These three things, I'd like to use these three points to help us understand what these three points are. It seems to me that these three expressions are really the same thing. What our life actually is, is what we mean by Buddhist precepts. Just sitting upright is what we mean by our real life, our full life, and so on.

[01:15]

Our Zen practice of sitting is a way for us to fully understand what our life is and what it can be. And Buddhist precepts are to help us understand what sitting is, and sitting is to help us understand what the precepts are. When we first hear about Buddhist precepts, And in this temple, the precepts we usually receive are called the 16 great bodhisattva precepts. When we hear about these precepts, we have some understanding of them according to our our background, our conditioning, our thinking.

[02:25]

But only by practicing just sitting can we really understand what these precepts mean. Only in utter, complete stillness can we understand these 16 Bodhisattva precepts. And also when we practice sitting, thereto we approach it and practice it according to our understanding. But only by receiving the 16 Bodhisattva precepts and understanding what they're teaching us can we actually understand what just sitting is. So by stillness and silence, we understand the precepts.

[03:34]

And by receiving the precepts, we understand what stillness and silence is. Stillness and silence is not my idea of stillness and silence. It's much more dynamic and warm than it sounds. Just sitting still and silent means to take refuge in Buddha, to take refuge in Dharma, to take refuge in Sangha. To sit still and silent means to refrain from all that is unwholesome, to practice and endeavor in all that is wholesome, and to live and work for the development, the maturity, the complete welfare of all beings.

[04:44]

That's what it means to sit still. That's what it means to be quiet. To be still and quiet means not to kill, not to steal, not to misuse our sexuality, not to lie, not to poison ourselves or intoxicate ourselves, not to speak of others' faults, Not to praise self and put others down. Not to be possessive of anything. Not to hold on to anger. And not to, in any way,

[05:49]

degrade or abuse the three treasures of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. That's what it means to be quiet and still. And again, what those mean, each of those mean, is revealed to us by receiving them, listening to Buddha's teaching about what they mean, in silence and stillness. And also in silence and stillness we will find, we may be able to find out what it means to live. And also, in receiving and studying and being totally devoted to Buddhist precepts, we may be able to discover what it means to live.

[07:08]

Okay? That's a kind of an overview of the relationship. Between sitting, life, or maybe I should say sitting, living, and righteousness or virtue. Practicing the precepts. Also, I'd like to mention at the beginning that the English word precept means its etymology is something like pre, before, and sept, from script.

[08:56]

So precept means something that's written before. Or someone else said, . Anyway, a conclusion of previous discussion. So when you hear about Buddhist precepts, and particularly if I hear somebody say, in order to practice just sitting, in its true sense, we must first receive Buddha's precepts. If you hear that, you might think, oh, in order to do Zen meditation, you have to join this club. You sort of like say, okay, Zen meditation is Buddha's meditation, so I have to receive Buddha's rules or something, what Buddha tells you to do, and then you can do Buddha's meditation.

[10:01]

It's a little different than that. The precepts came before Buddha. First there's precepts, then there's Buddha, then Buddha teaches precepts. But what Buddha teaches us about the precepts, what Buddha teaches us about how to enter Buddha's mind, is not something that Buddha created and then is passing on to us, it's something that was before Buddha. And because of the precepts, a person becomes a Buddha. And once a person realizes Buddha, then a person naturally transmits these precepts which created the Buddha. Then if other people receive these precepts, they also, as soon as they receive the precepts, immediately are the same rank as a Buddha.

[11:03]

I'm not trying to talk you into receiving Buddha's precepts exactly, but it may sound a little like that, but I don't mean it that way, even though it is necessary to receive these precepts in order to live your life. But not because the Buddhists have these precepts which you have to receive in order to be a human being completely. It's because these precepts are already what you are. Or what you are already is these precepts. The first precept of our tradition is to go for refuge in awakening, to go for refuge in complete, correct,

[12:34]

upright, unsurpassable, awakeness, and awakening. That's the first precept. Sometimes we say, take refuge, but as Suzuki Roshi said, to take refuge is not so good, because it sounds like it's over there and kind of dualistic. Maybe better to say, accept refuge, or go to Buddha for refuge. And I've said... Over and over I've said this about the word refuge. So some of you have heard it many times, but for new people I think it's very important to understand the word refuge. An English word refuge is like the Sanskrit word and the Chinese translation. It has a double meaning. One meaning of refuge is safety, shelter, Something like that. Something you can rely on.

[13:38]

Something to protect you. But the root, the etymological meaning of refuge is from refuge. Refuge. Fuge means to fly. Or to fly away. So refuge means to fly back. Refuge is the return flight. So to take refuge in Buddha is the return flight to Buddha, you going back home. The first precept is go back home. Go back home. I go back home to complete, unsurpassable, correct awakening. I go back home to the teaching about this awakening and so on.

[14:52]

I go back home to the harmony between the awakening and the teaching. And the harmony is also sometimes called the group of people who are dedicated to return home and to practice the teaching of returning home. Those are the first three precepts, those three refuges. Again, when I hear these or when you hear these, you may think, oh, these precepts are again something over there. These refuges are something over there. But what these refuges are is nothing other than us, than we ourselves. It means to return to what you are.

[15:58]

and to do it thoroughly so that you're not involved in anything else but what you are. The first precept, to go for refuge in Buddha, means you're willing, you're completely willing to be the human being that you are. And as Manjushri Bodhisattva said to Buddha one day, for a human being, for a living being, to be a living being is precisely what we mean by awakening. Return to awakening means you return to you being you. And such a practice is, in case it didn't strike you this way yet, such a practice is, again, utterly ordinary, utterly common, totally not unusual, totally usual.

[17:37]

And it's very difficult for human beings to spend their time doing something which is ordinary, which is common. Not to mention something which is very ordinary and very common. Ordinary people and also people with some religious motivations. Ordinary people want to do something extraordinary. Ordinary people want to do something special, something unusual. This is ordinary. I think so, don't you? What is extraordinary is to be willing to be ordinary.

[18:53]

And receiving these precepts, these 16 precepts, by receiving these precepts, it is possible for us to be, to accept, our ordinariness. Accepting our ordinariness is sometimes called just sitting. But if we practice Zen meditation without receiving these humbling precepts, these precepts of ordinariness, the precepts of just you, yourself, it's pretty hard not to make Zen meditation or other kinds of Buddhist meditation, it's pretty hard not to make them into something special. As human beings, it's pretty hard. Basically, as human beings, I would say even that it's impossible for us to do anything that's not going to give us something, that's not going to be something we're going to get some improvement out of, some benefit.

[20:10]

in our mind that we think that way. It's pretty hard for us to be totally devoted to being ordinary, to be totally enthusiastic about something boring. Pretty hard for us. But when you receive these precepts, you are like a Buddha. You are the same rank as a Buddha, and Buddhas can stand to be ordinary. before Buddha arrives, or you could say even, first you could say it historically, you could say before Buddha arrived in the world, before Buddha arrived in India, for example, people always were looking for some special religious practice. They were looking for some powerful, extraordinary,

[21:13]

mystical power. This is what the people in India were interested in before Buddha came. But after Buddha came, they were willing to accept a practice which wasn't extraordinary. He was able to encourage them to do a practice which wasn't extraordinary, which worked to liberate people from suffering, which leads to complete freedom, but is just being yourself. And he was there, sitting there, just being himself. And they looked at him, you know? And when they first saw Buddha after his enlightenment, it wasn't like they sort of went, oh, God, look at that blinding light. You know, they didn't see huge, radiant auras. And there wasn't this celestial music.

[22:19]

They didn't see it. Actually, it was there, but they didn't hear it. What they saw was somebody who had integrity, who had demonstrated it from the past. And he went up to them and he said, well, I woke up. And they said, And they thought, well, he never lied before. Maybe he's not lying now. Let's listen to him. And he talked to them about what it was like being awake. And they listened, and they woke up. Another way to say this is instead of before Buddha came, you could say before Buddha comes. Before Buddha comes into our life, we're looking for some extraordinary powerful teaching, some extraordinary powerful mystical path.

[23:24]

After Buddha comes, we can do an ordinary practice. We can have our ordinary life. For a couple of weeks, I've been having some back problems. And today before the talk, Eno asked me if I would sit in a chair on a cushion. And I said, well, let's start with the cushion. And if I get in trouble, I can put my feet over on the floor and we can do something. I may wind up lying down. We'll see. I got back problems, and part of me, the human part of me feels like, I want to come in here and sit cross-legged, upright, you know, and I don't want to have back problems. I want to be liberated from back problems.

[24:27]

I want to show you somebody who is all healthy and happy. But partly by the kindness of Buddha, I recently found out, he had back problems. From around the age that I am, he had back problems. And sometimes he had to actually lie down during Dharma talks and give his robe to his disciple, Ananda, and have him deliver the talks. Of course, by his power, but. by the power of his ordinariness. But it's not by the power of your ordinariness, it's by the power of being willing to be ordinary. The Buddha is basically here to encourage us to accept our life. And this human mind which wants to be a Zen master or something, or a big shining Buddha, that's the human mind that wants to do that.

[25:59]

Buddhas do not think that way. Buddhas do not sit there and think, oh, I want to be a big shining Buddha. Human beings sit there thinking, I want to be a big, shining Buddha. I want to be a Zen master, or I am a Zen master. But that tendency to want to be something a little bit different from this, it's deeply ingrained. I'll even tattle on my teacher now to show you how deeply ingrained it is. I was traveling with Suzuki Roshi one time, and we went on a trip, and during the trip he got very sick. We didn't know it, but he had gallbladder.

[27:03]

He had a malignant gallbladder. We came back from Portland to San Francisco, and at the... At the airport, his wife and Ivan Rand were there to meet us, and they had a wheelchair. And they said, Roshi, you want to use a wheelchair? And he said, no, I'm a Zen master. But, you know, I can understand that. Like, I would like to sit up straight today and, you know, not fall over and stuff. But I know that if I do fall over... and either shut up or keep talking. I know that will encourage you. Doesn't that encourage you to hear that Buddha had back problems?

[28:03]

Didn't you think he probably didn't? Or that if he did, he'd just sort of say, oh, yeah, I have back problems, but no problem. Well, maybe he did say that, but it's no problem, and he couldn't sit up anymore, right? That kind of no problem. So he was liberated, but he still had back problems, and he still couldn't sit up sometimes, and he had pain. But the Buddha didn't wish that he didn't have pain when he had pain. He just had pain And when the pain went away, he didn't say, gee, I wish that pain would come back. And when it came back again, he didn't say, oh, crap. He just sat in there, sitting duck for his life. Or maybe he did say, oh, crap. But anyway, that's not Buddha. That's ascension being there, trying to be somebody other than this.

[29:08]

In other words... not taking refuge, not staying home or coming back home to this painful person, to this person in pain. So even a wonderful Zen teacher sometimes said, no, I'm a Zen master. I'm not going to ride in a wheelchair. I'm going to walk. Even though I'm in terrible pain, I can make it to the car. And he did. deeply ingrained habit to look like a Zen master, or look like a good person, or look like a good mother, or look like a good father, look like a good whatever, rather than just not concentrate on looking like anything and just be who this is. And trust that that's the first precept, and that's what it means to be alive. The word evil, as you may have noticed, is live backwards.

[30:27]

Okay? L-I-V-E. P-V-I-L. And that's very apropos, because that's what evil is. It's living life backwards. It's living backwards. which basically is that it's, here we are living, and it's like being someplace else thinking about what we're doing. Or thinking that we could be somewhere else from where we are. Or think that we could do our life. That's basically what evil is. That's the core of it. Okay, now it's almost 11 o'clock, and I'm going to introduce something to you which is going to be very challenging.

[31:36]

But I'm going to do it anyway, and I think you can handle it. It just is going to be a kind of a... It's going to be difficult to understand, but it'd be good if you could just sort of let it come in now, okay? It's going to be an expression, a kind of a Zen technical expression. to tie these together. There's an expression which one Zen teacher said. He said, life is the manifestation of the whole works. In Japanese, this is life is, the term is Zenki Gen. Zenki Gen. Gen means manifestation, and Zenki means the whole works, or sometimes translated as undivided activity, or total dynamism.

[32:59]

or total dynamic function. Life, life, life is the manifestation of total dynasm, total dynamism, the whole works. Life is the manifestation of the whole works. Life is the manifestation of the total dynamism of the universe. The total dynamism of the universe manifests every place in the universe, and it sometimes manifests as life. When the universe manifests as life, what can you say? You can say whatever you want.

[34:03]

But in fact, this is what has been delivered at these various places in the universe right now. And no one can do anything about it. To receive Buddha's precept is to accept the gift of the moment. That the total working of the universe has now come down to this. Yeah, gulp. Could it be, how could it be that the entire working of the universe has come down to this? And again, this, could this be? This is what's called no evil. That you accept that. that you accept it's come to this.

[35:08]

I just got a Christian inspiration. The Lord's Prayer, it says something like, Thy will be done. Is that what it says? Thy will be done on earth. Is that Christian or is that Jewish, that one? Huh? That Old Testament? Huh? It's a New Testament? Well, okay, so it's a Christian one. Well, Jesus was a Jew, that's right. Which reminds me of something else. I heard on the radio, One of these Bible stations, the song was, I don't know, I'm sorry, I don't know the whole song, but the refrain was, Would Jesus wear a Rolex on his TV show?

[36:22]

You know, if Jesus was alive, would he wear a Rolex on his TV show? These people, I guess, were questioning God. Some of these TV revivalists that wear Rolexes, you know, and have a lot of money. And, you know, my response to that, in one sense, my response was, oh, of course Jesus wouldn't. Jesus was a poor, you know, humble person, right? But they didn't have Rolexes then either. So you don't know what he would do. I don't think you know what he would do. You say, oh, I know Jesus wouldn't wear a Rolex. He wouldn't have a Mercedes Benz. I'm not saying he would or wouldn't. So my first response was, yeah, right, I don't know if he would. But then I thought, well, rather than get into trying to decide whether Jesus would wear a Rolex or not, whether Christ would wear a Rolex on his TV show or not,

[37:26]

whether you'd be asking people to send money in or not, rather than get into that stuff, which nobody knows, I thought, why don't we become Christ and then find out what Christ would do? That's what Buddha's precepts are about. Buddha's precepts aren't about, well, would Buddha kill a cockroach? You know? Would Buddha... Would Buddha have a heart trap for rats? And then what would he do with the rat when he caught him? What would Buddha do? Would Buddha ever get angry? Would Buddha go to war? Would Buddha demonstrate against the war? Those are reasonable questions, but just let him go for a second. And why don't you just become Buddha and find out what Buddha would do? That's what I thought. Discussing these things is okay, but who's going to decide during this discussion?

[38:29]

If you disagree with people, what are you going to find out? I think we should become Christ, we should become Buddha, and then see what Buddha does. The precept, for example, not to kill, does not mean that you don't kill or you do kill. As a matter of fact, Buddha says that both killing and not killing violate Buddha's precepts. Of course killing violates Buddha's precepts, but not killing also violates Buddha's precepts. Did I jump too far ahead? Buddhist precepts are not about doing or not doing anything. Buddhist precepts are about being Buddha and let Buddha live in you, and then let Buddha live.

[39:30]

Buddhist precepts are about returning to who you are and letting that person carry forth the practice of Buddhist precepts, which meet with the practice of Buddhist precepts is not to kill. But not to kill does not mean the opposite of killing. It's not a thing you do. Not to kill means no evil. Not to kill means the manifestation of the whole works. Not to kill means your life. Not to kill means live. That's all it means. If you think not to kill means not to kill, which is the opposite of killing, and you practice not killing, you will be an ethical person which is good, of course. But unless you receive the actual meaning of these precepts, you won't be Buddha. And you'll spend your life restraining yourself from killing things.

[40:35]

But Buddha doesn't... Buddha cannot kill anything because Buddha understands that life is not killed. Life is only life. And if you mess with it, it's not that you kill it. Messing with it is evil. Messing with it is living backwards. To leave life alone and completely be with it is not to kill. Life is not killed And life is not to kill. Life is not to kill. Living is not to kill.

[41:38]

That's what living is. All day long, 24 hours a day, what life is, is not to kill. And also 24 hours a day, life is not killed. And death is not lifed. Life is life. Death is death. That's it. You are you. I am me. That's it. Life is not the least bit fancy. It cannot be killed. All it can do is be lived. That's all you can do with it. You can't kill it. If you think life is a thing that can be killed, you violate Buddha's precepts. You violate the mind of Buddha if you think your life can be killed.

[42:44]

If you think that the entire manifestation of the universe can be killed, you violate Buddha's precept. That's evil. I'm sorry if I didn't warm you up enough for this. It was a big jump. But maybe during question and answer you can clarify this. Trying to... bring out a little bit more about what this means, that life is the manifestation of total dynamism.

[44:00]

Life is the manifestation of the whole works. Dogen Zenji says, life is just like riding in a boat. Life is just like riding in a boat. We row with the oars. We raise the sail. We work the rudder. Although we row with the oars, the boat gives us a ride. And without the boat, no one could ride. But our riding in the boat makes the boat what it is. And he says you should investigate such a moment. Every moment is such a moment. We live our life. But without our life, we couldn't live it.

[45:05]

And our living our life makes our life what life is. And we do this with all beings, with the sky and the ocean and the boat. We all do this together. This cannot be killed. This is what life is. Life is not my idea of life. Life is this total dynamic situation. It cannot be killed. Of course, if you kill something, you violate Buddha's precepts and go to hell. But if you walk around thinking about not killing things, you violate Buddha's precept too. You violate the Buddha mind because you're not thinking about the way things are. Namely, that there's just this living, living, And death is also the manifestation of total dynamism.

[46:18]

Death is also the manifestation. When you are dying, that is also the manifestation of the whole works. But life never turns into death. And death never turns into life or goes back to life again. Death is death. Life is life. Living is living. Not to kill is just not to kill. That's it. And not to kill is the entire universe. Not to kill is one precept. Not to kill is ten precepts. Not to kill is sixteen precepts. Anything else you do is simply a waste of time. Don't expect anything else other than just not to kill.

[47:22]

In other words, life is just not to kill. And also, life cannot be killed. Live that life. Live the life like that. That's also called just sitting. It's not something you do by yourself, and it's not something anybody else can do for you. Is that challenging information? Kind of hard maybe to... But anyway, it's really, I think, very helpful if you meditate on such a moment, such a moment which our life is, riding in that boat, the boat helping us, us making the boat what it is, all that.

[48:43]

Meditate on such a moment. Investigate that moment. They're all like that. That's receiving Buddhist precept, that's just sitting. My name just happens to be Zenki, the whole works, my Buddhist name. So sometimes when I'm doing ordinations, I had to write my name on ordination documents or on people's Buddhist robes. I write my name. Sometimes I write it in Chinese, and somehow I think my Chinese, although it's a Chinese person, probably think it would really not be too neat. To me, it looks pretty good. But my English handwriting, or my Roman handwriting, I don't think is very good. Particularly, I know on certain materials I'm writing on, I can't make any mistakes because this is kind of a special piece of paper, you know, with all this printing on it and stuff.

[49:51]

When I write my name, I often think, well, you know, whatever it is, however I write it, even though it's ugly, this is the manifestation of the whole works here. This is how the universe is letting me write right now. It may be ugly, but this is a manifestation of the whole works right here, which helps me concentrate and be willing to write what I'm writing. So I told someone that one time, and this woman said, it was so encouraging for me to hear you talking about writing your name, your ugly handwriting, and that you think, you know, that while you're writing the whole work, that that really is the whole working right there, the whole working right there. And she said, and your handwriting really is ugly. And I thought to myself, wait a minute, that was just an example.

[51:03]

I didn't really mean that it was ugly. And then I thought, well, I guess for it to really work, she really had to think it was ugly. I thought it was occasionally they're ugly, but... It's hard to be who we are. Even when we make examples, funny examples of ourselves, still when it comes down to it and people take us seriously, we say, wait a minute. I didn't, you know, I was just an example. I didn't mean that. I didn't really think I was that bad. Well, I'm not done with the talk, but it's been going on for quite a while, so I'm going to stop.

[52:16]

Because enough's enough.

[52:24]

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