Good morning. I'd like to begin by thanking and acknowledging my teacher, Sojin Mel Weizmann Roshi. And I'd also like to thank our dear Abbas for inviting me to give this talk. And the purpose of my talk is just to encourage you in your practice, in case you were wondering. My practice is gratitude. So I think I really want to start by just saying what's on my mind. I'm so grateful for this rain. so grateful I was kind of hoping that it would be raining while I gave this talk because the sound of the sound of the rain on the roof of the Tassahara Zendo is pure Dharma this Dharma I don't know I'm not too sure

[01:27]

Just now, at the Jico stand, Amy said, feed it sesame soybeans and listen to it talk. Sounds good. You're up for that. Well, if I were to ask Jamel... What should I give a Dharma talk about? I'm going to give a Dharma talk. What should I talk about? I could tell you exactly what he'd say. He'd say, just talk about what you're practicing with. Okay. So here's what I'm practicing with. In four days, we're going to have a Kyukai ceremony here. A lay ordination ceremony.

[02:30]

So that's been very much on my mind. And I would like to talk this morning about what that means to me, what is Chukai, what it means to receive the precepts, if I can make such a audacious statement. Well, anyway, explore. We'll say explore what it means to receive the precepts and what you don't get and what you do get. The power of the ceremony. So, Jukai is two characters, Juk plus Kai. Kai means precepts Ju means to receive, but it also means to give.

[03:36]

It means giving and receiving. Giving and receiving the precepts. Another name for the ceremony is Zaikei Tokudo. This is complementary to shukkei tokudo. Both are ordination ceremonies. Shukkei tokudo is priest ordination ceremony, ceremony of home leaving. It means leaving home, shukkei, attaining the way, tokudo, or manifesting the way, something like that, practicing the way. So you might guess zaikei tokuto means staying home, attaining the way.

[04:42]

Actually, the two ceremonies are very similar. Very similar ceremonies. In priest ordination, you get more stuff. We tend to make a bigger deal out of it. But the meat poems of this ceremony, the two ceremonies, are remarkably similar. They're both ordination ceremonies. So, if this is Bodhisattva Training Academy, would this be kind of a when we graduate Bodhisattva Training Academy? I mean, we do want people to leave and, as we say, enter the marketplace with Giphi sewing hands.

[05:53]

That's the point of Tazahara. Tazahara is a training monastery. So we're training bodhisattvas, and the hope is that these bodhisattvas will enter the marketplace with gift-bestowing hands and share the Dharma. So maybe this is graduation ceremony, huh? Well, no, as a matter of fact, not. In fact, Another way of referring to it that people like a lot, I like a lot, we say bodhisattva initiation ceremony. Initiation means beginning. In my dharma transmission ceremony four years ago,

[07:05]

almost four years ago, April 2012. That's when Linda and I became qualified, empowered, authorized to give the precepts to perform the Ceremony of Chukai. Well, actually it was after the ceremony was done. Actually, the next day, Mel said to me, your practice is just beginning. Still, it's kind of a big deal. And the ceremony itself has a lot of power. So the Zhukai we'll be doing in four days is just one person.

[08:17]

It's Raven. I promised her I wasn't going to talk about Raven in this talk. I'm not going to talk about Raven. And actually, for me, the fact that... the Jukai is one person really highlights and accentuates for me the fact that it's never just one person. It's never just the people who are receiving the name and the robe in the ceremony. We all receive the precepts together. Every time we do a precept ceremony and in Soto Zen there are many many kinds of precept ceremonies there are many ways to receive the precepts we do

[09:34]

Full moon ceremony. Every full moon. On the regular. And in the full moon ceremony, we all received the precepts. Have you noticed? I think the last talk I gave, I said, you were tripped. What have I got myself into? Wait a minute. What did I just say? and then weddings even funerals I haven't been doing Jukai that long since the last four years

[10:37]

Actually, the first one was with Mel. And then after drama transmission, I've done a few. Linda and I have done a few together and separately. But I've been a priest since 2002. I've done a lot of weddings. I've done a lot of weddings. I love weddings. There's a lot of joy in my practice generally. You might have noticed. Officiating weddings gives me great joy. And that's always a precept ceremony. That's something that I got very clear about with Mel in my training. If I do a wedding, if I consent to do a wedding, can I do some premarital counseling, some pastoral counseling with the potential bribing room.

[11:46]

I always, we always talk about the precepts. And I say, are you ready to receive the precepts? Because that's going to be part of the ceremony. And we talk about that. This idea we had to have a funky Zen priests do our wedding and have a funky Zen wedding just kind of dropped down, got a little more serious. Good. I'm glad. The precepts have a lot of power. They help people. They help people in their relationships, in their marriages, in their life, in our life, in our life together. And then, like not having Jukai be about just one person or just two or three people, I know one time somebody married this couple,

[13:03]

And they said, I now pronounce you husband and wife, and I also pronounce all of you are all married to each other. Because we all receive the precepts together. And Nino might actually, when she gives an orientation for the ceremony, might perhaps encourage the assembly to, when we're doing the actual giving and receiving the precepts, the sort of main part of the ceremony, to do it yourself. Do it along with, like internally or sub-vocally, while we're doing it in the ceremony. A lot of people do that. to renew their own relationship to the precepts.

[14:09]

It's a powerful practice. So I said I want to I would like to talk about, I feel like we've been talking about precepts a lot. Awesome. So far, we've got a ways to go. So I thought in my talk, I didn't really want to talk about the precepts themselves, but the spirit. I want to talk about the ceremony and the spirit in which we receive the precepts and maybe a little bit about how practice with the precepts. And I thought, I don't know if this will work or not.

[15:17]

We'll see. But I told this story during Sashin, when I spoke in the Zendo, on whatever it was, day five, I think, about our 18th ancestor, Gayashatta. Two people asked me about that in practice discussion. And I think, yeah, I would like to follow up about that because it does have something to do with the precepts. So Gai Shata, as the story goes in the Denka Roku, was born shortly after he was born, this mirror appeared. And the mirror followed him everywhere. If he was walking somewhere, the mirror would be behind him like a nimbus.

[16:20]

If he sat down, the mirror would appear in front of him. When he went to sleep at night, the mirror was over his bed like a canopy. The mirror was always with him. Kind of miraculous, huh? Amazing story. And as the story goes, all the Buddha teachings from the past, present, and future could be seen in the mirror. Every aspect of heavenly and human affairs was clearly reflected in the mirror. The mirror could reveal any teaching, ancient or current, more clearly than the scriptures. However, when the boy left home and received the precepts, the mirror disappeared.

[17:20]

So what's that about? When the boy left home and received the precepts, the mirror disappeared. here's my take on it. The mirror is something special, amazing, miraculous, quite fancy. Receiving the precepts is just becoming yourself. Suzuki Roshi taught Shikantaza as just being yourself. He said, When you are you, Zen is Zen. When Gayasatta left home and received the precepts, the mirror disappeared. Gayasatta was just completely Gayasatta from that time forward.

[18:26]

You didn't need anything extra. And you're not getting anything extra. think of the ceremony as a way of formally asserting, enacting your relationship with the precepts. But fundamentally, the precepts are who you are, essentially. There's nothing to get. There's nothing extra. There's a swell book written by a well-known sewing teacher in our lineage, Jean Selkirk.

[19:32]

The book is called Buddha's Robe is Sewn. Pretty cool. She did a nice job. Oh, and Jean Selkirk's sewing teacher, fun fact, Linda Gallien. In the foreword to this book about sewing Buddha's robe, actually there's two forewords, one written by Soja Roshi and one written by Zenke Roshi, Blanche Hartman. In the foreword written by Mel, he says, the precepts are the lifeblood of the Buddhas. But strictly speaking, there's only one precept. Act as Buddha with compassion and selflessness. We think of receiving the precepts as something from outside.

[20:34]

But it's more like awakening our own innate desire for enlightenment. It may be natural enough to think about receiving the precepts as something from outside. There's the precepts, here's me, I'm receiving the precepts. But it's more like bringing forth. The du in jukai means giving and receiving. So you, we, we together completely meet the precepts. We completely embody the precepts. What we already are. What we already are. At a pivotal moment in my Dharma Transformation Ceremony, Mel, in his very quiet, understated way, maybe just take a little of the

[21:47]

edge off the drama just sort of leaned in and said I'm just giving you back what you already have I'm just giving you what you already have but you know we need some reminding so Mel says until we embody selfless compassionate action we need the precepts to remind us of how to act in this way Yeah, that's good. Because we need some reminders. We need to be reminded of what we essentially have. Who we innately are. Who we innately are is Buddha. So the ceremony itself has a lot of power.

[22:49]

to remind us of this. And I think that's the purpose of it. It's like stepping through a gate. Bodhisattva initiation. On your mark, get set, go. Bodhisattva. Yeah. Yeah. Very powerful. And there's something in there about the power. The power of the ceremony is, no surprise, the power of vow. All through the ceremony, you'll notice, four days ends, you will hear, yes, I will.

[23:51]

Yes, I will. Yes, I will. Yes, I will. Over and over again. Yes, I will. Publicly. With enthusiasm. With wholehearted commitment. And this is a little bit, you know, one way you could think about this is kind of Cutting off your escape routes. Yeah. Giving up your exit strategy. This clause that says, well, just in case, no, no, no. No, yes, I will. Yes, I will.

[24:52]

And of course, you've been doing that for some time before you did Chukai, before you stepped through that gate. I knew someone, somebody at City Center who was beginning a new relationship with somebody unacquainted with Zen or, you know, Buddhism. Yeah, I've heard of Buddhism, of course, it's cool. Everybody knows about Buddhism, it's cool. It's that cool religion. I think Zen's probably pretty cool. You know, didn't know much about it, actually, you know, the practice and so forth. And so my friend said, oh, they were having their new romantic interest. over to the building and showing them around and inviting them to this or that. And they said, it came to a full moon ceremony.

[25:57]

I said, oh, really? A full moon ceremony? Pretty early on. And I said, they were in the full moon ceremony? Yeah. They had some questions afterwards. said, yeah, I imagine they did have some questions. Like, what did I just vow? Or maybe, am I a bodhisattva now? Well, as a matter of fact, yes. But no need to worry. Because it's nothing you weren't From the very beginning. So, in that Zen kind of way, you don't really get anything.

[27:00]

Except, now, I want to talk about what you do get. Talk a little bit about the name, the robe, and the kechimyaku. So those are the things you do get in the Zen one. So, the name... A new name, a dharma name. In Japanese, hogo, dharma name. It's generally two kanji, two ideograms, two characters. And in our tradition, we have two names. We always get two names. Well, I shouldn't say always. Because Sojun, when Suzuki Roshi ordained Sojun, he was just Sojun. Essence of purity. For a long time. Until he did Dharma Transmission with Suzuki Roshi's son, Hoitsu.

[28:12]

At that time, Hoitsu gave him a weine, dougo. That's the first one. Dogo Hogo. Way name, Dharmon. Soja's way name is Hakuryu. White dragon. So there's a swell book that was put together by Akiba Roshi, Shoako Okamura, Kaz Tanahashi, Mel, and Michael Wenger. about dharma names. It's a primer for dharma names. And the introduction is pretty great. I think it was written a lot by Akiba Roshi and then there's an essay by Okamura Roshi. It's pretty neat. Get your hands on a copy. Check that out. In there, they talk about the way name and the dharma name.

[29:15]

So that's what we do. Two characters each. The way name is generally regarded, and I want to say these are conventions. There's exceptions for everything I'm saying about the name. I guarantee you, exceptions to all of it. So these are conventions not even necessarily widely held. But the way name, often the two kanji, the two ideograms are One is kind of abstract, like an adjective, called shinji. And the other is, excuse me, the abstract is seiji, and the concrete, or noun, is shinji. So, like hakuryu, white dragon. White dragon. Something...

[30:17]

often from nature. So you could also say Hidden Valley. That would be a good example. Sorry. That's a little in-joke. Hidden Valley, ranch dressing. That's not a good Dharma name. Maze Pop came up with that. Like that. He's asking about Dharma names and he says, Oh, you mean like Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing? Excuse me. The Dharma name is more informal and intimate. And there's a lot of... Some people would say that the way name is like what the teacher sees you as now. And the Dharma name is what the teacher sees you as becoming or practicing with?

[31:21]

Maybe. I would say maybe. There's some views about which name you should use. The first or the last. And I would say, look at Huai Nang and Sekito, way back in Tang Dynasty China. We don't call Hwaynang Dajian, Great Mirror. No, we say Hwaynang. But Shurtou, Sekito, we always refer to as Sekto, the first name. Sekito Kisen, we don't call him Kisen. And similarly, Eihei Dogen, we say Dogen, right? Call him Dogen. But then there's Kezan Joki, we call him Kezan. So, my advice is, don't get hung up about it. I will say, my Dharma name is Zenshin, and anytime I've ever gotten any mail from the Sotoshu, which, weirdly enough, I have, it's always addressed to Zenshin.

[32:39]

This is Zenshin, great thing. There's exceptions to all these things. Even in our tradition, the way we do things in San Francisco's Zen Center, the Dharma name is always a surprise, right? You don't know your name until the ceremony. You're not going to find out your name until the actual ceremony your new name is. It's kind of dramatic, but it's not always that way. Sometimes teacher would say, not in art tradition, but it has happened plenty of times. What would you like your new name to be? Got any ideas about your new name? And ask for suggestions. That happens. In my favorite book, Monkey, Journey to the West, the monkey king gets religion and decides to ordain as a Buddhist.

[33:46]

And he meets the venerable teacher. He says, I'm going to be a Buddhist. I want to ordain. Give me a dharma name. My dharma name will be great sage, equal of heaven. So he cooked up his own dharma name right on the spot. But we don't do that. We don't do that. You'll find out your dharma name when you do the ceremony. So the robe... In this case, it's called Raksu. Raksu is Buddha's robe, no less than this okesa is. The Raksu is merely a smaller, portable version of the okesa. It's cut along the same lines and the same pattern, which symbolizes a rice field. We call it the rice field of happiness, the field of benefaction. Maybe they have rock suits in China, but in Japan, in the Meiji Restoration in particular, became popular.

[34:54]

This style that we wear with the straps, and you can wear the belt around it, as we do when we're serving Orioki, for convenience and for working. And you're still wearing Buddha's robe. It's still, hello, I'm a Buddhist. It means this is the uniform of the bodhisattva. Think of it as a little sign that says, ask me something about Buddhism. You're putting it out there. I'm a Buddhist. When Linda and I went to Japan, we wore our rakasus every day. Wherever we went, every day we wore our rakasus. We weren't aware so much, but when we were with our friend Britt traveling around Yokohama and Kamakura, Britt had a ball. She just had so much fun watching Japanese people watching us, relating to us wearing the rock suits because they dug it.

[36:02]

They liked it a lot. We were oblivious. We were just like, we're in Japan. But Britt, who lives in Japan, It's like, yeah, it's meaningful. So we sew these robes ourselves in what's called the nyohoesaya, pure Dharma style. This was researched by Koda Sawaki. You can learn all about it in Gene Selkirk's book. I don't want to go into it too much. The relationship to sewing is very important and pivotal. Yesterday we had a sewing class, and Raven had just finished the Rakisu and turned it over to me. We had a tiny little mini ceremony where she purified the Rakisu and passed it to me, and I will give it back to her in four days. The sewing is very important. In fact, in Zen Center, shall I say Zen Center culture,

[37:09]

The words, are you sowing, are very weighted, very significant. And in the book, Being Upright, Rev talks about this business of sowing as maybe not the most important thing. Actually, the most important thing is, I would like to receive the precepts. So Rev says, when somebody comes to him and says, I want to start sewing. He turns it back to them. He says, what about the precepts? Although, some people are fine with studying the precepts for a long time and then they come up to starting to sew and it's like, it's interesting. It's interesting. One person candidly, said to me, I just wanted one of those blue bibs.

[38:16]

Yeah. Frankly, why did you do it? I wanted one of those blue bibs. Well, that might not be so bad. Actually, in the Shogo Genzo fascicle, Keisa Kudoku, which means the power of the rogues, Dogen talks at great length about the robe, the Okesha or Raktasu, having its own innate power. So I think just wanting to have one of those blue bibs, like, these are my people, this is who I identify with, I want to identify with them, I want to be part of that family, this is my tribe, just give me the blue bib. That may not be so bad. Do you all know the story about Upalavarna? She was a nun in Buddhist assembly who said that in a past life she put on an okesa as a joke.

[39:27]

She was an entertainer, a courtly entertainer and a comedian. And she put on an okesa as a joke. And due to the power of doing just that, In her next life, she became a nun. In the... I have to tell you this. I cannot resist. In the sutra, the sutra on the past lives of Upalavarna, it's said that practicing as a nun in Buddha's assembly, she would go to with noble women, highborn ladies, and preach the Dharma to them and encourage them to receive the precepts. And they would tell her, but we are all young and beautiful.

[40:27]

It would be too hard to keep the precepts. And Upalavarna says, go ahead and break the precepts. And the noble women say, but if we break the precepts, we will fall into hell. And Upalavarna says, can you guess? Go ahead, fall into hell. And then she tells the story of how when she was an entertainer and put on the okesa as a joke, In her next life, she was reborn as a nun in the time of Kasyapa Buddha, the Buddha before Shakyamuni. And as a nun in that time, she became very arrogant and she broke a precept and fell into hell.

[41:31]

But because she had received the precepts, she was able to continue practicing. and later reborn as a nun in Buddhist assembly. I think this is a great, wonderful, illustrative story about how we practice with the precepts. When Tony Patchell up in Sonoma, when he does a wedding and he talks about the precepts, he always tells people, They are not executive in content. The precepts are not to control you. The precepts are simply how an awakened being acts, how to behave. They're there to remind us, but our practice is in relationship to the precepts. It's not some rigid lockstep.

[42:36]

You may need to break a precept here and there. Anyway, it's gonna happen. Trust me. So, Lupala Varna says, go ahead, fall into hell. Because guess what? Hell is just another place to practice. Just keep practicing. That's the point. Finally, the Ketchumyaku. Ketchumyaku means blood vein. It's a lineage document, kind of a genealogical family tree from Shakyamuni Buddha down to you. So the ordinary's new name is written on the document and following

[43:37]

Through all the names, all the names we chant in morning service, the male ancestors, excuse me. Though actually, there will be a women ancestors document as well. The Ketchinyaku, the classic Ketchinyaku, through all the names is a single red line. This is the blood vein, is the red line. In a way, The red line is more important than the names. So you can insert all the women you like in there. The point is the blood vein. The point is this is a living practice. And a blood vein is part of the circulatory system.

[44:41]

Our heart pumps blood throughout the body, and it returns. It circulates. It's a circulatory system. And in the Ketchum Yaku, the line, the red line, the vein, comes down to the bottom. Actually, I'll mention just for interest, I could have brought one as a visual aid. At Hui Nung, the sixth ancestor, it separates and shows both the Soto and Rinzai or Linji miniages. So it separates like that and goes down to Ru Jing, Dogen's teacher, and also Mio Zen, who Dogen traveled with Mio Zen to China. and actually received dharma transmission in Rinzai lineage from Myozen.

[45:42]

So he received dharma transmission in both schools. And then the lions go back up and meet with Dogen. And then down through the rest of the names we chant after Dogen, down to Suzuki Roshi, in my case, Gyugaku Hoi-su, Suzuki's son, Hakuryu Sojin, that Ikfu Zenchen, cotton-robed monk. It's alive. Just as when we receive the precepts, we receive the precepts altogether. So also, when we practice, we're practicing with all these ancestors. They're a living part of our practice. That's why we chant their names every morning. It's crucial to this practice.

[46:44]

The keshimyaku is also sometimes called the kaimyaku, precept vein. It's a vein, it's a living thing, and it has no beginning or end. When it comes down to your name, the red line keeps going and goes right back up to the top again, to shakimugi. It circulates. practice is alive. The practice is transmitted from warm hand to warm hand. The thing that makes the warm hands warm is your lifeblood. The lifeblood of all the Buddhas and ancestors. So we all receive the precepts together and we practice the precepts together along with all the ancestors. I just want to close by saying, by reiterating something I said in a workshop announcement about this practice period, particularly where I feel we're at in this practice period right now as a community.

[48:06]

we've been practicing together very strongly and supporting each other very strongly and have come together as a very tight-knit, intimate, incredibly mutually supportive Sangha. And within that space, within this supportive space, there's a lot of healing going on. There's a lot of people being cracked open And accessing the love that exists everywhere. That was always there. The love that's just waiting for them to tap into. I think I have one of the best jobs in the world. Because I get to bear witness to that over and over again. So, please. Let's continue this practice together.

[49:10]

Let's continue to be open and vulnerable and access this love and share it with one another. Receiving the precepts together, giving and receiving together for the rest of our lives. Thank you for your forbearance. That's a little longer than I plan to talk. Could be time for a few questions. Please. Mm-hmm. Somehow, I guess you're participating in the fullness. Indeed we do.

[50:11]

Yeah, it was just funny because I feel like if I want to make a vow, I should really know what it's about and at least my point of view is something different to actually fulfill it. And then it's like we're just throwing people in there and it might be very beneficial. I'm fine with it. I really am. The old ancestor, Dogen, says, oh crumbs, I'm not going to be able to quote this word for word. Basically, if a fish tries to know the extent of the water before swimming in it, that fish will never find its way or its place.

[51:22]

That fish won't swim. If you got to know the end, I got to know exactly what I'm getting into, pal. No funny business. Life doesn't work that way. Life is a big mystery. Life is all funny business. Yes, I will. Yes, I will. Yes, I will. It's not like we're going to hold them to it, you know? It's okay. It's okay. I will say, you know, in my case, there was something to it. And I had thoughts like, wow, what did I just found? I didn't take it too seriously.

[52:23]

But you could say that a seed was planted. The seed has to be watered, you know? So, yeah, I'm not too bothered by it. I think it's just fine. They can take it however they want. Yes, please, Anna. Precepts are there for us to remind us and not to control us. They can't remind us of controlling. So what's the difference? Yes. Please don't use the precepts in that way. Use the precepts, allow them to work through you in the sense that this is who I already am, innately. Like the Lotus Sutra, you're all bound to become Buddha because you all already are innately Buddha.

[53:32]

You are of the nature of awakened mind. Our confusion keeps us from seeing it a lot of the time. So to relax with that and allow the precepts to work through you, to remind you of who you truly are. Does that make sense? I feel like I'm controlling for that sometimes, so I'm not sure if this works for me. I can try it. Well, the practice takes discipline to practice. That's true. But put Buddha in the driver's seat. Not Anna. Anna's not in the driver's seat. Buddha's in the driver's seat. While you're in Tassajara, the schedule and the guidelines are in the driver's seat. And that's a gift you can forget about. You can forget about your controlling mind.

[54:34]

You know? It's a gift. I think it's just called A Primer for Dharma Names. There was a copy in the library, but I think it went walkabout. Somebody asked me if they couldn't find it. Ask the librarian if she can find it. She'll look for it. She says she's going to look for it. He's calling dibs. Yeah, the introduction is quite interesting. And then it's just a long list of names. Kaji and Romaji and translations.

[55:38]

Suggested names. Long, long, long, long list. That's good enough. Please enjoy the rest of your day. It's supposed to be raining a lot more tonight. Tons more. Thank you very much.

[56:07]

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