Good morning, Zen comrades. I may be about to make a big mistake, but I'd like to put a coda in yesterday's talk. Coda means tail. Coda means tail. So I'm afraid this tail might turn into a dog, which I really don't want to do, but I just wanted to say, if I may, briefly, that someone said to me that after yesterday's talk, he knew less, or he understood less about the precepts than he did before. I said, what did you understand before? He said, what did you understand the precept of no sexual greed meant before? And he said something like, it means not to harm. I said, that's right, it does. But it means more than not to harm, it means not to harm and also to benefit.

[01:05]

And not just benefit a little, but benefit absolutely, completely, all beings, that's what it means. But you don't skip over the not harm part in order to benefit all beings, that's right. And the part about benefiting all beings will take quite a while to understand, because what that means, the benefiting all beings part, is that not only do we have to not harm beings with our sexuality, but we must bring our sexuality out in the open so we can see it and feel it and smell it and touch it and taste it and think about it, and we need to completely integrate it with everything we do. Then it's very beneficial for all beings. At that point we don't have to worry about harming anymore at all. In the meantime, before your sexuality is completely integrated, before everything we do expresses

[02:15]

complete sexual contentment and includes our whole sexuality in every gesture, before that time we have to protect a little bit or a lot against this unused, unengaged, unintegrated sexuality, which is very powerful and can have very big effect on people, some of which is no fun and very confusing, etc., etc., you know. And this person who was talking, I said, you're very lucky that your sexuality is so obvious to you. Some people don't even know where it is, so integrating it's quite a problem, they haven't seen it for years, they've been so careful not to hurt people, especially themselves, they've been punished so much for it, for being a sexual being, that they pretty much

[03:16]

denied the whole thing. So if you have strong sexual feelings floating around, you're lucky. And being upright is the way to integrate them, you don't go get them and bring them over here to integrate them, you just sit there and leave them alone, study them, don't try to use them and don't be used by them. And if you can sit there in the middle of this passion, gradually, integration will be realized. So see you in 20 years. Anyway, it's better to have it out in the open than hidden away. It's more destructive when you don't know about it than when you do, so if you know

[04:18]

about it, you're a little safer than if you can't see anything of it, you haven't seen any sign of it, you are a walking time bomb. And if you've got a problem with it, you're on the road to freedom, and we have to deal with you too. So now I'd like to turn, that wasn't too long, to the next precept, number four of the major precepts, number four, no false speech. And, once again, without relying on common, ordinary, conventional practices, we ought

[05:24]

not move on to the ultimate, liberative significance of this precept. I kind of would like to go on to it myself right away and not be bothered with these common, ordinary details. That impatience is something that I confess, and now I will stay a little while at least in the conventional interpretation. However, I was happy when I thought about doing this difficult work of conventional interpretation of no false speech, happy to realize, or to think anyway, that since it's ordinary and conventional, I don't have to say much, because I'm no expert on the ordinary and conventional, we're all equally, fairly equal on it, since it's common. So, you tell me what it means in the ordinary sense, and, but because we have a limited

[06:30]

amount of time here, I thought that everybody should tell me at once. So please, just everybody at once, tell me for a little while what the conventional meaning of this precept is. Go ahead. Just start talking. Come on. [...] Sopranos. Tenors. Come on. Let's get more. Is that it? Anacoda. Okay. And maybe I should say a little bit. My conventional understanding of no false speech is that it's not false speech to state the false, state what I think is false as false. That's not false speech. It is false speech, in the ordinary sense, I think, to state what I think is false as

[07:36]

true, or to state what I think is true and call it false. That's false speech. In other words, to basically be intent on deceiving self or other is false speech. That's my ordinary understanding of it. I don't think false speech necessarily means that even if you're wrong, incorrect about something, that you would say it, thinking it was correct. That wouldn't necessarily be false speech. Honesty is the best policy, is the kind of common understanding of no false speech.

[08:39]

Also, another understanding I have of no false speech is that if I speak falsely, in other words, if I speak to deceive and I get caught by people or animals, I'll get in trouble. I'll experience negative results from that. Even if I don't get caught, there's something about me that I grew up the way I did, even if I don't get caught and I say what I think is not true as true, without anybody else doing anything, I send myself to some state of woe. I feel lousy, to a little extent or a great extent. False speech in the ordinary world, if I do it, if we do it, the results are suffering

[09:52]

and unfortunate destinies. The virtue of trying to say what I think is true, with or without self-righteousness, is that things in the common world seem to go fairly well in association with that kind of speaking practice, in association with that policy. Somehow the alignment of what I think is true with saying that it's true, that alignment is like taking a nice bath. Just feels clean and smooth and it's just kind of fortunate, kind of pleasant. The other way is somewhat jarring to the nervous system. What I'm saying now is not true, it's just my common ordinary understanding.

[10:56]

You may have a different one and yours may be more common and ordinary than mine. If a fish or a hungry ghost or a hell-dweller would look at you or I as we speak what we think is true, as we speak in a non-deceptive way, if they look at us they would think, whoo, that guy is in bliss, that looks really good. And such practices is how fish and hell-dwellers get to be humans. However, if a Buddha watched us talking that way, a Buddha would wince in sympathetic pain, seeing that we were very unhappy and suffering greatly, being caught up in such ways of being.

[11:58]

And they would see that that way of talking and thinking and behaving tied us into a tangled net, not as bad as the net that you get into when you try to deceive, but a net, and it's just as powerful. I don't know if it's just as powerful, anyway it's powerful. So we should know that there is benefits from speaking what we think is the truth. There is benefits from refraining from speaking in a way to deceive and mislead. We should know that. We should understand that. And we should know its limits. It has limited benefits, and as I say, it looks pretty good from our point of view, it looks great from a fish's point of view, and does not look good at all from the point

[13:01]

of view of complete liberation and infinite compassion. It looks like a sad fish in a little pond. Is, in this case, the truth we speak separate from something other we think is false? In particular, in practicing this Dhamma precept of all Bodhisattvas, are we setting up true and false as two different things? Then do we try to grasp the true and speak it? Do we try to get rid of the false and not speak it? Well, this is the usual way. And to do the opposite of that, you know, to try to like grasp the false and speak it

[14:08]

and reject the true and not speak it, that's going to be worse by a long shot. But this way of grasping the truth and speaking it and getting rid of the false and not speaking it, if we understand that way, this, for us anyway, this understanding of this precept makes the precept become just another face of bondage to endless suffering of cyclic birth and death. And sometimes you speak, you don't want to speak falsely and deceptively, but if you speak truly in a grasping way, what you think is true in a grasping way, you are tying yourself into birth and death. Where if you know it, you're looking through Buddha's eyes, because that's how it looks

[15:15]

to Buddha. So I thought maybe, I mean I think maybe, that's enough on the conventional, for me today. And as I say, if anybody else wants to say more about the conventional, you can all speak right now at once. Any more comments? At once, everybody, one, two, three. I'm not offering an opportunity for solos, just a group wants to speak, you all get a chance. Okay. Solo performances can be done in dok-san, that's what dok-san means, solo and performance. And then I also want to mention the very important other aspect of this and all precepts before moving on to the essence, the essence-less essence, and that is that the compassionate

[16:24]

point of view in this precept is what kind of speech is going to be beneficial. So, it might be the case, it sometimes happens, that someone asks you a question and what you think is the true answer will be harmful. And in that case, the bodhisattva vow, some bodhisattvas understanding of their vow anyway would be that they should speak what they think is not true in order to benefit beings. That if they would follow the conventional world's policy of stating as true what they

[17:26]

think is true, that it would be harmful. And so at least they avoid the harm, and it might even be that stating what they think is false as true might avoid the harm and might even be beneficial. In that case, some bodhisattvas understand that they should do that. So, some bodhisattvas feel that all the time, if you follow the limited, conventional, personal understanding of the precepts, you violate the bodhisattva precepts. Some other bodhisattvas feel that some of the time, if you follow the limited, personal, conventional understanding, you would violate the compassionate meaning. Dogen Zenji was one of them that felt that following the individual liberation understanding of these precepts was a violation of the bodhisattva precepts. At least that's what some people interpreted.

[18:29]

So, either all the time it's so, or some of the time it's so, but there are times like that. Even then, you're still operating on what you think is beneficial, but to the best of your ability, if you think it's beneficial, that's what you should do as a bodhisattva, that's your vow, to benefit, no matter what, other beings before yourself. So, the standard example is some murderers are trying to track somebody down, and you know where the person is hiding or whatever, and they ask you where the person is, and you give them directions which you think are not true. If they follow your directions, they won't find the person and be able to kill the person. And also, if they find out later that you're deceiving them, they might hurt you. But as a bodhisattva, in order to protect that being from murder, and also to protect the murderers

[19:37]

from being murderers, you might decide that that was the best way to go. There are lesser examples, less serious examples, like, you know, again, if you're a parent, and your son or daughter is coming to you, they're all set to go out to a dance or something, they come to you and say, how do I look, you know, you might look at them and feel like, oh my God, you know, this child looks terribly ugly. This is an atrocious manifestation of ugliness in this world. Now, you know, sort of man to man or woman to woman you might say that,

[20:44]

just stay home tonight. But if you say that to a child, especially if you're their parent and represent lots of, you know, authority, if you say that, they might still go out but just feel terrible, you know, and get in a car accident or slash their wrists. So in that case, you might feel like, well, maybe I should tell a lie so that they can have a nice night. Or tell what I think is a lie and say, you look great, darling, have fun. And they go off, and they do have fun, and maybe it was helpful. And maybe if you had said what you thought was true, it might have been very upsetting and disorienting and confusing and depressing and so on. You don't know. But you thought so, so you didn't do it, and that's another example. There are times, however, when your children or friends ask you a question, and you feel something which you know will be difficult for them, but which you feel that will be beneficial.

[21:50]

And they can handle it, and they'll grow from it, and then that time you feel it is beneficial to say the difficult thing, so you say it. And it's true, what you feel. There are even examples, the other way, of where someone's, you feel like it would be beneficial, you know, to tell a person that something's wrong with them when there really isn't. Like Suzuki Roshi's teacher, and again, we don't know if this would be beneficial, but Suzuki Roshi's teacher told Suzuki Roshi that he would become very ugly as he grew up. His nickname for Suzuki Roshi was Crooked Cucumber. And his teacher told him that. Kind of a cruel and deceptive statement. And poor little Suzuki Roshi, little monk, kept looking in the mirror day after day to see when it was going to happen.

[22:54]

And you know, it never did happen. He turned out just fine. But maybe it was beneficial instruction because, you know, look at the fruit. He became a fine Zen teacher. At some point he stopped worrying about how he was going to look. So anyway, there is this kind of way of approaching this precept and the other precepts, which sometimes is relevant. Keep our eyes peeled for that aspect as we try to practice them in the conventional world. Now coming to the fundamental and final significance of this precept of no false speech, again I turn back to the basic relationship between precepts and upright sitting.

[24:12]

Relationship between the Bodhisattva precepts and Zen. And that is precepts are the authentic gate. And the great condition of the Zen school. It's through the precepts that we enter being upright. And in being upright, the meaning of the precepts is revealed. Being upright is the key that opens the treasury of the Bodhisattva precepts.

[25:22]

It's the key that opens the treasury of Buddhadharma. So round and round we go. Receiving Buddhist precepts, entering uprightness. In uprightness, understanding and opening up the meaning of the precepts. And then using this meaning of the precepts, enter more deeply into being upright. And in being upright, experience a deeper revelation of the precepts. And use the deeper revelation to go deeper into upright sitting. So that they go round and round, deepening each other forever. There's no end to this deepening process. To this unfolding of the meaning and wonder of the Bodhisattva precepts.

[26:28]

And the subtlety and glory of being upright. Round and round, never stopping. Never a final understanding of sitting upright. Never a final understanding of the precept of no false speech. Always, hopefully, another unfolding. Of course, there's times of getting stuck. Get some good understanding of what the practice is and hold it. And then there's no further revelation because this is good enough. Let's move on.

[27:32]

So for me, being upright shows how the precept of no false speech teaches us what it means to be upright. This precept of no false speech helps me understand what being upright means. I didn't understand what the precept meant until I used being upright to study it. I didn't understand this process. So I'd like to talk about some of the ways in which this happens. And as an image for this process, I would quote, I think, Master Yen Man who said that

[28:59]

all Buddhas turn the Dharma wheel in the midst of fierce flames. That whenever the Buddhas turn the Dharma wheel... Yes? Well, I'd rather not. That's okay. You can ask me later. In the midst of fierce flames, the Buddhas turn the Dharma wheel. And I'd like to ask, as Yen Man did, what are these flames? And as Yen Man did, I'd like to answer. The flames around the Buddhas turning the Dharma wheel are the flames that surround being upright.

[30:11]

Good. What are the flames around being upright? Well, they are the flames of renouncing all worldly affairs. No worldly affairs reach uprightness. In uprightness, we drop them all. The Dharma wheel is turned in the middle of a circle of dropping all worldly affairs. The flames within which the Buddhas turn the Dharma wheel are the flames that surround a mind that's like a wall. Where one renounces activating the mind in relationship to objects,

[31:17]

renounces the worldly affair of activating your mind in relationship to words, in relationship to speech. And receiving this instruction to not activate the mind in relationship to objects, Bodhidharma's instruction, Huayka said, after he practiced it, no words reach this. No words can reach the place where Buddhas turn the Dharma wheel. They get burned up in those flames that surround them. They get burned up in the giving up of playing with words. So in terms of this precept of no false speech, no false speech can reach being upright.

[32:22]

But also, no true speech can reach uprightness. No words reach it, true or false. And also, in being upright, you can't reach out and grasp true or false speech either. You have renounced playing with words, therefore they can't reach you. You have renounced discriminating between true and false, therefore true and false don't reach this place. No meditation instruction can reach the place where Buddhas practice uprightness. No knowledge, no verbal knowledge can reach there. In this place, you can't lean out, you get burned.

[33:41]

You can't lean into self and other. And self and other can't get in there. Inside of the circle of flames, at the core of being upright is the precept of no false speech. And it teaches the upright practitioner, or the practitioner of uprightness, it teaches her to not reach for true speech. To not reject false speech. It tells her, stop meddling with those words all around you.

[34:44]

Give them up. Don't push them away either, don't lean towards or away. Just be quiet and still in the storm of words. You are protected from them by the flames of renunciation which surround you. Your willingness to not gain or lose anything in the ocean of words is what the precept of no false speech is encouraging you to do. If you can sit in this way, with the precept of no false speech, the fundamental spiritual vitality of this precept starts to feed your sitting.

[35:47]

And your sitting draws more of that life force out of the precept. Nobody knows how this happens, but it does. If you try to use your sitting to draw the blood out of the precepts, this is not uprightness. But to blithely, innocently sit down with the precept in your mudra, whatever one it is, and just sit there, it will start dancing at your feet and tell you this wonderful story. This wonderful story is, you just shut up and keep sitting there. And they also say that although there's fierce flames all around us

[37:01]

as we turn the wheel of dharma, a cool breeze rises on the eyebrows. The precepts take us into the uprightness. The uprightness opens the precepts. And the uprightness not only opens the precepts, but it makes the precepts our own. It doesn't just open the precepts, it turns the precepts. And not only does it turn the precepts, but the precepts turn you.

[38:02]

And the precepts turn the upright sitting. They turn each other. Like we say, a pearl in a ball rolls of itself. Or another translation is, the pearl and the ball roll on each other. I don't know if the precepts are the ball and the pearl is the upright sitting, or the upright sitting is the ball and the pearl is the precepts, but they turn and roll on each other. And in this rolling on each other, the spiritual work happens. And you, the practitioner, have been left outside, and yet you're not some other place. Your life is completely mixed in this turning, in this integration of precept and sitting, and precept. Revolutionizing the meaning of sitting upright,

[39:07]

revolutionizing the meaning of the precept. Every generation of Buddha ancestors used uprightness as the key to reinterpret the teaching. And they reinterpret the teaching based on a revelation that has gone beyond the teaching that they received. In this way they refresh the teaching. But the great revolutionaries of Dharma, who turn not only the Dharma wheel, but turn the generations, became masters at the teachings that they turned. We must bow to the tradition.

[40:14]

We must bow to the traditional meaning a hundred, million, billion times, each time expressing our love of the tradition and praying that the tradition will change and become our own. That the revolution will be allowed, that the teachings will go beyond what they've been before, and be something new and fresh. I never heard before in any Zen book exactly that the precept of no sexual greed means to become intimate with sexuality. I never heard that before. But that's what I have to say. And I have to say it for the sake of the tradition that never said it before.

[41:18]

Otherwise this tradition would die if nobody says anything that's never been said before. It doesn't mean that what's never been said before is correct or authentic. Just that it's new. Among the new things, some will turn out to be authentic and some will turn out to be something else. But in the old days they used to say that from Buddha's point of view, everything is no false speech. And everything said, that means everything that the new generation says is no false speech. So since what the new generation is saying is no false speech from the point of view of Buddha, it might be good if they said something new

[42:21]

under the sponsorship program. Shakyamuni Buddha was a revolutionary. He sat upright and he revolutionized the spiritual tradition of his birth. He didn't mean to, but he did. And they say he started a new religion. He became a master at the old tradition and then couldn't help but turn that tradition in the midst of those flames. He couldn't just let it sit there. He had to reach over and turn that wheel and refresh the spiritual understanding of his generation. And every generation since him had to do the same thing. This is called going beyond your teacher.

[43:23]

But you can't go beyond your teacher. You can't go beyond your tradition if you don't love it to death. You don't have the right to revolutionize it unless you're devoted to it. Just to come in and trash it. And try to change it that way. Just that's all it does. But when the revolution comes from your devoting yourself to it, it could be new life. Jesus of Nazareth revolutionized his tradition. Like it or not, he was a revolutionary. But he was also a devout Jew as far as I know. And he sat and was obedient to what was happening to him and that forced him to be the way he was. Anybody who is himself completely

[44:30]

will be a revolutionary. There's never been anything like you being yourself before. This refreshes. This transforms. This turns the wheel of Dharma. And this happens in the midst of fierce flames. Fierce flames which surround you. And don't let anything that's not you be you. This is called being upright. Uprightly yourself. And it's painful. And all around the flames are things which seem to be saying no, you can't be this way. And if you have not renounced the world, those words will get to you. And then you will not cover your mouth. Martin Luther was a very devout person

[45:39]

and he was a revolutionary. Every generation, same thing. This is called turning the Dharma wheel. To make the Dharma your own. To make the Dharma idiomatic. So I leave you with this. I listen to the precept of no false speech. And I try to be obedient to it and see if it guides me to the place of stillness and uprightness. To see if it guides me to the place of renouncing all habits of thought and being like a wall. To see if it guides me to the place where no words, true or false,

[46:40]

reach it. And where there's just silent, living color. And can this precept guide me, guide all beings, to the pure and simple color of true practice? And at that place, is the precept then unfolded into another meaning? Does it reveal more? And then does that further revelation take us deeper into the competence of Buddha? So, I believe that these precepts are enlightenment.

[47:47]

And they guide us to enlightenment. And enlightenment guides us to the meaning of the precepts. This is the pivot where I think the spiritual work can turn. And now, if there's questions, I entertain them. Are they still there? Go ahead. If you want. There aren't any? I was talking to somebody who was yawning.

[48:54]

Anyway, so, my... You got released from it when I said shut up? No. So, but... The question is that the feeling I've had for a long time about what I can sort of call the relationship between the conventional world and the sort of compassionate world feels like that I cannot know who is awake and who is not. There's no way I can make that decision. Because I'm just a human being in the realm of delusion. Like everyone else. So, whatever comes towards me and whatever goes out to me in a conventional way actually, somehow I feel that all of that is the intention to release me.

[50:01]

So, if I feel that somebody makes a comment about me or laughs at me or thinks I'm stupid or something like that that's just as awakening as someone telling me I'm wonderful. Right. Can I say something? What you just said, however, is not the conventional view of the conventional. I agree with you. But that's the ultimate view of the conventional that you just stated. Right, that's sort of like... But the conventional is... The conventional is completely integrated with... The conventional is the movement, the conventional is the movement, the conventional is moving and therefore the conventional gives an opportunity to experience the movement of that which doesn't move. But in the conventional, part of the reason why the conventional is moving is because the conventional doesn't think it's the moving of that which doesn't move. That's part of the conventional. But that's exactly why the conventional is so useful is that it's so feisty and, you know, unsettled and picky and nasty,

[51:04]

hung up, particular, limited, caught, all that. And compassion is what lets us enter that world and be intimate with it. And when we're intimate with it, we realize that the conventional world is not conventional at all. But it's conventional to think that it is. Any other things you'd like to bring up? I'm trying to use these talks in a book, so if you ask questions in the middle,

[52:06]

the whole structure of the talk gets confused. I didn't tell you that, but I'd like the questions at the end. Oh, there's only one more. Could you stop the tape? Could you stop the tape?

[52:21]

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