Today we sit and walk and stand and perhaps recline with wholehearted mindfulness and tonight we receive the great precepts of the Bodhisattva in the ceremony. Six people in particular will receive the precepts and a new name and robe. Buddhist precepts and an upright sitting are one.

[01:13]

Even to say they're two sides of the same coin is perhaps creating too much separation. And yet we can speak of the precepts and sitting. the precepts and zazen. In a way they're conditions for each other. The precepts are the gate to what we call true zazen. Practice of zazen helps us understand the precepts. As I recited this morning, long ago, a monk came to see the great teacher, Zhaozhou, and said, I have just entered his training house.

[02:47]

Please give me some guidance. Jojo said, have you eaten your rice soup? Have you had breakfast? The monk said, I have eaten, yes. Jojo said, then wash your bowl. So I said, inhaling, have rice. Exhaling, wash your bowl.

[03:55]

When I say that, I'm not suggesting that This is the meaning of the story. Although it might be. But rather, I hear that instruction in the story and I trust that following that instruction I will understand the story. I will understand the intent of the teacher's instruction. if when I inhale, I have rice, and when I exhale, I wash my bowl. In other words, when I inhale, I don't dwell in the realm of body, mind, When I exhale, I don't get entangled in myriad circumstances.

[05:15]

Following this instruction, I will receive kind guidance from all the Buddhas and bodhisattvas. I will understand the intent of all the teachings so is my faith. Inhaling, I taste the food. Inhaling, I lightly note and appreciate my body and mind. I sit upright and I'm aware that I have a spine, that I'm sitting on the earth, that my body touches earth, that I have eyes and ears and nose and tongue and skin.

[06:29]

and I appreciate their function. And when I exhale I let everything go. I wash my bowl. My bowl is washed. Inhaling again, I notice my body and mind. Exhaling again, I let everything go, body, mind, self and other. Inhaling, I notice self separated from other.

[07:44]

My body and others are two. I feel the pain of that separation. I feel choked by that separation. I feel frightened by that separation. But I note it. I eat it. Exhaling, I let go of it all. Such a scripture I recite over and over. And I have been reciting this scripture since the beginning of time, which has no beginning. and I intend to continue this recitation until it's not necessary to do so anymore.

[08:58]

This having rice and just having rice and washing my bowl when I'm done is not killing. It is not stealing. It is not misusing sexuality. It is not lying. It is not intoxicating my mind or body. I just have this experience and expect nothing more I sit upright and appreciate this experience.

[10:26]

Upright, but not puffed up, not proud. Straightforwardly have this body and mind honestly, uprightly be like this, and yet realize that it's not by my own power that I can sit upright, but by the kindness of all other beings am I able to sit here and appreciate what comes with my inhale. receiving the precepts is like eating breakfast.

[11:45]

Maintaining the precepts is like washing our bowls. Receiving our breakfast and receiving the precepts, we receive them according to what we think they are. We can't help that. We put them in what we think is our mouth and we chew with what we think is our teeth. But when we chew thoroughly, whatever we ate changes, becomes something beyond our knowing, changes into the life of our practice. If the food couldn't change, it would be useless to us.

[12:57]

A grain of rice in our bloodstream would kill us. cup of tea in our heart would not be good. But because our body can change what we eat into something else and change with it, food is useful to us. And so the precepts, we take them in according to our limited understanding, we receive them But in order to maintain them and use them, we must realize that they change and they have no fixed nature. They are not some substantial independently existing rules.

[14:03]

They are the lifeblood of freedom and compassion. So we receive the precepts, we eat the precepts, and when we're done eating, we let them go. Even though we say we will receive and maintain these precepts, maintaining them means let them go. If you let them go, they'll come right back. If we hold on to them, if we hold on to our idea of the precepts, we will violate them. Because holding on to the precepts is in fact killing, is in fact taking what was not given, is lying, is misusing sexual energy, and is using the precepts to intoxicate ourselves. Sincerely, with a clear mind,

[15:14]

an open heart, we receive the precepts and really become a child of Buddha. Then we live with the precepts, we digest the precepts and the precepts change into something else and we wash them away and receive them again. So in this way, perhaps you could see how the meditation practice and the precepts go together. Just as we receive our body and mind and let it go, we receive the precepts and let them go. Because both precepts and body and mind are so vast that they cannot be grasped

[16:16]

We gratefully receive our body and mind. We gratefully receive the precepts. And we are friendly to our body and mind and friendly to our precepts. Friendly means we don't limit our body and mind or the precepts to our own limited idea of them. And yet we remember that at any given moment we can only see what we can see. We can only know what we know. So we always have some limited idea of sitting practice, walking practice, standing practice, precept practice, whatever it is, we have some limited idea. But to believe that that limited idea is true is very unfriendly.

[17:28]

It's unfriendly to what it is that you're considering and it's unfriendly to yourself. It's overlooking that we have the wonderful ability to have limited views. We have the wonderful ability to go out in the ocean and look around and only see a little circle or a big circle. We have the wonderful ability to stand at the edge of a river and look at it and think it's flowing, even though the fish in the river think it's their palace. And they have the wonderful ability to think the river is a palace. If someone we respect tells us that the river is a palace, we will be shocked.

[18:38]

If someone tells us, tells a fish that the palace is flowing, they will be shocked. If someone tells us that this meditation hall is walking, Always. We may be shocked. Now we've heard, you know, that Green Gulch is going slowly to Alaska. And maybe we accept that now, after hearing it over and over. There's many other ways that we're traveling that we don't yet understand. Right and wrong are also far beyond our idea. And if beings who have other points of view tell us about it, we are shocked. members of other religious traditions might look at us and tell us what we're doing.

[19:54]

And if we heard their view of what we're doing here, we might be shocked. If we told them what they were doing by talking that way to us, they might be shocked. The friendly thing is to meditate on these shocking inner relationships. to be aware of the fact that we're anxious because other people, other beings do have different views. You don't have to go around ask, you know, opening yourself up arbitrarily to other people's views because that probably would be just that you open up to what you dare to open up to. But rather, if you just sit upright and be friendly to what you receive and let that go, naturally we will be exposed to the other and all the difficulties entailed there.

[21:16]

So perhaps what I have said this morning is not too shocking? Perhaps it is. So I say, like the old-time Buddhas, have you had breakfast? Have you had breakfast? Are you wasting your time? Have you had that for breakfast?

[22:28]

Did you have your wasting time vitamin today? Did you have your anger vitamin today? Your frustration minerals? You're blaming somebody else for your problems? Did you have that to eat yet today? Did you read the vow of He He Koso? Did you like or not like what you read? Are you going to follow through on what you read? Anyway, now let it all go. But be sure to have another meal soon.

[23:43]

In the Buddha way, we eat before and after enlightenment. So please keep eating and please keep washing. Inhale, eat. Exhale, wash. Inhale, receive the precepts. Not killing. Not stealing. Not speaking of others' faults.

[25:04]

Not praising yourself without remembering how everybody's helping you. Not holding anger. Not holding anything. Not lying. Not intoxicating yourself with Zen practice. inhale the precepts and then let them go because we don't know what they are but even though we don't know what they are we can receive them we can digest them we can turn them into blood and muscle and breath and thoughts

[26:27]

and eggs and sperm and hair. The precepts can become anything. Now I don't know if this is true, but I heard a rumor that when the sperms come up to the egg, you know, the egg kind of chooses which sperm gets in. And at a certain place in the egg, it secretes a... the egg releases an enzyme which breaks down a protective coat, a protective barrier on the egg, and then one of the sperms can get through. And after the egg and the sperm are united, I heard, again, I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard that all the other firms who lost out then come around the egg and start working on the egg and spinning the egg counterclockwise, which causes it to roll down the fallopian tube.

[27:48]

Isn't that wonderful that all those losers cooperated to help the winner? Now again, I don't know if that's true, but I thought it was really interesting. And if they don't do that, okay. But anyway, the precepts can become anything. The precepts could be anything. We don't know how they work. We don't know what they will be. But in order to study them and then watch how they work, there's an ancient tradition of receiving them, of saying, yes, I will receive these precepts, and yes, I will keep studying them. Even after I become Buddha, I will continue to study what are the precepts, how do they work. I will continuously look to see how are the precepts working.

[28:53]

In each precept, meeting I have, which each sentient being I encounter, I will consider. What is it to not speak of others' faults? What is it to not think that I'm good, independent of others? What is it to not kill? The great master Vinji said, the precepts of all the Buddhas are constantly going in and out of the portals of your face. The precepts are always going in and out of your eyes and your ears and your nose and your tongue and your skin. If you haven't witnessed these precepts entering and leaving your

[29:58]

your body and face, he recommends that you look and look again. Watch these precepts function in your life through your senses. Can you see them? Even if you can, let them go and watch again. This is the precept practice. This is the practice of constantly observing the precepts. This is the practice of clearly observing, which we call zazen. So I... encourage myself and all of you to receive and maintain these vast, bottomless, ungraspable, all-pervasive Buddha's precepts.

[31:15]

to give your support to those six people who will go through the ceremony tonight and to receive support from them. Receive support from their vow and their commitment. Help them and support them and realize that they're helping you. This appreciation of our mutual love support is also called zazen. The other night I was studying a Zen story with a group of people and I asked them all and I asked individuals to bring me something.

[34:01]

In the first line of the story the teacher asked his attendant to bring him something. And in the class I asked people to bring me the same thing which the teacher asked for. And I said that I felt embarrassed to ask for the same thing that a old-time Buddha asked for. How dare I ask for what the Buddha asked for, for what an old-time Buddha asked for. And yet I did ask. I asked for the same thing.

[35:15]

But I also said I was embarrassed to play that role and ask for that gift. And I also said and guessed that people also felt embarrassed to bring me what the attendant in the old story brought to the teacher. And usually in these classes when I ask for something, oftentimes it's clear that the students feel embarrassed to bring what's being asked for. But in that case I also mentioned that I feel embarrassed even to ask. But when I somehow on that occasion when I said that I was embarrassed to ask and recognized and was confirmed in my guests that people felt embarrassed to bring what I was asking for, to bring this ancient gift that is always asked for.

[36:29]

People brought it. People dared, even though embarrassed, they dared to bring the gift the gift of their self which they don't know what it is and which I don't know what it will be. So again I'll tell you I'm embarrassed but I ask you, I actually ask you to bring and to bring to me and bring to each other, to bring what all the Buddhas have asked of their students. In the story, it's called a rhinoceros fan.

[37:35]

The name is not important, but it has to have a name. So I can ask you to bring me a rhinoceros fan, or I can ask you, please bring me true sitting meditation. Please bring me the Buddha's precepts. Please bring me your slurred speech. But if it's any encouragement in your embarrassment, I'm embarrassed to ask. But I must ask. Someone is asking. Someone is asking. And I ask him on behalf of her.

[38:39]

She wants you to come and sit by her side and present yourself honestly moment after moment. So I encourage myself and others to sit upright, experience what's happening and let it go. I encourage, but I also feel I must ask. I must make it personal. It's not a vague, general, kind of like either way is okay kind of request it's actually needed by somebody somebody needs it and they're asking us to bring it and everybody's kind of embarrassed except for the proud ones

[40:10]

who think they can practice all by themselves and they don't need any help. And sometimes we're proud. So eat that pride, chew it up, and wash your bowl. In case you don't know it, I'm a human being, just like some of the characters in some of the action thrillers that they have in the movies. I do sometimes think cruel thoughts, like I just thought of continuing to talk to you for six hours.

[41:18]

But it was just a thought, and I'm not going to do it. Yeah.

[41:29]

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