This morning perhaps we could continue to consider the relationship between the bodhisattva precepts in the lineage of Soto Zen and the practice of meditation. in Soto Zen, since this is a Soto Zen temple. And we're into the precepts and meditation here, right? So it seems appropriate to talk about those two topics. Also there's a new book out on the topic, a subject, which makes an ideal Christmas present The 16 bodhisattva precepts are posted on the bulletin board out there.

[01:09]

And there's also a list of 48, actually 58 bodhisattva precepts which are taught in a Mahayana scripture called the Brahmajala Sutra. In Japanese Soto Zen, which was transmitted to us here In this temple, we have ceremonies to receive the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. Most of us, I think, probably came to Zen Center to learn to practice Zen meditation. And after we arrived, we found out about the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. Here come those precepts again.

[02:13]

So as I've mentioned before, these precepts are offered as a way to enter the path of Buddha. the Bodhisattva precepts actually are a way to formally enter Buddha's way by receiving these precepts and making some commitment to understand them to try to understand them and practice them. This is something which we can do with our mind, with our body, with our voice. And we can see this and hear this.

[03:21]

And then the other aspect of the Bodhisattva precepts is, offers a formless way to enter the path of Buddha. And the formless way has to do with, in some sense, then receiving the formless precepts. So the formal precepts are the activity of taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, the activity of embracing and sustaining the forms of Zen practice, and the regulations of Zen training, and embracing and sustaining all wholesome activity, and embracing and sustaining all beings. And then also to practice not killing, not stealing, and so on. These are the formal Bodhisattva precepts.

[04:31]

And the formless bodhisattva precepts, of course, are formless, so I can't really say what they are. But even though I can't say what they are, I would say that they're like the essence or the heart And the formal precepts are like the activity, or the arms and legs. When we actually receive the essential precepts, the essence of the precepts, then our body and mind behaves in this way, or our activity becomes not killing, not stealing, and so on. Then our activity becomes that we orient towards a Buddha all the time, or we keep reorienting towards enlightenment in the midst of our suffering.

[05:43]

We keep turning towards Buddha. We keep turning towards the truth. We keep turning towards the community in the midst of our daily life. That activity arises in our life because the essence has been received. has been embodied. One way that the, although I can't talk about this formless precept of Buddha, one way it's spoken of is as the as the one vehicle precept. And this expression, I don't know where the actual ultimate origin of it is, but this expression is very important in a scripture, a Mahayana scripture, which apparently arose

[06:57]

in India and became very important in China. In India it arose, and I don't know if it was, it wasn't so influential in India, but when it went to China, for various reasons, it became the most important scripture for Chinese, for the Chinese people. And perhaps in Japan it's the most important scripture, the lotus. It's called, in Sanskrit, it's called Sadharmapundarikasutra, which means the good dharma lotus, the lotus flower of the sublime dharma scripture. And the lotus, which is very important for Zen in China, but perhaps even more important for Zen in Japan. And in that sutra, the Buddha in the sutra, Shakyamuni Buddha in that sutra, teaches the one vehicle.

[08:09]

And the precept of that sutra is the one vehicle precept. It doesn't say any place in the sutra that I know of, one-vehicle precepts. But the one-vehicle precept is the fundamental truth, period. But in particular, it's the fundamental truth of the Lotus Sutra. And it's also the fundamental truth of all Buddhist sutras. And it's even the fundamental truth of the Torah and the Bible. in the Koran. Although, you know, some Muslims might, you know, attack me if I said that. The fundamental vehicle, I would say, have a raisin, brother.

[09:16]

The fundamental vehicle means I mean, the one vehicle, and again, that's in Sanskrit called ekayana, one vehicle. In Chinese and Japanese, it's called ichijo. The one vehicle means that we're all on the same path and... Sorry. Sorry. There's no other path. There's only one path. That's the one we're on. And we're all on it. And nobody can get off it. And nobody can get on it because everybody's already on it because it's the one we're already all on. And when I say we, I mean like, you know, us here in this room. And I mean all the Buddhas. And I mean all Buddhas, enlightened and unenlightened disciples. So all the arhats, all the students of Buddha who became enlightened, all the prajnega Buddhas who got enlightened on their own, and all the Buddhas, all the bodhisattvas, there is a path that everybody's on, and that everybody on that path is moving towards Buddha, and that's the one vehicle.

[10:49]

That's the vehicle of the Lotus Sutra and the precept. And there's a precept which conveys that vehicle and it's called the One Vehicle Precept. And that's the precept of Soto Zen meditation. So when you receive this precept, if this precept is received and inhabits you, you become, you know, you're the same as a Buddha when you receive that precept. Now if you don't receive the precept, you're a little different from Buddha in the sense that you haven't received the Buddha precept, and Buddha has.

[11:57]

But you're still on the same path as all the Buddhas, even if you say, I don't want that precept. But when you let that precept take over your life, then the formal precepts start to manifest in your life. When you let that precept take over in your life, then you do ceremonies of receiving the precept. And you do ceremonies of giving the precepts. And you do ceremonies of saying, I'm sorry, I didn't practice the precepts today. And you do ceremonies of confessing that you didn't practice the precepts which are really what you want to do because you've been taken over by this one precept, which is that we're all practicing together. So if you ever do anything that seems unappreciative of other beings that you're practicing together, you would naturally say, I'm sorry. Because we're practicing together.

[13:01]

I'm sorry that I had unkind thought about you. I forgot the fact that we're working together here. I'm sorry I stole your lunch. I forgot that really I'm here to help you eat lunch, and so on. So then these precepts become the activity of your life because you've received this one formless universal Buddha precept. In the Lotus Sutra there's a story and there's many interpretations of this story but anyway today I'll tell you the story and you'll hear maybe I'll do 16 interpretations and that's all I'm doing. So the story is that there once was a house and in that house

[14:06]

there were some children and the children had a nice nursery with lots of toys. And then the house somehow became inflamed and the flames started to consume the house. And then in the process of this fire, lots of animals, poisonous snakes and scorpions and stuff like that started to like freak out, come out from the woodwork to run around the house. So these little kids were in the house with the fire and the poisonous animals, and their daddy, in this case, I don't know where their mommy was, but anyway, the daddy was outside and thinking, like, hey, kids, come on out. And they said, later, Dad. I'm just playing my new, these new toys you gave me for Buddha's birthday. So they wouldn't put their toys down. You know, like some of them had Mercedes toys. Some of them had Nintendo computer games.

[15:11]

Some of them had, you know, cocaine. Some of them had alcohol. Some of them had cigarettes. Some of them had, and when I say these things, I'm not, you know, singling out any of you drug addicts. I don't mean like to embarrass you to mention your drug of choice. But anyway, on and on, various things that they were interested in, so they didn't want to, like, come out of the house. So then the Buddha said, I've got some really great toys out here for you. So in those days, you know, the toys that they had, you can imagine what the present-day equivalent would be. He said, I got you a brand-new, I got you guys brand-new carts, chariots, and deer chariots, I have horse chariots, and I have goat chariots, ox chariots, okay?

[16:16]

And then, of course, he went into how they were decorated, you know. They have, like, what are they called now? They have these SUVs. They have, like, what is it? It's a Cadillac SUV. is out now with what they call onboard backseat entertainment center. So in the back of a Cadillac SUV, you have video cassette players. You have computers in the backseat of these things. So they're like that decorated in the state of the arts entertainment on board the chariot. The kids hear about these toys and they come running out of the house. When they get out of the house, the Buddha says, Hi, thanks for coming out. I'm so happy. And they say, well, where's the toys? And he points over there and there's a one There's one vehicle. There's one cart, one chariot. And it's pulled by, I believe, a big white bull.

[17:20]

And the kid said, well, you said there was three. Daddy? He said, well, I was just trying to get you out of the house. And then I think, I don't know who says it, but somebody says, well, does that mean the Buddha was lying? Buddha says, no, I wasn't lying. I was just trying to get him out of the house. And then when you get out of the house, I tell you, really, I only have one vehicle, the Buddha vehicle. But if the Buddha vehicle won't get you out of the house, I'll do anything to get you out of the house. And once you're out of the house, then I'll give you the Buddha vehicle. So... You may hear in Buddhism various vehicles that don't sound like this one vehicle that everybody's practicing. Because some people don't want to practice with those other people. You know? I don't want to do that practice. I want to do something a little bit fancier than that.

[18:22]

That's not macho enough, or that's too macho. I want to do something more, you know, PC. I want to do a practice that has, like, where they club people in meditation, you know. I want to do a practice, like, that nobody but a superhero could practice. Oh, you do? Well, let's have a sashin. You can sit up all night, and if you blink an eye, we'll beat you to a pulp. Oh, good, that sounds good. I'll play that. And some people say, no, I want a practice where, you know, we can really, like, relate to each other and... spill out our guts about our feelings. And somebody else says, I want to practice where I can make a lot of money. I want to practice where I can get laid. And there are actually vehicles like that offered by Buddhism. You walk on the streets of San Francisco or Kyoto, and there's people, Buddhists, who are saying, you want a girlfriend?

[19:28]

Okay? Just, we got to practice for you. All you got to do, guess what? All you got to do to get a girlfriend is to say, Namu Myoho Renge Kyo. You know what that means? It means homage to the Lotus Sutra. Isn't that convenient? That the Lotus Sutra teaches the one vehicle. In other words, the Lotus Sutra says, you can do anything to get these people out of the house and get them to chant the name of the Lotus Sutra. So what they tell the people is, you can get TVs, you can get Cadillacs, You can get boyfriends and girlfriends by chanting the name of this scripture, the Lotus scripture. So they're willing to say whatever to get the people out of the house, and then finally say, well, sorry, we only have one vehicle, and it's a Volkswagen. I didn't mean that to be a pun, but if you look deeply, you'll see that that was a pun. So anyway, but Zen also will use whatever to get people out of the house, but basically just to tip you off beforehand, which may make you stay in the house forever.

[20:41]

We only have one vehicle, and we really have only one practice. It's the practice, not that you do, not that I do, Not that you and I do and they don't, but the practice that you and I and everybody and all the Buddhas is doing. That's actually the practice of, you know, Soto Zen. And other kinds of Buddhism may seem like they're offering other vehicles, but really they're just offering other vehicles too to get people out of the house. And sometimes we do too, to get people out of the house. But really it's just to get us out of the house so that we can say, okay, now we're out of the house. We put aside these other practices and now we're ready to practice together with everybody. This is the one precept. And when you receive that one precept, your Buddhahood is confirmed.

[21:48]

Because Buddhas are those who are on the path with all the Buddhas. Now, all sentient beings are there too, but the precepts are not necessarily to confirm that you're a sentient being. The precepts are not to confirm that you're an ordinary person. The way you confirm you're an ordinary person is just by thinking, you know, that you're better than other people or worse than other people. Your ordinary mind confirms that you're unenlightened, doesn't it? So most people got that confirmed, and if you don't have that confirmed, we can have a special ceremony for you But most people know that they're ordinary. And if they think they're not ordinary, that's fine. That's ordinary too. The precept confirms that, you know, that you're, of course you're ordinary, but it also confirms that you're Buddha. The precept The precepts confirm that you're Buddha. The formal precepts confirm that you're Buddha, and the formless confirms that you're Buddha.

[22:54]

And when you really accept that confirmation, the formless precepts start being realized. The formal start to be your activity when you fully accept the confirmation of Buddhahood. You become the same as a Buddha when you receive Buddha's precepts. So Wang Bo says, the Zen teacher, all Buddhas and all sentient beings are just one mind. So another name for these precepts is just one mind precepts. In other words, there's a precept of all of us, all Buddhas are just one mind. Receiving that precept that all of us and all Buddhas are just one mind, then the practice of meditation,

[24:06]

is just to realize that we're just one mind, which means, among other things, that you practice not grasping anything in your mind. When you receive the precept of one mind precept, then there is nothing to attain. And so you practice not attaining not attaching, and not seeking anything. And not only, I say, when you receive this precept, you practice this way, but really, when you receive this precept means when this precept is received, the practice is this way. Because when you receive this precept, not only do you receive the precept of one mind where there's nothing to be attained,

[25:08]

and there's nothing by which you attain, and there's nothing you grasp or seek, not only is it that way for you, but also it is the practice of everybody practicing this way. So it is not so much that you receive these precepts and you practice this way, but these precepts are received and these precepts are practiced when you receive, when the one mind precept is received. This is to receive the one vehicle precept and to do the one vehicle practice which is Zen meditation. the Zen of the Buddhas, Buddha's Zen, Buddha's meditation. In the realm of ordinary human thought,

[26:16]

We have Zen centers where you and I go into a meditation hall and then I practice meditation and you practice meditation and maybe I help you practice meditation and you help me practice meditation. But anyway, there is this element of I'm practicing meditation and you're practicing meditation or I'm not practicing meditation. I'm like goofing off. I'm thinking about, you know, something I'm not supposed to be thinking about when I'm meditating. I'm distracted. I'm upset. Or I'm thinking some really good thought, some really wholesome thought, and I'm cooking here. I've got great meditation now for a little while. That's the ordinary point of view. I know some of you have had experiences like that of where you've had like really good, you did some good meditation today. I've met, some of you have told me, I had a good session there. I practiced meditation really well.

[27:23]

I was, well, I was skillful. And then some other people tell me, no, I had a really bad meditation period there. And so on. There's many stories. Have you heard any of them? seen any stories about meditation, about people doing meditation or not doing meditation. This is, we got plenty of those. And those meditation periods are the activity of receiving a different type of precepts. Those are the precepts of unenlightenment. which most of us have received, and when we receive those precepts, our activity is, I'm doing well, I'm not. I'm miserable, I'm not. I want this, I want that. What can I do for me? This is the activity of receiving the precepts of unenlightenment.

[28:24]

In that practice, I cross my legs. I sit up straight. I sit up straight. Hey, I'm sitting up straight. That's nice. Well, it is. Now I'm slouching. Now I'm sleeping. Now I'm drooling. I put my hands together, and I touch my thumbs, and they're touching lightly, just like I read in the manual. My nose is in line with my navel. My ears are in line with my shoulders. I'm not leading right or left, forward or backward. I'm doing the right thing. Well, that's right. You are doing the right thing, yeah. I mean, the right thing is being done, and you're taking credit for it. And this is called, you're doing something wholesome. Congratulations. You are embracing and sustaining right conduct, you know, the forms of Zen. You are doing the form of Zen, sitting like a Buddha, like a Buddha statue. That's called you practicing the first pure precept.

[29:32]

You're embracing, sustaining the form of Buddha's meditation, upright posture. You're doing it. This is like the ordinary, unenlightened understanding of that form. It's still wholesome, though. Still wholesome. It's wholesome karma because it's based on its activity, based on or infected by the attitude of you do something by yourself. There's the rest of the universe and you get to do something all by yourself and congratulations, you just did something wholesome. You made a Buddha shape. Great. This is a wholesome realization of the precept of unenlightenment. Now, once you're in that position, then somebody walks in the room and says, I got some news for you. There's another way to practice that form, which is to realize that form is a realization, could be the realization of the one mind precept, which is that that form there, that body, which you call yours, it has a nickname, mind, each of us call it mind,

[30:50]

That form is a form which has manifested through the one precept, which means this form is the form that everybody's practicing. But anyway, in the human realm, it's the form that you practice. In the realm of the one practice samadhi, it is the practice that everybody's doing. It is the posture of all Buddhas. So, in that practice, when the thumbs come together, everybody in the universe, enlightened and unenlightened, are helping this mudra come together. When your thumbs touch, all beings help. The whole body, the arms, the legs, the wrists, the forearms, the elbows, the shoulders, the neck, the eyes, the eyelashes, everything in the body supports this thumb, these thumbs touching.

[32:06]

It's not you that did it, it's the whole body that did it. And it's not even just the whole your body, all the bodies in the universe make possible and help this mudra be made. And when this mudra is made, this mudra helps everybody in the universe. And this mudra helps all the Buddhas. And this mudra is the practice of all beings. And you don't do it, and they don't do it, but together it happens. That's the one practice, samadhi, the one practice, thumbs touching, and when the legs cross, and so on. When Buddha attains enlightenment, it's not Buddha's enlightenment that somebody got enlightened.

[33:10]

When Buddha attains enlightenment, it's not for the sake of Buddha. That's not Buddha's enlightenment. Buddha's enlightenment is the type of enlightenment that enlightens everybody. So, in a small-scale story, you have this historical person who lived in India 2,500 years ago, about That person we say got enlightened, but that enlightenment wasn't just for that person. Did you notice? It affected other people, quite a few. That's because the nature of that enlightenment was not just about for him. It was not just for her. It was an enlightenment that was, the main thing about it was that it was an enlightenment that we know about today. If somebody got enlightened in India 2,500 years ago, And it didn't have to do with other people. That would have been nice for that person, but we wouldn't be here today, I don't think. The nature of that enlightenment was such that it affected quite a few people in India, and then it affected quite a few people all over the world.

[34:19]

It was an enlightenment that wasn't just for her. That's what Buddha's enlightenment is, right? Doesn't that make sense? So when Buddha was sitting there, Buddha wasn't just sitting for her. When Buddha's thumbs touch together, it isn't just for her. When Buddha crosses his legs, this is not crossing his legs for him to get enlightenment. It's the crossing of the legs for the enlightenment of all beings. It's to help all beings, and all beings help that kind of leg crossing. When you cross your legs, if you've received this precept, this one vehicle precept, then when you cross your legs, this is all beings crossing their legs. You aren't doing this. The leg crossing is the activity of the one vehicle.

[35:21]

It always is. But the understanding of this Soto Zen Buddha meditation is that this is all beings helping these legs cross and all beings being helped by this leg cross. So now your legs are crossed, and the next time that they're crossed, you may receive this precept and realize that when you sit and cross your legs, that's what's going on from the point of view of this one vehicle precept. Receiving these precepts is the confirmation of your Buddhahood. And it is the commencement, you know, like in high school you have a commencement ceremony, which means now you have this commencement ceremony, but it's really like the beginning.

[36:24]

You're now commencing, receiving these precepts, you commence in Buddha activity. It confirms your Buddha activity and your Buddha activity starts. So it's the start and it's the confirmation. This kind of sitting practice is a posture. And this posture, this body, is a body which is the body of not trying to attain anything. So it's the body of the one mind precept. This body is the body of not trying to... We're not running around getting something. We're just sitting here saying, one mind precept, this body is the body of not grasping or attaining anything.

[37:36]

That's the body of Buddha. Because when Buddha attains enlightenment, Buddha does not use anything to attain enlightenment. And when Buddha attains enlightenment, Buddha does not attain anything. That's Buddha's enlightenment. And an enlightenment where you don't try to get anything and you don't try to use anything to get enlightened, that's the enlightenment which is not for you. So it is the posture of you not doing anything for your own sake. And at the same time that you're not doing anything for your sake, you're helping all beings. And when you're not doing anything for your sake, all beings are helping you. So the sitting is to like deeply cook ourself in this one mind precept, this one vehicle precept.

[38:51]

To sit, to sit with not trying to get anything for yourself. Receiving more and more deeply this one precept and then test this precept in daily life Let it be tested by, is the activity in the world of these precepts so? So when you're sitting, you're not stealing anything, you're not killing anything, but you still, of course, could be thinking, planning a murder. But if you're actually sitting, appreciating how all beings are helping this sitting happening and how this sitting helps all beings. And there's no concern for you getting anything. There's no concern for you having a good period of meditation.

[39:53]

There's no concern for you being comfortable. There's no concern for you becoming more enlightened. There's no concern for you finding some way to get enlightened. But rather there's only concern for how This is your practice with all beings and how all beings are helping you. As you more and more deeply accept this precept, then you can see, does it pervade in daily life? Is the formal precepts? Is the not killing happening more? Is the not stealing happening more? Is the taking refuge happening more? Is the embracing and sustaining the forms happening more, more fully, more fully? And maybe if you practice 30 years, you start to, I think it's happening a little more. I think I see, yeah, a little bit less stealing going on there. A little bit less lying.

[40:54]

A little bit more confession of the lying that I still do. A little bit less intoxicating. A little bit less using my sexual powers. A little bit less slander. A little bit less praising myself at your expense. I wasn't talking about me just now there. A little bit less. A little bit less being possessive. Still pretty possessive, so confessing that I'm still possessive, but a little bit less possessive. A little bit more aware of my possessiveness. That seems good. I used to not even notice how possessive I was. Now I'm pretty aware when I am. A little bit less harboring, holding a garage all day long, hour after hour after hour. More like now, more like what? You know, two nanoseconds. Or five minutes. And a little bit less lipping off about Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.

[42:00]

So yeah, I see a little bit of effect after all these years of practice. I think maybe this precept's taking over a little bit. And I'm really happy about that. So I'm willing to dive into this ocean of the one vehicle practice. Because I think it makes sense to me. I like it. So I feel like this is a good temple to practice in. So anyway, there are other stories about practice, but from the point of view of this practice, those other stories are good to get people out of the house so that they can hear about this practice. So someone would say, what's the, you know, like someone said, what's the good of this teaching about all Buddhas and all sentient beings are just one mind?

[43:12]

Well, maybe for some people that practice, that teaching is not so good because they want to hear about a practice about how, you know, their mind is and what's wrong with their mind and how to fix what's with their mind. So we have a teaching for that too. We have teachings about how if you got a problem, we have a way to fix it here, right? And we'll find a practice that you think, oh, that practice I can see is good for me. Okay, well, there it is. You can have it. That's a good practice. Let's do that one. So then you start doing that practice, and then little by little, we tell you. Now that you've got your Cadillac and your boyfriend... now that you've cured various diseases, now that you've, you know, pretty good shape, now I've got another practice for you.

[44:15]

And then you say, oh yeah, now that all Buddhas and all sentient beings are just one mind, now I can see how that applies. Okay, now we're ready to do it. So this practice, in some sense, may be ahead of schedule, but I thought I'd mention it. So I did, and I appreciate you smiling while I was talking. I don't want to, you know, say stuff that makes this too uncomfortable for you to hear, but by the way, in the Lotus Sutra, back in the old days, people said to the Buddha, would you give us the teaching? And the Buddha said, no, I don't think you want to hear this thing. I think if I tell you about this, you know, this Lotus scripture, you're going to get like, you might become perplexed and start, you know, being upset with me. So I'd rather not.

[45:15]

That wouldn't be good. And they said, no, please, please, no, tell us. No, no, I don't want to. Oh, come on, come on. We won't freak out. No. Well, since you've asked three times, I'll tell you. And at that time, 5,000 people walked out. And then he gave this teaching. Because 5,000 people didn't want to hear about this one vehicle practice. They wanted to hear about the vehicles, the practices they wanted. So Buddha had another group of people waiting for them as they walked out to give them the teachings that they wanted. And then he gave this lotus teaching, which is kind of an amazing teaching, kind of unusual. But it does have appeal in a certain way. Because it means, you know, that you definitely are going to be Buddha. Because you are on the path with the Buddhists, this is going to happen, this Buddhahood.

[46:19]

And so just a matter of opening up to this one vehicle practice, which is this one vehicle precept, this one mind precept, which is actually right under your nose all day long. And when you're doing this embracing and sustaining the form of sitting, it's right there during your whole sitting. So I just thought I'd mention it to you so you could notice it and receive it. Okay? So I notice nobody's left yet, so I guess the talk hasn't been too long. That'd be pretty cool, huh? Wouldn't that be something? To stop before they started walking out? I'm not going to get into the, you know, difficult parts right now. If you want to hear some difficult stuff, come later. Da-da-da-da-da-da.

[47:28]

They are in tension.

[47:35]

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