This morning I would like to walk together, holding hands with you, dying with you, being born with you so that we can arrive at certainty about this true Dharma. I would like to go the subtle oneness of precepts and just sitting. And to begin with an old story to help us

[01:11]

our great ancestor Yakusan Igen Dayosho Yaoshan. Yaoshan which means medicine mountain. He left home and became a monk when he was sixteen. And he was widely acquainted with the scriptures and commentaries. And he observed the precepts very scrupulously. One day he said to himself a true person ought to purify herself apart from the laws. Who would believe that it is simply a

[02:21]

matter of being scrupulous about trifling actions. About doing or not doing something. So right away he went to the room of Sekito Gisen Dayosho which means stone head or on top of the stone. And he went into the room and he said I understand the twelve part teachings of the three vehicles for the most part. But I hear that in the south they directly point to the human heart. See nature

[03:31]

and become Buddha. This is still not clear to me. I humbly ask you in your compassion to explain it. And the teacher said being just so won't do. Not being just so won't do either. Being just so and not being just so won't do at all. How about you? Yashan was speechless.

[04:33]

And Shirto said your conditions or your affinities are not here. You should go to visit master ma. Accordingly Yashan went and paid his respects to master ma and asked the same question that he asked Shirto. Master ma said sometimes I make him raise his eyebrows and blink. Sometimes I don't make him raise his eyebrows and blink. Sometimes raising the eyebrows and blinking is alright. Sometimes raising the eyebrows and blinking is not alright. How about you? With

[05:59]

these words, with these words the master was greatly awakened and bowed. Master ma said what truth have you seen that makes you bow? Yashan said when I was with Shirto I was like a mosquito mounting an iron box. Master ma said since you are so you must guard it well but still your teacher is Shirto. When I hear what these two teachers said to Yashan I hear an echo of Nagarjuna.

[07:13]

In the first verse of his great fundamental verses on the middle way where he says nothing whatsoever exists that is caused by itself, caused by another, caused by both or without a cause. How about you? He didn't say that but you must ask yourself that after you read that verse. So this verse by Nagarjuna I hear as instructions in just sitting. There is no sitting that exists

[08:20]

whatsoever that is caused by itself, by another, by both or doesn't have a cause. What is sitting? How about you? And the same applies to the precepts. There are no precepts that are caused by themselves, by another, without cause or by both self and other. So these questions are about the nature of sitting and about the precepts and about the unity of these two I feel. If I look at these stories over and over and think about these stories over and over I might see a glimmer or a

[09:22]

flash of the light of these stories. These stories appear in a book called the Transmission of the Light, the Light of Zazen, the Light of the Precepts. In these stories you can see, you look again and again, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times, if you look at the story you might be able to see the light of the precepts. Maybe you already saw it. It's the same light. And the light that comes also in the middle of these words, this light's coming out. We have to

[10:40]

be very alert and be paying attention now in order to recognize it. We have to take good care of ourselves so that we can be alert enough to see what these teachings are offering us. They are opportunities. Yaoshan stayed with Master Ma for three years and developed very nicely. And there's more nice stories about their relationship, but today I won't bring them up. I'll just say that he went

[11:46]

back to his original teacher, Stonehead. So he was awakened with Master Ma, but his first teacher, the first one who showed it to him, who showed him the oneness of precepts and Zazen, was Sekhito, and he went back to Sekhito. And then when he was with Sekhito, the story I told you the other day happened. He was sitting and Sekhito came by and said, what are you doing here? And he said, I'm not doing anything at all. And Sekhito said, then you're idly sitting? And he said, if I were idly sitting, I would be doing something.

[12:50]

And Sekhito said, you say you're not doing anything. What is it that you're not doing? And he said, even the 10,000 sages don't know. So again, I point to this dialogue too, that even the 10,000 sages don't know this light, but it's there. Now for those of you who are

[14:01]

quite awake, please sit Zazen for a little while. And those of you who are sleepy, it's nap time. Take a nap. it's enough. Everybody refresh now. Because now comes the hard part. The stories are easy. So I'd like to suggest to you that

[15:10]

the precepts, as I did the other day, the precepts help us understand what Zazen is, what it means to practice just sitting. And the practice of just sitting, the practice of not moving, helps us understand what the precepts are. Tentatively, I suggest that the precepts show us the vitality and the glory and the magnificence of not moving. They show us the structure of vast emptiness. And not moving shows us how deep

[16:16]

and how brilliant the precepts are. How they're not much to do with our idea of what precepts are. They're much, much more interesting than that. Much, much more wonderful than the precepts. Than like rules. They are incredibly wonderful opportunities. And not moving initiates us into how deep and wonderful the precepts are. As long as we're moving around, we're dealing with the precepts in terms of our active consciousness. But when we come at the precepts from stillness and silence, we start to see why intelligent people would be spending their time transmitting them. So, this is my suggestion to you of how they help each other. Remember this person, our

[17:27]

hero today, Yaoshan, who studied the precepts scrupulously for a long time. But he was studying them from the point of view of movement, of thinking about them, of approaching them from his own mind. And that approach he finally found unsatisfactory. And by meeting these teachers and being directed to the place where being just so won't do, and so on, and finding what it was to not do anything at all, and to do this practice which even the 10,000 sages don't know. He understood how wonderful those precepts which he was practicing before were. So, I just mentioned a little bit about the precepts today.

[18:42]

And tomorrow I'd like to start discussing them with you. Today, I want to... I mentioned a conversation vaguely that I had with one of the monks here. I'll even tell you the monk's name. The monk's name is Solitary Cloud, Rejoicing in Emptiness. So, the precepts are a way to rejoice in emptiness. And a solitary cloud in the sky is a way the cloud rejoices in the sky. The cloud is a way for us to rejoice in the sky.

[19:44]

Of course, you can look at a blue sky and enjoy it, but if you put a cloud out there, one cloud in the sky, it gives you another chance to appreciate the sky. Precepts are like that. Put not-killing out in vast space, and it shows you how wonderful emptiness is. It gives you a way to appreciate interdependence and the relativity of all phenomena. Each of the precepts is like a beautiful solitary cloud in a vast blue sky. They're not limited. They're opportunities to rejoice in the teaching of emptiness. They're points of joy.

[20:49]

They're not to restrict life. They're to release and awaken and vitalize. Now, some people think, oh, if you're practicing Zazen, of course, you're not like ordinarily, you're not saying anything, right? So, you're not speaking ill of others. So, that precept's pretty well taken care of. In fact, I've almost never seen anybody in the Zen-do say anything, criticize or speak of others false. So, that one's, you know, there it is. And almost never is inappropriate sexuality going on. And really, it's pretty hard to steal anything either. So, in one step on kind of a childlike approach, in a way, if you're just sitting, you know, even if you're sleeping, still, you're probably not really breaking precepts too much.

[21:54]

Now, if you were awake, and you're actually just being who you were, or just being who you are, in other words, you actually were appreciating what Zazen was with your whole body and mind, then too, if you think about the precepts, maybe there are ways for you to appreciate how much good you're doing by sitting there. Then, thinking about the precepts, or meditating on the precepts, in the state of just being yourself, you start to realize that is a tremendous amount of good. It's not, it doesn't lack in dimensions of warmth and compassion and vitality. But again, I want to go into detail on these later. I just mentioned that briefly now.

[22:59]

More what I want to emphasize today is the other way around, namely how not moving, how stillness shows about the precepts, about their light. How stillness shows that they really don't have to do with doing and not doing. Already people understand that perfectly well, not only perfectly well, but anyway, most people think that rules have to do with doing and not doing. So the understanding of precepts as rules, okay, you've got that. When people start discussing that, however, usually the discussions are extremely confused and often lead to arguments, although quite good arguments about an interesting topic and maybe have good results. But basically, I'm talking about the way of studying precepts from not talking about them,

[24:07]

in terms of doing them and not doing them, but looking for what is their essential radiance. And not moving points to this. So again, not moving points to not doing and not doing, not manipulation of karma, but it points to Yaoshan's story of, what are you doing here? I'm not doing anything at all. The precepts then are a way to look at what is this that the 10,000 sages don't know? What is it that the 10,000 sages are completely dedicated to and none of them know about? Okay. The practice of stillness points to and reminds us of, or can remind us of, one of the false views in Buddhism, which is called, I'll do Sanskrit here for you,

[25:12]

silabharata paramarsa, which means holding, which can be translated as holding to conventional morality or conventional ethics. And one meaning of conventional is whatever you think ethics are. So if you think ethics have to do with doing or not doing, like killing or not killing, stealing or not stealing, that you do or not do those things, if that's what you think it is, well, then this view says holding to that view is a problem. Now let's say you have another view, holding to that view is a problem. Whatever view you have, that's basically a conventional view. Whatever view I have of what these precepts are is a conventional view. Each of us have conventional views. Some of us don't have conventional views and that's a conventional view. So that you have them or don't have them, all right? That's not the problem. The problem is to

[26:20]

hold to that. You would have to go out of your way not to have a conventional view of these precepts. And actually, as far as I see in the Buddhist tradition, people do not recommend that you go out of your way and try not to have a conventional view. They don't spend their time encouraging people to avoid having conventional views. They just say, everybody's got conventional views, let it be. Just let your conventional views be conventional views. Put them on the shelf or on the altar or in your file folder. Just leave them there. Conventional view of precepts. There they are, okay? Don't carry them around and hold to your conventional views. That's not healthy. So put your conventional views aside and then let's try to find out, what is the precept? What are the precepts? Now that we've got a conventional view set aside.

[27:23]

Well, let's sit still and look at these precepts. Now, if you sit still and you look at the precepts or you sit still, basically what you've got there is an example of this teaching which Stuart mentioned in his introductory talk, namely, the teaching that you've got a sentient being sitting there. You've got a living being sitting there. You've got a living being sitting there, right? And if a living being doesn't move, then a living being is being a living being. And that is precisely what we mean by awakening. So there it is. Simply by letting a living being be a living being,

[28:41]

the living being will awaken to the light of the precepts. So this is already on overload. How are you doing? Is that enough? Want to go home? One person wants more? Okay, we get more. Okay, so here's a logical, here's a little

[29:48]

logical diagram for you that you can imprint in your heart. Okay, ready? The conventional morality, conventional logic is A is A, right? Is that right? And A is not B. Okay, is that right? The logic of light or the logic of perfect wisdom is A is A, but not A is A. The fact that A is A includes that A is not A. Okay, you got that? Want to say it back to me? Okay, conventional logic is A is A, A is not B. And the fact that A is A is included by...

[30:53]

This is, now you're shifting to another kind of logic now. Right. What's this kind of logic? Well, it's beyond conventional logic. Yeah, it's beyond conventional logic. It is non-conventional logic. It is the logic of Prajnaparamita. Okay, which is? The fact that A is not A. And the fact that A is A. Is within the fact that A is not A. The fact that A is A, or A being A, includes that A and implies that A is not A. Okay, so when a sentient being is a sentient being, when A is A, that includes the fact that a sentient being is not a sentient being. In other words, a sentient being is a Buddha. Buddhas are not separate from sentient beings, but they're not sentient beings.

[32:00]

Buddhas are the fact that sentient beings are sentient beings. See the difference? The fact that you're you is your Buddhahood, but you aren't a Buddha. You aren't your Buddhahood. The fact of you being you is your Buddhahood. The fact of you being you completely is your Buddhahood. In the same way, when one is simply herself and nothing more or less, one is free from herself, and then one understands that the precepts, being precisely the precepts, is why the precepts aren't what you think they are. And the precepts are something that the ten thousand sages don't know, but they study intensively and understand precisely what they are seeing as the precepts

[33:05]

and look at them clearly through not moving, and they awaken to what the precepts are about. So, this is called this kind of stillness and this kind of thinking of, in this way, is called an unsupported thought. And bodhisattvas, who are dedicated to practicing the precepts, avoiding, you know, upside down evil ways and practicing good and benefiting beings, bodhisattvas need to produce this kind of thought, a thought which is completely just itself and therefore liberated from itself. Now, around Gringotts, this unsupported thought has become lately kind of a, it's being discussed around here and there and I've heard that people are using it

[34:09]

in various humorous ways. For example, if someone criticizes you, you can say, that's an unsupported thought, which is a compliment to them, it lets you off the hook. So, although it's a joke, it actually, you know, has some truth in it, some understanding of Prajnaparamita. This logic of light, this logic of wisdom, this unsupported thought is also what we call right view in the Eightfold Noble Path, it's the right view. And the initiation to right view can come through not moving. So, by not moving, you enter into right view and with right view, you enter into the precepts,

[35:12]

but also precepts help you enter into not moving, because again, you can try to practice not moving, but usually when people try to practice just sitting or not moving, of course, they approach it with their conventional idea of what that is. But if you approach, if you receive the precepts, they help you understand what not moving is, and then not moving helps you understand the precepts. Now, how are you doing, do you want more? I said no. No, you're all right? Okay, I'll just tell you what I would have done if you wanted more. I won't do it, I'll just tell you the name of it. The name of it is, what do you call it, no leakage, no outflows.

[36:14]

Okay, so in case 15 of the Blue Cliff Record, they talk about this guy, these guys, these gals who managed to walk through birth and death with all beings, who managed to enter the mud and water for the sake of others. And they ask, how can these people do that? They say, well, because they've ended all leakage. So, another way, another angle at understanding this not moving and this unsupported thought that is born out of, that is initiated by silence and stillness, is by this teaching of no outflows or no leakage. And in that commentary on case 15, they talk about this guy, this guy, this guy,

[37:18]

Dongshan's three kinds of leakage. So, later I'll go into these three kinds of leakage, which also help understand what it means to just let A be A, to just let a sentient being be a sentient being. And if you can do that, these leakages stop, and then the fact of A not being A dawns. On the other hand, if you don't let A be A, then you have these leakages, these three kinds of leakage, which I will go into later, and hopefully you'll be able to identify them in your own self, if they should ever occur. But of course, to most people, they do occur, especially, well, I won't go into it. So, we'll just talk about that later.

[38:21]

But I would like to tell one little story at the end, to kind of give you a feeling for what I'm talking about. I don't know if this will work, but this is something that just... Last night, the doksang went beyond the end of zazen and beyond the end of the fire watch. So, the person who was there walked out of the room into the dark. So, when I saw this person going out into the dark, of course, not of course, but anyway, I thought of a Zen story, one of my favorite Zen stories, and it's about this great teacher, Deshan, who's a teacher of great Zen masters like Shui Feng, and Shui Feng is a teacher

[39:29]

of Yun Men and so on. So, Deshan is a very important Zen teacher, and he went to visit this guy named Dragon Pond, and when they met, he came to see Dragon Pond. He walked in and he said, I came to see Dragon Pond, but I don't see a dragon and I don't see a pond. And Dragon Pond, Mr. Dragon Pond was behind a screen at the time and jumped out from behind the screen and said, well, I'll say it again. He said, I come here to see Dragon Pond and I don't see a dragon and I don't see a pond. And Dragon Pond jumped out and said, therefore, you see Dragon Pond. See what they're doing? They're acting out what I just said, right?

[40:31]

The fact that A is A precisely includes that A is not A. These people were like doing these little skits with the Prajnaparamita logic. Now, when they weren't doing those skits, we don't know about that because they didn't write that part down. But whenever they managed to actually enact the drama of this logic, it often was quite interesting enough for them to remember and say, so here's a story like that. Think about it. That's not what I'm referring to. That night, Dushan stood in attendance upon Dragon Pond, who was, I don't know what he was doing. But anyway, he said he just stood by him or stood in attendance until late at night. And then Dragon Pond said to him, it's getting late. Maybe you should go to go to go to sleep or something. And so then he went out and he said, it's dark.

[41:38]

So then Dragon Pond gave him a paper lantern. And as soon as he took the paper lantern, as soon as Dushan took the paper lantern, lantern, Dragon Pond blew it out and Dushan woke up. So as this person was walking out the door, I thought, maybe I should bring in one of the lamps. But then I hesitated. And the person just walked out into the dark fairly successfully from the point of view of her body not getting hurt. But I don't know if she woke up without that assistance. After she left, I thought, now, why didn't I do that? Why didn't I? Why did I miss the opportunity to play that game? I thought, well, maybe because, well, first of all, I thought, well, maybe I didn't do that because if you give somebody one of these lanterns, what if they trip?

[42:42]

This isn't a paper lantern. The paper lantern's safer in a way, you know. But they've got all this glass and kerosene. And I thought, well, maybe I did it because it's, or maybe I would trip giving it to her or whatever. So I thought, maybe that's why I didn't give it to her. The moon. But I couldn't blow the moon out. Poor boy. Then I thought, well, maybe that wasn't why I didn't do it. Maybe I didn't do it because I didn't want to be a copycat. And that didn't seem right either. And then I struck upon what seemed like the real reason why I didn't do it. Not the real reason, but the reason anyway, closer to the heart of the matter. And that was, I didn't understand the part about standing in attendance till late at

[43:43]

night. That was the part. Oh, no, no, the third reason I thought of why I didn't do it was the person didn't say, it's dark out here. If she had said it's dark out here, I don't think I would have been able to resist. But then there was another missing thing, was the thing of standing in attendance till late at night. And I'm not saying this person wasn't doing that, or was doing that. Or maybe that person was doing it, but I didn't understand the person was doing it. Because it's a two-way thing. You know, if somebody's standing in attendance till late at night while you're studying or whatever, you're there too, aware of that. So it's a kind of a mutual thing. So what I came up with was that the two things that seemed like were missing were one, that's

[44:44]

the awareness of that standing in attendance, and also, it's dark out here. That's why the story, that's why I think the story didn't happen again last night. But I was also left wondering, what is this standing in attendance till late at night? What is it? What is that? And I felt very warm about whatever that is. I don't know what it is. 10,000 sages don't know what it is. Mainly, it's dark out here. Maybe it's cold outside. Something pops up and makes another opportunity from that kind of whatever that is. Whatever that, what are you doing here? I'm not doing anything at all till late at night. Creates opportunities where we can, you know, make new stories or act out old ones.

[45:46]

Whether we know them or not. Have you studied this? Yeah. So, that's a real-life story that actually happened, and it's kind of about what I'm talking about here. Precept light has to do with these kind of opportunities. And this is the meaning of not killing, not stealing, and so on. It's not just some kind of limitation. It's opportunities for real interesting interactions that can be quite liberating. So, again, if it works for the schedule tomorrow, I'd like to start discussing, actually, what, not discussing, but what, discussing what are these, what are the refuges? What is the triple treasure?

[46:52]

As precepts. What's that about?

[46:57]

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