Examining the Precepts, Part 3: Celebrate Others, Be Giving, Embody Compassion

The Precepts are guiding principles that serve to direct our behavior and reorient our thinking so that we can realize our potential to Wake Up! Once we see through to our true nature we can use these as barometers to guage that we are still awake. Remember: each of us is capable of living a life of true freedom and joy beyond comprehension. Nirvana is right here!

This is the third episode in a four part series examining the 11 precepts as taught in Hollow Bones Rinzai Zen. Celebrate Others, Be Giving, Embody Compassion

Transcript

In this episode,

We are going to continue examining the 11 Precepts of the Hollowbones and Order.

The first six,

Which we covered in Part 1 and Part 2 of this series,

Are to affirm life,

Act generously,

Be loving,

Manifest truth,

Respect clarity,

And honor silence.

The next three,

Which we will cover in this episode,

Are to celebrate others,

Be giving,

And embody compassion.

Alright,

So let's get started.

First,

Celebrate others.

I rejoice in the good fortune of others.

I do not,

Through my thoughts,

Words,

Or actions,

Separate myself from others through coveting,

Envy,

Or jealousy.

Let's take this bit by bit.

First off,

I rejoice in the good fortune of others.

That's exactly what it sounds like.

When something good happens to somebody else,

We're happy for them.

And genuinely happy for them.

I do not,

Through my thoughts,

Words,

Or actions,

Separate myself from others through coveting,

Envy,

Or jealousy.

This one gets a little bit trickier,

Right?

It's the same concept just flipped around.

I rejoice in the good fortune of others,

And while they are experiencing their good fortune,

We do not separate ourselves from them through these feelings of coveting,

Envy,

Or jealousy.

And this is kind of easier said than done,

But one of the important things is the realization of non-self.

The realization of non-self creates unity with all life by understanding that we are no different from each other,

And in fact share the same common awareness.

With this understanding that we share a common awareness,

And that our subject-object relationship of I am me in here and they are them out there is illusionary in the sense that our relationship only coexists,

There is no separation between our existence,

There's much less reason to feel coveting,

Envy,

Or jealousy.

My brother's success,

My sister's success,

Is my success.

And with that change in perspective that comes from non-self,

This rejoicing in the good fortune of others and choosing not to covet or feel envy or jealousy towards other's successes becomes quite simple.

So as is the root of all of these teachings,

Personal realization is key.

So we must sit with these things.

However,

It is important to remember that the mind is conditioned by our body,

And our body is conditioned by our mind.

And the reason that is important is because by practicing positively,

By engaging positively with our neighbors and practicing this rejoicing,

Even if it might not be completely genuine at this point,

We can start to water those positive seeds inside our mind.

And as we practice more,

We get better at it.

So that becomes an easier path to take.

On the contrary,

If we are constantly feeling jealousy and facilitating that emotion and encouraging that emotion within ourselves,

We're watering a negative seed,

We're watering this jealous plant,

And that plant goes stronger and stronger and stronger.

And there's lots of parables throughout all of spirituality that kind of feed on the same concept of whatever you do more,

You get better at.

So if you act jealous often,

You will become very good at being jealous.

Making choices to behave a different way sets our mind up to respond differently as those events occur.

So as we celebrate others,

We're practicing this.

And at first it might not be totally genuine,

But we're trying.

And as we try,

We get better at it.

And as we try and get better at it,

When we sit,

We're more likely to realize the truth of non-self,

The truth of emptiness,

The truth of codependent arising,

These other key concepts in Buddhism that lead us to seeing through to our own true nature and experiencing this freedom and joy of a positive and happy life.

This kind of ties right into the next one,

Which is to be giving.

The formal explanation of being giving is that I give generously of myself,

Sharing freely my love,

My gifts,

My talents,

And my abundance for the benefit of all.

I do not selfishly withhold.

I do not add any more suffering to the world.

And I think that explains it very nicely.

And again,

This ties into the previous one in that we give freely of our love.

We give freely of our talents.

We're not selfishly withholding anything.

We're not selfishly withholding praise because it somehow diminishes our talents.

Our talents are exactly the same whether our neighbor does well or not.

And by practicing this free giving of love and sharing of talents and exploration of our gifts and appreciating the gifts of others,

We benefit our community.

And by benefiting our community,

We benefit ourselves.

It's very important that we do not add additional suffering to any of our fellow human beings.

Life is hard enough as it is,

As we are all very well aware.

By being cognizant of our actions and by giving freely and by following these other precepts,

We've established a pattern of behavior that can actually help alleviate some of the suffering or at the very least not add to it.

And so it's very important that we remember it's not enough in this practice to find a happy place for me.

If I am not out there creating a happy environment for others,

I'm not fulfilling my duties in this practice.

So this practice is a very engaging practice.

The way we interact with others is extremely important.

And so we must embody compassion.

To embody compassion means that we recognize and enlighten our greed,

Anger,

And ignorance.

We transform our negative emotions and act with equanimity,

Sympathetic joy,

Compassion,

And loving kindness.

This is probably the crux,

Or the keystone of this entire process.

All of our meditative awareness,

All of our meditative compassion,

All of our practice must be embodied.

We can only bring it into the world through our physical form.

And we can only engage with others through our physical form,

Through actions.

And so we must embody this compassion and this wisdom of this universal awareness,

This universal life.

And by doing so,

We recognize within us that there are these,

They're called the klesas,

Or the three poisons of greed,

Anger,

And ignorance.

Pretty much every major bad thing that happens in our life or negative reaction that we have can be lumped into one of these categories of greed,

Anger,

And ignorance.

So they're kind of a catch-all for our negative habitual reactions.

In embodying compassion,

And following this precept,

We say that I transform my negative emotions and act with equanimity,

Sympathetic joy,

Compassion,

And loving kindness.

This repeats itself in the four awakened vows,

The second one of which is,

However deep and elusive my shadow states are,

I vow to experience and enlighten them all.

This is a keystone of the Bodhisattva path.

By embodying compassion,

We must look deeply at our habitual reactions,

Understand where we act out of greed,

Anger,

Or ignorance,

And seek to transform them through meditative compassionate awareness.

Up to this point,

These other eight precepts have been giving us guidelines and barometers with which to gauge our activity.

How are we embodying compassion?

Well,

Embodying compassion means that we're basically fulfilling precepts one through eight.

We are affirming life,

Acting generously,

Being loving.

We are manifesting truth,

Respecting clarity,

And honoring silence.

We are celebrating others,

And we are being giving.

Okay,

Got it.

Now I'm embodying compassion.

And as I embody compassion,

The world around me changes.

My perspectives change.

I water more and more positive seeds.

It becomes easier and easier to act out of wisdom and compassion.

And as I do so,

The people around me experience the true freedom and joy of this living,

Of this Zen mind,

Of experiencing the world as it really can be.

So this embodiment of compassion isn't just for us.

It's for everyone around us.

It's for everyone that we interact with.

And just a little tidbit,

A little hint,

If you will.

If you want to know what you need to work on,

Ask someone close to you.

They know.

If you don't quite know what your triggers are,

Or if you think you're doing really well about being a great guy or a great girl,

And you want to have something to work on,

Ask your boyfriend,

Your girlfriend,

Your mom,

Your dad,

Your brother,

Your sister,

And I'm pretty sure that they'll give you something that you can work on.

That's another step you can take on your path.

And with each step on that path,

It gets a little bit easier.

You'll be closer and closer to true realization.

You'll be better at catching your habitual negative reactions and better at transforming them.

So don't be afraid to find out where you need work,

Because through our angst,

We find our liberation.

Reviews

🙏🏼

Found that really helpful at changing my perception. Cheers!

Excellent.
"If you want to know what to work on, ask someone close to you."
What a gem.

"Don't be afraid to find out where you need work." So so powerful.

Great talk, thank you for sharing 🙏🧘‍♂️

Well said now the hard part.. living the learning

Helpful! Sometimes we tend to forget or ignore that. Not easy to get that in a tough moments. It needs to be reminded constantly. Thank you!

Clear, concise, and insightful presentation on zen precepts — vows we take to aid the journey.

The most enjoyable moment for me was a westernization, so to speak, of the boddhisatva path: through our angst, we find liberation. :) It’s True, though; it is the teaching: when we allow ourselves to directly experience the deep pain of our seemingly individual experience, we come to terms with it with wisdom. We recognize its nature, that it is part of the human (not individual) experience, it’s transience (it passes), and its quality of suffering (can’t fail to notice that!).

Thank you!

Thanks for the lecture, I look forward to others. 🙏

Excellent. I look forward to listening to the series.

Simple. Understandable. Doable. Thank you!🙂

Really appreciate this series. Great insight. Thank you.

Easy to understand and well spoken.