:30]

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