Precepts

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well a feed of surfaced last week which i
he didn't exactly expect would
so quickly which is you might say that the issue of is the spirit versus the letter to law or the precepts
and
i did mention that
ah
the buddhist precepts do not come from on time
exactly but rather emerged
gradually or and situationally or as the situation demanded as the early quite informal
gathering of
regency science or wreck closes
around the are a great teacher
began to take shape as some kind of community religious community
and
even at that the these simple rules which they
set up
we're not really in any way in and of themselves you need to buddhism
do
you might say that the major ones work for the most part the the
the basic curve
guidelines of how to live that
we're pretty much established in in
the religious culture at least the religious culture of the aryan culture the invader culture which
which sure
was the dominant culture of the area where the buddha taught
so what is is
explicitly buddhist about
via the precepts is the understanding of karma
which sure
is one of the buddhist great contributions to
two
religious teaching particularly to do
with education in that time was not he really was
his insight into the nature
nature and consequence of human activity really was not at all can agreement with or in the main stream of of indian religious philosophy or teaching up to that tonight
you can see this in in the number of
of dialogues that in the early sutures
in which the buddha
speaks with or has a dialogue with many of the disciples are actually you know leaders of other movements
and of course given that it's a buddhist sutra he always convinced dan rather than the other way around
but still it's clear that he has rather different ideas about chase and in particular about nature
the source of our behavior or activity and and what to do about it and how to cope with it
and this is all authorized under the heading of karma
which like many words in buddhism is is a word that has a long history long before it was picked up by the buddha
it's one of the big works there's no eight or ten big words and buddhism they have so much show
it covers so much territory that it's very hard to even use the word as a were in almost is a topic heading our title of a title on of of a teaching a body of teaching
and in and of itself the where it doesn't carry enough to cover all of what is is meant by it so the word comments on of these
big words
and
means in it's simplest form means what you do means action

that's us that's it said you know so-called you know dictionary i mean that's what we're using language
but
ah
the the underlying religious question that that began the buddha on his
a spiritual path was
the question was why do people do what they do what's the what's the underlying reason for the human world as we perceive it

which results in do in suffering and unhappiness and and frustrated to existence
been
this fundamental religious question
noise were all of a start and way one way or another
once we open ourselves to that to that question we have to look look into ourselves and and look at others and try to get some handle on what
what fundamentally motivates human beings to do what they do
ah
in very quickly we come to the issue of is our activity a matter of choice
do we freely choose it or is it determined by
by
the past or by our birds by the gods
by impersonal natural forces
is it's some combination of these thanks is there no rhyme nor reason to any activity is it kind of a random
on the whole futile
and and rules are unruly kind of began these these issues were
we're looked at you know a whole variety of ways by the predecessors of the buddha
and you know also in western philosophies there are various kinds of thinking about this
characteristically being in the new year that he was the buddha's solution was to practice yoga meditation to find out this was in a sense the science or the proof or the investigated means
to determining the answer to this question so he started out by practicing all the standard yogic techniques which were available to him at the time most of which i had to deal with so
the alteration of states of consciousness which one entered a state of psychic and physical status or com in which at the activity mental activity was very much reduced
if not entirely stop

this is a very sound approach and away because if what you want to look at is the source or wellspring of
what we do have our activity
it would be going to stop doing it for a it's quite a catch the credit which it happens again
ah the buddhists on the conclusion is
that just by altering your state of consciousness or temporarily stopping the process and i'm trying to watch it started again was not
a really thorough thoroughgoing enough to somehow when he was still like he was missing them the actual source of it
and so is no the great mythic inventive sit down under the bodhi tree or poultry
here
sides to practice somewhat differently and
maybe that if we come around this theme again at the end of the class we could talk to some extent about the relationship between
the kind of precepts we have and the kind of meditation practice that we do because there is some relationship there
anyway
the conclusion of the buddha as you all know is that
is that term
ha
how some combination actually have you might say determinism it free free volition
that what we are is a result or consequence of what we have done
and what we will will be as a consequence of what we're going to do right now

at this nexus or cusp of of activity is should be the the the focus of our effort all spiritual practice

so karma for good for the buddha for buddhism means intentional action
in a body
speech or mind in the present moment

home

so intentional action of of
body speech your mind and present is what we mean by karma
and the precepts are
focused on that on focused on
intentional action of body speech in live in the present moment that's what the precepts with hurt you
is what you're doing right now consciously and intentional

ah now this question of intention is fairly tricky to look at her to organize and i'd like to take a little time to do that
because so
immediately question it would come to mind is what is intentional action
and we can think of some examples of borderline cases
ah
ah
what makes this complicated is of course or activity sir
falls into certain regular and visual patterns
for instance a good example that is smoking now lot of a smoke
and for most people who smoke a long time smoking is pretty habitual you hardly even notice exactly that you're reaching for a cigarette or whatever it seems to be rather
unintentional almost or on the don't exactly make a conscious choice
two
to do it
but nevertheless each time you do it some intention is there so intentional doesn't mean
so
clearly intentional that it's obvious to you that it's intention of it may be intentional
ah
well let's put it this way with regard to something habitual repetitive that you do the attention or to do it may be of the nature of giving a slight kick to a potter's wheel that's already turning you know the basic energy is quite big and the intention may be to maintain
it at that level might be quite tiny
so a great deal of our most
important intentional actions or of that nature because they're they're they're running in the pattern in the habit patterns that we built up over a long period of time
for buddhist we would say you know many lifetimes in so we may not any longer be consciously aware of are intentional kick or intentional spark in the activity because most of the energy may be coming from what we call the fruit of previous action
so actually are activity is some combination or some coming together of the what we call habit energy or fruit energy of all that we have done combined with some willingness to do it yet one more time or to go along with it again
course occasionally we we actually make a choice or decision which is quite something quite fresh and new and all the energy of it is coming from your conscious intention like the decision to
you know changed jobs are due to go to a movie or something like that we don't have much doubt in our minds that yes in fact this is intentional and we do have a choice and so for it
but interestingly enough those kinds of choices because you have so much control over them are actually not really weren't a problem problem of our life on the whole lives
so interestingly enough
when you have some choice that's very clear to you it's impact quite easy on the whole to one to know what to do
and what town
what really is the problem for us is the choices we're making them are not even aware that were that were making
and this is where the question of precepts i think really has its primary applicability is not
if you know
ah
ah
some artificial situation where are the choices are so clear of it that you have no sense of ambivalence or ambiguity at all which said know i meant you do this or do that
you may you know have some agonizing about those things but still
what is the primary motive energy of our life are things that are on the whole rather hidden from us
and the real value of meditation practice for for us or buddhists is not so much to develop or investigate unusual states of mind particularly
sideline for us but primarily to get access to the fundamental level of our intentions
which particularly our habitual intentions

what's interesting about the inside of will listen about these is that ah
our most fundamental level of intention is not unique to us but in fact is shared by everyone or to put it another way that
at our most fundamental working level of
our spiritual life human beings are very much the same all over
he's not a great deal of difference
so one of the maybe when you think about it rather obvious but one of the interesting
points of buddhist understanding of human life is that it it is rather universal understanding
the way it's put for it is it as a kind of universal ethics are universal psychology
of human beings

or to put it another way you might say the yogic inside of the buddha
is that a sufficiently primary or deep level that it
yeah
it doesn't involve culture or the specific sub
no upbringing her background too much and i think that's been
at the time of the buddha i would say that was a hypothesis but i think given the fact that buddhism has
has spread and effectively spread throughout the world and gone into many different countries with with lots of different value value systems can put in value systems
in managed to find a way to apply itself to those situations i think is too large extent proved the point i think buddhism has stood up as an
hey
an understanding of how human beings are and and act which is pretty universal
ah
this is one of the you might say articles of faith of buddhism actually which is that all beings are fundamentally here the same or have buddha nations

and not just all human beings but all beings are all life

however the particular teachings in practice of buddhism are directed job primarily to beans like ourselves namely human beings
the the underlying understanding of
have that
how karma works supplies for our beans but ah
there is as pacific teaching for the kind of means that we are

and these precepts that we have our you know precepts for human beings animals might might have to follow a different kind of precepts
the kind of take a tiger can click here
could follow the precept not to kill very easily because it's design
it's designed to kill its nature tiger doesn't survive any other way
hmm
but in a way to animals
don't need precepts
in quite the same way as human beings because
what makes human kind of consciousness rather unique in the six world's the six different broadly based different kinds of sentient beings is that we have this
our ability to
change and adjust who how we are who we are all the time we have this ability to develop our consciousness and and change it within our lifetime other kinds of beans have much more fixed kind of consciousness
it's not
ah much flexibility in the kin and animals consciousness or even a you know the buddhist idea of the cosmos includes various celestial rarefied beings like angels are gods and so forth
and they too have a rather fixed
kind of consciousness they can't adjust your change who they are very much so you might say and other kinds of
realms others in the human realm the the
intentional life is not he's not there for is there much much less
this is why human birth is supposed to be considered to be in buddhism
the best most favourable kind of birth
because as a human being you can not only ah
to be born with the nature of a buddha of an awakened one but you can choose to become one
and then actualized that choice of i practice this is the unique gift of human life
and
buddhism with it's rather broad
vision of the interpenetration and
going back and forth and various kinds of why the likens the the rarity of human birth this is it
a charming little
a metaphor the human birth is like a
a tortoise with sea turtle turtles are the ones that are in the waters and turtle
a turtle was an eye particular kind of turtle that has an eye and its in its stomach
and
ah with the with very deep desire to see the sky
however this turtle turtle don't usually able to work why i'm back in the water usually they they are the other way so that you keep your eyes point down and this turtle requires aboard floating in the water with a hole cut by the middle of it
that designed for the i to be there someone grabs or with is that is when his the eyes looking up and pc so so the rarity of human earth is like a turtle swimming in the ocean finding a poor designed like that floated by being able to get up there rather sad
and can can you know the satisfied spiritual yearning can be satisfied so
one of the big choices that that to to in traditional buddhism is considered to happen is the choice to take him and birth it's considered to be a choice
i don't want to go too much into this
or aspect of things because it's not really on the topic of the class but
but there's some idea that in some deep way we want his life for and that's why we're in it
and
in a way is important because it means that a lot of us think well here i am you know i didn't i didn't tear do this is just sort of happened and i suddenly found myself here
buddhism has the idea that you're responsible for being here somewhere or at least you should take responsibility as though you chose to be here at least damage you should think of your being here as you are as something that
you're responsible for as a choice
and whether the explanations of buddhism having to do with reincarnation and rebirth and so forth our metaphorical and literal or some combination of the to is not really so much the point of this discussion
point is that
precepts begin with some however vague sense that you might have that ah
the first of all the fact that you're here at all as something you you're responsible for and certainly now that you hear what you do with it is your responsibility
so the at maybe make it more graphic does it leave behind the board since the well how can we say what i'm drawing as i'm doing so
if you think of her
all that has happened all that you have done as a kind of triangular pyramid coming to a point in this present moment
and the
opening
of the cone of possibilities emanating from this moment has been an inverted triangle which opens out from this moment
this picture is always our picture in every moment this is the picture
it's a different you know the contents above and below are different
now for instance at the moment of your birth your physical reverse
there's a great deal below the line and not a great deal above line have done anything yet you just come out and something that you cry at this all that was your first choice maybe that isn't even so much choice for instances
ah not so intention of doctor slappy from you cry from then on the starts to fill up
things but this is always the picture and
this is not the part of it below the line is not accessible to you it's already happened he had no longer you no longer out can be adjusted and it coalesces all of it coalesces right now
and ah also what will
happened to you in the future is not accessible because it hasn't happened to and what is accessible is always what do you are choosing to do right now and the spark of choice ignites a present moment and
to complete everything that has come to you which is
not karma this word carbon english is often used for this stuff below the line we say oh it was my karma as though
it's our fate
some predestined way to trip over stones well it's my time
more
whatever it may be
there are many many passages in the buddhist scriptures in which the buddha is asked about fate or destiny and consistently yeah
denies that this is his understanding
this is too narrow or constricted and understanding of events and doesn't give enough credence to the fact that the critical the critical point in this picture of are active or ethical reality is is this point of the present
what you do with the luggage baggage that you're carrying from beginning was past
ha
is the critical point and it's that opportunity is always there
this is this special feature of human consciousness

so they are really two words we have to remember what is karma
which means action
and the other word is the pocket
which means proof food

and fruit and action are
interacting in every moment
so the fruit of all your past deeds comes together in the present moment and the food of what you are now doing will reverberate into the future so
the interaction is very much like the waves in a pot
you know there's some kind of ways going on all the time
some of the waves are left over from previous
flattens and some of them some of them are going to be produced by
flapping and you're going to do now
and the ordinary persons effort to deal with the problems of their life is something like if you can imagine yourself as a little frog in the middle of the on on a lily pad buffet line as waves and upon
and kicking the way to try to make them stop
this is the ordinary persons effort you know of course without realizing that you're perpetuating the whole process
so these waves in the pond or like art
our individual and collective past
were buffeted not only by our own deeds but the deeds of everyone which in our society and so forth it's not just you know we don't live in some
the each of us do not live in some separate pond we all live in the same time so many of the waves that buffet us have to do with things that really are not under our control at all
the critical point is not that the ways are there because point in buddhism is the ways will always be here that
the suzuki roshi says waves of the nature of water so to some kind of karma or activities the nature of life and the nature of human beings can there's no way to stop it unless we all ah
you know die we don't exist anymore you know them and on the moon there's no there are no waves like this is no life no
with your on earth is this waves
the issue is a what are we going to do in response are we going to kick in create more ways in exacerbate the whole process all the while feeling ah
quite righteous that we were doing something effective kicking these ways we feel as you must do this
and without realizing it perpetuate the process for in some way
ah
do something to to change or alter from stop these wings so
the buddhists understanding of karma there's to quit
two basic kinds
we can say good and bad but that's not those words in english or little to start
what's more accurate actually to use the words wholesome and unwholesome

wholesome karma is
simply that kind of action or choice which produces a favorable result for yourself and others a favourable fruit and unwholesome is that which produces an unfavourable fruit

and there's a very precise definition of these two
again
to reiterate the buddhist understanding of the source of human activity is
you know it's at the very basic level of human beings so
it's pretty universal and the observation of the buddha which again seems to be borne out by experience
is that
unwholesome activity seems to be characterized by one of three modes
mrs something you've all heard many times i think we often say greed hate and delusion
it's a little unfortunate that we say that a lot of these terms that you find the become our standard vocabulary in buddhism it came out of early books really translations by people that often did not you know they did their best but the word that
terms they used were not the best and these terms are not really too accurate
i'd like to explain for a minute what what these words me greed hate and delusion a more accurate words would be something like
desire
or attraction a version and confusion would be much better words
have we say it that way you can understand that
what we're referring to here is your relationship to and other to something out outside of that you think is outside of yourself
and
a description of the dynamic load of your relationship to that thing
so here's this glass of water for instance
there are three basic
possibilities simple possibilities
in which i can relate to this glass of water one is that i can be attracted to it i can want it
i can want it
have to satisfy some desire to that i did i have
so in a sense my dynamics with it or i'm going to draw it closer to me i want to bring it in i wanted
so i reach out neither literally or figuratively i reach out and drive closer so reach out i actually am thirsty
i reach out and drink the water and then i feel i feel better i feel satisfied
so this is one possibility of dynamics with something
this is desire
ah
it's opposite possibility of course is that i don't like it and i wanted to go away i want to push it away from me
this is a version
and
ah
within a version we have all the emotions that go with this basic dynamic like anger ill will jealousy envy
stinginess
and so forth
the negative side of our emotional life
is some version of the dynamic of inversion i don't
want the object to be around wanting to push it away

now both of these are based on having an object clearly in view
i see the glass of water and whatever it may be another human being or the enemy or something i have a very precise focused picture of the object
another whole possibility is that because my mind is quite distracted i can't get the object clearly into focus
and this is the third possibility which we call confusion
so confusion is characterized by unlike the other two which are opposite poles of focus this is no opposite from that which is unfocused
you're not focused enough to be able to decide whether you like it or don't like
so this is the third big possibility
and this is these are the broadest categories is what we call on karma unwholesome action

yes is an unwholesome them to be person i knew someone would ask them
is a famous phrase and zen when hungry i eat on tired i sleep and it's been bandied about it ever since the thirties when d t suzuki for is published his essays and it's actually quite a profound statement and
and might be worth are coming back to that little later because
this course once response if you're honest is well what's so great about that's when everybody does right
and in fact there is a dialogue and that's taken from a dialogue
ah which is sort of a on and z and that
in which the response of the teacher who said that is i'm sorry that's not what everybody does
you know hunger and sleep in this sense refer to the entire range of the possibilities of our desires and so forth it means all human life really or all the things that we do it means karma
and to say when hungry i eat and when tired i sleep is he might say the
a very succinct expression of awakened ethics
but it doesn't mean you know some kind of naive spontaneity at all
it means
a state of purity or state beyond purity which has been reached by much hard work
you might say it's it's describes a state of consciousness which is quite thoroughly cleansed of
a karmic
hindrances
so this is a rather profound point that we have to come back to because taken out of context a statement like that would imply that well you know
take it easy and eating you're hungry sleeping you're tired and so forth
so it's you might say it's a statement which is in code to some extent it's a kind of succinct utterance which expresses a great deal
so of course is not unwholesome to to to drink when you're thirsty but what's the difference is the point what's the difference between
the some legitimate sense of satisfying your basic needs and something which is not that
a lot of the early precepts and reason
had to do with refining that kind of distinction in i just came across from my research something interesting i didn't know before which is that
on the whole it looks like the the monastic or monkish rules
worked for the most part designed to simplify your life sufficiently
so that you could practice meditation in an unhindered ash anything beyond that was considered unnecessary if not actually deleterious to practice and as brother david and i discussed earlier in the week there is a tradition in buddhism of the ascetic practices
like never lie down and only eating a very small amount and living under trees and things like that and these on the whole would not considered necessary for monks and a david doctor who is the mythic schism maker in buddhism
i recently found out in studying one of the proposals that he
i tried to split from the buddha who was on this matter of a special ascetic practices he felt among should be very very aesthetic
and do these special things and the buddha did not agree that it was necessary
and some of david daughters
ah
points seem to have been incorporated particularly it mentions having to do with vegetarianism it may not be known to you that the earliest to buddhists were not strictly vegetarians
ah there were certain
ah there were certain categories in which it was okay daddy he'd meet the work and are laid out in the sutures and later on buddhism becomes a strictly vegetarian that was one of david doctors
a schismatic points as he felt the the monks should always refrained from fish and meat under every circumstance and this apparently was not of the buddhist own teach you
he felt that under certain circumstances it was it was okay
that'd be an interesting point to come back to you i think the issue of whether or not to eat meat is one of the practical points that we can discuss them in the class and extend his just what's behind that and what are the various arguments about it as you know it's insane are we
our kitchens are entirely vegetarian we don't even use fish stock but i would say there's hardly anyone and zen center who absolutely refrains from all efficient meet under every circumstance
and suzuki roshi himself a paid me to time
i say why do you want a drink so he says well i'm thirsty
okay fine let's have some water water yeah
time he must have a soda because you know it's sweet bubbly and stimulates and you know as we all know the water is problematic for you and then and then sewed up with on its sugar junkie so we go through this with him all the time but ah
maybe them to make the question more vivid we should put out in front of use for five different glasses with different things and it can now and then see given the fact that you're thirsty what is it that you choose to drink you know do you drink callisto the water or some good vintage wine or some soda
if we actually tested you
without anybody around to watch we might be very surprised you know it's kind of a joke here in zen center that many people here have quite on the surface quite term strict and pure ideas about what they should eat sugar is bad for you and no chocolate and science of but everyone knows that if
the kitchen makes a big bowl of chocolate chip cookies and place them out
you know we all know that the ones who as long as nobody's watching the ones who who are rushing first or the very ones who
you know i have some very
publicly stated preferences about what's right and not only for themselves but for others when it gets pretty bad so the psychology of all of this is rather complex as we all know and let me just finish my exposition hear about wholesome and unwholesome karma
the description of wholesome karma would be the opposite of these three things
that is to say
wholesome karma means that one has the underlying root these are called the three roots of wholesome or three roots of unwholesome behavior and the roots of wholesome behavior are non greed
or generosity giving sense of giving
non a version or friendliness or goodwill
and non confusion or clarity

so this is the acid test this is how you can tell whether some action is wholesome or unwholesome
and as i said wholesome action produces a wholesome result and unwholesome action produces unwholesome result now what do we mean by a wholesome or unwholesome result
buddhist idea of karma is almost something akin to like a natural law
that is to say if you
her acting and unwholesome manner
it produces a wave which persists
indefinitely
and affects your future is upper pyramid is colored or in one school of buddhism they use the image of perfuming or fragrance which is a little less tangible than a way you know it's more like
when you get angry at someone for instance it produces a kind of spiritual odor which permeates your spiritual body so to speak or your you are
ah
consciousness and yet effects it becomes then part of the bottom pyramid and affects your next check time
you know the more that you allow yourself to act in an angry a vs fashion the more likely it will be in the future the war charge they will be in more habituated leaning there will be to go that way
and this is just you know an observational fact it isn't some kind of great you know spiritual and inside it's hidden for most ordinary people i think that
that term
you know if you walk down market street and see some of these are people who always shouting implications that everyone walking down a street with bags and so courtroom you look at their to base
you know their face is lined with this emotion for they're experiencing because they've been doing it for so long it's actually become physically evident in their flesh we all know
in fact we actually i think judge each other and relate to each other on the basis of our face you know a lot more than we generally admit and the face that we show to people is our karma does express what we've chosen to how we chosen to be over a long period of time so we talk about why
worry lines you know in our face and so are last line

oh okay
so a wholesome or unwholesome result means that
this action will affect
how you will be

and
strangely enough it it it bounces back in rather unpredictable fashion it doesn't always you know
a come back to you immediately there's various divisions of how rapidly the effect of what you do bounces back at somewhat depends on how severe the action is if you are
but the idea is sooner or later there will be some
bouncing back were a consequence or echo of what you do always

and in fact this is happening all the time most of us don't notice it one of the first practices that you do in a monastery is you practice mindfulness
and one of the first effects of practicing mindfulness is that you start to notice
the in least in small ways how rapidly of the effects of what you do come back to you
fraser just to give you have a kind of trivial example most of the time when when you trip over something or by your timer or stub your toe you you don't think of it is
something that you chose to do
when you practice mindfulness and when you have some experience in meditation very often you will discover that just prior to the event and stubbing your toe or biting your tongue or tripping over something or tearing a row or something like that
dropping your shoe you will have had some distracted or disturbing thought
and immediately there's some consequence
so part of the validity of this insight into karma is is revealed only when you
can develop enough clarity or precision in your perceptions to notice these things so a great deal of the problem of course is that people just don't notice the large and small effects of their actions

perhaps i should i should start is about ten more minutes to the class and allow you to
bring up any area of what i've said that does not seem clear or more coaching to you
i may have gone to build rapidly over this i i wanted to i want to get as soon as possible into some practical discussion of these presets but this is practical to and i think it's the underlying
the underlying
insight which all the precepts are derived from so you have anything to do
add are coming upon yes more
it
deva data data data
called david for short
today with guns and evening he was the buddhist first cousin and you know in the mid in them in the legends and he was very very bad as they say inevitably become clear gds you know there is there are five deadly crimes that are the most serious thing to a buddhist can do in which a menace
schools of buddhism prevent you from taking our nation and they are
harming a buddha killing your mother killing your father killing and are hot an enlightened person in the fifth one is causing a schism in the samba
david data
i did three the
you tried to roll a big rock down on the buddha
a out of jealousy you know the the actual stories are probably made up with the there
probably there was such a person it's quite likely they're often yates you know some great teacher
and what happened was one of the great guardian kings of the celestial heavens saw this happening and reached out his whatever hand or something beyond stopped the rot the buddha is very well protected in these stories
gets through and can and strikes the buddhist toe and causes it to bleed and so he's a david data is guilty of harming a buddhist body now it's interesting that also in the story some of the monks are dismayed that
a buddha could come to any harm at all and inquired the buddha how it is that it's that he could be bleeding from his tone and he says it is all because of past deeds that now i have to read the karmic fruit of some thing i did in the past which know still
even though i'm the buddha persists have to
ah absorb the fruit of that this time so they often say things like pension
one
that's the exact difference between a buddha an ordinary person is buddha is someone who has learned not to be kicking up the waves anymore but it has also learned to accept the ways that still tough and that those things are the same actually if you
can completely accepted and not respond in any way that creates new problems and you're free from karma and this is what it means to be a buddha actually technically speaking from the standpoint of comments and these presets which were going to study are the practical description of the behavior of such
person
so the precepts are clues to how you would need to behave in order not to be producing new new ways
and david gotcha
the fell immediately into the deepest level of hill the time of his death during his great crimes but according to dogan reading some text just as he was about to die he he began to recite the tripled treasure i take refuge in the buddha as it says on your sheet area he
began to in a sense repent
and dogan says how unfortunate he wasn't able to complete the for me
the because
the fact that he only said one third of it cut his time in half
in order to joke and you know a lot of these later later writings elaborate quite freely on these early legends and to make points and so they're making some point about the tremendous value of a them
repenting or or thinking better of what you did which is a very powerful intentional act it has a and again these things are not just made up i think that by experience
you can observe how powerful how powerfully someone can change their life by a true active repentance
like someone has been an alcoholic for two thousand and thirty years can see come to a point where they can actually change and never drink again and he lives i think all of us seen that kind of change in people and i think that
when you have a spiritual community and you have people coming to the community all the time you see this happening are not happening as the case may be sometimes you
a person thinks they've repented but you see that actually in it hasn't happened because they continue to go about it or did they have and historically i think throughout buddhist history there have been instances of the buddhist saga it in quite term murderers and people that have been quite done quite
terrible things but they have actually somehow
repented of it and it's neutralize them the the karmic way that what they've done into this possibility exists and for
that's why in our in our full moon ceremony the first verse that we chant is subversive
down we say a or repentance you a all of your ancient karma that you ever done you admit it
and this is supposed to have a very important powerful effect on you
something else yes you can you believe me
the from com or climate i say action and the pocket is screwed
more consequence will be correct to right
one of these to get in the lower colon and the other one
well the parker would be in go actually the partner would be here that is to say the fruits of all that you have done which come to you in this mode and you might quit be hot in parentheses of here because
emanate from what you are doing right now and karma would be
right to sit this point of the present online
so fruits you know of passed the future
no come in both directions come from the past and open out into the future what we mean by karma this is you know a particularly buddhist usage of the word comments not the use of karma in hinduism or or some other related a tradition mean you have to be
remember that that this uses a particular use for buddha
because buddhism emphasizes the the possibility of dramatic and permanent change in your in your
karmic extreme by practice
venice say that you can be liberated from from karma from human suffering in this life is the basic liberty more optimistic message of hope ministries
we are not bound by our our destiny and by our fate or five what we have done past what others have kind of past
oh yeah so that's a yes his confession help
out to be important in our
and i said last night that people just to confess in the form and seven that we didn't we didn't do it anymore and that because of some some change and then about the energy towards confession
well in this way i'm talking and a confession and repentance or almost insane
the difference is that we don't have
you know they had as a as someone mentioned to me was juli was used julie said last week after the class that lama good linda
ah has commented to her frequently used to be a terrified and monk you know
about the rules that pretty moksha presets he said they always find ways to get around them
you know and this relates to the idea of do you have many small rules that try to cover all the possibilities or do you have a few very big rules that convey to you the spirit of your activity and then leave it to your own responsibility to figure out what to do because of course every a
every choices a new event is no actual
precedent that tells you exactly what to do so it's true that if you have a large body of miniscule rules you go through one by one and say now is anybody actually confess has anybody done this or not
what i meant was actually is it important to tell them what you did or is it just enough within yourself to can
want to bring another person into it for max had confessed
do i say
it's important to bring someone else into it
but
i still think what i what i was saying also applies which is that
when you revert more to the basic spirit of all the precepts
you would not have time to confess everything
you might say that your activity is a constant confession
because you know the idea is you know you have infinite lifetimes to take care of you know from the infinite past ah which one interpretation of that is the infinite past and humanity all the instances of greed hate and delusion which have occurred
and which if you say well that was me that was something that was near or that was that was genghis khan was me
but that's not exactly enough you know because genghis khan and you are not all that separate you know
you're human and genghis car was human and you know given the circumstances you might very well have gone that way so
it doesn't necessarily mean that you personally have been reincarnated in all these lifetimes exactly it may equally well as mean that human beings have done these things and you are a human being you know and it isn't enough to say well i was born in nineteen forty seven so anything before that don't talk to me about will work
that isn't quite enough one has to soak in the the broader perspective of
have you know the bodhisattva vow which is our practice ah
that there's there's not time you know to to to possibly incorporate everything so we we have more of a sense of ongoing confession and ongoing catherine to to borrow the precepts that will have to talk about anymore
it's it's kind of
difficult point to talk about very well yes sticky
this year
are they similar similar
david i was
making dinner genetic i mean the bad news and me he was gay then
of the new treatment
i think they probably were first cousins historically one of the things that we may tend to go too far in the direction of thinking all these things must be minutes because in an oral culture i think they actually certain things they convey very accurately you know it again i wouldn't be at all surprising that that particular part of it was a story
the true and it would also be psychologically
a understandable that
members of your own family may have the most
yeah
yeah the buddha had quite a large family i mean he was the he was the prince of a clan the crown prince of a clan so and he abandoned the whole family to do this spiritual thing and they weren't at all happy about it it was it actually caused some problems i think for the family
so maybe something to them anyway there were assuredly people people lie
whenever you are set up as a teacher there are always people that will criticize me
particularly people that knew you when you were young
yes bill provides the distinction between intention and action
satin slipper
i think it has taught
about the terms and spirit letter
for example for the muscle and way one of the the data rolled his wrath of good at and missed altogether not even slithering got through with him still explore his hat-trick
or would he not in fact that were exempted
though even though he intended to
no he would have follows wouldn't have been quite a serious you see that they have this distinction which i believe also exists doesn't it the david in catholicism between body speech and mind i thought you were indeed isn't a day with
the distinction
you know
the karma of the body use the most serious you know if you think in princess in our culture if you think i'd like to kill that so and so
best not even a crime legally we have the freedom to think that from a buddhist point of view it already is killing at some level and if you say it
that's again of course much more impact and it has a much larger wave to contend with because someone will hear it and it will have some effect on that person and they'll tell other people than you know
if somebody walks in a year at green gulch and starts saying they're going to kill people wouldn't take it quite seriously you know but it may be that lots of people think it we don't you know and then if they do it of course then it's in our whole exponential level greater but from the standpoint of practice
is the most important one is that you thought it because that's the source of the eighty to so intention means a thought with an airline i thought with the direction and
that's the main arena of your of your of your work because the other to derive from that and until you can have access to the source of your thoughts
you can't actually be free in your activity
of course practically speaking the first level of our work in precepts is to restrain our body from what we're thinking of doing
and that's where we began because the body is the place where we have the most access so in a sense practice begins with the body and works in
you know you you you you can't have access to your thoughts directly very very easily the way to have access is by starting to notice what your body is doing which is a big effort in and of itself often
and then gradually tried to increase the clarity of your awareness and till you can notice thoughts which
are they using them action
so does that make sense in example in l a
so precepts really are about
ultimately about your thoughts
but practically they begin with your body and with your with your around
your voice of course what you say is
a part of that so your speech and your and your and your physical action are or where you begin in practice and for most of us speech is a very good place to begin potential
because speech and thought of course very close and practicing right speech is
we can have a whole couple of classes just discussing the spiritual isn't right speeches
is a very good place to put into practice all of these precepts and if you notice on the list about five of them explicitly or about right speech out of the ten prohibitory precepts have to do with what you say
so
we work in but zazen practice
works with your whole body
and in particular it
shut down the main