Praise itself. We just said basically don't slander others, which means appreciate. And it means remember we're doing one thing here together and if there's a problem in the room, you know, that's the practice. So like Charlie says, is Hitler practicing? Well, it's not that Hitler's practicing, it's just that when he was alive, he was part of the one practice of the planet. That was the practice that the planet was doing. It was called World War II. That was the practice we were doing. Buddha's mind was doing that practice. Can you, you know, let's face it, Buddha's mind allowed that to happen and supported it and brought it to an end. I just want, this reminded me what I was trying to say, which is my feeling is we're still discussing the sixth precept. All we've done is discuss the sixth precept, which I just brought up again. I feel like we're still discussing the sixth precept. Right. And I'm saying also the seventh precept

[01:03]

is hard to approach because it throws in another dimension, namely not praising self. It intensifies this duality. It means it's kind of like a test of our understanding of the previous one. Can you bring the previous one into this one? So what I'm hearing is actually that the suggestion is in both precepts, it's the same suggestion, which is to praise others. That's true, except the previous precept was not so much about praising others. The previous precept was don't blame others. And if there's a problem, even if you don't, if there's a problem in the practice, if there's a problem in your practice, don't try to find somebody else. And also, whatever's happening, that's the practice we have to do now. It's not to say whatever's happening that's good, just like that example. It's not to say World War II is good, everything's perfect. It's also to admit, like Stuart says, Buddha may say everything's all right, but I have higher

[02:04]

standards. Okay? That's true too. This is a war. We don't like it. We don't say everything's okay. Buddha would say everything's okay. No, Buddha doesn't say everything's okay. Buddha says everything's Buddha nature. In other words, Buddha says, this is our practice. That's the sixth precept. The second one's bringing up another dimension, namely, watch the relationship between appreciating yourself and not appreciating others, or finding others false. And part of that practice is to reverse it and find your faults and others' virtues. But that's not all of that practice. It's a different quality, but it's hard to get a hold of it. I think, for me, one of the reasons why this precept doesn't ring any bells today, on the fitness machine, is it's kind of hard to imagine praising. It's kind of easy praising myself

[03:07]

for having spent five days, or getting up this morning, or that morning, or just... So I was just trying to think, okay, how might, how I'm feeling about things that are, or how I might be feeling about things that are going on in me, be praising self, when it actually feels like seeing my faults. Kind of light movement. So I'm not sure. One way is this kind of deep sense that if I see something I don't like, it's not really me. It's some mistake that happened. And the real me, even though I don't say this part, the real me wouldn't be feeling this, or thinking this. So it's hard to understand. It's hard to have a feeling right now for praising myself. But I wonder if underneath this feeling of not praising

[04:09]

myself, there's some hope, some hidden praise of self. Another difference between today's precept and yesterday's precept is somehow this language is a little bit more like also another realm, like Buddhas and ancestors realized the entire sky and the great earth. It doesn't say anything about, at that level it's not saying anything about, you don't have to find any praise of yourself in that statement necessarily. Manifesting the great body, there's no inside or outside. Manifesting the Dharma body, there's no place on earth, there's not a spot of ground on earth. What's that got to do with praising

[05:13]

self, or not praising self? Maybe that mind cannot find a self. So if you can't find a self to praise, maybe you understand this precept, but you can't understand it from the point of view of violating it. Because you can't find a self to praise, or you can't find anything to praise in yourself today. So maybe the fifth day of Sesshin is that your mind is too much like Buddha's mind for you to understand this precept. You know? Because you can't find anything to praise in yourself. And if somebody tells you to praise others, if you still have any threat of, well, I can't find myself but I still think there's others, then I can appraise others, or find faults in others. But myself is getting too elusive for me to think of anything good about. Maybe we can't find our self. Maybe finding a self is praising

[06:20]

while criticizing others. To find yourself and not finding others, maybe that's what it is. Maybe every time you should find yourself, you should find others, and if you don't find others when you find yourself, you're putting them down. Isn't it the same if you find yourself, you find the others? Well, Buddha's that way, yeah. If you find yourself, you find others. Good. In the ego, though, I mean, praising the ego, I will not praise self, ego. Is that what we're talking about, the expense of others? Or the self, Buddha. There isn't self for others. I guess it's saying don't praise part of the situation and not the other part, too. But also, if you can't find one part separate from the other part, if you can't find an inside or outside, like Dorothea said, if when you find the self, you find the other, you're set. You got it. And in fact, that's the way. You cannot find self separate from

[07:25]

others. There's no way to do it. You can only make a self, the self of the ego, you can only make by having others. So when you start finding self and others at the same time, this precept's fine. As I'm listening, I'm thinking how much I love to find fault. And sometimes it's the only way to survive. And I'm thinking of this movie, I love this movie, give you a chance to see it, called King Rat. In this movie, this is about a Bodhisattva, George Segal, it's one of the great movies of all time. There's a man who is totally self-involved with taking care of having it made in a prison camp. Well, I'm not going to tell you the story, but at the end of it, there's a character... You're not going to tell us the movie, but you're going to tell us the end.

[08:25]

Well, the end of it, the point I want to make, the point is that everybody hates this guy because he's got it made while everybody else is starving. Except there's one person who realizes that he's helping to keep everybody else alive from his selfishness. And at the end, this one character played by Tom Cortman, who is always trying to catch George Segal out red-handed, when they're liberated, George Segal, of course, falls from grace because everybody turns on him. In the end, the one Englishman realizes what George Segal had done and is running to tell him how much he appreciates what has happened. And he runs into Tom Cortman, and Tom Cortman said, what do you care about that bomb and so on? And he turns to Cortman and says, he kept you alive through your hatred of him. That is the only thing that sustained you through this. And it hit me so hard that this very

[09:26]

mysterious process that goes on through fault-finding, through praising, through blaming, and so on, is so mysterious that sometimes, you know, if he had really looked at that, if that other man had really realized that that's what George Segal was doing for him, then that would have been a realization for him. But there's often, we're so caught up in this that we don't realize that this is how the bodhisattva activity comes into our life, and often comes in form of blaming, for example, I think. I mean, I've been sustained in hatred in my life by something only to realize that that's what made me come to grips with myself in situations. And I don't think I'm going to stop doing that, just because I think that's one of the profound things of these precepts, is that it sets us up with parameters for us to realize how deep these things go, in self and other realization. Anyway, see that movie, if you ever get a

[10:26]

chance, it's a marvelous picture, about just this thing we're talking about, praise and blame. It's all about praise and blame. A lot of suffering went on by all that hating, too. I mean, a lot of pain, it created a lot of pain. People who are unhappy with people, they may not feel that experience of unhappiness in them, but might say it could be useful. Well, he also, another thing he showed them, he said he saved your life by getting you to hate him, but he also showed those people how to be selfish and how to take care of themselves. He also showed them that, in a way that a lot of people cannot find under such circumstances, they lose track of that, they lose their ingenuity, they're alive and yet they pretend as though they don't care anymore. It's too painful to keep thinking of ways to take care of yourself when you're constantly frustrated. Here's a guy who kept thinking of ways and everybody could see it, so that's another way he helped. For you to say that he's doing Bodhisattva activity, no problem. For me to do that and

[11:37]

say it's Bodhisattva activity, that's a trap. So, in fact, what can I say? I don't want to say certain people's names anymore, but they lived and they died and they were part of the Buddha's practice at that time and because of them we're here today. No matter who they are, no matter what they did, even though they did bad things, they were part of the one practice that Buddha was doing at that time. And we want to blame somebody rather than seeing how they made it all work. That's the normal human way. There's this thing here which I thought might be helpful. He says, For this reason there should be no words like self and other in Buddhist precepts.

[12:40]

Can I skip over what the reason for that was? In other words, this analysis leads us to think, why do Buddhists have a precept about self and other? Because there's nothing to them. I mean, you cannot have one or the other. You can never find either one. There's no such thing, so why would Buddhist precepts have that? Worldly precepts should have it because in worldly precepts people do have self and other. There's laws about that and all that because people believe in this stuff. But in Buddhist precepts, as a result of this analysis, why would you have precepts about something that doesn't even exist? And yet, self and other are discussed in Buddhadharma. Ordinary people are confused about self and other and they establish self and other. And I would say, therefore, we talk about self and other. Buddha is physically liberated through understanding that self and other

[13:44]

are one in principle, not in experience, in principle. When we do not completely understand Buddhadharma, we always understand that self is opposed to other. When we do not completely understand Buddhadharma, we always understand by the strong. When we don't completely understand, then we always understand self and other are opposed to each other. So when we explain Buddha's precepts, we say stuff like, the entire world in ten directions, the entire world in ten directions is the illuminated self. All this stuff we see. King Rat, King So-and-so, Queen So-and-so, gangster, dictator, unruthless businessmen, politicians,

[14:45]

Ku Klux Klan, you name it. That world in ten directions is the illuminated self. It's not the nice self, it's not the good self, it's not the self we want, it's not the self we hate. It's the whole world is the illuminated self. It doesn't mean that this person isn't doing cruelty and we should stop it. Of course, but we will be most effective in stopping it if we realize that what we're stopping is a local example, is the time and space encapsulation of the illuminated self right here. We also say the entire world in ten directions is the true human body. All this other and self is the true human body. Do

[15:47]

we act like that? King Rat, can I touch you? Ruthless dictator, selfish spouse. In the land of ten directions there is one vehicle dharma. That's all there is. Other people's merits and demerits, attractiveness and repulsiveness are not discussed. You attain my skin, flesh, bones and marrow. In this case there is no self or other. Although we say self, it is not in opposition to other. Although we say others, it is not in opposition to self. To study the Buddha Dharma is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To

[16:49]

forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. To be actualized by myriad things is to drop body and mind of self and other. This is how we understand the precept of not praising self while slandering others. At this very moment we are the same rank as the greatly awakened one. For this reason the precept of not praising self or slandering others is a dharma which is rare to encounter, rare to hear. And this is another thing he says, I thought it was very important and I haven't stressed this enough. In this way Buddha's precepts are not established for those who have not yet received them. All

[18:01]

Buddhas and pioneers realized the entire sky and the great earth. This is how we understand the precept of not praising self, not slandering others. How do we understand that? All Buddhas and pioneers realized the entire sky and the great earth. This is the absolute of all Buddhas and pioneers. It is said there is not a spot of land because there is no blue, yellow, red, white or black. There is no existing, no non-existing. We should understand this way. There is nothing relative in the entire world. Everything is absolute. Here is the part I was intending to read. In the worldly realms and those beyond we want to keep these precepts. The self realm, the self in the realm beyond is what we just have described.

[19:10]

The self in the realm beyond is as we just described. In the worldly realm to study the self is as follows. Although this is how you study the self in the worldly realm. We have received a human body and conceived karmic forces. We have man and woman, high and low, self and others. We are born so far from the ancient sages. We live so far from the ancient sages. When we quietly observe the floating world years of an entire lifetime pass in a moment of evening lightning. All phenomena in a brief moment are empty. The six roots, namely eye, ears, nose, tongue, body, mind are bound by six robbers, namely color, sound,

[20:15]

smell, touch, taste, mind objects. There is nothing to grasp between mind and environments. Therefore, there is no reason to praise self. This is the worldly way to talk about that. Very subtle difference. Sounds pretty good doesn't it? But there is self and other there. And they even talk about things being empty. In this realm we don't even mention that they are empty. We want to realize that they are empty, but we are not talking about that. And this is very much the characteristic of Soto Zen. Everything is the absolute. Everything… everything as though it were the most important thing in the universe. That's all.

[21:19]

Praise is actually kind of an insult to such things. As a warm up to that, appreciate others, praise their good qualities, that's good. But that's an antidote to being caught by other things. Everything gives us life. And when two things that are giving us life are fighting, we'll hopefully know what to do. Maybe we stop the fight. Stopping the fight gives us life too. But if we continue to live and the fight goes on, the fight causes us to live, the war causes us to live. Even if we are working to stop the war, the war is still sustaining us. So then this Zen guy says, this appears to be studying Buddhadharma what I just read.

[22:46]

It sounds like studying Buddhadharma if he didn't tell you beforehand that it was worldly way, but it's only superficially by concepts. It is understanding, it's small scale, and it's a practice on the small scale. Although there is no fault of praising self in what was just described, this is still discriminating self and others and being attached to the notion of one's established self. The sixty-two views of those outside the way, the self is also regarded as a foundation. To study the self in the realm beyond the world means that sutras are the self, teachers are the self, dharma nature is the self. As

[23:46]

dharma nature is the self, it is not the self mistaken by ordinary people or those outside the way. They talk about people outside the way even though there is only one practice. One practice includes people who are outside the way. The fact that there are people outside the way is our practice and they say things that are totally opposite from that point of view. Therefore they are outside the way because they think that way and they are completely our practice. The number of deluded, confused, miserable people is the number of deluded, confused people in our practice and they say things that cause them misery and lead them to do harmful things to themselves and others and they are our practice. And there is no self or other in that, that really holds up. So again, for me I still have a little bit

[24:53]

of hard times discriminating between these two precepts but I think it's not only a different day in the fifth day but it's also I think, I'm getting a feeling more for what the additional teaching in the seventh precept is. It's a subtle addition, it's a slight turn. Yeah. If you face east, there's sunrise and if you face west, there's sunset. The sun rises and the sun sets. It's different, it's a different activity to watch the sunrise and to watch the sunset.

[25:56]

And to praise self at the expense of others doesn't mean necessarily that you're saying that others have a fault. You're just saying that they don't participate in the good to the extent that you do. That's different from saying they're wrong in this. It's a bad thing about them. It's depressing the bad thing about them. It's depressing the good thing about us. The good thing about me is that I'm not like that person. Or I do this in a way. It's a related activity but it isn't the same. And if we mush them together then we miss the opportunity to see a kind of distinct thing we do, a kind of distinct activity. You might not, you know, I might succeed in sitting for as much as two or three minutes on my lap without thinking of a fault of another. But it might be difficult for me to sit for that long without thinking of something really wonderful about myself that it's too bad other

[26:58]

people aren't that good at or about. So even as a matter of practice in terms of studying myself and what I do, there is something a little different to look at. It's just unconventional. Yes? I think that the thing about comparison is really something important to do. But it's not really the same in a certain way. It seems to me that sometimes even also saying, or saying there's no self or other. As soon as you start to compare you're getting hung up on self and other. But you shouldn't place others at the expense of self either in the same way. It's just like the same thing. You know, like in yoga class one day I was just bursting into tears because everybody was doing this position so well and I just couldn't do it. And I was just saying, so man, I used to be able to do it and I couldn't do it anymore.

[27:59]

That kind of thing. It's just stupid. So I think that that's what makes it really different. I don't want to say self against other. Whichever one happens to be the opposite of the other. Yes? Yes? But I'm not so aware of this. So often, so vividly as I think most children are, how much I constantly compare myself.

[29:03]

Which is not because I compare less, it's because I compare more. It's so pervasive that I don't even see it. So to talk about it, me, as I start talking about it, it's kind of like, oh we have to talk about this thing, I'm really not so comfortable with that. Me, I do want to talk about it. You feel more comfortable admitting that you criticize others than you are to admit that you praise yourself. What? Yeah, and it is constant, it is non-stop. The other thing is periodic. Yeah, that's good, yeah.

[30:04]

Because actually, by what we're talking about, since we're always, according to Vasubandhu, in every moment we praise self. Since we do it every moment, every moment we exclude others. Even though, of course, they're really there at the same time. In fact, because we're kind of concentrating on esteeming ourself, we kind of like, we put down other people. So in fact, we're talking about a precept which is telling us to do something, or not do something, which we are constantly doing. I wonder if all the precepts are like that. That we're being told to not do something, or avoid something, that we are constantly doing. That's right, some people notice that they're constantly killing, some people don't notice that, some people notice they're constantly lying.

[31:06]

But maybe all these precepts are about something that human beings are constantly doing, and we're pointing to a mind that never does them. That isn't doing them. That is non-dual with the ones who are doing it all the time. Maybe. Who knows? Yes. We don't have to say that. What we say, you mean, do we say that dualistically? If we say, we just start over, I missed the beginning. Yeah. Yeah.

[32:25]

Well, I feel good about saying now that you don't try to stop yourself from praising self at the expense of others. Don't try to stop that. Because you're going to keep doing that non-stop for the rest of your life. Okay? You're not going to be able to stop that. You are going to keep doing it every moment. You are going to violate this precept every moment for the rest of your life. You are also going to constantly make a distinction between self and others. We do believe there's self and others too. First of all, every moment you believe there's self and others. Every moment you believe that. Every moment you believe, also every moment you don't look at the self. Because if you did, you wouldn't be able to find it and you wouldn't be able to believe it. So you ignore the self every moment. You believe the self is there every moment. You esteem the self every moment. And you love the self every moment.

[33:25]

And also, by esteeming the self, you put others down. By loving the self, you put others down. And also, by believing in the self, you believe in others. And by not looking at the self, you don't notice that the self is inseparable from others. Every moment you do that. It is the price of having consciousness. Okay? So don't try to stop that. Don't try to stop it. It would be another selfish trip. You cannot stop it. It is a non-stoppable human machine. If you take certain chemicals, you can stop it temporarily. You can just close the whole system down and be unconscious. That stops it. Once-returners, of course, they also stop it. Because they take drugs, that's what they're doing. This reminds you of Grace's mind.

[34:30]

You wake up in the morning and this machine is operating. And it was operating the first four days, but you didn't notice it. This pollution producer is operating. You like that? You find all two other people to do it. Somehow there's a public dialogue that goes on together. But most of us praise ourselves in silence. I mean, we may, if we try to do it in public, somebody says something. It's totally in silence. So that we don't look at that. Well, excuse me, it's not totally in silence. People do it out loud, quite frequently. But compared to the number of times you do it internally, it's true. It's minuscule. Like even if you said something good about yourself out loud once a minute, that would still be insignificant compared to the millions of times you did it inside. You're right. But we do it outside too. I have some interesting stories about that.

[35:37]

I'll tell you sometime. Well, one of the ways I think we got at it today to help each other is I think this discussion has led me to make the statement that I'm telling you that we're all doing this all the time. If you disagree with that, well then please speak up and let's debate it out. If you make that debate with me and at the end we agree, yes, we all agree according to Buddhist teaching and our discussion we feel, we've verified by reason and discussion, the teaching that moment by moment we're into this. Then if you believe that, then you have a chance to discover it in yourself. Other people can never catch you often enough. But if you believe that teaching, again, the teaching of emptiness is not to go around and say things are empty. The teaching of not praising self is not to go around and say I'm not praising self. The teaching of emptiness is based on,

[36:37]

that's for us people who are constantly not believing in emptiness. We really think there is a self. So once we establish a teaching then we apply it and you have to do it mostly yourself. But if you do something that shows me that you disagree with that teaching, then I can talk to you about it. Not just if you fail at practicing it, but if you show that you don't believe it. See, so mostly studying these precepts is to clarify our attitude to see if we don't agree with these teachings or don't understand them. That's all we can do is study them and understand them. Then it's a matter of application. Nobody can get us to do it. But if we don't understand them properly, our friends and teachers can help our understanding. And if we understand them properly, then it's a matter of application. And also people can help you apply yourself, but you've got to catch it. Application seems like confession again. Yep. Application seems like confession again. Yeah. ...

[37:38]

The ego cannot stop doing that. The center of the conscious process cannot stop doing that. However, it can move itself over to the side and say, I know I feel that way, but it's not really true, and I'm going to be a good servant to the big process. Because I get hurt so much when I do this. I'd like to continue, but it's not working. Exactly. Exactly. But I think the first step is admit that we are non-stop sinners. If we keep remembering that we're doing this, that we're praising the Self and putting people second or third or whatever, outside anyway, if we keep remembering that, that will lead us to do what you're saying. But if we skip over that, first is confession,

[39:00]

then comes appreciating people. And what you're saying is, first you admit, I think I'm the center of the universe, and other people are the center too. But first admit, I think that way. So you've got to get an ego that's really into being honest. To convince the ego that it's a good thing for the ego to start telling the truth. Namely, it's good for you to expose your game. It's to your benefit. Because again, you're going to be, I mean, you're going to be remembered for eternity for pulling this off. Beings in ten directions are going to thank you for doing this. If you would just sort of recognize what you're into. It's a good deal for you. Move over. You know? Why won't you be there and receive the praise? No, you'll be there. You'll always be there.

[40:01]

Do you want to go on a trip? When you get there, you aren't anymore. Do you want to go on a journey? Would you let me go on a journey when I get there and you aren't anymore? You will be though. If you're alive, you'll still be there. There'll still be somebody there. And also, there'll be somebody else there too. Who's not getting... Everyone will be there. But, you'll be now in your proper relationship to everyone. Namely, not the center, not the only center. Anyway, it's incredible that we have now gone to 12.15. Approximately 12.15. What? Yeah, we could just go to tea. We can have a heavy tea. That's what they call heavy tea, right? In England? High tea.

[41:05]

High precepts, heavy tea. I've been trying to say something for the last few minutes. Have you been raising your hand? Yeah. Oh my God, I'm sorry. Oh, I wonder if I should say it. I just... I've noticed the danger that I'm interpreting this statement that we are praising ourselves so constantly we can't even see it as simply that I'm attributing substance to my own existence. That I have a self. And so I'm separating myself from others and that's the praise. I'm not seeing anything beyond that. Well, that's the core. That's the dead center problem. And Vastu Bandhu expanded it into four aspects or four afflictions around it. The basic thing is this attributing inherent existence to what's happening to us. You have concepts and then you have the imagination and the imagination

[42:08]

is related... See, the imagination is related to reality. Reality has allowed this thing called imagination... Reality is sponsoring this imagination. And imagination then goes over and onto our experience says this stuff actually exists all by itself. Nothing else around. No other selves. That's it. Reality has allowed that thought to happen every second. That will never stop happening but the awakening is to notice that imagination is here the experience is there and they're always separate. Then you wake up. But that will always be the case. And when this touches this and gets confused with that then there's four afflictions. Self-ignorance which means don't look to see what this really is because then you'll have trouble putting the imagination that it inherently exists onto it. Everything from the point of view of this exists namely self and others self and everything else and I love it and I'm proud of it. And in fact why not be proud?

[43:08]

But anyway it's an affliction because it causes this disturbance. We're not going to stop but if we can admit it guess what happens when you admit it? When you admit it you come down right around the process because this thing arises right in relation to the process. By admitting this affliction you start to find actually you get right down to the core of the actual root mental operations which create suffering. And then you can see reality because reality is flowing right through there. And reality is attributing substance imagining a self-existent thing all by itself in the universe and what we're experiencing those are two different things and their separation is all that has to be realized. That's it. There's nothing more than that. That's reality. But the reality is surrounded by these afflictions which we want to stay away from like I think I'm the center of the universe all I care about is myself you can't help it!

[44:09]

And you do it every moment every time you know something you do it. And whenever there's an experience since there's a self that experiences the other. So I think basically I feel really good now. That again we're back down on the ground of being just utter sinners every moment and I think Buddha feels exactly the same way. From all I've heard from Buddha he's just totally horrified by the way he was how selfish he was how hung up he was and by admitting that completely he got right down there to what that self was and what that self clinging was and he saw it dependently co-arises and he was released from the whole ball of misery by his confession of being a human being. Shall we release her?

[45:14]

Yes. Okay. You're released. Okay, what are we going to do now? Now we're getting really down to it. Shall we praise the Buddhists first? Shall we pay our dues first? How long of a break are we going to have before we have service? What are we going to do? Can we just get up and have service or do people have to go to the toilet? Why don't the people have to go to the toilet and go to service? Yes.

[45:44]

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