So, now that there are so many people here who haven't heard what happened to my hand, I have an opportunity to tell you all at once. I was riding my bike and I took a spill and I broke my finger, not my finger, the fourth metacarpal of my left hand. And it doesn't hurt. And it's just hard to do some things that you're used to doing with both hands. One of my doctors once told me adaptation, adapting, is what life's all about. So I'm taking his advice. Today we have just completed our Bodhisattva ceremony, a ceremony of acknowledging our shortcomings and reinstating our vows of practice.

[01:30]

That's what that ceremony is. We acknowledge our shortcomings and we take our vows again to continue. And then, of course, we recite the precepts, the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. So I want to talk a little bit about, it's a good opportunity to talk a little bit about precepts, and also about zazen, because the way we understand precepts is as Zazen, and the way we understand Zazen is as precepts. So it's easy for us to think that precepts are something that's written down in a book and recited, which is true, that's one form of precepts, academic exercise. of reciting precepts, and we usually think of precepts as the 10 prohibitory precepts or the 10 clear-mind precepts, but actually there are 16 precepts.

[02:42]

And of course, precepts are about our behavior, but they're also about our understanding, and where do precepts come from? We say that we learn Buddha's precepts through Zazen. Zazen is our great teacher. Zazen is how we open ourselves to Buddha's teaching, and Buddha's teaching is given to us through Zazen. Our understanding comes from Zazen. So precepts are not something that necessarily are put into our head, but something that comes out of our zazen. Precepts are intrinsic to our body-mind.

[03:46]

So when we talk about precepts in Zen practice, it's not exactly the same as in other practices, although I don't criticize those other practices, but this is our understanding. So we say there are three types of precepts. One is one body, three treasures. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha is the fountainhead of precepts. Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. So when we take precepts, the three treasures are the beginning of precepts, the fountainhead of precepts. So the one body, precepts means the precepts that are the body of Buddha, which is not Shakyamuni necessarily.

[05:01]

Shakyamuni is a representative, but Buddha nature, which we say is dharmakaya. And dharma, which is the law or the teaching, and Sangha, which is the harmonious community. Those are three categories of precepts. So, one body means that precepts are expressions of the Dharma body, the Buddha, the body of Buddha, which is, of course, your own body and mind. The Dharma, the manifestation, the manifested three treasures are related to the Dharma. Dharma is like society, the precepts which are related to society.

[06:10]

You could say that's Buddhism. the precepts which keeps society healthy. Those are the manifested three treasures, keep society healthy and is concerned with the Dharma or the teaching or the law. The one body is not Buddhism. It's not anything that you can name or put a title to. It's the essence. So precepts come from this essence and are expressed as dharma within society. And the maintained three bodies is the Sangha.

[07:14]

where we have the 10 prohibitory presets, which create harmony among everybody. So Sangha is everybody, but specifically the people you practice with. And we practice with these prohibitory presets. Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, but do this, do this, do this. It has two sides, the negative side and the positive side. So don't kill, but respect life. Don't steal, but realize that nothing can be taken, because everything already belongs to you. You can only use things, you can't really own them. And to maintain three treasures,

[08:15]

is creating harmony in the Sangha, creating harmony wherever you are, creating a harmonious Buddha field. Each one of us has the opportunity to create a harmonious Buddha field wherever we are. So Buddha's teaching shines through Sanzen. and informs us how to act in this world. And through that, by inducing Buddha's light through Dazen, you have the opportunity to express that through all of your activities in society and within the Sangha. So, precepts have a different tone than just following something by rote, because if you simply follow rules by rote, then you become rule-bound easily.

[09:26]

So, it's kind of like the law is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law comes through Zazen. The letter of the law is what's written down as, or expressed as, rules. There are no rules, but we create rules, because we're human beings. In the animal kingdom, there are rules, but they're different than our rules. quite different, and they obey those rules, animals do obey those rules, but we don't like a lot of the rules that they obey, but they don't make them up, they just follow their instinct, so we have instinct as well as buddha nature, and instinct and buddha nature are the two factors that we're always dealing with, that are in conflict

[10:27]

with our buddha nature, even though instinct is an aspect of buddha nature, of course, but how to harmonize our way-seeking mind with our ordinary desires, basically. So when we sit zazen, our basic desires are directed toward this activity called way-seeking mind. As soon as we sit down to practice Azan, desire is transformed into way-seeking mind. Not that we're seeking something, but simply existing in the light of Buddha, Buddha's hand, so to speak. So when we wonder about, well, what is the goal of this zazen?

[11:42]

Why do we sit zazen? We don't sit zazen to get something, but simply to allow Buddha's teaching to flow through us as Buddha's light. Dogen has written Zazengi. We're mostly familiar with Fukan Zazengi of Dogen Zenji. Dogen Zenji wrote Fukan Zazengi when he came back from China, and he revised it several times, as the meaning of practice, what Zazen means in practice. and how to do that. Zazengi is a little shorter and just talks about Zazen, but it's full of implications if you know how to read it.

[12:46]

So I'm gonna go through Dogen's Zazengi, Rules for Zazen, which is actually practiced based on original enlightenment. when we begin to practice, what brings us to practice is original enlightenment. If we didn't already have original enlightenment, there would be nothing that would correspond to practice. There would be nothing leading us to practice. So it's our enlightened mind that leads us to practice. You may say, well, I don't feel enlightened. That's good. If you felt enlightened, you'd probably be wrong. Which doesn't mean that enlightenment is not your nature. So how do we become ourselves?

[13:48]

When we practice zazen, we practice zazen to become ourselves. Which is, in the end, no self. But before that, we have to rely on ourself. So Dogen says, practicing Zen is Zazen for us. Then he tells us how to do this. He tells us where to go. He says, for Zazen, a quiet place is suitable, like the mountains. Zen people like to practice in the mountains. Then he says, lay a thick mat. Do not let in drafts or smoke. Rain or dew, protect and maintain the place where you settle your body. There are examples from the past of sitting on a diamond seat and sitting on a flat stone covered with a thick layer of grass.

[14:50]

Well, first of all, he says, for Zazen, a quiet place is suitable, and that's nice. But, you know, a noisy place is also suitable. I remember when we used to practice at San Francisco Zen Center, people yelling and screaming out in the street, cars rushing by, and it's a wonderful environment. Also, when we used to practice on Dwight Way, with our old zendo, cars are going by all the time, and once there was a drummer across the street who would start right at the beginning of afternoon zazen, and stop just when you're finished. But those are good circumstances because they try your equanimity.

[15:55]

So, you know, sitting in a quiet place is wonderful. But the test of your practice is a noisy place, the marketplace. That's the test. It's easy to feel comfortable when there's nothing, no problem. But how do you feel comfortable? How do you feel at ease? How do you feel settled? there is intrusion. So, this is the main thing about our practice. How do you settle on yourself? As if you're in Zazen, when there's a lot of distraction. So, Eastenling says, there are examples from the past of just sitting on a diamond seat.

[17:03]

That's a Buddhist seat. and sitting on a flat stone covered with a thick layer of grass. That was a characteristic of Sekito Kisen. He was called Stonehead. But he had a big stone that he used to sit on, which was covered with grass. So, that's what he's talking about, I think. And then he says, day or night, The place of sitting should not be too dark. It should be kept warm in winter and cool in summer. There's deviation from that. In the Japanese monasteries, the monks go out with their straw sandals, often barefoot in the snow, and sit in the snow. Dogen is giving people, saying, don't succumb to being ascetic. You don't have to be ascetic to do Zazen.

[18:06]

But yet there is a tendency toward asceticism. There is a tendency, but still, we don't lapse into that. And also, I remember in Tassajara, in the beginning, we didn't have any heat, except in a dining room. when they weren't doing something else. It was very cold. So then he says, set aside all involvements and let the myriad things rest. Zazen is not thinking of good, not thinking of bad. It is not conscious endeavor, and it is not introspection. When you sit zazen, you just let go of everything, although it's difficult.

[19:10]

In the morning it's easier, but in the afternoon, if you sit in the afternoon or the evening, you have all the distractions of the day running through your mind. But that's a good time to sit. Sometimes people say, well, you know, the afternoon's not so good because my mind is always going blah, blah, blah, blah. We just sit with it. That's a good time to sit, best time. Best time is when all this stuff is going on and coming up over and over like a loop in your mind. So, set aside all involvements and let the myriad things rest. Zazen is not thinking of good and not thinking of bad. So this is of course the key. This is how we allow Buddha's teaching to come through, to not think in dualistic terms.

[20:12]

So Zazen is not just letting go of all affairs, but it's letting go of dualistic thinking. When we're uncomfortable, we say, that's not so good. Even though we don't say that, we feel this is not so good. And when things are, and we, And it feels like an intrusion. The reason it feels like an intrusion is because there's somebody there that's being intruded on. And when we're thinking of, when we feel really good, we think, oh, I really want to maintain this feeling. But as soon as you say that, it starts to change. and then you cling to it, and you want something, and you fall into discomfort. So, true comfort, Dogen says, sounds in a comfortable way, and then all of a sudden you say, ha, ha, ha.

[21:19]

But true comfort is not the same as being comfortable or uncomfortable in the usual way. comfortable as opposite of uncomfortable, and uncomfortable as the opposite of comfortable. It's true comfort within what's uncomfortable, and true comfort within what is comfortable. And when those two are not there, it's still comfortable. It doesn't depend on how it is. It doesn't depend on the circumstances. And this is how we can sit with the cars rushing by, because it doesn't depend on the circumstances. It's stability beyond circumstances. Not that circumstances don't play a part, but we're not caught by them. We don't attach to the circumstances. Then we can be comfortable, even though there's pain. Pain is not the same as suffering.

[22:27]

there are various kinds of suffering. There's suffering which is induced by our mindlessness. And then there's the suffering which is just something happens to us. There are different aspects of suffering. So, what Dogen is talking about, what Buddha is talking about, is the suffering that we create ourselves. through our attachments and our mindlessness, which create a self. So when we talk about what is the self, it's not this body-mind, it's the self that arises through mindlessness, through not paying attention to how we create something that's not already there. So he says, Zazen is not thinking of good and bad.

[23:34]

It is not conscious endeavor. What he means by conscious endeavor is not that we don't make an effort, but that we're not trying to make an effort to get something or to get somewhere. And he says it is not introspection. It's not psychology, although psychology is always present in all of our thinking. But introspection in the sense of creating a dialogue about what's happening, trying to figure it out in certain various introspective ways. And he said, day or night, the place of sitting should not be dark.

[24:45]

It should be kept warm in winter and cool in summer. I just went back to that. There's a story, a little anecdote, about Wu Zu Fa Yan, the old Chinese Zen master. He said, he's talking to his monks. The place is really decrepit. The temple is falling apart. And he says, when I began living here in this building with the crumbling walls and all the platforms were covered by jewels of snow, scrunching up my shoulders to my neck, I exhaled into darkness. reflecting on the ancient ones abiding under a tree. So this is a kind of asceticism in a way, but it's kind of like the spirit of not being daunted by circumstances. So then Dogen says, do not desire to become a Buddha.

[25:50]

Let sitting or lying down drop away. Sitting and lying down, you know, there are the four postures in Buddhism. Sitting, standing, lying, and walking. Sitting, standing, lying, and walking are the four postures. And zazen is not one of them, although it includes all of them in some form. It's not one of the meditation practices of Buddhism. In Buddhism, there are many meditation practices which you can do, and there's a list of meditation practices. But Zazen contains all of them in some way. So that's why Dogen calls it King Samadhi. the samadhi that includes all the samadhis.

[26:52]

Be moderate in eating and drinking. Be mindful of the passing of time, meaning you should realize that time, you only have so much, and so you should make the best use of it. And engage yourself in zazen as though saving your head from fire. Fire means desire. And desire, and so when you read the books, sometimes it says cut off desire, cut off the root of desire, but you can't do that. Desire is very important. It's probably the most important thing that we have. We turn desire, instead of turning desire toward creating an ego through grasping and being attracted by things which create attachment, we transform desire or turn desire toward a way-seeking mind, which is to free ourselves rather than to bind ourselves.

[28:08]

So in Buddhism, allowing desire to have free reign is called bondage. and turning desire toward way-seeking mind or practice is called liberation. It's the same energy, but it's just transformed. So big desire means big Buddha, rather than cutting it off in some way in order to attain something. And then he says, on Mount Hongmei, the fifth ancestor practiced Zazen to the exclusion of all other activities. The fifth ancestor, just before the sixth ancestor, of course, we know, but he was famous for never lying down to sleep. So he would, I don't know exactly how he did this, but there were many monks who did that.

[29:17]

in the history of Buddhism, they would just say, I'm just gonna practice not sleeping, sit, standing, lying down. They would sleep, but not lying down. And up, sometimes they had a chin rest. So they'd sit as I was in with a chin rest, holding their hand. I had one. I was gonna bring it, but I forgot. Or sitting in a box that looks like a, a little bit like a steam bath box. Something like buried in the sand with your head up above. So the Chinese also practice a lot of austerities, which has that tendency toward asceticism.

[30:22]

And in the history of Buddhism, there's the legend of Bodhidharma cutting off his hand, his arm, and presenting it to Bodhidharma, which I don't think is really true. But it's an extreme kind of example of giving something up, right? And so the monks sometimes would cut off their finger or burn off a little part of their finger or something. It was not uncommon in China. It was a kind of going over the top, you know, in sincerity. You don't have to do that to be sincere, to express your sincerity. But religion tends to become extreme, you know, there's a tendency in religion to become extreme, and if you just allow that extremeness, that tendency to escalate, we have fundamental this and fundamental that, right, which is simply an aberration and an extreme way of practicing which

[31:35]

needs tempering. So it's an untempered way of practicing, actually. Temper is a really important aspect, because temper means not too hard, not too soft, just right, how something is balanced and just right. When you make a sword, you temper the material, the steel, so that it has flexibility as well as strength. Flexibility is one of the most important factors of our life. If we have flexibility, we have health. We become healthy through flexibility. So he says, when sitting, you should wear your robe. If you don't have a robe, sit anyway, because when you sit, you're covered by Buddha's robe, invisible robe.

[32:46]

He said, the cushion should not be placed all the way under the legs, but only under the behind. And don't sit all the way on the cushion. In this way, the crossed legs rest on the mat and the backbone is supported with a round cushion. This is the method used by Buddha's ancestors for zazen. You can also sit in a chair. If you sit in a chair and have flexibility, you can sit without leaning against the back. That would be the ideal way, with your feet flat on the floor, and sit as if you were sitting on a cushion, with upright sitting, not leaning against anything. But if you can't do that, then lean against the back of the chair. That's okay. So you do what you can.

[33:46]

And if you do what you can, that's perfect Zazen. Sometimes people have to lay down. sitting on a bench, sitting Seiza, whatever you have to do. But my attitude is you should always try to do that which tests your limitation. So when I teach Zazen, I always teach the most extreme forms of Zazen, and then the lesser forms and so forth. But I encourage people to see how far they can stretch themselves to sit, because the full lotus position is the most comfortable when you master it. But when you try it, it's the most uncomfortable. So I don't say you should do that. But I encourage people to stretch yourself for a while and see if you can't do something more than you think.

[34:52]

Because for me, my attitude is Zazen, or practice, brings out something in you which you didn't know you had and were afraid to dig into. So what makes me grateful is the way my teacher encouraged that. He didn't say, you have to do this or you have to sit like that. It's just something about when you're in a position where you can't move, you can't leave and you can't stay, that's the place where you have to find yourself. So then he says either sit in the half lotus position or the full lotus position or put this foot on and so forth, which I won't go into, but I just explained my attitude.

[35:58]

So then he says loosen your robes and arrange them in an orderly way, place the right hand on the left foot and the left hand on the right and so forth, and he talks about the mudra, how your The split mudra. This actually makes it easier for me. Because you put this finger in the middle of your palm, and then hold your hands like this. This is not good, with your thumb sticking up, or pressing together. It's the circle. So the tips of your thumb are touching each other, and barely touching. This is the barometer of zazen against your navel. And when the tips of your thumbs are pressing against each other, you know there's too much tension in your body or your mind.

[37:02]

And when they're falling apart, you know that there's not enough effort going on. So it tells you, if you pay attention to the mudra, you can actually regulate your whole body temper by the way by adjusting your mudra, which shows us how one part of the body controls the whole thing, can control the whole body, one part can control the whole body. This controls me now, you know, to a certain extent. It's really time to stop. Well, that was just the prelude. I knew I wouldn't get into the thing. So. OK, straighten your body, sit erect, don't lean to the left or right, don't bend forward or backward.

[38:06]

Your ears should be in line with your shoulders and your nose in line with your navel. and rest your tongue against the roof of your mouth and breathe through your nose. Lips and teeth should be closed, eyes should be open, neither too wide nor too narrow, and take a breath and inhale fully. And then he says, sit solidly in samadhi. So samadhi means concentration unwavering concentration, basically. But there are different kinds of concentration. We think of concentration as concentrating on one point. There is particular concentration. But in zazen, that's not our way of concentrating. Our way of concentrating is to open our eyes and not concentrate on anything in particular.

[39:12]

but allow the whole view to be seen. So if you, right now, were to stop concentrating on any particular point and just let everything, just let the wide range of your vision be there without concentrating on any particular thing, this is zazen concentration outside. But through the body, you scan the body. This is called investigation. You investigate all of the aspects of posture and continually readjust. Even though it doesn't look like it to somebody else. You think, gosh, I'm moving all over. I must be disturbing everybody, but nobody can even see that. Well, But sitting up straight is how we express, sitting, keeping the posture correct is how we express Buddha's Dharma.

[40:18]

Buddha's Dharma is expressed through Zazen, keeping the body straight, the ears in line with the shoulders, the nose in line with the navel, not leaning back or forth or on anything, and thinking, not thinking. Think not thinking. Monk asked, what is think not thinking? Non-thinking. Well, it's neither attaching to thinking nor attaching to not thinking. It's not unattachment to thinking and unattachment to not thinking. In other words, not being, not creating a self through thinking. Anyway, that was just the beginning. I really want to get into this more. Basic precepts through Zazen means the precepts of non-duality, not falling into good and bad or right and wrong.

[41:40]

Then we have our Bodhisattva ceremony called Vyakufusatsa, meaning not falling into good and bad and right and wrong. We acknowledge our shortcomings, which is not in the realm of good and bad and right and wrong. It's simply, oh, this is where we fall short, but it's not bad. It's not wrong, it's simply our human nature. So we don't say, because I did this or because I did that. It's simply, oh, I realize that I cannot practice perfectly. And that's wonderful.

[42:41]

Not bad, not wrong. And now, I renew my vows in order to straighten up. So when we're sitting Zazen, you may think, oh, this is terrible. I'm so bad. It's the same, exactly the same thing. And you say, well, straighten up my back, put my ears in line with my shoulders. That's exactly the same thing as renewing your vows. So we do it continuously during Zazen. We're continuously falling off, and continuously renewing our intention. And our intention lags, and the older members especially start going like this, you know? Me too. I'm one of the older members, and I do too. realize that, and I straighten up. So this is how we continue our practice, continuously. It's not like once a month we do this.

[43:45]

We're doing it all the time, but once a month we get together and do it together as a kind of recognition. But we don't get into right and wrong, good and bad. That's dualistic understanding. So what we learn, what Buddha's teaching coming through, being expressed through us. It's about how to deal, how to live in the realm of non-duality, which includes duality. So there's time for one question, if we have one. Okay. Oh.

[44:59]

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