Last week we talked about the first of the three pure precepts, which is, in the early way of putting it, it was said, the early rendition from the Dharmapada said, to avoid all evil. The way it's put in Dogen's teaching on the precepts, it is to embrace or to fulfill ritsu, which is actually like regulations. And the other one is gi, which means like forms, formal practice forms. And the way we say it sometimes in the bodhisattva ceremony is to embrace and sustain right conduct.

[01:15]

So it's, in this particular case, it's put, you could say, positively. Rather than avoiding evil, it's said to fulfill or to embrace right conduct. And in these two dimensions, conduct one is regulations, and the other is forms. And I don't know how it was for you to look at that precept within the background, in the background that we were saying that that was to avoid evil. I don't know how that worked for you. How was that for you? Yes? Well, I was thinking about it in terms of forms.

[02:18]

And I was thinking about Michael's question. Oh, yeah, Michael asked a question. So I was really hoping to move into that. Yeah. Michael said that in Dogen's writings there's a lot of detail about forms, much more than we have here. And you were wondering what? To what extent is it important to mobilize our lives? Because it seems like there's kind of a madness degree to which you can do that. You just said, to what extent is it important, right? Yeah. Yeah. Another way to bring it to the end. At what point is it too much, and what point is it not?

[03:18]

What is not enough? Fomentation. Help us realize ourselves. Mm-hmm. Part of the background of this precept, which I didn't get into too much, but I think comes to mind when you bring that up, is that question that Dharma master asked his Zen teacher, does true suchness, does it change? And the Dharma teacher said, yes, it does. Oftentimes, they would say that Dharma nature does not change. But I think maybe you're familiar with a kind of dynamic there that the true Dharma nature doesn't change, but when it does change, it changes into the 3,000 monastic forms.

[04:26]

It doesn't change, but when it does, it changes into myriad forms. 3000, or in Confucianism, six arts. Art doesn't change, but of course it changes into innumerable forms. So in some sense, you could say... to what extent is it important that our life be art? I mean, that's a stretch, maybe, from what you said. In one sense, you hear about 3,000 monastic forms, and one way to get 3,000 is that each of these three contain those 10

[05:31]

And each of those 10 contain the other 9. So that's one way to talk about how you get 3,000. You follow that? Yes? In thinking of evil, I think in terms of chaos, confusion, and how important it is for life to be art, I feel that the intentionality with which we did, with which we coursed through life, is to be very effective. And these rules and forms are expedient means to help us bring forth or manifest some intentionality or some fear. with uh getting out of bed drinking a cup of tea of everything and not just uh being tossed without by the mundane world right chaos which to me is how i would look at people lack of intention

[06:56]

I would have a different opinion about that. I would think that evil often has a lot of intention to it. A lot of systematization and organization and purposefulness. And by the definition of evil as being lack of intention, then I would have to see myself as a very evil person because so much happens without very much intention and I don't feel evil, so I just, on a gut level, kind of don't feel. I know I do so many things unconsciously, unintentionally, and I don't feel evil. And yet when I look at examples of evil from the past, I see people with great planning, evil acts of great care. Well, I could understand you know, I could hear what Rick's saying in terms of that intention.

[08:48]

He also said spirit, and I could think of that as breath. So, you know, to... I'll do this, because this is about the precept, okay? But in terms of what he said, i think that if you hear that intent if you think of intention as your breath that i think sometimes people do things with intention but there's no breath in their intention they they start they get an idea um they think something in that but there's no breath in it or they speak and there's no breath in it they take a posture and there's no breath in it i think that when When a person, when a human being does something and somehow there's not breath in it, and there can be intention somehow, then that's evil.

[09:57]

However, there's never anything that doesn't have breath in it or spirit in it. Evil cannot be established. Wrongdoing cannot be established. If it could be, then we should just live with it and be friends with it. But we do not necessarily have to live with evil. Evil is not real. But it is real that evil appears. The appearance of evil is real. And the appearance of evil is, for example, that you're involved in some action, body, speech, or mind. These are actions. And the definition of these actions is intention.

[11:00]

Whatever vocalization, posture, or thought you have, there's always an intention in there. And the intention is wholesome, unwholesome, or indeterminate. But any of those intentions, even wholesome intention that doesn't have breath in it, is evil. And I like the definition of evil being life lived backwards. When you're living without breath, you're living backwards. You're not recognizing the fact that everything is sponsored by spirit. Everything is sponsored by breath. So I could go along with what he said, that a lack of intention is what evil is, but in the sense that all evil is based on intention.

[12:03]

All action is based on intention. And a lack of intention would be a lack of repentance for the intentions that you have, because there's always intention. There's never a lack of intention. There can't be evil without lack of intention. Well, I should say there can't be human evil without lack of intention. Some people speak of non-human evil, like, you know, rock slides that squash people or something. But even there I would say that the thing that makes things evil is not fulfilling forms and regulations. These forms and regulations are infinite opportunities, 3,000 for short, of how to completely enter into your body, speech and mind.

[13:13]

They're opportunities to join your intention and not live a life where you're checked out of the definition of your action. Rather, you fulfill these forms, these rituals, means that you're completely entering into right conduct. And right conduct is to admit what you're up to. And you're always up to something. I mean, every action is an intention. And yet somehow, if you speak in such a way that your speech pattern is coordinated with your breathing, that's an example of a form. To speak in breath-length expressions. That's a form.

[14:19]

which could help you realize that everything you say is sponsored by your breath. Nobody speaks without breath as far as I know, but many people speak without appreciating the breath which is allowing them to speak. To not appreciate your breathing while you're using it is evil, but there is no such thing either. But that's what evil is. It's not to be with those things. So to whatever extent a form can help you be with your actions, be with your intention, then it's helpful. And nobody can be with their intention without a form. So it is... to have forms in order to be aware of your karma, your actions, because we use forms always to express our intention. To what extent the forms are helpful, I would say is directly in proportion to how much they help.

[15:28]

If you take on too many, such that you lose track of the breath in the form, then, you know, then it's not the form that's not effective, but you're just taking on too many, you're taking on more forms that you can keep track of. And you could put, you could say chaos is when you feel like there's more things happening than you can breathe into, or that you can feel like you're breathing with. But, maybe that's enough for starters. Janine? I was going to say, it's always the happiness of Repentance is a form of admitting forms. Of inventorying, actually basically repentance is a way of inventorying, particularly inventorying the things you did that you didn't feel you were really with.

[16:34]

the things you did dreaming of half-heartedness. But there really isn't such thing as half-heartedness. Some people walk around caved in like this with their chest way in like this because they don't want to feel anything. This is a wholehearted avoidance of life. This is a living system's response to pain. And rather than say, give me more, they say, I want less. This is a wholehearted response. This is a form. And if you were an actor and you were told to play the part of someone who was trying to avoid life, you might really get into this posture and speak for the person who's in this posture. talk from this posture and then you could you could tell people what it's like to try to avoid pain once you were in this posture you really got into it you could you could tell people you could speak for someone who was trying to avoid pain and causing themselves pain by trying to avoid it you could you could be that character and you could have a voice that came from that person

[17:55]

And you could keep talking until you heard the right true voice for such a person. And then everything you said would be true for this person. And then you could sit up like this and speak for this person. And gradually you could say it was true for this person. And you could win an Academy Award for this person or this person. Now we could say, why don't all Zen people sit like this? then that would be fine. But that's really hard. It's much easier to sit up straight and feel the pain directly than to feel the pain through this, you know, what do you call it, indirect thing of avoiding the pain and making it worse in order to feel it. Just like we don't say, we don't call this place not Zen Center. We call it Zen Center. Even though the meaning of Zen Center is not Zen Center. So we don't call it not Zen Center because then you have to say the meaning of not Zen Center is not not Zen Center.

[19:03]

So we say it is Zen Center. How about Zen Land? You said that not fulfilling the forms is evil. And my way of thinking about these forms, and I think it's just, you said this in a lot of other... But I want to say before this gets on tape, and I agree to that, that it is not possible not to fulfill a form. Right. You're already on tape with that one. Okay. It seems that the focus of the many things that you said sort of support that focus, in my mind, is that if you're not aware of what you're doing, then that is what you describe as evil.

[20:06]

And the idea of this particular precept or this expression of it is to be aware of and fully inhabit each of your actions. And then you would be fulfilling this precept. Forms, as you said, were like Too many of them might be some sort of overload so that you couldn't be aware of all those different forms at the same time. And if that were the case, then they would have, by their sheer number, maybe outdid their own purpose there. Yeah. But again, this is complicated because I didn't really say that. I mean, I didn't really mean that. I didn't really mean that when you had, first of all, if you had like a zillion forms you're trying to take care of, I wouldn't say that it was because there were too many forms that there was evil. You say that the forms were no longer helpful. And again, I don't want to say that. There are always infinite number of forms.

[21:08]

And if you try to engage with them, or even with one of them, if you try to engage with them, you might be overwhelmed. It's not the number of forms that's the problem that turns into chaos and evil. It's our way of dealing with them. Now, even that's not evil, but it seems like evil when we feel like we can't cope with them, when we feel like we have to turn away from them, when we feel like we can't live our life with them. Then we think this is evil. We think this is bad. In this session, it seems as though we're maybe mixing up two sort of Buddhist uses of the term forms, one being sort of the concept of rupa, one of the five skandhas that means sort of the physical manifestation of things in form. But then the other and the one that I took maybe more the direction of Michael's question or anyway the one I'm sort of more interested in is formalization or form that has been like specifically passed down by a tradition.

[22:23]

Yeah, they're included there too. It seems to me, though, that what I'm left with when we talk specifically about these formalizations, traditional formalizations, is a very utilitarian aspect to it. In other words, to the extent that I'm attempting to utilize these forms to help me be more aware of my actions, my thoughts, and what I say, then those forms are helpful. And to the extent that maybe I have not taken on enough where I'm trying to take on too many of those forms, then they're no longer helpful. But that seems like it's pretty utilitarian in how I pick and choose forms. And sort of my gut is telling me that maybe you might not respond real positively to that sort of utilitarian viewpoint of forms.

[23:25]

That was a tie, I think. You haven't talked yet. Go ahead. I'm lost. I've just been, you know, talking. And I haven't been trying to be easy to understand. I've just been expressing myself. And I haven't been fooling around exactly. But I've been, you know, using terms, not exactly sloppily, just that, you know, I've just been throwing this stuff out here. Okay. Now, When Michael first said this thing about forms, I thought, too, in terms of, like, you know, traditional suggestions. For example, I thought of the fact I use this hand to wipe. Okay? I don't use this one. And I don't always get into so much the fact that I'm using this hand, but, you know, many thousands of times when I use this hand, I think of Dogen Zenji. You know? that's not just any old form, that's a traditional form that he told me not to use this, told me to use this hand to wipe.

[24:38]

So I always think of him when I use this hand. When I brush my teeth, when I wash my face, almost everything I do throughout the day, some Buddha ancestors talking to me while I'm doing it. When I put garbage this place or that place, everything I do, I'm always dealing in terms of, almost always dealing in terms of There's one or several Buddhist teachers sort of in there with me while I'm doing almost everything all day long. And not only the ones that are there are the ones who suggested such and such a form to be done in such and such a situation, but there's also other ones who have come in and teased people about the way they've done those forms. There's those stories running around there too. So part of what I told you last time was the story of the precious bowl. breaking it and then gluing it back together and giving it a name and passing it on so all these forms is passed on forms these precious forms these wonderful forms that have been given in this tradition and in other traditions somewhat different ones perhaps these are all precious antique artworks and they should be broken and then glued back together and then transmitted in their

[25:55]

antique form, but also to show that they were broken at one point and put back together. So all these forms, the traditional forms, the fact that they can be used and that they're wonderful and that they can be broken, and then after they're broken, in some sense, they have more of a story and they're more useful and they're more flexible. But also, the fact that you can break a traditional form means to me that anything can be a form. That if using your left hand is a form and using your right hand is breaking it, then that implies that there's zillions of other ways to also wipe. It's not just this form and breaking it and then gluing it back together and using this form again and then having this be a more interesting story and a more joyful practice of wiping. It's also that there's many other possible forms besides the traditional one and the breaking of it and the putting it back together. There's infinite forms. 3,000 is already, you know, more than you have to say.

[27:02]

All you have to do is say, three. And that stands for infinity. There's infinite forms now. And they're all opportunities. Everything that happens, every pop that comes out of your mouth, every gesture you take, Every thought that you make, they're all opportunities for realizing this precept. Every single one of them. And your attitude towards everything that comes up can make it be evil or be fulfilling these forms. It can be avoiding evil or falling into evil depending on your attitude, on your grip of whatever forms popping out of your mind, body, or speech at that time. So now maybe we can get wild again. Janine?

[28:02]

I was going to say something your mind creates and sets up. Yeah. Can your minds... Yes? One thing that wouldn't be a form would be, in my mind, is mindlessness. way that I don't know, left hand, right hand, you know, don't ask me. Mindlessness can be a form, which we will get into that one. If you stay here longer, I'll get you into that one. So then you want to go back to North Carolina before that happens. But mindfulness, definitely we have to be able to use that too. What's not form is emptiness, not mindlessness. Mindlessness is another form. a form that very few people are able to use. But artists must be able to use mindlessness, because some of the greatest artworks came out of mindlessness. Is there a term? Am I missing the term here?

[29:04]

I'm talking about that way of doing actions throughout the day that has zero to very little awareness. Yeah, I am too. I was talking about this last night in the class about, we were studying the koan, case 21 of the Book of Serenity, which is the busy one, right? You're busy, your mind's busy. Your mind's busy producing stuff all the time. And then there is the unbusy one, the mind or the simultaneous level of our being where we're not producing anything and we're not thinking anything. We have no objects of thought. Now, what comes up in that situation is, well, oh, he also says, Da Wu says to Yun Yan, you're too busy. And I asked one of the people, what does too busy mean? And he said, when you're so busy that you can't be aware of it. That's too busy.

[30:06]

Like what I was saying, that's evil. Like when you're doing something, but you're not able to inhabit it. But you should know that there's somebody who's not busy at the same time. In other words, there is another thing which is simultaneous with that, which is somebody who's too stupid to get too busy. There's somebody who's too stupid to ever not be able or I should say, who's too stupid to be able to be distracted. It's impossible for us to be distracted from what we're doing. We cannot possibly figure out how to turn away from what we're involved with. All the time, all day long, we do not know how to not pay attention.

[31:10]

We do not know how to be mindless. Therefore, mindlessness, because of emptiness, because of the fact, the fact, the Buddhist fact that nothing's happening, because of that fact, that truth that nothing's happening, because of that, anything can happen. Because of that, wonderful mindlessness can happen. And that is a form which is sponsored by emptiness. That is a form of busyness, of too busyness, which is sponsored by not being busy at all. And one of the people in the class who's a writer said that when he's writing, he loses track of self-awareness. And somebody said, some musicians have that experience too. And I said, I've been with writers and they have agreed, Buddhist writers who are meditators, and a lot of them say, well, I can be mindful, except when I'm really writing, I can't be mindful anymore.

[32:22]

And in some sense, they say it like, well, that's too bad. But in another sense, I think they're saying that because when you're really creating, the mindfulness is so pure that you cannot do it anymore. And in some sense, the mindfulness which we do as beginners is a form of busyness. Because it's a mindfulness which you can do and which you can also fail at doing. Like you can be mindful of putting the seed right there. You can be mindful of, I'm cutting this carrot, kapowee. And you can be quite mindful. But that is a form of busyness, of I'm busy. here, there's the object over there, and I'm doing this, and I am also aware I'm doing it. And you can be really aware. You can be right in there. And that's good. That is wholesome. It's recommended. It's good. And it protects your fingers. It's not bad. It's good. What is not good, what is evil, is to imagine that you're not doing this, you know, fully.

[33:28]

Which is another... The thought that you're not doing this fully is a judgment, which is another form of busyness. You can also be in the same state of mind that you judged as not being mindful. You can be in that same mind, but not even note it. Not even notice that you're in the mind which you, in some other moment, would have called distracted. In other words, not even notice your distraction. You can say, well, that's even more distracted. And I would say, Yes, from the point of view of most people's calculations about what distraction is, that would be calculated as more distracted. Simultaneously, there is a mind there that is not able to calculate anything, therefore it can't calculate distraction. It can't calculate how to get away from what's happening, and it never does get away from what's happening. That mind is the mind of such pure mindfulness that is not a mindfulness which you do. It is simply the mind itself being itself.

[34:34]

And the mind itself being itself, the being itself is not doing anything. That's not an action. That is the mind actually not doing anything other than being the mind. And what kind of mind is, what's the mind like? The way the mind is, is that it's doing stuff all the time. The mind is tremendously, unconditionally creative, sending out all this stuff. And part of the stuff it sends out is thinking about mindfulness practice or not. It's a total high intensity circus nonstop. And simultaneously, when you can join in on that process and when you join in on it fully, you've realized the one who's not busy. When you join in fully on that thing seems to be happening, you realize that nothing's happening. But all along that was the case. The one that notices that what's happening, the one that's not busy, is that still busy?

[35:47]

That's still busyness. Which is fine. That's fine. And that busyness does not have to be evil. If you have faith. Faith about what? How would faith apply to that? When you have a mind that notices things, and also you notice that the noticing things is a busy mind. And you might even notice that even noticing anything, noticing anything, any kind of noting of something is busyness. And not only that, but any kind of noting of something is full-scale cosmic busyness. It's all kinds of noticing are big time noticing, are big time busyness. Not feeling like, well, I'm distracted, and this is kind of like some puny, sick, neurotic distraction.

[36:52]

And I'm not really, like, into big-time distraction like Reb's talking about. That's an example of evil, that thought. That's an evil thought. That's it. That's a thought which is against your life, which puts you down and makes you feel miserable. However, the mind which did that is a very powerfully active mind, you see, because not only does it do the stuff, but it can easily put itself down in 25 different ways every second. And there's a lot of people who can do that. I mean, they can make themselves really miserable in the most intense, powerful way. And the reason why they can do that is not because they have faith, but because they're alive. Everybody can do that. And everybody does do that. Everybody is able to be really intense. Nobody's not. Except maybe if somebody actually could have a body temperature of 25, I suppose you could say that they would be. But, you know, even then they would be intensely, you know, intensely, I don't know what.

[37:59]

Nothing in the universe is half-hearted. Which is the same to say, same thing as saying, nothing in the universe is evil. Which is the same as saying that everything is liberated from itself by what it is. Everything is completely what it is and never isn't. And by that fact, it's liberated. And by that fact, everything doesn't do anything except all the things which it can produce. And because it is part of creation, everything is 100% creative and not doing anything. And forms are infinite. Opportunities are infinite because we have just, what do you call it, the latest pattern of spring has just been included in the ancient brocade. And again, and again, non-stop.

[39:04]

Its nature continuously works her loom and shuttle. She's always incorporating a new piece of thread into the brocade. A new piece of spring is coming in. Never stopping. This is always happening. The artwork is always going on. And it's possible that these new forms happen and that it's continuous because nothing is happening. Really. And these forms that are put in are never put in half-heartedly. I never put in incompletely. And for most of us, a lot of the time, the form we're putting in, the thread we're putting into the ancient brocade is, I'm half-hearted, I'm distracted, or they're distracted, or they're not doing their best, I'm not doing my best, And not only that, but on top of that, I'm criticizing myself and I'm criticizing others. These are the lines, these are the threads we're using to make this section of the fabric, which has a little drama in there, which is a drama of misery and hatred and competitiveness and not cooperation and jealousy.

[40:12]

That's how you build this stuff. Faith is, for me, faith is that we are alive what we're producing is not just our baby it is the universe working through us to produce this and to produce this and to produce this and again part of what it produces is this latest creation of the universe is not too good this latest production is half-hearted and if you sort of say that's not true and try to deny your calculations, that's another one. You should rather admit, this is my calculation. This is what I'm thinking. This is confession. This is my error. And I believe what I'm thinking, and that's my error. So confession is part

[41:15]

It is part of what you have to practice in order to practice this. Confession is involved and is required in the practice of fulfilling forms. Yes? What's the relation between repentance and faith? I think it's the same thing. No. I think that they... practice well like in that thing we chant practicing repentance is like um the true form of faith and if you practice repentance that will feed your faith and you won't and you won't practice repentance well i shouldn't say practicing repentance is faith but there's other ways of faith too there's other forms of faith too for example it isn't really practicing repentance to enjoy the happiness of the fact of nothing happening.

[42:21]

That's not really repentance. That's more accepting and patiently accepting that reality. That's different. But that's another manifestation of faith. If we feel obstructed because of the way we've been thinking for so long, if we feel obstructed, then confessing how we feel obstructed removes that obstruction. And practicing the repentance, or the confession, which removes that obstruction, is an expression of faith. So is repentance only, are you only repenting your obstruction? Because I was understanding repentance as, oh, I'm feeling really happy now. Oh, repentance is at the moment. Yes. So you could be mainly repenting your acceptance. Repentance, you don't repent obstruction. Obstruction is a result of action. So you don't repent the obstruction.

[43:24]

You repent the action, and that removes the obstruction. Obstruction is a result, not an action. So if you note things, or if you accept things, but you feel in accepting them that you accept it, you'll notice that you're involved in thinking that it is not you. And what you repent then in that case is the delusion, the belief that it, the thing which you're trying to or not trying to accept, that it is separate from you. You repent that delusion which causes you pain. That delusion of struggle and the practice of patience will help us realize that the cause of our pain with that person is we think she's not us. So the part of repent is I repent the delusion that she's separate. And patience sets up the practice of repentance very nicely. Because once you're patient, you can see what you're doing to cause yourself pain, and then you can see, oh, I'm doing that, that, and so I admit that, and that's repentance, and then it takes away the obstructions which are caused by past dealings like that, and then you can get down there and just experience directly.

[44:46]

and see if you can catch it more in the bud with more rapid, on-the-spot repentance. Until finally, you're so much caught up with everything that you fulfill the forms and you avoid evil by basically being yourself completely. Yes? Yeah. Well, I want to say, anyway, in this class, that's not our precept, okay? Ours is fulfilling these forms. I'm just saying that fulfilling the forms does avoid evil. But I think in some ways it may be the reason why the Zen people change that. All three of these precepts start with the character fulfill, or, you know, all these other things.

[45:53]

To fulfill these forms. Remember that word satsu, it means to fulfill these forms. to guide these forms, to gather these forms, to collect these forms, to oversee these forms, to represent these forms, to take these forms, to assume these forms, to nurture these forms, to assist these forms. Okay? If you do that, this is a way to talk about how that avoids evil. By totally getting into your form, you avoid the evil. Avoiding evil is not an avoidance. It's just a way of talking. But since, I think, At a certain point in the history of the world, I think the Buddhists said, Hey, these people are misunderstanding what avoid means. We've come into a new era. And they think avoid means avoid. Rather than, they think you're supposed to do this thing called avoid, rather than you do these practices which cause you to avoid. Avoiding evil is not avoiding. If you try to avoid evil, that's evil. But if you fulfill these forms, you will avoid evil.

[46:56]

But not by going away from it, but by realizing it never really happened in the first place. So one way to avoid things is to realize they're not there. You don't avoid anger by trying to get away from it. You avoid anger by, you know, understanding it. And you understand it by nurturing these forms, whatever they are, whatever they are, whatever they are. And we have 3,000 here to warm up on, 3,000 traditional ones. And I've told you these stories about these Zen teachers who, I don't know what, anyway, they beat their students up all day long. And so we have problems with that, right? being an American and all that with the cowboys and the Indians and, you know, and racism and all that stuff, beating up people, you know, it's just sort of like it's not the time for that right now. You know?

[47:58]

Yeah. But in other times in history, teachers have beaten up their disciples for what? For, you know, moving their finger this way instead of that way. And it's not so much that they did the wrong thing by going this way rather than that way, but they didn't fulfill the form. And they taught these people to fulfill forms. And the people who were taught to fulfill forms in this way became these people who realized these precepts. And then they could help infinite beings. But not everybody gets that kind of training, and therefore not everybody can realize these precepts thoroughly. So that isn't the way that works here at this time, so I don't beat people up. Some people think I should, but I just can't believe that that's going to work.

[49:01]

Yes? A few years ago you talked about Buddhism in America, and because of its... short amount of time here, that we were still doing tremendous unfolding, you're developing, I'm sorry, I've forgotten the adjective that you used. That's an adverb. An adverb, I'm sorry, thank you. It's a noun. It's a noun too. And Anna Kennedy used this name. Anything else? We don't beat people up here. Anyway, you used some descriptive terms. Yeah, you said just exactly what I said. And yet, here we're working on, we're coming from a, a Japanese tradition that's, of course, thousands of years old.

[50:07]

And it seems like that maybe you're still perhaps talking tonight about that we're still discovering where we're coming from, from the forms that are from Japan and China and India and pass through to how it works with today in American Buddhism which is still very young and coming forth. So I'm still having a little hard time understanding when you go back and forth and I hear the words repentance, which I made reference to a few weeks ago that it sounded so theistic, the way we were talking. And from a non-theistic tradition, But non-theistic, again, non-theistic does not mean atheistic.

[51:09]

Non-theistic means we don't take a position on theism, which means sometimes we can be theists. We can be theistic. In a non-theistic tradition, we can have theistic drama here. We can manifest deities. We can have gods and goddesses appear in this room. coming out of the dark forest, we can open the doors and let them come in. And we can say, thanks, and they can go back. We can play that here. We can have that show. We can also have, hey, there ain't any gods and goddesses. There's just us. We can do that too. Non-theistic means we're flexible about theism. Well, I'm also trying to say that it's difficult for me to hear you say, sometimes I get lost in understanding what you're saying because, and again, I really admit I stay locked into the terms as I've grown up with in what the word repentance means and confessing and

[52:15]

It's hard for me to switch. I'm stupid. No, you're not stupid. You're not stupid. You're a little bit stiff. Stiff. Because for many years you used repentance and what else? Confession. Confession and theism and God. You used them over and over. So you got these big, powerful muscles in your mind to use those words. Yes. Fortunately, I didn't use them, so I'm more flexible. So I use these words, I don't know what you taught these people. And I run into these people with these big powerful muscles and they go, you know? but you know fortunately i'm loose enough because i didn't have that strong background to come in and kind of massage your big muscles and get you to use some other ones to use these words but you're stiff you know the important point is to be able to use these words and these forms and be flexible to not like say a lot of people come here and they're they have such a powerful take on repentance and so on that the word comes up and they're out the door you know because they just go they go just like

[53:18]

They go right into that mode, you know, and they're in it and they cannot get out. They cannot hear anything but their conditioning. They're done for. However, that's exactly what they need to be misogynized on. That's exactly where they're stuck. And so, if they stay in the room, they will be liberated from one of their main hang-ups. So, you with the strong background, you're very, what a prime candidate for some major you know, unleashing a primal awakening energy on this topic. And I really... I mean, it isn't negative to me. It's just hard for me to get out the box. You said switch. It's hard for you to switch. Yes. It's hard for you to make this transition from having these things which are so clearly conditioned for you and have all this meaning to, like... Let them drop. It's easy for you to drop things you've never heard of, but when the stuff's been drilled into you by who knows what, it's hard for you then to sort of just let it drop.

[54:29]

And it's not all, and I don't mean it as a negative or all bad or anything like that. We don't think you mean it that way. We just think you're telling us that these are heavy patterns, okay? Yeah. Yeah, right. And for some other people they're heavy patterns too. And for those who aren't heavy patterns, then you have to just help those for whom it is heavy pattern and hang in there with them. The important thing is to not run out of the room. And also not necessarily be quiet. And if you feel like somebody's rearranging your psychic organs and your religious conditioning, it's okay to say, and we can say, and by admitting the always, you can become free of the pain of this transition you're going through. which is to basically completely revolutionize your understanding of these very powerfully established words. And if I don't use these words, they're just going to sit there, ensconced in your brain, you know, solid gold, and they're not going to move, and they're just going to sit there and be causing a lot of turbulence in your mind, because everything's going to be flowing through, but they're going to just sit there, plunk.

[55:38]

So I'm unintentionally going in there and moving this furniture of your mind around, and... It's scary to have everything reworked. And it's not that I'm going to put them in the right place. I'm just going to make them all turn sideways so everything flows by them. I mean, that's my intention, is to get everything out of the way so things can flow through this mind without like going in there and like, you know, surgically removing these words and like getting them on another planet. It's not possible because then you have this huge, you know, emptiness there which is going to stop everything too. So I think just leave them there and let's just see if we can move them around a little bit. Instead of having them turn this way, let's even turn sideways or turn them upside down. And yes, they can be, but it's scary and it's painful to rearrange things. But, you know, I'm not saying there is deities or there isn't deities. I'm not saying there is mindfulness or isn't mindfulness. I'm just saying this evil is for these things to be stuck together.

[56:42]

What's against life is for these things to be stuck. And because of certain patterns going over and over, things are stuck in our mind. And that causes pain, and so on. Yes? Well, ever since Anna's talk this morning, I've been thinking about, she spoke about the new movement. Yeah. What was the movement? about why we have to travel and see all of these different people. And it's obviously investigating the practices of non-living beings from every aspect. I remember I was asked to do things that were a part And then they, at the last minute, it just transforms.

[57:49]

And how does this traveling relate to doing life practice completely? It's between all of them. And I don't really, I don't really know if there is one practice completely so often, then why do we have to continually investigate for different practices? You don't have to. You can just investigate one completely. Anybody who wants to investigate one completely, That's fine with me. However, if you investigate one completely, there's absolutely no way you can avoid all the other ones. No way. There's no kind of like, complete is like, kind of like, well, is that complete then?

[58:56]

There's no limit to complete. What? What doesn't mean the end? Completing doesn't mean anything. but it's certainly one of the things it doesn't mean is it doesn't mean that in concentrating on one thing that you concentrate on your idea of one thing your idea of one thing is only one of the things you concentrate on when you're concentrating on one thing you're also concentrating on my idea of one thing and galen you concentrate on everybody's idea of one thing when you study one thing That's why when you study one thing, you study, when you thoroughly penetrate one thing, you thoroughly penetrate everything. Because thoroughly penetrate, thoroughly study doesn't mean you study thoroughly according to your idea and say, well, I did it, so, and yet it hasn't worked yet. It means you completely open your heart up all the time to one thing.

[60:05]

And that will mean you open your heart completely, all the time, to everything. And that will be that you'll practice this practice, and you'll also do the next precept, which is practicing good. Because then everything, all day long, will be good. You'll always be, you know, what, embracing and sustaining good. You'll do that every moment. And so on. And now I have to see that it's good that you look so depressed, some of you. And I have to figure out how do I fulfill and make the transition into the world where you look so depressed. Yes? What did you mean with these... This is to remind me of the precept we were talking about, and I wanted to come back to the precept of avoiding evil or whatever, which to remember that the precept of avoiding evil, in Buddhism, Buddhism's on your side, by the way.

[61:14]

Yay. In other words, if Buddhism, even in the old days when they used to say avoid and people didn't misunderstand that, what they meant by avoid was you should avoid the things that you've already avoided. Avoiding evil means you have already avoided evil. So when Buddhism says avoid something, they're telling you to avoid something which you can't help but avoid. They're just reminding you of what you're already doing. That's what I did this for. Evil cannot be established. It appears. It does appear. And it appears, you know, I don't know how often it appears, but it appears. We don't deny that it appears. We don't deny that people think they're half-hearted. that they're lazy. We don't deny that people seem to be lazy. It's just that when we say give up laziness, or like I said in the first class, consider whether you really would like to drop all laziness. We wouldn't even bring up dropping laziness if it wasn't already the case that laziness would never have been picked up.

[62:16]

There is no such thing as a lazy person. That's why we say please consider dropping it. We would not suggest you drop what you are. That cannot happen. But what you are is a being that always drops what it is. That's what we are. We're always transcending ourselves. So I did this to remind, to mention the main point is, in some ways, when we're studying avoiding evil, we should remember there isn't any. When we're not studying avoiding evil, we should remember that it appears. And it's powerful. And it's horrible. And it's a travesty. And all that. And remembering that is a wonderful, horrible theater piece, which we should be able to completely embrace the horrible thing. But although I say that, I still, I'm sensitive to how depressed you look.

[63:26]

And I don't want to laugh at you too much because that might be cruel. And if you laugh too much, then I'm going to get serious and get depressed. But that's okay, that's normal. What? I think some of us, including me, are sleepy maybe, not depressed. Yeah, see, I just said that to find out what was really going on. How many people are sleepy? Ah, they're the same ones that I thought were depressed. See, what do I know, right? Except for Arlene, I didn't think you were sleepy. You're doing really well, Arlene. Thank you. It's the pant that's keeping you awake. I see. I'm just translating down to try and understand. That's unavoidable. We're all doing that. We're all sitting here translating the universe down to our little system, right? Now, here's what I think is happening. Here's what I think is happening.

[64:28]

We're all just generating this little story, you know, this little fantasy. We just do that, you know, translating it down to the world according to Arlene or the world according to Reb. We're all doing that all the time. And repentance is to admit that we're doing that. And then when I say that, then you create this fantasy about what that means. Just keep trying to just walk through it like a cloud in the water, you know, just in and out and in and out. So therefore, there's kind of just this floating middle-aged form. Stuart didn't think that was funny. Stuart? He thinks something's funny now. What do you want to say? I wanted to say that the human body is a form that's been handed down traditionally.

[65:32]

Yeah. It's a time-honored tradition. It's one of our main forms in Buddhism. That's why I like Buddhism. Body and mind? What? Body and mind. By the end mind? Oh, body and mind. Oh, body and mind have been passed down. Yeah, that's true. Mine too. Mine too. Am I any? Am I any? Yours too, yeah. A lot of people have heard in Zen that the mind's been passed down, but they haven't heard about the body being passed down. It's important to remember that the body's been passed down too, that you have this Buddha body that's been passed to you. Congratulations. Please take care of it thoroughly. Yeah, and break that bowl.

[66:40]

And then glue it back together and do it again forever. And this should be a total ball. And this ball is so wonderful, because right in the middle of the ball, you can have these horrible, tragic theater pieces, because this ball includes everything. And you people are creative, and you're going to create always everything. Whenever I hear form, I always think of ceremonies. Is that correct? Yeah. Right. Ceremony. That word form, gi, means also ceremony. Yeah. And so ceremony, your life should be a ceremony, art, or whatever all the time.

[67:50]

So like, you know, right now, Tim has his knee up like that and he's holding, see, this is a non, this is a new form he has, that he's in right now, right? This is a ceremony. Fukanzazengi, Fukanzazengi, the gi of Fukanzazengi, that gi is this gi. The Fukanzazengi is the ceremony about the universal admins, the universal encouragements for zazen. This going into the zendo, you know, Bowing when you come in the door, bowing to your place, crossing your legs in this way that the Buddhas do it, that's a ceremony. Now, there's other forms of practice, like this one Tim's in, that's not described in the Bukkansazengi, but that can be a ceremony also. And the way Arlene's sitting could be a ceremony. She could write a text. She could describe how she gets in this position. Now, the question is, would this be a universal admonition or a universal encouragement? She'd have to think about that.

[68:53]

If she was a great enough Buddha, everybody would sit like this. A disciple. People used to say, you know, if Suzuki Roshi stood on his head, that's the way we would have practiced. When I came to Zen, you know, I came through these stories of these people doing these wonderful ceremonies of doing these wonderful acts of compassion. Those were ceremonies that they did. They're walking around, running into people, being kind, you know, in this really cool way, you know, that seems so accessible, so, you know, like just a finger's movement away from the way we usually behave. So cool. And then I found out that they all stood in their head, so to speak. You know, they all did the same ceremony. that all these wonderful, free-floating, wild, funny guys and girls who did all this totally creative acts of compassion, they all did the same ceremony.

[69:58]

Bowing to their cushion, bowing away, turning clockwise, you know, they all did that. Can you believe it? Of course, sometimes they broke the bowl, you know, turned counterclockwise or something, I'm sure. And, of course, sometimes they also sat in other postures. But the point is, they all also basically did that ceremony. That ceremony was a ceremony. That was their bowl that they passed on, that body they passed on. So then I started doing that ceremony that they did. But it's not really the ceremony. It's not really that one. That's just a bowl, which we need to break and move back together and transmit. That has to change. And it has to change in order for it to go on forever. And it really never changes at all. And it has to change in order to not change. So that's what I think.

[71:04]

That's what I'm talking about. So we didn't get to the next precept. But that's still possible. We can do that next week. Yes? When you were saying that... That whole ball is having also those theater pieces that are horrible or whatever. And then, you know, dramatic and so forth. Our job is to just, like you said, embrace it all and to just not become like, attached to or give more attention to you know this or that or the other but just like embrace the whole thing and just be at the same time detached from it and know that you are it partly yeah but also i'm saying to have the faith you know or to act to also be able it's not so much that you believe that you're already detached

[72:13]

It's not quite like that. That's more like a belief. What I mean by faith is that you can be attached because your ultimate concern is detachment. If you're really thoroughly sure that what you really want to realize is freedom and detachment, then you can be attached. We're already attached. But most of us do it with some reservations, almost as though... I mean, most of us don't feel like we're half-heartedly attached. Most of us feel like we're half-heart... Most Zen students feel like we're half-heartedly trying to become unattached. We're half-heartedly doing the practices which will set us free. We don't usually get down on ourselves for being half-heartedly being in trouble or half-heartedly, you know, being lazy or half-heartedly being attached. But if you're really concerned about being free and you really have strong faith that that's the life that you want to live, then you can be a person who is attached.

[73:24]

And it is through attachment that you verify detachment. It's through attachment that you verify your detachment. Everybody's attached. And that's what you use to prove that you're not detached. The people who really, really have given their life to freedom, the way they're attached is completely different than the way other people are attached. Their attachments, the way they're attached is completely different. And the way it is, is that they are completely attached and other people are half-heartedly attached. But of course, everybody's completely attached. Everybody's completely attached to who they are. They're never anything but that, and they're 100% that way.

[74:28]

Those who've completely given their life over to being free of themselves and to not being who they are, or to being beyond themselves and realizing what it means to forget themselves, those people are the people that are themselves and attached to themselves completely. And to be attached to yourself completely and to realize that completely is completely different from thinking you're partly attached to yourself. So now you must really be tired. Fortunately, if you want to, you can go to bed now.

[75:09]

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