So I wrote up here on the board a tiny character for emptiness. And then down below is the Sanskrit word upaya, which means skillful means. All the different kinds of activity that attract people to practice and convert them to practice and guide them in practice. And I drew arrows between these two. implying that, as the Vimalakirti Sutra says, something like, prajna sahita upaya, upaya sahita prajna. So, wisdom brings on, or wisdom is acquired through skill and means, and skill and means are acquired through wisdom. So they go round and round that way.

[01:02]

This is like the dynamo that makes a Buddha. This working, this turning of compassion and wisdom, the turning of emptiness and upaya, the turning of conventional thought of enlightenment, ultimate thought of enlightenment. Different ways of saying the same thing. They're turning on each other, they're enhancing each other, and they're purifying each other. So I think we've already talked about, you understand, I think, about how purifies Gurpaya. Bodhisattva does all these skillful activities to help the, but always emptying them. In other words, doing all these practices through non-apprehension. They're being empty. They're not being grasped. And also, the uttaya, in some sense, purifies emptiness.

[02:08]

And we don't just stay in wisdom if we ever would attain it. That's impure. Wisdom naturally is purified by compassionate activities. So this circle is one thing. It is emptiness whose essence is skillful needs, whose essence is compassion, whose essence is active love. So this is like a place. This is the way, right here. And that place, that way, is right here. How do you enter that way? What is the price of admission to this Buddha generating room? What's the price of admission? Let's hear it. Renunciation. Yeah. Renunciation is how you enter that.

[03:12]

You practice renunciation and you drop into this dynamo. And then you keep practicing renunciation and you get out of there. You grab onto that thing and you get thrown for a loop. No, you don't. You just say, okay, okay, I'm here, it's good enough. I'll just sort of like try to stay upright in this very intense situation of wisdom purifying and my activity purifying wisdom. The activity purifying wisdom and wisdom purifying the activity of the situation. And renunciation is how you enter this. You can try to practice compassion and wisdom without renunciation, but it won't You just get tossed around in your dream world. If you think you're having a hard time, well, you're not dreaming as much as if you think you're doing the practice, and it's fine. But you won't have a hard time so much, or your hard time will be purified of hard time through renunciation.

[04:19]

Okay, that's the basic situation. of the bodhisattva practice. This is the Buddha generating the direction. This is not the scenario for making somebody who's individually enlightened. Different scenario for that. And actually, one of the skillful means, according to the Lotus Sutra and... The Lotus Sutra is the big one on this, but also the Prajnaparamita, which I mentioned, It's also actually big. The Pancha, 25,000 lines, says this right at the beginning, three times, about how the bodhisattva does all these skillful things, all these practices, these paramitas, through non-apprehension, stands in practice of perfection of wisdom, and then practices the six paramitas, basically, through not practicing in a grasping way. And the Lotus Sutra also says that

[05:22]

The Buddha sets up all this wonderful stuff, like, for example, the Buddha even sets up individual liberation, nirvana. Because some people are really hard to teach, so he said, okay, here's nirvana. So, I speak of nirvana, but there isn't really a nirvana. There's no real nirvana. But I talk like that because it converts beings, it attracts beings, and actually gets some people to sign up for it, and then they realize it. Later I tried to talk him out of it. I said, come on, you can actually be a Buddha. Matter of fact, I can see that you're going to be. And your name's going to be up there like that. Many arhats working for you. And your land's going to be this big and it's going to be this name. So, we get in there by renunciation. And then one of the practices, one of the virtue practices that we talked about is practice of giving. about the precept practice.

[06:24]

So Bodhisattva precept practice is one of these skillful means. And again, as I pointed out, they were originally given as skillful means. Buddha, living in this world of the churning of wisdom and compassion, the churning of emptiness and skillful means, out of that churning flies out this gift, this skillful device, called the precepts, called the rules of discipline from the disciples, and the use of deliberation. Out comes the precepts. The first precepts that came out that we know of were these monk precepts. And later, the 47 precepts came out. These are like skillful means. The skillful means are the Buddha giving the precepts and then teaching how to practice the precepts. So they're upaya. And in Soto Zen, the Japanese variety that we inherited

[07:34]

It's the paramita, the second paramita, is understood as the bodhisattva precepts. Okay? But, those bodhisattva precepts, the way Dogen presented them, which is, you know, if I look at it, it's kind of neat. I shouldn't say the way Dogen presented, but the way we inherited them anyway. Who knows what he did? Anyway, the way we inherited these precepts, which they say are coming from him, And if they aren't somebody else, I think they have a good move, because the Bodhisattva Precepts contain the three pure precepts. And the first three, the first pure precept is basically, fundamentally, the monastic exercise program. The first pure precept is embracing and sustaining regular ceremonies. So actually, the the spirit of minute attention to detail and personal conduct in relationship to others, those yogic exercises are this first pure, including our bodhisattva precepts.

[09:02]

So actually, soto zen upaya, around the second paramita, is the bodhisattva precepts which contain monastic regulations and ceremonies. Now you could say these are yoga regulations and ceremonies. Ceremonies for yoga and regulations for yoga. But it's called monastic because it's yoga in a group. It's actually regulations and ceremonies for group yoga practice. And it's part of the bodhisattva precepts. So, okay. And I think that's pretty neat that we have to set up this way. And again, that nobody's presenting it this way except this school. But it includes, I think, the early presentation of the discipline, the training model for the disciples, and the way the community should live.

[10:11]

It includes everything. But instead of going back to the Indian, rules because Chinese and exercise program rules. And then it got changed a little bit in Japan, and now we've changed it again in America. But that's the spirit of it, is to make these rules are not fixed because they're supposed to be the appropriate response. I don't want to get off on this right now, but I just want you to remind me to get off on something. There's three kinds of ripe beer. OK, so there's a book called Saito, which I have out of the library. But anybody who wants to get it from me can get it from me. It's like the food is not possessive of anything, not even interesting books on the precepts.

[11:19]

It's interesting. It's called The Story of Sideshow. I came up with this book and there's another book which is interesting by William Botterford which goes through this history of precepts and stuff about Dogen. I just wanted to mention what he brought up in there which Dogen's first Zen teacher, Nyozen's teacher, Eisai, set up. But Eisai came back from China, remember, and he thought that the Bodhisattva precepts were important, which he was a disciple of the Bodhisattva precepts on Mount Hiei. He didn't reject the Bodhisattva precepts, but he felt that the four-part vinaya, four-part monastic regulations program was very important to realize. protect Tendai dash Zen Buddhism.

[12:31]

So here's some five points. First, the essential teachings of Zen lay in the for him both bodhisattva and . Number two, the asserted that all Buddhism depended on precepts. All Buddhism depended on precepts. He took this, you know, traditional presentation of Buddhism as, you know, the three learnings, precepts, concentration and wisdom. He thought that that should be practiced in a linear order. First precepts, then concentration, then wisdom. And he wanted to revive the four-part Vinaya to save end-eye Buddhism. Is that number three?

[13:32]

That's number three, yeah. And as I said yesterday, what he said he got in China was the four-part Vinaya and the Bodhisattva precepts from the Brahmajala Sutra, the 58 Bodhisattva precepts. which he also had, I think, received already in Japan. Maybe his understanding had changed. And he also said that monks should not pick and shoot, but should observe both the bodhisattva precepts and the sravaka precepts, the individual vehicle precepts of the Indian Chinese lineage. He felt that bodhisattvas should not pick and shoot, but practice all the different kinds of precepts. And he rejected, number four, he rejected the saying found in some Mahayana scriptures that observing the individual vehicle precepts entailed breaking the bodhisattva precepts.

[14:33]

He didn't agree with that. Some Mahayana sutras say that to practice the individual individual perspective violates the bodhisattva practice of the precepts, which is not about your individual behavior, but about how to help others. He thought that there That's not true that doing the individual violates the altruistic precepts. He didn't see it that way. And so one of his expressions was that a Zen monk could reconcile the individual approach to the precepts and the group or practice of the precepts for the welfare of others by In your outward behavior, your body speech and, well, your body and speech anyway, and also even when you think, that you would practice, you know, these, according to these individual vehicle precepts, and inwardly, you'd always be cultivating the compassionate understanding of your relationship.

[15:41]

And Suzuki Roshi used to say that too. I think he said something like, our way is, he used to say, hinayana practice and mahayana understanding. And we That's what Asai said. Can I repeat the question? That the essential teachings of Zen lay in observance of precepts. This is Asai. Also, the action, probably the way they said his name, That's what they call it. The first character can be pronounced A or Yo. So now people are calling it Yo-Sai. And I look at Jane, and if I could parenthetically mention something that Jane makes you think of, and then Ingen has his hand up. I just wanted to mention that Jane said something about free to or free not to, something like that.

[16:43]

Free to and not to. Free to. free to, free not to, free not to, free not to, free to, free not to, free to and free not to, free to, free not to, free to and free not to. Sorry. Anyway, I was talking to somebody yesterday about getting married and I said, you know, good luck. But also, I said something about, if you get married in a state of renunciation, you'll be fine. At that time. If you continue to practice renunciation in marriage, you'll be fine. At that time. And I said, when I got married, no, not when I got married.

[17:45]

First of all, she said, Don't get married for 16 years. I think it was 1970. Huh? What? What did he say to me? I mean, how old was I? Well, for me, no, 16 years for me. He told Mel to wait six. Mel and I were both in the room at the time. He said, you wait six, you wait six feet. He's 14 years older than me. She got to get married sooner, but after he waited about two minutes. Anyway, then later, she said, when you get married, a long time from now. He said, it won't matter whether you get married or not. He took that to mean, when you get married, if you get married, it better be, like, okay for you to get married or not okay for you to get married.

[18:48]

Either way, it should be all right. Free to and free not to. So, in other words, I think he was saying, when you get married, you get married in a state of renunciation. You don't get married because you want to get married. So... I think that's how I got married, that I thought it was the right thing to do, but, you know, if they came in, you know, does anyone here have anything to say which would impede this progress of this union? And if somebody had raised their hand, I think I might have said, let's go, Lisa. So I looked at that, and I felt like I could go either way. I didn't feel like it was me deciding to get married. I felt like I was... acquiescing to destiny. After I got married, though, I sometimes had trouble acquiescing to the destiny that I had to accept, that I had gotten. Sometimes I thought, isn't it interesting that I got this destiny of all the destinies, and I got this one.

[19:53]

Millions of other destinies, and I got this one, the most difficult one of all. Unbelievable. But then my wife reminded me, after quite a few years of resisting destiny, she reminded me... Basically, she reminded me of pronunciation, which was... You know, you should practice... I said, what? She said, you should practice uxoriousness. Uxoriousness. It's based on a Latin word, uxor. Yuxor. You didn't know? Yuxor means white. Hello, Yuxor. Good morning, Yuxor. White. And Yuxoriousness, my wife told me, meant devotion to the witch. She suggested I practice that. And I said, okie doke. She got me at the right moment. I had nothing to lose.

[20:56]

And that was the end. You know, This is what John F. Kennedy said, ask not what American can do for you, ask what you can do for American. Ask not what your wife can do for you, ask what you can do for your wife. The usual point of view is, what can my wife do for me today? Let's see, I'll make a little list here. Oh yeah, we could do that. Okay, here's the list of nice things you can do for me. Things you can do to make me feel this way or that way. Here's some things you can say to me and do for me. Ask not that. Ask what you can do for her. What can I do for you? Yeah, that's a space. I get chills at that idea. But actually, it is the end of suffering. Which is very similar to Whatever you said, Jane. Free to and... Either way.

[22:02]

But just to make sure it's either way, how about your way? Since my way is okay, it could be my way or not. It could be your way or not. But just to make sure, let's do your way. I won't forget my way, don't worry. So anyway, that's... That's that. How long did you wait? Hm? I waited, uh, actually, let's see, I waited 16, 17, 18, 25, 18. I waited, from that date, I waited four and a half years. I didn't really wait. It just, I never did decide. It just, it came, you know. I was sitting there one time, looking at this woman, I saw this huge wheel behind her. And there was another huge wheel over here.

[23:06]

And it was turning with it. They had little, what do you call it, teeth? What do you call things like that? Your eye. Huh? Your cog. The cogs. They were like going like this. They were going... And she was becoming the wife. sometimes you can see your destiny coming into focus and you can see that is where we're going folks it's happening it was like that she was not in charge of when it happened and neither was I but it did happen and his wife was there although he had left in a minute and she came up to me at the wedding and she said congratulations and she said And one more congratulations to . I thought that was true. So anyway, those are the points for Asai, right?

[24:08]

Remember him? Huh? I didn't say the fifth? The fifth is he identified Zan with strict observance of the similar to the first one. And then Dogen. I think it's a pretty fair description. Butterford and Hasdorgen meet each of these five points, and actually, she's different on each one of them. Oh. Oh, yes. Yeah. So said, do we practice zazen in order to facilitate the precepts, or do we practice precepts in order to do zazen? That's a good question. And what can I answer? Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Zazen helps you understand what the precepts are.

[25:13]

In zazen, you go into zazen, you go sit zazen, and If you already understand what the precepts are, congratulations. And then you go into zazen and you let go of your good understanding of the precepts. And then you understand what you did. If you don't understand what the precepts are, in other words, if you think that the precepts are what you think they are, you let go of your idea of precepts. So the nature of zazen is renunciation. Zazen means you forget about what you think the precepts are, but you have received the precepts. If you haven't received the precepts, you really can't practice zazen. Sorry. So you receive the precepts, and then in zazen, you renounce your understanding, and you purify, you practice the precepts by relaxing with them. So zazen helps you relax with the precepts. And in the relaxation of the precepts, you find what the precepts are. I mean, it's revealed to you in your non-attachment and your non-apprehension of the precepts.

[26:19]

But it isn't the precepts. It's that they're right close to you all the time, because you receive them and promise to practice them. They're right there all the time, and you relax with them. Zazen helps you relax with them and realize them. So Zazen helps not just to practice the precepts, but to practice the precepts in renunciation. In other words, to practice the precepts which throws you into the realm. The precepts are churning and being purified by emptiness. And the other way is, the precepts help you understand Zazen. In other words, zazen is compassion. Not moving is compassion. Renunciation and dropping body and mind is the precepts. If you think zazen, whatever you think zazen is, precepts will help you become free of that. So, precepts free you from sinking into some limited understanding of zazen, and zazen frees you from sinking.

[27:19]

understanding the precepts. So they work together. So precepts are upaya. One example of upaya. Also giving helps you understand zazen and zazen helps you purify giving. And also patience helps you understand zazen and zazen purifies patience. And of course concentration helps you understand zazen and zazen purifies concentration. And wisdom helps you understand zazen and zazen purifies wisdom. So all the different virtues go together with And the precepts are virtue that we practice. So again, the Lotus Sutra says, you know, the Buddha was, in the Lotus Sutra, the Buddha that's talking is called Shakyamuni Buddha, but he's really the Dharmakaya Buddha, the ultimate Buddha. face of Shakyamuni Buddha in the Lotus Sutra.

[28:27]

That's what Shakyamuni Buddha was too, but he didn't tell people about it too much. In Lotus Sutra, the Buddha says, tells the disciples in the Bodhisattvas, I look like, this looks like the Buddha's, this person, like, you know, born in India, he grew up and had a nice house and lived in a palace and practiced archery and left home went in the mountains realized the way started teaching got old and is now in the dark. That's what it looks like but actually that's not what Buddha is. Buddha is not something that comes and goes but Buddha takes the form of coming and going. And after I go you won't see this anymore like this but if you our present conversation, I would say, if you practice all virtues and practice renunciation, you will see the Buddha.

[29:28]

You will see me teaching the Lotus Sutra right now. But what he actually said was, if you practice all virtues and are upright, relaxed, honest, and harmonious, renunciation. Does that make sense? Upright, Honest. Soft and relaxed. Harmony is good. Soft and relaxed in relationship to everything. That's Vajrayana. And you do that together with all the virtues. If you practice that way, you'll see the Buddha. Right now. Teaching the books. That's another way to talk about it. And Dogen says, practice all virtues means to the water and get wet, and to enter the mud and get dirty, in order to help being. In other words, get involved in this gukhaya, enter the world, but in this relaxed way, in this up and relaxed and upright way.

[30:37]

Not relaxed in falling over, but not relaxed in falling over and staying falling over, but just falling and saying, that was fun, and getting up again. OK? OK, so those are the five points that is accused of having. Who knows? But anyway, nice points. And then Dogen, point number one, the essential teachings of Zen, why Dogen says, He told Ejo in the Zuimonki Zen is sitting meditation. It is mistaken to assert that the essentials of Zen could be found only in the observing of precepts. That sounds different than the first one.

[31:39]

He's saying that the essential teachings of Zen are not the observance of precepts. He's saying that to say that they're found only in that would be too rigid. So Dr. Ingram's question, when he says that the essential teaching of Zen is in the sitting meditation, I would interpret that as he's saying that first the monks receive the precepts, and then when you add the sitting meditation to it, and you have proper practice of the precepts. So the proper practice of the precepts is together with sitting meditation. That's where it's analytics. Okay, that's the first point. Make sense to you? You okay? You just... No, you. You okay? You're kind of going... You're cool? Okay. All right. Dennis. Danny. This is actually sitting meditation. Right.

[32:42]

Yeah, but when he says the sitting meditation I'm talking about is not meditation practice. That's what he says. And... I think one interpretation of that, it means it's not just the concentration practice. It's not the kind of practice that has the heading of concentration, but of course, it includes concentration practice. But it's not limited to that. Just like it also doesn't have anything to do with sitting or lying down. My wife helped me edit this... called The Ceremony of Zazen. She thought it was a pretty good article. It was, it was, before she helped me, it was actually, there was too many things going on. I was trying to guess too many things, and we condensed it down to that. I think that's an important point, is that there's a ceremony of zazen. Zazen. Ceremony of zazen. Ceremonies have a ritual form, you know.

[33:47]

way of doing. So we have the ceremony of zazen, and then there's actual zazen. Actual zazen is not the ceremony of zazen. Ceremony of zazen is a way to celebrate actual zazen. And one of the is to sit cross-legged and practice something that looks like concentration. But what we're celebrating is not concentration practice alone. What we're celebrating is what it is that's going on before and after the ceremony. So you ring a bell, ding. Zazen, ring a bell, ding. Zazen is over. But the exquisite peel of Zazen is going on before and after those bells ring. Zazen is not what happens in that period. During that period, we're having a party for Zazen. And then we have a party for King. Okay? That's the first point. It's not actually so different. It's just that Dogen is saying, basically, he's emphasizing, don't rigidly adhere to the idea that the essential teachings of Zen are the precepts.

[34:58]

Of course the essential teachings of Zen are the precepts. Upaya is definitely essential to Zen. And precepts are a big part of Upaya. So of course it's essential. But you have to bring emptiness together with the precepts. for it to be the essence of Zen. Zen is not just the precepts pulled apart. Emptiness. Zen is not just conventional truth. It's conventional truth and ultimate truth reconciled. Namely, there really aren't any precepts. These are just skillful things for us. And not only that, but I highly recommend these things which don't ultimately exist. And if you practice these wholeheartedly, trying to understand how to practice them without grasping, you'll understand what they really are eventually, at that moment.

[36:06]

Correct. I... I'd rather not suggest what you might be doing. All I'm saying is that if you think if you practice zazen in the circle of upaya, you think zazen is something out here, you know, in the, I don't know what, out here, the non-upaya area, the non-spilling means area, that's not zazen out here. Does it have to do with that? Yes, it does. Because if you take the precepts on your own, then there's not emptiness connected to it. You can't... That's not receiving the precepts. Receiving the precepts is receiving the precepts in a dynamics relationship.

[37:08]

In other words, it includes that I received the precepts, but I didn't get anything. Okay? So you do need to include other people in your reception of precepts. And if you've done that already, you've done that, and you haven't gone to the official ceremony X, but basically you've gone to the teacher and received the precepts, and the teacher, you know, you're not there. And you have received the precepts, but if you don't think you've, like, said, okay, I want to receive the precepts, and you're open to, like, feedback and pronunciation, or you haven't done that, then you haven't done that, then you're not in this loop. You're not practicing that virtue, you're skipping something which God then needs to include the practice of the precepts. God then needs to include practicing these, for human beings, not killing, not stealing, so you can practice God, and he'll show you. You can kill things, but then you're not practicing God. Like,

[38:12]

If this person told me in AA that you're an AA and you're a sponsor, or taking drugs, well, you know, you're an alcoholic, so yeah, you might do that, right? But you're not a sponsor anymore. Is that right? You get de-sponsored. I mean, you don't get to be a sponsor anymore because you're not doing the practice. So, yes. If you don't receive the precepts, if you're not practicing these things, if you're not doing these virtues, you're not practicing Zazen. But to do these practices, it's still not enough. You have to do these practices in the association with Zazen. So, part of what is necessary is to be open to the possibility that you're not practicing Zazen. If you come to this monastery or any monastery, any place on the planet, And you're doing the practice of zazen, and you're kind of like, hey, I'm generally speaking pretty open, but I'm not open to the possibility of doing the practice.

[39:21]

Well, then you're not doing the practice. If you're not open to the possibility that you're a total, at least conventionally speaking, fraud, then you know I wouldn't say that you are a fraud. Because you're really not a fraud. But if you're closed to being a fraud, that's because you think a fraud is really such a thing as fraud. But if you're open to being a fraud, if you're open to that maybe what you're doing up there has not much to do with Buddha's zazen, then I think you might be starting to enter into Buddha's zazen, the fact that you're open to that. You know, Buddha is open to the fact that Buddha is, you know, really not really Buddha. And Buddha zazen is open to them. Buddha zazen is not really Buddha zazen, so maybe I'm not doing it. And then you can also, like, check out a few things to find out that actually it's, in fact, I was open to it, and it looks like, actually, yeah, I'm not practicing zazen. There isn't zazen here, but there is, seems to be this, conventionally speaking, a lot of clinging and tension and closed-mindedness and attachment and violating precepts.

[40:34]

We've got that going here. But when you're open to that, when you're open to that, you're starting to enter zazen again. Your openness to notice precept violation means you're entering into precept practice. Okay? We could go on with this, but get the feeling. So, but I'm not trying to encourage you to do anything, anything. This question is related to next. It's related, yeah. So I'm interested in what do you see for presets from the future? Does that mean ? And if so, what happens ? So, let's see, the question is, if someone has not received the precepts in formal ceremony, and they're trying to practice the precepts, and they haven't told the teacher that they're trying to practice the precepts, they haven't gone to the teacher and said, I'm trying to practice the precepts.

[41:59]

Well, let's be specific. Let's make a specific example. We'll deal with one at a time. There's many examples we can deal with, which we are actually dealing with. Okay, so you have a person who's trying to practice the Bodhisattva precepts, and they haven't talked to a teacher, or they have talked to a teacher. You could choose. Okay, what did they say when they talked to the teacher? I'm in this community. I've entered Buddhist monastery. I've received Buddhist precepts. I've come to you to say so. I'm having trouble with this precept in particular. And does this Zen student say anything more at this point? So for your teaching, this is the next thing that she says. Can you help me?

[43:05]

Can you help me? Can you help me get some perspective on this? And then the teacher says, do you want me to give you feedback on how you're practicing? And you say, OK, this is getting to be like a ceremony. not practicing the precept unilaterally anymore this is like saying declaring declaring that you want to practice them to somebody asking that person to help you this is like what we do in ceremony if you do that you basically have gone through this is this is this is a ceremony where you actually go there and you confess I have I want to practice the precepts I'm having trouble practicing the precepts in other words all my ancient twisted karma I confess it And I want your help to practice it. And I give you, the way I want your help is, I'm going to tell you how I'm working with him, and I want your feedback. This is like, in fact, the ceremony. That's been the key on this ceremony. And the fact that you're going there and saying, you know, I want to do this, and I want your help, is kind of like part of renunciation.

[44:12]

Nothing. I want to practice the precepts, but I'm going to keep them to myself. I'm going to decide when I'm practicing them. me to decide or to think that I'm practicing pretty well. That's fine. Some people think they're practicing precepts pretty well. Some people think they're not good at practicing precepts. That's okay. You're probably going to think one or the other or somewhere confusedly in between. Or try to give yourself a lobotomy so you don't have to do that. Anyway, pre-surgical procedures, you're probably going to have an opinion about your practice. But you don't just keep it to yourself. You come and you tell your teacher or the teacher. And you say, I'm doing great at these precept practices, but I'm not going to tell you how. And you go and say, you go and tell them, I got to tell you how I'm doing great. Let me tell you about it. The teacher says, my God, you're not doing great. And you walk out of the room and you're like, oh, I seem to have overlooked something. So in that kind of relationship, you're not practicing being glad, you have renounced

[45:14]

The idea that you're going to control the evaluation of them, and so on and so forth, all by yourself, practicing with someone, and you're not practicing with someone means you don't do it all by yourself. It means you can't do it by yourself. You cannot do it by yourself. You're actually doing it with the teacher and with them. Then that's what the ceremony is about, whether you then do the sort of official ceremony or not. I'm going to invest that, too. I will continue this practice from now until I realize the Buddha body. I will continue the practice of admitting how I'm doing. I want to practice it. I'm going to admit how I do them. And I'm going to admit how I do them in your face. This is the key elements of the practice, of the ceremony. And the name and stuff like that are helpful, but they're not as essential as the main ingredient. Because after the ceremony is over, what we're talking about is really the pivot of the practice in the future.

[46:16]

So if someone's doing what you're saying, that is a ceremony. That is a form. That is practically a regulation for monastics if they do what you just described. Does that make sense to everybody? This is a really important point. Yeah, and I don't think you could do that at this discussion, but I can see the advantage of building relationships because they can do it. So she said that could happen in any practice relationship, but she said the advantage of building a relationship with a particular practice leader so they get to know you. It could be with more than one, but each one you'd have to, like, build the thing clearly. You'd have to tell... That's what some people do is they see... And nobody knows that the person is committed to this. So with each... With one person and then another person, you make clear what you want to do and you check to see if they understood. So you have this container that will test whether you're really practicing the precepts in the state of renunciation.

[47:19]

The precept, just according to my idea, is not practicing. Practicing is out in the boondocks someplace, which is fine, but to enter this actual realm where the practice really lives, you have to let go. And you don't just let go and say, I let go. You tell somebody that you let go. Did I hear you say that? Yeah, okay. Thank you for telling me. And then the next time you meet, you say, remember the last time you said you were announcing with you? What are you doing right now? It doesn't sound like we're announcing with you. It sounds like you're like, right. What do you think? You're wrong. Do you think that's true? Well, yeah, as a matter of fact, it is true. This doesn't sound like what we talked about the last time. It sounds like you're attached to your This kind of situation is when you practice precepts. In other words, think what I can do for you.

[48:22]

Think what you can do for me. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I do. So, yes, this is related to both your questions, actually. Our last meeting, when I was talking about the Buddha talking about the first three Buddhas before him and the second three, the first three were Buddhas. They were Buddhas. They didn't give the disciplines for the disciples, and they didn't give the regulations for community, and their teachings didn't last forever. And these next three did, and Shakyamuni is of the next three category, where they give these structures so that they can practice upaya, so that they can practice virtue.

[49:27]

And those traditions, Buddha said, tended to last longer. And as someone has said, well, I would want to do anything other than being in a tradition where you receive the precepts and you pass them on. And somebody would want to practice that way. After all those first three Buddhas did, some Buddhas do not want to do it in a long-lasting way. And some do. But again, when Shakyamuni Buddha was talking about those first three Buddhas, he said these really nice things about them. Do you want me to tell you what they say? Huh? Okay, so... He's talking about what they didn't do. They didn't do this, they didn't do that. And their teachers didn't last long. Well, what did they do? What they did was... They habitually read their disciples' minds.

[50:28]

Again, I say habitually, but anyway. You could say they always read their disciples' minds. And they advised them accordingly. Like they saw, oh, this kind of mind. And they advised accordingly. Well, that kind of mind. If you practice in this circle, you get this ability to read people's minds and then get that mind that you're reading. But of course, what you're reading is that nobody had minds. That's one thing. Anyway, I'll try to not comment anymore. Once, once, in a certain awe-inspiring jungle thicket. And we got the jungle thicket. It is awe-inspiring. And who is there? None other than Vibhanshi Butsu Dayosha.

[51:30]

Okay, there he is, in the jungle thicket. It is an awe-inspiring jungle thicket. Because everybody's in awe now. The accomplished and fully enlightened read the minds of the community amongst a thousand strong. This is how he advised and instructed them. To one he said, think thus. To another one he said, Don't think thus. To another one he said, give attention to this. To another one he says, do not give attention to this. To another one he said, pronounce this. To another one he said, enter upon and abide in this. Then, following his instructions, their hearts were freed from taints and heartburns. True, not clean.

[52:33]

This is what we've asked for today. Thank you. Thousand monks raise their minds, gives each one their instruction. Through the instruction, they become free to not pray. Gives them the instruction. Gives them the guidance. Gives them the sabbita. Gives them the great bodhisattva. Yeah. No rules and regulations, but just enlightening. Zap, zap, zap. Zap. And then Shakyamuni Buddha goes on and says... And that jungle ticket was so awe-inspiring that normally he would have made a person's hand on hand if he were not free from dust or lust. I saw this movie once called Red Direction. Did you ever see it?

[53:38]

I think it's called Red Direction. This lady who had a car accident, I think was it? And then she went down the, huh? Ellen Burstyn. Ellen Burstyn, well, yeah. Ellen Burstyn had a car accident and she got injured and she went down this tunnel to the other realm. But just before she got to the tunnel, I think somebody said, why don't you go back? Did somebody call her back? So she went back. Hi! But she'd been away for a while. She went to Nirvana, I guess. It's Nirvana down there. Stay peaceful out there for a little while. So she went up there and she touched Nirvana, but she didn't, like, go spinning into her next rebirth. She went back to visit us after getting the glimpse. And then she was kind of injured, and I don't know exactly what happened, but anyway, she noticed that her hands had changed. And then when she touched things, like herself, the healing happened, right? She only remembers that it's Ellen Burstein.

[54:45]

Do you remember that it was Sam Shepard, too? Her boyfriend was Sam Shepard. What? Her husband was killed. So anyway, she notices that she can heal. When she touches him, she can heal. She can... And then we, as it unfolds, we notice that she sort of takes on their suffering and passes it through her. And it's a little hard on her, but then they're okay. And this is awe-inspiring, isn't it? If anybody was, what is it? It isn't awe-inspiring to the Buddha. Buddha's kind of like, well, so what? Yeah, yeah, fine. But if you have any lust or anything and you see this, you kind of go, wow. That is cool. I want to do that. Or, you know, where did you get that? So she did this, and it was awe-inspiring. And then Sam Shepard shot her.

[55:47]

I think you're welcome to. Anyway, you know, the tent under which she did this, the tabernacle in which she was, like, doing this thing, the cute, warm, awe-inspiring group got bigger and bigger. That's what Buddha said to me. We don't have to make any rules yet, but as we grow, we might have to make some rules. If we don't make rules, the thing will disperse. So what she finally had to do is she had to get out of the tent. She went to work in a gas station. And then when people came through, the gas station... What do you mean by the regular action? Like this is... What are you reading there, Diamond? But she wouldn't touch you unless you had cancer or something. If you were fine, she'd just give you the gas. But if you were sick, her hand would come over. Nobody would know. It wouldn't be awe-inspiring. And those with lust wouldn't say, hey, what she got.

[56:47]

So that's the way it is for some Buddhas, some Bodhisattvas. It doesn't work. and then to let people know they're doing it because there's too much awe-inspiring. Our bulletproof. Don't mind getting, like, shot for the awe-inspiring side of things. And so they get up there and they say, okay, it's happening, folks, you know, and here's some precepts. We can make an institution which attract people and make it more awe-inspiring, you know. To... You make a seat, you know, the word... Cathedral comes from cathedra, which means a seat. So you have a cathedral, and you put a seat in the cathedral, and then when somebody gets up and sits in that seat, with the architecture and everything, it's kind of like awe-inspiring. Like, look at the pope. Look at the abbot. Something happens in that situation. It's the power of the geomancy of spiritual life starts flowing in a certain way. But you also can shoot those people. So sometimes you feel like, well,

[57:52]

I think it'd be better if I worked a few more years, so I'm just going to get all of this in. So, Melissa was asking, isn't that other way that they're going to put okay? In other words, we won't put the sign up saying, precepts here. And now I use precepts, but precepts under supervision. Precepts in a state of renunciation, and it's accomplished here. Come on. You've got to try if you're willing to. Some people don't put that sign up just for around in the world. Some of them have gone through that training program. But then they think, this is not for me. I don't want to be an abbot. I don't want to be a pope. I don't even want to be a priest. I don't want to be a priest at Mass. But I want to bless people. I don't want to do that part. So they do that way. And I mentioned to Melissa that the Master Ma, who did, you know, we visited his temple in the city of Nanchang, right?

[59:02]

Nanchang City. We visited his temple, which, as you know, the format of the temple is like maybe twice as big as the area of Patriot, would you say? Layout. a pretty good-sized temple. But they told us that originally the temple was such that at night the fire watch would ride a horse to put out the lights around the temple. And it took them all night or something to put out the lights. In other words, most of what is non-Chang City now was lots of temples in the 10th century. 9th century. 9th century. And He had thousands and thousands of disciples, this Zen teacher. And he had 139 recognized successors. And I believe 89 of them put out the sign saying, precepts here, you know, and Zen teaching here.

[60:09]

So about 50 of them were out there in the world hitting. doing their thing. So that's another way you can do it. So we're doing this other kind of thing, Buddha or Bodhisattva, which is not necessarily setting up an institution or providing the precepts. But they went through that training themselves. So in order to become a purveyor, you may need to go but you may not need to give a training program. Like my friend, I told you about, he's not giving a training program, but he's, I think, blessing people. Because he's, Bodhichitta has taken over his life. He's blessing people, but he doesn't have a temple. He's not giving the precepts and stuff like that. A legitimate way of conducting business. So I don't want to put that way down. And there's two things I want to mention before I answer these questions that I felt bad about after the last.

[61:12]

Not bad, I just wanted to update Two things I said last time. I said I don't want to be a bodhisattva. In other words, I want to be a bodhisattva. But when I say I don't want to be arhat, what I mean is I don't seek being an arhat. That's what I mean. If one of you came over to me and tapped me, and suddenly I understood what arhats understand, hey, thank you. I have no problem with that. have an understanding for the purposes of not being reborn. I want to be reborn forever until all beings are cooked. And so I don't want to be, like, me get out first. But if I had the exit equipment, if you want to give me the exit equipment, I would. So, oh, you press this button, you get out of here. That's what I need. And then also I get to see this other step here. I can use this. You see the difference? I don't want to be Arhat, but if you make me an Arhat, fine.

[62:13]

And the other thing I said was, we don't talk so much about the 16 Bodhisattva precepts, we mostly talk about monastic regulations. You know why I said that yesterday? That's not true. What I meant was, in our practice committee meetings, in our abbot meetings, we mostly talk about the monastic regulations. But actually in Doksan, we, I think, more often talk about the Bodhisattva precepts. I feel like I was slandered by somebody, or I praised myself at the expense of others, or I think I kind of stole something, or I think I told a lie. It's these more relational things, actually, that we often talk about in Doksana. So we actually do talk about the sixteen Bodhisattva precepts. And I would guess, it's one of my guesses, what's wrong with Tendai Buddhism in Japan? with just having the Bodhisattva precepts is that the monks were not going to their teacher enough to talk about the Bodhisattva precepts. If you share how you're practicing, they get specific. But if you don't have a teacher and you have these rules, you don't really know what's okay with our teacher because you have these rules and you know.

[63:22]

I took six cookies and you're only supposed to have one. I took food at this time. You're not supposed to. It's very clear. You can catch yourself. It's very fine. When you're big, you need help. Actually, you can help the little ones, too. And you get it because the other moths are watching you all the time. So really, we talk about both. Does that make sense? It's just a sort of different environment. We usually practice doing it. We don't talk about people lying and stealing. We talk about the forms of the practice and trying to be clear on each other, how they're going. Sometimes we change it, actually, as you see. We think it's too much or too little. It's too tight. It's too precious. Or it's too tight. Or it's too loose. It's too clean. It's too dirty. You know what I mean? Our Zender's pretty clean, right? But it could get too clean. Half our Zender's okay. It's just too clean. Sometimes they're too clean. We used to have lamps, you know. Sometimes they were too clean. Too much.

[64:26]

You know that Zen story about the tea master who asked the guy to clean the yard? We were They clean the garden. He comes out. The guy cleans the garden. He says, no, not yet. So he cleans some more. He looks around. Every minute little thing, no, not yet. So what's the matter? The teacher takes a tree and shakes it. The leaves come down. So he can get too good at precepts. So we talk about that. We also talk about the bodhisattva precepts. What is taking refuge? What is disparaging the triple treasure? I think I disparage the triple treasure. I think I praise myself at the expense of you. I think you're praising yourself at the expense of me. Or whatever. And I just, when I praise myself at the expense of me, I just have to praise myself at the expense of you. That's interesting.

[65:28]

So I take that back. We talk about, I hope we talk about hope. the monastic regulations, the ceremonies, and the relational compassion process. I think we need to talk about it. Okay, now we have those questions. I don't know who is next. Who? Marker? Yes, Svejko. Yesterday and today, I talked about baptism. So you said one of the benefits I mentioned about being a priest is that it gives you something called precepts, which is a nice thing to be able to give. And in this tradition, Lay people are saying, I don't want to do that.

[66:31]

I want to do the thing of entering the training program of transmitting the precepts and also transmitting the way of transmitting the precepts. What are the other advantages of being a priest? Well, some of the other advantages of being a priest aren't exactly only available to priests, but it's like when you're a priest, at least the way I understand priest training is that you are in a training program. are not necessarily saying that they want to be in training program. So I know some people who have received, for example, precepts, and for example, they come and see me or some other teacher, and they have a nice talk, and we talk about the precepts, and they go, they have no commitment to come back and talk to you again. And that works out fairly well in some sense, you know. People don't feel like, if they meet a person who's not a priest, and they find out the priest has received the precepts, and they say to the person, do you ever go to Zen Center or to some temple and talk to a teacher about how you practice the precepts?

[67:34]

And the person says, no, I just receive them and I do my best. Oh, that's interesting. But if they met a priest and the priest said, no, I just receive them and I just figure them out for myself, they might feel like, hmm, you're not under supervision? You say, no. I say, oh, I thought priests probably would be under supervision. They keep getting trained on these things. So you really, really, your understanding of these precepts is pretty much... I haven't consulted with the teacher about this. You say, no. I say, oh. That surprised you. But, okay, now I understand. In other words, you're like me. I receive the precepts, you receive the precepts, and we're both just going according to our understanding. Right? Yes. Oh, okay. But the problem is that some people don't ask priests that and find out that. So if a priest isn't in training, it's kind of a disgrace. Disgrace. You know, you're not, you're violating your gift. Because what's been given to you is that people think that you have been trained, and they respect you.

[68:37]

because they think you've been trained. But if you haven't been, it's really kind of a kind of lie of omission. So you're violating the precepts if you receive them and sort of put yourself up as a trained example of the precepts. So the advantage of being a priest is that if you receive the precepts and don't get training, it won't work very well if you receive that. So in other words, it encourages you to get trained around the precepts that you receive. But lay people can also set that up. So some of you, like Tolbert brought that up. So some of you who are so-called lay people have entered this monastery and asked me for training. Here, you're more involved in training than some priests are who aren't here. So it doesn't mean a lay person can't do that. Like Dogen says, it's okay for lay people to think like priests, or priests to be like lay people. In other words, it's okay for lay people to be in a training relationship. It's okay for

[69:38]

Not practice the precepts according to their own lights. Only. Of course you have to practice them according to your lights some. Not just yours. Get somebody else's lights in there. Not after somebody whose light, when it shines in there, and it doesn't look too good, you don't tell them to turn the light off. You know what I mean? That clear? No? Yes? Anybody not? So, you say, you can turn the lights on even if it's ugly, what I see when you turn the lights on. In fact, your lights, the lights are more dim. I look pretty good. Like the lighting is in certain restaurant bathrooms. But the lighting in this abbot's cabin, there's some old guy that lives in there. God, he's totally falling apart. Because he's got this like, I don't know, it's some Buddha lighting in there. If you want to see how old you are, just go look in that picture. Look in that mirror. That's the difference.

[70:43]

For priest training, at least the way I understand it, you are saying, I have to be trained because people assume I'm going to be trained. In lay training, people don't assume you've been trained, so you're not like taking charisma without protecting the training. That's, I think, one of the main things. Then the addition to that is that you yourself get trained, and you get an understanding of whatever the practice is, for example, the precepts. You get that training so you don't have to train by yourself anymore in isolation. We do the precepts with everybody, which is really wonderful. But laypeople can do that. It's just that they don't have to, as you know. I mean, we do not require that. We let them receive the precepts and lead talent. Remember, sometimes I give precepts, and they want to take the precepts with them when they go back to Brazil or something.

[71:44]

So I feel fine about that. But when they get there, people aren't going to say, oh, Zen priest, he must know something about Zen. He must be holy. They just say, oh, Joe Schmoe drinking a glass of martini in the restaurant. No problem, people. Doesn't it rock so long? If it does, it's a slob. It's blowing martini on his head. If it's a priest, people go, you know, oh, oh. You know, like, if you go to, like, especially if you go away from Buddhist center, you know, San Francisco, I don't know where, you know. And, like, you're the only Buddhist priest in the state, you know, if people come from All those miles, you know, like, uh, I think Olin Bernstein thinks he was, like, in Kansas or something, just like that. You know? You set your tent up there in the middle of the big, right? People come thousands of miles to see the great healer. When they arrive, it happens, and it's awe-inspiring, you know?

[72:48]

So you better be trained. You're gonna be in that seat. What? Well, I think the people, you're more ordinary to them, it's true. And also, a lot in China, only a small percent, three to eight percent of it, we heard two estimates, three or... Remember what the number was? Six, that's right in the middle, yeah. From three to eight percent, somewhere in there is the number of Buddhists in China. But if you multiply that by one point, five million, billion. It's a lot of people. So there's a lot of Buddhists. But there's a lot of people who aren't Buddhists who think Buddhists are really stupid. Yeah. Buddhism has kind of like that reputation because even Christians who don't like us still think we're kind of like exotic or something.

[73:50]

So in China, you're safer than in America, actually. But also in China, they pop you around the head if they see you doing, if they see a monk doing certain things, they come up to the monk, they know what What are you doing here? You know? They'll do that. Even if they're not Buddhists, they say, Buddhists aren't supposed to do that. Get out of here. Or, yeah, come on in. You know? Look at this lousy monk. But still, there's something good about that. Like, uh... One of our people in our group, one time went to... She left, talked to you, talked to our person. She wasn't a priest, but she was... person. A monk, right? You people are monks. Before you're here. You are. Honest. I don't know if you're renunciates or not. That's up to you later. But anyway, you are either renunciate monks or you're like non-renunciate monks. But you're definitely monks.

[74:51]

Don't you think? I do. Anyway. So she left here and she went to a Pacific Drawers, or Seaside. And she visited one of her friends, and her friend took her to a pool hall. And in the pool hall, she had a cigarette. She didn't inhale, she smoked. And she had a beer. And she played pool. I know she's gambling. And then she left. Maybe she went back to the monastery. I don't know where she went. She's the one who told me this story. And then later, after she left, her friend told her later that one of the people in the pool hall said, who was that person? She said, well, she's a monk at Kasahara. And then he said, well, she's a monk.

[75:56]

How come she's in this pool hall? Smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. And I don't know how she did it. And the guy said, oh, she's a bad monk. But she's not, you know, she's a bad monk. So you do this stuff, you're a bad monk. You're not just another person, you're a bad monk. So there's a lot to that. Otherwise, you just do it and it's like, no problem. I mean, like, no problem. Addictions are not a problem. I mean, I guess they are, but I'm not that bad. No, you're not that person, but you're a bad one. In other words, would you please look at this more carefully and see if it's really that cool to be doing this stuff? No, I won't. Okay, fine. Yes, I will. I'll look at it. As a matter of fact, I'll look at some other stuff, too.

[76:57]

As a matter of fact, I'll look at everything I do if it's upaya. And so, if you're a monk, if you're a priest, people, if they don't see what you're doing, if they wonder if what you're doing is upaya, they say, are you looking at this to see if it's upaya? And if you're a lay person, they might not say that, but I don't think they would say that. Myself, I think it's good if people would say to you, You're not a priest, but I notice that you're wearing, um, uh, armbands, jeweled armbands and necklaces, and you have a topknot. Does this mean that you're a Bodhisattva by any chance? I've heard about you. Are you, like, here to bless us and bestow upon us various kinds of compassionate activities which we could participate in? Yes. Wonderful. Would you please explain to us now how it is that this is beneficial and how your behavior is bringing blessing to us?

[77:58]

You proceed. And then they question you and say, well, I don't agree. And then you relax and you show them relaxation. And if you're relaxed, they say, this is beneficial. My God, I feel great. How can I get more of this? Come on over here. Here, sit down. Relax some more. Now I'd like to start helping people, too. I feel so relaxed, I think I'm going to give away all my money to some people. I think I'm going to start telling the truth. That sounds like a good idea, finally, because I'm not afraid of telling them where my money is. So I don't have to lie. Where's your money? See, I can tell. It's right over here. It's right there. That's my money. Do you want it? Yes, as a matter of fact. Well, here. And this is the kind of behavior that attracted me to sin. I don't know where my money is. It's like, you're looking for my money? It's right here. And not only that, but I wish I could give you everything. But this is all... But this is my first installment in my devotion to you.

[79:03]

So it's nice that people would expect that of me. Would you please help me? Aren't you here to help? Aren't you here to help me? Would you bless me? Would you bless me, too? Would you devote your life to me, please? Because you're a bodhisattva, right? I see that nice top now. Or I see that you're just comfortable to remove your top now, and now you have a shaved head, so now you're a monk. Would you devote your life to me? Would you help me practice Zen? Would you devote your whole life just to me, just to help me be happy? Would you please? Because you're Bodhisattva, so I can ask that of you, right?" Yes, that's right. That's what I said. I said, yeah, I vowed to do that for you. So that's the nice thing about being a big priest. It's kind of like, Bodhisattva here, call upon me, ask anything. I may not be able to give it, but I hope to be asked. That's the nice thing about being a priest.

[80:06]

But also, top knots would be fine, too. But, you know, nicely done ones, not just like, you know, intentional presentation. This is a fully sought-after. Is that what... Yes? Um, you were reading a story about a body in a metaphor. Um, what do you, what do you, except here, um, when the individual is back, back, back. Well, he did put up a sign. His body was a sign. And he's walking on, kind of like, he goes into the forest and suddenly a thousand people show up. So his body was a sign. But he didn't give them stuff. Like, to help. like the precepts and stuff. But it didn't give him a systematic teaching schedule that they could record.

[81:07]

He just did teachings for each person. So he was a real appropriate response guy. Well, I see the thought that arose, though, in that story, that did each of those people get free? Yes. The precepts would manifest. Exactly. That's what I was talking about with Melissa, too. So he enlightens those people, and then they're blessed. And their blessing, like, registers on their body and mind. So then they go and they meet people and they convey it too. And then those... And then they... So it does keep going. However, there's something about the physicality of the precepts, you know, that they're put in the physical form of words and that they're not just for this person, but a thing that's for everybody. That's... make it last longer it's possible that what what can happen is that apparently you're blessed by the enlightenment you're you're converted and released and you're and so there you are but you are not necessarily a blessed one yourself you are released so our hearts are not buddhas necessarily the buddha was in our hearts

[82:27]

But he was, like, working as a bodhisattva for a really long time, doing all this service to beings all this time, and then became arhat and Buddha simultaneously. Then he could make arhats, all these things. But arhats do not necessarily have the equipment to make more arhats. They can make some arhats, but since they're not Buddhas, they can't make lots of arhats. Buddhas can't make Buddhas. but they can make arhats, and they can make arhats who will transmit. And part of the transmission of the teaching of Buddha was that arhats make transmit with the Bodhisattva precepts, which contain within them the template or the model for becoming a Buddha. So this teaching can go on that way. So it's possible that you would get enlightened, But you wouldn't have an enlightened successor because they promise to find a successor. You make sure that these precepts don't get cut off. So in the precept transmission, when you receive the precepts, you just receive them.

[83:29]

But somebody receives the precepts and says, I will transmit these precepts to somebody else. It's hard to transmit to somebody else what was just for you. So if you get enlightened by a certain skillful means, that's not going to be transmitted because that was just for you. You're not skillful. Yeah, exactly. Bless everyone, but you might not be able to read their mind, see where they're clinging, and tweak it. But the precepts keep alive the Buddha and keep us remembering that it's not just personal liberation, which is really important and wonderful, but really, personal liberation is just a way to attract people to the wonderful work of liberating others. And it's a very powerful, you know, it's just like all the attractive things there is is complete freedom and bliss.

[84:32]

You know, something beyond the highest worldly pleasure we offer to attract people so they'll do that. You see how that works? You can receive blessings, be enlightened, but not necessarily know how to enlighten others. I didn't know. But basically, there's still some questions. Yes? Yes? Yes. Dharma Transition. Is that David Rick's book? No, it's a book by Lawrence Rose. Dharma Transition says you see two things, presets and fanatic regulation. Absolutely. Keep putting. Now I'm wondering if the Dharma Transition says we can get fear and fanatic regulation to create limits.

[85:36]

I don't know yet. I guess you could show me what they meant by the monastic regulations. But the precepts are transmitted, and then there are regulations for how to transmit the precepts, which are monastic regulations. So there's procedure, there's the precepts, plus the way of transmitting the precepts. Monastic regulations, you could say, but maybe there's some other monastic regulations. which could be transmitted, like we could give a person. We don't do that, but one. But we could actually make a little book of our monastic regulations and pass those to the successor and say, would you please don't get cut off. And one way to do that would be just to take care of this book, to make somebody else take care of this book. Another way to say, please make another monastery, would you please? That's a lot to ask of every disciple, but you could do that. So what does it mean that he received the monastic birthright to seek out the book? He was a particularly important priest, so actually the prophet did start some monasteries.

[86:46]

But he might not have actually. He might have just had it monasteried and inherited it. So we have to look at what the text is or what they mean by that. I'd like you to show me that. Anything else? She wanted to say more about free to and free not to. You didn't feel free to, and you also didn't feel free not to either. Because that would give yourself a hard time. Yeah, that makes sense.

[87:52]

Okay. So when you notice, you may be in a state of not feeling free to and not feeling free not to. But if you ask yourself, do I feel free to and free not to, just ask me the question, sometimes you feel that way. I think it's probably also the case that probably if you don't feel free to, you probably also don't feel free not to. For example, a lot of people don't feel free to speak in public. And they think they could feel free not to, right? Right now, as I'm speaking, none of you are talking. You're free not to. Some of you might not actually feel free not to. Some of you might feel like you're betraying yourself by not answering my speaking. So, I would say, if you don't feel free to, you probably also don't feel comfortable not.

[88:54]

If you don't feel comfortable not speaking, you probably don't feel comfortable speaking. But as you say, I think it's true, if you bring your awareness to that discomfort, possibility that you'll be released. Especially if you're just relaxed and relaxed. Then you suddenly feel free to not talk or to talk. Is that the end of the questions? Okay. Any more questions? Yes. Two questions. Yes. So if, as a skillful means, we have set up the idea of individual liberation, then how does he, how does, how does someone get shaken up at that? You know, some people really get into that. Well, the way, in the Lotus Sutra, the way the Lotus Sutra says, you know, some people are really hard to convert. Some people are really hard to teach. This is in Chapter 2 on Upaya, on skillful means. It talks about these people who are difficult to teach. And if you hear about those people, you might think, well, I'm not like that. That's what those people think. I'm not arrogant and popped up.

[89:58]

Some other people who aren't like you were arrogant and popped up in a Buddha. I didn't know about to teach them. So since they were so difficult to teach, I resorted to infinite manifold skillful devices to help them. And the top of the line device is, I even brought out this unshakable, unchangeable, total freedom in your mind. There's not really a real extinction that I've been talking about. So he brings it out to shake people loose. And you're saying, what happens to the people who go for it? And actually, Sutra, and also in this Surangama Samadhi Sutra, Surangama Samadhi Sutra is really concerned by these arhats and these pratyekabuddhas because they feel like, what's going to happen to these dead-enders? You know, here they're kind of like, They're like in this spiritual coma, you know. What's going to help them? How are you going to get them back into the thing? And actually, when it comes up, they're actually, right, they're actually going to be on the Mahayana too, right, at the same time.

[91:05]

They're going to be, they're not going to work. They're going to be Buddhas too. In the Lotus Sutra, he goes up to all these arhats, people, already arhats, and he goes like, you're going to be such and such a Buddha. You're going to be such and such a Buddha. You're going to be such and such a Buddha. He predicts, you know, and then they join the Bodhisattva Club. After the Buddha says, you know, you're going to be a Buddha. And when the Buddha tells you you're going to be a Buddha, you're revived from your, like, you know, hey, I'm going to, like, check out of this and be peaceful forever. I mean, I'm already peaceful, but I mean, I've already got, sort of, in the body Nirvana, and I'm going to get the no-body Nirvana later. The Nirvana without remainder, it's coming up for me. The Buddha, by the way, We have the ceremony coming up pretty soon, the Buddha going into Parinirvana. The Buddha goes in Parinirvana, but the Buddha doesn't go into Parinirvana because the Buddha wants, like, the eternal peace of Nirvana. That's not where the Buddha goes to Parinirvana.

[92:12]

This is kind of important. Excuse me. But maybe I'll say it on the first day of session, but I'll just say it briefly now. The Buddha goes into Parinirvana not because the Buddha doesn't want to do any more work. He wants to be totally peaceful forever, to be liberated from suffering. The Buddha goes into Parinirvana so that there can be another Buddha to get out of the way. That's why the Buddha goes into Parinirvana. Parinirvana, one that you attain like... The nirvana happens when the body disperses. There's no five skandhas anymore. So that's the pari nirvana.

[93:14]

Pari means complete, perfect nirvana. So the arhats are going to have pari nirvana. They're going to have pari nirvana for a little bit when they die. But then there's There's other things, anti-Nirvana, I think happens after that, called, I want another, I like it, ooh. So, there's, there's Harhat, Dupari, Nirvana, and that's, and some other saints, Dupari, Nirvana, and one more life, one more, and after that, no more. So it's very serious about that, but anyway. But the Buddha saves even the Arhats of the Pratyekabuddhas from not being a Bodhisattva. Pulls them back from their nirvana. Pulls them out of nirvana. Come back. Come down here. Come on. Come on. Come on. Come down and be a Bodhisattva. They know as much as Bodhisattvas, but they're kind of like squeamish.

[94:16]

And they've got to come into the... Buddha finds a way to get them out of the most pleasant situation possible. There's these very high states of mundane yoga attainment, very high. And nirvana is better. I'm going to get them back on the farm after they see Perry. Buddha... I have to get an ah-ha down from our ship. No Arhats can even predict Arhats to Buddha. Buddhas can get Arhats according to these sutras. In the Lotus Sutra, the Arhat stops the Arhats that are alive with him from just camping out in Arhati. Bodhisattva vehicle. In the Samyuddin Machana Sutra, Buddha actually pulls these Arhats out of their attainment and gets them to join the Mahatma. Big struggle in that sutra. Yes.

[95:19]

It was you in the news. Kathy, another song in the news. Kathy? Yeah. Well, like, you know, there's a sign out here in front of this place. It says Zen Mountain Center, right? Tassajara. Zen Shinji. The sign. I don't know if you know this, but on the precept given here, did you see that part? No. Yeah. It's rippling wood language, but it's there. There's deception. Yeah. What do you want to ask me? Do I agree or not? Do I agree? Well, I would certainly say, in a place where there are signs, there is a possibility of deception.

[96:25]

But in a way, I would say, yes, I would agree that there is deception, because signs are deceptive. They're deceptive because they look like they are the way things are, but actually they weren't that way. So they're deceptive. We call signs deceptive. They deceive us. They hide all the truth from us. Even these skillful means, like putting a sign out in front of a monastery, they are deceptive of the entities. That's why they need to be company practitioners, to save them from their deceptiveness. If there's no signs, you can't attract beings to the practice. So Buddhists put out signs, which are somewhat... They enter the conventional world, and in the conventional world, everything is a deception. But the Buddhists participate in the deceptions. to attract beings to the practice. But they're not being deceptive because if you ask them, are you being deceptive? They say, well, not really, but I mean, I'm doing that thing which is deceptive.

[97:28]

I'll admit it's deceptive. But I'm not being deceptive. Conventional reality is deceptive. It means to cover. It covers up. Ultimate truth. So all signs cover emptiness. Emptiness is behind the sign. No sign of that. Is it difficulty in abolishing that? Yeah. All right. All right. Saying, no, she's saying there's some difficulty about this topic, and she said, no, in the case of pornography, where do you draw wine? What manipulation versus skill and means is another example.

[98:37]

What? I'll say this. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Oh. Yes. So we have beings who have brains that are interpretable. What's your question? What line?

[99:41]

Wherever you put the line. Look at this. On this side of the line, it's still pulling that side of the line. Your uniculture, wherever you put the line, that is an interpretation that you're making, which is, you can't help it, you're going to do that. You say, where do you put the line? I'd say, you put the line where you put the warning. You say, or maybe you don't even have a line, you have a gray zone between, you have like, this is deceptive, this is uniculation, this is scriptural means, and this zone, I don't know. You have lines between these three sections, so your mind does that. That happens. On the conventional world. Okay. So do you have a question about that? You find the conventional world messy? That is a, you know, that is something that a lot of people interpret the conventional world as messy.

[100:45]

However, some people interpret the conventional world as tidy. And one of the people who wanted to have a tidy, conventional world was Adolf Hitler. The German idea of beauty was... Messy. Messiness was ugly. Like those fantastic German Impressionists. Very messy stuff. Did you see that stuff? Do you know what that stuff looks like? It's very messy. Very yucky stuff. That's evil. So you look at the art of the Nazi regime, it's like one of these nice white ladies with an apron on by the kitchen table with these nice, light, white, cute kids. And his daddy and his stormtrooper outfit did.

[101:45]

He just got back from cleaning things up. And everyone's very happy. And this is Nazi art. Very clean. And if anything's dirty, Daddy will get rid of it and burn it up. And Daddy finds it very disgusting. But in this picture, we're not going to show that Daddy finds it disgusting. We're not going to have any pictures of Daddy going, that's the art which is not good art. So cleaning up the conventional world is what the Nazis tried to do. Accepting the mess, accepting the mess, accepting the confusion is called relaxing with the mess. It's called relaxing with the interpreter who's interpreting this as a mess and going to clean it up and get control. So that we can predict what will happen next. So you have noticed a situation where some other people sympathize with you.

[102:49]

And I would say, Be careful, because there's a possibility of being manipulated rather than compassionate. So you brought up manipulation. And the situation is that because the situation is messy, you might be tempted to manipulate it into being not messy. And that would be more interpretation-based manipulation to clean up the conventional world, which is the conventional world. is because we're all trying to clean it up. But we're not on the same page. So we're interfering with each other. Like Swayco's trying to clean up the farming industry one way, and the other people are trying to clean it up another way. They're trying to get rid of Swayco. Swayco isn't sure whether they should get rid of them. So if you notice that you're trying to clean things up, you might be being manipulative rather than skillful. But I can't say for sure, because it's not that tidy, actually.

[103:52]

But in the very question you asked, what are the kind of discriminations between one to see things up, rather than renounce your view that is messy, and jump in, and get all messy, all messy with the situation. Jump into the manipulation, like, some manipulation is going on here, and I'm totally involved in it. I'm not any better than the worst incubators. I'm not an incubator. I'm just one of the bad people. Okay, how you doing? Your forehead doesn't look relaxed. Looks like you're trying to hold on to something. Are you ready for that? Don't do that. It's 11 o'clock, so we probably should stop.

[105:13]

In the Buddhist cosmology, there's angels, and there are these celestial beings that live in various heavens. But in two worlds, in the Kama doctor and the Rupa doctor, the angels have physical form. There's physical form. And then in the formless realm, that the angels do not have physical form. They just have spiritual form. All celestial beings are angels. They're out there being pretty much cool beings of a celestial variety. However, ahads are not even in those realms. But if there are ahads, they're still spiritual beings that are not formed of formless, who are still available. And still, you know, wonderful, beneficent forces in the universe, just like the bodhisattvas I can do. But that's part of the reason why it's a tradition in this Asian thing of actually praying to these Parthas for their help.

[106:49]

They've gone to Nirvana, but they're still, you know, they're not opposed to helping you. They just don't want to, like, help us in this messy situation. But any way that they can get their help, sure. So we pray and ask for their spiritual assistance. So they're kind of like angels in that way, but kind of like transcendent angels. I say that they are. What I mean is that I somehow feel that that's what they are. It's in that context that I feel we're doing that echo, that third echo of calling upon them, calling upon them, calling them in nirvana, And also, if they're in Rangoon or Beijing, we're also calling it from there. Yes? Is there a lack of corporality? Pardon? Is there lack of corporality? No. Well, overall, there's advantages to corporality and there's advantages to incorporality.

[107:54]

They both, you know. They have different... They don't really have any... They do perform different sort of things. So in this chat, which we'll probably do at noon service today, are we going to do it today, the essay on the precepts? Hmm? Okay. Okay. In that essay, it says, talking about the three kinds of triple treasure, one kind of triple treasure is... The third kind talks about... can appear in the vast openness of space or in the dust. In other words, Buddhas can appear... in the vast openness of being, in corporal way, they can help us. They also can appear as the, you know, stand out from the universe as the Ammonic eyes. So both are useful. Put one above the other. Put one above the other. Somebody's got to leave nirvana and come down.

[108:59]

And tell somebody, ask you to stay in nirvana. Assume that you...

[109:04]

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