Now the reason for this, my talking now, before the ceremony this afternoon, is to, of course, to say something about the taking of the precepts. For those of you taking the precepts, And those of you too who are guests or friends or family wondering what's going on. Wondering why it's a rather big deal to take the precepts in Zen Buddhism and in Buddhism. It's kind of mysterious that we decide to take the precepts. You know, at some point, I mean, we may already be living in the common, wise common sense of the precepts.

[01:27]

But still, to take the precepts with a teacher and with a sangha has some kind of embodiment that we sense. I mean, most of the precepts are, I mean, ten precepts or the five precepts which people will take today. Yeah, just human common sense. Yeah, what makes them so-called Buddhist or Zen? Yeah. I can remember, I think I was in the first precept Jukai ceremony of Sukhiroshi in 1960 or 61 or something.

[02:49]

60 or 61. And there were 12 of us, I think. And I'd been practicing the secretion exactly one year at that point. So ever since then, I've been wondering, what are these precepts about? For me at the time, it was... Yeah, just a way of being with Suzuki Roshi. Yeah, like a little marriage ceremony. It was illegal in those days. It's nice that it's legal now. Yeah, okay. Anyway, I...

[03:49]

So I took the precepts. I had no idea what I was doing. The whole ceremony was in Japanese. I didn't know what I was doing. I said, yes, yes, yes. No, I said yes. Because nothing was translated yet. But it felt good to do it, so I did it. And people sometimes describe the precepts as kind of the golden rule of Buddhism. But I realized pretty early, or pretty right away, that it was more They're not rules to be followed. Maybe we could call it the golden mind of Buddhism.

[05:12]

Because they're really understood as intentions. And yeah, you kind of follow them if you can. But they're open to interpretation. I mean, one of them is to don't kill, but if I grind my teeth, I'm killing things. Yeah, so the precepts are intentions and holding an intention is different than following a rule. So to hold an intention, it actually helps if you do it with a teacher and do it with the Sangha, with the other practitioners.

[06:23]

And it really is something you feel together. And I think most people, when they get acquainted with practice, don't think much about the precepts. But at some point they realize Yeah, they want to do something. And they feel like, this is, what are you laughing about? Do you remember this when you took it? They think, I don't know what, maybe I should take the precepts. My translator has her own thing going, yeah. Thank goodness.

[07:34]

So you feel some change and you want to, yeah, you want to, and first you're surprised by the change and then you say, well, maybe I can act on it. Now, Dogen, who most of you would know, but of course Dogen was a 13th century Japanese Zen teacher and one of the few really definitive teachers in the whole line of Buddha since the Buddha himself. He said that whether you know it or not, usually Your initial decision to take the precepts is an enlightened experience.

[08:54]

Maybe most of your life is encased in your habits. Vielleicht liegt ein Großteil deines Lebens in deinen, ist von deinen Gewohnheiten eingekesselt. But taking the precepts you recognize is possible to change one's life. Aber wenn du die Gelöbnisse empfängst, dann erkennst du, dass es möglich ist, sein Leben zu verändern. We're not necessarily fated to live out some born into us fate. We can... Our life is changeable and we can take responsibility for this change. Now... Atmar Ikyuroshi and Paul Rosenblum-Roshi and I feel a great responsibility when we enter this process of taking and receiving and giving the precepts.

[10:27]

Because we know this is also an indication that your own life is in the midst of some kind of change. weil wir wissen, dass das auch ein Hinweis darauf ist, dass euer eigenes Leben sich mitten eines Umbruchs oder einer Veränderung befindet. Das könnte etwas Subtiles oder Seismisches, seismographisch erfassbares sein. Or do you use seismic in German? Well, we have seismic scale, but is there a better word to translate? Kann man das besser übersetzen? Erdbeermatig. Erdbeermatig, okay. Okay, good, thanks. Yeah, and even that it's seismic may be hidden very subtly.

[11:34]

and when you start living it it may live you because you must be each of you in the midst of your own confidence and creativity and recognizing change. And probably Buddhist teachings and practices can give you some support and some guidance in your own personal change. And you may find in this context, ideally you will find, that the teachings and practices of wisdom and compassion really do help you in your personal change.

[12:50]

So again, let me say that the precepts are, the emphasis is not, as I say, you do follow the precepts, but the emphasis is the embodiment of the intention. So the language used is not to follow, but to hold the precepts in your heart and mind. And nourishing and resuscitating even the precepts allows them to be more and more present in your tiniest actions. Okay.

[14:32]

So they're given to you, you receive them, and then you hold them in your mind and body. Now I want to bring out, see if I have time, one more aspect of the precepts which has... I've wondered and wandered in for decades. I would like to discuss one more aspect of the praises, an aspect about which I have always wondered and in which I have always turned around, for decades now. Is the preceptor called the preceptual vein, the EIN, not the vein, the preceptual vein of the Buddha?

[15:44]

Vein like a... Vein, yeah. Is das die Gelöbnisse, but preceptual is like precept? The precepts, yeah. The preceptual, the vein made from the precepts. The preceptual vein. Ist das die Gelöbnisse, die Gelöbnisader des Buddhas sind? Mm-hmm. Now, that's, you know, kind of a big thing to say. And it's taken me quite a while to be really clear about it. One, I mean, and we need to look, I'd like to try to say something about it, so, you know, I'll try to be not too long. In Buddhism from the beginning, the word body means what keeps you alive, not your stuff. A dead body is just a corpse. It's not a body.

[16:48]

So the word body is used to mean what keeps us alive. And so we can speak about the Dharma body, the wisdom body, and so forth. And in English we use the word sort of like that. We could talk about an author, the body of his work, something like that. Ja, wir könnten auch, wenn wir über einen Schriftsteller sprechen, über sein Gesamtwerk.

[18:03]

Im Englischen könnte man sagen, den Körper seiner Arbeit. Okay. But preceptual vein, a vein is what carries blood. Aber so eine... So why blood? Well, here, to work with the concept of the body again, In this way of thinking, You are a body, yes, you're an individual body. Very specifically and distinctly, you have to take care of this individual body and its life. But in this way of thinking, you are also a multi-generational body.

[19:08]

You're clearly a form of the body of your parents, grandparents, and so forth. So in this thinking, you're not only an individual body, but you're also a generational body. And I think we recognize we're family bodies, we're tribal bodies and so forth. Yeah, and if you look carefully at yourself and who you've known, who you've been friends with, who your teachers have been, And you'll recognize, if you look closely at yourself, that you are also a kind of composite of friends and teachers.

[20:34]

And now, excuse me for the comment, but I think teenagers walk around with celebrity bodies all the time, discovered on the media. And I feel sorry for them. So anyway, the concept in Buddhism is it's possible to have a kind of friendship body. The body that arises through who you've known and what you've done. And I... And so there can also be, again, a Sangha body or a multi-generational Sangha body.

[21:42]

So here, what flows through the veins of this multi-generational body are your behavior. Your wisdom, your compassion. And your behavior, your wisdom and compassion are understood to be rooted in the precepts. Okay, now, you just decided to take the precepts. And now I'm telling you, I'm sorry, that you're involved with some kind of big concept. That somehow the Buddha is also a mutual generational body which you're beginning to be part of. Thanks, I'm glad you're willing.

[22:51]

But, you know, it's a big concept for sure. But it's also kind of refreshing and reassuring. That if we learn to live in what we call in Buddhism wisdom, which means to live in the way things actually are could be and with compassion which means the ability to feel and realize your connection with others This actually is your manifestation of what Buddhism means by Buddha.

[23:52]

And the simple act today of receiving and taking and holding the precepts And this simple act today, to receive the praises and to keep them, is to enter into the possibility that the world can be reformed through wisdom and compassion and that each of us has a small and big part in this.

[24:58]

Und dass jeder von uns einen kleinen und einen großen Anteil daran hat. Einen großen Anteil, weil wenn du das tun kannst, dann können auch andere das tun. Die Gelöbnisse zu empfangen ist eine persönliche Offenheit für die Veränderung. entering the world that gives the world a possible new life. Yeah, I'm sorry to try to say so much in a short time. Okay, thank you very much. Vielen Dank. He knows the intentions equally.

[26:16]

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