Today I can talk about the tenth of the Samantabhadra's vows, which is to dedicate one's merit to all sentient beings, to dedicate one's merit and virtue, to turn over one's merit and virtue to all sentient beings, which means to turn over your life to all sentient beings, but particularly that part of your life which is the good part of your life, don't worry,

[01:00]

you don't have to give them the bad part of your life, just give them all the good things, give them all your positive energy, everything that you cherish, everything useful, everything beneficial that you have or have at your disposal or can think of, give that to all sentient beings, that's the tenth vow. And in a sense it's the ... on one side it may be the most difficult to understand, on the other side it is in some sense the essence, or it's the way to understand all previous nine vows. In a sense it's really the essence of vows, it really is vows itself, it is dedication and devotion itself. So in some sense, now that we come

[02:10]

towards the end of the practice period, just before sashin, and to the end of this list of ten bodhisattva practices of Samantabhadra, perhaps we've come to the time to consider whether you're ready to make a commitment to the bodhisattva way. I think we have been considering that all practice period, but maybe now is a good time to consider it more intensely or more seriously about whether you want to take on the commitment of a bodhisattva or whether you'd rather wait until a little later to do that. I think some of you actually have admitted that

[03:11]

you don't want to do it yet, that you have some wholesome intention, but it's not quite at that level. You'd like to be happier, and you'd like some people to be happier. But if it's going to mean certain things, you're not so sure you want to go ahead with that. Today I'd like to broach the topic of what it might mean, how it might feel, to actually make this commitment. I think you already had some sense of it from these previous vows. The word dedicate has a number

[04:12]

of meanings. Its root means, the D.E. part of it, means away from yourself. The next part is dikare, which means to proclaim or declare or to say. So to dedicate in some sense means to say, sort of away from yourself, away from oneself to say or to proclaim away. So it means to give out something, to give out some proclamation. So one meaning of dedication is that you make some statement outward and also you make some statement towards others. That's one meaning. Another

[05:26]

meaning of it is to commit yourself to a particular course of thought or action. Another meaning of dedication is to devote yourself to something. The twenty-fifth chapter of Tamsaka Sutra is called the Ten Dedications of the Enlightened Being of the Bodhisattva. It's a very long chapter, it's 130 pages, and it talks about various kinds of ... basically lots and kinds of giving that happen. Giving this, giving that, when people come and ask for this, giving this, giving that joyously. And then in the process of giving these inconceivable gifts and being

[06:26]

sort of inconceivably joyous while giving them, like for example as I mentioned before, someone may come and ask you for your skin or ask you for something which actually seems to interfere with your own life, but you would give it to them. The Bodhisattva spirit is to actually give it and to give it joyously. That's giving. Dedication is that while you're giving these things, whatever you're giving, that while you're giving these things you actually in addition put your thoughts in the direction of hoping that this gift will then be utilized well. Hoping, not just giving it joyously, but actually then reiterating, thinking about wonderful thoughts about how this might be used. Or not just how this might be used, but just how the merit of this gift could be turned over to even more beneficial things. Not only are you giving things to people that they

[07:27]

need, but then while you give them you hope for even more than that. If you give them money or something wonderful in the material world, or even if you give them teaching, then in addition you hope even more. We have a couple of stories told about how to investigate the gods. And I look back at some when you give a guide to a bird that has stopped or whatever and wants to get back. So if you give the eye or the skin or whatever, it seems to me that you could also dedicate the merit that you have to hope that it's used in a certain way or a good way or a bad way. I think it would be essential. Yeah, right. In trying to direct my thoughts and how it's used. Well, that story is a mistake. It's a story of a mistake. You're not supposed to do it that way.

[08:30]

So you're not supposed to say, well I give this, I give you this dollar and I hope you use this dollar in this way and if you don't use it this way I'm going to be upset. No. You give the dollar for whatever they want to use it. If they want to use the dollar to light a cigarette, that's not your business. You just give the dollar. But then you hope that the merit of your giving, not the merit of their receiving so much, or the merit of their crushing your eyeball or whatever, that's not very meritorious, but you hope that the merit of your giving, you take that merit of your giving and you use that to hope for even more wonderful things for them than what you gave them. And it has nothing to do with them doing something different from what you hope. If they do something different from what you hope, you keep hoping for the best for them. If they do something less good than what you hope for them, you still keep hoping and you keep generating positive energy and turning that energy over into continual commitment to their development, their benefit.

[09:36]

Even if they abuse everything you give them, even if they hate you for your kindness, you still hope the best for them. One of the things I've noticed in you is that there's always some kind of pursuit to have a positive feeling. There's also, there's, you know, there's a lot of people who sometimes, in other situations, they just don't feel like they're doing a good job of what they're doing. They don't feel like they're doing a good job of what they're doing. I think that's one of the things I've noticed in you is that there's always some kind of pursuit to have a positive feeling.

[10:44]

It's the same subject. And so it would mean that if someone needs something from you, if something would be a benefit to someone and it doesn't look good for you to do it, if you really thought it was going to be beneficial, and you also thought that you had the wisdom to see that it was beneficial, that you would do it even though it might be, it might even, people might, people might criticize you for it or say that you're a cruel person or a selfish person, you'd still do it if you thought it was beneficial to the person. And if you really felt clearly that it was beneficial, you'd still do it. Including if the person themselves didn't think it was beneficial but you knew that it wouldn't be. Right? So like, you know, a simple example would be a child.

[11:47]

Sometimes you would do something for a child, the child is not considered to be beneficial. Like, for example, putting some kind of antibiotic that stings onto a cut. The child does not feel you're being kind to them at that time, maybe. Maybe they do, but they might not. They might think you're being cruel. Someone else watching from a distance might say, Oh look, that person's causing that child pain. They walked over to the person, they couldn't see what you were doing. From a distance it looked like you made the child cry and hurt the child. But you felt really that it was beneficial because you felt that the wound would become infected if you didn't put the disinfectant on. And yet this kind of disinfectant makes a child cry. So that's one example. But you do it even though someone may sit some distance or the child may not like you. I don't know.

[13:05]

I don't think that this person knew anything different other than what they were doing. Well, so it sounds like to me that maybe it was just in the discipline of that person that you weren't able to do what you were supposed to do without explanation, without resistance, without even telling them that what they were doing was necessary. Not necessarily. The point is from over here, I give away whatever I have. I'm not holding on to anything. That's the point. If somebody wants something that I've got, I'm willing to give it. I'm not holding on to my stuff. That's the point for me. That's what I have to work. Now, you have to check on that whether you're holding on, whether you're being stingy,

[14:09]

whether you're protecting your space, whether you're isolating yourself from people. You have to give up your privacy. Give up your privacy. You have to give up your private stuff and your private space. You have to give up your isolation. You have to give up your own space. You can't have any more space by yourself. You've got to always do whatever is connected. Now, sometimes people ask me, not exactly ask me, but let's see. For example, someone may tell me, someone can come and talk to me, and I may feel that they're scared, some adult. I may feel they're afraid of something. And I feel, oh, I'll take care of you. I'll protect you. They may even almost ask me to protect them. Or I may feel that they're asking me to protect them, but they really don't really want me to protect them.

[15:10]

It's just that I'm picking up from their desire for me to protect them, which is not their actual adult desire. Okay? And yet I feel that feeling that they want me to protect them. They really don't want me to protect them. But they do want to know that they want me to protect them. They want to know the feeling that they have that they would like me to protect them. So because I feel that feeling, I can say, you know, I feel like I want to protect you. And then they can say, oh, yeah, I kind of have that feeling. I don't really want you to do that. But I see I do have some feeling like that. If they actually said, no, I really do want you to come and hold my hand and walk me up the hill, I would do it probably. But I wouldn't necessarily do it if I didn't know that I felt that request arising in me because they were kind of, in some sense, neurotically wanting me to do that. But if I can feel that and get back to them and they know that they want it,

[16:12]

I mean, they feel that it's coming from them and they are conscious of it and they still want me to go through the drama, I'll do it. But I probably wouldn't be healthy to do it unless they were aware of this. Yeah, and the way I would do it is I wouldn't say, you are asking me to help you if they can't say it out loud. I would say, I have this feeling in me that I want to do this for you. And I feel like this feeling doesn't seem appropriate for me to feel this way. Do you have any idea where that's coming from? And they might say, well, yeah, I do. I kind of feel that myself. Then if, after everybody knows what's going on, they still want to go ahead and do it, it may be okay. So you give yourself to the sentient being, but also you give your intelligence to the sentient being too, and you give your feelings, you give everything. You don't just say, well, I'll be the helper. You'll also say, I'll also expose my feeling that I feel like I want to help you

[17:14]

before you even ask me. Because that may help you realize that you're evoking this in me. And then if you still want me to go do this thing which seems sort of neurotic, it won't be so neurotic then once you know what it is. Then it won't be acting out in that case. In other words, to act out these things is not beneficial to the person. But to know that we're aware of these things, and we go through them not through acting out, but more like just maybe some kind of ceremony demonstrating these things. So for example, this would be the case like if a therapist felt sexual feelings for his or her client. And even if the client seemed to be asking them, or they felt they wanted to, or even if they asked them out loud, directly, they would have to sort of get this to be knowledgeable. Then you say, well then could they have sex with their clients?

[18:16]

Well, no. But they could walk through the field of those feelings with them. And that would probably be satisfactory enough. That would be probably healthy. So it wouldn't be that you're, what do you say, I think I like this example. I think you've heard this story of the Zen teacher that was being sponsored by a wealthy lady, I think in China. And she gave this guy house and food for some number of years, and then she wanted to test him. And the occasional rose of her niece or something was in a kind of very horny state. And so she said, well go, I don't know exactly what she said, but she sent the niece over to the monk. I don't know if she said go talk to the monk for some help or guidance or whatever it was. But anyway, somehow she went to see him and she made her state known to him.

[19:17]

And he said something like, this is an old withered tree, there's nothing here for you, or something like that. And, is that right? And then she went back and told her aunt this, and she didn't like his response, and she kicked him out and burned his house, his hut down. I think she said something like, well you could have at least shown her a little bit of warmth. So he could have at least said, look sweetheart, I know how you feel. I have these feelings myself sometimes, or I used to, before I got to be kind of a wreck. And he could have put his arm around her and comforted her in this state of anxiousness and upset. And she could have felt some warmth and some kindness from him, and maybe some sympathy.

[20:20]

And he wasn't exactly better than her. Like, you're in this state, and I'm certainly not in this state, and I'm not going to have anything to do with this state. But he could have sympathized with her. Now, if he had just slept with her, then that wouldn't have been like that either. But there's some in-between place where you're totally, that's what she probably really wanted. She probably didn't want to have an affair with a monk, that probably wouldn't be so good. As a matter of fact, that would have caused quite a bit of trouble to her and the monk. And this hospital got burned down then too, probably. That's probably not really what she wanted, but she probably wanted some peace, some sympathy, some kindness to help her deal with this state of her body and mind. She didn't really want that inappropriate thing from him, but also she didn't want him to basically tell her that she was kind of beneath him. So if your relatives are asking you for something,

[21:21]

I think what they want, I think the point for Bodhisattva is that you don't isolate yourself from them, that you have no privacy from your family. You give up your privacy. I saw this Chinese, this movie called, what's it called, The Great Wall of China, it's called, a movie about China. And these Americans came to visit these Chinese people and this American boy told this, this American teenage boy told this Chinese teenage girl, maybe they weren't teenagers, maybe they were in their early 20s, but anyway, late adolescence, he told her about the word privacy. She didn't know about that word. Even in Chinese, I don't know if she knew. He told her the English word privacy. So this is one scene where the girl's in her room and her mother comes in and the girl says, You mean I'm privacy? And the mother says, Privacy? I'm your mother. There's no privacy from your mother. It's ridiculous.

[22:22]

And all beings are your mother, so there's no privacy from beings for a Bodhisattva. You have no privacy. Now this is a very scary situation to have no privacy. What would that mean? Does that mean people can come in and watch you brush your teeth? How horrible. Or maybe you don't mind they brush your teeth, but people can come in, Well, I want to watch you take a crap. Let's see how you take a crap. Or that the men can come over to the women's side and look at their bodies, and the women can come over to the men's side of the baths and look at the bodies? Is that what no privacy means? I don't know. Probably not. There's a rule against it. You don't have to worry. But no privacy. Giving it up. Giving your life to all sentient beings. With no strings attached. With no strings attached to protect you anyway.

[23:29]

No strings attached to call the deal off. Actually commit yourself to all living beings. And Zen teachers supposedly do that. The Zen lineage is supposed to be a lineage, unbroken lineage of people who had no privacy, who actually gave up their own personal trip, their own personal pleasure, their own personal stuff, who actually gave it up for other living beings. But it doesn't mean you turn into some kind of a wimp and everybody pushes you around. They won't do that. But if they do push you around, on those occasions that they push you around, you get pushed around. But sometimes when they push you around, you get pushed right around, you come around behind them and push them. It's a dance, you know. There's no isolation, like they do it to you and you just take it. It's a give and take. So giving your life means you give something too.

[24:30]

It also means that they take something. It's a responsive relationship. It's pulled in both directions, plus you're getting pulled in all directions at once, so nobody, one person can pull you off indefinitely in one direction. Because other people are pulling you in the other direction. You're connected to everything. So you can sincerely say when people say, well, let's go over here, you can say, okay, let's go, and let's bring everybody with us. So just a second, I have to tell the rest of the universe to come with us. But it's not used as an excuse to not give them what they ask for, or to not do what they ask. So devotion to, and dedication to, and cherishing all sentient beings. Cherishing, being concerned for their joy and their benefit and their happiness. And in conjunction with that vow

[25:41]

that they will be enlightened, that they will be saved before you, in conjunction with that, is a cosmic perspective, and also giving up privacy. I was riding up the coast with Mark a week ago, and he was reading me this article from the Smithsonian about the galaxies. So I'm driving along, and he was reading me stuff about the galaxies, and by the time we got to Santa Cruz, he wanted to get some carrot juice. So we stopped the car, parked the car, and got out to get the carrot juice, and he had been reading me this stuff about the galaxies, and the way the galaxies are laid out in space and so on. And I got out and looked around, and I thought, you know, a little bit like carrot juice? And I watched these people on the street.

[26:42]

I watched this man and woman walking the street. I think the man was chasing the woman, or the woman was chasing the man. I don't remember which. But they were sort of chasing those kind of little play they were doing. And I looked at that, and I didn't think it was stupid or anything. I just thought, hmm, people chasing people. And then there was this grocery store where people got apple juice and carrot juice and stuff, and paid money. You know, my life seemed so insignificant. Not exactly unimportant, but just kind of like what happened to me, just somehow I couldn't get it. I couldn't get what different... It didn't seem to matter one way or another too much whether I was snuffed out. As a matter of fact, in that scale of consideration, I'm going to be snuffed out like that. I'm going to be gone mighty soon. And there isn't going to be much trace of me, of everything I do. There isn't much trace of anything that anybody ever did. Except maybe in enlightenment there's some trace of it or something.

[27:46]

Not trace, but... No trace, but yet somehow maybe that's what's really where it's at. So that cosmic perspective is pretty nice, because you don't care so much about yourself, and you get a relief from being worried about yourself. Because you see how small the difference, how tiny the difference is. Of course it hurts this way or hurts that way a little bit, but still, in that perspective... But then I thought, you know, if you combine that perspective with not having any privacy... Because you might be walking on the street and you say, Oh yeah, but my life doesn't matter so much. And then somebody comes up and says, Well, can I kind of cuddle up to you? You, with the cosmic perspective. Do you mind if I sort of insinuate myself right into your life? Can I get in your car with you and ride to San Francisco? Well, I think the combination of those two kind of tests you. Because you might think, Geez, I have this big view and I don't really care.

[28:46]

And then, can you let action and ascension be into your life? Can you expose yourself? Can you do that without hiding anything? It isn't like, Oh, I got this cosmic perspective and I don't really worry about myself, but I certainly don't want people to find out about this. No, you actually expose yourself, your little self, and also you think big. So it isn't that you think big and then sort of like still hold on to your small thing and the bigness. You actually, up close, you open up. Up close, you're really open. And far away, you're open too. But it's not just that you're open up close. You're open up close indefinitely, forever. Those two qualities. The Bodhisattva vow has those two qualities. Some people are pretty good at the up close kind, but they're not so good at the far kind, and vice versa.

[29:47]

Some people are good at the far kind, but not good at the up close kind. Of course, you should start with up close kind, but don't stop. You start with the people at Tassajara right now, because we're at Tassajara. These are the people that we don't have privacy with. These are the people we're connected with. These are the animals we're connected with right here. These are the ones that we have no privacy from here. But then we don't stop there. We keep it going. Yes? You were next. You still have one. There was an old question about numbness and getting the juice for no privacy. There was an article somebody sent me about Jerry Brown that I've heard of who visited Mother Teresa in this extraordinarily difficult situation of taking care of the dying in Tamahata. And she would put her face next to somebody

[30:48]

who was just about to die and say, what I do for him for the way I do for him to see it. And it would have this relentless energy. But getting happy into that and keeping that flow constant is such an incredibly difficult thing to do. I suppose that the other vials have to do with just generating that energy. Yes. And this last vial here in some sense it's the last and it's also in some sense the first. It's sort of the basic intention of the whole thing. If you have no privacy it also protects you from getting wiped out in the process of this kind of acts.

[31:49]

If you give up privacy, you can say. It's the holding on the privacy that tears you out. If I have privacy then maybe I have to do something too. No privacy is also to utilize the inactivity of everything to do the job. If you're private then you have a large or small job to do. If you're a private bodhisattva you would get totally wiped out if you tried to do your work. It's too big a job for one person to do if you're a private individual. You will get burned off because of not having privacy, because of having privacy. So giving up privacy is a way to make it so you don't get tired out. So giving up privacy should be the key

[32:56]

that will make it so that you don't have to worry about yourself anymore and you won't get tired out. So this dedication or devotion of yourself to others is the overall understanding of how to do all these specific practices so that they don't tire you. So we need to contemplate what this kind of devotion or what this kind of dedication is until we can see, until we understand it in such a way that it actually makes it possible for us not to have any outflows. So we don't leak. So that you don't go around with the idea of well I'm going to help them. If you don't have privacy then you don't give anything away. If you don't give anything away you don't lose anything. If you don't lose anything you don't get weak. If you have privacy then you're going to get weak

[33:56]

if you give something to somebody. If these are your own private things, if they're yours then you're going to get pooped out. But you belong to sentient beings. They own you. They own you after you take the vow anyway. Before you take the vow they don't. You still have a chance. Yes? In the morning we do a final echo and we dedicate merit to deceased persons. I don't understand this unless it's for a person or a living person. Is there some notion that our merit can help them in further lives or something? Well, one way to see it is again, you're dedicating your life to the dead. You're devoting your life to the dead.

[34:59]

The unsympathetic. Yeah. And why would you devote your life to the Buddha's ancestors? Why would you feel grateful to Suzuki Roshi? Isn't that ridiculous? Why are you grateful to a dead person? Why would you feel grateful to Dogen Zenji? Why would you feel grateful to Shakyamuni Buddha? Well, in fact, that's what we're talking about. We're talking about feeling grateful to dead people. We're talking about saying, I'm going to devote my life to that dead person because that dead person was so beautiful. He gave such a great teaching. I'll give my life to that dead person. And all those other dead persons, between that dead person and this person, I'll give my life to all of them. But not just to them. Also to all sentient beings. In some ways, it's primarily the sentient beings that you give your life. If you can give your life to sentient beings, you might not have so much trouble giving your life to great Buddhas and ancestors.

[36:00]

But anyway, you should give it to them too because they have conveyed the teaching to you. Their lives have conveyed the teaching to you. So you do feel gratefulness to them, I think. Don't you? Oh, the gratitude is not positive. It's the idea of giving merit to beings who have used that process already. Well, merit is your life. Your life is merit. The level of merit or virtue that you have is the level of merit and virtue that you have. Whatever it is. If you've got this much merit and virtue, then you take that much merit and virtue, which is your life, the positive, lovely energy of your life, and, for example, you feel grateful to the Buddhas and ancestors. You want to carry on their teaching. And part of the reason why you have this, whatever level of merit and virtue you have is partly because you, as dead persons, also practiced those practices before yourself. So you're also dedicating and being grateful

[37:04]

to your own past practice and all the teachers who helped you in past lives. Okay? So the fact that you feel grateful is a dedication of your energy. Just gratefulness is putting out your positive energy to others in three times, past, present, and future. If you only do it in the present, that doesn't embody the full scope of your life. You have to also, to get the full dimension, you have to actually recognize that you do feel gratitude to many dead people that you never met. You read or hear about their teachings and you say, God, I feel so grateful to this person that I never met. Just like someone might bring you some gift from a person who died long ago. And the person's gone,

[38:07]

but you feel, geez, they sent me this present. Maybe it's your grandfather who sent you a present and your grandfather's dead now, but now it says, deliver to her when she's 40. And now you get it and say, ah, my grandfather, my grandmother sent me this present. And you feel very moved, right? And you want to repay them. How do you repay them? Well, one way, of course, would be to give a present like that yourself to somebody. You'd feel like, well, that's what they did for me and I feel so great about it, so I think I'll do that for somebody else, just like they did. And I'll maybe do it for somebody who'll never even know me. And maybe I'll give it to somebody after I'm dead. So, in fact, there's something about, as Mr. Kennedy says, it can be argued that religion starts with these invisible crowds of the dead. That being grateful to beings that don't live anymore, in some ways, to the beneficence of beings that aren't alive anymore,

[39:09]

in some sense, is religion. And grateful to Jesus and Buddha and so on. But, it's not just them. You don't have any privacy with them. You don't say, well, okay, Buddha, you're over there, I'm over here, I've got this little space, I'm not going to let you into this little part of my life, Buddha, or Jesus, or whatever. Can you actually say, okay, I'm opening up, Buddha, I'm opening up, Shah, there's no privacy between me and Buddha anymore. Buddha, you can have me. I'm hiding nothing anymore. I'm exposing myself. From now on. And I'm going to look over my life, I'm going to see if there's anything I have to hide. And if there's something I have to hide, I'm going to bring it out. Or, I'm going to get rid of it.

[40:11]

And not do it anymore. One or the other. If I'm going to keep doing it, I'm going to publish it, or I'm going to stop it. And then, not just with Buddhas, then not do it with living beings, with all living beings. So expose yourself, and also dedicate yourself, give yourself to all sentient beings. But again, for their benefit, not for their... for their benefit, for their enlightenment. So, of course, the best... you will be able to help them best if you yourself become enlightened, but you don't become completely, perfectly enlightened before they do. But you get pretty enlightened before they do. You get enlightened enough so that you can figure out what's helpful. And this hiding out,

[41:13]

or this no privacy, is also with yourself. You don't have any privacy with yourself. There's no part to yourself that you're pushing away. Let yourself find out about yourself. ... So, I don't want to be in a position of me telling you that you should, uh, you know, ... vow and endeavor to help all sentient beings be happy and enlightened before you. I'm not telling you you should do that. Okay? All I'm telling you is that that's the standard spiel. Zen, all Mahayana schools, they all say the same thing. None of them say the vow to, uh, help others at the same time or a little after you. They all say help others before you, before you attain perfect enlightenment, before you attain

[42:16]

complete freedom, them first. That's the one thing that all the Zen teachers agree on is to live to benefit other beings before yourself. And all the Tibetan teachers say it. All the Shin, all the, anyway, all the Mahayana teachers say that. And really, the Theravada teachers say that too. But they just put a little bit more emphasis on getting yourself going first. So I ask you, I ask myself,

[43:16]

are we ready to receive, take, or make the Bodhisattva vow? Are we really ready, are we ready, really are ready or whatever to say sentient beings are numberless, living beings are numberless. I vow to live for their benefit and to save them before me. And I vow to give up privacy, which means I vow to be aware that there isn't any, that I am connected to all beings. Are we ready to do that?

[44:20]

And now would be a good time, be good to do that before Seshin. Seshin will be a lot easier and more successful. You can take the Bodhisattva vow first because the, the sitting practice is based on this. Sitting practice is real, is impossible to do without doing the Bodhisattva vow first. Shhhhh Shhhhh So our Zazen is very you know I feel it's very apropos, very appropriate practice

[45:22]

for the Bodhisattva to sit with no privacy, to sit completely open and awake with all beings. Hmm Um I think it would, I think it would be good if everybody including me in this practice period would tell me what kind of focus your practice, what kind of focus you would like to have for your practice during Seshin. I'd like you to think about it for a day or so and then tell me

[46:23]

either formally or informally, verbally or in writing you could do it too. Tell me what you, what you're going to be focusing on during Seshin, what practice focus you will have. I mean people in the kitchen also. What you're going to be working on in your practice in the kitchen will be the focus of it. And if you don't want to have a focus, please tell me you don't want to have a focus. Please tell me what your decision is for that week. So and try to tell me before the Seshin. Sometimes I, I after Seshin starts I've asked people to come in and tell me. Now I'd like to give you a few days advance notice and have you say it before Seshin. So when Seshin starts you've already decided sort of what your, what the quality or you have a description for yourself

[47:26]

of your concentration practice of your area of emphasis and focus. You know the word focus is a Greek word, a Latin word means hearth. You know that. So what's the hearth of your practice? What's the focus of your practice? What fire are you, what fire are you going to be sitting around for the seven days? So you, I think it'd be good for you to say it for yourself so you make a commitment for yourself. And then also I would like to hear what it is so that I know something about, about what's going on. Plus also I know that you have made a commitment to something for that week. So it serves various purposes. That's Seshin exercise to serve various purposes. Such a commitment would be helpful to you and to me and to all of us in various ways. So I'd really like you to do that

[48:27]

if you could. As I say, you could write it down, give me a piece of paper, or you can come and see me formally and tell me, or you can come and see me informally and tell me. Just you can mention it to me if you want to, just walking around too, anytime, because it may be hard for, whatever situation is comfortable for you to tell me. But I would like you actually to tell me. You can also tell other people if you want to. But I personally would like you to tell me personally, so I know. That would help me also figure, get a feeling for what direction Seshin should go. Everybody says they want to do Blah-de-blah, then I may sort of devote, you know, my lectures to Blah-de-blah. So, please, please do that if you can. And if you can't, please, please tell me that you can't. In other words,

[49:28]

tell me something one way or another about the Seshin. The Sutra says, O noble-minded person, how should one dedicate one's merits to all sentient beings? To do so, one should think, all there is of merit I have acquired from the commencement of paying homage to the Buddhas and so on up to serving all sentient beings, those first nine steps. I will joyously turn over each and every living being throughout the entire Dharmadhatu in the infinite realm of space. By the power of these merits, I wish them

[50:30]

to always be happy and free from all ills and sorrows. By the power of these merits, I wish all their evil plans to fail and all their virtuous undertakings to succeed. Let all doors that lead to evil and misery be closed and let the broad path that leads to divine abode and nirvana be opened. Let me take upon myself the burdens and sufferings of all sentient beings lest they suffer heavy afflictions of retribution. In this manner, I will continue to turn over, to dedicate all merits to all beings until the realm of space is exhausted and the sphere of beings is ended and the karmas and sorrows and passion desires of beings are ended, thought after thought without interruption,

[51:30]

with body, mind and speech karma without weariness. O noble-minded person, these are the full and complete ten vows and acts of all Bodhisattva Mahasattvas. Those who follow these great vows will be able to ripen all sentient beings and enter the realm of Supreme Buddha, Supreme Bodhi of the Tathagata. I've asked you

[52:37]

particularly to tell me about your focus and then also I would like you to think about making the Bodhisattva vow and like we're going to say it in a minute and while you and think about whether you're ready to do it when you want to take the leap to do it. To take the big chance. Take the big chance to make the big change. Maybe, maybe, so just think about as you're taking, saying these vows and then we'll be saying them again just before Seshin in our Bodhisattva ceremony. It's another time to consider maybe after you use your way as after you do the confession and repentance and then you receive the refuges

[53:40]

then you make the vows. So, first is to clear away all obstructions so you feel fresh and ready to embrace the Buddha and the teaching and the community. In that sense you commit yourself to enlightenment. You commit yourself to the Dharma. You commit yourself to the Sangha. And then the Bodhisattva vows take you one step deeper into a new world. So with the aid of confession and repentance and the refuges you may be able to receive the Bodhisattva vow and make the commitment to turn around and go the other direction. From our usual karmic flow of selfishness and privacy and narrow view. And then after that

[54:41]

to sit for seven days in that openness and connectedness with all beings. This would be a possible way to look at the process of the Bodhisattva ceremony in the nine months before the sitting. There are three you know the three pure precepts. First one is about limiting yourself sort of or disciplining yourself by not doing any wrong actions or in other words do right actions. Sometimes called Pratimoksha Sambhara. The discipline of taking on these disciplinary rules

[55:42]

or the rules of right conduct. Next one is called some excuse me this is not the way three pure precepts are talked about. I'll say what they are later. The next one is Dhyana Sambhara the discipline of concentration. The third one is called Anasarva Sambhara the discipline of having no outflows. So after you first do confession and then receive the precepts then you can do the discipline of receiving or practicing concentration and then you can do the discipline of doing a practice which is quite natural which has no outflows which doesn't have any form in particular can be anything. And that corresponds

[56:45]

to three pure precepts not doing any evil generating good and working for other beings as benefit. In other words the discipline of having no outflows is the same as the discipline of working for the benefit of other beings. When you change your orientation and you have no more privacy and you're working just for others there's no more outflows at that point. That's why the Bodhisattva path when put in juxtaposition with the Arhat path the Bodhisattva path starts at the what we call Darshana Marga level the level of insight because when you take the Bodhisattva path you when you make the Bodhisattva vows you attain enlightenment at that time because you actually are you don't believe in the self anymore you are dedicated you are committing

[57:46]

yourself to a life not based on yourself not based on personal point of view. You're actually saying I'm going to live a life not worrying about myself anymore which is the same as saying I really don't believe in it. It's not a substantial thing that I have to worry about anymore. My personal reference point is no longer necessary. I can actually deal with the world by just taking care of making other people happy. So making that step and taking the Bodhisattva vow is actually saying I'm going to be enlightened I'm going to live an enlightened life that's it. I'm going to do that. And I I don't know any better I'm actually dumb enough to do that. Anyway

[59:06]

to me it's a tremendous step to take such a step and you can take it again and again. You don't have to commit yourself just once. You can reiterate this commitment again and again but each time it's a big step it's a huge step it's a frightening step it's an awesome step it's a magnificent step. And so it's just kind of a big deal. But if you don't take that step it's pretty hard it's impossible to practice zazen. You're not ready to practice zazen if you don't take that step. You can however still do the Sesshin without taking that step I can do the Sesshin without taking that step and it's pretty wholesome to do the Sesshin and follow your breathing and follow the schedule that's still good but in order to actually do the practice of zazen you have to make this commitment

[60:06]

because zazen requires this bodhi mind this Buddha's mind it's not like some ordinary person can practice zazen zazen is in Buddha's practice and Buddha has taken this step has this mind Buddha actually wants to help other people first that's the main thing. Yeah? Can you give us some feedback also sort of in response to the three Buddha sampras and the three Samatha, Madhya, of the three Samanthas? The insight, practice, compassion. Which one would be insight? The that's the Lord Buddha that would be practice taking a bow and then

[61:08]

compassion would be I don't know I just I just sort of see those three I know I don't know if I can quite put which one where I see him jumping around a little bit they're changing places running around back and forth between all three and just you won't you won't be situated there and say and there's insight in a sense in all three too so I think it

[62:12]

works better rather than saying those three bodhisattvas I find it works better to to speak of those three vows in terms of the three bodies of Buddha okay and that the first precept to to do all right to do right conduct to not do evil things that one is related to Dharmakaya has to do with the past the the doing all good is Asambhogakaya the bliss body of Buddha and the working for the benefit of beings is the nirmanakaya or the transformation body of Buddha and that's in the present Asambhogakaya is in the future so those three vows have a past present and future aspect in the sense that the precepts part of the reason why you have to watch out for evil

[63:12]

and take these precepts is because of this past karma which totally determines our life right now so you have to respect that and also realize it's inconceivably great and it sets the law moment by moment and these are the rules of a Buddha this is the way Buddha acts and Asambhogakaya the bliss body or the orgasmic body of Buddha in some sense that's like the social impact that's like the way we experience the dharmakaya that's the dharmakaya coming into our life so to speak and there all those bodhisattvas are playing all three of those bodhisattvas you mentioned it's not like they're not involved in the other ones but there's where you have sort of like an impact on them at the level that they exist in other words the level of bliss

[64:13]

they have no bound there's no end to their functioning but it's actually in the present in the present transformations of the Buddha body that we actually work to help people the Buddha body has to be transformed into these illusory forms that we exist in in order to actually help sentient beings that's the nirmanakaya so we're not saying that we're Buddhas exactly we're not Shakyamuni Buddha we're not saying we're perfectly enlightened Buddhas but we're saying that the beneficial aspect of Buddha Buddha actually working for helping people happens in the present through our present form not to say well I'm a Buddha but rather it is through this moment through this breath through this body that Buddha will realize itself through this particular form that's the nirmanakaya Buddha I'm not the nirmanakaya Buddha

[65:15]

but the nirmanakaya Buddha functions when a living being a bodhisattva does a helpful thing that's the nirmanakaya Buddha and it could be any of those bodhisattvas if you felt like the feeling you would have in doing that work the positive energy that fuels you to do what's helpful to people then it might have a samantabhadra aspect or a manjushri aspect or avalokiteshvara aspect you in the process of trying to be beneficial to people might feel like this is wisdom this is just the way it is some clear insight you might feel the joy of that insight or you might feel the joy of embracing all beings or you might feel the joy of dedicating yourself to other beings those three bodhisattvas

[66:17]

then would sort of be you feel their presence in a sense what they represent in your life at that time and that would be the sambhogakaya for you sambhogakaya is your fuel to be a nirmanakaya Buddha to do your nirmanakaya work you need the sambhogakaya energy the sambhogakaya energy comes from precept practice as a way to work with your past karma so all these bodhisattvas are sort of all over the place in that system I think I wouldn't put one of them in one of the three but the three precepts do have a slightly different function when you're practicing the precepts you don't exactly understand these precepts until you're a Buddha but by practicing them you get a lot of positive energy you get the joy

[67:17]

which is the sambhogakaya you get rewarded which is the sambhogakaya for practicing the precepts and that joy then lets you do the Buddha's work as a nirmanakaya Buddha until you've done so much of that work that you finally understand what these precepts mean then you're no longer trying them on you're no longer doing them they're effortless but then when they're effortless still you get rewarded with the energy which lets you do the work to benefit people and so on that cycle occurs those three precepts working that way of course they're indivisible you can't do one without the other and you can't do one of those bodies without the other you never have a nirmanakaya floating without the sambhogakaya nirmanakaya can't function without the bliss body there would be no energy for the nirmanakaya to do its work and you can't have the bliss body without the truth body the bliss body is totally connected to that and emerges

[68:19]

from the true body the body of truth so we don't understand the body of truth we don't understand the precepts but we practice the precepts and from the practice of the precepts comes this energy which then can be utilized to benefit beings and the energy which can be used to benefit beings we're using next week we're using to practice sitting we use that energy to practice sitting as our way of benefiting beings as our way to sit and and practice being open and connected being open and awake to our interconnectedness to get used to that without doing anything fancy to have no privacy to have no isolation you don't have to do anything just wake up to it

[69:20]

you don't have to sort of like reach over and touch your neighbor to make a connection it's already there just wake up to the connection just stop hiding out and the connection will be there with the miraculous function of the sitting meditation we can awaken to this to this interconnectedness to this lack of privacy to this needless to this needlessness for privacy and in fact I've seen many times during session people become more and more well open and less and less private but in session people are quite often times quite not private anymore they're just sort of like right out there they actually

[70:20]

often times don't don't seem to need to be private anymore they don't seem they seem to be willing to just show themselves and not be afraid of that and feel their connectedness with everybody even their neighbor even even with everybody without any exceptions even with blue jays so just

[71:57]

to add to [...] just to [...] them, whatever's way is unsurpassable, I am how to become it.

[73:17]

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