I think I've given two talks during this practice period. No, three. One on a Sunday, one on a Saturday, and one last Wednesday. And so far I've mostly been focusing on a very simple presentation of Zen practice given by He's a Zen teacher, Ru Jing, a teacher of Dogen. Do you remember that teaching that he gave about Zen? John? Right. Practicing Zen is dropping off body and mom. And again, in Japanese, it's kind of like San Zen is. Shinjin Datsu Raku.

[01:04]

Sanzen means practicing Zen or meeting Zen or reaching Zen or penetrating Zen. It's dropping off body and mind. This dropping off body and mind heals It heals. Now, this dropped off body and mind reaches the healing of the world. Dropping off body and mind doesn't cause the healing. Dropping off body and mind reaches Zen. And Zen is, what they mean by Zen here is the healing or the healed quality of the world. The world has also a wounded quality.

[02:04]

It has a healed quality and a wounded quality. The wounded way the world is and a healed way the world. The wounded way the world is is that it's split. It's like the world's split into like you got yourself, And you've got others and there's a split between you. There's a split, there's a wound between you and others. This is an ordinary world of suffering and birth and death. Which most of you are familiar with, right? Do you know that world where you feel like you're separate from other people and you're scared of them? And they're scared of you. Or they're not scared of you. I'm not scared of you. That's a world where the world is wounded. It's wounded where the Buddhas and sentient beings are split apart.

[03:12]

There's like Buddhas over here and sentient beings over here. Enlightenment's over here and delusion. Duality and misery. dropping off body and mind reaches the place, reaches the place, deep place where the world, where the Buddhas and the sentient beings are practicing together, where you and others are practicing together. You don't have a life, you don't have a life other than the life of everybody else. It's a world where enlightenment and delusion are not sundered. My brother David, his etymology of sin is sunder. Sunder the world is the sin, the basic sin.

[04:13]

Break the world in two. I guess in Christianity maybe to split yourself from God. Is that also a sin in Judaism, to split yourself from God? I don't know. So, the practice of Zen is this dropping off of body and mind, and in the dropping off body and mind, we realize the dropped off body and mind. The dropped off body and mind is the body and mind which is not holding on to itself itself. as separate from others. It is the actual healed world. By practicing Zen, we reach that world. We become reunited with that world. So the Zen people, the words come out of their mouth, they say stuff like,

[05:19]

All the Buddhas are practicing together with each person. This is an expression from the dropped-off body and mind. The Zen answers just say, by what delusion do you imagine? By what delusion do we imagine? that our body and mind is apart from Buddhas, all Buddhas? By what delusion do we imagine that this body and mind is apart from all Buddhas? By what delusion do you imagine that your body and mind is apart, is separate from all Buddhas? Got a delusion like that? Most of us do. If you can imagine you're separate from another person, you're going to not have too much trouble imagining you're separate from Buddha.

[06:21]

And if you don't any longer grasp that you're separate from Buddha, you won't be able to be separate from anybody else either. It's like, okay, I won't be separate from Buddha, but I'll be separate from you. It doesn't work, you know, because there's a triangle there, you know. You're together with Buddha, they're together with Buddha, but you're not together with them. When I first got married, or shortly before I got married, I used to live over in the room next to the library. It's Norman's office now. It used to be my room. I had the back room, too. The front room had nothing in it except when I was there. Anyway, it was a very empty room, and I liked it. And when I got married, I lived in that room with my wife. And sometimes I would...

[07:26]

had some problem with my wife, and I tried to, like, you know, be separate from her and not be friendly to her. I tried to withdraw my love from her. It's called passive aggression. But it didn't work around in the community because in the community, you know, I'm friendly to this person and they're friendly to me. And they're friendly to my wife, and my wife's friendly to them, so how can I not be friendly to my wife? It doesn't work. It's weird. Now, if there's just you and your wife, you can just cut her off and that would be it. But in a community, or with Buddha, you can't cut anybody off, unless you cut everybody off. So I noticed that the community helped me a lot. with my attempt to not love my wife. I mean, it helped me not be able to do it.

[08:29]

Thanks a lot. And 25 years now, this December, 25 years, we'll be married. 25 years, I was married to a Chinese woman. And the Chinese woman is married to a Norwegian. It's really weird. So anyway, how dare we imagine that we are separate from Buddha and believe that? That just is a groundless delusion. But that delusion cannot hinder the arousing of the thought of enlightenment and the practice of all the Buddhas. Even though we think we're separate from Buddhas, the practice of Buddha just goes right ahead anyway. Even though we think the world's split into self and other and delusion and enlightenment, it's not.

[09:35]

And so whether you understand body and mind dropped off or not is not really the point. Whether you think or know dropped off body and mind, don't worry about it. And I don't know if this etymology is correct, but I heard an etymology of the word ceremony means healing. And when we go in the zendo and sit, in that room together, each of us practices a ceremony, the ceremony of sitting meditation. It's a ceremony of practicing Zen. It's a ceremony of body and mind dropped off. Now, in a sense, a lot of people understand You know, I wouldn't be in that room except for my body and mind dropping off. I've got better things to do. But since my body and mind's dropped off, I might as well be in the zendo as someplace else.

[10:41]

Do you understand? So it's a ceremony of dropping off body and mind. It's a ceremony to celebrate the healing of the world. No matter how you practice it's the same as anybody else. You may wish it was different or you may wish your practice was like somebody else's or glad your practice isn't like somebody else's but each of our practice in that room is healing the world. And It's not a matter of whether we know that or not. It's not even a matter of whether the ceremony happens or not.

[11:50]

The world healed whether we do the ceremony which heals the world. It doesn't really heal the world. It celebrates the healing of the world. And whether we celebrate it or not, the world's still healed. It's like your birthday. Whether you have a party or not, it's still your birthday. But, you know, some people like to have parties. That's why we have the zendo. For the party animals. At the beginning of the practice period, I think, like, I don't know when it was, but early on, like, at the opening of the practice period, we practiced the ceremony of receiving the Bodhisattva precepts, right? Remember that, for the practice period? And I wanted to, tonight, begin...

[13:01]

discussing the relationship between the bodhisattva precepts or receiving and practicing the bodhisattva precepts and practicing Zen as Shinjin Datsuraku, his body and mind dropped off. Some, in the Soto Zen tradition, which we are inheritors of, we have an ancestor named Dogen. And Dogen, the ancestor of Dogen, he received the precepts, he received the Bodhisattva precepts,

[14:09]

Well, ceremonially he received the bodhisattva precepts at least three times, he says. And history pretty much agrees with that. And the bodhisattva precepts he received, it's not clear what bodhisattva precepts he received. We have now from him 16 Bodhisattva precepts, 16 great Bodhisattva precepts. And I have a present for you if you want it, a very lovely card that has the 16 Bodhisattva precepts on it. So if you want this, you can come and get this afterwards or some other time if you're too busy tonight. These are the 16 Bodhisattva precepts that Dogen Zenji said he received from his teacher, Ru Jing.

[15:17]

The teacher who said, practicing Zen is dropping off body and mind. Some scholars think they can't imagine that Rujing gave Dogenzenji these 16 precepts. They just don't think that Rujing would have done that, considering the Chinese world of Zen that he lived in, which I can talk about more later. But anyway, Dogenzenji said he got these precepts, Excuse me, some people say, some documents say Dogen said he got these precepts from Rujang. But whether he got these from Rujang or not, these are the ones which almost certainly he transmitted to us because he wrote three fascicles. He wrote three texts, one called Shobogenzo Jukai, which means the treasury of true Dharma eyes receiving the precepts. And in that fascicle he has these 16 precepts.

[16:24]

And these 16 precepts are the three refuges, three pure precepts, and ten great precepts. He also has these 16 precepts listed in a document which is in English called Buddha Ancestors' Correct Transmission of the Bodhisattva Precepts Procedure, or the Ceremonial Procedure, of Buddha ancestors' correct transmission of the Bodhisattva precepts. And another document, which we're now chanting at noon service, also has these 16 Bodhisattva precepts in it. And that text is called, the long version of that text is called Buddha Ancestors Correctly Transmitted, because it's called Essay on Conferring and Teaching the Buddha Ancestors Correctly Transmitted Bodhisattva Precepts. The short version of it is essay on conferring and teaching the bodhisattva precepts.

[17:35]

The long version is essay on conferring and teaching the correctly transmitted Buddha ancestors, or Buddha ancestors correctly transmitted bodhisattva precepts. So those are three places where Dogen gave these 16 precepts. And as far as I know, no place else in all his writings, and he wrote a lot, did he mention any other set of precepts which he was recommending for his school. You want to hear some history about this? Or do you want to get into something not so historical? You want some history? Yeah. How many people want some history? How many people don't? Maya, you're yet to mean of you. You got in a class studying the history. That girl.

[18:35]

So Dogen received the precepts three times. Once on Mount Hiei and Mount Hiei was the school on Mount Hiei was a Tendai school and he received the Bodhisattva precepts when he was 13 years old on Mount Hiei. From Japanese Tendai school. Now, in Japan, before Mount Hiei was a Tendai, I don't know what to call it, I hate to say it, stronghold, Mount Hiei at one point had 3,000 temples. 3,000 temples on that mountain. It's a big mountain? Yes. And some of the temples were big too. Before Mount Hie, before Tendai was established on Mount Hie, there was another area of Buddhism south of Kyoto. Mount Hie is on the east side of Kyoto. South of Kyoto is an area called Nara.

[19:39]

And Nara had a precept practice which was like the Chinese practice. And their practice was to transmit the precepts of what we call the Vinaya, And the Vinaya is a set of precepts which were given to different sets of precepts. One set of precepts was given to lay men and lay women, another set of precepts were given to novice monks, and another set of precepts was given to full monks. Lay men and lay women would receive five precepts, novice monks would receive ten, And the full monk would receive, the male monk would receive 250 and the female would receive about 348. And that's what they had at Nara. And these were precepts of the category which you might call individual vehicle precepts. Precepts having to do with personal self-control precepts.

[20:45]

personal self-control precepts. The first precept, number one precept, I believe, maybe the number one precept, yeah, number one precept on the Vinaya for monks was no sexual intercourse. And for lay people, lay people could have sexual intercourse, but they could not have sexual intercourse with anybody but their spouse. having sexual intercourse with somebody else was considered, for layperson, misconduct. So the five precepts for a layperson, the layperson's venia was, I believe, no killing, no stealing, no false speech, no misusing sexuality, and no intoxicants. That might be wrong, but something like that, pretty close. The monks had 250 or 348. And the monks had rules like, major rules like no sexual intercourse, no killing, no stealing, but minor rules, minor ones like a male monk could not even give teaching to a woman of more than six words unless there was another monk there of reputable status witnessing him do so.

[22:13]

So if a monk, if a woman needed instruction from a male monk, he had to get it done in seven and six words. And if she needed more than that, he'd have to stop and go get somebody else to be there to continue his instruction. Monks could not sleep in the same, they could sleep in the same house as a woman sometimes, but not on the same floor. They couldn't eat after meal, after lunch, and things like that. They had many rules like that for personal self-control. And in Nara, part of Japan, those were the kinds of precepts that were transmitted. At some point, they started also to transmit the Bodhisattva precepts, and the Bodhisattva precepts the most popular set of bodhisattva precepts are from a sutra called, in Sanskrit, the Brahmajala Sutra. In Japanese it's called Bomo Kyo.

[23:14]

And that set of precepts is a set of ten major precepts and 48 minor precepts, which I have here. Ten major precepts are exactly the same as our ten major precepts on our list. That's why if you look at this list, if you get this card, you'll see that the fifth precept is not selling intoxicants. And people say, oh, okay, fine, I won't sell them. How come you don't have a precept against taking intoxicants? That's because this list usually went with the second list. On the second list, there's a minor precept called not imbibing intoxicants. It was considered for a bodhisattva a more severe problem to be selling intoxicants than to be taking them yourself.

[24:17]

But it was a problem to take them yourself. It just said it's worse to then give them to other people and make money off giving it to other people because the bodhisattva is primarily concerned with compassion. So the bodhisattva precepts are not so much about self-restraint than more about compassion. That's why, for example, not selling intoxicants is a more serious precept than not taking intoxicants. Also, they have not killing as a major precept, but as a minor precept, not eating meat. So killing is more severe than actually eating some meat that you didn't kill. But in China, when they gave the bodhisattva precepts, they usually gave all 58 precepts. On Mount Hiei, the Tendai school gave all 58.

[25:31]

But Dogen's precepts, he just gives for his 10. Also, on Mount Hiei, when they gave the 58, as a preliminary to giving the 58, people would receive the refuges, would take refuge in the triple treasure, and would also receive the three pure precepts. So, as a preamble, or as a preparation for receiving these 58 Bodhisattva precepts, in the Tendai school, they would receive these first six, these first six of Dogen's 16th. So when Dogen was 13, he most likely went through a ceremony on that mountain where he received the three refuges, the three pure precepts, and then received the 58 precepts. Then he left that mountain and went to study Zen. And he first studied Zen down at the bottom of the hill in Kyoto.

[26:38]

with a Zen teacher named Myo Zen, who was a disciple of a Zen teacher named He Sai. And from Myo Zen he received the Bodhisattva precepts again, but through the Zen lineage now. And I don't know, and I don't think we do know what precepts he actually got from whether it was the 58 with the six prerequisites or whether it was some other version. But he did receive the precepts again, the Bodhisattva precepts again from Mio Zen. And then he went to China and received the Bodhisattva precepts again from Zen teacher, Guru Jing. And again, we don't know what he received there, but many scholars think that Ru Jing probably gave him the Vinaya precepts, those 250 rules, probably gave him the 58 Bodhisattva precepts, probably, because that's what was going on in China, but we can't be sure.

[27:55]

Certainly, Ru Jing went through that process because all Chinese monks had to do that, otherwise they couldn't be monks. Whether he gave another initiation, a special initiation to Dogen or not, we don't know. But we do know when Dogen, after receiving these three Bodhisattva initiations, receiving the Bodhisattva precepts three times, the first one, we could be pretty sure what it was, the second two we don't know exactly, when he started transmitting the precepts, He cut the list down from 58 to 10, took the first 10, and added these preliminary precepts or practices into the mix and made that group the 16 bodhisattva precepts of the Soto Zen school in Japan. And I... I don't know what precepts Rinzai monks in Japan today take, and we're going to do some research on that to try to find out what the Rinzai school in Japan receives.

[29:08]

Now, one other thing I want to say, since you look like you're getting sleepy from the historical presentation, is that... Asai, the Zen teacher Asai, who's the teacher of Miao Zen, so he's Dogen's, in a sense, he's one of, in a sense. So Dogen had teachers on Mount Hiei, and Dogen's first Zen teacher is Miao Zen. But Asai, Miao Zen teacher, had died, I believe, by the time Dogen arrived. at his temple so he studied with his disciple and so he is a successor of that lineage in terms of the Bodhisattva precepts and Dogen Zenji whenever he talks about Esai directly he always praises Esai and it looks Asai, since it seems like most people think Asai was very, I don't know, wonderful guy, a wonderful, sincere, careful, ethical, compassionate, you know, very good practitioner of whatever he was practicing, which he said was Zen.

[30:28]

He also practiced Tendai Buddhism before he practiced Zen. He went to China and went to Zen temples. And he said that what he learned in China was he learned the Zen lineage of Rinzai, and he learned the Vinaya, the regular Buddhist Vinaya for monks, and he received it, and he also learned the Bodhisattva precepts, he got them too. That was the main thing he taught, received and taught. And when he taught Zen, one of his first teaching was that Zen... was the practice of these precepts. Zen was the practice of the Vinaya and the Bodhisattva precepts. That's what the Zen teacher taught. Okay? And Dogenu Zenji really praised him and was, in a sense, his grandson. However, Dogenu Zenji did not say that Zen was his to receive and practice these precepts.

[31:31]

He, like his teacher, said that Zen was dropping off body and mind. But I would just say this, that I feel that Dōgu Zenji actually would, I don't know if he would say it, but that Dōgu Zenji Dogen Zenji meant, whether he said so or not, he meant that the practice of Zen was practicing the precepts because practicing the precepts is dropping off body and mind. I'm saying that. So practicing Zen is practicing the precepts, practicing Zen is dropping off body and mind. It's the same thing because practicing the precepts really is dropping off body and mind. Healing the world is realizing the healed world is dropping off body and mind. Realizing the healed world is to practice these bodhisattva precepts.

[32:34]

This is our lineage chart of this school, the Soto Zen school coming down through Suzuki Roshi, Zen Tatsu, Baker and Meat. That's the lineage. Yes? This is called the bloodline. If we opened it up. Pardon? Is this what it would look like if you opened it up? It would look like this if you opened it up, right. This is the document that we give after receiving the precepts at Zen Center. We give this document. It's called in Japanese, which means blood vein or blood artery. And you see the red lines? So that's the blood vein of the Bodhisattva precept lineage, which we feel starts at Shakyamuni Buddha, goes through all the Indian ancestors. And at this point, this is the sixth ancestor right here of Zen.

[33:40]

Are you there? Yes. There's the sixth ancestor of Zen. And he had two main lines that go over like this. One line is what we say in the morning, Seigen Gyoshi Dayosho. Seigen. Seigen is a Qingyuran Xingsa. The Zen master, Qingyuran Xingsa, Chinese Zen master. So that lineage goes down here to make the Soto Zen lineage in Japan, which then goes down here, excuse me, all through China here. This is all the Chinese masters. And it goes back up here to... Dogen. This is Dogen here. And the other main lineage coming down from the sixth ancestor is Nanyue Huairong. And from him comes Master Ma and Baijong Waihai and Wangbo and Linji, the Rinzai. So this is the Rinzai line.

[34:42]

This goes all through China. And down at the bottom here are the Japanese people the relevant Japanese people who inherited the Rinzai line, Esai and Miozen. And then they come back up here to Dogen because Dogen received the precepts from Esai and Myozen, from the Rinzai side from China, and from Ru Jing, from the Soto side of China. So he united these two lines, and then here's all the Japanese successors of Dogen down to the Americans. And when you get ordained, your name goes down here. And then from you, the blood goes back up to Jacqueline Buddha's head. So this is the chart. Okay? Lay ordination? Lay ordination. So in Soto Zen, in Soto Zen, of Dogen Zenji Soto Zen, lay people and priests receive the same Bodhisattva precepts. Because the precepts, the Vinaya precepts, which differ from lay people and monk, lay people get five, monks get 250.

[35:51]

These Vinaya precepts are not on here. Bodhisattva precepts are the same for lay people and priests. Because the compassionate vows of lay people are basically the same as the compassionate vows of priests. The self-discipline practices of lay people and priests, however, could vary. And that's the difference in the Vinaya. Down at the bottom of this chart is an inscription. And the inscription talks about Asai going to China. And also in this inscription, which again, I don't know who wrote this, but the inscription says that in our ceremony that we do, where we give these precepts in Dharma transmission, we say that the precepts are the one great causal condition for the Zen gate.

[36:52]

So on this document, this precept document says that these precepts are the great condition for entering the Zen gate. And then also there's a story here about Asai going to China and receiving the precepts. So there seems to be a close relationship here between Asai who thought that Zen was practicing the precepts. The inscription on our precept document which says that precepts are the one great causal condition for entering the Zen gate and the practice of Zen. For me, the resolution of these two stories is that the practice of Zen is the practice of precepts and the practice of Zen is dropping off body and mind. Healing the world is a practice of the bodhisattva precepts, and healing the world is dropping off body and mind. And therefore, dropping off body and mind is the precepts, and the precepts are dropping off body and mind.

[37:57]

So, that's the corner I painted myself into. And sometimes, you know, in the past when I used to have more interaction with scholars and I would tell them some of the things I was thinking about, they'd say, have you written anything about that? You should write a paper about that. In this particular case, I have written a book about what I just said, where I'm making the case that the precepts and sitting meditation or our regular Zen practice are really, you know, unity okay now one other so I think what I'd like to do next which maybe there isn't time for tonight but I'll just tell you about it is I'd like to discuss some of the precepts

[39:03]

in terms of how they promote or how they are dropping off body and mind now there's another kind of precept which I didn't mention which are not sometimes not even called precepts but they are monastic regulations monastic regulations and ceremonies and Actually, monastic regulations and ceremonies are part of the vinya. Part of the 250 precepts that a monk takes, some of them are regulations and ceremonies. Like regulations like no sexual intercourse, no eating after noon. You're not supposed to actually eat, you know, not with your mouth open. stuff like that. Regulations, and you're supposed to do ceremonies in a certain way.

[40:07]

That's part of the 250. And in the 16 Bodhisattva precepts, on this version here, this is a somewhat popularized version. The first pure precept is embracing and sustaining right conduct. But right conduct is actually a, like I said, a popular way of saying what the original says is regulations and rituals, or regulations and ceremonies. And I guess, I don't know, this is a little easier to take who can argue with right conduct, right? But regulations and ceremonies, what are you talking about, man? Anyway... That's the point, is that what are you talking about, man? Regulations and ceremonies press buttons on beings who have attachments.

[41:10]

And regulations and ceremonies are the monastic regulations and ceremonies which actually Dogen Zanji emphasized most strongly in his later teaching, how important they were. And I'm bringing this up also just partly because now in this practice period, people are starting to interface more intensely with the regulations and ceremonies. When you first get here, you barely get along to sort of like learning, following the regulations. Now that you've learned them a little bit, now you have some energy to resist them. and resisting them is really part of the practice. Because the resistance is how we... If we have any self-concern, I mean if we have any self-clinging,

[42:22]

I feel it's helpful if we become aware of it. If we become aware of our self-clinging, we have a better chance to become free of it. If we're not aware of it, well, I don't know. Chances, I think, are not so good to become free of it because it's just a nice habit that you have and this goes on very nicely if it's in the dark. But these forms and ceremonies, these regulations and rituals, they usually flush out or expose some resistance. And the resistance usually is because of some kind of holding on to body and mind. And... People say, how come we do this ceremony? How come we do that ceremony? Why do we do it this way? Why do we do it that way? Is this necessary? Is that necessary? And really, you know, the reason why we do these are partly just because it's tradition, but still, even though it's tradition, why don't we just stop the tradition?

[43:33]

I mean, okay, I see it's a tradition to do that, but why do we continue the tradition? And we don't continue the tradition just to keep the tradition going, to keep these things going. We keep these things going so that people can become aware of their self-clinging. so that you can feel you know where you're holding because when the bell rings for something usually there's something more than just the bell ringing for most people there's like oh goody or there's like oh shit or you know, what's, you know, what's that, why did it, you know, how did I get, anyway, usually there's some rebellion to the forms and ceremonies and regulations or there's some kind of like excessive submission.

[44:37]

Either you're kind of like excited about being really good at these things and, you know, your great Zen career or you're interested in doing something else, which this is interfering with, or you're interested in being somebody who enacting these forms will interfere with. I'm not like a Pollyanna goody-goody person, so I'm not going to do these forms. I am a good person, so I'm going to do these forms. But if your idea of yourself is such that doing these forms goes along with your idea, you'll probably like to do them a little bit too much. And then if we reduce the forms, I won't give you ways to do them even more and more thoroughly and more and more perfectly. You probably, you know, like that. And if you, you know, pretty much if there's any self-cleaning that will surface around these practices.

[45:40]

I was at a short training period in Minnesota, and there was a visiting teacher. And he was, at that time, I think he was about 70, maybe. And not only was 70, but he was a frail 70. And I had this tent that I was staying in, which was about the same distance from the meditation hall as the house he was staying in. He moved very slowly, but I noticed that he always got to the meditation hall before me. And I wasn't exactly trying to beat him there, but I wondered how this old guy always beat me to the zendo. It just somehow didn't occur to me how that could be the case. But then one day, I was in my tent, and I was able to look out through the door of my tent and see his house.

[46:45]

And as the bell rang, the first bell for meditation rang, the bell went bing, and he came out of the door. You know, gong, and he was walking to the Zen dog. And he was walking slowly. But I noticed that I wasn't going to the Zen dog. I was still in my tent, and I wanted to stay in my tent a little longer, too. I had things to do. I don't know what they were, but, you know, people have things to do, right? People have things to do besides gong, move. Like a few more strokes of brushing your teeth, a little bit, you know, read a little sacred literature, a couple more paragraphs. whatever, you know, whatever you're doing, just a little bit more. But he didn't do that extra stuff. And as soon as the bell rang, he went. So because he left a long time ahead of me, he could beat me to this endo.

[47:54]

So then I thought, well, I'll try that too. I'll try to, when the bell rings, I'll try to go when the bell rings rather than the bell rings and then You know, what do I want to do now? Do I want to go? You know, should I give this stuff up? Or, you know, should I, like, should I, what? You know, blah, blah, blah. He's walking to the Xenron sitting there thinking about what to do. Right? I noticed that it wasn't so easy just to go when the bell rings. I was involved in some other things which just didn't drop away. Some body-mind stuff was going on. It didn't drop away. And therefore he was walking his endo and I was like, body-mind in the tent. Body-mind in the tent. And then finally body-mind came up with, well, time to go. So then it goes, you know, rather than, you know, body-mind, it's like body-mind decides when to go, right?

[48:56]

Body-mind, should I go now? Do I want to go now? Do I want to stay? Body-mind is doing all this stuff. Complicated organism can figure out what to do, right? Rather than body-mind, bell goes gong, body-mind drops away, and there's the bell ringing. the bell means go to the zendo so there's going to the zendo there's not body mind that falls away and then there's going to the zendo I had a hard time getting from where I was to like just going to the zendo and the bell rang now when I got to that point I beat him to the zendo not because I was running but because I wasn't crawling just walking at a normal rate I got there before him because I wasn't doing anything but go when the bell rings. Ritual seems akin to art in the sense that

[50:18]

both are something of an expression of the divine. And perhaps the more you know of a particular art and the symbolic content of it, et cetera, the more you might understand that. I'm using that as my premise this afternoon. I had requested the idea that maybe before some of these ceremonies and rituals, we might get a brief overview as to what some of the symbolic content were. For example, this morning, perhaps there was some symbolism involved in the idea that four requests were made to the head student. Maybe the number four has some symbolic content, or maybe that entire drama was played out in some historical reality somewhere. And the order that one would appreciate the nuances, the more spirit and more understanding that could be placed behind that in a ceremony.

[51:34]

Now, I beg you to forgive me for teaching Zen, okay? May I teach some Zen now? If you may. Okay. It's okay to tell people what the ceremonies are about and what the symbols mean. And if there are any symbols, especially if you know what they are and you know what they mean, it's okay to tell. Fortunately, people are lucky if they don't know. But if they know, it's okay to tell. But telling people what the ceremony is about is a tricky business because it does, to some sense, pander to body-mind attachments. Right. I'll do this weird Japanese thing if you tell me how cool it is. You know? Okay? Well, there's four of these things and that resonates with the sacred number 12 and three times the refuges and it all works together in this big cosmic picture and it's like totally cool and you just got to get really high on this thing, right?

[52:35]

But this is about dropping off any concern about this thing having any meaning. This is dropping off you understanding the ceremony. That doesn't mean we won't tell you what the ceremony is about, but it means that probably it would be better not to until body-mind is dropped off. Now, of course, all these things we do have deep cosmic significance and so on. That's why they're there. They're totally cool. They're perfectly tuned into your DNA and all that stuff. It's like these ceremonies are the way the cosmic quarter gets zapped into your DNA and transforms your body into a totally healed and healthy body, which radiates the truth of the universe out to all people.

[53:48]

Of course that all goes on. And we can explain it in detail, but if anybody wants to find that out, that wish to find it out, completely blocks the process because you're clinging to try to, you know, get this stuff. So first of all, you have to like drop the whole thing and forget about, you know, having meaning for yourself. That's the first thing. Zen is dropping off body-mind and doing these precepts, I think, needs to be done in that spirit. We have precepts, we have classes, we have discussions, what do they mean, blah, blah, blah. It's okay. But if people aren't dropping body and mind in these discussions about these precepts, the precepts are then not Zen. Then we kind of like, oh, we practice Zen, we drop body and mind. When we do the precepts, we hold on to our body and mind and we like jockey it, you know, so that we can like figure out what's good about these precepts and how I should do them and what's, you know...

[54:55]

what the meaning of these forms, so you've got to be careful of this. It's really, you know, kind of tough. Like we have this, like you have a ceremony, you know? A ceremony like we have a memorial ceremony. Now, what is... That ceremony, this is a ceremony which we did, and this is a ceremony which... I was there too, you know? And I was thinking today, If on the day I die, if my last day in this body and mind, if there was a memorial service for Suzuki Roshi, would I go? Today I thought, yeah, I'd go. That would be a nice thing to do on my last day, just to do that for my teacher. And even if it's not my last day, it's a little thing I can do for my teacher

[56:00]

to express my gratitude. But now that I'm telling you that I think, you know, that I'm deeply moved to think that, but what about just doing the ceremony, just doing the ceremony without me, you know, dear little disciple doing this thing for his teacher? What about just doing the ceremony Well, that is not so interesting to do. And sometimes when it comes time for that ceremony, I don't think, oh, if this was the last day of my life, wouldn't I want to do a memorial ceremony for my teacher? Well, of course I would. What a nice thing to do among the various little things I would do on my last day. But sometimes when the memorial service comes, I don't think that lovely thought. I don't get all kind of cheered up and teary about doing this thing for my teacher. I just think kind of like somewhere between, oh, it's so splendid to be able to make offerings to the person who probably was pretty nice to me.

[57:14]

Somewhere, that's one side. The other side is, you know, I got better things to do. Maybe, you know, I don't have to go to all these, I mean, haven't I gone to enough of these memorial ceremonies? 28 years, 28 weeks, 28 years, 12 months, times two a month, you know, all these ceremonies, and I've gone to almost all of them. Can I miss a few? And, you know, just, you know, I don't know what, do some yoga or something? That's another extreme, right? These are the two resistances. One is, oh, good little Zen, good little Reb, disciple of Buddha, disciple of Suzuki Roshi. See, isn't he nice? He's doing this memorial service for his teacher. Isn't that cute? The other one is, I don't want to do that. I've got better things to do. And then there's various gradations between, right? And then there's like just doing the ceremonies. Just flat out now, like, oh, is anybody seeing me do this ceremony? They think I'm cool?

[58:16]

Or, you know, I have a headache. This is really boring. Put the thing on the altar again, blah, blah. What is it like to just have the ceremony happen? What's that? That's dropped off body and mind. 30 years of doing these ceremonies, I learned a few things about what they're about. I couldn't help it. I didn't come to do these ceremonies, but they happened. And I was here and doing these ceremonies over and over. So now I'm an expert on these ceremonies, right? Just because all this stuff keeps coming at me. Well, I'm doing this ceremony, might as well study it a little bit, right? And then study a little bit more, and then study it more, and then study it more, and then study it more. Over the years, you learn something about these ceremonies. Oh, this means that, and that means that. So now I'm this ceremony expert. Even though I didn't want to be, I am. Hit. People call me and tell me, well, how do you do that ceremony? How do you do that ceremony? How do you do that ceremony?

[59:18]

Why are you doing that? Just a second, I'll go check the book. I'll go look at the Chinese and the Sanskrit. It's fun, you know? But that's all body and mind, ladies and gentlemen. That's what it is. It's body-mind. And if I didn't know any of it, If my body and mind didn't know anything about these ceremonies, I could hang on to that body and mind. When I first came to Zen Center, I didn't know anything about ceremonies, and I could hold on to that body and mind. And that body and mind did not want to go to the ceremonies. And didn't. The body and mind that came to Zen Center wanted to sit. So I go to the sitting, and when the ceremonies start, I left. I liked the sitting ceremony, but I didn't like the chanting. Me, I miss that stuff. I skip it. I went home and read Zen books. Or the other people are going, Kanji, I bought them. I wasn't doing that.

[60:20]

But then I got into, when I got to Sashin's, I couldn't, like, go home during the chanting. When I got to Tazahara, I couldn't leave the Zen, though. So, gradually, they took over my life. And now I'm, like, a servant of the ceremonies. so now I got all this information and all this background right and I can hold on to that too just like I could attach to the body and mind that didn't know anything about the ceremonies didn't want to do them had other things to do that were more interesting aspects of Buddhism and Zen that same body and mind I could hold on to and now I can hold on to this educated body and mind this expert body and mind I can hold on to that one holding on to either one. And some, oh, there's another group of people that came to Zen Center for the ceremonies, and they loved them. I could never stand those people. They were like, I love the chanting. It's, you know.

[61:21]

I mean, I knew. It was the sitting. It's the sitting. These people, like, sure. But my sitting, you see, that was my body-mind. I was holding on to my body-mind which was the practices of the sitting. That was my ritual. But now I don't think it's the sitting. I don't think it's the precepts. I don't think it's the ceremonies. I think it's dropping off the body and mind which is the precepts and is the ceremonies. So now I try to find the way to do the ceremony where it's just a ceremony. It's not me, the expert, doing it. It's not me, the expert, resisting it and trying to get somebody else to do it. It's just a ceremony. It's just dropped off body and mind. It's just the healing of the universe. Removing the separation between the experts and the beginners.

[62:27]

Between those who think the ceremonies are totally groovy and those who think they're just weird. It's healing the wound between these between all beings which were never really separated except by sin. What does it mean to do a ceremony for your teacher who's not other than you? When I die do I say goodbye to my teacher or hello to my teacher? Or is my teacher really just a joke as anything other than myself? By what delusion do we imagine that our body and mind is apart from our teacher? Well, we do have a delusion that our teacher is apart from us.

[63:30]

It is a painful, scary delusion, but there it is, and the form of meeting the teacher in the form of doing the ceremony for the teacher surfaces that delusion. This is the first pure precept, forms and ceremonies. So this is a kind of start on that, okay? We can talk about this more because some people are starting to resist these ceremonies. Some people are resisting these ceremonies. And there's two kinds of resistors. Those who are, some people are just loving them and grooving on them, are getting high on them, are really good at them, you know. I don't want to cross over for the, you know, you know. But anyway, some people are, they're hitting the Hans, you know. Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. They're hitting the bell, you know. This is Zen. You know.

[64:33]

I don't want people to quit now that I said that. And abandon the Eno. Poor Enoch. She likes to hit the drums. She likes the drums. This is Zen. And then there's the other group of kind of like, oh, this is this. I didn't know it was going to be like this. They didn't tell me they're going to have these rituals and these ceremonies, this chanting Japanese and, you know, all these weird words. And, oh, it's just, what is this? And there's that other group. So we have both styles here. But this is called flushing out self-cleaning. Self-cleaning is yucky. Your agenda about what your life should be, it's coming out there. It's getting out front. And now we get it out front. If we can get it out there, we can become free of it. And this first pure precept is really wonderful to flush our self-cleaning, to get it out there, look at it, and then flush it away.

[65:38]

Not even flush it away. It flushes away when you see it. But it's also yucky to see it. now some of it you think is cute until you know you get found out that it's not cute like you think it's cool to resist you know it's cool you know it's just like cool until you realize that what this is is you being cool that this is your self-clinging you want to be cool so you resist or whatever anyway it is cool you're right self-clinging is cool So let's get it out there. Let's get it out there. Let's bring ourself thinking out. If you have any. And these forms, I think, are bringing out. People are coming and complaining about the forms. Or other people are coming and just like, Oh, God, I love these forms so much. This is so meaningful. Both of them. Right? And then some people are like, I don't know what.

[66:39]

It hasn't hit yet. You don't like or dislike them. Oh, you like some and dislike others. So some people get both varieties of resistance. Thank you. So please express yourself, express your resistance. That will bring this cell clinging out in the front where you can see it and in that vision that promotes freedom from it. Well, this is a start anyway on this discussion. I think I'd like to continue then talking about the relationship between the precepts and the Zen, and sitting, the Zazen practice, the dropping of body and mind.

[67:39]

I'll post these 58 precepts, but number 38 is missing, and I don't know why it's missing. Which one? Huh? Which one? Number 38 is blank. I don't know why it's missing. I don't know why in the book I got it from it was not in there. Maybe just a typo. Maybe there's something about number 38 that's unprintable. And then here's copies of the 16 Bodhisattva Precepts. And if you take them... This is my attachment. Please take care of him. Don't just, you know, put him in some safe, some clean place. Don't use him for toilet paper, please. I shouldn't have told you that.

[68:41]

Sorry.

[68:45]

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