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. So, good evening and welcome to Zen Center. I see there's a few people from Tassajara, where I just was. And the talk that I'm giving tonight is very much like that talk, but might be a little different. So my name is Wendy Kiyoshin Wendy Lewis, and I'm a San Francisco Dent Center resident. And tonight I'm going to talk about the precepts as tools of transformation. Now... I just listened to Paul's talk that he gave on Saturday before the Jukai, and this seems like a footnote to his talk, a little sort of addition or something to what he was talking about.

[01:05]

So if you heard that, you might understand what I mean. So the precepts, they're something that arise again and again in our practice life. We're never finished with them. And they change over time how we feel them, understand them, work with them, practice with them. And they've been especially on my mind lately because a few people have asked to receive the precepts from me in lay initiation ceremony. And so how do I convey the precepts and study the precepts with people? What is my perspective on them or perception of what they're about? And also, because things happen all the time that are jarring or catch me off guard, and these things can be sort of intriguing or hurtful or confusing, and so I look to or have a tendency to say, okay, what are my tools?

[02:19]

for dealing with these things that come up again and again. And the teachings, and particularly the precepts, I find very helpful. Because the, you know, there's this, I'm going to talk about this in a minute, this justification, the tendency towards justification in our interactions, justifying ourselves or others. So... The... sort of framework for this talk and for my thoughts, settled on a poem that I came across. And it's by the Chinese poet of the 12th century named Xin Ji Jur. And the repeating lines are part of the poem, and this is how it goes. I didn't know the taste of sadness in my youth, I loved to climb towers. I loved to climb towers.

[03:20]

And in my poems, I forced myself to speak of sadness. Knowing the taste of sadness now too well, I start to speak of it, but stop. I start to speak of it, but stop. And say instead, what a chilly autumn day. So that also happens to be sort of seasonal. It's autumn. Well, as I was thinking about the 16 bodhisattva precepts and my conversations with people who are studying them, the first are the three refuges. And we chant those at the beginning of service every morning and we chant them during the full moon ceremony. So we chant them over and over and over and over. And I think of the refuges, like we first take the refuges, then the pure precepts, and then the ten grave precepts.

[04:23]

And the refuges are kind of giving us the context of faith or humility. And that's how to approach transformation. So we take refuge in the Buddha, the one who's the exemplar of transformation, the dharma, that is the tools or the teachings or the instructions for transformation, and the sangha, which is everyone who has the potential for transformation. So these are our refuges, our context, our statement of faith. And when the part of faith that is humility is the willingness to listen and to be turned, to be changed by what you hear.

[05:24]

Particularly when it's, that's the intention of whatever it is you're hearing. So the next, the three pure precepts are a statement of commitment. So do good, avoid evil, and live for the welfare of all beings. So you're just saying, okay, faith, commitment, and then. Those are the foundations or the context for the ten grave precepts. And most of you are familiar, but I'll just briefly say these are vows not to kill, not to steal, not to misuse sexuality, not to lie. not to indulge in intoxicants, which is a variety of things, not to slander, not to praise self at the expense of others, not to be avaricious or stingy with anything, including the teaching, not to harbor ill will or resentment, and not to disparage or act in a way to undermine or harm the three treasures, Buddha, Dharma, Sangha.

[06:37]

And so we're back to the beginning. to the three refuges again. So this is often true in Buddhist teachings. They have this kind of returning because when you return, something has changed. And so every time you return, you're sort of beginning again or beginning afresh. So the ten grave precepts name things that all of us do to some extent. And these are things that cause harm or excitement or disturbance to ourselves or others. And the way I've sort of began to understand these is that there is no point to take a vow not to do something that you don't do. So the precepts say all these things we do, and then we vow not to, not to not do it, but to have it always be there. We always keep seeing it again and again.

[07:40]

There I am, you know, here it is again. And see if we can turn it and turn it and turn it. So what is the purpose of these vows, you know? Why do we decide to practice with them? And how do we keep or break them? And so as we study them, we have to ask, what does transformation mean? And how will it come about? What is our part? What is the effort that is required? So taking a vow not to do things that we habitually do is this continually deepening our self-knowledge and self-understanding.

[08:42]

Because as we do that, we also can start to offer it to others. That self-knowledge, that self-understanding can kind of change the way we look at other people. And our usual survival skill is, as I was mentioning earlier, self-justification. It's kind of a... form of pride and shame. So, and I think that's the perspective that we often begin to look at the precepts, you know, from. I mean, we're just ordinary people, you know. We just, we'll see something and we'll be like, no, no, I didn't do it, I didn't do it, you know. And it's, there's nothing wrong with that. You just slowly start to see how you do that, why you do it, where it's come from, how it serves you and doesn't serve you. But that tendency of self-justification is how I understand that statement in the Dhammapada.

[09:46]

They insulted me. They hurt me. They defeated me. They robbed me. You know, this perception that our unhappiness and our mistakes are caused by and dependent on others. So it's true, you know. We are going to be insulted, defeated, hurt. robbed, because all of us are doing that to some extent. So this is just a, this is ordinary reality. And it's not like we're selfish or unkind or, you know, intend to hurt anyone, but we want to be safe, we want to be right, we want to be happy. You know, so we just have these kind of habits and methods of to move in that direction. Keep ourselves safe is a lot of it, I think. So also in this chapter of the Dhammapada that has that statement, it says, what we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow.

[10:59]

Our life is the creation of our mind. So how do we study this mind? What clarifies it for us? And I think, you know, it seems kind of gloomy sometimes that we sort of keep slogging through the precepts and keep studying things like the Dhammapada over and over again. But I think the cultivation of self-understanding is this source of both self-compassion and compassion for others. Um... Our usual idea of compassion is a kind of activity or perspective where we're helping other people. And usually this is from our perspective of what we think they need or want. That's perfectly reasonable activity. We should do it. It's creative, it's generous, and it's all those things. But I think this kind of compassion that develops, that is cultivated, is something that we actually need to get out of the way of.

[12:07]

And that is a form of deconstruction. And I find that, you know, this going through the precepts again and again, wondering what am I doing? How am I in this world? What is my purpose? What is my role? I find that it takes me apart. and it puts me back together again and again and again. As I was also thinking about this, I read about something that I don't know a lot about, but it sort of intrigued me. It's something called thinking fast and slow. And fast thinking is what we usually think intuition is and a sort of associative thinking where we're basing all of our sort of views or decisions on what we already know.

[13:13]

This is already what we know. It's kind of intuitive because it's coming out of, you know, sort of, oh, this I already know, so I know the answer. But the other kind of thinking, slow thinking, is a deeper intuitive cultivation of extending what we already know, expanding it. pushing the edges of it. And as we exercise these boundaries of what we already assume to be what's happening and who we are and all those things there's we sort of it can experiment with alternative ways of seeing ourselves in others and of evaluating ideas, concepts, and teachings.

[14:17]

So slow thinking. I've used that word slow a lot in terms of practice. It's slow. But it doesn't mean it takes a long time. It means it's something that, you know, is not always going forward. So in this framework, I think that there are two ways to break the precepts. One is to use them to praise or blame ourselves, and the other is to use them to praise or blame others. That's not what they're for, in my opinion. I think there's plenty of attitudes and... rules and guidelines that allow us to hold each other accountable. And we should hold each other accountable. That's part of what our relationships are for. But the precepts are these tools of transformation and not of justification.

[15:20]

That sort of praise and blame is in the realm of justification. And so one of the exercises I've developed is to, you know, in my interactions with others is to acknowledge mutuality so that I don't get into this pointing finger things at myself or others, which is so tempting, but to acknowledge also that the only part of that mutuality that I can change is my part. The whole thing is not about identifying what the other person is doing right or wrong, but seeing how I have contributed. Now, this is, again, this is coming from the perspective of slow thinking, where, so you're not trying to make something happen or not happen, but it's sort of claiming your part

[16:29]

looking at how you're going to work with that. So I think that transformation in the Buddhist context is neither magical nor mundane. It's... It's more about working with these tools and applying them and considering them to be encouragement to develop a more peaceful and inclusive perspective of unfolding reality. They talk about it as the perfection of things just as they are.

[17:30]

And this is All day long I've been hearing people had their windows down, nice stuff. So the perfection of things just as they are, and this is also means that that can be in the midst of ordinary, ordinary and extraordinary grief and joy and anxiety and all the things we experience. And the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote, it is perfectly true, as the philosophers say, that life must be understood backwards, but they forget the other proposition, that it must be lived forwards.

[18:33]

So this slow effort at self-understanding and understanding others and understanding the teachings I think deepens our perspective of this forward movement of our life. So we're understanding backwards and living forwards and trying to also understand at the same time. And as we do that work of self understanding it becomes more and more present more and more available to us. And that it develops into a sense of equanimity and generosity. And this And this perspective I think is not so much oh I get it or some kind of triumph or some self-congratulation but rather it's poignant.

[19:47]

There's something very about it. And that's what I heard in the poem. You know this he's saying you know when we're going forward when we think we know what we're doing when we're making things up, we're on this high tower. And we're up above others, we're even above ourselves, you know, we're like, hey, you know, I've got this figured out. And even if we're unhappy, we're still up on this high tower because we're looking at things as other, as far from us. And then... these teachings or these tools, these precepts kind of start to, you know, that humility bringing yourself closer to the ground.

[20:50]

And you feel that poignancy, the contingency, and also this very deep beauty in people, all kinds of things. And so we're tempted to use these teachings, you know, to justify ourselves or blame ourselves or justify others or blame others. And yet, you know, I've just, these things have happened to me recently and I think that line keeps coming up to me. I start to speak of it, stop something at temptation. So the precepts begin, as I said, with faith and humility, then commitment, and then the effort of self-knowledge, which leads to this clarity and generosity.

[22:06]

And the poem is not about that, but I will read it again because I think it conveys the feeling of it. I didn't know the taste of sadness in my youth. I loved to climb towers. I loved to climb towers. And in my poems I forced myself to speak of sadness. Knowing the taste of sadness now too well, I start to speak of it but stop. I start to speak of it, but stop, and say instead, what a chilly autumn day. Which it was not today, but still. Thank you very much. So on Wednesday night, we usually have a little time for a few questions or comments, if anyone would like to say anything. Well, I also said that there's this accountability.

[23:08]

We can hold ourselves and others accountable. I was just trying to say that I don't think that that's the function of working with the precepts. That we have ways of holding ourselves and others accountable and we should do that. But when we're working with the precepts, we're actually working with this transformation, this self-knowledge and self-understanding which then develops our self-compassion and compassion for others. Which is not so much, you know, trying to struggle with reality, which is difficult. It's always difficult. And even when it's wonderful, it's difficult. You know, that's one of the teachings of Buddhism. This impermanence will always be there. And so that's not so much what you know, the precepts of the teaching are focusing on.

[24:10]

You know, or they don't have to. I think they're more this very deep process of transformation and self-knowledge and so on. Well, you know, we have high principles and high ideals, and there's nothing wrong with that, and we should do something with that. We should do. engage in action that we think is towards helping others or helping others and ourselves as human beings even. But that is often very conditional because it's based on what we think is the good thing. So nothing wrong with that either, right? But that isn't what the precepts are saying. This was the differentiation I was trying to present, at least in my opinion, that the compassion that goes out and tries to, you know, thinks it knows, which partly it does, what other people need or want, is something we should do.

[25:20]

But the kind of compassion we get out of the way of makes us stop projecting that need and want onto others, and therefore they can come to us in a different way. And I think this is particularly poignant for me in terms of what I consider racism. Because we think we know what someone else needs or wants in terms of how they're met. But we never let them come to us. We have a tendency, and by we, pardon me for using that word, I mean those of us who are identified as being So there's this lack of spaciousness. It's kind of like we create others. And I feel like it's because we don't get out of the way of our projection of what compassion is or what we think others need.

[26:23]

We sort of impose it. And I don't know if that's making sense, but I've had it experientially. recently had a couple of experiences that shifted the way I see that and this sort of projection of what the world should be like and how I think it should work and how people should relate to each other. Just like I'm making it all up, you know. And that's okay, but it's not the same as getting out of the way. Does that make sense? Am I making sense at all? Yes. Can you speak more about turning? In certain spiritual traditions, that's called conversion, where you willingly are turned by something.

[27:34]

And they even call it being turned by the Dharma. It's turning. And... Again, it's this sort of willingness to listen in a different way. Different way. To listen deeply and not try to turn it back into what you already know. So it's being truly turned. You know it. You understand. Well, I'm pretty sure it's probably time. Maybe one more question if somebody wants. Okay. Well, one thing to remember is that everybody is doing all of this. Part of our pride is to think, oh, well, you know, I'm kind of in control. I'm sitting on my high tower here, you know, and looking down at the world, and I get it.

[28:38]

Or something like that. And, oh, I'm sorry. Well, that's just another form of pride, right? It's that pride, shame, pride, shame, pride, shame thing, like you're saying. So this is why I think it's a matter of getting out of the way. It's very difficult. Otherwise, it wouldn't be a teaching, right? And it wouldn't be a teaching we have to repeat over and over and over again to do this deconstructive thing. To realize we're all doing it. And we do this self-justification thing of getting excited about it and harming ourselves and others with it. And all those things that the precepts are saying, I vow not to. I vow not to. I vow not to. What does it mean? How does that deconstruct our perceptions and our kind of putting ourselves in these corners and all that kind of thing.

[29:39]

And doing that to others. You know, this kind of, oh, I'm so ashamed. Oh, dear, I'm othering. You know, it's subtle and it's creepy in a certain way because we're not used to it, right? But it's... it's also a source of some of the humor underneath it. Laughing at ourselves or holding ourselves in this poignant place, this very poignant place where why would we want to be unkind or cruel or stupid or anything? And yet, we all do it in different ways. So how do we see ourselves in that? and develop this kind of self-knowledge that gives us a little freedom.

[30:42]

Just a little more, you know, like, oh, this poignancy. We all, you know, we have, as we are, right at this moment, this is the only life we have to do all of it. This is the only life we have. So, then you make decisions, like, what does that mean? How will it work? Will I keep grasping at myself? again and again, yes, I will. It's scary. So, but you can, when you start, even feel a hint of a change, a hint of that turning, that conversion, it's like everything looks just a little different for a while. And it's fun. I don't know why. I guess I do know why. May we fully enjoy the Dharma.

[31:58]

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