Good morning. Well, it feels kind of cozy today. Not so many people. And I guess some of you are in the practice period and some aren't. And it doesn't matter. But there is a nice feeling for me of this practice period being very rich in its Dharma gatherings. I feel kind of bedded down in it. It's a nice feeling. And I see many of you so frequently. So, this theme is Living the Bodhisattva Vows.

[01:28]

Tigen Layton gave a wonderful talk yesterday morning on the subject of the Bodhisattva Vows, how the mind of the Bodhisattvas is the mind that is awakening with everyone. That there's no sense of private practice or private anything. the bodhisattva is embedded in the interconnections and awakening all together. He gave a very nice talk on that. And we have been studying the paramitas, the six paramitas, the perfection to the transcendent qualities of the Bodhisattva and our order has taken a few turns but the classes have been in the Paramitas and I'm going to continue today and talk about what's usually the second Paramita, Shila

[02:47]

and sheila is translated in different ways sometimes it is discipline or ethical conduct and the word itself means cool and peaceful And it is sometimes translated, Sheila, as the natural order of mind. So it's an interesting kind of two-sidedness to the Paramita, which actually all the Paramitas have. But when we think of discipline or ethical conduct, we think of some kind of rule, guideline, putting ourselves into a kind of shape, some kind of effort, and some kind of distinction.

[04:04]

But when we think of Sheila as the natural order of mind, as just the expression of Big Mind, that's quite different. So, Sheila, of course, is both. From the point of view of ordinary beings, from the point of view of our very confusing life in the day-to-day world where things rush at us and we do our best to meet them, from that point of view, it's very nice to have some guidelines. Shall I just say this little thing that isn't quite true but that would be convenient? Or shall I not tell a lie and say the complete truth? These little slippages that are always happening.

[05:10]

So it's comforting to have in the background our precepts. shila is usually thought of as... the basis of shila is usually thought of as the precepts. So it's good to have these guidelines. And on the other hand, our practice of zazen is always bringing us back to the limitlessness of the present moment. And our bodhisattva effort is when we sit and when we step off our cushions, that our life is this expression of wholeness and a celebration of our interdependent being. So these are the two sides of Sheila. Some years back, there was a Chinese Zen master, whom I think was Master Shengen, Nan's teacher, who came very eminent

[06:19]

teacher, now I see he's written several books and has Dharma centers in New York and in Asia and elsewhere. And at the end of his talk, Laurie raised her hand and said, well, what is the most important thing? And he said, regulate your life. And I think we all were a little surprised That was a very trenchant teaching. Regulate your life. So our question is, what does that mean? And it is commonly said that in order to practice the Dharma, in order to meditate well, our life has to have some stability and some regulation. if we're hurtling from crisis to crisis to crisis, that's a very challenging meditative challenge.

[07:31]

So hopefully we try to regulate our lives keeping them as harmonious as possible without narrowing the focus. So that's what these precepts are for, to help us in the most deep and most inclusive regulation of our life. how we align ourselves with the particularness of our own situations and own circumstances and internal wiring, how we align that particularity with the big picture.

[08:38]

That's the... That's the ethical intention of the Bodhisattva. So, yesterday in Thaygen's talk, somebody said, well, what is evil in Buddhism? You know, evil doesn't play a very, the word doesn't play a very large part. Don't hear about evil very much. this Mara, but Mara is an example, a form of our delusive nature. And Buddha treated Mara with both affection and respect. So it's not that there's an intensely evil quality, but rather Buddhism is the intention is the ethical quality of Buddhism.

[09:56]

What is our intention? So there are the three pure precepts that in a certain way all of the precepts, all of the guidelines are based on. Do all that is good, refrain from all that is wrong and the natural corollary. Awaken with all beings or save all beings. And so Dogen says that good is simply devotedly do. And evil is simply refrain from. I was very happy when I read that. It kind of clarified for me. these questions of good and evil. Devotedly do, refrain from has a very simple quality just as the natural order of mind has a very simple quality.

[11:05]

In the class we have been studying the Paramitas, with the basic text being The Practice of Perfection, Robert Aitken's book on the Paramitas, which is available at Shambhala's Analysis Paperback. And Alan and I have been Xeroxing pieces of it. So the chapter on Sheila has not been Xeroxed, If you want, you can buy the book. But Robert Aiken begins the chapter on Sheila with a reference to the three bodies of Buddha. The three bodies of Buddha being the kind of backdrop against which the precepts are practiced.

[12:12]

So there is the dharmakaya, the completely fluid, inexpressible dharma body. It's like the sky that's come and gone, come and gone. There's no way, there's no particular way in which it can be expressed. And it is the basis of our balance. and the basis of our intuitive sense of who we are and where we are. And then there's the Sambhogakaya Buddha which is sometimes called the joyful body or the inter-being body or the teaching body. And that Sambhogakaya Buddha is the expression of the Dharmakaya, how it manifests. in the way things are for each of us.

[13:16]

And then there's the nirmanakaya, the particular embodied Buddha, the historical body, or each of us in our particular shapes and forms and thoughts. So these three bodies of Buddha, which are outside and inside and everywhere. Sometimes Suzuki Roshi would refer to these three bodies of Buddha as our perfect background. We have this perfect background and then we fall off. And then somehow we remember and we realign and so that is our sentient being bodhisattva continuous practice to appreciate this perfect background and to feel it as our home and then to slip and then to come back

[14:36]

Robert Aitken says that conscience means, the word conscience, means the sense we have in common. And so again, this can be our background sense that we do have, knowing things together. sense that we have in common that can't be expressed in words and yet is very embedded. Now if you go to a nursery school class, she got more than I did. That's a pretty raw sense of this balance. But that sense is already there. So the natural order of mind, which is a knowing, and it's a not knowing, and it is very informed by this, the last prajna, parinita, the last parinita.

[16:08]

How do we manage to flow with what happens, to dwell in non-dwelling, but also to keep our balance. Somebody said it's like you can say it is spontaneous collaboration with things. On the one hand there are rules, on the other hand there are no rules, but somehow the whole package becomes spontaneous collaboration. Next week is going to be the Bodhisattva ceremony, and Rebecca will be giving the talk. And I don't want to say too much about the Bodhisattva ceremony now, but since it's at the heart of our attitude about the precepts, I just want to review it a little bit.

[17:19]

You know, often, when I first came, I thought that the ceremony was sort of bizarre, or when the ceremony first came to us, because we'd been practicing quite a long time, and then the ceremony caught up with us, and it seemed to me to be a very extreme form of art practice, but like other forms, it certainly grew on me. It's a difficult one for people who haven't been sitting to come into with all the bowing and the chanting and what's going on. And it's a wonderful opportunity, it's a wonderful gate to review the foundation of Bodhisattva practice. The first event is a vowing of recognizing all the ancient twisted karma. Now this is a dharmic process which is expressed in different ways over and over.

[18:26]

But the first step is always to what is the pattern of suffering that's going on, to know it and to acknowledge it. And then there is the homage to the Buddhas, the Buddhas before Buddha. the eternal teacher, and then the particular teachers. So, identifying the models, and not only identifying the models, but making a kind of heart request of ourselves, because these teachers are within. So, knowing our suffering, And asking in our hearts that our suffering through these different qualities be well expressed and wholesomely transmitted. And then once we have aligned ourselves with the helpers, then we take the bodhisattva vows.

[19:35]

Beings are numberless, I vow to awaken with them. And then, having taken the vows, we take refuge. Where is the home? Where is the teacher and the teaching and the common life together, the Sangha? So, each Bodhisattva ceremony, each month, kind of recapitulates our whole practice. The whole ground reminds us of the whole ground of our practice. And then we say the precepts. You're given the precepts. And each precept has the sentient being form and the Bodhi mind form. I'm not going to read them all. But the first precept, I vow not to kill. And then the Doshi says, not killing life, the Buddha seed grows.

[20:36]

Transmit the life of Buddha. and do not kill. So that's the bodhi statement. So we say it both ways, the positive and the corrective. And these precepts are the basis of our sangha life together. You know, every big dharma event is structured around the precepts. Weddings, funerals, in a funeral the dead person is given the precepts and then Roshi says, and now all your ancient twisted karma, your ancient twisted karma is now fully resolved. A wonderful gift at the end of life. So the precepts are the basis of weddings

[21:39]

and our Jukai, which is coming up, and the priest ordination, and perhaps that's all. But every life transition that is marked in Zendo is marked by the giving and receiving of the precepts. Central. I'm just not going to talk about the five precepts. Originally were five precepts and then there are ten precepts and then there are more. We have sixteen precepts here. The three pure precepts and the ten so-called prohibitary precepts. and then the three refuges.

[22:42]

And the precepts proliferate to 200 to 300 different traditions. So I'm not going to go into them as one by one. But I would also like to talk about precepts and our ethical guidelines as skillful means we haven't yet talked about the Bodhisattva practice of skillful means. You know, in the Theravada, in the older tradition, rules were taken pretty seriously, as they are also in the Mahayana, let me say, but rules of conduct were very clear and very firm. And one of the divergences of the Mahayana was this teaching of skillful beings that one doesn't, one does not act only from the rule but one acts also primarily for the well-being of all beings.

[24:01]

And there's a very famous parable in the Lotus Sutra Someone recently said the Prajnaparamita Sutra teaches about emptiness and the Lotus Sutra, which is a wonderful sutra, teaches about how to be a Buddha. And so there's a very famous story in the Lotus Sutra about the burning house, that there is a large, ancient, decrepit house with walls tumbling down and the ridge poles tilted and one small narrow door. This should remind us all of our suffering lives. And now the fire of passion breaks out in this house, in this rocket house. And the children are all happily playing. They're so interested in their little projects and toys. and what's going on in their lives, that they don't see the danger that is increasing around them.

[25:12]

And the father, the good father, is very aware of the danger, and he thinks to himself, he tells them to get out, get out, but they're too preoccupied. So he devises a scheme, he says to them, If you go out, if you go out this small door, if you all get out, I will give you a donkey drawn card, or a deer drawn card, or an oxen drawn card. It goes into a lot of details about how lovely and beautiful these cards are. And when the children hear about this, they do get out. But when they get out, there's only one vehicle, there's only the beautiful, snow-white, horse-drawn cart awaiting them. And Shariputra, who's been watching all this, asks, well, didn't you tell a lie?

[26:14]

Didn't you say that there was going to be a donkey drawn and a deer drawn and so on? And the Buddha says something to the effect of, These children are released from all the sufferings of their situations and their inner preoccupations. Their lives have been liberated, so there is no lie here. Well, that's kind of the major story of Bhupaya, skillful me. And Alan and I last weekend were at a Buddhist Peace Fellowship National Board Meeting and one of the members is a Sakka Gakkai practitioner in Auckland. And she talked about their practice, the Sakka Gakkai practice as it's part of the Wucherin Buddhism family and they practice this parable

[27:26]

really very quite specifically it's a very but instead of a narrow door it's a very wide door and they invite anybody in and they chant and they chant initially for what people want and what you want may be a hundred dollars or it may be a Mercedes or it may be whatever it is. But, and that's what you chant for. And particularly for people who have kind of given up wanting anything and need to refresh their, the appetite for the natural order of mind. This pure kind of energy, even though in one way it's greedy and materialistic, But just the arousing and the expression of this kind of energy can open situations that have been very closed.

[28:39]

So they meet in rather small, they meet sometimes in large groups, but there's a kind of cellular aspect. They meet in people's homes, small numbers of people. And people come in from the street, I know in my work in the jail, that if people ask me what I am, and I say I'm Buddhist, they say, oh, Namo Myoho Renge Kyo, because the Sakugakai have been to the jail. So, very gradually, people are encouraged to want other things, to want more, less materially oriented things. because the discovery is that, well, even if you have $300 or a Mercedes or whatever, whatever, the suffering isn't over. So it's a very socially effective way of using skillful means, very much as the Buddha taught.

[29:49]

So skillful means are also, as we are more able to use them, an expression of our freedom and our groundedness. As practice matures and we just kind of have thought about the Dharma a lot and figured and figured and little by little it kind of gets deeper in that while there are the guidelines at the same time there's a kind of intuitive spontaneous sense of what to do that doesn't have such a fixed need reference point, it just arises, and that's skillful means.

[31:04]

So when we're working with these precepts, with our working using the precepts as guidelines and also as expressions. The image came to me as I was thinking about this talk. I've done a number of stream crossings, where you're kind of, where I am pretty uneasy on a large log or something going across the stream. And I've noticed that if it's the smallest thing, like a twig that I can get hold of, I'm much steadier. It's kind of like the precepts as guidelines, that they're not like a railing that you hang on to, although sometimes you have to, but they also can be like this twig that's just there, so you steady yourself.

[32:21]

The main thing that's going on is that you're crossing the stream. That's just happening. foot by foot but there's the wobble and so how are you dealing with the wobble? So as we work with these precepts and with these parameters and with the whole bodhisattva way of just moment to moment awakening with all beings Somebody in the last class on Wednesday said, it's uncomfortable. There's an uncertainty. There's a bewildering and uncertain quality that is uncomfortable. And this discomfort is throughout the Mahayana Sutras, people complain in various ways of how uncomfortable the practice is.

[33:23]

It's also joyful. but it has an uncomfortable aspect and that's true and we can know that our practice is strengthening insofar as we are able to tolerate this kind of discomfort and distress and still be steady. Now at first practice tends to be disappointing, have a kind of enthusiasm that seems wonderful and then you go out and your life is still murky and difficulties and so disappointed. But then as you go on

[34:25]

you know, you just get more used to and more tolerant of and more able to tolerate the massive confusion on every side. So also at this EPF conference there was quite an extended and wonderful discussion about the first precept, do not take life and what that really means as you begin to widen out, you know, what does it mean? I can do my best in my life, but we're selling arms, we're treating all kinds of people very unjustly. A major portion of our taxes are going to prisons and farms. So if you are really, really thinking about the first precept, somebody said, you don't pay taxes. And if you don't pay taxes, the whole shape of your life is changed. So that's one point of view.

[35:29]

And then there are other of us that go on paying taxes and, you know, out. Just needing to remember that it's uncomfortable. And needing to return repeatedly with our friends, with our friends, our ordinary sentient being friends and our Bodhisattva friends to this discomfort and working on it together and having Bodhisattva faith and hope not in the outcome which we never can know but our growing faith in the fact that no matter how often we fail we can begin again Samantabhadra I again talked about Samantabhadra practice yesterday Samantabhadra riding the elephant and the Samantabhadra on his elephant being the Bodhisattva of activists.

[36:31]

The elephant's very slow, patient footsteps. And in each footstep, a lotus flower springing up. Really wonderful. Way to encounter this discomfort and suffering. So I want to end by reading just a little bit from Suzuki Roshi, a lecture that Suzuki Roshi gave the year before he died in 1970 about how to observe the precepts. This morning I want to talk about Zen, Zen precepts. As you know, the real meaning of precepts is not just rules, but is rather our way of life. When you organize our life, when we organize our life, when we regulate our life, when we organize our life, you see something like rules, even though you are not intending to observe some particular rules, the rules are always there.

[37:47]

As soon as you get up, in order to wake up completely, you wash your face. That is a precept, one of the precepts. At a certain time you eat breakfast when you become hungry. That is you are observing some rules when you eat breakfast at some certain time. It is actually the way of life you follow naturally, the natural order of life. So if you practice Zazen there will be rules in your practice. So at the same time Zazen practice is precepts. One of the precepts and all of the precepts If you really understand how Buddhists come to the idea of precepts, you will understand the relationship between Zen and precepts. Precepts are just a way of life. It's a wonderful essay, but I'm not going to go on. Thank you.

[38:45]

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