Good morning. I've been speaking recently about the bodhisattva precepts, partly in preparation or prior to our lay ordination ceremony, which will be the last Sunday of next month, months from now, October 25th in the afternoon. And sometimes I've talked about the precepts and other teachings as ways in which or guidelines for us to express this zazen mind heart when we get up from our cushions to extend our awareness that we get some glimpses of that we settle into in our sitting practice, how to express that or share that in our everyday activities. and there's a lot of emphasis in Zen on that.

[01:04]

How do we express Buddha heart, Buddha nature in our ordinary, everyday activities? And yet, especially for Zen students, all Buddhist teaching, all Buddhist philosophy It's not abstract, but actually meditation, specific meditation instructions. So in the context of our all-day sesshin today, I want to talk about Buddhist teachings as instructions for our meditation, as ways to delve into and settle into Zazen heart. So I'll return a little bit to the precepts later on, but I want to start with a very simple, basic Buddhist teaching, the teaching of the five skandhas, or aggregates, which are sometimes translated as form, feeling, perception, impulses or mental formations, and consciousness.

[02:24]

So this is a very early Buddhist teaching, and part of what it expresses is the idea of non-self, that our usual sense of a self that we have constructed from the perspective of basic Buddhist teachings is in some ways an illusion. It's an illusion that we need to take care of. When we look at these five skandhas, or aggregates, we can see, well, is this person form, or feelings, or perceptions, or mental formations, or consciousness? Well, actually, those are five aspects of what each of us experiences in the body and mind sitting on your cushion right now. And a Buddhist scholar friend of mine said to me that actually they're somewhat arbitrary.

[03:29]

Buddha might have picked five other ways of describing aspects of what this is sitting on your cushion now. There's nothing sacred about those five, and yet that's what he talked about, these five. So I want to talk about, particularly the second and maybe a little bit the third, actual meditation instructions. So first of all, in our tradition of Sazen, we just sit and are present with whatever arises. But this whatever arises includes that Buddhist teachings may come to mind, and these are ways to settle into just sitting. So it's okay to do specific meditation, you might say techniques, but to focus on particular aspects of meditative technology in the context of just sitting, which means that we just sit.

[04:39]

We don't try to get some specific, reach some specific goal with these practices. We just sit with them. We see how they are. And of course, all Buddhist teachings, going all the way back, are just commentaries on zazen, just commentaries on meditation. These are not philosophical. positions that somebody thought up through some deliberation process, but rather expressions of awareness that meditators came up with. Even great Buddhist philosophers like Nagarjuna, or even complex, you might say, philosophical or psychological systems like Abhidharma, come from meditative awareness. And particularly for the Zen school, for the Chan people in China, Chan is identified by focusing on what is the experience of these teachings, not just to think about them abstractly, but how do we bring them into our mind and body through our sitting practice?

[06:04]

And then how do we express them in our experience? So the second of the five skandhas, which I wanted to speak on a bit this morning, has a meditation instruction. In Sanskrit, it's called Vedana. And it's often translated as feeling. But it's not feeling in the sense that we might think of it in English. So I have sometimes recommended as a mantra or a koan. to sit with in zazen on Bob Dylan's mantra. How does it feel? And you're always welcome to use that in zazen, to feel what is going on. But this second skanda, vedana, feeling, is simpler and more precise than that. It is the fact observed by meditators that whatever experience is happening

[07:06]

We always have one of three kinds of responses to that, positive, negative, or neutral. With all experiences, we may enjoy the experience, we may have some negative feelings, or maybe neutral. just to sit and observe, oh, here's positive response, here's negative response, here's neutral response, is in itself a useful practice, a practice for developing our awareness. We might think that Well, you should only have positive responses. You know, you should be, you know, happy all the time and enjoy your city. This is the derogative opposing bliss, as Togan says. Well, it's okay if that happens, but practically speaking, you may have negative experiences too.

[08:09]

Or you might think, oh, I should have neutral responses. I should be content with things as they are and try and avoid any positive or negative responses to things. And yet, attraction and aversion are wired into our human faculties. Maybe even more deeply than just human consciousness, all things have electromagnetic charges, positive or negative. So what do we do as we observe positive, negative, or neutral? How do we practice with that as a meditation instruction? So one thing is that we, maybe through conditioning or maybe through, I don't know, the way we're wired as neurological beings, we have

[09:15]

attractions and aversions. So how many of you here like vanilla? How many of you here like chocolate? I think everybody raised their hand for chocolate. How about strawberry? Some people like everything. But some of you have a preference for vanilla over chocolate or for chocolate over vanilla. In the same way, we have positive, negative, neutral responses. So observe as we're sitting. One aspect of that is, well, I'll come to that when we talk about the third skanda, we do have some responses. And there's an old Zen teaching poem attributed to the third Chan ancestor, although it was probably written much later, called Faith in Mind.

[10:28]

And it's often studied in Zen. And it starts with this very strong statement. The great way is simple. Simply do not pick and choose. So maybe that would be easy to feel open and awakened all the time if we had no picking and choosing, if we did not have preferences. But again, these attractions and aversions arise. Well, maybe it's simply not to act on them, picking and choosing. When vanilla comes, eat vanilla. When chocolate comes, eat chocolate. When Rocky Road comes, eat that. Anyway.

[11:30]

Or maybe just take a tiny bit. What does it mean to not pick and choose? How do we not get caught by our attractions and aversions? So this has relevance to the precepts that I'll get to, but just in the process of sitting, being present on our seat, how do we see the arising of positive, negative, or neutral responses? Constantly. Maybe you don't see it. Well, that's neutral. There's no positive or negative. How do we not pick or choose? In some ways this has to do with non-attachment, not getting caught by attractions and aversions. But also, it's been said that the most dangerous attachment is the attachment to non-attachment.

[12:34]

You can think, oh, I have to only have neutral responses. That's a kind of preference too. How can we see positive, negative, and neutral responses. This relates to the third skanda, too, perceptions or sensations, which has to do with how we experience with our senses. So thinking is one sense in Buddhism. If you're feeling warm and the air conditioning goes on, you might feel, oh, that's good. But if you're feeling already comfortable and the air conditioning goes on, you might feel, oh, it's too cold. One highly recommended object of attention in meditation is sound.

[13:40]

but the harmony of difference and sameness says, sounds differ as pleasing or harsh. So the sound of the air conditioning or the sound of traffic going by on the street, some people might experience that as pleasant, a kind of constant sound. Or some people might experience that as intrusive, Or maybe just it's the sound. So I think it's more the previous tenant upstairs from us sometimes walked around a lot. And some people seem to be distracted by that or kind of unhappy with that. Some people kind of maybe welcome the sound as an object of attention. Sounds differ as pleasing or harsh. This, of course, applies to other sensations, too.

[14:55]

So during sashimi, food we can pay attention to in a different way. We can appreciate tastes and enjoy our lunch and eat mindfully and enjoy our meals in a different way. Or physical sensations, too. I mentioned hot or cold, but you may have Pleasant sensations in your body you may feel. You may enjoy your breathing, which I always encourage. Or you may have some itch, which you may feel as a distraction. Or you may enjoy the itch and just say, oh yeah, here's an opportunity to not move in the middle of this itch. Or you may have some pain in your shoulders or your knees. These are physical sensations, and they are pleasant or harsh. Of course, they're also subjective, so I remember sitting at Tassajara where it's very quiet, where the quality control of sound is very, there's the sound of the creek.

[16:03]

Sometimes, some seasons it dries up. There's sometimes the sound of the birds. Sometimes it's quiet still. But I remember some students at Tassajara once getting very upset, even a very senior student, because the generator in the shop went on. And they could hear it. And you're not supposed to be able to hear anything electric at Tassajara. Well, we have these positive, negative, and neutral responses. How do we practice with them? How do we pay attention to them? How do we see, oh yeah, I'm having a negative response. I don't like that feeling in my knee. Or I'm having a positive response. I feel the pleasure of this exhale. So in these contexts, what does it mean to not pick and choose.

[17:06]

How do we feel what we feel? How do we notice it? As with all Buddhist teachings, as meditation instructions, it's not required that you take this on in your zazen. You might just sit and feel the arising and falling of thoughts, feelings, sensations, and just return to your upright posture, and that's fine. These libraries full of Buddhist teachings as meditation instructions are simply available to help us refine and focus when they're useful. So you might try the rest of the day, for those of you who are staying, Just noticing positive, negative, neutral responses. And how do you respond to that? If you're feeling some discomfort in your posture, if you're having a negative response to some physical sensation, does that mean you should change your posture, get up and move to a chair or something like that?

[18:21]

Well, if it's really excruciating, maybe you should. But can you also just observe and sit quietly and still and say, oh, yeah, there's some tension in my shoulder muscles. There's some pain in my knee. There are particular kinds of pain that you should not just keep sitting through. But that's not going to happen in a one-day sitting. And if you think that there may be something, so like your leg falling asleep, It's not going to be harmful to you. You should probably take your time getting up when it's time for the next walking meditation. That's OK. But just to observe that you have a negative or a neutral or positive response. Maybe it's harder to notice neutral responses because here we are, we're just sitting. Anyway, I offer this to you as a possibility to refine

[19:22]

awareness of just sitting. This is an old ancient Buddhist teaching and it's also a meditation instruction. But going back to the faith in mind verse, Dogen reads it in his commentaries simply dislike picking and choosing. And in a couple of his commentaries in his extensive record he says, simply to disdain picking and choosing, is like a Garuda not eating anything else but dragons. So we are, this is the ancient dragon, Zengid, and we sometimes refer to each other as dragons, and that's lovely and very sweet, and we have a wonderful dragon on the front window that Titus Kylir offered us. So I'm, you know, maybe this is kind of rude to let you know about Garudas.

[20:28]

But Garudas apparently are native to India, Indian subcontinent, and they're these very, very large birds. They have a wingspan of I forget now exactly, several yojanas. A yojana is the distance an army can march in one day. So they're really large. And Garuda's entire subsistence, the only thing they eat is dragons. So Dogen says, simply to disdain, picking and choosing, it's like a Garuda not eating anything but dragons. In another commentary, he amplifies on it. He talks about ways that people might misunderstand that, this disliking, picking, and choosing.

[21:33]

One way might be to say, oh, well, then I should just go with the flow, go with whatever's happening. He says, that's not it. Or some people might say, disdaining, picking, and choosing means I should shut up, not say anything. Any words I utter, any thoughts you might have is some kind of selective process. But he says, no, it's not like that. It's just simply that Garudas don't eat anything, he says in this one, except raw dragons. So how do we function as human beings, as humans and students? trying to absorb these Buddhist teachings and find what their inner meaning in our zazen heart-mind. And now that you've heard about Garudas, you know that dragons, we have our own predators.

[22:49]

So I don't know if there are any Gerudas around Chicago or the Midwest region. Maybe we're safe. They're only in India. Still, we do have our own predators, things like greed and hatred and delusions. So beware. There are creatures out there that only eat dragons. What do dragons eat? Well, that's up to each of you. Maybe it's up to our tan zone today. Bean soup, bean and kale soup. That sounds healthy, and probably very delicious. So what is it you do in the midst of positive, negative, and neutral responses? One way is just to see what's happening, see how it is.

[23:52]

Negative response is negative response. Positive response is, oh, that's yummy. I like vanilla. Sometimes you may try new things. So if you've never tasted whatever, you might try it out. You might like it. You might not. That's OK. It's okay to have positive or neutral or negative responses. This is part of our electromagnetic human functioning. Sounds differ as pleasing or harsh. So I want to say a little bit about positive, negative, and neutral in relationship to our precepts.

[24:56]

So we have 16 Bodhisattva precepts. The first three are simply to take refuge in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And some of you have done this formally in ceremony, but just by showing up here today, You are coming home to Buddha, to Dharma, to reality, and to Sangha, to our working together as Sangha towards harmony. And then there's this three pure precepts. I vow to embrace and sustain right conduct. I vow to embrace and sustain all good. And I vow to embrace and sustain all beings. So I want to come back to that important third one there. And then there are these ten grave precepts, like a disciple of Buddha does not kill, a disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given, a disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexuality. These are all guidelines for how to express zazen mind in our everyday activity.

[25:59]

And I've been talking about these ten different ways for the last couple of months. Today I want to talk about them, though, in terms of attraction and aversion. Just to note this while we're noting positive, negative, and neutral. So, some of these precepts seem to relate to ways we can get in trouble based on desire and attraction. So, for example, a disciple of Buddha does not take what is not given. We might like something, and I want that. That's mine. I want it. Again, these are not just guidelines for how to act in the world, but also I want to to consider that these are also meditation instructions.

[27:03]

Right in the middle of zazen, how do we not take what is not given? Or is it possible to take what is not given? Maybe not. These are all things we can consider. Another precept is the disciple of Buddha does not misuse sexuality. So sexuality can be a wonderful aspect of our life. and enjoying our senses and many aspects of that, how do we not misuse it? How do we not cause harm? How do we not take what is not given in that realm? A disciple of Buddha, another one says, is not possessive of anything. So through attraction we might want to hold on to my stuff. And sometimes that precept is a disciple of Buddha is not possessive of any even the dharma, things and dharmas can be equated. So how do we share our awareness?

[28:06]

How do we share our gateways to reality? So let's have something to do with attraction or desire. Then there are precepts that have to do with aversion. The disciple of Buddha does not harbor ill will. We don't hold on to anger. we instead, when we feel aversion, use the energy of that. Sometimes it's very energetic. How do we transform that into clear seeing? Seeing what's happening and resolve to respond in an appropriate way so we don't hold on to anger. And a disciple of Buddha does not slander, or sometimes that's could be translated as to discuss or dwell on the faults of others. So we might have an aversion to, we think, to someone or to some way that someone is acting.

[29:08]

And we might do things based on that. And yet, we might also see, oh, well, what's that have to do with me? This is my aversion. Or if there's some situation that we see is happening that needs, somebody is causing harm to others or to themselves, how do we patiently watch and respond and try to be helpful? All of these we've talked about more in terms of how they work in the world, but I think also as observing the thoughts that arise in zazen. There may be times when there's no thinking in satsang, or when thoughts are pretty still, and that's great. But also, just like there are sounds or tastes or physical sensations, thoughts arise, we might have a thought, one of those kinds of thoughts, based on attraction.

[30:14]

Or we might have one of those thoughts based on aversion. Even in our sitting, how do we see positive, negative, and neutral. How do we respond to them? Not get caught up in them. How do we appreciate not picking or choosing based on them? Being ourselves without getting caught up in them. And I'll just mention, you know, one of the many criteria for how these precepts work. There's a short a Chinese text called the Definitive Linea, or Rules and Regulations, and I won't quote the whole thing, but it basically says that for bodhisattvas, it's not as bad to break the precepts, if you think you can do that, out of desire than it is to break precepts out of hatred.

[31:16]

It says, a bodhisattva who breaks precepts out of desire still holds sentient beings in her or his embrace, whereas a bodhisattva who breaks precepts out of hatred forsakes sentient beings altogether. So, of course, we don't try and break precepts. In some ways, maybe it's just by the nature of positive, negative, neutral, attraction, and aversion, we can't help but break precepts. But there are these criteria just to do no harm, to support life and love rather than killing. And also, this embracing and sustaining all beings. in the bodhisattva way, in the way of awakening that leads to Buddha awareness on this path that we are all on, just by virtue of the fact that you're here today.

[32:22]

This is true. We try to hang out with beings. Sometimes, you know, we might feel lots of aversion and we just need to go and be alone for a while. That's okay. But sometimes the bell rings and we get up for kith and kin and we walk around this room together. How do we stay in contact with beings, even in the midst of aversion? So I've talked about Thich Nhat Hanh's 14 Precepts of Interbeing as commentaries on our 10, and there's this one that I've mentioned Do not avoid suffering or close your eyes before suffering. Do not lose awareness of the existence of suffering in the life of the world. Find ways to be with those who are suffering, including personal contact, visits, images, and sounds. By such means, awaken yourself and others to the reality of suffering in the world. And this means that we're open to the suffering of other beings, even those who are

[33:31]

causing harm. We see that they are suffering in some way. How do we stay open to that? How do we not run away from our embracing and sustaining all beings? and especially in the context of zazen, meditation instruction, and sashin, do not avoid suffering or close your eyes before suffering of the body and mind on your own cushion. How do we observe positive, negative, and neutral responses? How do we see attraction and aversion, positive, negative, and neutral.

[34:36]

And again, if you don't see it, that's what's called neutral. And that's fine. And, you know, it's very helpful to be content with the situation we are in. But sometimes, you know, there's positive and negative responses. How do we see our own suffering that comes about through our habits? So that's the fourth skanda, the impulses and tendencies that we have developed into habits of how we think about things. And how it suits us and how we are present with our body and mind. Can you just be present with your body and mind and not dislike your body and mind? Or if you do, just be with that. How can you be present in attraction and aversion? And yet, as Dogen says, in our life, in this world, in attraction, flowers fall.

[35:43]

In aversion, weeds spread. We do have positive, negative, and neutral responses. this second skanda of feeling some response. And part of sitting and being present in this body and mind is also awakening to impermanence. So positive responses change, and the flowers fall. and negative responses even if we try and do something to fix them, even if we change our posture. So we'd spread. So this is ancient Buddhist basic, very basic teaching, and yet also this is something we can sit with.

[36:51]

How does it feel? just to see our responses. And how does it feel, in the sense that no one asks the question? Also, how does it feel? What is this like, to be this person, have this body, this mind, this heart on our cushion? How do we be kind to ourselves and to others, even in the midst of attraction and aversion? So, we'll have time in the schedule this afternoon for some discussion, but if there's some people who won't be here, if anyone has, take one or two comments now if anyone has any responses or questions.

[38:04]

Dharma talks are like this, too. You might have a positive, negative, or neutral response. I do myself. Sometimes afterwards, I'll say, oh, I like that. That was a good dharma talk. Or, ah, what kind of crummy I didn't say what I wanted to say, or everybody fell asleep, or whatever. Everything is like this, positive, negative, neutral responses. Cathy? I couldn't help thinking about practice as you were talking this morning, and so it was a useful time to talk to me and respond to your comment. Anyway, positive or negative response and then even continuing on, the balance in those, sometimes I think I find myself trying to figure out how much am I to be led by what I prefer, because there are a lot of options in terms of how to practice. Yes. And we all do it in our own way.

[39:23]

And so, you know, sometimes there's like positive responses to some things that are more positive to some things than other things. Or how much you need to stay with and make a commitment to a particular thing and do it, because sometimes you don't really know what you might experience in it until you do it, until you have this, you know, a systematic kind of commitment to it. Yeah, it's a very good question. So I don't know the answer to that. So in our practice, do we do what feels good? Do we do only what feels bad? Part of it is just the awareness, just to study positive, negative, and neutral. Or, you know, there are, of course, many more teachings about what is our experience. Just to observe clearly, what is this?

[40:27]

How is it? How does it feel? So awareness itself is transformative. Awareness itself is the point. And yet, We also have to take on certain things and make practice commitments, and we do that, and we see our preferences. Sometimes it's good to check with someone, and check with your teacher, or check with a spiritual friend. What should I be doing? about this aspect of practice. Basically, we take on some commitment, so it's good for you to decide, okay, I'm going to, and there are various contexts for this, but just the simplest, I'm going to say it X number of times a week for X number of minutes.

[41:30]

And it's not that sit every day, I just need to, and I like it. But it's not that you should take on some, well, sometimes somebody might say, you should do this practice. That happens, and I've done that with people occasionally. But really, what is it that feels like it might be helpful for you? And it might be something that's difficult that's not your preference, that you have a negative response to. But to, so it's good to kind of put a time limit on how long, you know, for the next month I'm going to do, I'm going to sit this much, or I'm going to go and visit people in hospitals as a practice this much, or I'm going to read sutras or zandarma books X, Y, and Z for this much. And to make it a finite, period of time, like, I'm going to try this practice on, even if it feels like you don't like it, I'm going to try that for the next month, for the next three months.

[42:38]

Often, in Zen tradition, there's three-month practice periods. So, OK, I'm going to do this for this next month, for the next three months, or maybe just for this lifetime. And try it. And come and check with a spiritual friend about it. But don't do it based just on positive, negative, or neutral. But also, pay attention, observe. So Buddha said, don't follow these teachings just because I said them. There's a kind of empirical scientific method to our practice. How does it help develop your awareness, ability to be kind to yourself and others. But sometimes it takes some time to see that. So thank you for that question. It's a good one. And thank you all for listening.

[43:35]

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