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1996.10.21-ZMC
AI Suggested Keywords:
Side: A
Speaker: Tenshin Anderson
Location: Tassajara
Possible Title: Class
Additional text: 45 Minutes per Side Running Time
@AI-Vision_v003
One thing I wanted to ask you about was whether, again, I already asked you once, but ask you again whether it makes sense to you that selfless practice would be inconceivable. Selfless practice and the way it functions in the world, it would be inconceivable. Does that make sense to you? Any questions about that? I know it might be hard to discuss the inconceivable, but ... Linda? That's it. It's still kind of hard to see it. It's kind of hard to ... See it. See it? Mm-hmm. But does it make sense to you in a way? It does.
[01:03]
It makes sense, but ... There's something about it that what? Can you identify perhaps a longing or an expectation that you might be able to observe how selflessness actually operates? Mightn't you sort of kind of want that or think that would be fun or might have expected it before you heard that it wasn't happening that way? In other words, well, what's the point of selflessness if you can't see it functioning? In a way, you can see it functioning, but what way can you see it functioning? Well, you can see I guess ... What can you see?
[02:04]
Can you see freedom? Yes? It seems as if the only way that would be possible, in my view, to get to a person is to watch somebody else. I mean, I don't know, I may not know from that person's perspective whether they're self-consciously going about their business, but from my view, somebody's behavior or the way that they live their life may appear to be selfless. They may appear to be selfless, uh-huh. Or I might formally conclude on the idea of selflessness just through somebody else's practice, but I couldn't do it formally because the conception I had of my practice couldn't be selfless. Or having, or at least, you know, having a moment of totally unselfconscious compassion or giving or whatever, in my view.
[03:32]
A person might not have to be completely liberated, but yet, you know, perform a certain act in a selfless way or liberate in a certain way, just in that little moment. Right, in some little moment one might do an act of selfless kindness, but what I'm proposing to you is that the selflessness of that kindness would not be conceivable. Although you could say, you could have a conception, that looked pretty selfless there. I mean, we can do that, right? We can see people around and we can say, oh look, that's a selfless person, that's a selfless person, that's selfless action, that's selfless action, okay? Which is fine, kind of pleasant thing to think, but it's a thought, right? The selflessness, the actual selflessness of whatever the person is doing, is not what the person is doing. What the person is doing is not the selflessness. The selflessness is that the person isn't doing it.
[04:37]
We have trouble watching a person and then seeing them function, but not seeing the person functioning, but seeing everything function as the person. Selflessness is that the person is not functioning there, but what's functioning there is the entire universe. That's selflessness and everybody's doing that all the time. That's selfless practice. It's the way you aren't doing things. It's the way everything's using you. That's selflessness. And that's selfless practice too. So what's selfless practice, I guess, is that somehow you become free of the mode of I'm doing this and I'm doing that. And you, in that sense, realize or merge with the life of what you're not doing, but that everything's doing as you.
[05:43]
So again, still, isn't it the case that there are realized beings? Yes, I guess we say that there are realized beings, but those realized beings in this department of Buddhadharma are beings that have realized that their being is not independent of other beings. And that's inconceivable. I mean, you can think of that, but the way it actually is is inconceivable. Nobody's brain is able to conceive of how they're connected to everything. Yes? So, I think what you're saying is that if selflessness were not offered all the time, I wouldn't even be able to be here, just to get out of bed and get up in the morning and walk around. Because there are innumerable selfless functions that are needed to do that.
[06:50]
My bed is selfless. Feet on the floor are selfless. So every function that is happening is inconceivable. I can't even describe it or control it. Anything inside and outside me that's enabling me to just be here is inconceivable. Yeah, right. And then, what's selfless practice? Which is also inconceivable. How can we realize the way everything is already? I don't know. I like to be like my wife and my husband. My wife and husband are both in law. They're all in law. So we separate. The family only needs to know. We don't need to. So, anyway.
[07:51]
So you're thinking that some actions can happen in a sense without thought, or without the thought of selfishness even arising somehow. A few actions might slip through without even the idea of I'm doing them. Okay? So in a sense, you could say that those thoughts are like the selflessness of a chair or the selflessness of your shoes. And so such selfless things might occur, but you wouldn't know about them. Right? Because as soon as you think about them, then you're there thinking about them and you're saying, Oh, that was a nice selfless thing my hand just did. It doesn't nullify what happened, but the thought about it, as soon as you know about it, it's back in the same realm of karma. I'm thinking that I just did a selfless thing, or that you just did a selfless thing, or my hand just did a selfless thing, or that rock just did a selfless thing.
[08:56]
So it's not to say that selfless activity is not occurring. It's just that it's inconceivable. That's all. Yes? I just finished reading Zen and archery. And he recommended that this seems to be pretty much the point of the whole thing. And he recommended by practice, just by dint of sheer repetition, millions of times of learning to do some particular thing, so that you can just do it from a selfless place, as I understood it. And so that's a sort of a foothold, you know, that you can learn to do that. And that's a start of an experience of selfless activity. And I kind of related it to our... I never thought of it that way. Our practice, our rituals, you know, the bowing and the various things that we do, learning to do it that way, by millions of repetitions in a selfless way. Or millions of repetitions in a selfish way, until somehow, at a certain point, it's done finally selflessly.
[10:05]
And then maybe a couple of years later, again, selflessly. So, you know, the story of Zen art of archery? Zen art of archery? Yeah. The teachers taught him to, you know, pull the bowstring back and hold it until the string was just released. In other words, until it was inconceivably released. Selflessly released, not you release it. Just hold it until it's released, not you release it. And then do it. It took him five years to... Yeah, but it's also important to remember that he thought of this way, he figured, he conceived a way to selflessly release it, right? He thought, if I hold it half as firmly, and then I half that, and I half that, and he just kept halving it, then finally it just released. That was his technique that he used.
[11:08]
His conceivable technique to do the inconceivable was just to calculate this way, and finally it just released. He didn't release it and it went by that method. And the teacher said, you're out of here. He kicked him out of the dojo. And he begged and begged and begged, I don't know how long he begged, months and months or maybe years to get back in, and finally the teacher let him back in. And then he just stopped doing any kind of calculation, just pulled the string back, and pulled the string back, and pulled the string back, and just held it, you know. And finally one day it did go. And he never knew how or why or, you know. But it went finally. It can happen. It's a miracle. And yet it's already going on. So, part of the door to selfless practice that I've been emphasizing is to admit your selfishness. Because that you can conceive of.
[12:10]
And not only can you conceive of it, but you do conceive of it. So all you're doing is just admitting what you're up to. You're not making up your selfishness. You're not making up your conceptuality. You're just admitting it. That's all. That you can and should do. In other words, you should be responsible for the fact that you are conceiving of your practice all the time. You're always rendering your practice into a conceptual selfish mode. And you've got a brain that's not going to leave the practice alone and just let a selfless practice be a selfless practice. You're going to convert a selfless practice into a selfish practice. You can't stop that. Trying to stop it would be another selfish practice. So it's simpler just to admit that you've converted Buddhism, a selfless path, into a selfish path. Because that's your only access to it. And you've converted an inconceivable liberation, a liberation which is inconceivable, and a liberation which is liberation from conceptuality, into a conceivable mode.
[13:18]
You can't leave it alone that way. It still goes on being inconceivable liberation and functioning in an inconceivable way. But you just keep doing this. So there you are in the middle of this inconceivable liberation, conceiving it, conceiving it, conceiving it. So admit that, admit that, admit that. Which is just being responsible and honest in the middle of what's happening. In the middle of your little version of what's happening. And you're present there, you know, I'm pulling the bowstring, I'm pulling the bowstring, I'm holding the bowstring. This is a bowstring, this is a bow, this is me, this is archery. You know, this is Zen. Okay, that's what you're making it into? Admit it, admit it. And as John says, admit it a million times. And hopefully after a while, if you just keep admitting it, you're also admitting the five skandhas, basically, right?
[14:19]
This is five skandhas, this is five skandhas, this is my body and mind in the bow, this is my body and mind in this, this is my body and mind, this is my body and mind. Until you just finally just sit there in the middle of that. And somehow, even though your mind is still conceiving, you're not messing around with that situation at all. You're in the middle of it without dwelling in it. And then you inconceivably merge with the inconceivable liberation. And you may be very, very happy about this. You may be very, very happy about this. And you might even think that the reason why you're happy is because you're enlightened, you might think that. But you're very likely not to think that.
[15:21]
But you might remember, you know, that when you're very, very happy, all of a sudden you should go offer incense, you know, and then say go offer incense. And someone may say, what are you offering incense for? And you'll say something. And then these words come out, you know, speech comes out of you because somebody talked to you, and you're a human. If they speak English to you, and you're an English speaker, and they talk to you, you might very well say something. You realize this unconstructedness in the stillness, in the middle of your conceptual life. And you can talk from there, and people have spoken from that place. And those are the dialogues that we've recorded, and, you know, people have told over and over again, down through the history of our school. You're still a human being, but you're free of being a human being. You're still an English speaker or a Chinese speaker, but you're free of being that, and your speech is a testimony to your freedom,
[16:29]
and other people can enjoy it, and listen to it, and say, somehow they can sense this, and be encouraged that you could talk in such a way. They can sense that it resonates with something in themselves, which then gives them happiness. In an inconceivable way, they feel happiness. And people who merge with this can actually utter, you know, tell stories about the process. Like how everything teaches you, how the walls, and the lights, and the doors, and the windows, and all the sentient beings, how they all teach you and support this, and how this then resonates back to them and helps them, and how this imperceivable, imperceptible, inconceivable mutual assistance of resonating back and forth is going on.
[17:30]
People can say that, even though it's inconceivable, they can talk that way. But that's just a little, you know, just a little beep in the middle of this huge working, which is totally accurate, but you could tell another story. So there's infinite stories, and infinite poetry that can come out of this place, this unconstructed place. But the actual working source of it, I just wanted to see if you see that logically, reasonably, it would be inconceivable. It's not a logical space, but it's logical that it would be inconceivable. And part of the way it works is a certain kind of a logic, too. Part of the way this inconceivable realm works has a logic to it, and it is that logic which I mentioned before.
[18:33]
The fact that things are the way they are is precisely why they're free of what they are. And the fact of things being the way they are includes that they're not what they are. So we can say this and we can understand that in a way, intellectually and conceptually, but the not of the thing at the same time as the thing being the thing, you can't conceive of that. You can conceive of the thing, and you can understand that because a thing is a thing, that includes that it's not a thing, because the fact that a thing is a thing depends on its definition. The way you can tell a thing is a thing is because it's defined in a certain way. And its definition then makes it dependent on its definition, on all the things that define it.
[19:37]
Therefore the thing does not have inherent existence, therefore the thing is free of itself. But the freedom, the not, although you can understand that, that isn't conceptual. But you can understand that and be liberated from that thing by this logic. It's working for us all the time. So what we need to do is we need to be with things that we're experiencing in such a way that we can actually experience the thing as the thing is experienced. Not the thing as it really is, because the thing as it really is is both a thing and it's also liberated from itself. The liberation we can't experience, but if we can experience it, we do experience the thing, but we also usually experience the thing with outflows. So if we can experience the thing with no outflows, then we can experience the thing liberating itself from itself by being itself.
[20:41]
No, I shouldn't say experience, we can understand that, we can realize that. So that would account for practicing in a way where we become free of the outflows. Because then when we meet things, they illuminate us and we illuminate them. We realize the illumination, but the illumination still is not conceivable. It is because it's selfless. And because things are selfless, we can't conceive of their selflessness. We can only conceive of selves. We can only conceive of the self of things, the self of the cup, the self of the pillar. We can't conceive of the selflessness of things. But the selflessness of things, of course, is what gives a thing itself. The selflessness of a thing is everything else, besides the thing. And that gives the thing its life, its miraculous, momentary being.
[21:50]
So that would mean that if you practiced a path that was talking about liberation that's so thorough that it's beyond all human conception, and therefore no human conception can pull it down or manipulate it, a real useful liberation, then you would gradually, not gradually, yeah, gradually and gently and sincerely take care of yourself in such a way that you would realize that you're going to have to get used to a different world of practice. And that practice in a conceivable way is still there, but you also have to accept that too. You have to accept that there's practice in a conceivable way. That's part of what's going on here in the world. For yourself and for those who you meet, they've got that going on. We have to deal with that. But we also sometimes, when that's set aside for a minute,
[22:56]
then we're left with the awesomeness of the inconceivable practice. We need to somehow not get scared of that and not think there's something wrong with that. And there isn't, but it's unusual. So then we think, geez, this is weird, or something's wrong, or I don't like this, or lots of emotional reactions to selflessness, to the issue and the prospect and the illumination of it. It's not an experience. There's no consciousness in selflessness. So part of this kind of practice is that you kind of need to realize you're going to have to get used to it. It's going to be an adjustment. And sometimes when I think about this, you know,
[24:01]
as I was driving back here yesterday, a kind of vague thought crossed my mind, which is kind of like a feeling. It's a feeling of the nice feeling that a lot of people have when they think about practicing Buddhism or studying Buddhism. And it's really quite a sweet thing when people, you know, millions and millions of people all over the world are interested in Buddhism, they love Buddhism, they think Buddhism is great, they want to practice it, they want to read about it, they want to do meditation practices. And it's really sweet, you know, and sometimes the thought crosses my mind, well, why don't we just practice that way? That's nice. You know, it's really quite nice. And you can have little Buddhist centers and calm zen centers or whatever you want, and just get together and do that. It's really great, you know. Potlucks and board meetings and, you know, gardens and meditation halls.
[25:07]
It's lovely. I mean, it really is a sweet world that I kind of have a feeling for. It's just that, you know, so there's that. And then there's this thing about zen, you know, with these weird guys and girls walking around the mountains, like actually discussing complete enlightenment, you know, flat out liberation even from that national scene I just alluded to. And isn't that a bit much for, like, you and me? Isn't that a little bit too heroic or highfalutin? And in a way it kind of is, but on the other side, this other way, although it's really sweet, it's just temporary, and you can't necessarily keep it up. And if it doesn't come to conclusion, you can get thrown into hell from there. I mean, if people come in and try to close your zen center, you might shoot them. So it's sweet until it's not sweet anymore.
[26:12]
And in a way, recognizing the sweetness and appreciating it, then sort of like, think again about what Buddhism is actually about, is about, not actually about, but can be about, part of what it's about, is actual liberation of the entire universe. And that's the skin that pushes into this inconceivable realm. So, anyway, I think we or I have two sides. One side is a kind of sit-around-the-stove kind of side, which is very nice and wholesome while it's happening, and the other side is more awesome, and is alluding to actually highest liberation. And bodhisattvas, you know, bodhisattva vows that we say here
[27:16]
are actually alluding to that highest, to that inconceivable realm of saving all sentient beings, of cutting through all afflictions, of learning all about all the different dharmas and liberating all the beings, and attaining highest enlightenment, unsurpassable awakening. So there can be an awesome aspect to Buddhism, which is being raised during this practice period. Yes? I mean, my reaction is basically utter panic, on some level.
[28:18]
Yeah, that makes sense. And I can feel it. I mean, I can feel it after the session, and I can feel it now. And the panic on top of everything then frightens me. I mean, I can feel the panic, and then I get frightened, but I panic. So, how to go, I mean, my mind wants to go. Yeah, you can go to Switzerland, and start a nice little... maybe a gingerbread zendo, up in the snow. So, it's actually really distracting what happened in the last couple of weeks. Yeah. Very strong. Yeah, panic is a little bit closer to the core than fear. Fear is a kind of reaction to the panic. Fear is more future-oriented. But in the present you can feel this panic,
[29:22]
which is very enlivening, it's too enlivening, we can't stand the intensity, and we can go off into the future and be afraid, and then we can respond to the fear in some way more easily than the panic. So, yeah, so that's a cycle you go through, panic, fear, face the fear, come back to the present, panic. But that's what I'm saying, you need to find a way to care for yourself in the panic, but not take care of yourself too well, so that you become complacent, and so relaxed that you just push away whatever it is that made you feel anxiety. I think Buddha enters awakening from the midst of anxiety,
[30:25]
but somehow calm in the middle of anxiety. Yes, Sarah and Melissa? We accept all kinds of panic here. The sense that because we're here, the special and the idea that perhaps we are all engaged in, maybe making some effort to come to that place where panic happens, and I question that to some degree, this is a sweet place too, and I have brought a lot of my sweetness with me, so I bring that here, and on the other hand, in my own meditation group, where we sit around and have potlucks,
[31:26]
there is also the sense of making some sincere effort, and I don't mean sincere, I mean sincere, I'll talk to you about that later. I'll talk to everybody about that in a minute. Yes? Does it have a high potential to be complacent?
[32:40]
Yes, I mean, all places have a high potential to be locations for complacency, because we've got tremendous intelligence that can convert anything into complacency. You can put someone, you can plop people into torture chambers and they can get complacent, because we are extremely adaptive, extremely adaptive in order to keep ourselves going, and generally speaking, a lot of people feel it's easier to keep going and you're complacent than when you're anxious. A lot of people find it hard to keep up their trip of survival when they feel threatened, so they sometimes want to reduce the threat level so that they can, you know, eat their bananas. Right? Because, you know, if you're really feeling anxiety, even if you do eat your bananas, you throw them up for you, or they run right through you, or whatever. People are, generally speaking, trying to keep themselves at a certain kind of level,
[33:46]
so complacency is something we can come up with under almost any circumstance, including a Zen monastery. So, the other thing I wanted to talk about was actually something that came up, what's been coming up, I already talked to you about it before, but it came up to me strongly on Saturday when I was talking actually to this little, what do you call it, this little potluck group. I was with the potluck group that Sarah is a member of, and I was talking to them about the three pure precepts, which I talked to you about already. The three pure precepts are embracing and sustaining, actually, regulations, monastic regulations, and ceremonies, monastic ceremonies, originally, and embracing and sustaining all good, and embracing and sustaining all beings. These are the three pure precepts.
[34:49]
These are called indivisible three pure precepts. You can't really separate them, and they also correspond to the three bodies of Buddha. Of course, this one Buddha has three bodies. He has a reality body, he has a bliss body, and he has a transformation body. The reality body corresponds to the precept of embracing and sustaining regulations and ceremonies. The reality body is the reality body, right? It's the way things really are, which means it includes self, but also includes selflessness. You could say it's a selfless body. So, the first precept of embracing and sustaining right conduct, or embracing and sustaining the forms and rituals of Zen, the traditional forms and rituals of Zen,
[35:50]
that corresponds to selflessness, to the actuality of selflessness, and the incredible, inconceivable, wondrous thing the selfless universe is. That's the truth body of Buddha. That's these practices. In a way, to come around at the monastery, from the point of view of the potluck group, when they heard about these regulations and rituals, one of the people, one of Sarah's friends, Susan, said, well, you know, in my daily life I don't have like regulations and rituals of the monastery, so I try to do everything I do with a sense of practice, and I try to just do what I do. And I said something like, yeah, that's the way to do it. In other words, do what you do, just do what you do. That means do things without any outflows. In a way, I can understand it. But I said to her, and to the other people there, I said,
[36:53]
but how do you know you're not just dreaming that you're doing, just doing what you're doing? You can say, well, I'm just doing things sincerely. I'm practicing Zen, you know. In other words, I'm just setting this bowl of soup down. I'm just vacuuming. And it's really hard to just vacuum. You ever try it? It's very hard not to get into vacuuming to get the rug clean. Just vacuum, you know. As a ritual, as a ritual, you know. With no outflows. So, anyway, some people who live outside the monastery, they want to practice Zen so that when they vacuum they probably really want to just vacuum. Not vacuum with any gaining idea. Just vacuum. But it's very hard to just vacuum. You ever try it? I have a hard time vacuuming. I really get into it. Ooh, geez, look at all this. It's going to get me so clean, and go get some more over there. So, I said to the people at the group yesterday, I said,
[37:59]
and then somebody else said, well, aren't there lots of different traditional forms and regulations and ceremonies? I said, yeah, there's in law, in medicine, in business, in government. All these different situations have regulations and rituals. Particularly they have regulations, not necessarily so many ceremonies, but they do have these forms. And they call each other on these forms. They do. But do they call each other on these forms to help the people align themselves with the forms in a selfless way so as to attain liberation? And that's rare. But I said to the people there that in your lay life you need to find some people who work with you in that way. You need to say, we share these forms. I'm committed not just to follow the forms, but to use these forms as opportunities for liberation. So, I want to tell you I'm committed to these forms
[39:03]
and I'm also committed to do them in this kind of intimate way. Which means you don't disregard the forms and also you don't indulge in the forms. You don't adhere to your understanding of the forms and also you don't become complacent and lazy about the forms. You find this middle way with the forms and you tell somebody that's what you're looking for. And you ask them to give you feedback on how you're doing. And also they do with you. So at least with somebody you have somebody you're working with in that way. Otherwise you could be dreaming that you're just doing your forms. The same here. In this setting we have these forms. Quite a few forms. We could unearth more. There are some forms which we have not yet been mentioning so much,
[40:05]
but we can get into them. Finding the selfless way to work with these forms is an art. Finding how to be intimate with these forms is an art. And not only that, but if you would somehow have an intuition or some realization of intimacy with some of these forms you still might be dreaming that you're intimate. And then you might want to know if you really were intimate. So who's going to tell you? Now we're here together in this situation but have you told certain people that you're really open to their feedback and do they really believe you? So again I told the people in Carmel. You know, a lot of times you tell people, you know, you say I really want your feedback. And they say, will you give it to me? And they say, uh-huh. And you say, well, really?
[41:06]
And they say, sure. You say, really? You mean you really want to know? Yeah, really. Well, no, I won't give you feedback. How come? Because every time I do, you know, you abuse me. I wasn't even going to tell you that I wasn't going to give you the feedback. You're a dangerous person. You know, you don't really want any feedback. How dare you talk to me like that? You know? I asked you for some feedback and now you're telling me I can't even take any feedback. What do you think this is? What a rat! Here I open myself up and ask for some feedback and you give me that kind of feedback? Jeez. It's the last time I'll ask you. It's the last time I'll tell you that you don't want it. This happens. People come and beg me for feedback. They say, please, you know, tell me if I ever get off track. Will you tell me? And I usually say, well, I'll try, but I can't guarantee it. And then sometimes I try. I say, remember the other day when you asked me for feedback?
[42:07]
You know, you really said you really wanted it. And they say, so what? Or, you know, what are you driving at? This happens. This has happened. They want feedback that day but not the next day. Or they want feedback about what they're thinking about but not what I want to talk to them about right now. So, whether you're in the monastery or not, I said to those people, you need this. And so there's some exclusivity in the sense of those who do not want this exclude themselves from this. Those who do not want to live in a world where they commit themselves to some forms, some regulations, and tell somebody that they've committed themselves
[43:10]
and tell that person that they want that person's feedback and that they will be bringing the performance of these rituals to that person for that person's feedback. Or, if they don't bring them, that the person, if they notice them, is invited to come forth and mention it to them. I'm going north. If you see me going in any other direction, please come and talk to me about it. Any other person might say the same, and I'm going east, and if you see me going in any other direction, please come and talk to me about it. But even then, it's still difficult. So, you know, there's various little forms like getting on the tan here. The way of getting on the tan. In some sense, the way of getting on the tan is arbitrary. The way we have instructed. In some sense, it's arbitrary. Let's say it might be. On the other hand, maybe it isn't.
[44:11]
Maybe some Buddha figured out in the Tang Dynasty that that was the best way to get on the tan. I don't know. We have this way, and we have not been teaching more than one way. But people are trying various ways. They're doing various innovations. So then when we saw the innovations, we instructed again. And then some people are still not doing it that way. So, believe it or not, I'm not trying to get you all under control. You know, get you to do this thing a certain way. Because even if you all did it so-called the way, still, you know, there would be individual variations. Not everybody would do it the same. But it's not the point to get all the people to do the same thing. It's to make clear, this is the standard. This is the form. And how do you get intimate with it?
[45:12]
When you become intimate with these forms, you become selfless. You enter into the reality body of Buddha when you become intimate with these Zen forms. To hold a person is not intimate. To reject them is not intimate. To rebel against them is not intimate. To submit to them is not intimate. But to enter into a dynamic dance with them, to be working with them intimately and, you know, thoroughly and closely and kindly and with some sense of awe. Some sense of awe with these forms. Some sense of awe with your orioke. Some sense of awe with your robe. Some sense of awe with your posture. Some sense of awe with the schedule. But not so awesome that you necessarily, you know,
[46:17]
spend weeks in bed because it's so awesome. But I'm not saying that spending weeks in bed because it's so awesome is definitely never going to happen on the path of some person that attains intimacy with these precepts. Somebody might actually feel so awestruck by the possibility of intimacy that they hide in their room for weeks. And then finally they come out of their room and they go and they meet. The intimacy, the awesomeness of selflessness which is provided by these forms is awesome but it's also, you know, very sweet. For example, when I put my okesa on, the form which I understand, which is kind of the form that's been transmitted by my teachers is to kneel
[47:20]
on the floor or on the ground to kneel and put it up on my head before I put it on. Okay? When I do that, it's actually quite sweet because I'm actually like, first of all, I'm lowering myself, which is kind of sweet. Second of all, I'm making a special effort in relationship to this robe. Third of all, I'm doing what my teachers did and I feel my teacher's body with me. It's very sweet, you know, and I feel Tassajara. When I'm at Tassajara, I feel Tassajara and I also miss Tassajara and I long for Tassajara. It's a very poignant feeling for me to just kneel and put the robe on. I also feel San Francisco. I feel the 30 years of my practice. I feel China, I feel Japan. I feel a lot when I just do that. It's a very nice feeling. But also it's inconvenient, often. It's often inconvenient.
[48:24]
And the older I get, the more inconvenient it's probably going to be unless I just stay down on the floor. Usually I walk over to where the robe is. I don't usually crawl over to where the robe is. I'm not usually sitting. Maybe I'll explain it that way. I'll just stay sitting all the time and people can bring me the robe. So I don't have to go down. But usually I'm standing, I get the robe, then I have to go down. And then I have to get up. It's not that convenient. It's more convenient just to walk over, take it off the shelf and put it on. That's more convenient. And it's not that bad, actually. But it's not as sweet. And it's not as selfless. And it's not as humbling. It is not as intimate as me to kneel and in that way make an attempt to become intimate with this form. This form which I didn't make up. Somebody probably made it up at some point. Maybe Buddha made it up. But anyway, it's just raise it up, lower yourself, put it on, and then...
[49:27]
But sometimes, you know, maybe nobody is in the cabin with me, watching how intimate I am with the form, maybe I do it standing up. Because it's just too inconvenient. I said, you know, if I had... In fact, if I have to somehow, I don't know what, if I have to put my robes on out in the parking lot, then I probably won't kneel in the dust. But I might go over to kneel in the grass. I don't know. It depends. If it's wet, I probably won't. In some situations, you need to get the robe dirty if you kneel, so you don't. But still, are you saying, oh, goody, one, two, three. Any excuse not to make the effort of making a little bit more wear on my knees. If so, I feel it in myself. See, there is that feeling, ah, good, it's saving me a little time here. A little time so I can go do one more thing, unintimately. There are many opportunities like this in monastic practice.
[50:33]
There are many opportunities like this in lay life. But in lay life, and monastic life, but particularly in lay life, you have to, like somebody said, I think Melissa, you have to set this stuff up. In lay life, you may not even notice that there's regulations and rituals. You have to think of them, and you have to get somebody to come and help you work on it. Because, again, I used to walk in shashu like this, when I was, you know, and certain priests told me, no, you don't have to do quite, you're not quite so high, relax a little bit. So, you can get too much into this stuff, too. So, I guess what I would like is if we would all kind of like come up and meet this thing, this thing of the precept of embracing and sustaining regulations and rituals,
[51:35]
that each of us would, in our own way, do that, and each of us would have, you know, have somebody, or more than one person, who we express that we really want to work on this, and that we're making ourselves accessible to somebody about how we're working on this. And maybe somebody else has made themselves accessible to you about how you're working on this. And that person can come to you, if they see you veering off from the form or doing the forms in a way that they don't understand, or they're wondering about, that you invite them to come and talk to you about that. Like those drivers, you know, they have that thing on the back of their truck that says 1-800 and so on. How's my driving? You just have this thing on your forehead that says 1-800. How's my, you know, practice of the first pure precept?
[52:37]
This is the realization of selflessness, okay? You need other people to help you. So the first pure precept is very interactive, and it has to do with discipline. Discipline. It's a discipline. And it isn't a discipline you decide the discipline by yourself. You're not in charge of your own discipline. You're a disciple of something. Now, it doesn't have to be Zen, but you need something to be a disciple of. You need some discipline. We need discipline. That's the first one. We need discipline because we're selfish. If a selfish person takes on discipline, a selfish person can become selfless. Also, if you take on discipline the wrong way, a selfish person can become even more selfish. Some selfish people take on discipline in a very rough way, and then they take revenge on everybody else for the fact that they had to be disciplined. And then they go around laying discipline on other people
[53:41]
in an unhelpful way. But to voluntarily take on discipline and to work with it in an upright, gentle, harmonious, intelligent way with the help of others, which means harmonious, harmonizing with others on how you work with these forms, this can be the gate to the realization of the Dharma body, the Dharma body of the Buddha, the selfless, inconceivable reality of the universe through these forms. So I would like to, for the rest of the practice group, work on these forms and try to find the most beautiful, gentle, loving, precise, honest, alert, attentive way to take care of these forms. And each of us have a different set of situations, different bodies and so on, but really work on these things as a way to realize selfless practice. That's the first pure precept.
[54:45]
Any questions before I go on to the second? Yes? How do you understand that often when the forms aren't specifically described to the students, that you are there after them? And... You're asking, how is it that the forms aren't specifically described sometimes? How would I... Do you want me to tell some stories about that? No, I just... I'm saying, I have... I have a confusion about that, that it's, you know... I mean, I understand... My guess is that maybe... maybe misunderstanding arises from saying, OK, now you have this Raksu, this is how you should take care of it. But also, when I received the Raksu, I never... I'm embarrassed, I never asked anyone, how do I take care of it? So I... I haven't called it a form because I don't know really what the form is. Well... So...
[55:47]
Once you have your Raksu on, then the usual way of this little school is you bring these two little... bring these corners together, OK, like this. Want to try it? Bring the corners together, and then with your left hand, take a hold of the... the thing brought together, take your right thumb, run it along the back like this, on the right side of your body, OK? Yeah, that's right. Run it along like this, like that, OK? So then you got it off that way, and then you take it like this. So I'm doing this... In other words, I'm... I'm holding the top of the Raksu with my left hand, and with my right hand I'm going to fold the straps on like that. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, turn it like that. Like this, OK? Right.
[56:48]
And then... Then you have the bag, so you take it, and then with your right hand, why don't you just say your right hand, grab the... this part of the Raksu where the, you know, where all the material that's not white is, you know, so you grab it like this, OK? OK. Your right hand. Say it like that. Put it on your wrist like... OK, that's it now. That's it, you got it. You got it. Put it on your wrist now.
[57:50]
Lay it on your wrist, OK? See how you got it like that? OK. Now you take the bag, and you just slide it, you pull it into the bag like this. OK? So you got the bag, open the bag and just slide it in like that. OK? And then you just reach inside there and hold it, and you pull your hand like that. So you got it in the bag, OK? Taking it out of the bag, same thing. Reach in, get it like this, and pull it out like that. And then take it up and put it on your head. Join your palms. And of course, if it's the first time in the morning, you do the rope chant. Later times during the day, you can do the rope chant or not, you don't have to. Just put it on your head. Take it down. Unfold it. Now don't just drop it, like I just did, but lower it with your hand. Then turn the thing like this and put it in like this. Pull your head. Like that. OK? That's a form. If you want to change it from that form,
[58:51]
come to see the form headquarters and see if, you know, if it's a creative move that seems good, maybe it's OK. If that's just awkward to you, do that one until you think of something better. And if you think of something better, don't just make the decision all by yourself. You don't wear the raksha in the toilet or in the bath house. Good. Leave it outside the toilet in the bath house. You can wear it, like if you're doing office work or something, or paperwork, it's OK to wear your raksha. You wear it when you study, wear it in zendo, wear it in services, wear it in dogsang. But don't do it doing heavy, dirty work. Otherwise you can wear it in a lot of different situations. So that's just a little bit about the raksha. Yes? How about cleaning it? Cleaning it? There is a ceremony for cleaning it, and anybody who wants information
[59:55]
about the ceremony of cleaning it, let Linda know. And I'll give you a little description of the ceremony for cleaning raksha and okesa. There will be another form you can do, which you can also learn how to do and get feedback on. OK? Anything else about this? Does someone else have their hand raised? Yes? We have a lot of forms, like you've been describing, for getting on the torah, or being in a zendo, and how to do those kinds of things. There's not specific forms, like in terms of interacting with people. Yes. And so it's easier for me to see and become intimate with these other forms, and to see myself in relation to those forms. But when it comes to interactions with people, I get much more confused. And I'm wondering... Do you see what I'm trying to get at?
[60:55]
I sure do. So how do we work? Is there a clear way to work? OK, well there are some forms about working with people. OK? We have some. For example, we have the form of not talking with people in a social way from evening zazen till noon. The next day, right? That's a form of how to work with people. And then, how do you get intimate with that form? All of you are working with that right now, right? Some people think this, some people think that, some people try this, some people try that. But there is a form like that, which we have in Tazahara. That is one example of a form. And we had a wonderful Bulgarian man who came to Tazahara. He was at Green Gulch first. He came to Tazahara, and he tried to talk during that time to people because he wanted to learn English. And he said, the main difference between Tazahara and Green Gulch is
[61:56]
that at Tazahara you can't talk. From his point of view, you couldn't talk at Tazahara. Now, from some people's point of view, there is quite a bit of chatting going on from 7.30 at night until noon the next morning. But from his point of view, there was no talk. So there is a form, and people are observing it to some extent. There is this form, but how to practice it is... Well, that's it. But there is a form. There are many other situations where there aren't forms, so interpersonal forms. Now that's... If there's no more questions at this point, I would show you how that relates to the second and third pure precepts. Okay? You want to see how it works? This is how it works. This is conceivable how it works, but it actually works this way. When you become selfless, like I said, you may experience... Well, selfless... You enter into the inconceivable realm of Dharma.
[62:57]
Inconceivable, selfless, interdependent world of ungraspable reality, which is totally liberating and totally liberated. Okay? Now, another thing that happens at that time is then you get into the second pure precept, which is the practice of good. But it's pretty much... In the context of my discussion with you today, it's pretty much spontaneous entry into the second pure precept. The second pure precept is called the bliss body. It's also sometimes called the reward body, and it's a reward for practicing the first precept. The first precept is kind of like... It takes a lot of effort. And not just a lot of effort, but also not too much effort. It requires finding the right amount of effort, and the right amount of effort is total effort, and total effort is not too much or too little. It's just total. And so it's very energetic, hard work in a way, and fun work, but it's work.
[63:59]
Embracing and sustaining the regulations and ceremonies. Then you get a reward. It's a gift, but it's also a reward. And it's a reward for your disciplined activity. And the reward is inconceivable bliss. It's inconceivable. Now, sometimes it's conceivable. There's kind of like conceivable... What do you call it? Offshoots of it, where you feel, geez, really happy. But also there's inconceivable bliss, which you don't even know about. And it's like, you know, you don't even know about it. And it's like it's suffusing your... your mind. Inconceivably. And it's going in there, and it's like massaging all your... you know, all your selfishness, all your habits that are set up by eons of selfishness. It goes in there and starts softening and massaging and loosening and molding and reshaping and, you know, making you into this very pliable bliss body. Until you become this kind of like putty
[65:06]
in the hands of the universe. Very soft putty. Or hard putty. Whatever kind of putty the universe needs, you become this thing. And then you naturally, after this absorption and the bliss of freedom from selfishness, you naturally move into embracing and sustaining all beings. And the way you embrace and sustain them is that you allow yourself to be embraced and sustained by them. Which is no problem for you now because you're very comfortable in an inconceivable way. You don't even necessarily notice that everybody's like getting you to be the way they want you to be so that they can, you know, use you to get access to selflessness. You don't even notice it. There's no forms for this, you know, because it's so... it's so inconceivable and so highly dynamic. And that's where... You cannot have any forms for how to do this because, you know, people may want you to violate the form. People may want you to, you know, grow your hair out or shave your hair
[66:08]
or, you know, curl your eyelashes or, you know... You don't know what they need. But whatever they need, they'll get it. But this isn't the form realm anymore. But this is like intimacy in action. So the third one is like very active or totally not active. If people need you to be not active, you're totally not active. If you need to be active, you're active. You're whatever people and plants and mountains and rivers need you to be. And you become able to be that because you're so happy. It doesn't matter that much to you. If they want you to go to hell, okay. If they want you to go to heaven, all right. If they want you to be a hungry ghost, you know, fine. You can take whatever form is appropriate. So finally you enter in the realm where you respond appropriately. Respond appropriately. The realm... But we do have some forms. But the forms... You don't need very many forms. Just one form. Interpersonal or non-interpersonal. One form that you do completely with intimacy opens the gate of selflessness. Then you enter into this practicing good spontaneously
[67:09]
and making yourself accessible to beings. So we can have a few more forms if we need them. But it's without necessarily increasing the number of forms we have which we could do and maybe get too many forms. We have a few already. If we could do those intimately thoroughly maybe we got enough. Because I've noticed myself that there's quite a few which I still haven't really become intimate with. I can have a few more to work on myself. Maybe some of you do too. Looks like it. Laughter So maybe with the ones we have if we do them more thoroughly we may find that that leads us to a realm of inconceivable happiness where we find suddenly we're more flexible and we meet people more spontaneously and appropriately out of that realm where there are forms and where we move really thorough with them. And I think that does happen in Zen centers that when you have a period of time where people really work on the forms
[68:10]
like during session or something they really get into the forms and finally settle with them. They experience some release and then you watch them interact and they interact very surprisingly. They do unusual things and it works. It has happened. And it's wonderful. And then maybe they go out of that and go back into a period where they're not so intimate with the forms where they're looser but they're less in harmony with the forms of discipline and then they start closing down again because you start getting selfish. Your selfishness starts cropping up and you stop you start resisting or overdoing the forms and then as your selfishness starts manifesting you close the doors to the selflessness the joy starts closing down you get tighter you can't adapt and then things are tough again. So then you have to go sit up and go back into the into the meeting with the forms and find your harmony again find your intimacy drop the self drop the body and mind and relaxation from that comes
[69:13]
you're ready to move in a situation you're back so round and round we go with these three precepts the three precepts are indistinguishable they're distinguishable inseparable they are different but they're inseparable as soon as you practice the first one you've got the next two and you can't practice the next two really without the first one you can practice the last one to some you can embrace and sustain beings to some extent without really mastering the first one in fact people do embrace and sustain beings without really becoming intimate with any forms without being in a training situation where they're getting feedback from somebody about their forms people do pretty well and also someone asked at this workshop before I do this work with myself you know before I really like do my own personal thing how can I help people and on top of that but you know it's like well before I do this work
[70:13]
of becoming intimate with the forms and becoming selfless number one I can't really help people very much plus number two I shouldn't be working on those forms because that's selfish too so either way from that point of view people can feel totally like you can't do anything it's selfish to work on the forms and before you work on them you can't help people but actually you can help people before you work on the forms because it helps people to see somebody who's not working on the forms because it's a good example of how bad it is to not work on the forms so you actually can help people anytime no matter what stage of practice if you're totally resistant to the practice it helps people who are doing the practice because they see oh yeah that's how it works you know it's really sad but that's a perfect example of resistance to the forms and how miserable it is or overdoing it resistance can take two forms remember one form of resistance is you hold back the other one is you overdo to be too enthusiastic about the forms is a resistance does that make sense?
[71:13]
well the form itself you know is like like the form of for example the form of joining your palms ok the gassho palms joined that's a form nobody knows exactly what that is but there is this form if you're too enthusiastic about it you get too excited you get somewhat excited and you get off on it you miss it by your over over enthusiasm or your over excitement or your over willingness to do it you don't you overshoot it it's resistance to doing the form you'd rather be high on the form than just do the form the forms maybe just kind of for you the form is not that big a deal the forms is is not giving you I mean now if the form does give you something like ok I'm doing gassho and it just happens to be the best gassho in Tassajara
[72:19]
then the form is doing something for me and I feel you know it feels pretty good to be the best gasshoer at Tassajara because you know this is a pretty this is a collection of you know national center for gassho right so to be the best Tassajara gassho for any particular practice is quite an honor but that's not the gassho that's me getting something out of gassho to do the gassho without even being like one of the best or one of the worst some people of course if they can't be the best because maybe you know some senior students the best I can be the worst at gassho I'll do the sloppiest most disrespectful you know down around my abdomen I'm the worst if I can't be the best I'll be the worst that's resist that's another kind of resistance how about just gassho I don't know what it is but how about gassho not something for me not something against me no gain or loss for me on this one
[73:20]
just gassho for gassho that's not that interesting actually for me and also not only it's gassho for gassho but also this is my gassho for all you and you can give me feedback on my gassho I also make that known so just in case any kind of like well this is the best or the worst gassho starts cropping up in my mind it might show a little bit you might say hey you look like you think you have the best gassho and you might say oh no no no no no not me I thought that was just a regular gassho I didn't think it was really that good and then afterwards you walk away and you say hmm that got me I actually was thinking that was really one of the best I mean I don't think I'm always the best but that was a good one and then somebody right across his anus he says wow look at that somebody thinks that's a great gassho look at that hey hey bub come here come here I saw that you know or somebody go hmm some really lazy mean one
[74:22]
you know I said that seemed you know I saw you gassho at her and that it really seemed kind of like I don't know it didn't look that respectful how did you feel when you did it and they say well yeah you're right I was really didn't want to give her a full scale gassho I wanted to give her you know a little stab in the gut with a kind of kind of a nasty gassho of course there's also like not gasshoing at all with people right there's that one that's a good one too that usually hurts their feelings that's another kind of resistance because we have a form of gasshoing to each other under certain circumstances right also we have the thing of like when we're riding a road don't go around like this now there are there are some times when it's very beautiful to dance like this it's wonderful you know maybe what do you call it mid practice period okay
[75:22]
you can do that and then just do that and some of the most wonderful people walk around with Tatsuharu like this they do and I mean some of the best students but still I say to the sentences I say please when you have your road down would you have your hands in gassho and sometimes they say you know okay sometimes they say other things part of the reason Liz why we don't give really specific details on these things is because I think we sometimes err on the side of friendliness rather than erring on the side of abuse and oppression some people teach these forms in such a way that the person they're teaching feels like quitting afterwards or they feel like if you're into these forms I'm not you know and as a result
[76:24]
we sometimes ask those people to cool it the very people who would be very useful to like teaching these forms in some sense in terms of their energy for them are sometimes a little too enthusiastic they're overshooting the form they're getting something out of the form they're going to use the form to like get the world in order here you know so in that case we sometimes such a person even though there's a potential energy there and in two or three or ten years they'll be great right now they can't teach it another thing is that as I think some of you know who have practiced Vipassana in Vipassana groups there's not so much form right? you can go into Zen Dojo and sit down pretty much any way you want to right? and a lot of people and a lot of people attracted to Buddhism are people who are have really strong super egos right? have you noticed? you know there's not that many psychopaths
[77:24]
in Zen Center a lot of people come here are really concerned with being careful not to make mistakes and not to do things wrong so the problem coming to Zen Center is that Zen Center by having a form you can potentially do something wrong very easily just going to Zen Dojo like one of the one of the high administrative officials of Zen Center you know when she first came to Zen Center she she went into Zen Dojo and just suddenly she went oh god she just felt like there's a million mistakes she can make in a sense that's true I guess I mean since there's a way of doing things you can do it you can make a mistake if the room has no form you can just walk in and sit down no problem right? so some people who are very sensitive to making those kinds of errors and get criticized they can't they don't dare come to Zen Center and Tassajara in the middle of a practice period is ultimate of that if somebody came in here some people came in here they would be scared to death to go in that room because they would sense that you know and they do sense isn't there some way isn't there some way
[78:24]
to go in there? they say watch all the people doing isn't there some way they want to know because they don't want to do it wrong so because people are sensitive to beating themselves up or being beaten up in these forms we sometimes can't talk about them as much as it might be good if they weren't so sensitive or if we had more skillful Buddhas around here to teach them like whenever Suzuki Roshi came up to me and gave me feedback on my form he was so skillful that I always felt like oh goody you know I'm getting some attention from my teacher and he he's making this and that you know little things here and there we do this he'd usually say this is the way we do it or usually we do it this way but I always felt like oh god I'm getting this is what I came for but he didn't do that with everybody because not everybody conveyed to him I want this I could never understand why they didn't but they didn't so those little things he did for me are called you know
[79:25]
they're called kirigami in Soto Zen we have this thing called kirigami which means cut paper there's a and cut paper means that when the teacher tells you something you're you're not necessarily in a lecture or you're in a lecture where you're not supposed to take notes or whatever anyway teacher teaches you something you just take out a piece of a piece of scratch paper or a gum wrap or something you write down what it was but some of the things are not to write down just something that you feel or something that's showing some physical thing these little things that are conveyed to you by your kind friend become these little things that then you teach to your students you know the way Suzuki Roshi showed you to pick this up and you show somebody else how to pick it up and this physical thing gets transmitted which is hard to write in a book because you know like if I could have written a book how to do that with a rock suit it would have taken like I don't know even with pictures and stuff it's hard to get it right but it didn't take
[80:26]
that long to show you and I could have just come over and reached behind you and taken a hold of your hand and put your hand in a position right so these kinds of physical things are very helpful when they're done skillfully now if they're not done skillfully they sometimes make it harder for the student and they react and you know spend a week or a day or a year reacting to something actually one person I used to carry the stick when I was young I used to be you know like kind of severe have you seen that film of me with Suzuki Roshi carrying the stick you know I was really severe and as a result Suzuki Roshi made me in charge of the zendo he wanted me to be severe he loved it to have that severeness severity and strictness is part of the practice but anyway that was easy for me I did that and one time I hit somebody in the zendo and she stayed away from the zendo center for 15 years she came back
[81:26]
after 15 years and said I came back and that one hit you gave me drove me away for 15 years another person came in the zendo and this was after I wasn't so severe and came into the city center zendo the altar is here and the door is over there she came in like this and walked in front of me and she was going to walk in front of the altar and I said excuse me and she was gone for three years because here she was she came in the room and this whatever I was this official with all who knows what archetype she saw there this thing says you were wrong that's the Buddha you did the wrong thing with Buddha you go that way and so she's like out for years but she came back and she told me how many didn't come back I don't know but actually I think a number of them did come back that's the
[82:28]
that's part of what's going on that's part of why we we gradually work up to you know using the finger of God you know to point it's powerful what people when people come to Zen Center what they see there you know and what comes back at them they're seeing something very important the Dharmakaya Buddha you know they're seeing you know the vast selflessness and when selflessness turns around and points a finger it can be very powerful so that's part of the reason why I'm so specific sometimes about these things because but I hope I mean not hope but yeah I hope that now the practice period is one month old and it's getting uncomfortable anyway starting to get cold people are getting sick it's getting tough so let's make it you know a little bit more interesting by a little bit more attention to the forms and use these forms as a way to like kindly help each other and also
[83:29]
kindly invite help and try to find out what the balanced intimate way to relate to these forms is and see if you can find that place of real balance with these forms mostly you know what do you call it again I've talked to you about intrapsychic and interpersonal it starts intrapsychically you work with yourself first you know you keep track of how you feel when you've got show to somebody you look inside how did that gosh show feel to me how did I mean it did I really did I really express my respect to this person by that gosh show if not then you know respect is part of intimacy did I overdo it did I really give this person a little bit nicer one than I give to most people what was that about so you get into it with your own awareness
[84:30]
of your own behavior and then hopefully as I said I would encourage you to have some person or people who are also invited to give you feedback in this process and it would be nice if maybe somebody invited you too so you could also practice what it's like to say to somebody excuse me but remember what we agreed to do and then when they don't want to hear it and how do you handle that that's part of it too so this is a and then again if you can learn how to do it in Tassajara then you can notice how when you walk out of Tassajara you're going to have to set this stuff up outside if you want to continue the practice because it doesn't come up spontaneously this is something which is transmitted which is created for the benefit of beings which people receive and say they want to do this is a precept
[85:30]
which you say now will you receive the three pure precepts yes I will and you say will you continue to observe these three pure precepts yes I will this is something which you want to do and then people hear that you want to do it and they work with you on it we're going to we're going to have a probably towards the end of the practice period we're going to have a precept ceremony where people some people are going to get a new name and the robe and receive the precepts and lineage papers and so on so a full ordination towards the end of the practice period for some people they finish their robes but now that I'm thinking about it maybe we should have a precept ceremony for the whole group earlier where not so much everybody gets a new name and a robe and so on not exactly the same form as a big ceremony
[86:32]
but where we just receive the precepts as a group just sort of as a working basis for the practice period and then you can reflect on you wouldn't have to necessarily answer yes I will to everything if you didn't feel like that but I just thought to put that out to you and if you and I await your feedback on that if the group doesn't want to do it I don't want to do it but maybe there's a way to do it that everybody would feel comfortable with and that might be maybe now is a good time to start you know Riyadh Prasad is that way but it could be a little bit more specific for example it could be where we say now you receive in Rakshasa we don't say now you receive the precepts right
[87:32]
people don't say yes I will and then you don't say so it could be a little bit more emphasis on commitment to the precepts rather than just reciting them but I'm not I'm not sure if we should do that so I'd appreciate if you hear if you have any reservations about it you can tell me or or anybody about it okay but aside from the ceremony I would like to gradually get more intimate with with each other around these forms and when it comes to that I don't I don't exactly expect you to say yes I yes I want this because in some ways it's if I want this part of it I think is to make it
[88:34]
make it attractive and make it encouraging and to work on this in a way that people will want to do rather than getting you to agree that you want to do it beforehand necessarily you might not know but but I guess I would like to put more emphasis on it because I think it's a tremendous resource that we have here in this practice for example you know orioke is is one of the one of the things the Zen Center has that many other groups even Buddhist groups don't have and it's a it's a wonderful little opportunity to learn about how your body and mind work I'm sure all of you have already learned quite a bit about yourself if not in general on particular occasions how your mind was operating through the orioke practice you can sense your laziness your joy
[89:34]
your resistance your your lack of presence your judgmentalness whenever I almost every time I look at if somebody else does something in the zendo with their orioke something weird almost every time I look at them I make a mistake myself ever had that experience? how dare you! so there's something about you know orioke is for you to you know work on yourself it's not for you to judge others and by working and by working on yourself through this form you do work on others if you do the orioke beautifully it encourages others usually not if you work on the orioke thinking that you're doing it beautifully but if you just do it beautifully because you're paying attention usually your neighbors feel encouragement and the servers feel encouragement the same with the servers if the servers
[90:34]
serve beautifully it encourages the eaters and so on so this is it's encouragement from your practice rather than you getting other people to do better they will if they're inspired by you that will help them a lot but also remember that it's also inspiring to other people when you're when you're doing really a bad job that's also inspiring
[91:02]
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