Accomplishing the great work of peace has no special sign. Can you hear that? No? Accomplishing the great work of peace has no sign? You can hear that. How's that? Can you hear this? Well, that's what he said. No sign means, not exactly that there's no sign, it's that there's no kind of like particular guideline you can use that shows you, oh, this is the work that accomplishes peace. It looks like this. In other words, almost anything could potentially be something that could accomplish the work of peace.

[01:04]

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that there's some fixed thing that you should hold on to which will assure your work of peacefulness. And then he went on to say, The family style of peasants is most pristine, only concerned with village songs and festal drinking. So this is, in a sense, a celebration of the path of Zen, a path of peace, and happiness for all beings and nobody knows what it is or what it isn't.

[02:10]

What we call a signless path, an awareness of a way to peace that has no signs But it doesn't mean everything's gone. It means the sign of peace could be this face, this face, this face, this face. It could be any of your faces could be the road of peace for me. And for each of you, the faces of each person you meet could be the sign of where you work to realize peace. As a matter of fact, probably each person you do meet is where you're going to realize peace at that moment. But still, how? No sign, no indication. It's the path of wishlessness, which doesn't mean you don't wish for peace and happiness. It means you don't wish that you could have some other opportunity from this one in which you would realize it.

[03:24]

that this person in front of you right now is the person you're going to realize the peace with, not wishing that you could trade this person in for another person, somebody who is a little bit easier to feel compassionate towards. And finally, the path is the path of empty, the empty path, the path where there's nothing particular to grasp about what it is. the path of where you look at what's happening right before you. And the more you look, the more you realize there's nothing there. This is the path to peace which has no sign. So how are we going to practice such a practice? At this time, a little voice comes up inside and says, help.

[04:36]

Somebody show me the way. So you might go to a Zen center and say, please, show me the way to peace. And what do they tell you? Just sit. How is that going to be the way to peace? It's hard to understand what just sitting means. So in order to help us understand what just sitting means, the entrance, the gate to the practice of just sitting is to receive Buddha's precepts. Because it's pretty hard to understand a signless, wishless, empty way to peace.

[05:48]

A way which says all you got to do is, and all you can do is just sit. And do nothing at all. But it's pretty hard for us to understand what doing nothing at all means So in order to understand what doing nothing at all means, in order to understand what it means to dedicate yourself to the welfare of all beings and stay close to them and don't do anything, in order to help us understand that, we receive Buddhist precepts. Buddhist precepts are expressed in many ways. In this temple, in the Zen tradition, we sometimes speak of the 16 great Bodhisattva precepts. When we receive these precepts, then we can enter into the practice of Zen, the practice of accomplishing the great work of peace.

[07:04]

we can enter into the practice of understanding what just sitting means. What are the 16 Bodhisattva precepts? First is to take refuge in awakening. Next is to take refuge in the teaching of awakening or the truth of awakening. Next is to take refuge in the community of fools who dare to try to practice the way of awakening. Next is to take the vow. Those first three are called refuges and the triple treasure. The next three are called the three pure precepts. They are to avoid all evil, to practice all good, and to live for the benefit of all beings.

[08:21]

Those are the three pure precepts. And then the last 10 are not killing, not stealing, not misusing sexuality. not lying, not intoxicating, or rather actually not to sell liquor, not to sell intoxicants, not to speak of others' faults, not to praise self without recognizing that everybody helps you, not to withhold material or spiritual things, not to possess spiritual and material things selfishly. Next is not to be angry, and last is not to abuse or in any way deprecate the three treasures of the awakening, teaching of awakening, and the community of awakers.

[09:30]

Those are 16 bodhisattva precepts. Receiving them helps us enter into the practice of just sitting. One time a Zen monk was practicing just sitting. He was just sitting. And his teacher walked up to him and said, what are you doing? And he said, I'm just sitting. And I mentioned parenthetically that this kind of talk is what I would call straightforward. This kind of straightforward talk is what's called just sitting too. Nothing special.

[10:33]

Nothing fancy, just calling a spade a spade. But it's not easy to spend your day calling spades spades. So he says, what are you doing there? He says, I'm just sitting. He said, well, then you're just idly sitting. And he said, the monk said, well, if I was idly sitting, then I would be doing something. And the teacher said, okay, what you say, you're not doing anything. What is it that you're not doing? And the monk said, even the 10,000 sages don't know. The teacher was very happy.

[11:36]

Later he wrote a poem something like, we've been living together for a long time from the beginning, but I didn't know who he was. Just going along together according to the flow of fortune. Even the 10,000 sages don't know his name. I thought about talking to you people and I didn't know who you would be.

[12:43]

So I was going to ask you, first I thought I would ask you, how many of you people practice zazen, practice just sitting? And I thought, well, aside from that being embarrassing, perhaps potentially embarrassing, maybe the better way to ask it, I might say, how many of you people have devoted your lives to practicing zazen. Oh, another way I thought of asking it, and I don't know if I just said that or not, I was going to say, how many of you people do zazen? And I thought, that's a kind of a trick question. Because zazen, or just sitting, is not something you do, as I just said, as you saw from that story. To sit is really, what we mean by sitting is not doing anything at all.

[13:50]

So when you practice Zen, you don't do it. You don't do Zazen. That's why it's many better to ask, who has devoted their lives to Zazen? It's not something you can do. It's who you really are. You can't do who you really are. Nobody can do who they really are. But if you sit still, by sitting still, you celebrate who you really are. You say, okay, one, two, three, this is me. Here I am. I'm not going to move from accepting that I'm this person. I'm willing to be this person. One, two, three, I'm willing to be a human being. And if I don't move at all, that means I'm not flinching. I have no reservations about being a limited person. creature moment by moment. So I don't ask you how many of you people do zazen.

[14:53]

I ask you who is devoting their life to it, who is devoting their life to not moving an inch from being themselves. I'm not asking who's successful in not doing that. I mean who is committed to and willing to devote their life to the prospect, to the possibility that in a moment you could be yourself, that you could be your limited self. And I'll ask you that, but I won't ask you to raise your hands. I'll just ask you. I have you. Are you going to devote your life to just sitting as a way to realize the work of great peace. So first of all, I think to myself, am I willing to make that commitment?

[15:58]

Do I want to do that? To tell you the truth, the answer is yes, I do. That's my commitment in this life. And the theory of Zen practice is that if you are willing to practice sheer ignorance, that is enlightenment. If you're willing to practice enlightenment, that's a dream. But if you're willing to be sheer, precisely an ignorant person, that's enlightenment.

[17:03]

Buddhas are those who wake up in the midst of ignorance. They're in the midst of ignorance, and they're not sort of in the midst of ignorance. They are completely settled and not moving in the middle of ignorance. They don't try to get out of their life. They're in the life of being an ignorant person and they wake up to what that is. This is the theory. If you're willing to be a mortal being and to fully feel your mortality, you will realize immortality. This is the theory, in a sense, before you try it. After you try it, it's something that you find hard to do. Once you do it completely, you realize it's true.

[18:09]

But it's very hard to give our life over to being an ignorant being. We'd rather be an enlightened being, or at least a little less ignorant than this. Most of us would, anyway. Someone came to me this morning and said, one of the things he said was, well, you know, lately I haven't been working, I have to admit, I haven't been working on anything in Zazen. Sometimes, in the past, I would go to the meditation hall and I'd sit down and I'd work on something. And going to the meditation hall and working on something is, I think, a pretty wholesome thing to do, especially if what you're working on is like trying to concentrate on your breathing or something like that.

[19:18]

That's quite wholesome. Even the Buddha recommended that. But that isn't what Buddha does. Buddha doesn't go someplace and work on something. So I said to this guy, well, you're not doing that, huh? You're not going to the meditation hall and working on something in your zazen? He said, well, why don't you go to the meditation hall and let zazen work on you? After all, that's more appropriate anyway. Zazen is not something out there that you work on or something that is created by you working on something. Zazen is when everything works on you. But our ignorant way of living the world is that we think we go someplace and do some work. We think we go into a room and we do our thing.

[20:19]

Rather than there's a room and there's something in the room, there's some things in the room, And then the work of the room is to create us. This is called a radical reversal of the way human beings usually operate. Again, Suzuki Roshi says if you practice zazen and you have some problems, Try not to think that those problems are something outside you. Try to think of those problems as really part of what is coming forth and working on you and making you alive. From the small point of view of me going to work on zazen, then I go to work on zazen, and oh, there's these problems there, like I can't do my work, or like I want to do the work of sitting upright and following my breath, but I'm having trouble doing it.

[21:31]

This is a problem. I wish I could figure out how to get out of this problem. Rather than that way, what is suggested is that this situation, what you call a problem, or this situation called being distracted, that you see that as something which is included in what you are, not something outside yourself. Your mind is big enough so that it embraces and includes all problems. As a matter of fact, your life is born through all these things. And that's why these problems work on you rather than you work on these problems. And then you stop trying to trade in this situation for another one. Even though if there were any reason to trade in this situation for another one, you probably have a good reason.

[22:35]

this situation probably is not up to snuff. So you're well justified in wanting to trade it in for something else. However, that's what everybody dug all the time, and that is the basic problem of human life, is that we're trying to trade this in for something else. Or as one Buddhist teacher says, we're constantly shopping. Shopping for something other than this. So the first precept to take refuge in Buddha, which means to go back to Buddha, means to go back to the place where things are working on you rather than you working on things. Though when we come in and give you a lecture, I come in the room and you happen and the lecture happens then. A lecture given by...or a talk given by a person, but that talk hopefully is given from a place

[23:38]

or away, which is all things coming forth and making this happen. That's why the precept of not praising self while at the expense of others or while not noticing how others help you points to this. If you think when you do something good, you did it by yourself, then even inside your head, if you think that way and talk that way to yourself, I did this. That's called a violation of who you really are. Because who you really are is something that's created by everybody, by everything. And if you do something good, which is great, it's because everything came forward and worked on you so that that would happen. If you're able to practice a period of blissful meditation, that's not something you did. So if you say, I practiced a period of blissful meditation, you're actually praising yourself and putting down or not saying thank you to everybody else.

[24:44]

To practice, to have a period of blissful meditation means thank you, folks, for helping me. Not just folks, walls and ceiling and floors and gravity and air. Thank you whole everything for coming forth to make this happen. So shifting from I do Zazen or I practice Buddhism or I'm working on something to Buddhism is practicing me and Zazen is working on me. And all things are coming forth and realizing me. Making that switch is the first precept. The switch from I'm doing it to I'm born through everything and I'm grateful to all things.

[25:48]

To make that switch is to take refuge in Buddha. And I would propose to you that if you make that switch, you'll notice that these other precepts are being demonstrated. And if you don't make that switch, excuse me if I get a little, what do you call it, fire and brimstone now, hold on to your seats. If you don't make that switch, then you definitely will violate all the precepts. Not really. But you'll think you do. And so will everybody else that thinks. However, the people who don't think won't think that. So don't worry about it. Now, you see, one of my main things is I like to tell jokes. But people don't usually get my jokes. But you just got one. So I'm going to give you another joke. I found this in the parking lot the other day.

[26:51]

It's a little bell, okay? Now, you tell me, what season is this about? What season is that? Christmas, that's right. Yesterday, I was driving my daughter to school, and usually in the morning, she said she's about... By the way, this story is not really about my daughter, so don't talk to her about it, okay? I was driving to school with this person who sometimes looks like my daughter, and in the morning she's usually very grumpy, at least with me. If one of her friends was in the car, she would be totally happy. But anyway, with me, for some reason, she's very depressed every morning, and I try to tell jokes in the car. And she says how terrible that she said, oh, that's so lame. Would you shut up, please? That's a terrible joke. That's not a joke. You're so stupid. But I keep trying desperately not just to make her laugh, but just to see, could I?

[27:54]

It's kind of a great challenge. Could I possibly make this person laugh? Tickling her, she'll hit me. Can I find a way to get in there and make this person this totally depressed, angry thing that she, whatever anyway, low blood sugar, I don't know what it is. But anyway, who can make this person laugh? This is the great challenge of a sit-down comedian. So she said, I hate you. And I said, darn, you didn't get it. She thought that was very funny. I thought it was pretty good too. I was waiting for that. Darn. You know, here she is, my daughter, she hates me. Isn't that too bad? I've devoted all these years to her and she hates me. Darn. Get it? She got it. And she laughed hysterically.

[28:57]

And I thought, This is what's called Buddha. In other words, I'm completely willing to be an ignorant comedian. I'm tempted to try to be something else. But really where it's at is to be myself, which is somebody who wants to make his daughter laugh. But also not just make her laugh, but who wants to be a really great comedian. wants to say something funny. That's me. I'm totally devoted to it. But it's not that I want to be a comedian. It's that I want to be liberated from birth and death. And that means that I do everything, I try, I commit myself to do everything all the way to the end with no reservation and not trying to be anything else.

[29:58]

And not only that, but do things so thoroughly that I can't even do them because I can't do anything thoroughly. In fact, I couldn't tell her the joke perfectly until she laughed. I can't do it. So it means that to do everything completely means I enter into the realm where I'm not doing it by myself anymore. That's the first precept. When you're not doing things yourself anymore, no longer will there be any killing. Killing the one-sided deal. Not to kill is your true nature. It's not just mercy for other beings. Of course it is mercy. Of course you don't kill because you would hurt if you killed. So you don't kill even little cockroaches or ants.

[31:02]

You don't kill anything because you feel mercy, you feel sympathy for how much you wouldn't like to get squashed. That's part of it, yes. But the deep meaning of not killing is that's who you really are. That's who I really am. Who I really am is something that is... given to the world and to me by all beings, therefore I cannot kill. I can't do anything by myself. And again, in order to realize and accept the gift of all beings coming forth and realizing my life, I have to be willing to be the little bug that I am. I have to be willing to be limited. And if I can be limited, I can be at the place where I switch from I'm doing things to things are doing me.

[32:03]

I can switch from I'm realizing what's happening, I'm confirming the way, and the way of all things is confirming me. I can make that switch. But I must stop all shopping, absolutely. Or at least I must start by committing myself to completely stop shopping for anybody else but this. Stop trying to trade in this reality for another one. This is an awesome proposition. It's a radical proposition. It's what's called the bitter side of Zen. which produces a very sweet fruit. But it means you have to drop everything other than being the limited place you are, which you can't drop. You have to own up to where you are and drop everything else, okay?

[33:10]

And you people look, what do you call it? To my eyes, you people look justifiably horrified at that prospect. It is very, it's difficult to give up everything. There's a new song out, which I'm going to go by today if I can. It's called Give It Up by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Anybody heard it? Give it up. Give it up. Even give up what you can't give up. Even give up giving up. Give it up. Come on, give it up. Give it up. Give it up, little doggies. So this is what's called, I take revision Buddha. This is the first precept. If you do this one, they'll all be realized. And again,

[34:12]

You won't realize them. I don't realize them. They'll get realized because you and I gave up. We checked out of any identity, any possession, any sort of getting credit for this thing. So I talked about this in my precept class the other night about no more shopping, just drop everything and just be Buddha, okay? In other words, just be yourself. And somebody made this beautiful drawing. It's a Safeway shopping cart. It's X out, right? No shopping. And there's a little balloon on the end which says, Gatte, Gatte. In other words, if you stop shopping, you will go beyond. You will be released from yourself clean. Because as long as you're holding on to yourself, you're not going to want to stop shopping. You're not going to try to get a little bit better practice or maybe even worse practice.

[35:17]

By the way, just I want to tell you, if you're going to shop, then shop for a better practice. Okay, I'd recommend that. I really recommend no shopping, but if you're going to shop, shop for good practice. Shop for the best practice. And you know what the best practice is? No practice. No shopping, okay? So that's kind of an ugly picture, isn't it? Kind of awesome and But there's a backside to this, and that is when you stop shopping, then you can shop with all sentient beings. Now, when I first looked at this, I thought she was saying, you think no shopping's where it's at? Well, I think shopping with all sentient beings is where it's at. I thought, oh, she's right. That looks much better. Look at how sweet that is. All the little cockroaches and rats and gophers down there. ants, birds that look poisonous, snakes, not to mention people, any kind of people. You name it, they're there. Even you know who, and you're shopping with them.

[36:22]

So, if you give up all shopping, you get to shop with everybody, you get to have a party with everybody. If you give up all shopping, you realize that all the people you've been trying to not shop with, actually you want to shop with them. That's the gift that comes from renouncing your trip This is realizing selflessness. This is taking refuge in Buddha. When you take refuge in Buddha, you get this. Huh? Yeah, right. And that shows why you have to... There's three treasures. When you take refuge in Buddha, you realize there's these other ones, too. And the Sangha, all these Sanghas are teaching you. The cockroaches are teaching you. The things you wanted to get away from, once you stop trying to get away from them, then they become your teachers and cockroaches say, hi, aren't you awake now? Oh yeah, thanks. But it's not that I'm, I should not kill cockroaches, of course, out of mercy.

[37:25]

I shouldn't hurt them. But really not killing cockroaches is my great happiness. Still, it's hard not to kill cockroaches. I'm glad to see you today. I have a present for you, little boy. Okay, that's it. You got my joke. May our intention

[37:56]

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