I just heard you chant something, some of you chanted, an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect dharma, did you hear that? Is rarely met with even in a hundred thousand million kalpas, did you hear that? Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. Tathagata means the thus-come-one, that's a name for Buddha. So, some of you said that, do you actually vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words, the Buddha's words? The unsurpassed, unsurpassed perfect and

[01:06]

penetrating dharma. Dharma means many things, one thing it means is the teaching or the law or truth, an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect truth, an unsurpassed penetrating and perfect teaching, is rarely met with, but we have an opportunity to hear it and accept it. Sometimes before our, when we have talks like this, sometimes we also chant a different chant which goes something like, I vow with all beings from this

[02:13]

life on throughout countless lives to hear the true dharma. We start by saying, I vow to hear the Buddha's teaching, I vow to hear the Buddha's truth. From now on and through countless lives, so I ask you, on this Sunday morning, are you ready to hear the Buddha's teaching? Not warmed up yet, huh? Are you ready to hear the Buddha's truth? Are you ready to hear the Buddha's dharma? All right, now listen, listen, where is it? Is it coming to you now? Do you hear

[03:21]

the dharma? Do you hear the Buddha's teaching? Do you hear the Buddha's teaching? And even if you can't hear it, do you vow to listen to it, to listen? Now, do you vow to listen now? Are you ready? Are you ready, my sisters? Are you ready, my brothers? Are you ready for the journey of listening to the truth, the uninterrupted teaching of the Buddha? The Buddha doesn't just teach sometimes, it's always coming to us, it's the teaching that's always coming to us. Here, are we ready?

[04:24]

As I was coming in here, there was a clock, a new clock out in the room back there, and I asked Reverend Maya, I said, was the old clock broken? She said, no, but this clock is like, this clock tunes into radio waves, so it's like always, it's always the right time. This is a Zen clock, it's always the right time. It's not tomorrow that we're going to practice, or yesterday, it's not like a few seconds from now, or we just missed it, it's now. That clock is always the right time, and not only that, but when you're looking at it, you're in the right place, because where are you when you're looking at that clock? Where are you? You're here looking at that clock. Can you believe that right now

[05:48]

is the right time and here is the place? Isn't that amazing that it might be that way, that this is the time, and this is the place, and it comes from here? What? We have two more of those clocks. So anyway, it doesn't say on the bottom of that clock, it doesn't say, here is the place, this is the time. So because it doesn't say that, Zen teachers have to say that, but that's what the clock is saying, that's what everything is saying to you. That's the Buddha Dharma, the Buddha Dharma is saying, this is the time, this is the place. The way

[06:53]

is before us right now. We vow to see it and hear it right now. The unsurpassed teaching ... These words that are coming out of the mouth here, I won't say that they're the Buddha Dharma and I won't say they're not, because I can't control where the Buddha Dharma is coming, because it's coming from everything. It's coming from the rain, it's coming from the lights, it's coming from your faces, and it's even coming from my mouth. But particularly these words are trying to encourage us to let go of anything that we're holding onto

[08:03]

that distracts us from the Buddha Dharma, from the Buddha's truth that's right here, from the Buddha's teaching that's right here. Let go of anything that distracts you from what's happening. If there can be loosening of the attempt to control what's happening, the practice of hearing the Dharma and acting from that hearing is possible. ...

[09:06]

Is anything happening? ... Whatever it is, can you meet it? Or can there be meeting of what's happening? ... Can you feel it? Can you taste it? Can you touch it? Can you smell it? Can you think it? Can you meet it? With complete relaxation. Can there be meeting what's happening with complete relaxation? ... Meeting what's happening without grasping it or seeking anything else? Can you hear me in the back?

[10:28]

Can you hear me in the front? Can you hear me in the middle? Are you ready for me? What? Am I ready for you? Huh? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Now, if you're ready for me and I'm ready for you, what shall we do? What? Sing? All right. Are we singing? Are we singing? Are you singing? Is this your song? Nice song.

[11:37]

... I must confess, I'm stuck on something. I want to tell you so I can let go of it. What I'm stuck on is that maybe some of you came here expecting something. I don't know. Did you? Congratulations. Maybe some of you ... did anybody here come expecting anything? Ah,

[12:44]

some sinners. Thank you. What did you expect? I expected to hear you speak. You expected to hear me speak? But I never know what I'm going to do. But you never know what I'm going to do. But you did have some expectation. Okay, now I ask you, can you sit here and let go of your expectations? I'm completely happy right now. You're completely happy right now? Okay. No expectations? They're being released? No, they get released when they come back. They get released and then they come back. When they come back, can they be released again? They come and go. They come and go? Can they be released? Can your expectations be released? Can your expectations of what's going to happen here or what is happening here be released? I vow that they may be released. That I may meet what's happening without

[13:51]

getting distracted by possessing it or looking for something else. A thought just arose. I want to do something good. Okay? And that thought arose and I kind of relaxed with it. There's no grasping of it.

[14:58]

I shouldn't say there's no grasping. I don't think I grasped it much and I'm not seeking anything other than being somebody who had a thought, I want to do something good or maybe I should do something good. Since you came here, there's an opportunity of doing something good. What could I do? What good could I do? Anybody help me? What good can I do here? What I'm doing? Great. Is this good? Hmm? What's good about it? What? So far so good? What's good about it? Huh? I'm sharing my love. You noticed. Are you sharing yours? You tried? I think you're doing pretty well, thank you. I feel loved by you. I feel appreciated by you, brother. What? I've been going to church in the mountains

[16:03]

with a bunch of Zen Buddhists. We've been vowing to hear the Buddhist truth. We've been listening and looking for it. We've been trying to let go of expectations of what it might look like. Don't you have some expectations of what it would look like? Like it wouldn't look like a Sunday morning Christian church, right? The Buddha Dharma can't get into a And Buddha can't stop Jesus. Buddha's here to help Jesus be a successful preacher. Buddha wants Jesus to be a great savior. He's not trying to like, you know, what do you call it? Monopolize the salvation? That Buddha? So now that we're on that topic, are you

[17:27]

saved? Are you saved? Are you saved? From what? Are you saved from what? Are you hung up on what? Are you saved from it? Are you released from what? Can you let go of what? What's saved? That's wonderful, I'm glad to hear that. We shouldn't forget to save what? Do you know that for sure, that what's saved? It just came out. Is there confidence

[18:31]

in that? Can you stand up and testify that what's been saved? How about whatever's been saved? Can you tell us about that? Stand up sister. Can you testify that what's been saved? Can somebody testify that what's been saved? Yeah, now can there be a witnessing that what has been saved? That what is being saved? Can you let it out? Yeah, I can let it out. Okay, yeah, there you go. Thank you sister Elena. Is anybody in charge here? Is anybody in control?

[19:54]

There he is. We've got somebody who's taken responsibility for controlling this. So that's called a confession. He's confessing that he is controlling. The rest of you have let go of control, right? You're not trying to control, right? Like you're just meeting what's happening with no expectation, right? Whatever, I'm ready for it. I'm ready to meet it without grasping, without distracting myself from what's happening. If it's pleasure, I don't grasp it or look for more or less. And I say I don't, but again, that's more like my role

[21:03]

in this process. I'm not in control of that either. So sometimes I seem to try to control. I seem to resist this non-grasping and non-seeking. So when I resist, hopefully I confess, I'm resisting. I'm like not into hearing the Dharma, I'm into like controlling what's happening. I confess it. Sometimes they say that Zen is the religion of emptiness. Or another way to put it would be Zen is the religion of we have nothing at all.

[22:05]

Well, you know, there's a kind of like a nice meditation hall here and we have a lovely garden, don't you think? We have excellent rain and beautiful mountains and a lovely ocean. We have nice outfits and radical haircuts. We have all these things, right? But really, the point of this is that we don't have anything. We don't have anything. We've got nothing, really. We've got this stuff, but we have nothing to teach and nothing to practice. And having nothing, I guess it's possible that we're open to what? To the Buddha truth. If we so-called Zen students have nothing, really have nothing and seek nothing, this

[23:16]

is the religion of emptiness. And now we're ready again. But also, Zen is the religion of practicing virtue. It is the religion of compassion. It is the religion of giving. It is the religion of the Bodhisattva precepts. It is the religion of patience. It is the religion of great serenity. It is the religion of all practices which promote and realize

[24:17]

infinite, transcendent generosity, transcendent precept practice, transcendent patience, transcendent enthusiasm, and transcendent serenity. And the way we practice all these wonderful virtues is that we practice them or we let them be practiced or we join the practice of giving. Do you want to join the practice of giving, ladies and gentlemen? Do you want to join the practice of giving? Do you want to join the practice of giving? Are you ready to join the practice of giving? Congratulations. Are you ready to join the practice of giving, Mel? Great. Are you ready to join the practice of the Bodhisattva precepts? Are you ready

[25:21]

to join? I'm going to skip over. I can't wait. I'm going to skip over patience. No, I'm not going to skip it. I'm not going to skip it. I'm going to be patient with you people and I'm going to ask you and ask myself, am I ready to practice patience? Am I ready to practice patience with your kind of limp response? Yes, I am. Go right ahead. Don't answer my questions. I know you have a busy schedule. But I want to ask you, are you ready to practice enthusiasm? And again, enthusiasm means, it's an English word, you know, sorry. It means full of God. Are you ready to be full of God? Are you ready to be full of the Divine? Are you ready to have it bubble out of you so you want to practice all these other practices? Are you ready for that way of being? Me too. I want to be enthusiastic. I want to be full of enthusiasm to do these ridiculous practices. I want to be enthusiastic about not grasping

[26:29]

you and not seeking for you to be any better than you are or any worse. I want to be grateful for the way you are. I want to say, thank you very much. I have no complaints about you, whatever. Really, that's what I want to be. That's my vow. I want to be enthusiastic about a practice like that. Now, the second one of those practices, the second one of those virtues of compassion, of practicing the precepts, I want to point to that, not just because of this book about that that was recently published, but I want to point to that because the precepts, you know, which are things like the practice of not killing, the practice of not stealing, the practice of not lying, the practice of not misusing our sexual energy,

[27:40]

the practice of not intoxicating ourselves or others, the practice of not talking about other people's faults in any way that would be harmful, the practice of not talking well of myself while not acknowledging how everybody else makes that possible, the practice of not being possessive, the practice of not inappropriately being angry, and the practice of not speaking disparagingly of the Buddha, the Buddha's teaching and the community of practitioners. These are some of the Bodhisattva precepts. These precepts, these practices are part of the virtue of the Zen school, part of the virtue that the Zen school upholds and maintains and practices. But we practice these precepts. How do we practice these precepts?

[28:44]

You tell me, how do we practice these precepts? Right now, yes, and right now how do we practice those precepts? Breaking them, yeah, right, that's how we practice them. And then while we're breaking these precepts, how do we practice Zen? Let it go, what? Noticing, yeah, and not grasping these precepts. We practice these precepts without seeking these precepts. We don't have to move muscle, we just stand there and look at the clock. And we look at that clock, we don't wish that clock would tick. We don't wish that clock would stop ticking. We don't wish the clock was moved. We don't wish we owned it. We don't hate the clock. We don't hate the people that bought the clock. That would not be appropriate. This clock does not need your hate. It doesn't. Nothing does. We practice these virtues. We practice the

[29:54]

virtue of these precepts without grasping them and without using them, without practicing them with any expectation. That's how we practice them. Therefore, that's the way we join the religion of having nothing with the religion of practicing virtues. We practice all virtues but without grasping them or seeking anything from the practice. We just practice them to practice them. That's all. We practice them because we want to practice them and we want to practice them just to practice them, not to get anything from practicing them. That's how we bring the religion of getting nothing to the practice of doing good. Do all good without trying to get anything for doing all good. You like that? So do I.

[30:55]

So, in our precept ceremony, when we receive these precepts in a ceremony, I ask some people, yesterday, who actually are familiar with the ceremony, I said, what's the first thing we do in this ceremony? And they said, well they said various things, but finally they said, what is actually the first thing we do? First thing we do is we invoke, we call the Buddhas, we call the Buddhas, Buddha, Buddha, Bodhisattvas, come, come and join us in this ceremony. We ask the great enlightening beings and enlightened beings to come and join us in the ceremony of receiving their teachings. We're going to receive your teachings today. Please come to the party. We invite them. Isn't that weird? And then, and then I said to people, what's next? And they said, well next is confession and repentance. And actually that is the way we did the ceremony here for quite a long time at Zen Center,

[32:02]

but actually the traditional way is first invocation and then X happens and then we repent and confess. And then we get a new name. And then we get new clothes. And then we receive these teachings. But I asked people, what's that X? You know, they couldn't tell me what X, what's X? And they said various things. And then there's one woman who was trying to say various things and she was doing really well. She finally said, I give up. I said, that's it. The first thing you do when you receive the precepts, the precepts of compassion, the first thing you do after you say, hey, Buddhas come and witness me, the first thing you do is you give up. You give up everything

[33:04]

basically. You give up trying to get something out of life. You give up the life of trying to get something out of life. And you enter the life of life. You enter life with no expectation, with no greed, with no seeking. That's the first thing you do to receive these precepts. You come. You want to receive the precepts. I want to receive the precepts. Do you want to receive the precepts? Yes, I do. Okay. Now, give up trying to get anything from these precepts which you're going to get. You want these precepts? Yes. Are you willing to give up grasping for them? Yes. Are you giving up seeking something from them? Yes. Okay, now, now we confess. What do we confess? I confess that for a long, long time I've been trying to get something out of life. I confess that basically I've spent a lot of

[34:10]

time trying to get something out of everything I do. Everything I do is trying to get something from me. Everything I, well, I don't know everything, not everything, many, many, many things anyway I've done selfishly to try to get something from me or my pals, me and mine. I confess it and I'm sorry, actually. I'm sorry I've been living this way for a long time. But I want to live with no gaining idea. I want to live free of greed and aversion and confusion which means free of grasping and seeking. So I'm trying to give myself up, I'm trying to sacrifice myself to the practice,

[35:23]

the practice of sacrificing myself, which sounds a little abstract. So instead of just saying sacrifice myself so that I can receive and hear the teaching, I put it in terms of sacrifice, grasping and seeking because grasping and seeking are the equipment of the self. I want to sacrifice myself so I can enter into the world of receiving Buddha's teachings, so I sacrifice, I give up trying to control what's happening because controlling is a self thing. I want to enter the world of Buddha's love and I understand that I have to give up to enter and I have to give up, not just give up like give up myself, like that sounds good, I'll give up myself, I have to give up the nitty-gritty, I have to give up picking and choosing, I have to give up preferences,

[36:29]

I have to give up checking what's happening, I have to give up measurements and judgments, I have to give up planning, yikes. All the equipment of self, give up all the equipment of the self, which is basically grasping and seeking, grasping and seeking. Okay, that's it, pretty much. Huh? Give up fear, which means give up thinking of the future. And if that seems scary or something, you've got a lot of company. Many people are afraid, what would happen to the self if they gave up planning, checking, judging, controlling, grasping and seeking? What would happen to me if I didn't use my preferences to get around? It seems scary but it's normal that it would feel scary.

[37:35]

So at the beginning of this process, it's a little bit like water tumbling down a waterfall. It seems kind of like that. But you'll be fine. And in the middle, it's like a broad river moving slowly. And in the end, it's like the vast ocean. Question is, are you ready to leap? I shouldn't say even, are you ready to leap? Are you ready to give up wandering around in your head, distracting yourself from what's going on? Are you ready to give up trying to figure out what I'm talking about and relax between your eyebrows? The Zen teacher Dogen says, if we're still wandering around in our head,

[38:45]

trying to control what's happening, figure out what's going on, figure out what's the best thing to do next. If you're still wandering around in your head, you might, doesn't say you will for sure, you might miss the vital road of the body, the body leaping, leaping into the water of true relationship, of the appropriate response. This body is leaping. There's a vital road of this body leaping into the water of our true relationships. It's going on all the time. If we give up wandering, we won't miss this body. We won't miss this body train, which is leaping into Buddha's wisdom and compassion all the time.

[39:58]

Thank you for confessing your attempt to control. Are you ready to give up? Are you ready to give up control? Yeah, put your arms down your side, please. There you go. Thank you. That was good. You did it. I mean, it happened. You and me did it together. Did you feel it? You felt it. You looked like you felt it. Congratulations. Welcome to Buddha's truth. Don't look over there for it. You looked away. It's not over there. It's right here. Did you see yourself looking for it someplace other than? No, you did it again. Come on back. Okay, well, it's eleven o'clock. That's enough, isn't it? You had enough of this ungraspable business, right? This I-have-nothing-to-give-you stuff? This you're-not-going-to-get-anything stuff?

[41:05]

That's the wrong clock. That's the wrong clock. That's right. This is the wrong clock. You bad clock. You're not a true clock. You're not the right time, but I love you. Yesterday, where I was giving a talk, this clock started beeping. And I thought, I never knew this clock had a beeper, but it was somebody else. I thought, you know, I've had this watch for a couple of years and suddenly it starts beeping. I really wish I had a song. And I do. It goes like this. It goes, I don't know how to say it, but it goes something like this. Is Vernon here? Huh? Is Vernon here? Vernon? Vernon, plug your ears.

[42:06]

It goes like, step right up, walk right in, baby, let your mind roll on. Do you want to learn about a new way of walking? Do you want to lose your mind? Do you want to let go of your mind? Do you want to let go? Do you want to give up? You got to step right up, walk right in, baby, let your mind roll on. I don't know if that was kind of weird. I know, but that's what happened. What? It was good not to hear it. It was also good to hear it. Vernon, thank you so much for coming.

[43:01]

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