Any announcements? News? Nothing special? Andrea's not feeling well this evening, so she's asked Dolly to facilitate group two. Is that right? Yes, group two. Thanks, Dolly. I think Andrea's just kind of wiped out. better soon. So tonight we'll discuss among ourselves the 8th and 9th precept and then I'll talk a little about the 10th one at the end. So, let's see. Let's, again, go till 10 after 8 in the groups and then come back here and start again at 8.15. Okay?

[01:03]

Let's read the 8th and 9th precepts together. I vow not to be avaricious. One phrase, one verse, that is ten thousand things in the one hundred grasses. One dharma, one realization is all Buddhas and ancestors. Therefore, from the beginning there has been no stinginess at all. I vow not to harbor ill will. Not negative, not positive, neither real nor unreal. There is an ocean of illuminated clouds and an ocean of ornamented clouds. Okay, so we'll be back here in three.

[02:03]

Whichever group that is. Does anyone know? Let's just start. Your group start. David was kind enough to take our notes. He'll summarize. Just remember, brevity is the soul of wit. A wonderful story was told about an exchange during Sashin, which is so good it should just be quoted as well as possible as it can be. A person described a situation in which something happened during Sashin, and this person, a member of our group, was offended or cut deeply by the event and felt anger inside and couldn't shake it.

[03:13]

And just because Sashin is the way it is, she couldn't talk about it, and it was just hard to get rid of this visitation of ill-will. And so she asked the question, of our kind abbot at the end. She said, the ship of ill will has dropped anchor and I can't get it out of my harbor. And the answer was, you have to dredge deeper. Well, that's just wonderful. A person described in quite feelingful terms about a recurring obsession, which he described as car, as in automobile lust.

[04:19]

and compared this to greed, and said perhaps it is not identical with greed, but it's close enough to me. Satisfying. Another person described the experience of observing quite a strong, intense materialism in his parents, and the feeling that he had about that, which is that it stimulated a fear that he might be that way. That didn't seem to be the case currently, but the possibility that that could be true was real for him, I think. And that this expressed the view that this materialism was an expression of nothing, this is my notes, of nothing deeper going on in their lives, nothing more fulfilling, therefore they were kind of stuck at this level of material life.

[05:26]

And that this was also an expression of the kind of rampant individualism in our culture. He also described an event in which in his past, where he had felt very strongly about the need to change the system, but also the way people behaved in the system, and once observed a situation in which he was quite callous towards a person who was in kind of strong need, was quite ill, because that person was driving a fancy car and manifesting the attitudes of materialism and so on that he thought were quite wrong. Nevertheless, it created this kind of contradicting contradiction in his own behavior and attitude. Another person described said that she feels totally afflicted by avarice and ill will and

[06:41]

And she described the situation when, here's an example, a person expresses a view, say on television or elsewhere, which suggests that that person's regard for her would be quite low, and that that person would probably have a very low valuation of her and might even, given the opportunity, do injury to her, and that that hurt her deeply and made her angry. And it was difficult in those kinds of circumstances not to feel ill will, not to feel anger, and also not to avoid harboring such a feeling. And she expressed the view that self-absorption, absorption with the I, the person, the self in the smallest sense, is the cause of that.

[07:53]

A person in our group asked, what do you try to do about that feeling? Actually, a couple of us asked that question in somewhat different ways. In a sense, there were two answers given. One was, I try to understand that it's ignorance in that person that's driving them to express these harsh and negative views about someone like me. And also, that she tries to care for herself since, in a way, she has been injured. I mean, it is, as a matter of fact, she has been injured. whether it was intentionally directed to her specifically by that person, still an injury. a person who only had three and a half minutes expressed a great deal of feeling, that that expressed an experience that she had repeatedly, of finding her options narrowed or her opportunities limited as time goes on, and that makes her quite angry, and that that's a struggle that she deals with.

[09:25]

and has dealt with for a long time, and over time she said that she is increasingly aware of that difficulty, and that's, I believe, the way she is coping with it, to study it and be increasingly aware of that dynamic. One person said that sitting had made it made her feel centered and that she works with Children and the children get very frustrated when they can't express themselves

[10:37]

She went into details, but some kind of meditation practice, and the kids seemed to be gaining benefit from that and letting go and not becoming so frustrated. It was helpful. Ill will was like a filter. It was impeding the intimacy of connection between she and others, not necessarily just the students, but adults also. Another person, the idea of peace was very personal that someone had come up asking for money and took out his wallet and then there was a give and take of the actual wallet which the other person had the upper hand and took the wallet. The person whose wallet was stolen in the future now shows...

[11:46]

So it was hard to get angry, and now is backing up for us before taking the wallet out, which is showing a sign of respect. But still letting go and allowing money to flow from him to people who ask for it, and not leading them into temptation by bringing out a whole wallet so close by. And that actually taking that backwards step removes the potential for ill will. So there is still a great opening to that whole process. Another person was talking about harboring ill will as a protection. which was kind of like an energy force in helping them deal with people or the same people or similar situations as they recur again that at one time were threatening and that Harbinger will kind of summon up the courage to deal with it in a more equal way rather than being overcome by it or not dealing 100% with it.

[13:08]

feelings of bad or ill will was kind of just old-fashioned guilt that this person had grown up with, and that even though it had an origin, that wasn't important, that it was just the energy of guilt, even though it could be attracted to a particular person or event. another person was talking about harboring ill will was okay as long as it could be articulated and that not being able to expend energy was or not being able to actualize these feelings created more ill will and anger and being kind of caught up in it. And It's a shadow host.

[14:15]

That's right. It's a weird cry. Embarrassment or regret. I'll see if I can read later. I'm being avaricious. We talked a lot about the giving and generosity as the antidote to being avaricious. And somebody stated that giving backfired regarding expectations about giving. What do you want in return when you're giving something to someone? Do you have this hidden agenda that there's going to be something for you? Does it feel right to be generous? Is there guilt associated with it?

[15:18]

So giving was, the Dhanaparamita was what we discussed a lot regarding this. Vigor and vitality in regard to this, greed and giving. Oh, receiving, being on the other end of giving. When you allow yourself to be given to, then you're actually receiving. I don't know if that makes sense, by the way I put it. Oh, how does this precept of being avaricious or not being avaricious relate to Zazen? And one of the members of our group was talking about sitting zazen, and if you don't have the complete energy to have perfect posture, in a way that's a form of generosity to yourself, is to allow yourself, if you're really tired, to be less than perfect in your zazen, in your posture.

[16:32]

And on ill will, we discussed, what is ill will? Is it anger? Is it fear, resentment, contempt? Ill will is sort of all-inclusive of many other emotions. And similar to Ross's, what Ross was saying was, is it a protection? Also, is anger and ill will maybe a protection? Or are we defending ourselves? against something, and the empowerment aspect of it. Do we feel empowered by it? Do we feel victimized by it? Do we feel self-righteous? And impatience was discussed, too, in regard to anger. When we want something quickly, we become angry because we don't have it right away.

[17:40]

So how does impatience play? And if we lose our anger, if we give up our anger, will we in fact be giving up on ourself? The small self. And that pretty much concludes what I... That last point, could you say a little more? Well... Or could someone say a little more? Who was it that... It was about losing the self by giving in to a certain situation. For instance, we were talking about children might make us angry. And we would get angry at these children because we didn't want to lose becoming so vulnerable and open that they would see right through us.

[18:48]

So anger was a way of guarding against that, losing one's self. What would they see? Well, who you really are. This is very damaging. It's on basis. People sometimes suffer from low self-esteem to the degree that they don't want to give up their true self. I think this is the case in certain diseases like Alzheimer's, radiation, and things like that. It's just some thinking. I hit hard group. I don't know. We really talked all around about a lot of things. We seem to focus a lot on anger and ill-will, and a lot of themes about that.

[19:56]

One person was saying that the idea of not harboring ill-will was very difficult, and it was difficult to know how to handle the feelings that came up, and the sense of non-forgiveness was very difficult. And someone else was saying that sometimes there were days when anger came up all the time, and part of that was the idea of not contriving reality for the self, of maintaining and... well, and then there was also maintaining and supporting it. And, let's see, some about stinginess and avariciousness comes up, Well, someone was talking about retirement and how, you know, what was the difference between being stingy and avaricious and being realistic in terms of retirement.

[21:06]

And then there was the idea of how much does one really need, what can we let go of, what can we live without. And I think the idea of harboring ill will came up a lot, the idea of harboring that and not being able to let go of it. And sometimes that even processing... Sometimes processing really did work, and sometimes processing did not work at all, and things would come up that would trigger so much rage that really was beyond any sort of processing. And one of the triggers for one person was the sense of helplessness to do anything and this was connected a lot to kind of world events and what was happening in the world and the sense of helplessness and not being able to affect any kind of a change.

[22:15]

idea of obsessing on rage and our expectations created anger that we had long-term expectations of how things should be and, you know, often they did not turn out that way. And then we were talking a little bit about Western psychotherapy and how that encourages us to express anger or not to suppress it, but I think many of us express, you know, that there are taboos even in our culture, certainly, on anger, of shame and guilt. And then we talked somewhat about injustice and righteous anger, someone said the practice, our practice, our meditation practice was not meaning to suppress emotions and that was a form of killing really that emotions are like water ebbing and flowing and not the importance was not holding on to it let's see and that holding on

[23:40]

the consequences of our strong emotions and our anger was holding on to them. Our emotions are self-generated and the idea of not indulging was an important idea and the idea of harboring And sort of the fine line between not indulging anger and not denying it. Can we say I'm angry and then let go of it? reports every week, which is, well, it's neither good nor bad.

[24:46]

It's interesting to sit with them, because I hear reports from my group, and some of it crystallizes stuff that wasn't quite clear to me, and others I think, well, that's not quite how I would have put it, you know, and you sit there, sit there with that. It's really, it's good, you know, and everybody, you know, each person in the group is doing their best to express themselves and each person who's taking the reports and we've been sort of going around is doing their best. It's very interesting to me here. But we do have a few minutes left and I don't think we've exhausted this topic. behind it, at least in our group. There wasn't a lot in different people at different times in our group.

[25:47]

Yeah, I think sort of an underlying thing that we sort of came up with again and again is like, you know, we all kind of realize that we feel anger at times and we harbor a will and it's It's this non-acceptance of it. It's not okay, these judgments of it, the shame, the guilt, that, oh goodness. Okay, there's an emotion there, there's a feeling there. It's like it so triggers things. It's like, I think more than just some of the other precepts. I think, Judy, you were talking about how, you know, just going back with emotions and following it back to a very, you know, There's so much fear about it, because it's a kind of, it's a destroying emotion, right?

[27:05]

I mean, it can be. And it just can wreck relationships. It has in my experience, expression of it, poor expression of it. And my family, you know, the way that it was expressed was horrible. So we really wanted to keep it in. You know, my family was like, it never would get expressed. It was like the last line defense, like, you know, it's almost like the acknowledgment of anger. The expression of it, even more so, is like, that's when you're really so up against the wall. That's when it would come out. There's also a pronounced gender difference between what's permissible for a woman to express it, being angry, hostile, whatever, displeased. A man is given much more leeway. And if men also, as I hear them saying, these men, they have trouble with it because they're They've been taught one way or another to contain it. You can imagine maybe what it's like to be a woman in this society and in all societies.

[28:12]

Maybe we Western Americans in this stage of history are more free, but we're still very constrained to keep our anger locked inside. It's really bad. And it is. But it's worse maybe locked inside than expressed and forgotten. That's the hard part. Express it and forget it. What about expressed and not forgotten? Then that's a problem. What about expressed? It's a problem, but I guess what I'm saying is that if it is expressed fully, truthfully, then it's gone. Then it is gone. I think it's dependent on socioeconomic class and culture, because I come from a group where you definitely expressed anger. And it just happened, right? So I think it just depends, you know, on where you come from. That for women, as well as men, to express it. And my family definitely expressed it when it came up.

[29:17]

Do you have any problems with ill will? I do. But I also express anger when it comes up. It's not something that I harbor. But it's difficult for other people if I can express it. it would be different, but I don't. I don't discriminate, and so it's harmful, and it can be harmful. But anger can also be empowering. I was stating in our group that in my case, the anger I felt toward my parents, who are deceased, both of them now, actually got me to get into some therapy, which helped me, and then in turn, here I am practicing Zen Buddhism, which has helped me, and I love it. It's been a tremendous experience for me. So it can be a catalyst. It can be sort of like the fire under the water, kind of get things going. And then you have to be careful not to have it turn into something that would be resentment or contempt or other defilements.

[30:21]

So does that bring up any gratitude towards your parents? In a funny sort of way, yeah. In a way, I guess it does, because all of our experiences, some of our worst experiences can be catalysts for us to get involved in things that are then very good for us. But it's kind of a tricky question. Well, it seems like it has something to do with skillful means. You know, how we deal with anger when we go out and buy an Uzi. let's talk about this. That kind of came up when our group was talking about how to skillfully deal with anger and that when it is done skillfully, it can help. I've had people get mad at me and it's really made me think about what I did and, you know, the harm that I caused or whatever.

[31:24]

So I think it is useful. But it's difficult. I wonder, does harboring ill-will against oneself fall in this category? I think so. Sure. Because I think that's something that, personally, is something that happens a lot. Finding fault with self and really not being able to let go of it. And I guess words like guilt and shame, that's a lot of ill will. It's a big component. I think a lot of times one of the reasons why I get angry with other people is because they are expressing I like that part, you know, we're in the part of the precept where not accepting sincere repentance or apology is harboring ill will.

[32:49]

It's interesting to practice that with oneself. I mean, I know from my own experience that there's plenty of times I don't want to let myself off the hook. You know, I'd kind of rather wallow in it. And, yeah, it's really hard, I think, to practice that same compassion. But what if you try to forgive yourself? Yeah, what if you do? I mean, sooner or later, yeah, sooner or later, you may not. Yeah, I think it's important to keep the practice up regardless of what happens because it's with time and patience that the habit changes, not just like once or, oh, I couldn't do it so I'm not going to keep the practice up. That's the challenge for me. I think that's where the element that there's some element of faith, you know, there's some element of faith in, actually, that leads into the next precept.

[33:58]

There's some element of faith in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, and in people's ability to change. You know, if you didn't believe in your own ability to change, then really, what would be the point of being here? Why would you be sitting down in there every day? We can have some contemptible reason for being there. But it's not in our culture. One more. I was thinking this week about all of the training and conditioning I've had in my lifetime around this subject. The family dynamics. that said that you had to build up brownie points and take it and take it, and then when you had enough brownie points, you could throw a big screaming, crying Wendy if you were an adult.

[35:04]

And the Catholic Church that says that anger is bad and you should be ashamed of yourself and you should take abuse and offer it up for the sins of the world. And then the Human Potential Movement that said that it's some sort of a pounds of anger, you have to express five pounds of anger or something very bad will happen to you. And all this conflicting stuff, a lot of it not really healthy. And one thing, and I get down to what do I know for sure of my own experience out of all this stuff And what I came up with was, I know for sure that there's a physical component to anger. Just physically, adrenaline gets pumped and the large muscle groups get mobilized to either fight or flight, breath comes faster, all that kind of stuff. And that has to be dealt with. And in my experience, it is not dealt with productively by yelling at someone else or hitting someone else.

[36:11]

It just makes more trouble. And the other thing I know for sure is that is a very delicate and intricate dance that we do with each other. To even be able to go to one other person and say, I'm really angry at you, and walk and get through it to the other side with the relationship intact, let alone better. And what I decided was that I have a lot of compassion for myself. for everybody else I know that's trying to deal with this afflictive emotion and a lot of admiration that we're all working on it and we keep going because it is so painful. Something that I find really liberating about is the thing about anger is it's not really anger.

[37:15]

It's anger but It's made up of all these other kind of components like hurt, maybe fundamentally hurt, being hurt in some way. Fear. Fear, right. So it's all these non-anger components. So if you can get to that place, fear, hurt. That's real Buddhism. Anger is made up of non-anger elements. And then things reduce from there. Let's sit for a minute. We need to change gears. I vow not to abuse the three treasures. I have a couple of versions of Dogen's text. One is, to do something by ourselves without copying others is to become an example to the world.

[38:15]

And the merit of doing such a thing becomes the source of all wisdom. To do something by ourselves without copying others is to become an example to the world, and the merit of doing such a thing becomes the source of all wisdom. Do not criticize, but accept everything. Another version of Dogen's precept is, to expound the Dharma with this body is foremost. Virtue returns to the ocean of reality. It is unfathomable. We just accept it with respect and gratitude. I think that these are actually different translations of the same text. A little on the free side, perhaps. Not mine. Bodhidharma's version is, self-nature is subtle and mysterious. In the realm of the one, Not holding dualistic distinctions of ordinary beings and sages is called the precept of not defaming or not abusing the three treasures.

[39:20]

In the realm of the One, not holding dualistic distinctions of ordinary beings and sages is called the precept of not defaming the three treasures. And so this tenth precept, not abusing the three treasures, for me it carries echoes of those parājika, those very serious offenses that I mentioned in the first class that come from the early teachings of Śākyamuni Buddha. And these are, even these are very early Buddhist texts, but they're still the precepts, part of the precepts, the most serious ones that you'll find in the Vinaya that are chanted by monks down the street and all around the world. And breaking any of these rules calls for expulsion from the order of monks without any possibility of restatement. So this rule, the one that it reminds me of says, Should any bhikkhu, while having no acquaintance of it, suggest that some superior state, worthy of the noble one's knowledge and vision, is present in himself, saying, I know thus, or I see thus, he is defeated and no more in communion.

[40:33]

I'll read it again. What should any bhikkhu, while having no acquaintance of it, suggest that some superior state worthy of the noble one's knowledge and vision is present in himself, saying, I know thus, or I see thus, or I understand this? Unless it were through overestimation, he is defeated and no more in communion. I think this translates as abusing the three treasures. It's using Buddhism for one's self-aggrandizement. Now, every night of Seshin, we take refuge in the three treasures in Buddha, Dharma, Sangha, which you can also see as enlightenment, truth, and harmony. And each time we have a full moon ceremony, a ceremony of repentance, or an ordination ceremony, we take these refuges.

[41:34]

I think it's actually, the refuges, for me, are particularly poignant in the context of ordination. Some of you are going to be taking jukai in March, and you'll be taking, the first thing you'll do is to take these refuges and enter a new home. And it's, I mean, I often cry at these ordinations. I'm not exactly sure why, but there's something very moving about them. And for all of us, not just the people who are being ordained, we're all of us fortunate to see people take refuges like that. So this act is a fundamental act of the life that we lead in Buddha Dharma. And actually through the years we do it over and over again and we renew it over and over again. We're always saying these refuges. So taking refuge means finding shelter from danger or distress.

[42:40]

That was the first dictionary meaning. And it's a place that we can all go to in the sorrows and the sufferings of our lives. It does call for some faith. and that may be something that we're a little nervous about. But it also calls for, it's not just an act of faith, or the faith itself calls for one's direct experience and putting oneself actively into practice, into taking refuge. So, to oversimplify a bit, taking refuge in Buddha is sitting zazen, It's experiencing unconditioned reality, whether we know that's what we're experiencing or not, whether we like it or not, whether we're tired or our legs hurt, it doesn't matter. That's taking refuge in Buddha.

[43:41]

And taking refuge in Sangha is what we're doing here, at least in part, it's studying and discussing, I'm sorry, taking refuge in dharma, is studying and discussing Buddhism, and it's also doing what people were talking about in looking at their anger. It's applying mindfulness to all of our physical and mental activities. Watching these specific dharmas, like Greg was saying, watching the dharma of anger and seeing that it's composed of non-anger elements, and it's composed of maybe fear, maybe something from the, maybe memory, maybe dislike, you know, non-anger elements that are themselves can be subjects for our observation.

[44:46]

So this is, we watch these states of our body and mind arise, and we also notice that they fall away. we try not to cling to them, and that's taking refuge in Dharma. And taking refuge in Sangha is actually sitting in this room together, it's cooking together, sitting zazen together rather than sitting zazen in our own small cell, and acknowledging the limitless community of all beings. In our everyday practice, if we take these refuges and struggle to understand them then we are living the precepts even without we're living all the precepts even without delineating them one by one and the practice and the precepts become our new home so I want to go back to I read some words from Suzuki Roshi in the first class where he says the real meaning of precepts is not just rules but it is rather our way of life when we organize our life

[45:56]

There we see something like rules. As soon as you get up, to wake up completely, you wash your face. And that's a precept. So how you keep the precepts is how you organize your life. And how you organize your life is how you practice zazen. So taking refuges is fundamental to this. This is kind of a jump, but I particularly like the section in Mind of Clover where Aitken Roshi writes about how taking refuge in the Three Treasures recalls this koan from the Mumonkan of Zhu Yan calling his master. This is a koan that I've always really loved. Every day Zhu Yan called himself master and he replied, yes, be alert. Yes, I will. Don't be deceived by others.

[46:57]

No, I won't. So without speaking in his own relationships and to live by his experience and his inquiring mind. But you can sort of see these parallels. He's calling to himself as Master. He's recognizing himself as Buddha. He's being alert. He's admonishing himself to be alert, to be mindful, to watch the arising of dharmas, and to don't be deceived by others. In other words, in a way it's like seeing the best in people. Take what you can that's best from them and don't be pulled off from your own inquiry by others' emotions. So how do we keep or break this precept of not abusing the three treasures? Akin Roshi writes, not defaming them is the path of understanding them fully, keeping them clear in our mind, and presenting them in our lives.

[48:09]

Not defaming them is the path of understanding them fully, keeping them clear in our minds, and presenting them in our lives. Yasutani Roshi, which is where Iken Roshi's, it's kind of his point of departure, his presentation is a little more gutsy. I like it. He says, whenever someone thinks I am just an ordinary person, he or she has reviled the three treasures. There are no ordinary people. There are only Buddhas. Yet, the dream that one is an ordinary person becomes a nightmare from which one cannot awake. It's like that there are no ordinary people, there are only Buddhists. Yet, the dream that one is an ordinary person becomes a nightmare from which one cannot awake. Now, Bodhidharma's version, I think Yasodhani Rishi is commenting on Bodhidharma's version of the precepts where he says, not holding dualistic distinctions of ordinary beings and sages is called the precept of not defaming the three treasures.

[49:25]

So, if that's the case, then not only are you breaking the precept if you think of yourself as an ordinary person, but you're also great if you think of yourself as a buddha or you think of yourself as a special person you're also breaking the precept so that not ordinary and not special uh... who are you i actually think that that's the that's the core question of this precept who are you and what is your home you're offered a home in these refuges, but you're asking yourself, who are you and what is your home? And what is your place in the universe? I think a lot of us come to Zen practice with that question. It's the same question as, what is life and death? So again,

[50:29]

in a more mundane way or more particular way, I could ask, how do we abuse the three treasures? When we use our incomplete understanding of Buddhism to separate ourselves from others, we abuse the three treasures. So that means, how do we think about the people that we work with? Do we care about whether they practice Buddhism or not? Do we feel we can communicate with them? whether they practice buddhism or not i mean actually not many of us get to work with people who practice buddhism i do and frankly i can't tell the difference at least this week but but acting apart or aloof because you practice buddhism is a pretty is uh... is abusing the three treasures uh... the practice should allow us to be intimate with them uh... and when we're apart we're abusing the three treasures but we also if we notice ourselves feeling apart if we if we're mindful when this distance appears uh... and we

[51:54]

take a vow to bridge that gap, then that's taking the refuges again. And so we can renew them ourselves. We don't have to wait till full moon ceremony. Another example, sitting in the zendo, in a quiet zendo at dawn. with nothing but the sound of peace. And using that time for our garden-variety habitual thinking, that's also abusing the three treasures. Because we really have very little time in our lives to experience ourselves directly, and an awful lot of time to be busy. an awful lot of time to think about what we have to do during the day and all of these things that we have to think about. So if we can just find a way to bow to our thinking mind,

[52:59]

and return to what Dogen calls, in Genjokon, think non-thinking. That's, again, renewing our vow, our vow to take refuge in Buddha. and also renewing our vow to take refuge in Sangha, to sit and do the practice in harmony with all the other people who are sitting in the Zindal. How long? How do you think non-thinking? Non-thinking. That's another class. I'm still working on that. Me too. Token as trickster. So all of us have heard and some of us sadly have experienced abuses by teachers of power or money or sexuality in various Buddhist communities and in other settings and that's of course a prime example of breaking this precept using Buddhism to serve an insatiable self

[54:09]

Sometimes a teacher or an elder's actions are kind of covered over with this gloss of a so-called non-duality, and we may be urged by others to consider their actions an act of skillful means or a kind of subtle teaching. And in such circumstances, you might use your common sense and trust the inner wisdom that you have. And that's, again, taking refuge in the three treasures. Now, probably you should find a way to be compassionate for your teacher's karmic life and to help him, which in cases of some of these abuses are usually him, unfortunately, help him regain the path, but don't set aside your beliefs or your instincts. And that returns us to Dogen's commentary, to do something by ourselves without copying others is to become an example to the world.

[55:19]

So you have to face what you really know to be true in your experience. And I think that that's also the message of Ju Yen's koan, to be alert and not to be pulled away by others. It means that we respect our teachers, but essentially we have to find our own way. There's no way to copy someone else's realization. I think in a different way. I think in another translation. Yeah, I think it's a different translation Yeah, same guy same I think it's the same same call on So this other translation of Dogen's precept reads, to expound the Dharma with this body, with this body is foremost. And this is, to me, this is sitting zazen, washing dishes, bowing to each other.

[56:25]

My body expounding the Dharma interacts with your body expounding the Dharma. And this is the way we relate beyond words. When Bill and I were in Japan together at Rinzowin, and I think it was Hoitsu who told us on one of the first days, Hoitsu Suzuki, Suzuki Roshi's son, told us in the first days to watch the old women on the corner and to watch them, you know, they meet on the corner and these old ladies they kind of babble on and on to each other you know about the weather and about other kind of trivial matters and the whole time they're bowing uh... and he he really tuned us in uh... that the words have no importance at all but the uh... they're expounding the Dharma with this body that they have and interacting with each other, just bobbing and bowing, and it's very deep communication.

[57:34]

And it's not so easy to see. I think it exists under covers in our society in some way, but there it's right on the surface. Are they standing or sitting? Standing. Standing. Standing very close to each other. No, no, no. But pretty close. So their words are of no importance at all. And in a sense, there are no individual old ladies bowing to each other. They're just part of one vast, intricate dharma body that's bowing, like sort of tiny gears in a watch mechanism that are meshing. It's quite beautiful. And Dogon continues, virtue returns to the ocean of reality. It is unfathomable. We just accept it with respect and gratitude. If I fail to see your body expounding the Dharma, then I've broken the precept.

[58:42]

If I fail to see in any action that you do, even ones that I don't like, that you're expounding the Dharma, then I'm off the mark and I have to renew my vows. So once we take refuge in the three treasures and the precepts, we're on the path toward understanding that all things expound the Dharma, even the most bitter and painful experiences. And in fact, we may see things that call for change and for response. We do. Most of us do. And we may do something about them. And there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, I think that's very right to do in the context of saving all beings. But there's also a way of understanding that even when it's not working, even when things come to a grinding halt in suffering, there's a way of understanding it and as workings of Buddhadharma and bowing to it,

[59:50]

you know, we can bow to it just before we plunge ourselves neck deep in the muck. And that may be what we have to do. And so we can acknowledge it and acknowledge ourselves. And so that's about all I have to say tonight. But I'd like to think about for next week, how do you abuse the three treasures? And a couple of things I want to say just before breaking up. One is that I'll hand out evaluation forms next week, which you can leave after. Don't do them in class, please. And two, Two more questions. I'd like to know, would you like to, we could meet, there's going to be no presentation as such I think next week, although I may have some notes, but since last week was the last class, do you want to go back to the small groups, or would you like to spend the whole time in a large group?

[60:56]

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. So we'll do that next week. And if anyone wants to consider the possibility of kind of an ongoing precept practice study group, we can talk about that. You know, it doesn't have to be weekly, but it could be something, again, rooted in your experience. And just see it as a kind of a slowly ongoing and unfolding thing. So people can think about whether they want to do that. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that, but I'd be happy to talk about it. And I think that that's it.

[61:41]

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