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. My name is Kanjin Kediru Winshat. Thank you to the Tonto, David, for the invitation to speak today to Abiding Abbot Ed and to senior Dharma teacher Paul Haller and Rosalie Curtis who are the other preceptors today for the lay ordination or lay initiation this afternoon. And of course I want to thank my root teacher Zenke Blanch Hartman. I made this for her. many years ago, from the wood behind the Suzuki Roshi Memorial.

[01:05]

I forgot what kind of plant this is. Was it Ribes? No. Behind? No, no, this one's not. I think it's Ribes. So this is a way of bringing her into the room. And then also to my practice teacher, Vicki Austin. So as I was saying, today we're doing a lay initiation ceremony this afternoon at 3. It's a public event, so you're all invited. And nine people in this room are taking it. Four of them from my sitting group, Access to Zen. And the process is we convey what are called the 16 bodhisattva precepts. This is in the lineage of a Japanese Soto Zen from Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, the founder of San Francisco Zen Center. And here's directly from the website are the basic 16, or the traditional way of putting them.

[02:12]

First you take refuge in the three treasures, the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Then you take the three pure precepts, and Zen Center wording, on the website is, I vow to refrain from all evil. I vow to make every effort to live in enlightenment, and I vow to live and be lived for the benefit of all beings. Then there are 10 great precepts. I vow not to kill, not to take what's not given, not to misuse sexuality, not to, I vow to refrain from false speech. There are different wordings. I vow to refrain from intoxicants, I vow not to slander, I vow not to praise self at the expense of others, I vow not to be avaricious, I vow not to harbor ill will, and I vow not to disparage the three treasures. So, before someone can take the precepts, there is a process of precept studies.

[03:17]

Today I want to talk about my process. Different teachers have different processes, so this is mine. So for my people, we met monthly in a precept meeting of two hours. We did it for 11 long months. Didn't it feel long sometimes? They had to have practice discussions. They were required to come to weekly sangha meetings and studies. They read books. They listened to Suzuki Roshi talks. There was a reading packet of material, which I got from Blanche when I studied the Jukai with her, and then I've added some. And those were from different lineages of different sects of Buddhism take on what it means to either take the vows or a specific precept. So... You know, when people, I teach here quite a bit, and especially for beginners in the meditation training course, and then, you know, zazen instruction, other things, and people often ask me, you know, how, after they've been here a while, come to some talks, a few sittings, maybe engage in some other classes and stuff, and then they want to know, well, how can I have a fuller practice?

[04:41]

Yeah. And there are different options. And depending on what's going on, often I say, well, precept study is a really useful and good one to do. And as I was saying more last year at this time, here in the West, we start with meditation, most of us, when we think about practice. And yet, for most of the Buddhist world, it's actually... precepts is the beginning point, right? This is why when you go on retreats, often you have to take the precepts first. It's another way to say that this is kind of the guiding force of our practice. And you heard the 16. These are like values and intentions that are the foundation of practice, right? So the students come and they... do think that we're going to study because that's what it's called, and they think of it as much more of an intellectual practice, right?

[05:45]

And I'm always very clear, I think, that I'm saying, well, it's a practice, and so you have to engage in coming up with practices that you would do for a month. We study the five main ones in terms of specific precept practice for a whole month, and then we kind of combine some, right? I guess 11 months. So... And yet, you know, inevitably, as the months go on, and certainly by the end of it, they often say how amazed they are that it was about how do we practice with the precepts, right? So it's really the practice, the study is about manifesting or caring and holding these intentions of the precepts in the midst of your life. And perhaps more correctly, you could say how the practice is the process of manifesting these intentions.

[06:45]

And while there are 16 precepts we studied, I would like to say for today that it is one precept. And I'm going to call that precept the precept of and. A and D. So for those who study with me or have been in one of my classes or hang out with me for any length of time, you know that this is a practice I do over and over again. I literally stop myself when I want to say but and I say and. Actually, this began many years ago at Tassajara when I was there studying, and it was from Kosho. I heard a talk of Kosho another week. student of Blanche, who's now Abbott of Austin Zen Center, and he was talking about how, and I don't remember his specific example, but he basically says, when you say a sentence, and you say, and then you say, but, and then the second part gets lost, everyone just remembers the second part, and he gave some example, and again, I don't remember the specific, but these are the ones I tend to use when I talk about it.

[07:59]

For instance, like, I love you, but when you don't put down the toilet seat, right? I love you, but, you know, someone offered me, but when you don't close the cabinet doors, right? So we forget. You know, we remember the thing that we did wrong and forget that we're left. So... Is it just my experience or that's yours too? Now, if you replace it with, I love you, Anne, if you could close the cabinet door, that would, I would like that, right? So it has a different flavor, right? So, when I heard this from Kosho, it wasn't any big, even though we were in the Zendo in a practice period, it wasn't any big enlightenment experience, find you. Time did not stand still, no hairs came up the back of my neck. But it just made sense to me. And that's why I started to do it.

[09:01]

At first, it wasn't really even a conscious thing. I just did it. And at first, I didn't do it very well. And then with time, I have increased my noticing when I say but and replacing it with and. And in this practice, you would say, I've come to understand three aspects. of the teachings and practice, which I'd like to share with you today. And they are non-duality, interconnectedness, and transformation. Ino-san, I didn't bring a watch. If somebody has a watch, that would be great. Thank you very much. Right, so the first is non-duality. We live in duality. good and bad, right and wrong, black and white. We live getting stuck and believing that these binaries are real and solid, that we are either one or the other.

[10:08]

I'm good. If I'm good, then I'm safe from being bad. It's good to be right and bad to be wrong. Notice I said stuck. stuck in believing that these binaries are real and solid. I'm not saying that we need to get rid of them or that our practice is to pretend they don't exist, might you? They're useful distinctions, right? Especially to define, to clarify, to distinguish. And in terms of ethical conduct, it's good to have some clarity about what's virtuous or moral conduct. However, suffering tends to happen when we get stuck, or I would say the point of suffering tends to happen when we get stuck in believing that there are only these binaries. Stuck in not remembering that there are more and not just simplistic, dualistic options.

[11:13]

Or we get stuck when we're either end and we can't see our way out of it right you just feel bad right for most of us well sometimes people can feel good and then you know you mostly the outsiders can say wow they're stuck in being good and they need to like move you know a little bit away from that right but for most of us the bad thing that we're having harder letting go of it that's my experience um so we it's hard then to remember that there's a lot of space between that and that perhaps there's even a middle ground, a place that's more balanced and settled. So when we can remember that there's more to it than this place in which we feel stuck and, Andy, right, acts like a bridge to help us to be able to cross over to another option than where we think we're in.

[12:16]

And helps us to get unstuck. And helps us to remember that we can, we are, able to find ways to loosen up, to let in more. I'm reminded of one of my all-time favorite sayings from Bell Hooks in a chapter entitled Contemplation and Transformation. from the book Buddhist Women on the Edge, one of the first feminist Buddhist books in the United States. Bell Hooks says, there was a tremendous liberatory moment in my unhappy and painful childhood when I realized I am more than my pain. I'll say that again. There was a tremendous liberatory moment in my unhappy and painful childhood when I realized I am more than my pain. By engaging in a radical practice of facing our pain, we open up to seeing how we are more than just our pain.

[13:20]

I am experiencing pain and what else is here? Often in our practice, when we can truly identify what it is or how it is that the aspects or factors of this experience we're calling pain, in particular, especially if you've taken meditation training, really being able to identify the clear body sensations of it, we are much more likely to become aware that it changes and that it's much more manageable, right? Heat versus pain, for instance. I have pain, and what other experiences am I experiencing? instance, often in the midst of excitement, there can be experiences in which when we're not paying careful attention, we might mistake as anxiety. Your heart beating fast, perhaps a flush through the face or the neck.

[14:27]

Note that I've just talked about the teachings and the three marks of existence. Being able to identify dukkha, often translated as suffering, my preference is dis-ease or discontent, dissatisfaction. So when we're able to identify dis-ease, we are aware of how it changes, impermanence, which helps us to not solidify our experience, making it much easier not to create a self around it. I am an angry person as opposed to the experience of something that the emotion changes of anger arises, right? And then all the experience that come with it. So in practicing the precept of and, the second thing I discovered was a growing trust and faith and interconnectedness. When you've changed your language to be more inclusive, naturally this also opens up your point of view.

[15:33]

And when you do that, when you're also able to take in and acknowledge other or more points of views. So by letting go of our narrow sense of perspective, which you could say is another way of saying it, is to let go of your conditioned sense of defendedness. Your world also becomes more inclusive. It opens up to others, to include others. This and then is similar to with. This and is about connections, about interconnectedness. As one of my students said, interconnectedness is so long, such a long word. And I like it, though, because I think it conveys a little bit more, right? And I'm going to say more about that in a little bit. So to me, this thing about connection and relatedness and interconnectedness is the epitome of of the Mahayana Buddhist practice, right?

[16:37]

Of the Bodhisattva vow. I vow to attain enlightenment with all beings, to not cross through the other shore until all come together, right? Until us all come together. Grammatically, I don't know about that one. Okay. Shohakaloka Murura, in Living by Vow, says, the Bodhisattva vow has two aspects. becoming a Buddha, and helping all beings become Buddhists. These two cannot be separated. We vow to become Buddhists together with all beings. We vow to stay in samsara on purpose to walk with all beings. Samsara is the endless, suffering-laden cycle of birth and death. Wow. Wow. We're asking you nine, at least today, to connect to this, right? To the endless suffering latent cycle of birth and death.

[17:41]

To stay in samsara on purpose to walk with all beings. That's big. That's daunting. It's risky. So I was thinking about how that's risky. course, one of the precepts is not to kill. So for most of us, that means being a vegetarian. And I've been a vegetarian even before I practiced, well, in my childhood pretty much because we're too poor in Vietnam to have meat. Meat is a luxury in a lot of the world, right? In terms of when I came to the U.S. and had much more material goods. I chose at one point, like many of us, when we go to college to be a vegetarian. So I was there for a while. And then when I first moved here, I got really sick all the time.

[18:47]

And so I went to see a Chinese herbalist. And he said to me, I don't say this to many people, but you need to eat more red meat and tomatoes. I don't understand that system, but I remember that because I remember how sometimes I had cravings for a steak, red meat, especially a certain time of the year, right? Or excuse me, the month, right? So outside monastic settings, I have eaten meat, right? And so, oh, in 2006, I was practicing at Triklam at the nunnery in Vietnam with the abbess. She's now the abbess of a center here in Sacramento, and she'll be here this afternoon for the Tukai. So I was studying with her, and we were in the library. And if you've been to Asia or have Asian background, we cover books a lot to keep them, to make them last longer.

[19:51]

So we were covering some books in the library. Mark fell out. It was in Vietnamese. My Vietnamese is like this, right? And so I said to her, well, what does it say? And she says, it says, don't eat animals because you can feel their pain and suffering when they're being killed. And I turned to her and I said, do you think that's really true? And she said, yes. And it's not like I haven't thought of that myself, obviously, right? But in that moment, I remember thinking, could be the three times a day of two hours sitting with no breaks, right? They never take a day off there. I remember thinking, oh my goodness, if I'm really serious about this practice, someday, someday I'm just going to have to be a vegetarian, like forever, right? Like forever, I can't do this back and forth thing. I remember thinking, someday, someday I'm going to do that, right?

[20:53]

So this is intention of manifesting value. And it's hard. Why? Why is it hard for us to enact our values? Ones we vowed even, right? Because I was already ordained. We vow to stay in samsara on purpose to walk with all beings. It's hard to open up to connections, wouldn't you say? We say we want it. We even long for it. Connection. You could say intimacy. You could say interconnectedness. So, last year, in 2014, I learned a little bit more about how animals were treated in factory farms and dairy industry and the fishing industry and so i was a quasi vegan for about six months you know mostly i was but um i lapse sometimes or being vietnamese to talk about identity and holding things right um i always said that if i could choose my last meal it would be a bowl of pho yeah and it has a certain flavor that it's just like

[22:19]

You know, and there's a whole ritual to putting the soup together, right? And so this is, pho was like my downfall at that time. And yet for my New Year's resolution in 2015, I said, for a year, for a year, I'm going to be a vegan. Because if I'm really going to practice not killing and non-harming, right? Non-harming, which to me, in a way, is the epitome of our practice, right? Which is... that non-harming is one way of summing up our practice of Buddhism, understanding the causes of suffering and how suffering does not have to be. Where is it that it doesn't have to happen? So, of course, then it made sense to be a vegan for me. I'm talking about me. So, I don't know if you noticed, I still just kept it in a year. That bowl of pho, right?

[23:21]

And because I knew it would be challenging. So after a year, I continue. And I will say to you that I had a few lapses, mostly around ice cream. No pho, I would say, but ice cream. And usually where I work, I do serve food to seniors at times, and so often we serve ice cream. And then I would just put one in my mouth, and then I'd be like, That's right, right? So, right, the habits are strong. And I felt fine physically for a year, right? That's the other reason why I thought I would try to do this vegan thing, because I had had this whole thing for about 20 years since I saw that Chinese herbalist, the sense of identity that I'm someone who needs to eat red meat, right? And for me, a lot of the practice is, where is it that you have these concrete, do you think, believes? And how is it that you can play with them and see, is it true?

[24:25]

Is it true that this is an idea I have about myself? And is it necessary? Right? So, I felt physically fine. Of course, I had cravings, but when I stayed with it, they pass. Impermanence, right? and I felt better spiritually, not in a hoity-toity way, but more as in grounded in my ability to be able to enact my values. And then recently, I was arranging to have dinner with somebody, and I knew that this person really liked fish a lot. So the thought came up, oh, we could go to a fish store, and their happy hour was oysters on the half shell for a dollar a piece. And I was thinking, oysters. I love oysters, right? I said, maybe I'll just get a dozen, right? Because it's been over a year. I've been really good. Maybe I'll just get a dozen.

[25:26]

I got really excited, and I saw myself, you know, lifting up that half shell, putting up to my lips, tasting, having a sense of the ocean as the brininess hit my... mouth and my tongue, and then the smoothness as it slid down my throat, right? And then that, that I can get, right? Ah, memories. And then I thought about my intention to live in a non-harming way. And at that moment, I realized that I just couldn't do it. It was so intoxicating, this memory. of eating oysters. And yet, I just couldn't. I'm speaking for me, my news, my story. I just couldn't do it thinking of ingesting a life, just for a momentary of pleasure.

[26:27]

Momentary. And with that, I had these two epiphanies. To me, they were deep insights. As many of you know, sometimes I have a really hard time understanding how for white people it's really difficult to really let in oppression of racism. And so when I had this insight about that I'm eating in animal life, like I'm causing suffering in that way, I realized that to really know, to really understand, to really realize connection and interconnection, I would have to open myself up to a world of pain and suffering of animals. Not just the idea that they're being treated badly, killed, enslaved, but really that there's suffering here, a whole world of suffering that for so many years I just wouldn't let in.

[27:39]

or couldn't let in. So this is huge, a huge amount of pain to open up to and let in, and a huge amount of shame and guilt for the years of complicity. And so that's a lot, and it's hard to open up to that. And so when I realized this by my experience about animals, then... I thought, ah, this layer inside about white people and racism. I said, ah, this is why it's so hard for white people to really admit to racism. It means to open up and let in, to connect to so much pain and suffering of non-white people. And then in terms of the interconnectedness is the admission that there is, in the admission of there is racism, there's also white privilege. The thing about binaries, we go, it's this or that.

[28:45]

But the thing is, they coexist. And in that, when you open up to it, the admission that there's racism, there's also white privilege, and that the whole world pain too, that one may have passively or actively been complicit. So this is huge. We vow to stay in samsara on purpose to walk with all beings, all beings, not just the ones I want to choose and I identify with. By practicing and as with, we learn to see our interconnectedness and learn to appreciate sangha. Sangha here as both like-minded and like-value fellow practitioners and sanghas beyond, including the sangha of all beings. Here's from one of the Suzuki Roshi talks that the students have to study when they study the precepts.

[29:52]

This is from June 11, 1967. It's called The Three Treasures. Today I will explain Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. Originally, Buddha is, of course, the one who attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree and became a teacher of all the teachers. Dharma is the teaching which was told by Buddha, and Sangha is the group who studied under Buddha. This way of understanding Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha is called the Manifested Three Treasures, or as we say in Japanese, Genzen Sanbo. Genzen is... To appear. Of course, whether Buddha appeared or not, there is truth. But if there is no one who realizes the truth, the truth means nothing to us. So in this sense, we say the manifestation of truth, the manifestation of truth is Sangha.

[30:52]

It's fine to have ideas about... how you can be moral and live an ethical life, a compassionate life. But when it isn't enacted in your daily life, then it's just a thought, an idea. Sangha is really about action and interaction. Impact, connection, interconnectedness. This is risky. It takes courage. To engage with the precepts, takes courage. The third understanding of my practice of the precept of and is transformation. How when we live by our intentions and values, we are transformed. Shakyamuni, when he was able to clarify what was important to him, not a life of only luxury and pleasantness, nor a life of just asceticism, And then was able to enact these values by making a vow to persevere at it.

[31:59]

He wouldn't get up from under that Bodhi tree until he realized the truth of suffering, the causes of suffering, and the end of suffering. The root, the ways that it can be manifest, and then how you can work with it. Then he was transformed. Then he became the Buddha. So non-duality, interconnectedness, and transformation. This passage from Bell Hooks, Contemplation and Transformation, echoes to me these three aspects of the precept of and. She says, dualities serve their own interests. If we are concerned with dissolving apparent dualities... we have to identify anchors to hold onto in the midst of fragmentation, in the midst of a loss of grounding.

[33:02]

My anchor is love. It is life-sustaining to understand that things are always more complex than they seem. This is what it means to see clearly. Such understanding is more useful and more difficult than the idea that there is a right and wrong, or a good or bad, and you only have to decide what side you're on. In real love, real union or communion, there are no simple rules. Love as a foundation also takes us more deeply into practice as action in the world. In the work of Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, we find an integration of contemplation and political activism. Nhat Hanh's Buddhism isn't framed from a location of privilege, but from a location of deep anguish, the anguish of a people being destroyed in a genocidal war.

[34:08]

The point of convergence of liberation theology Islamic mysticism and engaged Buddhism is the sense of love that leads to greater commitment and involvement with the world, not a turning away from the world. The wisdom I seek is that which enables us to know what is needed at any given moment in time. When do I need to reside in the location of stillness and contemplation? And when do I need to rise and do whatever is needed to be done in terms of physical work or engagement with others or confrontations with others? She ends with questions. And this too reflects the process of precept studies. We move from having to have an answer, right? How is it that I can just not kill, right?

[35:11]

Fix, dualistic. to being able to be in the openness of not knowing. We move from conditioned reactions to being able to respond to any given moment, even to being able to be with various, including messy, responses. We become more able to hold complexities, and in that, to find our flexibility, to find our resiliency. is transformation. Not just some other way of seeing or sets of beliefs. We awaken to our ability to be flexible and resilient. We awaken to being at ease in openness and possibility. Shakyamuni Buddha is an example to us of this transformation. of the priesthood of And is similar to taking refuge in the three treasures.

[36:24]

I've taken you through it in this sequence of Dharma, Sangha, and Buddha. Dharma, in this case, has some pointers on non-duality and the three marks of existence. Sangha is connections, intimacy, interconnectedness. Buddha is transformation of intentions, vows, the enactment of vows. I was having this thought this morning that maybe you could say Dharma plus Sangha equals Buddha. In the sense of when you take the teachings, the precepts as they've been given to us, or truths, Dharma also means the laws of... the universe, right? Truth plus connection, intimacy, connectedness, or sangha, the interaction with the world. When those two come together in a mindful, clear, stable, subtle way, right?

[37:34]

And when you have, when you act from your conviction, right? Not your ideas. When your everyday actions, really follow, not killing, not stealing. It brings about transformation. So as a teacher, I ask people to consciously practice using and, which of course today I'm calling the precept of and. There's been some resistance, and people have given me feedback that it has helped them to find more inclusivity in their lives, Find more of a sense of expansion and openness, of more possibilities instead of narrow, contracted views, of more ease of body and open-heartedness. Recently, I was having a PD with somebody, and they were suffering.

[38:40]

You know, as a teacher, you're holding a lot of suffering. And people are so earnest and so trusting. And the person was, I had suffering, and we talked about it. And then towards the end, as we were, you know, tidying up the room to leave, they said to me, not with any, you know, flavor. They were like, why do you look happy, you know? And I said, well, one, I haven't seen you. And we've connected. We've connected on this. And the thing I didn't also say, because she seemed okay with that, and that was what came up at that moment. And the thing that I didn't think to say, and I realized I was there, I just didn't think to say, is that as a teacher, you have seen people

[39:44]

bring in their suffering, and work through them. Been able to transform their suffering. And so you learn to trust in this teaching, that it is possible, that these teachings are healing, and that I have complete trust and faith in that person, in the teaching and in that person, that they can be transformed. And in fact, they are transforming. So, and then the other thing that I really, I'm hoping, drilling into my students, is that, you know, in a way we come to practice, we have to open up to our suffering. We've been like, you know, that's the thing about practice. Right? And I say this even to the beginners. Right? Right? I'm not gonna take away your suffering. In fact, I'm gonna help you to learn to identify them more clearly and then to build capacity to be with them, right?

[40:50]

So this radical practice of facing our pains and suffering. And so we open up to that. Another thing I really try to, you know, sometimes drill, sometimes perhaps carry my students is that we don't stop there, right? It has to be for the benefit of all beings. It has to be. Perhaps first within your co-worker, then your sangha, then outside the walls in which you reside, your neighborhoods, your world, and then all beings. So after our last precept meeting a week ago, in response to their enactment of their current realization of the precepts, I found myself saying to the four who are taking the precepts today, this, and today I offer it also to all of you.

[41:53]

We co-create together, hearts shining, minds reflecting. We co-create together, hearts shining, minds reflecting. Thank you for your attention. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma talks are offered at no cost 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. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[42:36]

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