central point of Buddhist practice. And this afternoon we're holding a ceremony where a group, six people this time, will ceremonially take refuge. Or in Zen we call it entering the way. So I'd like to talk about that. And I'd like to start off with two poems. One is by Rilke. Sometimes person stands up during supper and walks outdoors and keeps on walking because of a church that stands somewhere in the east and another person remains inside their own house stays there inside the dishes and the glasses so that their children had to go far out into the world toward that same church, which they forgot.

[01:10]

Sometimes a person stands up during supper and walks outdoors and keeps on walking. there is a term in spiritual practice called divine discontent. And I think it's also combined with what we might call mundane discontent, which I think most of us are well practiced in. In Buddhist thinking, they have the same root. Very interesting proposition if you think about it. The same quality of our being. That can, with discernment, look at the circumstances and conditions of our life and say, there's more to living than just this.

[02:30]

And then how that can sour and become a source of our restless journey, a source of our aversion and anxiety. And how, on the other hand, with the title grand, maybe a little grand, divine discontent, that which isn't full by the things we've been taught. The adverts on the billboards and on the web pages that are asking us to do our part and be a good consumer. that we want something more than to be simply contained within the dishes and the glasses of the kitchen table.

[03:42]

So that's one poem. Now here's the second one. This is a poem by Hoden, Rumi's father. It's called The Ways of Essence. Now I will speak of the nature of this being alive in the different ways that we are. Essence can be known only in a living example. People are often dazzled by form because essence shines in all its qualities. Feelings of health and feelings of illness are not part of my meaning here. The green world new friendships, discoveries, circumstances, the feel of water, the delight of being human, and all its imaginings. These are areas where essence thrives. How we recognize anyone's essence, how people's lives register in their body, how the spirit goes for guidance and agrees with the work it's given,

[04:58]

Try to be more conscious of these qualities and be happy. Or as Rokit puts it, we walk towards a church in the east. It's kind of interesting how in some ways Zen center is a church in the east, eastern part. I'm not sure what Wilke was referring to in his presentation of that image. Or whether it's just something in us asking us to not settle in the mundane, to not settle in the habituated, to not go to sleep. to be guided by the nobility of human existence, to discover how to taste it, how to see it, and how to be inspired and instructed in the seeing, and how to be transformed in the tasting.

[06:23]

So in Buddhism, when we talk of taking refuge, This is what we're referring to, this quality of our human existence. And in this ceremony that we're doing this afternoon, often ceremonies lay out within the iconography and the symbolism and the language of that particular spiritual practice, they lay out within that something fundamental about the human condition. And in some ways it's somewhat esoteric. You have to take up and struggle with and become familiar with the iconography of that tradition. And I would say Zen, in Buddhist practice in general, has that quality too. This is there in what we call taking refuge. In our ceremony, taking refuge happens in the middle of the ceremony.

[07:34]

It's preceded by addressing the human condition and it's followed by how do we enter the world in a different way. And this ceremony very much expresses the function of Zen practice. Zen practice is an experiential learning. It does not emphasize fixed doctrine. Here's what you should know. Here's what you should believe. It's more. Here is a process to experience life. Through which to experience life. And in experiencing life, something will be learned. something will be realized, something that you already know will be affirmed.

[08:39]

And so this is symbolized in taking refuge. In taking refuge, we take refuge from, and we take refuge in, we take refuge from the struggles, the mundane discontent, the ways in which we can keep entering our life, insisting that it happen according to my wishes and aversions, and being disappointed when it doesn't. And then return more energetically asserting our wishes and aversions, and again being disappointed that it still isn't doing what it's told. Or we can see it, you know. As Bahutin says, we can delight in these qualities of human existence.

[09:50]

The feel of water. The simple experiencing of the moment. We can delight in the attributes of our humanness. We can start to see that this essence of being shines. in so many ways, in so many circumstances, in so many interactions that we have throughout our day and our life. So we take refuge in opening and living. Opening to that way of being and living that way of being. This is refuge from and refuge in. So the ceremony starts by saying, trusting that we are such a being.

[10:51]

In the language of Zen, trusting that we're already Buddha. Buddha is that nobility of being, that capacity for direct experiencing. that which knows the virtue, the efficacy, the appropriateness of not being fooled by conditioned existence. Whether it's consumerism or that own inner urge to assert our preferences more and more upon a world It's much vaster than what we say it is. Trusting them with Buddha, we enter Buddha's way. We enter this way of being in the world. And then the next step is to acknowledge and honor that which

[12:08]

has sparked us, that which has inspired us to see that this is a worthwhile way of being. This is a worthwhile aspiration for human life. And informally, within this ceremony, we pay homage to our teachers. But each of us has been taught. Each of us has seen the truth and that within us which already knew resonated with what we were seeing or what we were feeling. This is the knowability of the human condition. We know it when we see it. When we are clear, saddled, I'll come back to that.

[13:12]

Inevitably, the question becomes, how do you do it? How do you return to clarity? How do you return to receptivity? How do you stay in touch with that nobility which is always there but so constantly covered over or distracted from? or lost contact with. So we pay homage to our teachers. What we've been taught. And this functions for us in a very human way in two important ways. One is that remembering that which we already know is an important function. Because so constantly, our conditioned nature is generating new propositions and desires and aversions in our being.

[14:18]

To remember to return to something more fundamental. To re-experience that we know it when we see it. We know it when we feel it. To rediscover the yoga of that kind of attunement, that kind of alignment. And then the other important factor is to see our life as the path of practice. to see our life as a journey of engaging and discovering the nobility of the human condition.

[15:25]

And of course we all have stories about our life, of its mundane characteristics. how we've struggled, how we've been hurt by other people's confusions and struggles. How we've been caught up in the intrigues of our own families. How we've been caught up in the prejudices and confusions of our culture and society. Not to say such things prevalent but to say right in the midst of them something else and to tune into that to remember that that is valuable in the activity of living a human life to its fullest you know so honoring

[16:33]

teachers and their teaching does, brings forth these two qualities. It makes our history richer than that which has hurt us, left us with resentment and learness. It makes it fuller and richer. And it offers guidance and inspiration and instruction. And then we turn towards the self, just as it is. That wonderful age-old spiritual question, who are you? And in the Zen school, not so much that we ask the question in words, but we ask you to sit down and pay attention.

[17:34]

And what are you going to discover when you sit down and pay attention? The activity of you being you. All the ways your mind, your heart, your body express the being. But beyond that, or maybe in letting man be all-encompassing, including all the aspects of your being, and recognizing that even though you're a unique individual, your being has been touched by, molded by, so many influences. Your family of origin, the society in which you grew up, the life experiences you had, the genetic code

[18:37]

that you inherited. All these factors, known and unknown, come together and create the uniqueness that each of us calls me. And to see as clearly as we can and to be as open as honestly as we can and courageously as we can to who we are and what we are. Because right in that being these two qualities mundane discontent and divine discontent operate. So to learn of the self is to learn of the activity and the influence of our mundane discontent and our divine discontent.

[19:42]

And to start to see how to be skillful around them and with them. So in this ceremony, we call this avalo, acknowledging honestly and truthfully who we are and why we are. And then we take refuge. We turn from, we turn towards. Sermon is a powerful and wonderful thing. If you think of marriage, you marry someone. In that moment of the ceremony, you lean forth, you express something.

[20:51]

But then, for the duration of the marriage, that commitment is constantly reenacted. So it's just in the exact same way with this ceremony. In that moment of the ceremony, something is committed to, to be followed by constant reenactment. And part of how we express that in our ceremony is many times in the ceremony as the ordini, you're asked, will you do this? And you say, yes, I will. Will you do it? Yes, I will. Will you do it? Yes, I will. this sense of vow, this sense of touching and intentionality and infusing it with authority in our life.

[21:59]

So taking refuge is not just a singular event. And then miraculously, we're a different person. It's getting in touch with the alchemy of the forces within us. And we're bringing to them, time and time again, an intentionality that expresses the nobility of our being. This is taking refuge. And then from there, symbolically, you get a new name. And this new name represents the shift from, to use the words I've been using, being identified with mundane discontent to being identified with divine discontent.

[23:11]

Now it would be sweet and wonderful if practice was that simple, you know, that somehow the mundane discontent disappeared. Even though in a way we can say it would be sweet and wonderful if those troublesome aspects disappeared, there's another way in which Those troublesome aspects teach us divine discontent. We learn how not to grasp, how not to obsessively keep yearning and averting by seeing the way we do such things, by seeing the way they don't bring satisfaction, contentment, equanimity, clarity, settledness, generosity into our lives.

[24:24]

So as we take refuge in something, it's not to the exclusion of our conditioned existence. It's that very same conditioned existence is held in a different way. It becomes a teaching. It becomes a ground in which we discover how to be skillful about a human life. It teaches us patience. It teaches us persistence. It teaches us diligence. It teaches us benevolence. Few of us get up in the morning. and say, today I think I'm going to try and cause myself more suffering and cause others more suffering. Most of us get up in the morning beyond the preoccupations we have about the life we're living and the urgency that brings up.

[25:45]

Most of us get up with some sense of intentionality in bringing forth the nobility of who we are. And then these other influences assert themselves. So the first step beyond taking refuge is very simple. It says Do less harm. Cause yourself and others less problems and less hurt. And do more good. Bring more benefit to yourself and to others. And include everyone in that process. This is the first step.

[26:47]

It's kind of like a fundamental shift, a fundamental engagement. Can human life, singularly and collectively, be engaged with benevolence? There's a Zen story where someone goes a long distance, I forget how many hundreds of miles, to visit a famous teacher. and asks the teacher, watch your teaching. And the teacher says, don't do harm, do good. And the person is distinctly underwhelmed by that. And more or less says, that's all you've got to offer? I thought you were a famous Zen teacher. And the teacher says, A child of eight knows it, but can a person of 80 practice it?

[27:51]

So in the spirit of the ceremony, yes I will, yes I will, yes I will. A continual returning. Because we continually forget. Each day we start over. Each breath we start over. How to have that quality in our life. And then finally we come to excuse me I left back the other highly significant detail, which is you receive a Buddha's robe. The Buddha's robe that we give in the ceremony is an expression, a symbol of how we are in the world.

[29:13]

You know, we need to stay warm. We need to eat. We need, you know, we need food and shelter. We need to clothe our bodies when it's cold. So, and then also how we dress and how we are in the world says something of who we are and how we're living. So that's what the world represents. And it represents that how we're living in who we are and how we engage the world is in close and complete alignment with this nobility of spirit. That's its nature. That's the intention. And when we put that robe on, we do so to embody that spirit, to express it. to live it, to stay true to it, to let it hold our conditioned existence, our habitual ways of struggling with our life, to hold them and see them and to learn by them and not be stuck by them and not be defined by them.

[30:33]

So this is to take that beautiful ideal and give it some tangible quality, the physicality, of a garment. And I think most spiritual traditions do this. They create the instrument of the practice, whether it's an icon, a way of dress, something that's used ceremonially. In an art ceremony, in a painstaking way, you make the road yourself. somewhat symbolizing that it comes out of our diligence. It comes out of our engagement.

[31:39]

As I was saying earlier, this is an experiential learning. An experience and consequentially experiential learning, they happen through engagement. I would say, if you want to learn how to do zazen, do zazen. In to in. Sit still. Be awake. Notice what's happening. And the very effort to do that teaches you how to do it. Of course, you can come at it with some ideas as to how it's done. But at some point shifting to experiential learning. And then the last part of the ceremony, usually in the ceremony,

[32:44]

is expressed through what we call the prohibitory precepts, which are prohibitions, restraints. Don't steal, don't lie, don't kill, don't intoxicate, don't harbor ill will. But implicit in the negation is the affirmation. You know, don't kill, promote life. Don't steal, Be generous. Don't lie. Be honest. Don't harbor ill will. Bring force of benevolence. And then, in the Zen spirit, what you might say, beyond that, that both of these come together. Because we are a conditioned existence.

[33:47]

And we do have these mundane impulses. And the effort to not be stuck in them helps us awaken to them and teaches us how to practice. So maybe a more complicated idea of the Zen school We're not trying to eradicate our conditioned existence. We're trying to discover how we get stuck, how it causes pain, and how it limits our life and cuts us off from the nobility of spirit that's inherent within us. So both the negation, the affirmation, And that practice which includes them both as a vehicle of teaching and an expression of being a worker.

[35:04]

So how do you do it? I have to say this question, how do you do it? has been a wonderful coin for me. There is a heritage that we have received from our ancestors in India, China, and Japan in particular. And it's with regard to kind of, you know, Shakyamuni Buddha, finder of Buddhism. I'm not sure if he would say that, but historically that's how it has evolved. He was a renunciate. Leave the world. Somehow, something in a real case poem. Sometimes a person stands up during supper and walks outdoors and keeps on walking.

[36:13]

Something about leaving home. And yet, in Behuddin's expression of the essence, the green world, new friendships, discoveries, circumstances, the feel of water, the delight in being human, and all its imaginings, These are areas where essence thrives. I would say pointing more towards rediscovering the life you're already living. You don't have to go forth, be a different person, live a different life. Rediscover the life you're living and relate to it differently. So the heritage of Shakyamuni, the archetype.

[37:29]

He left the palace and he entered the wilderness. The heritage of so many monastic traditions. Go to the mountaintop. Leave the city and enter the forest. now us in our world, in the lives we're living. You know, I concocted this year-long course called Establishing the Path to Practice. And through the product of a lot of teaching of different kinds, you know, crafted certain elements within it. And one of them was to ask people to write down the priorities for their life.

[38:39]

And I think, in a way, it's a wonderful exercise. Because when you're thoughtful like that, it turns you towards this nobility of spirit. I don't think many people write down, I want to be selfish, I want to be confused, I want to emphasize bitterness and resentment. I want to worry a lot. I think when we think of the priorities of our life, you know, something else comes forth. And then the other part of the exercise was, and how, what do you do? How do you allocate your time? If these are your top ten priorities, what are the top ten uses of your time? And, of course, this could be a new and improved way to feel bad about our life and bad about who we are.

[39:54]

And a firm... And exacerbate your tendency towards negative self-image. But what I was getting at was something more like this. The life we're already living makes its demands of us. And we respond to them consciously and unconsciously. maybe with a feeling of authority and maybe with its complete absence. My life runs me, I'm powerless in the midst of its demands. How do we let the nobility of our spirit

[40:59]

and the priorities it creates, how do we let that be successfully influence the urgencies that the conditions of our life place upon us? In some ways, this is a very dangerous question. Because it's going to draw you more and more into your life. And it's going to enter that edge between mundane discontent and divine discontent. And it's going to ask you to stay upright in the tension between those two and ask you to engage consciously. discover.

[42:06]

In some ways I would say each of us has a unique response. Because each of us has a unique life. Each of us is living our lives in the way we're living. Each of us formulates the priorities in the way we prioritize them. In the way we're inspired by our teachers of yore. to do so. But there are universal attributes that can support us in doing this. And the first universal attribute, and this is the course we've made up and now we're offering, as an experiential learning. And my thought is something like this. To discover the practice that's most appropriate to urban life, we have to do it together.

[43:12]

We can take the guidance and inspiration of the tradition, but we have to do it the same way you learn the Siddha Zazen by Siddha Zazen. We have to learn urban practice or living in an urban environment by practicing in an urban environment together. Throughout the heritage of Buddhism and the tradition, the collective experience, each person's unique experience informs and educates everyone else. None of us can experience all ways something can be experienced, but collectively we teach each other and we support each other. So in practicing together, and the first point of reference, discovering the capacity to experience directly.

[44:22]

What you're imagining is going on, what you're dreaming might be going on, is nowhere near as helpful as what is actually going on and experiencing that as directly as you can. And in the Zen School, we offer meditation, sitting down and experiencing directly, and carrying that direct experiencing, that mindfulness, into all the aspects of your life. So that would be the first, what you might call, feature, quality. And then the second one is then, with that tool, waking up as best you can to who you are and what you're doing. What you're feeling. What are your emotional patterns?

[45:24]

What are your mental patterns? What are your physical patterns? And then with that, And how do you relate to others? And then with that bringing forth, and if that nobility of spirit, given what I've discovered, if that nobility of spirit was brought forth into the person I am and the life I'm living, what would that be like? I would say that's the work of a lifetime. And we've turned it into a year-long program.

[46:25]

And then sometimes we turn it into a day. Sometimes we turn it into a talk. Sometimes we turn it into a single period of meditation. But every way, whatever way you construe it, I would say, Something of that is in there. Not to say that it's always ABC. It's wonderful in its variations, as we are. We have a genius for complicating and reworking the person we are and the life we're living. reimagining it that's what makes us so extraordinary in our humanness direct experiencing learning from it and entering the world informed and educated by that learning this is

[47:45]

Taking refuge. And taking refuge... Don't worry, I'm almost done. Taking refuge has three attributes. Direct experiencing, Buddha. Learning from it, Dharma. Entering the world and being in relation, in conscious relationship with everything, Sangha. So when we take refuge, there's a singularity to it. Wake up. Be present. Be part of everything. And then there's threefold part of it. Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Okay. So let me just end by rereading this poem. It's just a little verse by Bahudin, Rumi's father. The ways of essence.

[48:46]

Now I will observe, I will speak of, the nature of this being alive in the many different ways we are. Essence can be known only in living example. People are often dazzled by form because essence shines so in its qualities. Feelings of health and feelings of illness are not part of my meaning here. The green world. New friendships, discoveries, circumstances, the field of water, our delight in being human and its imaginings. These are areas where essence thrives. How we recognize anyone's essence. How people's lives register in the body, how spirit goes to its guidance and agrees to the work it's given. Try to be more conscious of these living abilities. and be happy.

[49:48]

Thank you very much. May our intention equally extend through every being and place where the truth comes.

[50:12]

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