I bow to Thee, the Truth, the Love, the Science, the Bliss. Good morning. Good morning. Happy Mother's Day to everyone. I received a couple of calls this morning from mothers who live at Green Gulch who were apologizing for not coming to lecture because they were going off to Calistoga and doing other grunchy type things. So I'm glad that so many of you are here this morning. Good morning.

[01:07]

And maybe some of you have talked with your mothers this morning. I gave my mother a call right before lecture. She was talking to my sister, and she said, I'll call you right back, but the bell had been turned off so that I wouldn't be disturbed while I was preparing for lecture. So she called back, and where are you? So we missed this morning. It's kind of not so unusual, maybe, to miss. The word mother, the root of it, mater, the ma part is derived from an almost universal,

[02:11]

or found in many, many, many languages around the world, the ma, which is the baby's cry for milk and sometimes doubled ma ma. And this is, you know, found all over. And in just looking at the word, so many words come out of, come from this root, material, matrimony, matrix. And it turns out that Tara Buddha, the word Tara, Tara Buddha is the female Buddha, Tibetan Buddha, or Tara is, there's lots of practices in Tibetan Buddhism around Tara,

[03:13]

and the word Tara in Tibetan is droma, which means mother. So you could say Mother Buddha, and the word Tara in Sanskrit means savioress or liberator. So, you know, recently a Dharma sister lost her mother, and she said that her mother was the inspiration, her earliest inspiration of what a bodhisattva was, of an enlightenment being, a being who was there for her and supported her and cared for her. And this is a traditional image that's used in many practices in Buddhism,

[04:14]

where the, you might say, the archetypal energy of mother is brought into the practice to help us to access our own unconditional love. Now, you know, at the same time, we have to acknowledge that our mothers, the personal mother that we had may not have been so helpful, maybe had needed so much help herself that she couldn't help us, or maybe abandoned us emotionally or physically or through death. And I feel that many people have come to practice at Zen Center

[05:15]

because of or with one of the conditions being their relationship with their mother, or the relationship even negative or positive, and subsequently their own relationship with their own children and the pain around that. This is not so uncommon, the strong, deep bond of mother-child and the disruption of that or the fruition of that being contributing conditions for someone to pick up, take up practice in a deep way, an ongoing way. So when I bring up, for example,

[06:16]

the energy of mother being at the core of many practices, someone might be thinking about their own personal circumstances with their mother and thinking, and that's not what she was like. And there's so many jokes and that kind of thing about this. But each one of us somehow in our life received some kind of mother love, if not from a person, from the earth itself, from nature itself, met us there in an unconditional way, perhaps, to support us. The word matrix itself means, in Latin, means womb, and it means a situation or a substance surrounding us

[07:17]

from which we develop or create or can originate something or something that contains us is matrix. And the conditioning matrix of our life develops us and brings us to practice, whatever it is, positive or negative. So we have a sutra called the Metta Sutra, and there's a line in it which says, just as a mother at the risk of her life watches over and protects her only child, so with a boundless mind should one cherish all living beings. So this is used as the example of what kind of mind is it that's the mind of loving kindness, or the mind of a bodhi being or an awakening being.

[08:19]

And they use this, it's the mind of a mother who, without thinking, at the risk of her life, watches over and protects her only child and cherishes. The word cherish in Japanese, it has to do with placing something inside your robe, tucked in your robe close to your heart. It means to cherish. You place something close to your heart, dear. So, there is this mother energy that we can access, and there's a practice that uses this practice

[09:22]

of this mother as the center in order to bring us to the thought of enlightenment, or the thought called bodhicitta, which is considered to be a very precious thought that arises in your life stream. And this thought is the thought that I will... that I want to attain enlightenment or realize my true self for the sake of all living beings. That's the elements of the thought, that you want to realize your true self in order to help all living beings, so that they may be free. This is called bodhicitta, and it's a very... To have that kind of thought rise up in a person is very auspicious, and it's thought of as like the wish-fulfilling jewel of the world, to think that someone would have that as their endeavor,

[10:27]

their life's endeavor. So, there's a traditional meditation for how one would engender this bodhicitta, how would this come about in your life stream. You can't necessarily plan, you can say the words, but is it really arising in you? And I just wanted to talk about... It has six parts to it, or seven parts to it. And the first is to consider all sentient beings as your mother. This is the... And so, if you want to try this, and your own relationship with your personal mother doesn't allow you to actually feel this, you might substitute, or think of someone who has been that way for you. Maybe your grandmother, or an aunt, or your teacher,

[11:31]

or a man, it doesn't matter, male or female necessarily, or the earth itself. So, you consider that all sentient beings, everybody you met, was at one time your mother. And this is, of course, based on the belief in, or the teaching of rebirth. So, I don't want to necessarily get into that, but just to try on what would it be like to whoever you meet, to consider this person was at one time my mother, and we were in this intimate mother-child relationship. So, you begin with that, and it takes a certain kind of equanimity, which is assumed you've been working with equanimity before you even attempt this. So, each person you consider as your mother,

[12:32]

what would that be like, each person you meet? And then you remember the kindness that your mother showed towards you, you remember all the kindnesses. So, maybe if it wasn't your mother, but this mother energy that came towards you from some direction, and what that was like, and how the person cared for you and watched over you when you were sick, and looked out for you, and put you before them in so many ways. So, you remember all these kindnesses. And then naturally, out of remembering how this kindness came towards you, naturally what comes up is you want to repay the kindness. You want to give something back to repay. And so there's many ways you can repay

[13:32]

through gifts and kind speech, but the greatest repayment would be to have this person be relieved from their suffering, and to be liberated. There's nothing beyond that, there's nothing finer as a gift, or nothing that would really repay the kindness. So, we've looked at each person as if they were a mother, the second thing is we've remembered the kindness, and the third is we've wanted to repay the kindness. The fourth is called bringing up affectionate love. And this affectionate love, which we might naturally feel when we see a relative that we love, or our children, or a good friend, they come in the room and we're happy to see them,

[14:34]

this is a kind of affectionate love. And we work to have that feeling arise when anyone comes towards us. This comes out of the first three practices, is feeling affectionate love towards even people who might disturb us, or we might consider our enemies in some way, to actually have this affection arise for them. And the fifth one is compassion, generating compassion. So, out of this affectionate love, you feel affection, and then you want, naturally, for the suffering of this person, you want them to be happy, and you want their suffering to cease. And that's compassion. Compassion is wanting someone to have their suffering end.

[15:35]

Caring for them and wanting their suffering to end is the mind of compassion. So this comes up. And then the sixth is called superior intention. And that's described as, you have affection for them, and then compassion for them, you want their suffering to end, and then you think, I will personally make it my business, or make it my duty to relieve them of their suffering. And the example is, a child falls into a river, and people are on the riverbank, and they see it, and they say, Oh, no, no, we have to do something, we have to do something. But the father or the mother of the child sees it, and they say, I will go and dive into the river and get them. And they personally feel, I will do this. That's the mind of superior intention.

[16:37]

And what happens in this superior intention is you realize, I wish to act for the benefit of all beings, and I can't due to my difficulties and confusion and my own greed and self-clinging, and I want to act, and I'm not able to come forth, perhaps, or fear, or whatever it is. And then the last, the seventh, is the thought of awakening comes forth, the bodhicitta, which is, I will, I vow to fully realize my true nature, fully awaken for the benefit of all beings. And that's this culmination of this meditation, and what arises is the thought of enlightenment

[17:44]

or the mind of enlightenment. This thought rises, and then this person is a bodhisattva. Bodhisattva is one in whom this thought has come forth out of compassion. So I found it just kind of wonderful that this centers around and circles around accessing this feeling around the mother, or the mother energy, as the key, maybe, to bringing this forth, in this meditation, anyway. And at the same time, I can actually feel the pain feeling that one may have been cut off from this.

[18:51]

So a bodhisattva is born when this thought arises of wanting to be fully awakened for the benefit of all beings. And our sitting practice is, you know, we sit, zazen, sitting meditation, and unless there is this sitting for the welfare of all beings included in your sitting, your sitting practice isn't really zazen, the way zazen is taught. It can be very wholesome and concentrated practice, physically and mentally stabilizing and so forth, but it needs this, the inclusion for the benefit of all beings or for the welfare of the world is included in that, or it's not Buddha Dharma. Buddha Dharma includes this compassion

[20:00]

and includes everybody, includes all sentient beings. So last week, last Saturday, we had what was called a bodhisattva initiation ceremony or a lay initiation ceremony for eight people who it had arisen in their life stream to want to make a commitment to the sixteen bodhisattva precepts and the precepts, so you have this bodhisattva being with this thought of enlightenment and how do they then work in the world, how do they, what is the form that, this isn't just a thought form, how do they work, how do they use their hands and their mouth and their body, speech and mind for the welfare of others and work in the world in that way.

[21:00]

And the sixteen bodhisattva precepts point to this, give a shape, you might say, to how someone would carry this into their daily life, this thought of enlightenment. And there's a ceremony that makes public, where people can bear witness to one's inner commitment. You make it external. So eight women last week, on May 2nd, received the bodhisattva precepts and I was the preceptor. The preceptor is the person who gives the precepts and this was the first ceremony that I participated in in this way as the preceptor. So before the ceremony, a number of the lay or knees

[22:04]

spoke with me about, they had no doubts about that they wanted to receive the precepts, that was not the doubt. The doubt had to do with, am I developed enough to really carry these out, I don't want to do something and then feel that I can't follow through in some way. So it wasn't exactly fear, but some concern, some concern before the ceremony, is this, am I ready, these kinds of questions. What is happening for me and what will happen when I go through this door, will I be ready for this. And I found those questions to be very, just wonderful questions and very accurate before the ceremony to be wondering in that way

[23:06]

rather than a kind of, yeah, of course I'm completely ready, sure, can't you tell. This looking at yourself, questioning and being aware that there are possibilities for fooling oneself and forgetting what our intention is and to feel like this is a serious matter. The word in Japanese for the ceremony is jukai or receiving the precepts tai are the precepts, and another name for it is zaikei tokudo. Zaikei means staying home and tokudo is receiving the way or staying home and accomplishing the way. And the pre-ceremony is shukkei tokudo which is leaving home

[24:07]

and accomplishing the way. So there are two paths for accomplishing the way there's the stay-at-home path or lay initiation and the priest initiation called leaving home. But they're both, they're integrated in that both groups receive these 16 Bodhisattva precepts. There's not a separate set in the Bodhisattva lineage that we have. There's not two sets of precepts. So to have this concern ahead of time and to not, to actually, this concern is not settled with the ceremony itself. In fact, in the ceremony when you receive the precepts you're asked three times after each group of the precepts from now on

[25:07]

and even after your awakening, even after enlightenment, do you agree to follow these precepts, observe and follow them? And the ordinates say, yes, I will. And then they're asked again from now on and even after you're fully awakened. So the precepts are not something that are a kind of once and for all event. They're a living, breathing, and you're changing, the world is changing, your circumstances, the matrix, your conditioning matrix, your surrounding that's holding you from which things are originating, this womb in Latin, matrix, I said that, this womb is constantly changing. So you need to constantly observe to the end, not assume that once you say yes, I will, you're done.

[26:08]

This is, it's living. So I too had my concerns before the ceremony, not about doing the ceremony, but am I ready? Is this... Am I ready? I guess is the question. And the responsibility is very great. I felt the responsibility strongly of passing the precepts on, giving the precepts. The precepts that are given are, we sometimes call them the blood vein, the blood vein or the preceptual vein. And in the Zen lineage, there may be, there are many different teachers who have lots of different ways

[27:09]

of teaching, different styles, but what they all share is the precepts, that the precepts are the center and the, what gets transmitted from one to the other and to the students are the precepts. And it's talked about as the precept vein or blood, blood vein. So when you think of blood as a circulatory system that is flowing, bringing life, it's the same with the precepts. And when the lay ordained receives their new, they receive a new name and a new clothing, their Buddhist robe that they sew themselves, and a new family, and they are reborn into the Buddhist family. In fact, in the ceremony it says, after a certain point, you are a child of the Buddha

[28:10]

or you are seated with the Buddha and are a child of the Buddha. This is, you're a new family. And so the new name and clothes and you get your lineage papers which show your new family, which is a blood family, the precept blood. And in the lineage paper it has all the Buddhas and ancestors starting with Shakyamuni Buddha. Actually, there's a circle above Shakyamuni Buddha and then a red line from the circle that goes through all the names of all the Buddhas and ancestors from the Buddhist time through India and China and Japan and then into America and through Suzuki Roshi to Suzuki Roshi's teachers and down, in this case, through me and then the red line goes through the name of the new, or me, and out of the feet, you could say, out of the end of their name, out comes the red line

[29:11]

back up to Shakyamuni Buddha. So it's one circle of preceptual blood, this blood gene. Now, the precepts, you know, are often, I feel, kind of misunderstood and thought of as some kind of rules. You know, these are the rules and they're really like the Ten Commandments or something, which, you know, are guides for people's lives. But someone may feel like I don't want to have these rules. I want to live spontaneously. I want to respond to the world, you know, without some kind of rule. So precepts, we think of as rules, and what's interesting, what I found very interesting, which I'll say, is that the word rule

[30:12]

in English comes out of, or it has a root with, moon and measure, moon and measure, so there's a kind of natural regulation that comes with the seasons and the moon, and also included in this is the regular rhythm of menstruation. And in Latin languages, the word rule also means menstruation. Las reglas in Spanish and regle, regle, in German and regle, in French, all mean rule and mean menstruation. Now, for me, this kind of blood connection for menstruation, this is the only kind of bleeding which is non-traumatic, which is natural and not trauma-driven.

[31:15]

And in the same way, and this is the rule, this is the natural law, and for me, the precepts, this bloodline of the precepts is non-traumatic blood flowing, flowing, natural, life-giving blood. So I think it's interesting that the rule kind of connects these two things. So the new ordinees are actually born. They're born, they're like new babies. And someone actually said after the ordination that she felt like this baby. She herself was in the ordination and she didn't exactly know what to say or when to bow, and she felt like a newborn, you know, a little girl. And I felt like, and I think this shows it in the lineage chart, the mother of these new orisakas.

[32:17]

But actually, it's Buddha's child. I was maybe more like midwife for having these babies come into the world. But on the chart, I'm the one that's right before them. And we talk about often your teacher and then your grandfather, which would be the teacher of your teacher, your grandmother. So these family relational words are used in this way. So for me, kind of feeling this before the ceremony, this kind of at the birth, you know, was coming. And I had concerns in the weeks before as I prepared. There's lots of preparation for the preceptor ahead of time. And I felt a little bit as I told Tenshin, Reb Anderson, my teacher,

[33:20]

at one point that I was being assailed by Mara. For those of you who know the story of the Buddha, when he finally stopped doing his ascetic practices and decided to drink and eat and then sit under the Bodhi Tree, under the Tree of Awakening, he made a vow to sit there. And then Mara, the evil one, and this is kind of a personification of one's own doubts and fears and things that come up when you really decide you're going to do something. Mara, the evil one, came and sent, you know, angry forces and lustful, tempting forces to try to get the Buddha to move. But the last way that Mara, the evil one, worked on the Buddha was to kind of undermine him by saying, well, who do you think you are anyway sitting there? Why don't you go back home and take care of your life and forget all this?

[34:21]

You know, you think you're such hot stuff. And it was about pride and the Buddha sat there and had made this vow to sit. And what the Buddha ended up doing while being assailed this last time was he called the earth to witness, the Mother Earth, and he touched the earth. And on this altar, the main altar, there's the big Manjushri, and then the statue in front of it is Shakyamuni Buddha in that mudra of touching the earth with his right hand, which you can look at on the main altar, bringing his hand down to the earth to ask the earth to bear witness for his right to be there and to sit there and to accomplish his way. And the earth met him completely, and she shook in seven ways. There's various renditions of this story, but one is that the earth shook in seven ways and basically told Mara

[35:24]

to scram because the Buddha had been working for many, many eons to accomplish this way and realize his true nature, Shakyamuni Buddha, and he had a right to be there. So the earth was brought in so he could settle right where he was. So in talking about being, personally being assailed by Mara in various ways, my own brand of it, everyone has their own brand being assailed by Mara, and Rinpoche said, Have you touched the earth? And it hadn't occurred to me really to touch the earth. But that was very helpful for me because I actually felt I could throughout the day bring myself to the moment,

[36:24]

to each footstep, to settling into what I was doing in a new way, which was settling down right here. And the earth, I felt, met me there. I felt I was completely met. And I want to tell you, this sounds like a kind of fable, but I want to tell you how it was that I was met in the weeks before the ceremony, up until the day before, about 2 weeks before, I had been working on the ordination documents, and it was late in the afternoon. I wanted to take a walk, so I went up the Hope Wheelride up the mountain, and it was dusk, and I was rounding a curve, and I saw this big animal on the road, and at first I thought, oh, somebody has come with their giant dog to Green Gulch, they've let it loose, no leash, they're going to run around, ruin the gardens, da-da-da. And then I looked,

[37:26]

and I thought, that isn't a dog, the way it was kind of moving, and it had this long tail that kind of slooped down to the ground. And I realized it was a mountain lion, and it moved away, and I kind of went after it around this, it went around the curve, and I didn't want it out of my sight, so I went around the curve, and then it stopped, and it turned, looked back at me, and then I thought, stay very still. It looked at me, and then it kind of pawed around a little bit, and then it went over the edge of the mountainside there. And then it kind of hit me that I had seen this, this mountain lion, and it was not that far away, like about a third row maybe of the chairs here. And then I told some, I told a number of people about it, and they had cited it also.

[38:26]

A couple people had been staying at Hope Cottage, had seen it at dusk the day before, just out. And that same walk, I swear, I went up to the mountain, and I had this mountain lion, I was so filled with the gift of having seen this beauty. And I was walking down that, I almost stepped on a giant snake. It was like, I don't know what kind. I often see snakes, like green gosh, like garter snakes, with the yellow stripes, little ones. This was a big, thick, I guess a gopher snake maybe, big and long and coiled on the road, and I got so close, I stepped so close to it that the tongue was going do-do-do-do-do-do-do. And I, you know, so that was my, this is the same walk, this is coming home, and I stared at it, and it didn't move, and it didn't slither away, and I just kind of received that one. So that was this one walk,

[39:28]

and I was very, I just felt like it was this gift somehow from the earth. And that was about a week before the ceremony, and then the day before the ceremony, which was May 1st, I was working on the documents and writing on the back of Buddha's robe, the raksu is silk, and the preceptor writes something that writes the new name of the person and a dharma phrase and their own name, and I was busy working on these, working away, and I came out of my place where I was working by my house, and there was this giant bird right outside the steps, like a big, and it looked like, well, and it was, it looked like a turkey, but not like a Thanksgiving turkey, but it was a wild turkey, which I saw a drawing of it, Audubon's drawing of it, and it looked just like that. It had long legs,

[40:28]

and the body is not a big fat and round one like Thanksgiving, but more long and tapered, but a big bird, and it had practically come up to the door and was poking around, and then it went down the road. I called Wendy Johnson, and I said there is this giant bird up here, and then I told my neighbor Katie, and she said that's a wild turkey. Where I used to live in Virginia, we used to see them all the time, and I don't think anyone had ever seen, I'd never heard of a wild turkey being sighted at Green Gulch before, and this wild turkey went for a walk, and then it came back and was kind of foraging, and this was as close as this front row here. I mean, it just, it was not, we thought it was a tame, escaped turkey from a barnyard like Slide Ranch or something, and it was around Green Gulch for a while. It was down by Jordan's house, and it was on the lawn, and it just kind of came to Green Gulch, but the effect on me

[41:30]

of opening my door, you know, and seeing this bird kind of come, I was really kind of amazed. So I felt I had these 3 animal visitations that came to help me, and I talked to someone who works with Native American animal meanings and so forth, and what she told me about Mountain Lion is, Mountain Lion is, believe it or not, Mother Energy is the Mountain Lion. It has to do with Mother Energy, has to do with also leadership and being the identified one who, which had to do with this role I felt that I was taking in this ceremony. That was the Mountain Lion. Snake in this system is transmutation, where poison is transmuted

[42:31]

into medicine. And I think the ceremony is about that, you know. Those who want to receive the precepts see that their life, that the way that they've been living and the ways that they've hurt people and the ways they're confused, they want to change, that they want to live in a different way, and part of that is to receive the precepts and to allow the Bodhisattva precepts to help them realize their deepest intention. So it's like transmuting one's poisons of greed, hate and delusion, those are called the three poisons, into healing medicine. And then the turkey, the turkey is the animal of the giveaway in this system from which they were talking. In Native American lore, the potlatch or the giveaway

[43:36]

where you give where it's very noble and you're well thought of and highly regarded to give, you know, give everything, give the last things you have, give the shirt off your back. So the turkey, and I felt that what the ceremony is about is giving the precepts, giving and giving, all these things were coming through to give, giving the robes that were made which were given to me and they get given back, the lineage paper and the family, the new name and so forth. So it was this big giveaway and that turkey, you know, kind of was really emphasizing that, I thought, it's so big. And the other thing about this giveaway turkey

[44:36]

is understanding that maybe you could say the emptiness of the three wheels. The three wheels are giver, receiver, and gift and understanding that they're all empty, meaning you can't hold on to any one of them. They all completely condition themselves. There is no giver unless there's a receiver and there's neither unless there's this gift. They completely interpenetrate each other and are empty, meaning empty of a separate self, which I feel is what the ceremony is about as well. So for me, that was really touching the earth and helped me to touch the earth. I felt that the animal kingdom came to help me to settle and do what I had to do to help people do what they wanted to do. In the priest,

[45:41]

there's a meeting of priests that works with Tenshin Anderson and studies various things, and we've been studying the transmission of the light, which is Keizan Zenji's, who is one of our Japanese Zen masters, his writing about the transmission between teacher and student and the stories around that. And I wanted to talk about one which has to do with the precepts and the meaning of the precepts. And this is after the 6th ancestor in China, Daikan Eno Daiyosho, Seigen Gyoshi Daiyosho, Sekito Kisen Daiyosho, and then Yakusan Igen, and this is about Yakusan Igen. Yakusan or Yao Shan

[46:44]

was the 4th, after the 6th ancestor, was very famous, and he received, was ordained pretty young, like at about 16 or 17 years old, and practiced very, very hard and studied the precepts and all the kind of canonical teachings and the sutras and very assiduously. But at a certain point, he felt this is not working. Following all these rules and regulations in this minute, impeccable way, somehow this isn't working for me. And he went to Shuto Sekito and said, I've been studying these canonical teachings for a long time, very thoroughly, but I feel like I haven't settled myself. And I've heard

[47:48]

that points directly to the true nature and where you can realize your true nature. Can you please, in your compassion, can you tell me about this? And Shuto said to him, Just being so is not right. Not just being so is not right. Both being just so and not being just so are both not right. How about you? And Yashao was speechless. He couldn't say anything. And so Shuto said, Your affinities are not here.

[48:49]

This isn't the right matrix. He didn't say that. That's how I understand it. Your affinities or the conditions for your awakening are not here. This isn't the right matrix for you. Go and talk with Master Matsu, who was a very famous teacher and has many, many disciples, 138 enlightened disciples. So he said, Go and talk with him. So he went to Master Ma and he said the same thing. He basically said the same story. I've been working with the canonical teachings and practicing very hard the precepts, but I heard there was this teaching that directly pointed and allowed one to awaken to their true nature. Can you help me? And Master Ma said, Sometimes I have him raise his eyebrows and blink. And sometimes I don't have him raise his eyebrows and blink. And sometimes raising his eyebrows

[49:51]

and blinking is right. And sometimes not raising his eyebrows and blinking is right. How about you? And at that point, Yakusan again was enlightened and he understood. And Master Ma said, and he bowed, he made a deep bow. Master Ma said, What is it that you have understood that you bow in this way? And he said, When I was with Master Shikto, this teacher from before, I was like an ox. No, I wasn't like an ox. I was like a mosquito mounting an iron ox. And he said, Master Ma said, You have understood. Guard it well. But your teacher is Shikto. So even though he was enlightened

[50:51]

under Master Ma, his real teacher, he felt was Shikto, this other teacher who sent him. So to look at this in view of the precepts and the ceremony and the life, the living meaning of the precepts, this, you know, when his first teacher said, Being just so is not right. Not being just so is not right. But being just so and not being just so, both are right. How about you? He's pointing to, if you feel like you really understand the precepts and know how to be in the world and are completely all settled and have a way, a formula of how it's supposed to be, that's not right. But to throw the precepts out and not follow anything and just say, Hey, man, it's all cool.

[51:52]

You know, I can do what I want. That's not right either. And, you know, both of those together, you can't do that. That's going to be pretty confusing. How about you? And this how about you points to touching the earth right now. What is going on with you right now in this changing, ever-swirling world that we have? Can you settle there and understand from there how to keep the precepts or what is following the precepts? So there's no formulaic way, and yet you can't throw them out either. That was what the first teacher told him. And when you say how about you, it comes down to studying the self. You have to look at yourself. What is your intention?

[52:54]

What is your motivation? What's going on with you? It doesn't matter what it says down on the piece of paper or what somebody else told you. How about you? And so one has to look to oneself and study oneself, and that's where the precepts and zazen are inextricably wed, because the how about you is realized through your own settling, and how are you going to settle in this world? So our sitting practice of studying ourself and our realizing the precepts in our everyday activity can't be separated from each other, and it comes down to how about you. But first you have to know what the precepts are and study them and take them up,

[53:56]

and you can't throw them out first and think you can be settled. You have to know very thoroughly, and then you know when to use them, when to not use them, what's the appropriate situation, what isn't the appropriate situation, when to raise the eyebrows and blink, and when not to raise the eyebrows and blink. It's not always raising and blinking. What about the times when you don't raise and blink? So you have to be completely present. You have to be there. So I think that's all for this morning. Thank you very much. Thank you. But it seems like deciding to sit

[55:14]

or to do meditation is kind of not exactly an adult decision, but it's something that has to come from within to have it really be meaningful. So that's one side, is that when someone's ready, they have to be exposed to it, however, to be able to turn towards it. So then is there a way to expose children without coercing or, you know, you've got to sit zazen before breakfast or something like that. And I think having residential communities where kids grow up seeing adults going off to zazen and wearing robes and making it a priority in their lives to do meditation weeks and so forth, I think there's young people who have seen that and on their own are now coming to zazen centers, this generation of young people. I think in the last couple of practice periods we had one, two, three maybe,

[56:15]

I'm trying to think, two or three for sure, people whose parents were at Tassajara, they spent time at Tassajara as little kids and grew up in families where zazen was important. And now they've come, and now they're doing practice periods. And for them it's very interesting because they grew up in a Buddhist household and I think the rest of our generation, it was rather esoteric, you know, all these things and Buddha figures and all that, it was very different from our family. But for them it's like, it's just, it's really not such a big deal, you know. So it's very interesting to see these young people, but I don't think, but they came to it on their own, but through exposure and exposure to people who are practicing, have practiced over time, and I think that can be very inspirational. People are, one gets attracted to people who have been practicing for a while. You want to spend time with them.

[57:16]

So I think that's happening. So then how do you balance, you know, exposing your kids to the sangha and practice without coercing? And I was in a situation where I went with my kids to a children's retreat with Thich Nhat Hanh, which was four days in Santa Barbara with I don't know how many kids, 150 kids maybe, from little ones up to teenagers, and they had them in different groups. My daughter was interested in the walking meditation and trying it out, and she found it pretty interesting. My son was I think about 6 or 7. He just couldn't stand it, you know, that he had to be quiet for one, and that just the whole deal, you know, it was just, he hated it. He wanted to go. We were doing this walking meditation. We were supposed to hold hands and then stop and breathe. Anyway, the whole thing was just not his pace, not his way, and didn't work. And I didn't want him to be, have antipathy for this,

[58:18]

and at the same time, you know, anyway, it's delicate there. Do you have family that you're... Yes, and I've had a daughter that's gone to a retreat, but her reaction was similar, you know, it's boring. Yes, yes. Although she initiated it, that she was interested, but I mean, I did it, you know, like one sitting, then went out. Yes. She's still, you know, it's a lot of you. I don't think she wants to do it, not yet. Yeah. Well, you know, our program here for kids is not, what shall I say, we've tried over the years to develop like a Sunday school and a whole thing, and now we've kind of come down to the first Sunday of the month is Dharma Talk for Kids, the beginning of our regular talk, and then they have a program often connected with garden events, planting and making compost and then tea and cookies, so that it's fun and pleasant and they get presents and they get... So they have good feelings about coming to Green Gulch, you know,

[59:21]

and we then have family practice days, which, you know, are more or less successful. They've been going on for years. Wendy's been doing them, I think, seven, eight years, but like Spirit Rock has a big family thing. They have a paid professional, not paid professional, they have one of their employees, one of their positions is child coordinator or whatever, and they have a lot of programs for teenagers, and I hear that they're very, very well received. So anyway, how old is your daughter? This one's eight. Eight, yeah. Anyway, my philosophy has been not to push, and yet, you know, we chant before meals if we're having a family meal and they have altars in their rooms, and, you know, there's kind of, it's there, you know. And I do tell this story about my daughter. When we came, that retreat had a meditation for the children

[60:23]

where they sang this song while they... and that was to be used for their meditation. In, out... In, out, deep, slow, calm, ease, smile, release, pleasant moment, wonderful moment, that was the poem. And we did that a lot at this, and they were supposed to, you know, it was talking about their breath. In, out, it was really, it was wonderful to hear all these children's voices singing this. And that was in the summer, and in the fall of that year, it was 1989, was the big earthquake in San Francisco. And I was driving with my daughter, who was eight, and we were driving along, and the earthquake happened, and we were in the mission, and the buildings, everybody has their own story of where they were for the 89 earthquake, but anyway, the buildings were just swaying, people were rushing out of the buildings, the car was, I thought I had 4 flat tires,

[61:25]

and she, um, not exactly panicked, but got very, very frightened and started crying really hard, and I said, stay with your breath and do your in, out, deep, slow, and that's what she was able to do, and just, she just went to this breath and in, out poem and was able to calm herself. So, uh, you know, and I hadn't thought it necessarily made a big impression on her, she did it with the other kids and all, but I think it actually went deeper than I knew. So you never know, you know, with just exposing what will happen. Uh-huh. Oh. Yeah.

[62:35]

Yeah. Well, just like with that transmuting the energy, you know, the transmuting the poison, the greed, hate, and delusion, I feel, are the occasion, the field of our practice. Without that, how would we deepen our practice, you know? So in response to the matrix, maybe, of greed, hate, and delusion or the womb of that, we're able to really develop. So in that way, I guess it does mother us, you know? And it's not to be pushed away, it's to understand and... thoroughly understand and be aware of it. So then it's like nine vows, you know, to all that, which is what brought us to practice in the first place. Thank you. Also the word maya means good mother. I just, uh... I was in this etymology, and, uh...

[63:40]

There's something else. Yes. Yeah. This is the Greek, M-A-I-A, the Greek, yeah, mayas. And demeter, or demeter, sometimes you say, the meter part is mother, and the de of demeter is earth, so demeter, demeter, is earth mother. Anyway, we were playing with all the... the mother images and cognates, I guess you could say. Yes. ... The, um...

[64:56]

That myth of Demeter and Persephone, there's two versions. There's that version where she's abducted by Hades, you know, the god of the underworld, which is post-Hellenic, meaning after the patriarchy kind of took over Greece, and then there's the pre-Hellenic myth, which all the myths had a pre-Hellenic sort of origin, and the Demeter-Persephone myth, from what can be pieced together about the pre-Hellenic, did not have a rape and abduction. This was the content of the women's sitting last October or November that Wendy Johnson and I did. We kind of took off from that myth, the pre-Hellenic one. So in that myth, Persephone and her mother are really close, really identified, and have a wonderful time, and they're out there on the earth, and Demeter, or Demeter, as goddess of growing things and cereal, you know, Ceres in Roman, cereal goddess. They're so happy. But then Persephone, she's getting a little older,

[65:59]

and she's drawn on her own to the underworld. She's drawn to the dark. She's drawn to explore the unknown. And also, the fascinating thing about it is, she knows that the people in the underworld are in pain and suffering, and she's, through compassion, is drawn to go and serve them. And she tells her mother this, and her mother doesn't want to hear it. Her mother doesn't want her to go, right? But she goes, she has to, and there's nothing the mother can do to hold her back. She has to let her go. So, and then when she comes back, well, then it tells about what happens to Persephone in the underworld, and she basically... Were any of you at that one yesterday? Yes. Anyway, she meets with those of the underworld, and you can think of it, I mean, psychologically, as all those parts of ourselves that we want to get rid of, and you know, the shadow side, right? And she meets head-on and actually blesses them

[67:01]

with pomegranate juice, which is like the blood, you know. And... Anyway, and then she comes back, and of course, in the meantime, Demeter has been in deep mourning, and the whole earth has, nothing is growing, and the people are very worried. And when Persephone comes back, it's springtime, so this reunification of mother-daughter is, you know, the origin of life, basically, and it was reenacted in the Eleusinian Mysteries for 2,000 years. That is mystery, so you don't know exactly what they did, but for 2,000 years, in the spring, I believe, of the year, this was reenacted with, you know, hundreds of women would do, I don't know what they would do, but... It was very important. So... Anyway, it's interesting, you were just reading that this morning. Yes?

[68:01]

I was just wondering if it was a spiritual experience. I'm not going to assert one certain way, but if you are looking at me, it was coming up to me, and so I was starting to be more like empty, or whatever. And... For me, I'm struggling with something that, first of all, I want to bring life, I want to acknowledge that, but also, I have a lot of fear of how it's going to be more sovereign, somehow, at the same time. I don't think it's really any better than that. It's something I know I want to less on, but if I go too much in that direction,

[69:02]

it's pushing me, you know, because I feel like I'm going to go away. So, I'm not sure, I don't know if that's a response. Yeah. Well... The response that arises is, you know, when you were saying, you don't... I mean, there's part of you that wants to shed light, or bring light to an aerated, get it out in the open and look, and the other part really doesn't want to, and wants to kind of push it away, and the pushing, to me, the pushing is what reifies it. I mean, if you think of pushing, applying pressure... I mean, I don't know if this works out in the physical world exactly, but anyway, it kind of makes it into this kind of solid thing, because you haven't really looked at it to see what's there, you just push, and that has a kind of solid-like quality, but you don't know what it is. What? Yeah, yeah.

[70:03]

Yeah, that's kind of the image I have anyway. So, to actually bring it out in front and examine, just like with anything, the closer you look and the more you look, you see that it is empty of inherent existence, meaning a solid, reified thing. It includes everything. It includes the past, present, and future of all the people involved and their childhoods and the weather. I mean, you look at it and it dissolves before your very eyes the more you look. But if you're not going to look, it stays in that kind of chunky, solid state. And that's, I think, true with anything. I mean, if you look at, if you turn that light to your own physical being, you see that you are not what you think you are, what your concept of yourself is. It's much more fluid and more, it includes everything.

[71:04]

Of course, if you go far enough, there's nothing left out, so it can't be reified in that way. So anyway, that's what I've thought in my life anyway. The pushing is what turns it into, as I've called it, like cement blocks, you know, cement. But we often don't even know we're pushing. We're so busy turning away as fast as ever we can, we don't realize what the right and the left hand are doing. One hand's, you know, I once described it as knitting it all together and the left hand is unraveling, you know, to say, hey, we don't know. Sometimes we need help. We need some help to look at it. Yes? I was going to ask you a very similar question, but as Jean was speaking, I thought I could describe a little what I've done in response to it, and have you respond to that,

[72:05]

because my experience is that if I think, I want to look at this thing, I want to look at this thing, I want to look at this thing, there's no way I'm going to be able to look at this thing because of exactly what you're saying. You can't will something, you can't will yourself to be ready to look at this thing. The only thing I've found that I can look at is what happens to me when I say, I'm going to look at this thing, whether it's my body gets leavened or punctured. And I keep coming back to what Norman said to me a long time ago, where your koan is, what is resistance? And that's what I decided, no matter what else it was, all you can look at is resistance, because there is nothing else. Nothing else has substance. Only your resistance has substance. And so I finally decided, if you have patience, then you can look at resistance, and the stuff will come in front of you,

[73:09]

but if you turn to it, it's like an artwork I saw once, if you try to see it, it won't. So that was the only way I could get to it. It wouldn't come when I wanted it. Only the resistance could come. Yeah, it sounds very accurate to me. With resistance, the symptoms are much more profound, bothersome. And then you can clear it the more I sat. And that's what Norman said. I asked, I think there's something more than that.

[74:11]

And he said, that's your koan. And it's become clear to me that that's it. That's it. There's distance. That's it. For me, my experience with my own relationship is that I don't recognize the resistance. If I need somebody else to point it out to me, then I resist. Because I have justifications that are very, very fine at home. I just found that the longer I sit, the more the embarrassed person is. The more things you see that's resistance. You know, you could call it resistance. You could also call it any kind of... Where do you feel any kind of obstruction or that it's not flowing? You feel that, and even without naming it as resistance,

[75:15]

that's where you look. But without resistance. Resistance isn't bad. Right, it's sort of like Rain was saying about Mara. That's where you work. It points exactly where to look. And it's tailor-made. Everybody, it's completely for you. Just ready-made for you. And for someone else, it's not nice. Yes. But speaking of that, as you said, this is a really important part of the practice,

[76:18]

and we should make our offices. And my question is, why do you think this is an important part of the practice, and how do you know if it's ready to be used? Let's see. I'm not so sure I've ever heard Rain say, you should make a Raksha, or gone quite like that. But he's pointed over and over again to the... which I was trying to talk about today, the importance of precepts and Zen, that you can't... I remember at one point he said, you can't really sit unless you've received the precepts. And someone who hadn't, and didn't want to receive lay renunciation, was just so incensed. You know, I've been sitting all these years. What do you mean I can't sit unless I... And took umbrage, I guess, at that.

[77:18]

But this link of the actual sitting for the benefit of all beings, the natural understanding of that is receiving the precepts. When that's very clear to you, that this would be of great help, that this is something that... Because the people who ask, or bring it forth and talk about it, it has arisen in them. Nobody said you better... You know, it's time you better start thinking about taking the precepts. We don't prostitutize. It's like each person is on their own timetable. But it does occur to people. They really begin to ask about it, and talk about it, and inquire, and take them up in their own lives. And it has a kind of natural... And there's some people, there's one person who had been practicing, when she finally took the precepts,

[78:21]

I think she had been practicing for 20 years, and had been at Tassajara, but she was not ready to do it. She didn't feel that was right for her. But she finally did, you know. So, for you personally, just your bringing up the question, seems to me that this is up for you in some way. Whether, is this something I want to do? Maybe to start inquiring about the precepts, maybe take some classes, ask what the meaning of them is, you know, like that, begin to circle round. Absolutely. The meaning of the precepts, because people do that, they're doing araphistry, haven't you made araphistry? You're not making araphistry? So your friends and... People I practice with. Yeah. So it's like, I don't know what to do. It's like you say, no, I haven't made one, I don't have one, I don't have any other answer. Yes. Well, after, you know,

[79:21]

they're used to... When I first started practicing, you wouldn't... No one received lay ordination until you'd been practicing three years. One year, he has people to wait at least one year? Uh-huh, yeah. Well... So after three years, part of... It seemed like at that time there was a lot of coming and going, people trying out Zen and then never seeing him again and that kind of thing, so it seemed like after three years it was clear that someone had established their practice and was clear about, there was clarity there about what the practice meant to them in their life and so forth. So I think it had to do with that. And maybe now people are more clear sooner

[80:22]

that there's... I don't know. But for each person, I don't think there's a timetable like one year or three years. It's an inner readiness, you know? So for you... Those are your questions. Is this something I'm drawn to? Is this something I want to inquire about? Is this something I feel would be of benefit to myself and others? And then some people, they feel not only is it of benefit, but they're really working with them. They're reciting them, they study them, but they don't even know, they're so kind of... what's the word? Kind of innocent of any designs about what it might mean or anything that they don't even know to ask. It's kind of like the four questions in the Jewish Seder where there's the young one who doesn't even know to ask. There's the wise one.

[81:23]

It's like that. They're just completely doing it and don't even think about sort of that's another way. Then someone asks them. Someone says, You're ready. So that happens too. Does that answer any...? Yeah. It's a very unique question for me. Uh-huh. Well, just take the cues from yourself, you know, from what's arising in you. I mean, some people arrive, like me, for instance. I arrived, I saw people wearing these, I thought, Hey, I want one of those, whatever they are. You know? Because I was attracted to the people who were wearing them. I thought they were really, they were neat, they were interesting people. And they had these things. But I had no idea what it meant. I'd never heard the word precept. So there's that, where people see that and are just drawn to something, they can't even name it, to people feeling

[82:24]

this goes against something, some other vows I've taken maybe, or my other religion that I've come from, or this would make my mother really unhappy, or I don't know, lots of reasons why, or there's nobody I want to receive them from, I don't feel close to anybody, or I don't know, lots of things. But I think you have to just settle on your relationship with the Bodhisattva precepts in your life. Did I say how about you? Oh, but yes. Yes? This is a ragsuit. Oops. It's a baby, it's a robe, Buddha's robe, but the finiture, the one that the priests wear

[83:25]

that's full size is the... kind of over the centuries, the robe that Buddha wore evolved into this robe in Zen anyway. In Southeast Asia they wear another kind of garment, and Tibetans wear another kind of garment, but it's a kind of robe that's called, that's Buddha's robe, and then these are kind of a miniature version of that, this one is made differently, but anyway, strips are sewn together in a particular pattern, and then you wear it around your neck, so it's like an abbreviated version. So each person who becomes, receives Buddha's precepts also makes and receives the robe. Well this ragsuit was given to me after the layered nation, and it was made

[84:26]

in Tassajara by several people who worked on it, one in particular worked on it for a number of years, and this is a style of ragsuit, and this is interesting because Buddha's original robes were cloth that was discarded, rags from the, I don't know if there's a rag in the end, but the dust heap and cloths that were used in childbirth, menstrual cloths, all these different kinds of cloths that were thrown away were gathered, washed, dyed a uniform color, and because they're all different sizes they were cut in strips and re-sewn into a big square. So this one is made with, this brown was a shirt from the Goodwill, it was taken out of Goodwill at Green Gulch, dyed with natural dyes somewhere she did that, and then the cloth, because it's old cloth, it's stitched,

[85:30]

you can see this closer, it's all stitched with thread to strengthen it all up and down, this golden or brown part is all stitched thick with stitches, and then the strips were put over it in this pattern. So this is made differently than the other ones, which are one color usually, does anybody have one that they're wearing? Yes, like Maya's. And the cloth is cut in strips and then sewn back together in a square. This is made a little differently. And I don't know of any significance about the black and brown colors. Another one that was made this way was, there's a woman who's a Zen teacher and a doctor in France, and she used bandages from her clinic that were cleaned and dyed and then made in this type this way. And we're lucky enough

[86:30]

to have this way of making Buddha's robe. It has been transmitted to us. Two teachers in Japan whose names, I can't remember, Sawakikoto Roshi and another Roshi took it upon themselves to research and find out the old way of making these because in Japan there's like Raksu stores, you can go and pick out a Raksu. And this way of making them had been lost maybe or not done so often. And Joshin-san and Yoshida Roshi are two. One woman Roshi and a woman, a nun, through Richard Baker, Zentatsu Baker, he brought them over to teach us how to do this. And they taught Blanche Hartman and other people. Now we have a number of people really, our sewing teachers know how to do this.

[87:31]

And Maya, just to go on about this, went to a sewing session in Europe with this French teacher who is also researching it. So we're very lucky to have this practice actually be part of our community. So everyone who receives Laird Nation and Mel, all the Zen Center affiliates, people that practice here as part of the ceremony, people make their own robe. It's very meaningful, the actual making and doing the stitching people find very helpful as preparation for receiving the precepts because it takes a while. Yes.

[88:32]

I'm just wondering if it's the same in your sense, what you're talking about. Yes, I think it is the same. There's, you could say, two methods of engendering or having this bodhicitta arise. One is what I described, which is, I think it connects up with an emotional, devotional part of our psyche maybe, depending on one's condition because I think difficulties with, maybe this wouldn't be appropriate for someone who really can't get beyond their personal mother's relationship or, anyway. But the other method by which one generates this is the meditation on exchanging self for others, which is, anyway, it's particular, but it's about this,

[89:58]

the non-separation of self and others and the interconnectedness of self and others. So you, and these are very particular meditations where you do this exchange and that also. So I think it's of the same world that you're bringing up. You know, I didn't go into it in depth in the talk, but what I was saying about people coming to practice, many people coming to practice through the pain around their relationship with their mother or lack thereof, and also relationship with whether or not they have children or can have children or want to have children or decide for the benefit of the world, ecologically speaking, that they're not going to have children and the pain around that and all those decisions or decisions that are made for you

[90:59]

because of biological clocks or biological difficulties. So I feel like this area is very tender and very, and then the difficulties or pain around our own children and our connections or lack thereof or losing a child. Anyway, these kinds of things are, I feel, the deepest sufferings that we have. I mean, I say that not flippantly. I feel like this is bedrock suffering, and many, many people who practice and take up practice seriously, if you get to know them, there is something in this realm that is the matrix of their practice from which their practice developed and they practiced within that pain.

[92:00]

So it's not so abstract. I mean, it sounds like you do the six things, and I feel like it's actually very close heart work. And this, what I described, is maybe more of a Tibetan practice. We don't really teach that particular practice of seeing everyone as your mother as something that's given in Zazen instruction or something, but there's so many practices that are available out there, and if that is something that works for you or you resonate with it, then you might take it up. Yes.

[93:08]

I know it's very simple, but in certain situations, I would question whether I should have some additional antidote. Uh-huh. Did everybody hear what Martha said? Well, I've found that part for me of staying aware and meeting may be a traditional antidote, like Shantideva, for example, in Gaito Bodhisattva's Way of Life talks about anger, and he suggests that you don't move, you don't act with body, speech, and mind out of anger, and you remain, what it says is remain like a piece of wood, which, you know, this isn't something, I mean, I think you need a little context for that because someone might find that

[94:09]

rather stifling or something, but I think to me it's just stay very, very still, you know, stay with it, stay with it, stay still with it, you know. So that may be a traditional antidote, but I see it as kind of one with awareness, facing it, not moving, you know. But like in Thich Nhat Hanh's books, he talks about, you know, using your breath and breathing in, like for anger, the practice of breathing in and saying to yourself I'm feeling terribly angry, breathing out, I'm still feeling incredibly angry, breathing in, and that kind of, to me that's also meeting it, staying with it, not moving, being aware, you know, but it's, it's using your body, breath, and mind in a way that's been taught to, I don't know about antidoting, but it's using your body,

[95:08]

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