This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfcc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Good morning, everyone. I realize that so many people don't have their videos on. I can't really see you. But welcome to the Green Gulch lecture. Green Gulch is entering into the autumn time, the fall. The harvest is pretty much in. We did a gleaning last week, going through the rows and gathering seeds. produce, vegetables that were left to donate to food banks and other organizations.

[01:05]

And next week is our last community work where we go down to the fields and hoe and weed. This last Wednesday, right before I was going off to community work, I heard this noise outside of up in Spring Valley, that it was, I had never heard such a noise. I had no idea what it was. In my mind, it was like two bobcats fighting off a mountain lion or something like. It was such a strong, wild sound. And it reminded me of a little, Zen story, which was about Master Jing Chuang, who asked a monk, what's that sound outside?

[02:07]

And the monk said, the sound of a snake eating a toad. And Master Jing Chuang said, when you acknowledge the suffering of beings, then there are more suffering beings. which I think we often want to hear when we acknowledge the suffering. Then our suffering quiets down, but there's just more suffering. And when we try and get away from that or run away from that, we actually lose our capacity to meet our life. So later on, I asked somebody, Sarah Tashka, the head of the farm, who lives up in Spring Valley, did you hear that sound up there?

[03:12]

And she said she did, and she looked out, and it was a fox, and she had never heard such a sound. She thought she didn't know what it was for sure, that it might be in heat or something, but it was an amazingly wild sound. So this morning, as I was preparing for this talk, I kept hearing the sound of an owl calling and calling and calling. So I feel supported by life. This morning, I... I wanted to continue talking about something I brought up in the one-day sitting last week. And this was a talk given to the one-day sitting participants.

[04:13]

I don't think it was, it wasn't Zoomed. And last Sunday, we had a precept ceremony, a layered nation, Zai Kei Tokudo, staying at home. And... attaining or realizing the way, zaikei tokudo. And I wanted to speak about Zen precepts and some ways in which we can be confused about what are these precepts. So I wanted to bring that up. And along with that, bring up something that is found in Suzuki Roshi and Dogen and other teachers about our relationship, the mutual relationship we have with the Buddha, Buddha nature, with our own nature as Buddha nature.

[05:19]

So I wanted to bring that up as well. So in terms of the precepts, many of you have received Buddha's precepts, the Bodhisattva precepts, the 16 Bodhisattva precepts. Others of you have recited them on full moon or new moon or been to a ceremony and heard them or studied them. And I've been in a study group that Tenshin Roshi had has been offering for senior students. And we've been looking at a commentary by a particular teacher, Oka Sotan Roshi, who was the teacher...

[06:24]

This is the connection with Suzuki Roshi, the teacher to Kichizawa Ion, who was Suzuki Roshi's teacher on Dogen. So in this particular piece about the precepts, there's it. It's actually the precepts. Sometimes we think, well, I know what the precepts are. And in this. It's actually quite difficult to understand what the precepts are. Maybe easy to say, but difficult to understand. And Suzuki Roshi also, this was illuminating for me, because Suzuki Roshi has many lectures on the precepts that you can find. And he often...

[07:26]

points to the fact that Zen and precepts are non-dual or are the same thing. Or Zazen and precepts are the same thing. But that is sort of difficult for us to understand. And I wanted to talk about that. Often we think of the precepts as... similar to other kinds of things we've been exposed to, like the Ten Commandments or other kinds of rules of deportment. So thinking that this list of moral and ethical teachings... The thought is if we do these practices of restraint, restraining, abandoning false speech, letting go of killing, not taking what is not given, the precepts are given with negatives often.

[08:37]

A disciple of Buddha does not do these things, does not... praise self at the expense of other, does not slander, etc. So these are precepts of restraint and keeping us from doing activities that are morally unwholesome or harmful. So our usual understanding is that I'm a person who wants to observe precepts and live an upright life. And so I will practice these precepts, these bodhisattva precepts given by the Buddha, and then I will be a moral and upright person. So similar to Ten Commandments, or it's also often the way we think of practice in general.

[09:37]

If I will practice and sit and, you know, make this effort, then I will wake up. So this particular commentary, and Suzuki Roshi and Ndovin, turns this, it says, this is backwards. This is topsy-turvy to think that if I practice these restraints and moral and ethical rules, the ten grave precepts, etc., then I will be a bodhisattva. If I practice them, then I will realize my true nature. However, the teaching of the precepts is actually different than that.

[10:41]

The teaching is that you can't create a good person out of, you know, or an awakened person out of practicing in that way, thinking that you lack something. And in order to get that, then you're going to practice this way. And then this is, that's a, backwards understanding. The teaching is that already our nature is awakened nature, that the precepts and our Zazen mind are non-dual. This Zazen mind or one mind in this essay, it says that came way before sutras or vinya, you know, precepts, the 350 or 250 precepts.

[11:48]

Before any of that, there was the one mind of which that is our true nature, our true existence. So the precepts It's not that we practice the precepts in order to become, but because we already are, that this is our nature already, we practice the precepts, because that's who we are. So, I wanted to read... from this essay, Okasota. The precepts regarded in this way is not ordinary, and I think it does, it flips kind of our usual way of thinking of precepts.

[12:52]

The precepts and Zen are not separate. All the rules of restraint that are practiced concerning the seven evil physical and verbal acts, and these itemized expressions of Buddhist morality, that is not the Zen precepts. That is not the Buddhist ancestors' correctly transmitted Zen precepts. Zen is precepts. The precepts are and thus to uphold the Zen precepts, they are the womb that gives birth to Buddhist morality. The precepts themselves are not what you practice in order to be a moral person.

[13:57]

The precepts are all, that's who you are. It's, The womb that creates... It gives birth to Buddhist morality. Not that you practice them in order to. So the worldly explanations of this have this backwards. And this... How do we understand? And this is... When I say it's difficult to understand... I share the difficulty. The way my mind tends is the pattern it falls into is practicing in this way then. And to rest in this teaching that our nature already is, you know, the womb of morality.

[15:02]

And thus we practice these precepts because that's who we are. It's harder to understand. And of course we think, no, no, not me. I mean, if you know the kind of person I am, I'm not such a great person. We think in that way. But this is bigger than that way that we think about ourselves. And whenever we look at our practice, we often think, I have so much to learn. I have so much to practice with. The teaching is that the Buddha Dharma is abundant in each of us and is our nature. It is under our own heel, as Dogen says. And therefore, we should not be slack in our practice because that is our nature.

[16:11]

Rather than, well, I shouldn't be slack. I need to practice in order to. It's the same with the teaching of practice realization. Practice dash realization is one word, one not practicing in order to realize, but suffused in our practice is the truth. of our nature of realization. So Suzuki Roshi brings this up in different lectures. He says to study Buddhism is not just to observe the ten prohibitory precepts, not killing, not stealing, etc. Because he can't say everything at once because of our grammar, then he quickly says, it is precepts.

[17:17]

It is really precepts. But even though you observe these precepts, that's not how you observe the real precepts. So I just appreciate his effort of... I'm not saying that those are not the precepts, but to really observe the real precepts is different than that. I'm not negating. I'm not saying you shouldn't practice not killing, not stealing, etc. I'm not saying that. But if you get caught in thinking that's the only way of understanding precepts, that's not observing the true precepts. So he's trying to do both sides for us. And then, you know, the point to observe these precepts is how to be yourself. Then you have precepts. You have complete precepts. So practicing the precepts, really observing the true precepts is to completely be yourself.

[18:25]

Then the precepts are with you always. Just be yourself. So. Again, one might say, but myself, what do you mean myself? I'm so, you know. One may have a lot of self-criticism or. self-admonishment or shame about our practice. But I think Suzuki Roshi's pointing to something beyond that, deeper than that, truer than that way that we have of criticizing ourself and chastising ourself. He wants us to look at something... Be yourself in the sense of our big self or big mind.

[19:32]

And that our Zazen practice, becoming ourselves, truly being ourselves, practicing Zazen is, you know, this is the practice that's been offered to us. And he connects that with precepts. This is why it's important for you to receive the precepts, because that's your true nature. So the real precepts that are beyond these words is what's passed on, really, what's transmitted in the precept ceremony. this one reality of our non-dual nature with, I'm going to say Buddha.

[20:44]

Now, along with precepts, I wanted to bring up a teaching, and in Japanese it's Kano Doko. So in this commentary I was telling you about, it's talking about the precepts and receiving them. It brings up Kano Doko, which has many translations. It's translated as spiritual communion, sympathetic resonance. intuitive perception and response, resonance of awakening. So these are all, it's hard to, it's a hard phrase to put into English.

[21:48]

The characters, the kan, the first is to feel or intuit, and the o or kan no is responsiveness. and do is the way, and ko is like crossing or interconnecting. So this intuitive responsiveness and connecting spiritual communion. So in this essay I was talking about, it says, sentient beings receive the precepts and unite with all Buddhists. All Buddhas responding to the capacity of sentient beings respond to them. Sentient beings and Buddhas are merged, and there is no inside or outside. Present, past, and future are themselves naturally complete.

[22:51]

So when sentient beings receive Buddhas' precepts, the Buddhas, This is similar to inquiry and response come up together. When we inquire, when we ask, when we make this kind of effort, there is a response in our life. Now, one might feel like, well, I have a difficulty with that. You know, I would say that if you're here listening to this Dharma talk, you have had, there's some experience of Kano Doko in your life. Affinity, affinity with the Dharma, affinity, feeling responded to with the teaching, with a teacher.

[23:57]

And this can happen. You know, often people will say to me, oh, that talk you gave, and I used to feel this way too. I still do. That the person who was giving the talk was speaking right to me. That was exactly what I needed to hear. That was like my issue that I've been turning. And somehow they brought it up in the Dharma talk. This is not unusual. And to me, that's part of this... There was an inquiry. There was a effort. There was a listing and a wish to understand something, and there was a response to that. So this kanodoko, this perceiving and intuiting and this response that happens, there's a

[24:57]

that it happens in four different ways. Sometimes both the inquiry and the response are imperceptible. It's happening, but it's not perceptible. And I wanted to tell a little story about it. what I think of as a kind of example of that. When my husband, Steve Weintraub, in 1967, was getting a job at the Sharecroppers Fund in New York, 1967, the person whose job he was taking named Jeff Broadbent was a Zen student. He was leaving the job.

[25:59]

And he said to Steve, this is a very boring job. And the only way you can get through this job is if you're practicing Zen. And then he proceeded to show Steve how to use the Xerox machine. This is in 1967. And he did it by putting his face down on the machine and Xeroxing his head His face, which Steve thought was really unusual. My sense of... And Steve ended up coming to San Francisco eventually in a year or so to be his N student. And, you know, he's been practicing for 55 years or so. So I don't think this person who was teaching him to use the Xerox machine... was trying to proselytize or say you should become a Zen student or this is the way you should practice or anything. He was just expressing himself.

[27:02]

And Steve wasn't asking for teachings. However, there was this exchange. There was a kind of kanodoko of mutual something, but imperceptible. And sometimes the asking is not perceptible, and the response is perceptible. So sometimes people come to Tazahara in the summer, hopefully next summer they'll be able to, and it feels great to be there in the hot springs, and they didn't come. They're really for Zen teaching. That's not why they got reservations to go to the hot springs. However, there's not much going on at Tassahara, so they might show up at a Dharma talk in the evening, and there someone is actively offering the Dharma.

[28:11]

But they showed up at the Dharma talk, so it's kind of imperceptible that maybe they wanted to hear this teaching. But the response was perceptible. If they're there at the jock, and maybe some of you today, there's a perceptible response. And then there's also a perceptible inquiry and an imperceptible response. So I know someone... went to Tassajara, and they took notes at one of these retreats. And then, you know, a couple years later, they were looking at their notes, kind of wondering, what was that thing that person was telling me in the retreat? And that's a kind of perceptible inquiry. But, you know, they're just looking at this note that they took, a kind of imperceptible response, so to speak.

[29:17]

And then there's the perceptible inquiry and the perceptible response. These are all different manifestations of this spiritual communion. In a fascicle on tape, receiving the three treasures. Dogen says, when you have mutual affinity. And interaction, that's this Kano Doko. With Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, you invariably take refuge in them. This relationship with Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is a relationship with our big mind, is a relationship with our true self. seeking, ways-seeking mind, there is a response that happens.

[30:25]

We're never actually not responded to when we make this effort. We may not perceive it, or we may perceive it many years later, but there is a response. Suzuki Roshi brings up Kano Doko in various of his lectures and talking about it in terms of relationship. So I looked up the word relationship just because I was like, what is the, we use it a lot. And I think Buddhism maybe can be, we can say it is about relationship between big mind and small mind, the absolute and the relative.

[31:35]

Buddhist and sentient beings, these things that sound like dichotomies. Dichotomies are two separate things that don't partake of one another. Very clear division. But relationship, it may look like two separate things, but they are in relationship. So the word relationship comes from a word that means a logical or natural association between two or more things. Connection. So it looks like two, but it's actually connected. Not one, not two. And all things are like that. The etymology of it, it comes from the Latin, which means to carry back, re, and then the latus, latus, means carried, to carry back.

[32:46]

And it goes... with a number, a cluster of words, relate or relationship, translate, collate, elate, legislate. So our relationship is... What is our relationship? And as soon as we divide in some separate way, like. Buddha's ascension beings, let's say, and I'm ascension being. And how am I ever going to become Buddha? That we fall out of relationship. The relationship is. It's so much more subtle than that. You know, talking about our true nature as one being, one big mind, as she says.

[34:03]

And then, you know, it's so wide. We don't even know how to talk about it. And of course, as soon as we talk about it, it isn't it anymore because it's reduced to our words and our concepts. It's actually inexpressible. However, we do make our effort to point to something. So in a recent lecture that I was studying of Suzuki Roshi, someone brought up a detail that, a very particular detail of conduct. And they said, how come... We have to worry about these kinds of very particular details when it's all one. That was basically the question. And Suzuki Hiroshi would say, that is a great question. That is really a good question. And then tried his best to bring up this teaching that, yes,

[35:18]

It is one mind, and in order to enact that, in order to express it, we have to take very careful care of every aspect of our life, every detail of our life, our everyday life, our life that includes brushing our teeth, and cleaning under the sink and, you know, grooming and caring for, you know, each thing of our life and the earth and each other. So, you know, our tendency, as I was saying at the beginning, was we hear this teaching of it's all one and we go to, well, if it's all one, then, hey, You know, I'm part of that all oneness and I don't have to do anything because that's the truth of our existence.

[36:28]

I can do what I want. And the teaching is actually, that's a topsy-turvy teaching. That's actually not observing the precepts. The precepts are Zen practice. And zazen mind is every single instance of our life, every activity, every thought is an expression of the one mind, let's say. Well, let's call it the one mind. And therefore, this Buddha Dharma needs to be cared for completely. Without slacking off. That's a translation of Dogen. To not slack off. Why? But hey, can't we just... It's already one.

[37:33]

That's a kind of new agey thing, right? It's all one, man. So this teaching... is that every single thing is important, is worthy of our attention, is the expression of our Buddha nature. And that's the actual relationship with, you know, our deluded sense that I'm separate from others and separate from the things of my life. This delusion that we live in and practice in I'm not saying that I don't have this delusion that I'm separate from each of you or the things of my life. But being in relationship, being in true relationship means to care for and dedicate my life, each moment of my life, to caring for everyday life.

[38:48]

This is why Dogen and Suzuki Roshi and other teachers are very strict about caring for our life, about the forms of our practice and our speech and our actions of body, speech, and mind. This very strict, it's not in order to then be a good person, I'll be really strict with myself. And then it's how we actually, what our relationship actually is to Buddha nature. It's this limited self, this deluded and deluded within delusion, limited self, not separate from, non-dual with. Buddha nature.

[39:59]

That is Buddha nature, both absolute and relative, we say. And it's very strict because there's no alternative to this. There's no kind of other way. Well, maybe I'll just, I don't know, go somewhere else and get away from all this. And there's nowhere to go, you know. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[40:54]

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