this afternoon we're going to have a ceremony where 13 people will receive the great precepts of the Enlightening Being. And also there's a workshop this weekend here a yoga workshop. So the people leading the workshop asked me what my talk would be about a while ago, and I said it would be about the relationship between precepts, precept practice and yoga practice. I think I said something like that.

[01:03]

Didn't I? What did I say? You said how intention increases in yoga. How aspiration or motivation or intention and precepts, ethical precepts, and yoga practice work together. So that's what I'd like to talk about. When we say yoga, people maybe think in some cases of various classical postures or poses that one might practice, maybe of the Indian origin.

[02:22]

You can also think of yoga as, of course, this posture that we sit in in Zen, which also has Indian roots. It's called the lotus posture. It's the posture that the Buddha sat in meditation. And so in Zen we do practice yoga, and there are other schools of yoga. And when this yoga is practiced properly, when the instructions are understood and practiced, yoga practice in itself, as far as I know, is basically Well, I didn't want to say this, but it's basically a waste of time. What I was going to say before that popped into my face was that yoga is basically wholesome, basically a wholesome practice.

[03:34]

But more basically, it's a waste of time. So on the superficial level, it can be quite helpful and beneficial to practice yoga. I mean, I could spend the whole time, and far beyond it, talking about all the benefits that arrive from traditional yoga practices. One of them is that, as I mentioned a while ago, if you stay in any posture you take, if you stay in it long enough, you'll finally find out that you're uncomfortable. Which is very important to discover. Most of us move before we find that out into another posture, and as soon as the slightest glimmerings of discomfort arrive, we move again, and we constantly run away from the awareness of discomfort.

[04:53]

Whereas yoga postures aren't any different from ordinary postures, it's just that in yoga postures you tend to realize that you're uncomfortable. And then the running away from discomfort and being a slave of avoiding awareness start to get turned around. So this is one of the great benefits or maybe the most important benefit of yoga practice is you become aware of the human condition of being uncomfortable, which is the key, indispensable key is to become aware of that. But also many other good things about yoga However, wholesomeness in itself, and these benefits in themselves, although they're good, they only go so far. And when yoga is joined with, united with, or when yoga is done under the auspices of what we call the aspiration for enlightenment for the sake of all beings,

[06:15]

When yoga is done in association or under the auspices of this aspiration, then yoga is more than just wholesome. Then yoga is completely liberating. If you practice yoga, you may achieve some benefits, but there are some benefits you may not achieve. No matter how long you practice, there are certain physical and emotional problems which you may not be able to remedy. However, if you practice yoga in conjunction with thought of enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, then it doesn't matter too much whether you solve all your problems, because you can be liberated from them right on the spot. Similarly, if you have this aspiration, it's a wonderful aspiration, but you need some way to ground it. Just the thought of achieving awakening for the sake of all beings, as wonderful as it is, will easily be lost unless it's developed and fortified by yoga practice.

[07:32]

And yoga practice is not just physical postures of a classical nature. Yoga in the sense of developing this thought and making sure that it reaches complete fulfillment, yoga practice in that sense means not just through your body posture, but through your thinking and through what you say. Yoga is not just the yoga of body. Yoga is, in this case, the yoga of body, speech, and mind. So the aspiration for the welfare of all beings and the intention to achieve awakening in order to work for that end, that aspiration needs yoga to be grounded. And yoga needs that aspiration in order for it to become a liberating process rather than just a wholesome process. And then in relationship to the precepts, the bodhisattva precepts, the first bodhisattva precept is to take refuge in awakening.

[08:54]

So once one has this aspiration to achieve awakening for the benefit of all beings, then one is encouraged to take, receive the precepts. And the first precept in the bodhisattva practice, the first precept is to take refuge in awakening, the teaching of awakening, and the community of people who are practicing for the end of achieving awakening for the benefit of all. So we go, we return home to this awakening. So perhaps you can start to see the connection between returning home, taking refuge in awakening, this aspiration to achieve awakening, and yoga. the way of returning and taking refuge in awakening is a yogic practice itself.

[09:59]

Or another way to put it is, what we mean by taking refuge, the actual way to do that is a yoga practice, and also the way we take refuge is the way yoga should be practiced. That taking refuge means to take refuge with your body postures, your speech and your thinking. These are three types of actions. When we say take refuge with the body, we mean the body that you do something with. Like right now, all of you are making your body into a certain posture. This is something you're doing and now you're doing it again and you're doing it again. You're reiterating the action of a certain posture. You're also thinking certain things and you're saying something.

[11:02]

Inside your head or outside you're not saying much because this is a lecture situation, I'm talking. What you're doing, in fact, your speech is not to speak. These are actions. And the way to practice yoga is for it to come into and be seen as body, speech and thought. And similarly, to take refuge in Buddha, to take refuge in awakening, is something which you do with your body, speech and thought. You just don't think of it, although you do think of it. You actually say it and you do it with your body. Now, there are formal ways to think it, like you can think. Think of Buddha. Think of awakening. Think of what that would be like. Think of what's most important to you in your life.

[12:05]

Think about that. You can also say with your mouth, I take refuge in Buddha. I go to Buddha for refuge. You can also with your body, for example, bow down. as an act of taking refuge, of paying homage and aligning yourself with awakening. But what it means to take refuge is that every thing you do with body, speech and mind is taking refuge. And not only that each thing you do, but the way you do each thing is taking refuge. And the way you do everything in order to take refuge is that you do everything yogically. What does it mean to speak yogically? What does it mean to think yogically?

[13:08]

What does it mean to have a yogic posture? Well, I would suggest that what it means is, is that you do everything completely. That every thought you think, you think completely. Now it's only for a moment that you think that thought. You don't have two moments to think a thought, you only have one, but that you think that thought completely. And that when you speak, every sound you make, you completely make that sound. And every posture you're in, you completely make that posture. Which means you don't hold anything back from this moment.

[14:15]

You don't spare any of your life energy from this body, posture, this verbal utterance, this whatever was left, this thought. Now, I said that some yoga teacher said that if you stay in any yoga posture long enough, you will become aware that you're uncomfortable. But how do you stay long enough in a moment to become aware that you're uncomfortable? So you can't stay for long in a moment, but you can stay completely in a moment. We human beings have wonderful imaginations and we can actually imagine that we're not completely giving ourselves to being where we are.

[15:45]

Of course, it's impossible not to be completely where you are, but we can imagine that we're not. We can think, I'd rather be somewhere else. Right? There's even this, what do you call it, bumper sticker business for people to say on the back of their car what they'd rather be doing. They're driving their car and they'd rather be doing skiing, swimming, walking, shopping, you name it. Anything that you could think of doing other than driving your car. But is there a bumper sticker saying, I'd actually like to be driving this car? I wish I could just drive a car. I wish I could stay in my driver's seat completely, moment after moment. Is there a bumper sticker like that? Yes, there is. They're in the Buddhist scriptures. You can cut them out and paste them on the back of your car.

[16:50]

Such a bumper sticker is the same as saying, I take refuge in Buddha. Because Buddha is for us to be precisely what we are. To go home to Buddha, to go home to awakening, means to go home to where you are and be what you are. Our imagination has no way to operate in such a situation. It's totally, what do you call it, doesn't get any exercise. You know, your imagination gets no exercise when you are just driving a car when you're driving a car. So what are you going to do with your imagination, which wants to think of all the other things you could be doing? We don't want to deny human imagination. It can't be denied, it's a powerful, powerful, wonderful thing.

[18:02]

So what we do is we take the imagination and we imagine a lack of imagination. We imagine that we couldn't think of anything better to do than what we're doing. Imagine that. You have to imagine something, you're going to imagine something. Try to imagine that you couldn't think of anything but what you're doing. Try to imagine that you were extremely stupid. But I would say to you, if you can be that stupid, you will also be extremely sweet. Because a person who is not doing anything other than being himself, who can't think of anything other to do than what she's doing, this person is very sweet and full of light. But you have to actively use your imagination to imagine that you cannot do anything more creative than being what you are.

[19:05]

And if you do that, you will be extremely creative. But not creative by using your imagination to think you're doing something other than this. Creative by the next thing you do will be totally fresh and unprecedented and wildly beautiful and creative. But if we try to hold on to our imagination and use it, it just imagines all kinds of delusions. Like, for example, you're somebody else, or you wish you were somebody else, or you're jealous of somebody else who you aren't, and so on. A monk once asked the great teacher, great Zen teacher, His name was Cloud Gate. Yun Men, Chinese Zen master, said to it, where do all the Buddhas come from? Where are all the Buddhas born?

[20:08]

And Yun Men said, eastern mountains travel over the water. That's where the Buddhas come from. That's where our true creativity comes from. Eastern mountains travel over the water. And that in itself also was a creative utterance. What does it mean for eastern mountains to travel over the water? Well, it means that when a mountain is a mountain, and eastern mountain means all mountains. When a mountain is a mountain, when a person is a person, this person starts moving over the water. This person becomes liberated and does wonderful things like mountains flowing over water.

[21:12]

All the things you usually can't imagine being able to do, if you're willing to sink down into being yourself, they will happen. Not even you will do them. The mountains don't even do it. They just travel over the water. They don't do that. Another Zen teacher says, at the foot of the mountain... is the water. At the foot of the mountain is the water, which is not the mountain, which is the freedom of the mountain, which is the mountain being able to do all kinds of things that mountains usually can't do. At the tips of the toes of the mountains, at the tippy toes of the mountains, the water splashes up This water is the water which is relief from being a mountain.

[22:25]

This water is the way that mountains can dance. And where do mountains dance on the water? At their tiptoes. And how does a person, how does a mountain get down all the way to its tiptoes? It means that a mountain is completely willing to be a mountain all the way to the bottom of the mountain, to the foot of the mountain, to the tiptoe of the mountain. This is yoga. That you have a body. And you're willing to have this body all the way to the tips of your fingers, all the way to the tips of your toes, all the way to the tips of the hairs standing up on your body, all the way to the tips of your teeth, all the way to the tips of your thoughts, all the way to the tips of your feelings, all the way to the tips of your words, of your speech, that you're willing to fill yourself all the way to the end of yourself. that you're willing to give up everything else in the world, but simply being this.

[23:39]

Then you have reached the foot, the tiptoes of the mountain, and in that way you have also died of being a mountain. You have died of being a person because you're not doing anything but being a person. You've let up go of everything but being yourself. And in that death is total refreshment, fresh spring water. To take refuge in Buddha means to take refuge in the fact of when you're totally yourself, wholly yourself, all the way to the limits of yourself, you die of yourself, you forget yourself, and that is your true nature. The self that is so completely itself that it forgets itself.

[24:46]

To take refuge in Buddha means to take refuge in being completely, utterly yourself. Even letting go of your idea of yourself. Not even even, in fact that will happen. So, it is said that in order to enter into this realm, that I'm speaking of, this realm of being yourself completely, the entrance to that realm of this exhaustive study of yourself is to receive the precepts, to receive the precept of taking refuge in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. Receiving these precepts and receiving also the other precepts of avoiding evil, doing all good and living for the benefit of others, to receive the precepts of not killing, not stealing, not misusing sexuality for selfish purposes, not lying, not intoxicating, not speaking of others' faults, not praising the self selfishly, not possessing selfishly, not being angry and also not abusing

[26:13]

these three treasures of awakening, teaching, and community. Receiving all these precepts, one can enter the realm of being totally our Self. One can enter the realm of yoga, one can enter the realm of Zen, which means for both Zen and yoga that you enter the realm of studying yourself. And studying yourself means learning how you could possibly just be who you are. And again, when you reach the limit of being who you are, which is the tiptoe of the mountain, you get fresh water splashing up and you forget who you are. And when you forget who you are, that's when the mountains start dancing. And that's what it means to completely take refuge in Buddha.

[27:20]

If we should wish to enter the realm of Zen study, enter the realm of studying the self, and to study ourself so thoroughly that we forget the self, if we wish to do that and try to do it without receiving the precepts, it's pretty difficult for us to understand what that would be. Because again, if you approach the study of self only by your own ideas, you may think you're doing it totally, but in fact you're just operating on your idea of doing it totally. Receiving these precepts helps you not study the self by your limited idea of what studying the self means. So again, you might say, well, I'll just study the self and I'll just completely be myself and I'll just squash this cockroach.

[28:48]

Because that's being completely who I am. Because I want to squash a cockroach, well, then I'll squash a cockroach. And that's really who I am. And now while I'm squashing a cockroach, this is really who I am and I'm completely admitting I'm squashing a cockroach. That's not being completely who you are. If you try to be completely who you are while thinking that way, it's a little bit too simple version of you. A more complete version of you is someone who says, now you receive the precept of not killing. And you say, yes, I will. And you receive the precept of not killing. And okay, now you're still practicing trying to study the self. And there's a cockroach, maybe lots of cockroaches, crawling all over your kitchen sink or your kitchen or your food even. And there you are. You've received this precept now of not killing, which you said you wanted to receive and which you said you would maintain this precept and care for this precept and not lose this precept even until you became completely enlightened.

[30:07]

So there you are. You're a different person who's studying the self now. You may still want to squash the cockroach. You still feel the same impulse you felt before, maybe. You haven't lost that. But now, if you would kill the cockroach, it would be different. The person that you're completely being would be a different person that you're completely being than before you took this precept. This person would, this new person that you're trying to be, after having received the precepts, is somebody who's got some concern for this cockroach. So killing the cockroach is, I don't know what to say. In a way, you... you partly don't want to do it, even though another part of you wants to do it.

[31:10]

In other words, the self that you're becoming is kind of a more troublesome self than the nice one that you wanted to be before. Troublesome are harder to completely be. It's got a conflict in there or something. Now, if you don't kill the cockroach, then it's not a problem, except there's a cockroach. Now when I started talking about this, people's eyes started wandering around the room. I wonder what happened. Did I lose you? So I'm proposing that the yogic method of completely being yourself is the way to liberation.

[32:57]

And that it's possible to try to do that practice of completely being yourself, but do it in a kind of subset of yourself or a partial version of yourself, unless you receive the precepts. If you receive the precepts, the self you're dealing with is a is a self that now has these ethical concerns. And it's harder to be somebody who has ethical concerns than to be somebody who doesn't have ethical concerns. It's more agendas to cope with. And when you have ethical concerns, the self that you're becoming is not a self which is just you. It's a self now which is cockroaches and other people and ants and gophers and rats. and snakes and enemies and foreigners and competitors and members of the opposite sex. Because by receiving the precepts, the self you're becoming is a self in relationship to all these different categories of beings.

[34:10]

So just being yourself means being yourself in all these relationships completely and giving yourself to them. So in fact, if you try to be yourself, if you try to do the practice of just studying the self without receiving these precepts, you study too small a self, a limited self, which is better than nothing. And if you try it, if people try it, they usually start slipping and become unsuccessful because that's not the self that really we are. And when they become unsuccessful, then if they practice at a Buddhist center, it might be pointed out to them that they have never received the precepts and never opened up that dimension to their meditation. And maybe that would help if they would do that. If their meditation practice, if their settling on themselves would include these concerns,

[35:13]

When you sit in a meditation hall, in fact, sitting still there, in fact, you don't kill anybody. You really don't steal anything, do you? You're not lying because you're being quiet. You're not usually speaking of the faults of others except maybe in your head. You're not slandering, you're not praising yourself except maybe in your head. You could be angry though, I guess. And you could be possessive, at least of your sitting place. So actually, I was going to say that when you're sitting in the meditation hall, you can see that you're following the precepts pretty well. But actually, I guess you could, even there, maybe have some trouble following them. I was going to say, maybe in formal meditation you think, well, there, it's pretty easy to follow these precepts, to not break them. But now I think, actually, even there, there's some problem. Even there you might find that the self you're trying to be is kind of hard to go with even there.

[36:33]

Usually what we do is we go to our meditation which means also go to the car or go to any situation, we go there and then we try to do something. We bring somebody to the situation of some interaction and then we maybe try to do something good or try to practice some wholesome thing. And that is wholesome, that attitude is wholesome. But that approach is kind of backwards from what will set us free. However, we need to admit, in fact, if that is our approach, we need to admit that is our approach.

[37:57]

And I think most of us need to admit that is our approach, that we come to the situation, we bring somebody there, and then we live and then we practice. If we can admit that that's what we're doing, if we can notice that's what we're doing, that's pretty good. That's studying the self. That's noticing that the self we're working with is the self that we bring to the situation. We bring something here. And again, if you can admit that what you're doing is bringing yourself to each situation, at the limit of admitting that's what you're doing, of putting yourself there first and then dealing with things, as I can fully admit that, something can turn

[38:59]

not intentionally turned by me, that something can turn and change from me coming to the situation, to me being brought to the situation and then living, to the situation coming and me being there. Rather than me, who's trying to do good, go to the kitchen, and try not to kill cockroaches, or try to kill cockroaches, either way, rather than that approach, I go to the kitchen and the cockroaches arrive, and then I'm there. I go to the kitchen and the sink arrives, The animals arrive, the walls arrive, a body arrives, feelings arise, consciousness arrives, all these things arrive, and then there's somebody there called me. It's exactly the same place as me going to the situation of me going there and saying, oh, there's a body here, there's a sink here, there's cockroaches here.

[40:15]

exactly the same situation, but turned around. Turned around in the most important turning around that there is in human life. Turned around from delusion to awakening. When the situation comes and I am born there, then the cockroaches and the sink and the walls and the feelings give me life and I don't kill it. I don't have to stop myself from killing the cockroaches because they are my life. My life is I am born from cockroaches. I am born from a filthy sink. I am born from whatever is arriving. And then these animals and plants and walls and sinks and feelings and thoughts I am extremely grateful to because they give me my life and my identity is born in that world of all these things coming forth.

[41:38]

I witness the advent of all things and I act from the advent of all things. In order to get to that center of my life where I can turn from confusion to enlightenment, the precepts help. Because if I try to go into the kitchen and be myself and learn myself and forget myself without noticing that I can't hate or want to get rid of part of the situation, I can't eliminate the cockroaches because I am born of the cockroaches. By receiving the precepts, I notice that approach is wrong. And it shows me my attitude is wrong. I'm looking in the wrong place. So then I have to start to say, don't kill the cockroaches, at least for a while, and try to realize how you come into the situation that you think you can arrive and you decide what to do. Wait a minute, at least for a minute. You don't have to kill them right now.

[42:38]

They'll come back. For a second, notice what that impulse is telling you. You took a precept saying not killing. The precept of not killing is a precept based on the fact that you're born of what you're going to kill. So don't kill it because if you kill it, you won't find out who you are. You must not kill anything because it gives you birth. Anything that's in front of you gives you birth. But some things that are in front of you that are giving you birth are very irritating. Cockroaches are pretty bad, but the things people say to us and ask of us are much harder. But of course, we hesitate to kill a full-size human. We know how stupid that would be, how terrible that would be. But a cockroach, a little tiny section of my life to get rid of it, no problem. And so I take the precept of not killing.

[43:39]

Then, even to eliminate the slightest little aspect of who I am is a problem. Because to reach the tiptoes of the mountain means you don't eliminate anything from what gives you life. You don't eliminate one ant, one cockroach, one grain of sand. Everything that happens to you gives you life. gives birth to you because it is in the advent of all things that I am born. The self that is born in the advent of all things is Buddha. This is the most joyous being. But it's hard to get to that place because you have to admit that you're bringing yourself there. You can't abstractly get there. You have to get there through saying, first of all, I bring myself, and that is suffering. And when you get there and admit that, then you can say, just blink.

[44:40]

And it's a kind of foreground-background thing, and it can shift. So the hard work, the dirty work, is to admit we don't We do come to the situation carrying a self. We have to admit that. We live in delusion. If we admit it completely, we have a chance to turn. The other approach is just consider everybody, everybody, every animal, every plant, every human, consider them your only child. and take care of them, take care of them as you would take care of your only child. That will also take care, that will do it too. The self that is born from that kind of care will be this self. You will soon forget yourself if you practice that way. These precepts are to show us the door into that kind of practice. And in that practice, to help us enter this kind of

[45:46]

I don't know. It's kind of a terrible practice. It's kind of terrific to admit how much we're into coming first into the situation and trying to apply ourself to the living beings there. and trying to get them all kind of where they're supposed to be. Cockroaches over here, ants over here, rats over here, girls over here, boys over here, friends over here, enemies over here. Imposing myself on the world rather than, which is total misery and doesn't work, as we know, but we keep trying because we're strong. We keep eating and sleeping, get some strength and try again. Impose number one on the world. Try again and again, again and again. Try to bring the world under control.

[46:51]

Maybe someday we'll succeed. And yoga can be practiced from that point of view and so can Zen. And if you're trying to bring it under control for the welfare of all beings, it's wholesome. However, if you'd switch from trying to bring it under control to having it give you life, then yoga and Zen will... I already said it. So, it looks like I got in touch with you again because you stopped looking around the room. It was scary there for a while. And that's why it's kind of easier not to bring up these precepts at all. Everything going along pretty well until we look at them.

[47:53]

We can theoretically talk about being Buddha. No problem, right? So I don't know what I'm going to do about the cockroaches. Fortunately, we don't have any cockroaches at Green Gulch. But we do have gophers, we do have ants, we do have rats, and we do have people. And we've got some strong people here who are trying to impose themselves on the universe. So when two of them meet with that agenda, We have some pretty hot times. Is there a song about that? There's one that goes, when an irresistible force such as me meets an totally unmovable being like you.

[49:00]

How does it go? what you'll find out as sure as you live something's gotta give something's gotta give something's gotta give what This could be the start of something big. So how does it go? When an irresistible force such as meets and... A totally unmovable... Oh, meets an unmovable object like me. What?

[50:04]

You'll find out as sure as you live, something's gotta give, something's gotta give, something's gotta give. And then this might be the beginning of something big. That's in a different song. Anyway, I just, isn't it wonderful how things work? I didn't plan anything in that song. It just popped up in my head. And that song perfectly summarizes my talk. If I could have thought of it at the beginning, I would have just said that.

[50:41]

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