Good morning. Good morning. This afternoon we're going to have one of our streams Zen ceremonies. which is called Zaikei Tokudu. It's interesting, we refer to it as taking the precepts. Well, when you look at the ceremony and you consider it has a much wider notion to it, it literally translates as entering the way, entering the way while staying at home. So that's what I would, this morning, like to attempt to talk about.

[01:06]

And I'd like to start with this poem by William Stafford. The way it is, there's a thread you follow. It goes among things that change, but it doesn't change. People wonder about what you're pursuing. It's hard for others to see. When you hold it, you can't get lost. Tragedies happen, people get hurt or die, and you suffer and get old. Nothing you can do can stop times unfolding. You don't ever let go of the thread. That's the intention, the ambition, the vow, the hope of this ceremony.

[02:11]

To not let go of the thread. The word sutra, the core meaning of it is the same as in the word sutra. To sew is thread. What is that thread of our life that... guides us I remember once someone asked me and they said well I'm not quite sure how they framed the question but I said well for me it's like this I'm on a mission from God it's just that I don't believe in God and I don't know what the mission is and I Someone sent me an email. It said something like this. A lot of breath has come my way this year and has shifted my relationship to practice.

[03:19]

I feel a hunger for sitting with people in a focused way, structured and daily. We buried my father's ashes last month in Maine. It's not an easy time for me. I felt no lift around that time, no happiness. Then one day, the only day the sun came out, I went for a swim in a lake near the ice. The lake's about half a mile wide, and in the past, whenever I've swum across it, I was afraid. I'm a good swimmer, but still I'm almost afraid of drowning or dying. But that day, I realized I didn't care. What did it matter? I swam across and I swam back. Beautiful, peaceful, so relaxing not to have preferences.

[04:22]

Preferences are the source of fear. What is it that helps us find that thread in our life, that vow, that intention? Is it tragedy? Is it difficulty? Is it how we relate to difficulty? A couple of weeks ago I was in a bookstore in an airport waiting for a plane. And I was rising with books, and I came across a book. It had a quote from Abraham Maslow. Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who came up with a sort of hierarchy of human needs. Sort of works from, well, the basic thing you need is to breathe, water, eat.

[05:24]

And you sort of work up from there. you work up from needing to belong, needing to be loved. The next thing would be security. Safety. Then needing to belong, needing to be loved. Then what's next? Esteem, he put it. And then self-actualization. Some sense of confidence in yourself, in your own abilities. And then some way of entering the world that's creative, courageous. It's interesting because he came across his own notions in an interesting way. Rather than looking at what was wrong with the human condition, you know, coming from a pathological perspective, he thought, why don't I look...

[06:32]

People, I think, are really doing it right. I can't remember the list of people, but Albert Einstein was one of them. And several others. And then out of that, he crafted his notion. And then towards the end of his life, I think this was all 40 or 50 years ago. Certainly it's not recently. Yeah. relatively speaking. And towards the end of his life, he added another notion. He added the notion of transcendence. In some ways, he set in motion the notion of self-actualization, the human potential movement, how to fulfill who you are. But later in his own life, he added this notion of somehow not simply accomplishing within the sense of who you are, but some way to see a bigger picture, some way to hold life beyond self-definitions.

[07:53]

It often occurs to me that this thread, that runs through our life. You know, we're all on a journey from birth to death. That's the given. All the rest changes. This thread is both unknowable and yet we can have a deep sense of it. A feeling something that we touch, something that touches us, that I feel like this student of mine was trying to refer to in her email. Something in her life opened up around her father's death. I think on a human level there's a great

[09:01]

dilemma for us you know how do we face these difficulties and have them open us have us have them enable us to have a bigger sense of the world of what's possible rather than shrink back searching more fearfully for security reliability What is that workings of the human spirit? So in an extraordinary way, the ceremony that we're going to do this afternoon has that at its heart. What is that movement, activity, engagement of the human condition that allows a human being to open to the vicissitudes of life rather than contract or stay safe.

[10:04]

And what is it to allow to do that? What is it to solemnly say, this is how I intend to live. All these other things are gonna happen. But at this point, I can't predict. Joys, delights, favors, and dismays. They're all going to happen. And in the middle of it, I will hold this thread of intention. This is what this ceremony is about. Entering the way. The intention to enter. The intention to stay conscious. The intention to listen and learn. So I'd like to explore this with you now in the context of a story.

[11:16]

And the story is the story of Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening. And I mean this story, no disrespect, by calling it a story, but it strikes me that at least the first 300 years of the Buddhist tradition were oral. So, in other words, it wasn't written down in beautiful books or accessible on the internet. Maybe thankfully. But it was passed from person to person. Personally, I have a hard time not thinking, but it got a little editing along the way. I think that makes it all the more intriguing. Because if you think like in 300 years, you could say that's 100 generations.

[12:21]

So in 100 generations, these are the details that people told themselves and each other. These are the details that are important to remember. How do they decide that? It's a very interesting story. Maybe it says something of our ability to touch each other in a way that connects us to that thread of our intention for our life. I have a friend who's a poet whose teacher was William Stafford. And I hadn't ever actually read much of William Stafford's writings until I became friendly with her.

[13:22]

And she spoke of him with such affection and appreciation. And then I thought, well, if she thinks he's that great, I should like read his poetry. So something's communicated between us. about how to appreciate and what to appreciate. So something in this story of Shakyamuni Buddha's awakening has that thread. And here's the story. So a young Indian man of good family, family who were educated, and attempting to live a life of integrity. He grew up in that family, but at some point decided, there's something, listen, there's something that I have to go and discover.

[14:36]

The story says that he saw old age sickness and death. And when he saw that, he realized he had to go and chart a path other than the one that his family had created. So he left his wife, his child, and went off and studied in a variety of traditions. He studied yoga. He studied the breath work. He studied how to be in the body. He studied philosophical approaches. He studied meditation, concentration, absorption. And the story is that he mastered all of these, acknowledged as a master by the teacher of each of these traditions. And yet, even when he'd done that, he didn't feel

[15:42]

that he'd got to the root of something. He'd got to come to a place of resolution with old age, sickness and death. The tragedy that besets every human life. So he decided that he would continue to practice with the same utter dedication and diligence, but he'd sort of make it up as he went along and so he did and influenced by the tradition of the time which was the notion that the spirit is released when the body is weakened and the passions of the body have subsided so he took an extreme austere path brought himself to the brink of death through his physical weakness.

[16:49]

But by coincidence, a young girl, about the age of eight, on her way to work in the fields, looking after the oxen, saw in his state of extreme weakness and decided that she would give him her lunch. of yogurt and rice. Looked to her that this is exactly what this person needed. And he ate it. And replenished, nourished, restored, rejuvenated by that food. Something in him shifted. And he decided that night, that he would continue his practice of the past six years, but he would continue it with a different disposition.

[17:54]

The drive, the determined knowing, this is how it ought to be, I have to push this way, had shifted. So when he sat down, there was a sense of ease, release. And he went into a deep, deep state of concentration, absorption. So deep that the sense of self, the sense of place, the sense of time dissipated. No, it did not exist. And then in the morning, he saw the morning star. And at that moment of seeing the morning star, the workings of conditioned existence became apparent to him.

[18:57]

And he awoke. So what's the story? And here's my question to you right now. detail of that story stands right for you. So if you wouldn't mind saying... Okay, thank you. Okay, thank you. Accepting the gift. Accepting the gift. Ditched everything and wake up. What was the verb there? He ditched everything to wake up. Just a second, Brent. What was that? Something in him shifted. Something in him shifted. The brink of death.

[20:01]

The brink of death. Mastering everything. The human connection as opposed to donate alone. The human connection. in contrast to doing it alone? His vow. That he left his wife and his childhood. Trying not to figure out We shift into acceptance. We shift into acceptance in contrast to figuring it out. It's not all trying so hard. It's not all trying so hard.

[21:03]

It's not all trying so hard. Ease and release. Ease and release. Ease and release. of the eight-year-old offered and his willingness to receive it. The compassion the eight-year-old offered and his willingness to receive it. Seeing the morning star. The courage to come up with something yourself. The courage to come up with something yourself. Sitting down. Continuing his work with a new disposition.

[22:06]

So in a way, we're all on the same journey. from birth to death. And then in another way, it's a different story for each one of us. You know, each of us is having our unique relationship to it. And each of us is receiving, in a way, the same lesson, and in another way, a different lesson. You know, I would say that the point of the story that you find most notable says something about you. Of course it says something about this story, but it says something about you. Maybe this is something in you that's being asked to explore, asked to be explored, discovered, acknowledged. Maybe this is a lesson you already received and deeply appreciate. How do you let it

[23:19]

articulate your vow. Maybe this is a feeling of mystery or absence or separation that's asking to be engaged and allowed to be potent and revealing. And then something in our collective wisdom You know, that we can bear witness to each other's notic. I mean, one of these points isn't relevant to practice. One of these points is not part of the vow, of the intention of entering the way. ask ourselves in an intimate and quiet and attentive way, what helps me to do that?

[24:32]

How does that request find traction in the midst of my hierarchy of needs, as Maslow puts it? In the midst of taking care of what you feel like you need taking care of the urgencies that arise in your life your own yearnings and lackings and fears how does this thread flow through your life in a way that you can hold it not forget it so that's the amazing of this ceremony that we do. And ceremonies are very interesting things. They're so extraordinarily symbolic.

[25:42]

And there's something, to my mind, magical about the theater of a ceremony. You know, you rehearse it, And then you go in and you do it. And most people, when they come to do this ceremony, they forget everything that they were told in the rehearsal. And when you're the person offering the precepts, the ragasu, conventionally you'd think, I showed you all this a couple of hours ago. It seems to me that we're touched by the immensity of something that's so so potent

[26:55]

And as we touch by it, we just simply forget the mere details. Bow here, turn here. When this happens, stand up. When this happens, sit down. When this is said, speak back like this. There's something about the vow of our life that resonates for us. something in his nose that this is our life's work. And that when we engage our life's work, the capacity to hold tragedy, to hold loss, to hold uncertainty, to hold the cravings and agitations of who we are.

[27:56]

into play. The capacity to hold that. The capacity to not be defined by it. As Maslow would say, something about a quality of transcendence. Yes, all those hierarchy of means are operative. They're all potent with... They fill us up. They excite us. They fill us with desire. They fill us with fear and yearning. But with some capacity that can be initiated, to hold all that and say, yes, I will. Will you do this? Yes, I will. Will you meet life as it is? Yes, I will. Will you ask the best of yourselves? Not from a place of arrogance, not from a place of unrealistic expectations.

[29:03]

But from a deep acknowledgement that this is within the human capacity. And it's not born out of accomplishment, of proficiency, of knowledge. It's born out of something more extraordinary, more mysterious, and more powerful. So this is the working of the ceremony. And so at the very end of the building, the building is a little abuzz, you know, because to put on the ceremony requires a certain kind of effort, a certain kind of organizing, a certain kind of preparation.

[30:10]

And then we have the ceremony. And we bear witness to the initiation. We bear witness to so many initiations in our human life. Our birth, our weddings, our graduations, our funerals. But then the challenge is having been initiated, having touched something. How do we help it to grow? How do we help ourselves to unite it? And in the then tradition, we had a formulation of admonition that helped us to do well. A literal and a universal quality to them. The particulars. The particular is don't kill.

[31:11]

Universal is nourish life. Your own, everyone else's, and all life. Don't steal. Don't shrink into a place of not enough. Don't let the need to take care of your own material needs steal from you your own integrity, your own courage, your own sense of confidence in who you are and the fact that you can live a life. I'd like to read another poem by William Stafford. At night, outside, it all moves, or almost moves.

[32:31]

Trees, grass, touches of wind. The room you have in the world is ready to change. Clouds parade by, and the stars in their configurations. Birds from far touch the fabric around them. You can feel their wings move. Somewhere under the earth it waits. That emanation of all things. It breathes. It pulls you slowly through the doors and windows. And you spread out into the thin night mist. How is it? How do we live in the greater being? How do we live in a way that the experiences of life invite us, entice us into being more insightful, into having a wider appreciation and observation of what it is to be alive.

[33:40]

To be the person that we are in the circumstances that we're living right now. It seems to me that when we touch our own sense of forgiveness, that when we touch our own sense of compassion, of patience, we do so almost with a sense of relief. Knowing what we're capable of and engaging it. It seems to me that when we shrink back into a place of aversion and unrelenting desire and bitterness and resentment and all that that can conjure up, there's a way in which we're just disappointed and confused by ourselves.

[34:47]

And we're disappointed because something in us knows we're capable of more. And something in it so much values that greater being. And we're sort of confused by why we're not doing it. I remember talking to someone recently. Conventionally accomplished person who is conventionally doing well in their life. And in that moment they were talking about their own struggle with bitterness and anger. How do we hold it with the big mind? That emotion, that contraction, that agitation, that fearfulness that gives birth to that.

[35:59]

How do we hold it? with a big mind that has both compassion and curiosity and intention. I see it. I see within it the urgency of our hierarchy of needs. I see within it the ways I can trip myself up. I see within it passionate wish to be alive. And I see within it that just to allow to be contracted and limited in that way doesn't serve. How do we open? How do we go beyond that? You know, this is the activity

[37:01]

This is the enactment. This is the actualization of the vow. So in this ceremony, time after time, the Ordinese are asked, will you enact your vow? If this happens, will you enact your vow? And if this happens, will you enact your vow? And they say, Yes, I will. Here I am sitting here, totally blown away, carrying me a mouth of the moment. And yet I say, yes, I will. Yes, I will. And in the Zen tradition, this is what it is to do Zazan. It's to be present,

[38:03]

in the moment, in the full activity of life, and meet it, just as it is. Opening to greater being. Conscious, aware, and creating an integrity of being, rather than being swept away by the turmoils and anxieties that get stirred up from our conditioned life. In the activity of Zazen we discover what that vow is and we discover how to activate it. And then we step up from Zazen and do the Zazen of living a human life. Of letting that vow who we are, and how we are.

[39:07]

The way it is. There's a thread you follow. It goes among things that change, but it doesn't change. People wonder what you're pursuing, but it's hard for others to see. While you hold it, you can't get lost. Tragedies happen. People get hurt or die. And you suffer and get old. Nothing you can do can stop times unfolding. Don't ever let go of the threat. Thank you.

[39:48]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_92.29