This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. So this morning during Zazen, I was thinking... I was not thinking, not thinking. I was thinking. And what I was thinking is that I feel as though the way I put together these talks, I know, but you don't know. So I thought, well, it's sort of like giving someone a bunch of Legos, but not showing them the top of the box. And, you know, here's what you can make out of these. So I thought, maybe I should tell you what's on the box top. Sixteen Bodhisattva precept initiation ceremony is where we're headed.

[01:04]

Probably couldn't figure that out. And the way the structure of it works is very much like the ceremony itself. So just now we just did confession and repentance. And that's actually what I'm going to be talking about today. So the way I thought about offering teachings during this practice period was basically using these two koans of the dog. for the ultimate truth, and the fox for the relative truth, and then showing how those are foundational to everything the Buddha taught has to do with his realization of the non-dual nature of reality and that that's not how humans see it. So ultimate truth, the star at dawn, relative truth, what he told people about their suffering. So humans are, yeah, but that's not helping me. I'm suffering. I feel terrible. How can you help me? So the Buddha was basically a physician. He wasn't a physicist or a philosopher, although he did some of that.

[02:08]

He was a doctor. He was giving medicine for our suffering. So coming to understand the two truths is part of that medicine, part of understanding which side of the coin that we're looking at in these teachings, because they come from both sides. So that's why these two koans I found to be helpful. I think stories are helpful. And so then in terms of the Bodhisattva initiation ceremony, the first step in undertaking Buddhist practice is basically confession and repentance, you know, renouncing our ancient twisted karma, all of the things that we've done, whether we know what they are or not, we kind of feel like, yeah, I've done something. I might as well start by confessing and repenting to what I've done. So that kind of clears the slate for the next step, which is the precepts themselves. So the structure of these talks in this session are about relative truth. The precepts are relative truths.

[03:10]

They're about relationships. They're all about how we behave toward each other, not killing each other, not stealing from each other and so on. that that's the emphasis. It's relative truth. It's on the Bodhisattva precepts. And having already talked about the two truths, as I said, so this talk is going to be really focusing on confession and repentance, which has a kind of stingy sound to our Western ears. I know that. Maybe we'll find some different words. But for now, I'm going to talk about the traditional practice of confession and repentance. Okay, so that's the box topic. Oh, yeah. One other thing I added, which I found helpful, was how the medieval Buddhist culture really did believe sincerely in a kind of literal interpretation of cause and effect. So relative truth, cause and effect, four noble truths. Suffering is caused.

[04:11]

The cessation of suffering is caused. So this cause and effect is really for us is about our psychological states. We go to hell. We are hungry ghosts. We are fighting demons, as was pointed out yesterday. Isn't that fighting? That is fighting. We are evolving gods, usually on vacation. We're gods, briefly. So there are all of these psychological states that we've passed through throughout the day, throughout our lives, some a little longer than others. Some people stay in hell a long time or as animals and so on. So if we look at them as psychological states, I think they're much more alive for us in our kind of modern scientific. For medieval Japanese culture, they were literal. If you had a stomachache, you must have hit somebody in the stomach in some previous life. So everything that happened physically was explained by some previous action that was taken. So that's not how we see it so much.

[05:11]

That doesn't work so well for us. So really, this is about cause and effect in terms of how your mind and what you remember, the kinds of things that are lingering in your memories that don't feel good. And why? You know, what is it we can do to kind of soften the carrying of these painful memories? OK, so talk number three. Another thing I'm sure is I say things many times because there's certain things I really like. So I've probably said almost all of these things and I just hope you'll just not mind too much if I keep repeating myself. But one of the things I really like is Bruce Lee, the legendary Kung Fu artist who said that we do not rise to the occasion. We fall to the level of our training. I thought that's perfect for Zen too. You know, we fall to the level of our vows. our sincerity, and in particular, the bodhisattva vow, to live for the benefit of others.

[06:13]

And then I was thinking, you know, in terms of my own life, my own karmic history, I've taken a lot of vows, and I've made a lot of promises. You know, starting very young, I pledged allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. I think it was required, but I didn't mind. Put my hand on my heart, little kid, very sincere. looking at the flag with a great deal of admiration and love, you know, truth. So that's one pledge I made for many years. One Nation Under God, that was part of the pledge. Then as a Girl Scout, we pledged very similar to God and country and to our troop. And again, my hand to my heart. As a Christian child, we went to church and We took the Nicene Creed, which some of you may know. I believe in one God, Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and his only son, Jesus Christ, who came down to earth to die for our sins. So I would say that every Sunday.

[07:17]

So at some point, you know, probably junior in high school, I left those all behind. They didn't work for me anymore. There was something wrong with those pledges. Something was off. There was something untrue. that I just could not abide. You know, somehow it got very painful not being able to be sincere to the flag or to God or all of that. So very painful to have to let those go. And then when I was in my 20s, I made one more vow, a marriage vow, till death do us part, which I also left when I left my husband's house for the last time. So I was kind of relieved when... My teacher, Tenshin Roshi, said at a priest's meeting that we are the school of the guilty ones. You know, we did it. We broke our vows, and we are willing to admit it. I certainly fit that category. And through an honorable practice of confession, that's how we meet what we've done.

[08:23]

I did that. I have done that. It's true. And then what? Well, after the honorable practice of confession, then we repent, just as we say every morning during service. You know, we confess and repent all our ancient twisted karma from beginningless greed, hate, and delusion, born through our bodies, through our speech, through our minds. We now fully confess. We evolve. So we acknowledge all that we've done, whether we remember it or not. I just, I, whatever I... certainly must have done, I acknowledge. I'm willing to hold that. And there's some relief in that. I don't know how you feel about that, but it's a lot better than that dam of denial. Not me. I didn't do anything. I'm not a racist. I'm not a bad person. I don't lie. Whatever. Whatever we've got that we're holding back from, it's like, actually, I better let that dam go.

[09:25]

I better break out of that. So this is As Buddhists, this is how we face the karmic consequences that are generated by our personal choices, confession and repentance. And in doing so, we actually make the whole world kinder and safer, you know, for everyone. And particularly from us, as my teacher said to me, well, it might make the world safer from you if you take the precepts. And I think that's true. I think I am a lot safer than I used to be, you know, because I promised. This promise... I don't say I keep it, but I really take it seriously. And I do as best I can. So given that this practice of confession and repentance is so prominent in our liturgy, I think it makes some sense to understand it as a consequence of all the anxiety that the East Asian Buddhists felt about their literal belief in the reincarnation and the consequences of their actions resulted in a very bad...

[10:29]

next rebirth you know like the story of the the woodcutter who betrays the bear who saves his life and then the woodcutters arms fall off you know that's a fear that's a real fear that people have you know and may still have so by coming to practice Zen I think many of us have turned toward this image right there on that altar we turn toward that image and And we're moved by the idea of awakening. You know, there's some part of us, I think, can imagine what it might be to awaken, you know, and to respect the image of an awakened one, you know. So one of the things I've noticed at Zen centers, most of us don't have an awful lot in common. I don't know if you noticed that. But we have that in common. I remember in the kitchen when I first was working, first time I went to the kitchen here at Tassajara, it's a guest student. And I thought, I don't really know what I have in common with these people. We didn't all go to the same high school or grew up in the same town or much of anything that I could find.

[11:34]

But we all turned to the altar. And I thought, oh, there it is. This is what we have in common. And then we still do as a community. And that is more important to me than anything else, that we share that. So... You know, we've chosen this path, at least for a while, together. And this kind of turning toward is the first kind of wisdom that I've mentioned a number of times, the wisdom of hearing or perceiving, perceiving something that is so wonderful to imagine, you know, to wake up. What would that be like? You know, most of us think we're imagining it and don't think we are. You are. That's what the Buddha said. That's what our teachers tell us. You are awake. And still we go on imagining what it might be like if I were only awake. It's kind of, as they say, the arrow shoots past Korea. You are. So it's natural for us to want something that we don't think we have, something as profound as being awake, and along with that, the end of suffering.

[12:40]

I remember saying to my teacher right here at Tassajara, this is... Probably 35 years ago now, over in that cabin where I now see people, and I went to see him, and I was crying, and I told him that I don't care about the other people here and how they're doing, whether they're going to get awakened or not. I really only care about myself. And I said, I'm an arhat wearing Mahayana clothing. And he smiled at me, and he said, Thank you for your confession. So it was, you know, I remember that. It's like, thank you for your confession. He didn't say, oh, shame on you. He just said, thank you for knowing that. Thank you for seeing that, that that's how you feel. And start from there. You know, start from where you are. So, you know, it's really true for all of us. We have no choice but to start from where we are, you know, right where we are, however we think we are.

[13:46]

That's where we begin. And I think for almost all of us, we're starting from selfishness. I mean, that's just how we are. We're selfish. And in the Buddhist teaching, there are four ways, defiled ways of thinking that are blocking our view of our awakening. They're called the four defiled ways of thinking. And the first one is ignorance, ignoring non-separation, ignoring ultimate truth, that there is nothing outside of yourself. That's The first defiled thinking. The second one is believing in the self, the separate self. So they're kind of a pair. That's the world's outside of me and I'm inside here. So those first and second defiled thinking. The third one is a lot of conceit about the self, either as the worst or the best of all humans. And then the fourth defiled thought is that you love that self above all else. You'll do anything to save yourself. And so this is our basic narcissism, you know.

[14:48]

And at the same time, that's where the first taste of liberation arises, in that acknowledgement. Like, oh, I can see that. I am selfish. I do care about myself above all else, you know. So this is the first step on the path when we see and we're able to say, you know, this is so. Okay, now I'm ready to turn toward this figure there on the altar. And so it's as though by magic that when we recognize and acknowledge, then suddenly the bodhisattva precepts appear. That's where they come from, from this recognition of our belief and our separation. And I think the most important of all the precepts, the one I'm going to talk about again in a couple of days, is a disciple of Buddha does not lie, not to yourself and not to anyone else. And this is the kind of truth that will set us free. So I found this story in the Pali Canon, which is about the power of telling the truth.

[15:51]

I think it's kind of amazing, actually, that I can't imagine such a story in other kinds of spiritual liturgy. But anyway, our Pali Canon has this story. A young boy is bitten by a poisonous snake. The distraught parents stop a passing monk and ask him to use his medical knowledge to save the child. The monk replies that the situation is so grave that the only possible cure would be an emphatic statement of truth. The father then says, I have never seen a monk that I did not think was a scoundrel. May the boy live. With that, the poison left the boy's leg. And then the mother said, I have never loved my husband. May the boy live. And the poison retreated to the boy's waist. And then the monk said, I have never believed a word of the Dharma, but I find it to be utter nonsense. May the boy live. And with that, the boy rose completely cured.

[16:53]

Such is the power of truth. Isn't that great? Okay. All else fails. Tell the truth. So telling the truth or confession followed by repentance is intimately connected to the bodhisattva vow. You know, there are basically two sides of one practice. And that's because our vow to save all beings isn't possible. It's not possible. So there's a confession. I can't do it. I can't complete my task. I'm sorry. I am going to fail. I will not be able to save all beings. Even the Buddha said that at the end of his life. He said, I'm sorry, but I have got to go. My body is just not going to hold up anymore. So this awareness of incompleteness is in itself a kind of confession. I think maybe you've all seen these Enzo's, the name of our retirement village of all things, Enzo village, that's drawn as a demonstration of a Zen master's, both kind of their freedom to make a gesture with ink on white paper or silk, and also a demonstration of this kind of unique personality they have, along with this unique truth of this incompleteness, that that circle cannot be closed.

[18:09]

You know, that last gesture is basically... the end of this round, the end of my life. So this is the same truth for all of us who undertake this vow. But even so, that our task is unachievable, it's really important for us to reflect honestly, you know, to tell the truth about our own limitations as we enter into a life devoted to vows. And such self-reflection sets up a kind of resonance between this enormity of this task and our small personal life. self, sense of ourself. I can't do that. And these are my limits. That's fine. Do it with that. Go with that, you know, as far as you can. Shantideva, who is the 8th century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar, who was a disciple of the emptiness teachings, the middle way school, said that one law serves to summarize the whole of the Mahayana. The protection of all beings is accomplished through examination of one's own mistakes.

[19:12]

So repentance and confession have been a very large part of Buddhist practice since its beginnings. And there are a number of forms of confession that have been created over the centuries. The first kind is to confess out loud in front of the assembly, which I think we do at Work Circle. Did you take the garden way cart? What's interesting is hardly anyone ever raises their hand, but the cart soon comes back, you know, so that's good. But the idea that we would go, I took it. I'm the one. I took your shoes. I'm the one. I didn't put my library books back where they belong and so on and so on. So that would be good if we'd all get a little more comfortable saying, yeah, that was me. I was that one. And then there's forgetting to ring the wake-up bell, but no one seems to mind when that happens. That's okay. No problem. So that's confession in front of a group. Then there's another kind, which is done before the image of a Buddha, like we do in the morning.

[20:18]

We do our ancient twisted karma facing the Buddha. And then the third type of confession is the one that we do quietly inside of our own minds, probably throughout the day. I certainly noticed that. Like, boy, that was unskillful, what I just said. You know, I better go back and talk to that person about that. You know, I bet they're really angry at me. Well, maybe tomorrow. Maybe I'll talk to them tomorrow, you know, and so on. So this kind of nagging feeling we have when we feel as though we've done something that maybe wasn't so kind or generous. So in China, the Buddhists developed these elaborate public ceremonies that were said to relieve suffering not only for the living, but also for the dead. So I think we all can remember pretty well the Sejiki ceremony. I'm sitting where the altar was. very powerful just to walk here in here and see that altar in itself was a very powerful thing for me to experience and then the ceremony it's always very powerful calling on the names of our loved ones you know I heard my parents names and I could feel the great opening of grief around these people that I love and other people that I have now have have gone away from our community and the list is getting longer every year more names

[21:36]

You know, sometimes I think my name is going to get on there one of these days. So we call them forth, all of them, using these mysterious sounds that only the deceased are able to hear. Lots of noises. And then also we do the full moon ceremony, which is another confession and repentance ceremony. It's very ancient. Probably the oldest Buddhist ritual is the full moon ceremony, and partly because the monks were out by themselves in the forest. So there was a clock that showed up every month, the full moon. So they would come together on the full moon and also on the half moon to make their confessions about what of the shingi or the guidelines they had not fully followed during that time. So twice a month. And we're doing that now at Green Gulch twice a month. We do a full moon and a half moon ceremony, a new moon ceremony in support of our practice. And so, you know, before the monks would recite their vows or acknowledge their ancient twisted karma, they would...

[22:48]

review the guidelines and acknowledge anything that they had not done that were out of alignment with those agreements. So this was said to relieve them of the more severe consequences of their actions, you know, to kind of realign them with their intention to try harder. And then next time they could do it again for the next cycle of the moon. So this was kind of a way of relieving that karmic consequences, like the Rokudo. You're going to come back, so you better be really good about acknowledging what you've done. That'll soften the return. It'll be a little less. So over time, a lot of the consequences for transgressions in the early Sangha became a code of conduct, like the Vinaya. The Buddha didn't give a bunch of rules right away. He resisted doing that. He just did it case by case. So if somebody's late, for example, to the meditation, then there would be a rule. You know, if they didn't tie their robes on properly, then there would be a rule.

[23:51]

So each of the rules of conduct were added as something happened. It came up in response to a situation. So then the major violations for celibate monks were killing, stealing, lying, and sexual intercourse. These are celibate monks. And for those violations, they would be expelled from the community. For lesser transgressions, including, this is from the old text, gossiping, expressing envy, or failing to accept admonitions, excuse me, admonishments, then a confession was made before the entire assembly of monks. And then after that, the monk would spend two weeks in solitary meditation retreat. For minor transgressions, such as bad manners, carelessness, abusing others by scolding, degrading them, or tickling them. The ancient text says that you made a confession before about five of your senior practitioners.

[24:57]

So a little less. This is less of a big deal. So by means of these ritual atonements, kind of entonements, the community supported the individual's intention to practice, but also supported the lay people who counted on the integrity of the monks for their own spiritual salvation. They needed to trust the monks. And oftentimes what the Buddha would say when he would speak to a monk about their deportment, not that what you did was so bad, but what you did is going to discourage the lay people. They're going to feel discouraged that monks get drunk or run off when they're supposed to be working. So that's the reason. You don't want to discourage other people from practicing. I think that still holds. We want people to think we're honorable, that Buddhism is worth being held or looked at, you know, rather than something to be scorned. You know, we've gone through phases where we felt ashamed of ourselves as a community, and that's very painful. And so that's part of why I think we all want to uphold the virtue and values together.

[26:05]

So there's a second and more deeply felt type of confession and repentance that also evolved in the early Sangha. And this wasn't for the purpose of maintaining the good reputation of the monks in society, but for coping with the outcome of having generated bad karma in the first place. So that feeling you have inside of yourself, you know. So this type of ritual was used to confront the outcome of unskillful actions that a monk had intentionally done. So karma is about intention. It's not about Accidents, those aren't generating karma. It's just something that happened that you didn't intend. It's what you intend that counts towards your remorse, but you might feel. Remorse means chew it again. You chew it again, it comes back up, and you chew it again. It's like, ah, you know, that kind of bad feeling, it hangs on. So mostly intentional misconduct had to do with lying about misdeeds. or giving way to anger.

[27:07]

Those are the big ones. Anger is, you know, lust is considered a minor in many ways because it's very close to the bodhisattva vow to cherish all beings. So it's, you know, love and lust are a little bit in the category of, well, that's not quite as bad, but anger severs your relationship with others. So that's considered the most grave of all of the misdeeds is to expressions of anger. So in a psychologically healthy human being, these actions created shameful feelings for having broken the precepts. And these confession rituals were directed at this inevitable rebirth in the lower realms of the rokudo for those harmful actions. That's what would happen to you. That's what would be required. With ritual confession that you shared with your teacher, it was believed that you shortened the time that you would spend, you know, as a banana slug or a water buffalo. You wouldn't be there so long. So this form of confession drew on the spiritual power of the compassionate Buddhas or on the magical power of the Dharanis to rectify a harmful situation.

[28:16]

So this practice of chanting Dharanis, Dharanis is a word that means to hold or maintain, is believed to have healing power in and of itself, just like music does without lyrics, just the sounds, the sounds of these chants that we do, these Dharanis. we don't translate that. We just chant it with a lot of spirit. In many Mahayana sutras, like the Heart Sutra, there's a Durrani at the end. That's a Durrani. So these forms of Buddhist confession, using sound or food offering or magical gestures over many centuries, somewhat regrettably, kind of created an idea that the Buddha had a god-like function, that the Buddha could basically, you know, make you wealthy or cure your cancer or any kinds of things. So the multitudes began to come to the temples beseeching the Buddha for favors, you know, much like people do at, I don't know, mine lottery tickets.

[29:23]

I don't know. But anyway, some hope that we're going to, some good things will happen to us if we offer our prayers. So... This protection was particularly important for members of society who did actually make a living by violating precepts, like samurai and hunters and the butchers and the politicians, who were very rightfully terrified of what might lie ahead for them once they ended this current life. So when the Mahayana Buddhism arrived, protection from past evil karma was then based on the practitioner's realization of the mark of all things, the true mark of all things, which is emptiness. That was the salvation that was offered. Just one realization, the mark of emptiness, and that cleaned up all of your evil karma. So meditation on emptiness that evolved in the Mahayana tradition flowered into a concept called formless repentance, which is something you can read about in the Platform Sutra.

[30:31]

of the sixth ancestor, Huynong. Huynong was the ancestor who was selling firewood in the marketplace and awakened to a recitation by a monk chanting a line from the Diamond Sutra, Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. The Bodhisattva, the great being, should produce an unsupported thought, that is a thought that is nowhere supported, a thought that is unsupported by sights or sounds, smells, tastes, touchables, or mind objects. That kind of thought. And you will be free. And that was that. So Huynong's insight on unsupported thought, thought that is both empty and signless, not only removed the seemingly bad karma of being a woodcutter, but it freed him from past wrongdoing as well. And this arousing of enlightened awareness he said, was like the sun of wisdom melting away the frost on the morning grass.

[31:33]

So by means of insight into emptiness, one could be freed from the consequences of selfishness on the spot. The formless repentance was also called insight repentance. So this is the kind of repentance that allowed Hyakujo, the elder, to escape from his seemingly endless rounds as a wild fox. It included the insight that True liberation does not ignore cause and effect. So it's complete. True liberation does not abandon the world of suffering beings. So insight repentance or formless repentance is very different from this confessional type from the early Buddha Sangha, which sought to correct wrongdoings through various means like repentance or atonement or probation or some kind of exclusion. For Mahayana Buddhists, wrongs were to be cast aside by the radical internal transformation called awakening. This style of confession became the dominant form for monastic sanghas in China and Korea and Japan.

[32:40]

And here too, over in California, we continue this faithful practice of facing the Buddha and avowing our ancient twisted karma. And then we take refuge and we chant the Perfection of Wisdom Sutra for the realization of emptiness. So it's all right there in our morning service. Once acknowledging our transgressions, atonement is made based on the ultimate truth, on that view of reality that is not much of a view at all. No thing to notice, no things to correct, no thing at all, no one to feel regret, or no one to ask for forgiveness. Mu. So according to our good friend Charlie Pokorny, this formless repentance became so popular in China and then Japan that repentance was reduced to the single act of recognizing the emptiness of all things, including the doer of deeds, the deed itself, and whatever karmic consequences would follow.

[33:43]

There was no one and nothing to follow. However, there is no school of Buddhism, that held that just one approach to repentance was sufficient. These two approaches, one from the relative view of causality and the other from the ultimate view of reality, are complements of one another, and they depend on one another, just like our left and right foot when we walk. As practitioners of the Buddhist teaching, we make a sincere effort and commitment to pivot freely from one side to the other and then back again, from formless... practice, form is emptiness, to the practice of form, emptiness is form, and then back again until the two become more or less indistinguishable, both inside of ourselves and to the people around us. Juri, who is the fourth ancestor in the school of Tendai Buddhism, this is the school where Dogen did his training as a novice priest, taught his monks that both the practices of form and

[34:47]

relative truth, and the formless practice, ultimate truth, are preliminary methods, which at the time of complete realization are both abandoned. And this is pretty much in keeping with Dogen's third line in the Genjo Koan, leaping clear of the many and the one, of the relative and the ultimate. So leaping clear of the world of relative truth and ultimate truth, and then leaping right back down again to see if anyone needs your help. By not ignoring cause and effect and by using the wisdom of emptiness, we can really help others. You know, just as Yakujo, the younger, did for his older self. By teaching the old man how to leap and how to laugh and how to dance as a wild fox. Juri then asserts that in every moment we are to understand three truths. Emptiness, the value of relative truth. and that's the truth that includes precepts and repentance, and an all-inclusive middle path.

[35:53]

And so as a result, one is able to empathize with the pain of all beings while inviting them to cross over into unboundedness, to leap free of whatever's holding them. So while we are given a good many opportunities to notice how the mind pivots between the ultimate view, reality and the relative view of reality it's only on the relative side of not ignoring cause and effect that Bodhisattvas can hone their skills their compassion and their wisdom I once heard a teacher say that we should go over to that side so that we know that it's there but come back to this side in order to practice So I think a lot of sincere practitioners, I certainly count myself as one, really did hope that we could stay over on that side, you know, where troubles melt like lemon drops. And of course we do. We'd all like to do that. That's normal human thinking.

[36:55]

You know, I wanted to find some tranquility and happiness that wouldn't simply fade like some glorious sunset. But there is no such place. There are no states of mind like that. And although the Buddha told us not to look for any permanent hiding place, it's very hard for us not to wish for an end of suffering that would be something that we could get a hold of, that we could possess or own or defend, you know, like a piece of real estate. In our quest for happiness, we attempt to satisfy our desires by trying to attach ourselves to things or to ideas or to property or to other people. that are by their very nature unstable, unreliable, changing and impermanent. In other words, failure is guaranteed. You cannot attach to anything. So the Buddha's solution was simply to let go. Better yet, to realize that letting go is what's happening anyway. In each and every moment, birth and death is one long word, just like inhale and exhale is a rather short word.

[38:02]

Without the tiniest gap of separation between an inhalation and an exhalation, or between our birth and our death. No gap. So this is the practice realization of the ultimate truth. And still, it's our job to take up the work on the relative side. The work, as they say in the texts, of untangling the tangles, loosening the knots, knocking out the pegs. As we work... to gain actual skills that are useful to a world in which cause and effect hold sway. So over time, time is one of the features of the relative world, we grow utensil strengths that can help carry us upright throughout our day. Reverend Angel calls this the no big deal Zen. You know, just today, again, oreoki lunch, bath, oreoki dinner, zazen, and bed. which is not too hard and not too easy. So once we settle into the wisdom of avowing our ancient twisted karma through the practice of remembering and regretting, we are ready to recite the refuges.

[39:10]

So this is the sequence of practice that, as I said, we enact every morning in our ritual of morning service. First confession and repentance, and then I take refuge. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma and Sangha. The word confession is a Latin word, comes from a Latin word, which means to acknowledge. And the word repentance comes from a Latin word meaning to regret. And interesting to me, there's also this idea in Hebrew of repentance, which is made up of two verbs. One is returning, and the other is feeling sorrow. So in terms of the Bible, this refers to a conversion from self-love and self-assertion to an obedient trust and commitment of oneself to God, the higher power. And as Buddhists, we have very nearly this same intention. But rather than turning our trust and our commitment toward a deity, we turn ourselves toward a way of life dedicated to the welfare of all beings.

[40:17]

You know, in some sense, we become stewards of creation itself, regardless of who made it. And it's also interesting to me that among the elements of existence that are featured in the Abhidharma, which I talked about a little bit, the three baskets. So the Abhidharma is the third basket of the Tripitaka. So there are two dharmas, small dharmas, that are considered to be wholesome. There's only two of the 75. One of them is to feel ashamed of wrongdoing. That's wholesome. And the other is to fear the consequence of wrongdoing. So this is also called a sense of shame and a dread of blame. And I know a lot of people go, well, that doesn't sound so good. You know, to our modern ears, especially in a culture where shame is viewed as some unhealthy psychological condition. But, you know, I think if we think about it a little bit, feeling some shame or feeling ashamed of yourself for something you did, I mean, not something you didn't do. The best way to locate, I understand, yourself is by being accused falsely.

[41:23]

I didn't do that. Well, that's you. So we can try that with each other. Just blame each other for things they didn't do and give them a chance to see the self-maker right there. So, you know, but the point is that... Being conscious of our mistakes, the ones we actually know we did, and then being concerned about the effect of our behavior on others is really essential to a life of harmony within the community. I did that, and I know it had an impact. And I'm sorry. I would like to let you know I'm really sorry. So as with all of these practices, the point is not to overdo it and not to fall into one or the other extremes of self-loathing or self-loving. So I want to end this morning with another story. This one's a Jataka tale taken from the Pali Canon, which shows the importance the Buddha held for the practice of self-examination as the entry gate to a life devoted to the Dharma. So the Jataka tales, if you're not familiar with them, are stories about Shakyamuni Buddha's many incarnations, his many former lives.

[42:33]

So they're often told to children, and they're usually involved... time that he was an animal you know a monkey or a deer or and somehow he was a leader of his his troop of monkeys and he would save them often by offering himself his bodhisattva training program was the were these many many returns to different forms of life where he would learn again how to be generous and how to protect others so this was the vow that was started by Sumedha, if you remember Sumedha, who was the young yogi long, long ago, who saw a Buddha and wanted to become a Buddha, and so he made the first bodhisattva vow. I will keep coming back. I will not leave samsara. I will not stop reincarnating until I become a Buddha. So Sumedha's vow was Shakyamuni Buddha's reincarnations, and those are the Jataka tales. Stories of his former lives. So... Sumedha vowed to stay in samsara until he became Buddha, which he did.

[43:37]

So the future Buddha in this story undergoes this very kind of honest self-examination. And he does so in each of his lifetimes. But this one's particularly interesting. At one time, the bodhisattva was a king named Subrabhasha. One day he asked his elephant trainer to bring his great white elephant for him to ride. But the trainer tells the king the elephant had escaped into the jungle. However, he reassures the king, you don't need to worry, your majesty. He will soon return because he is well trained. The king did not believe him and he became furious, yelling at the trainer and telling him to leave. The next morning when the elephant returned, the trainer said to the king, you see, your majesty, the training was good. We have conquered his old wild ways. The king then said, though I am a king holding great power over others, I have as yet failed to conquer what is closest. I have yet to conquer myself. I was unable to control my own anger, and this will not do.

[44:40]

So this kind of honest self-evaluation helps us to be motivated and also inspires us to continue finding our way. It took the king a lot of courage to face not only his trainer but also himself and to admit that he was wrong. I think oftentimes we back away from that, you know, for various reasons. We feel embarrassed or we feel ashamed of the mistakes that we make. And instead we lead with some string of excuses. Well, it wasn't my fault or my alarm clock didn't go off or, you know, on and on. I'm very fond of making them myself. But I think the thing is that, you know, oh, the other one is to blame someone else. You know, that's another one. I think she did it. I have this card that a friend made It wasn't for me, but it works. Drawing of an owl on the front and underneath in big red letters it says, in my defense, it's your fault. So I have it up in my office on the wall there.

[45:44]

So I think this is a familiar instinct for us to avoid looking at our own mistakes. And it also seems common for us to try to protect others who make mistakes as if mistakes are actually mistakes and not the best opportunity for learning something. I think I've mentioned to you all that Maya, Wender, and I talk about learning tea ceremony. You know, we both have taught tea and studied tea for a very long time. And one of the critical parts of being taught is to have your errors corrected as you go along. So she and I both prefer calling those corrections critique rather than criticisms. So we critique the student, as our teachers have done with us. You know, when you're learning a craft, like tea ceremony or... bell ringing or oreochi or dishwashing, you know, it's important to help people by pointing out mistakes. When my Japanese teacher, I think she would have looked at me very strangely if I had started telling her why I did not put the tea bowl in the right spot, you know.

[46:46]

And from very early on, we learned just to bow and say height and then move the bowl to the place where it belonged. Height? It's great. You can do that. Just height? Got it? It means I got it. I've learned something. So confession, in truth, is an act of compassion. The more we allow ourselves to acknowledge our unskillful or forgetful behavior, the more we can open honestly to ourselves and to others. You know, that dam will break. And through confession, we admit that we are ordinary human beings who are often driven by hateful, lustful, or delusional beliefs. And the further away we get from being ordinary, the harder it is to admit what we've done and to accept forgiveness for mistakes that we aren't quite ready to see. By bringing those unskillful thoughts and actions out in front, we may feel some remorse and some shame, and yet it's through the pain of surrendering to the truth of our actions that we begin to heal.

[47:49]

I now fully avow, that's me, and that's probably going to be me again. This is not a once and for all life that we're living. So formal confession brings us relief from the self-centered actions of our body, speech, and mind. Formless confession brings us relief from everything that is beyond the limitations of our dualistic visions of right and wrong, helping us to realize that there is nothing we can do by our own power. There is nothing that we can do without the support that we receive and the support that we give to one another. As Reb says in his book, Being Upright, When you become confession and repentance, you transcend the wound of separation between yourself and all beings. And yet, it's not our own strength or power through which that wound begins to heal. It's the power of taking refuge in awakening and in the truth and in our communities of our dear and faithful friends, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, the first three of the 16 Bodhisattva precepts.

[48:58]

I think some of you may have read in Reb's book, the chapter on refuges, that when Dogen was nearing the end of his life, he wrote these three characters on a piece of white silk, and he hung it in his sick room. He wrote Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. And then he circled around it with whatever strength he had left. I take refuge in Buddha. I take refuge in Dharma. I take refuge in Sangha. So here's this great scholar and thinker doing this very simple practice at the end of his life. These are the words, the three words, which he had given his entire life for the sake of all beings. So tomorrow I'm going to talk about the three refuges that we recite in the morning following our repentance and our confession. I can't do it without chanting it. Thank you. What is it? That's Pali, by the way, not Sanskrit.

[50:11]

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive. Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[50:32]

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